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Amber's 69 First Dates

-

Part 12 - Spring Fling

by

Dissident Love

Copyright

June 2014 - March 2015... Oi vey.

All characters contained herein are

unfortunately fictional. Any resemblance

to any actual persons, living or dead,

would be amazing and slightly terrifying,

because we're just not meant to endure

that much physical perfection.

Dear MySecureDiary App,

_ _

So, the web show is taking off. Like, a lot

more than I ever thought it was going to.

_ _

I thought I would get, like, a couple hundred

views, worldwide. Maybe a couple thousand.

I follow a corset model on Tweeter who is,

like, A BILLION times hotter than me, and

she's only got 3000 followers. How could

I ever top that?

_ _

_Well, I just passed 5000 subscribers. _

_ _

5000.

_ _

500-freaking-0.

_ _

The chances of my parents finding out

are a little higher than originally

anticipated. I could hit 10,000 by

summer. I still can't tell if that's

a good thing or a bad thing.

_ _

All I know is, the HHHH graffiti

is really starting to get ridiculous...

_ _

- - - - - -

_ _

"Ok, this is starting to get ridiculous," Amber purr-rumbled under her breath, hands shoved into the pockets of her parka, little puffs of steam periodically escaping her lips. "Do you think I should, like, ask them to stop? On the next episode? Or will that just make it worse?"

"I don't think you could possibly make this any better," Cindy giggled, overstretched sweater all but vibrating with mirth. She snapped away with her phone, capturing the image for posterity. "Oh, man, so many of these are going in the yearbook."

"Do it and I'll murder you in your sleep," Amber smiled sweetly, voice dripping honey.

"Do I get to decide how?"

"No."

_ _

There was a decent crowd gathered around the wide, well-landscaped entrance to Circe High. The huge 'Welcome To Circe High' sign, carved out of ancient oak and mounted upon a pristine three-ton marble plinth, had been unofficially modified at some point during the night in the form of a brand new bronze plaque which read 'Home of the Happy Hyper Herm Hour'. Poor old Mr. Stachowski was poking at the plaque with a screwdriver, still unsure how exactly it was mounted to the marble, and how he was going to get rid of it.

"You know we're going to get in shit for this when we get to class," Amber groused, shouldering her pack and heading in a wide arc around the crowd. "They're all for tolerance and acceptance and school spirit, but this is a little worse than spray-paint."

"But you've got fans! A lot of fans, from the sounds of it! Especially in metal shop..."

"I don't care about fans if it means that I have to have ANOTHER 'little chat' with the principal," the hyper-kitteh grumbled, dodging several other students. She wasn't overly-large today, her restraints keeping her at a manageable watermelon-like size, and her new flannel skirts kept her warm and fairly subdued, but there were still a number of admiring glances, flirtatious grins and naughty winks. "Because it's not going to take them long to Google the name of the show and see a picture of me. In bed. Oh, gods..."

Cindy swung her arm around Amber's shoulder, which pressed a great deal of sideboob against the feline's torso. "You're worrying too much."

"Look, just because there's pictures of you naked in bed on your Facespace page-"

"Semi-naked!" Cindy huffed.

"-doesn't mean everyone else wants to be known for that!"

"Oh, you're not naked, either," the fox continued, causing a few boys within earshot to trip over their own feet. The mob by the new plaque swelled and shrank as word spread, and more people were leaving the school than were entering it. "You're always clothed in those damn leotards. Technically, you're still a PG-13 web show."

"Could you keep your voice down?" Amber hissed, shaking free of Cindy's arm and marching through the school's front doors, eager to get out of the early spring chill. "There still might be a few people who don't... know... about... fuck me."

_ _

"In school?" Cindy whispered gleefully into Amber's floppy ear, sneaking up behind the shocked, stock-still kitteh. "Amber, you animal."

"Murder. Sleep. You." Amber squeaked, fists clenched and shaking.

The banner stretched clear from one end of the grand entrance hall to the other, the block letters large enough to be seen from the parking lot. Several students were snapping pictures of it, many trying to grab a selfie with the vast printed sign's full, fluttering glory in the background.

~ CIRCE HIGH SPRING FLING! ~

THIS SATURDAY NIGHT! 8PM UNTIL THE COPS COME!

THREE DJs! GAMES! SNACKS! FABULOUS PRIZES!

ONE DOLLAR RAFFLE: WIN A DATE WITH HAPPY HYPER HERM!

---

Her secret was out.

Not that it was really much of a secret to start with. Cindy actually had kept her trap shut, against all expectations, but in the crazy, wildly interconnected days of mass social media it hadn't taken long for the Happy Hyper Herm's location to be deduced. The key point of failure had been her Circe High baseball cap sitting on her bedside table during one of her shows. After that, it had all just been a matter of time.

Amber walked slowly through the hallways of the school, keeping her head down, both ears flopping over now as though attempting to shield her from... what, exactly? It seemed as though everyone was staring, but there was no accusation, no mockery, no sick car-crash rubbernecking obsession. Everyone just seemed to be looking her way.

Well, of course, you keep looking at THEM!, she thought.

No kidding! How else am I supposed to see if they're looking at ME?, she thought back.

I don't know! You're the smart one! Don't you have peripheral vision?!

_ _

Of course not, I'm a cat! Predatory tunnel vision!

_ _

Dammit!

_ _

The argument continued back and forth as she navigated her way through the halls, operating purely on autopilot. Dozens of people said hello to her, but in her deranged focus she never assumed that they were aimed her way. Curley waved as she passed his locker, wooly paw drooping slightly at her lack of acknowledgement. A new batch of HHHH stencils had been spray-painted around all of the water-fountains, and several industrious students were painstakingly detailing them with permanent markers, but the kitteh walked on without sparing them a glance.

"I think she's getting a little stuck up," said one boy, coloring intricate spiral patterns into one of the H's. "Doesn't even look at other students anymore."

"Probably thinks she's better than us now," pouted the plump skunkgrrl leaning against the wall next to him, adjusting an outfit that seemed as though it had been spraypainted on at the same time as the stencils. She had been taking some fashion cues from Amber's show, highlighting her not-insubstantial femininity as well as her rapidly-developing male curves, much to her parents' dismay. "Just because she's a litle bigger..."

The foxboy glanced up from his spirals, glanced down at the skunkgrrl's extremely well-filled yoga pants, and turned his attentions back to the wall with a blush. "Yeah. A 'little' bigger."

"Oh, shut up. Size isn't everything!"

"Then why are you dressing like that now?"

"Because... shut up!"

Autopilot has its limits, however, as Amber discovered when her lock no longer seemed to respond to the familiar number combinations. After the third attempt at sixteen-left, she raised her eyes and was surprised to discover that she had been trying to open locker 1014. Good old 1013, her locker for five years straight, was one to the right.How did I miss that? she thought, shaking the fuzz out of her brain.

Surprisingly easily, it seemed, particularly when the entire front of one's locker had been plastered with yet another vertical banner for the Spring Fling.

Sawing with one razor-sharp claw, she removed the portion of the banner that covered her lock, entered the combination, and swapped out her books for the morning. Her stomach flipped, twisted, and sank heavily somewhere in the vicinity of her nethers when she realized that, not only did she have to deal with her newfound fame with the students, but she would shortly have to deal with the teachers. Mrs. Daly wouldn't be so bad, Mrs. Darkpaw would probably giggle inappropriately but keep hir mouth shut, but after that it was Royston...

She coughed, and corrected herself. Mr. Carmichael. We're not on a first-name basis anymore, Amber! That class was going to be hell. If the collective power of a billion perverted online idiots could figure out where Amber was from, how long would it take them to dig up dirt about her exploits? The damage to the gymnasium had been in all the papers! There had been no mention of her specifically, exactly, but still...

When the second alarm bell rang and the corridors emptied around her, Amber was still standing before her locker, clutching a socials textbook and entertaining an endless parade of horrible fantasies, each one guaranteed to ruin her young, silly, foolish life. A few more people said hello to her, but they might as well have been talking to a statue.

"This was such a stupid idea," she whispered to herself when the sudden door-slamming silence of the school hallways finally broke through her daze. "Web cam show? How was that NOT going to backfire. Stupid, stupid little kitten. Fuck."

She inhaled, thumped a fluffy fist grudgingly against her heavily-restrained bulges and sighed. She couldn't spend all day staring at her locker, she knew. At some point she would be expected to actually show up for class. She tried to tell herself that there was no point in worrying about the inevitable, and everything that was out there wasn't going to magically disappear. The genie was out of the bottle, the milk was spilt on the floor, the knot was in the hole. Nothing was going to stop it.

That's your attempt at being reassuring? You suck at this.

_ _

"Better late than never," she mumbled, stuffing her book into her back and slamming her locker shut, taking a moment to very enjoyably slash the banner to ribbons. The pink late slip wouldn't be the worst thing that could happen, and hopefully Mrs. Daly would be chill about it. The old sow was a kindly soul, might just let her off with a warning, particularly given the... extenuating circumstances.

She moved swiftly through the empty halls, the sustained panic shi had endured throughout the entire morning no longer able to keep her down. After a while, even humiliated terror can fade to the background, black dread sulking grumpily beneath the more pressing issues of inter-furre history and race relations, and she was sickly grateful for that fact. If I can get used to occasionally causing natural disasters, I guess I can get used to anything.

Smiling apologetically, she was one step into Mrs. Daly's classroom when the PA system crackled, and the fearsome clipped voice of Principal Kinison blared through the school.

"Amber O'Malley, please report to the Principal's office right away. Amber O'Malley, please report to the office."

Thirty pairs of eyes swivelled to face the horrified hyper herm, wincing in sympathy as she backed slowly out into the hallway, closing the door behind her.

---

The clock in the Main Office was loud.

Amber had grown up after the days of analog technology. She could remember the first time she asked her mother what that circle on the wall with the little moving lines was, and the explanation that it was a clock took several minutes. She still saw them, now and then, usually in coffee shops, bookstores and other hipster hangouts, but by and large they had gone the way of those big vinyl music CDs and those cars where you had to change gears by paw.

The clock in the school's office was large, monochromatic, and ticked with a cruel, premeditated menace. The thin red second hand swished around and around, slicing through her patience and driving home just how small she felt.

She glanced down at her lap, which was significantly less pronounced than she had been daring the last few weeks. She found she got fewer icy drafts up her skirt when it wasn't tented out so far she could fit Cindy beneath it. How small I feel... not how small I AM, she thought ruefully.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

_ _

She looked up at the clock again. 8:54am. She had been sitting here for four full minutes. She told me to come to the office right away! Amber wailed at herself. What does 'right away' mean, if it doesn't mean right now? Why are you making me sit here? The secretary just keeps staring at me! Is it to make me feel nervous? Afraid? Mortified? It's working, you bitch! IT'S WORKING!

"You can come in now, Amb-"

"FINALLY!" she snapped before she could slam both paws across her muzzle.

"-...ber," the principal finished, holding open the door to her office. The aged greyhound was incongruously stocky for such a lean species, a shock of white hair drawn back behind her stern, stormy-grey face. "Sorry to keep you waiting," she added with just the barest hint of reproach.

"Smmrry," Amber whimpered meekly through her paws, scurrying into the office with her tail between her legs. She dropped into one of the huge, ancient brown chairs facing Principal Kinison's desk, a position she had been in many times during the first few years of high school. The young kitteh had not always been quite so polite and rule-abiding.

"Is this a bad time, Amber?" the principal asked, shutting the door with exaggerated care and moving slowly to her side of the desk. She was always slow, deliberate, measured. She was also enormously punctual, which gave rise to the theory that she had been pre-programmed by scientists from the future.

"Nmmf, mffmmf!" Amber shook her head, before removing her paws and trying again. "No, ma'am. It's just been a... difficult morning."

"Indeed," Principal Kinison said crisply, settling into her own seat. "No doubt, you've noticed the graffiti removal efforts taking place on the front lawn."

"Yes'm," the kitteh said softly, her perky ear starting to droop.

The principal folded her paws together, glancing at her computer monitor. Amber couldn't quite see what was displayed there, and she couldn't peek without making it far too obvious. I wonder if that's my permanent record? Are there really such things as permanent records? I thought that was just a silly joke from TV shows...

_ _

"There has been quite a... mood shift, in recent months, Amber. I know this must have been a difficult time for you, as well, but there's better than a thousand students at this school that have had to deal with, in aggregate, their own portion of your life, as they experience a portion of everyone's lives."

Amber nodded, while inside her thoughts spun. Ok, so... what exactly does that mean?

_ _

"It was first brought to my attention, after the incident in the art room-"

OH CRAP! The young hyper-herm wilted inside, fingers wringing together in terror. I knew it! I mean, she knew it! I mean, come on, she HAD to have known it was me! Everyone knew it was me. Someone actually made crime scene tape that said 'CAUTION: AMBER CLEAN UP IN PROGRESS!' and strung it across that hallway! I just thought they didn't have any way to prosecute me with anything! Augh! Oh, crap, she's still talking!

_ _

"-minimal structural damage, but the loss to the collected efforts of more than two hundred art students was, shall we say, disappointing." The principal nodded at her own comment, eyes utterly inscrutable behind her glasses. "I'm sure that I don't need to ask if you're remorseful for the incident."

"Yes'm," Amber squeaked. Some students had expressed annoyance at her, via Cindy, at the destruction of several art projects, but the general attitude seemed to have been 'worth it'. "Won't happ'n ag'n, ma'am."

The greyhound moved the little plastic computer mouse and clicked something. "And then there was the repairs to the gymnasium that resulted in it being closed for over two weeks-"

OH CRAP!! I thought I had been getting some wierd looks from the teachers, but everyone seemed cool with it! Mr Carmichael was back in class, eventually! No-one ever mentioned it directly! I figured everyone was too embarrassed! I checked the mail for WEEKS to see if they sent my parents a bill!! Augh, she's still talking!

_ _

"-temporary contract for an additional substitute teacher, until he returned," the principal finished. "And, again, these are things which fall within our discretionary budget, but the general consensus is there was unnecessary escalation of the situation, by the students, as well as... key faculty members.

"Yes'm," Amber whimpered. Not my fault, honest! Mostly! I mean, I can probably find a doctor to write a note saying I wasn't in my right mind...

_ _

Another click. "And then there is the matter of our head cheerleader, who missed three practices, one pep rally, and a rather important game against the Perses Argonauts. The official cause for her absence was noted as 'feline troubles', though I'm sure she meant 'feminine troubles'. This is in addition to-"

Aauuugggghhh, Amber sobbed inside her mind. I thought Cindy was just going to be missing that one performance, so I would be forced to sing for the band! I didn't know she'd missed so much cheerleading duties! And we LOST that game! Oh man, are all the football players blaming me for that?!

_ _

"-more than double the expected number of sick days have been taken by students this year," the principal concluded, scrolling down whatever she was reading. "Grades have not been affected, as near as we can figure, which is a relief."

"Yes'm," Amber whispered, staring down at the mountainous earth-tone swells of her skirt.

Principal Kinison was silent for a few moments, still scanning her screen. "Recently, however, the custodial budgets have been... strained by the sudden increase in petty vandalism."

Oh, please, don't use the word 'strained'... and ye gods, if they're calling me in here for that, then she must know that the HHHH is me. Great. Time to dig out that speech I wrote to tell Mom and Dad, in case I ever got expelled for being a hyper.

_ _

"Mr. Stachowski has been working evenings and weekends, just to keep up, and detention groups have been enlisted to remove the paint and adhesive decals from the lockers."

Mom... Dad... you knew, when I started developing over the summer, that I would probably end up violating school district by-laws eventually...

_ _

"Now, I want to be absolutely clear, Amber, that we here at Circe High, and myself personally, do not engage in or condone victim-blaming."

I'm sure I can transfer to Perse, it's only a seventy-minute bus ride. If you disown me, I can just go live with Cindy's aunt. I'll understand.

_ _

"But it's abundantly clear that the present situation cannot be allowed to continue on school grounds. It's untenable and unsustainable. It's not fair to the student body, and it's certainly not fair to you."

Thanks for adding that last part. For a second, I was worried you wouldn't feel bad for kicking me to the curb for being born this way.

_ _

"Which is why we would like to officially endorse and, should there be a mechanism in place for it, sponsor your web show."

I mean, how important is a high school education, anyways? I can always get by as a barrista, or something. I have a good memory for caffeinated beverages. I hear they make OK money in tips. I suppose that... wait, what did she just say?

_ _

"Wait, what did you just say?"

Principal Kinison smiled, a rare sight on the best of days, and leaned forward slightly. The kitteh remarked, not for the first time, that the bespectacled greyhound was one of the few grownups in the school that could engage in a conversation with her, and not glance, not even once, at the young hyper's lap. "The students cannot help their acts of rebellion. It's part and parcel of growing up, especially in the social pressure-cooker of a government-funded learning establishment. As long as you are the forbidden underground idol, the present attitudes are going to continue, and perpetuate. And I don't think you want to go through life as everyone's dirty little secret."

"Dirty little..." Amber echoed, remembering the previous broadcast episode of her show, which had ended with five minutes of fairly melancholy rambling into the webcam. "Do you... watch my show?"

That smile twitched, ever so slightly. "I have recently become a fan, in the interests of maintaining a healthy, and happy, school. Is there such a mechanism?"

"Mecha... what?"

"To sponsor your show."

"Sponsor my what?"

"The show. We have a gifted AV club here at Circe, I'm sure they would be able to help with the production values. Based on the local wireless server data, dozens, if not hundreds, of students are watching your show during school hours, so I'm fairly certain your fanbase won't suffer."

Amber's mind whirled, one eye drifting up while the other seemed to be lowering. "But... why? How is that supposed to help? Wouldn't that just draw more attention to me?"

"Not the sort of attention that's likely to manifest in vandalism or destruction of property, I would like to think," the principal chuckled slightly. "And, in your own words, it might help take the mystery out of 'what lies beneath'. We were hoping that we could make it part of the Spring Fling dance coming up, by incorporating your identity, purely locally, as part of the night's events."

"I... suppose..." Oh, goodness, I suppose this means I can't be sponsored by Cunt Nectar any more. No WAY she'd allow that! "You... you don't need to talk to my parents about this, do you?"

Principal Kinison steepled her fingers. "If they haven't already become aware on their own, I see no need to bring this up with them. You are an intelligent, creative and passionate student, undertaking a remarkable extra-curricular project. You're entitled to maintain control of said project."

"I... thank you," Amber warbled, trying to untwist her fingers and calm her flopping stomach. "I... I don't know what to say. I... I still don't really believe you're saying what I think you're saying."

"Amber," the principal said gently, removing her glasses. "We've had more than a few hypers through here over the years, and by and large they make it out just fine. Word gets out, there's some social intrigue, and then everyone gets over it. But in the last few years... it's a rapidly changing world. I remember when the whole school only had one phone, and now half the students each have two. Everything is public, everything is broadcast, and everyone's privacy is simultaneously sacred and forbidden. I want the culture of this school to be one of acceptance, of friendship and celebration."

"Thank you," Amber repeated. "Gosh."

Principal Kinison stood up and walked around the desk, resting one paw on Amber's shoulder with perfectly calculated professionalism. "You graduate in three months, Amber. As unrealistic as it is, I want you to look back on high school at the best years of your life, not something you had to struggle to get through."

It has been a struggle. Amber breathed deep, sighed, and nodded. "I appreciate that," she said sincerely, tilting her head to rest her cheek against the principal's paw. "And... sorry about the graffiti. And the damage to the school. And for Cindy. Just, in general, I'm sorry about Cindy."

The principal snickered, so briefly that Amber could scarce believe her own ears. "All things considered, I am pleasantly surprised it's been so mild. We've had some hypers in the past that required entire sections of the school getting closed off for repairs. As it happens, you might know one or two of them."

The kitteh blinked. "Well, Mrs. Darkpaw for one, I'm pretty sure. I saw hir picture hanging up in the weight room, and the trophy case. But who else...?"

The greyhound was already moving back to her side of the desk. "We will talk more in the future, Amber. E-mail communication might be easier from now on, to keep the relationship between the school and your show purely professional. For now, however, you should probably get back to class. I've taken the liberty of voiding any late slips you might accrue today."

"Wait... oh, gods, no... you don't _seriously_mean...?!"

"You better hurry, Amber," the principal said meaningfully, gesturing with her muzzle towards the door. "There's only three months of school left."

Amber walked zombie-like out of the principal's office, avoiding eye contact with the receptionists and trying to derail her train of thought before it had a chance to completely and utterly ruin her mood. As usual, though, her natural urges would not be denied.

Walking through the halls back to her locker, beyond the huge framed pictures of past graduating classes and alumni, she couldn't help but glance up at one in particular. It was slightly grainy, taken well before Amber was born, but there was no mistaking the towering, powerfully-built doberman in the back row.

I really didn't need to know that about you, Dad. Yarg.

_ _

---

By the end of Monday, Amber had managed to numb herself to any more emotional shocks, a habit she felt she was developing out of some sort of evolutionary imperative. The hormones running berserk through her young body affected more than just her gonads, as difficult as those could be to cope with; her mood swings were becoming legendary, both around her family and her close friends. The high spikes generally resulted in a bubbly, overly-huggy Amber, while her lows could give the goth clique lessons in morosity.

But she found she could, with a little bit of effort, burn herself out and give herself some time to take a metaphorical step back and appraise the situation impartially, objectively. Math class found her sitting casually near the back, calmly taking notes about balancing multi-quadratic equations, watching Mr. Carmichael's tail wiggle back and forth with nary a naughty thought or leering grin.

Cindy knew well her friend's moods, and wisely decided to give the kitteh some alone time. For the excitable cheerleader, though, 'some time' was difficult to measure with anything larger than an egg timer.

"SPONSORSHIP!" the buxom vixen crowed, nearly knocking Amber into her locker after the final class bell had rung. "That's fucking awesome! Do you get, like, a credit card? Or is it like winning the lottery, and you get a lump sum? OH! OH! OH! Can you get Mr. Carmichael on as a guest?!"

"No, no, and oh, hell naw," Amber chuckled, swapping out her books and grabbing her coat. "It's not that sort of sponsorship. I'll just... get some help with the show, from the AV club. Apparently they're going to make me a real into sequence, and a closing sequence, and help me make some fifteen-second spots for advertising. And, perhaps most importantly for you, it means you aren't going to get flayed alive by the principal for using my show on the Spring Fling posters."

Cindy waved a paw dismissively. "Pah, they wouldn't dare. I'm the head cheerleader, and we've got three months to go. What could they do to me?"

"Realize that Heather did a great job standing in for you, and replace you?" Amber suggested innocently, having done a little bit of research during lunch. "I mean, sure, we lost against Perse, but everyone was very impressed by her performance-"

"That's not funny," Cindy pouted, hiding her consternation by inhaling and trying to bury her expression in her cleavage. "Don't even joke about that."

"Whatever," the kitteh smirked, slamming her locker shut. "But yah, that's the deal. They're hoping it will cut down on the civil disobedience, because suddenly I'll be accepted by the establishment."

Cindy frowned thoughtfully. "You're right. You're suddenly less sexy."

"The fuck I am," Amber giggled. "I'm gonna push this puppy as far as it will go."

"Now when you say 'this puppy', you're naturally referring to your-"

The kitteh swatted Cindy's rump, claws only slightly extended, eliciting a yelp from the much taller girl. "I am referring, Cindy, to my fifteen minutes of fame."

Cindy rubbed at her tight, scandalously short skirt and snickered. "Longest fifteen minutes I've ever seen, babe. Seems to have lasted most of the past year."

"That's not fame, that's infamy."

"Potato, po-tah-toe."

They swung by Cindy's locker to get the vixen's coat, which made Amber wonder just why the stupendously stacked fox even bothered to buy them. It would have fit a normally-proportioned girl just fine, which means it didn't even come close to reaching even halfway around the sides of her breasts. Her specially-constructed school sweaters (Go Whitefish!) clad those spheres every day in fuzzy white splendor, arguably more easily recognized school landmarks than anything Amber had managed.

"Don't they ever get cold?" Amber asked, poking one with a claw. "Do you wear layers under there?"

"Hey, no claws!" Cindy protested, swatting blindly. "And not really. I produce a lot of heat, and they're mostly made out of insulation, I suppose. Boobfat. Nothing nearly as fun as yours."

The kitteh glanced down. "I get the feeling we're not talking about my boobs, right now."

"Damn right, puppy grrl."

"Feh, you're crazy," Amber huffed, pushing through the crowd and into the late afternoon sun. Several people smiled and said hello, and now that she was back in her right mind she made an effort to return as many as possible with a friendly wave. "Yours stay put, and yours don't suddenly decide to violate the law of conservation of mass."

"Sure, rub it in," Cindy pouted. "You get all the good stuff."

Amber's eyes widened so far she was in danger of ocular frostbite. "You're insane. You'd WANT that to happen?! You're already so big already!"

"You said 'already' twice."

"I'll say it as often as I want! Stop evading!"

Down the steps, the two girls were nearing a cluster of other cheerleaders gathered for warmth around the flagpole. As a one, their attentions seemed focused on their smartphones. "Look, we'll talk about it later, all right? Just... yes, ok? I wish I was more like you. Drop it."

Amber's mouth opened, ready to unleash a river of disbelief and obscenity, but the uncharacteristically far-away look in Cindy's eyes stopped her. "Yeah, sure," she said, stuffing her paws into her pockets and shivering as the brisk air penetrated her agitation. "Later. I'm not dropping this."

"Me either," Cindy said, giving her best friend a side-hug and a smooch on the top of her blonde head. "Wanna come with? We're going to the mall. Gotta co-ordinate for the Spring Fling this weekend, and I KNOW you could use a new dress. We've all seen that green one enough."

"I wore it once!" Amber said hotly.

"Exactly. You need something new!"

Amber glanced over at the cheerleaders, each one a taller, slimmer, prettier example of femininity than she saw in her own mirror. "No, that's ok. I'm actually going later on with someone."

Cindy winced sympathetically. "Your mom?"

"What? No! Why does everyone think that I can only go shopping with my mom?"

---

Amber was swept along through the mall in the vortex of her mom's passage, muttering under her breath and just thankful that, at this late hour, there was very little chance of running into Cindy or any of her cheerleading cohorts. "No, mom, Addition'Elle didn't 'move', it's by the East entrance. Just like it was last time."

"We were just at the East entrance, dear," Sierra O'Malley explained impatiently, scanning through the crowd that seemed to exist purely to interfere with her mission. "Did you see it?"

"No, but that's because we were at the South entrance. I can understand the confusion, since they're practically the same word except for not sounding anything alike, and it was-"

"Don't be disrespectful, sweetie."

"You're not giving me a chance to!"

"Oh, you hush."

The mall went through several cycles over the course of the day. Amber knew that, before about five o'clock, it was absolutely thronged with shoppers her own age. Between five and seven, there were families, especially those with smaller children. After that, during the pretty-late-but-not-quite-closed-yet cycle, most shoppers were either younger couples, or people of the distinctly senior citizen designation.

No help there, Amber thought, pleased at the very least that she hadn't grown any since school. The pressure was building, as it always did, but she'd had the foresight not to loosen anything. "Look, I can still wear the red dress-"

"Too slutty," came the immediate, and expected, response.

"You said I looked hot in it!"

"You do! And you can look as hot as you want in it when you're not a minor at a chaperoned dance where it seems you're being auctioned off once more to a slavering mob of male gaze."

"I don't think they're ALL gay, Mom..."

"Gaze, dear. With the eyes."

Amber frowned and rolled her own eyes. She had really been looking forward to wearing that dress at least once before she completely outgrew it. "Then we should probably get to the store before it closes, don't you think?"

"What do you think we're doing at the mall?!" Sierra snapped in exasperation.

The younger kitteh looked around. "Going on a walking tour of every shop except the one we're here for?"

"Dear..." her mother growled warningly.

Eight minutes later, each feline now armed with an apology smoothie from the food court Strawberry Tornado, Amber finally managed to explain to her mother what 'Up' on the mall map meant and successfully navigated them to the Addition'Elle outlet. She had to suppress the momentary urge to reach back and loosen her restraints; seeing the gorgeous outfits displayed on the phenomenally-endowed mannequins raised a thin crimson streak of competitiveness in the young hyper.

"You know, we buy your father's bathing suits and boxer shorts over in that corner-"

"MOM!" Well, that killed the urge, Amber shuddered._ Possibly forever_

_ _

Amber walked, eyes down and paws gathered on the broad expanse of her lap, a bulge the size of a healthy pumpkin pushing forwards more than a foot in front of her. The plastic models up front were of the breathtakingly buxom variety, some of them actually managing to surpass even Cindy's size. In the sections beyond, they sold outfits to flatter the figures of exceptionally rump-heavy girls, as well as ladies so pregnant that Amber was uncomfortably reminded of how some of her dates ended. Tucked away towards the back were the clothes for hyper-herms, the section that Amber knew all too well.

"Hey, Amber," Julienne called, the ottergirl busy restacking a shelf full of oddly-proportioned yoga pants. Amber wasn't on a first-name basis with most of the store's employees, but Julienne always seemed to be genuinely interested in all of the semi-regular customers. "Hey, Mrs. O'Malley."

Sierra froze, and elbowed Amber's ribs. "Friend of yours?" she stage-whispered.

"She works here, Mom."

"But is she a friend... of... yours?"

Amber narrowed her eyes and bared one fang, as defiant as she dared get at this close range. "She just works here, Mom, OK?"

"I'm just asking, because she seems pretty friendly... and knows your name... and she's cute..."

"You know, there's countries where this would be considered child abuse, Mom!" Amber hissed under her breath. "I come here to window-shop with Cindy, and Julienne helps me get clothes and tights for... wearing," she finished lamely. "Just, please, please try not to embarrass me for the next few minutes, OK? I know that's a lot to ask."

"Amber, that hurts!" her mom said, fingers pressed dramatically to her chest. "I'm only trying to help!"

"Then finish your drink, because we're not supposed to have these in here," the hyper sighed, sucking the last of hers through the straw as though it had personally angered her. She gestured with the empty cup to the sizeable wall racks of dresses. "So what do you think screams 'Amber at the Spring Fling'?"

"Depends who wins a date with you."

"MOM!"

By the time Julienne finished her restocking and joined the two felines, all grievances had been forgiven. Amber was holding dresses up against herself, smoothing it down over her breasts and admiring herself in the mirror, trying to find something that flattered her impressive curves while her mother offered critiques and rifled through the other choices. "Evening, ladies," the otter grinned. "Can I be of any assistance?"

"We're looking for something somewhere between this, and this," Sierra announced, holding up a svelte, distinguished dress of black velvet and silver threading, and a short, perky fuschia number that would probably not be out of place in the bikini part of the store.

Amber blushed. "Between classy and slutty, I think my Mom is trying to say," she muttered apologetically. "It's the last big dance of the year, and a grrl has to look her best, you know."

"Hmmmm, your 'best'," Julienne mused. "That could go one of two extremely different ways."

"Not the second one!" Amber's mother yelped from behind another rack of dresses. "Not the second one!"

Amber sighed and rolled her eyes. "I don't think I'll be going plus-sized this time, Jules, so... just something perhaps erring on the cute side of sexy. And please do me a favor, and next time I come in here with my Mom, please kill one of us. I don't really care which."

"Amber!"

In the end, it came down to a choice of two dresses, and as so often happened in those situations Amber opted to buy both. Normally she was extremely reluctant to spend that much money on clothes, considering what her body tended to do to them in short order, but after checking out her CashBuddy account that morning and her not-inconsiderable profits from the web show, she decided to splurge.

"Are you sure?" Sierra asked, looking worried. "I can help you pay for these, you know. I was prepared to just buy you the one, anyways..."

Amber stood between the three huge mirrors in the very corner of the store, holding one outfit up against her body, then switching to the other. "I've got it, Mom. I've got a little bit of money, you know."

"These are more than a 'little bit', sweetie."

"Just this one," the hyper sighed, switching back to holding the pink one up to her chest. "And... it's _so_worth it, Mom. I got it covered."

"If you're sure..."

The younger kitteh stood on her tiptoes and glanced around. "Now, where the hell did Julienne go?"

They wandered through the back of the store, slowly transitioning from the hyper-herm section to the hyper-pregnant department. Sierra whistled, fingering some of the dresses as they passed. "They never had these when I was younger... what a waste. Some of these would have come in so handy."

"What? Mom, I saw pictures of you when you were pregnant with me, you weren't THAT big."

Her mother's eyes half-lidded and her grin became decidedly sensual. "That's not what I meant," she winked, elbowing her daughter once more.

"AUGH! MOM!" Amber shuddered, her strawberry tornado threatening to come back up. "I... I DON'T need to know about that part of your life!"

"What? It's a perfectly natural, and beautiful, part of a hyper's life. I mean, you won't ALWAYS be blowing up gymnasiums, honey," Sierra laughed, leaning against her horrified daughter and throwing an arm around her shoulders. "Sometimes you'll just be in the mood to... lightly fwoomp someone, and sometimes they want to look their best while you're doing it."

"Please stop talking," Amber whimpered.

"What do you think about me in that yellow one?"

"MOM!"

Thankfully, that part soon segued to the hyper-male section, eliciting a whistle of appreciation from both generations of kitteh. The shirts were fairly plain and conventional, simply adorning the mannequins to provide a nice contrast for the incredible array of pants, shorts and undergarments on display. "I'm perfectly happy to be girl-talky with you about this," Amber hissed softly, "but you don't get to mention Dad in this part of the store. Not ever."

"But he actually owns those-"

"NOT EVER!"

"FINE!"

"GOOD!" They glowered at eachother, almost nose to nose, but it was Sierra that broke out giggling first. "You're too uptight, Amber."

"I could make a 'tight' joke right now..."

"Me too..."

They wandered around a large roundabout rack of extremely front-heavy jeans, most of them so capacious even Amber was impressed, and nearly bumped into the only other customers the store seemed to hold at the late hour. Amber squeaked and took a quick step back, bouncing off of her mother. "Er... sorry!"

The two male bunnies blinked, also clearly surprised but nowhere near as taken aback at the over-stimulated Amber. "No worries," the older lapine said, a tall and slender assortment of light browns and greys.

Although she briefly hated herself for it, Amber was unable to resist glancing quickly at the two bunnies' laps, and was a little confused to see that neither one seemed to qualify as hyper. In fact, the younger rabbit seemed to shrink in on himself, scooting around what Amber presumed to be his father. "We were just looking for the salesotter," Sierra said smoothly, guiding her daughter away from the other shoppers. "Have a good night."

"You, too," said the older bunny with a small smile. "I believe she was just-"

"Here you go, Mr. Kasse," Julienne announced brightly, appearing as if by magic from behind a mannequin that clearly required one pantleg to be drastically larger than the other. "We had a couple in the back, left over from the last clearance sale. Hey, Amber!"

"Hey," Amber waved dazedly, eyes locked onto the smaller bunny rabbit.

"All picked out? Ooooooh, you went with the pink one! Nice!"

"Yeah."

"Ready to pay?"

"Yeah."

Julienne handed the older bunny three small plastic-wrapped shapes, clearly some sort of black dress pants from the label, and gestured over to the checkout kiosk with her trademark friendly grin. "I'll be over in a minute! Help yourself to a candy from the dish while you wait!"

"Candy," she nodded blankly, allowing her mother to gently steer her to the front of the store. "Thanks."

Once they were safely back in the land of Cindy-shaped mannequins, though some of the models on this side of the store had more than the standard number of breasts, Amber remembered to start breathing again. She shook her head, loosened her grip on the dresses before she damaged them irreparably, and forced her shoulders to relax. "You can let go of me now," she mumbled.

"I don't want you wandering off and scaring the normals, dear," her mother said calmly, parking them at the checkout counter. "Who was that? Another friend of yours?"

"Nope. I can honestly say I've never talked to him before in my life."

"But you know him?"

"I don't think so." What's his name? I know I know his name! I'd know those glasses anywhere! He always sits at the front of the class! So what was he doing in THAT section?

_ _

"You're a terrible liar."

Amber's paws tightened around the dresses. "He's... I think he's in my school."

Sierra nodded, a slight little dip that confirmed her suspicions. "And you're wondering what he was doing in THAT section."

"Was it that obvious?" Amber blushed, running her left paw across her bulges, a nervous habit that she was slowly noticing. "He doesn't... seem... I mean, he didn't..."

"I checked him out, too," her mother whispered. "It's all right. Maybe he's just more grow, less show? It happens, you know. They used to call them secret hypers, when I was younger."

"I know, Mom, I've read all the books. Probably more times than you have."

"You know, if you search on the internet for 'secret hyper', you find all sorts of-"

"MOM!"

---

The next morning, the continued graffiti-removal efforts didn't even give Amber pause. In fact, after one half-hearted request she ended up posing next to the plaque for a photo, which became a dozen photos, which eventually became a number so high she lost count and ended up being late for class.

It's not fame, she had to keep telling herself. It's popularity. It's brief. Heck, Cindy poses for more pictures than this, and she doesn't even have a web show! Oh, lords, please don't let her get a web show...

She also knew there couldn't have been that much of a change in just one day. Except for Cindy, no-one knew that Circe High was now the official sponsor of the Happy Hyper Herm Hour, though that did logically indicate that every cheerleader knew, as well as their boyfriends and girlfriends. Regardless, she felt like less of a spectacle. There were no eyes boring into her back, judging her as she passed.

"Were there even any to begin with?" she mused, tossing her bag into her freshly-decorated locker and grabbing a history text with what almost could have been mistaken for enthusiasm.

"Who?"

Amber looked up at the lockermate to her right, a very nervous but very tall antelope. The poor ungulate had been privy to a lot of Amber's private conversations over the last year, and generally did his best to scurry away whenever she approached. She wondered if he was on the basketball team; her eyes only came up to his lower ribs. "Sorry, just... babbling to myself."

The antelope nodded, hands moving quickly in the depths of his own locker. "Mmm."

"Do I make you nervous?"

"Mmm?!" he grunted, face suddenly drawn and fearful.

Amber chuckled. "A simple yes would have sufficed," she chided, bumping her shoulder against his hip and being careful not to bump anything else. Her eyes glanced sidelong to the left, and she leaned slightly to the right. "Can I ask you a question?"

"Mmm... I mean, uh... yes?" The antelope, whatever his name was, changed gears rapidly to confusion. Tuesday morning was passing them by in the halls, a thousand students well back into the grind of the school week. "What?"

The kitteh gestured back over her shoulder, where the locker to her left slammed shut and the broad-shouldered and somewhat pimply hippoboy was sauntering slowly away. "Gimme a few seconds, until he's out of earshot, probably in about three, two, one... OK, we're good," she snickered. "I don't know what his name is, but he's only been next to me for about three weeks. You've had your locker next to mine since September, and I kinda feel bad for not knowing your name, but that's not the point. Can I ask... has anyone ever asked you to trade lockers?"

The fear was back in full force, the antelope's eyes briefly rolling white all the way around their huge black pupils. "What? I... uh... why do you ask?"

"Like I just said, he's only been next to me for three weeks. Before that, it was Heather the cheerleader. Before that, it was a coyote. For a while before that, it was... uhm... dammit, what's her name... mousegirl, big ears, nice ass... oh, it doesn't matter, it'll come to me." Amber put her paw on her hip and smiled her most dazzling smile. "A quick interrogation confirmed that the locker on this side has been getting leased, for increasingly large sums of money. It stands to reason that yours would be, too."

The towering antelope looked positively panic-stricken now. His jaw worked for a few moments, and Amber fancied she could actually hear his heart skipping beats. Huh, I didn't know they actually did that! Thought it was figure of speech... "Relax," she laughed. "I checked. It's... actually kind of flattering, I guess. Someone turned down good, hard-earned money just to spend ten seconds a day being stuck next to me. When your vocal cords start working again, feel free to tell me your name."

He blinked, and turned to face back into his locker, very carefully and specifically not looking anywhere close to her direction. Amber snickered, slammed her own locker shut and squeezed his elbow. "This was fun. We should talk again sometime. Bye!"

She was more than fifty feet away, almost lost to the crowds, when she heard his recognizable baritone shout, "Leon!"

Leon, she mused. It's probably a good thing I didn't say I wanted to know his name because I was going to be shouting it soon. He might never have recovered. Ye gods, I'm a bit of a tease these days!

_ _

Tease or not, she'd let the girls out a little bit today, her thick flannel skirts pushed out in front so far that she was having trouble seeing anyone else's feet, to say nothing of her own. They were also fairly wider than her own hips, swaying in opposite motions with each step. Her mother had whistled approvingly at breakfast, while her father just rolled his eyes and hid behind the newspaper.

History class passed easily; not even the staggering dullness of the political methods used to knit interspecies relations in ancient times could bring her down. It helped that she had a mission in mind, one that she needed Cindy's assistance with. She couldn't be sure the vixen would cooperate, not when she seemed to have so many schemes on the go already, but it was worth a try.

It was third period before she managed to locate the buxom beauty, holding court at the south wing's cluster of vending machines. Two big, bulky bucks in team jackets were feeding her pretzels, one at a time, and hanging off of her every word. It didn't hurt that, white sweater or no, Cindy was doing her best coquettish giggle, squeezing her palms together and pushing her already impossible breasts just that much higher. The building could be on fire, and they'd only ask her if she wanted a glass of water.

"Cindy," Amber waved, moving swiftly and somewhat bouncily through the crowd. Yeeesh, this size is really tricky for accelerating. "You got a minute?"

"Little busy right now, little kitty," the preening teen purred sultrily. "Can it wait until lunch?" The bucks glanced over at Amber, glanced down at her loins, glanced a little bit longer just to make sure, and returned their attentions to Cindy.

"I'd rather it didn't."

"Is this because I called you a 'little' kitty?"

"It's about the Spring Fling."

Cindy sighed, a long-suffering gasp of eternal responsibility. "Look, you know you can't back out now. You're on all of the posters, the raffle ticket sales have required THREE extra printings of tickets, we've set new records for Student Society income, and-"

"I'm not backing out," Amber smiled, managing to get a word in edgewise. "In fact, I want your help with something."

The statuesque cheerleader blinked, considered, and pushed herself clear from the two adoring bucks. Despite her slender body, bust notwithstanding, both big boys staggered back, frowning with consternation. "We'll pick this up later, fellas. Cindy's gotta go to work."

Amber grinned. "You're too easy," she leered, falling into step with the suddenly-businesslike vixen. "Which one of them were you planning to pick, anyways?"

"What do you mean, 'one'?" Cindy replied breezily.

"I don't even know why I'm surprised."

"No, you'd probably be surprised when I tell you who else was going to be there..."

"Slut."

"Prude."

"That isn't going to work on _me_anymore, babe."

Cindy rubbed her palms together gleefully. "That's what I like to hear! So, what's the plan? Want to pick two winners? Three? Another teacher? Me? Hey, maybe we could-"

"I want to pick the winner," Amber said, stomach flopping.

"Out of the box? Well, of course, dummy, that's not a problem-"

"No, I want to pick the winner."

Cindy blinked and stared curiously down at Amber, having to shift her weight slightly to see past her bosom. "There's easier ways to ask someone out, you know. Especially when you're YOU. You could ask anyone in the school out, and they'd almost definitely say yes. Here, let's practice. Ask me out."

The kitteh inhaled. "I'm not entirely certain he'd say yes. Not anymore."

"Gosh, the plot thickens! What did you do? Who is it? Tell me!"

"I'm TRYING, damn! Shut up!" Amber hissed, waving her palms in the universal sign language flap for 'keep your voice down'. "I want you to pick the name out of the box, so no-one can say that I was having any influence... and I want you to pick Nico Kasse."

Cindy's brows furrowed. "Who? I'm drawing a blank."

"But you know everyone!"

"I thought I did, too! Who-"

But Amber was already lost in thought. "Someone you don't know," she mused, tapping her teeth with one claw and her sheath with the other. "Bunny boy. He's in a couple of my classes, but he's never at... things. Dances, and stuff. I don't even think he was at the last dance. Hmmm, that's not good, actually, he might not even show up. You know everyone else, so maybe you can-"

"Wrangle some friends of friends of friends to drag him to the dance?" Cindy asked brightly.

"Can you even do that?"

The vixen smirked and leaned against hir kitteh friend, briefly pillowing her with soft breastflesh. "Babe, I can do anything. When are you going to realize that?"

"I don't know. When are you going to realize that you don't need to plot behind my back to get me to do things? Seriously, you could have just asked."

"Plotting keeps my predatory instincts sharp. So, what's the big deal with this Nico kid? If I've never heard of him, he can't be that interesting."

Amber thought back to the sight of the nervous, borderline terrified bunny boy in the Hyper Male section of Addition'Elle, and her ears twitched. "I just... have a feeling. And besides, maybe I need to date someone who's a little LESS exciting, for once."

"Oooo, kinky. The button-down ones are always the wildest. Did you buy a dress last night?"

"Two dresses!"

"Planning to destroy one of them on Friday night?"

"No-o-o-o..."

---

Predatory instincts, the kitteh mused, keeping her head down, hands stuffed so deep into her pockets she half-expected to find Narnia. I wish I had those. Felines are far superior to vulpines, but I've got all the predatory instincts of a main battle tank.

_ _

Her breath puffed into little globules of fog around her head as she walked, her eyes occasionally peeking out from beneath the protective cover of her ears. "This is stupid. and needlessly complicated."

"Needlessly complicated means it's working! What's going on now?"

_ _

She shifted her backpack, trying not to dislodge her smartphone from its position in her cleavage. A thin black wire snaked out of the collar of her coat and vanished into her left ear, blasting Cindy's voice right into her frontal lobes. "Stop yelling, you manic pixie nutcase. Don't bunnies have super-hearing?"

"That's just a myth! And probably a little racist, I think!"

_ _

"Very helpful, thank you." She shivered and grunted. "I thought it was supposed to warm up this week? Where's all this global warming I keep hearing about?"

"Anthropogenic climate change doesn't mean winters aren't cold-"

_ _

"Oh, just shut up. I don't see what I'm supposed to learn from stalking this boy."

"He doesn't show up on Facespace or Tweeter, and his yearbook info is still empty. His sister's, too. That family is creepy. We gotta learn something! What do you think you're going to learn by forcibly shacking up with him?"

_ _

"That's... personal," Amber grumbled.

"He's got really slender hips, Amber. Be realistic."

_ _

A brief daydream of of what that svelte, even petite bunnyboy would look like attempting to bottom for the hyper-kitteh passed through Amber's mind, a similar shudder passing through her loins and tested her restraints. "Life finds a way," she purred, warmth spreading everywhere.

"Don't you start quoting Jurassic Park on me, missie..."

_ _

In the distance, Nico turned onto a side street and Amber slowed down, not wanting to get too close. She was still fairly sure that her silhouette would be recognizable, even at this range; not many students quite had her combination of height, slenderness and thigh-level circumference. "Shhh, he turned onto Klempton."

"Oooohhhh, ritzy! Jiminy lives on Klempton, maybe he knows him."

_ _

The houses here were large, all modern lines and stucco and giant windows, and Amber couldn't suppress a little paing of jealousy. What she could do with a nice, big bedroom, she mused. "It's a cul de sac, I'm just going to keep walking." Amber started counting in the back of her mind, knowing that it was only a matter of time.

"Now when you say sac-"

_ _

"Three seconds, Cindy. Congratulations."

"I've been feeling a little slow lately..."

_ _

Amber reached the crossroads, glanced both ways as she had been taught since kittenhood, and crossed. Out of the corner of one huge eye, peeking beneath her floppy ear, she watched Nico climb the short, wide steps to an impressively statuesque home, touch the handle...

... and then turn to wave at Amber. The kitteh squeaked and stumbled, tripping over one of the painted lines down the centre of the road. "Fuck! He saw me! He waved! Fuck!"

"Fuck! Wait! That's good, isn't it? He waved? He's not mad?"

_ _

"Fuck! But he saw me! He knows I followed him! Dammit, this wasn't how I wanted this to go! You conned me into this, told me following him was the only way to find out-"

"You were so wild-eyed horny for some bun-bun's buns, you would have agreed to anything I suggested!"

_ _

Amber's jaw dropped, aghast. "That is NOT true! I wasn't thinking about him like that!"

"Then what was it?"

_ _

"It's... it was..." She hesitated, not wanting to betray Nico's secret, but sometimes she knew she just had to take off the fuzzy mittens when dealing with Cindy. Her muzzle clenched and she sighed. "You know what it was? It was because he-"

Her smartphone beeped as she fished it out of her cleavage. She yanked the earpiece out, bundled it all together and stuffed it deep into her puffy coat's pocket. "Boring conversation anyways," she muttered, glancing back once more over her shoulder. There was no sign of Nico, but the sight of him standing there, staring at her, waving at her, wouldn't leave her mind's eye.

She had gone in almost the complete opposite direction from her own home after leaving school, but she didn't want to perform an about-face just in case Nico was still walking. Inhaling through her nostrils, the chilly air cooling her hormone-addled brain, she planned her route home to pass by The Hub. She had a sudden hankering for nachos, and she hoped that maybe Rufus could offer a male perspective.

---

The rest of the week found Amber largely on autopilot. Normally she spent her mental downtime (which is to say, the hours between arriving at school and leaving for home) thinking about what she could incorporate into her next web show. Cindy was still hassling her to be a special guest star, that was nothing new, but now there were suggestions being shoved into her locker on a daily, sometimes hourly basis. She gathered them up just before her day's final class, and sat as far back as she could, sorting them, eyes wide with disbelief.

Friday afternoon sparkled brightly, furiously cheerful sunlight slanting in through the high windows. Spring had sprung with a vengeance, the final patches of snow and frost glittering and glistening on the fields. It was still too cold for her, but she tended to think that everything short of open flame would be too cold for the sensitive kitteh.

The teacher was droning on about... something. She wasn't entirely sure what. Something about the construction of stanzas and the appropriate use of non-standard grammar and punctuation. Yeah, that's going to be crucial to me later in life, she sighed inwardly, flipping through the stack of notes, hidden in the pages of her textbook. The brief little suggestions were far more interesting, and terrifying.

TEST OUT ONE OF THOSE CONDOMS ON CAMERA, read no less than twenty notes.

HAVE ME ON AS A SPECIAL GUEST. These were a close second, at least a dozen.

FWOOMP ME, were the less-than-subtle third place suggestions. Some had smiley faces, and she had to give them points for extra effort.

Those notes quickly found their way into the front pouch of her backpack, so she could throw them out properly when class ended. That left about a dozen further scraps of paper and sticky notes, and these were a good deal more likely.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU USE A COCKRING? THAT MIGHT BE A FUN IDEA TO EXPLORE! LOTS OF HYPERS PROBABLY WANT TO KNOW! She still had her father's Crimbo present in her nightstand drawer, a ring of ultra-tough steel , and she had gotten pretty good at using it. With some judicious use of her bedsheets as modesty barriers, she might be able to talk about that without wrecking her PG-13 rating. That note went into her coat pocket.

DO YOU PREFER BOYS OR GIRLS, OR EVEN OTHER HERMS, AND WHY? I'M JUST WONDERING IF I HAVE A CHANCE! There was possibly something there, she realized. Sexuality was such a peculiar concept to her; she'd always just been attracted to everything and everyone, though she did have her periodic infatuations. That might make a good subject for an episode.

WHY DID YOU CHOOSE TO DRESS FEMININE? AS A HERM, WOULDN'T IT BE JUST AS LIKELY TO DRESS MASCULINE? Likewise, that sent her mind off in strange directions. She supposed it made sense, really. She'd always been a princess-and-frilly-dress kind of a kid, but she supposed it really could go both ways, so to speak.

DO HYPERS RUN IN YOUR FAMILY? That one went into the garbage-pile almost instantly. She didn't need anyone taking a run at her dad...

HOW DO YOU KEEP IN SHAPE? THERE'S NO WAY YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO LIFT THAT MUCH WEIGHT! A biology lesson probably wouldn't be too interesting, but she supposed if she supplemented it with some 'visual aids', it could be a lot of fun.

"I'm crowdsourcing my show now," she chuckled to herself, flipping through the rest. One of them was simply a sketch of two rather well-drawn characters, and a question mark. One of the characters was undoubtedly her in an extremely advanced state of arousal, and the other character was initially difficult to see until she realized that her pencil-sketched shaft seemed to have arms and legs. "What is this... how much have I stretched someone?" she guessed under her breath, causing the bulky equine sitting in front of her to completely fall out of his seat. "Physics questions. Hmmm."

The bell rang, and there was the typical Friday afternoon rapid-fire explosion of books dropping, lockers slamming and footsteps fleeing. The dance, the much-anticipated Spring Fling, would throw open the gymnasium doors in about three and a half hours, and based on the talk around the cafeteria the more senior student bodies needed all of that time to get dressed, get stressed, and get moderately tipsy. After New Years, Amber had sworn off alcohol, particularly if she was going to be around anyone that might try to take advantage of her, if it were even possible to take advantage of a hyper-herm.

All week, her webcam show's homepage had been plastered with announcements that her Friday night show would be postponed until Saturday. There were more than a hundred comments posted to the effect of "JUST RECORD A SHOW BEFOREHAND AND AIR IT ON FRIDAY NIGHT! WE CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT YOOOOUUU!!!!!", but she'd decided that she wasn't about to buckle under to the pressure at this early stage. This show was HER project, HER baby, and she wasn't about to be anyone's web slave.

Sure, she'd uploaded some scandalously-angled pictures of her in her two new dresses as an apology to her viewers, taking votes on which one she should wear, but that was completely different. Surely.

"Ambs!"

She was halfway down the Circe High steps, unable to fight the flow of the crowd, barely able to glance back over her shoulder. "Cindy?" she called, because these days no-one else was so casual, so familiar, with the nascent celebrity. She had to almost hop to peer over the shoulders of those around her, and that just caused her heavily-restrained nethers to bounce in a fashion that nearly caused whiplash to half a dozen students.

But it wasn't the buxom fox. The plump, perky panda chasing her down the stairs was wearing the identical cheerleader outfit, stretched tightly around her exaggerated hourglass. She was another well-known fixture of Circe, nowhere near as top-heavy as Cindy but a knockout in her own right. "No," Heather said, pouting. "Not Cindy. I'm Heather. I, uh, had the locker next to you for... a little while..."

Oh, ye gods, Amber thought. "Yes, Heather, I know who you are. We've met several times."

The press of bodies was dispersing on the school's front lawn now, and Amber was able to brace herself against one of the heavy stone benches that lined the walk. Heather pranced up, the plushly curvy panda moving so lightly on her toes it almost defied logic. "Right, I know you knew that..." she blushed, chewing on her fingertips. "Sorry. Look, anyways, Cindy can't meet you, since she has to prep for the dance. She's in charge and stuff, you know, and..."

Amber smiled gently. I suppose it's kind of gratifying if I'm turning cheerleader heads! And she is cute. And that ass is so-o-o squeezable, and... stop it, Amber! "I know. So what do you need?"

"What? Oh!" Heather seemed to suddenly realize where she was and grinned. "Just wanted to let you know, she wanted to let you know that she tracked down your, uh, secret admiree, and he'll be at the dance tonight."

The hyper-kitteh glanced around quickly, waving her paws. "Shhh! That's not exactly public knowledge! But... thanks, I guess? How? What's her plan?"

Heather just winked. "That would ruin the surprise! But, yeah, she just wants you to show up looking hot. Not that... you could ever show up somewhere NOT looking hot...," the panda blushed, chewing on her nail again and glancing down, briefly, at Amber's skirt.

Amber waited a moment, and then a moment more, for the cheerleader to continue, but she seemed to be lost in her own world. Eventually she realized they could very likely spend the entire afternoon standing like statues by the bench, and the kitteh snapped her fingers in front of Heather's nose. "You still in there?"

"What? Oh! Sorry! Just... uhm... I have to go, see you tonight, good luck, bye!" Wringing her hands when she wasn't nibbling on her claws, the panda backpedalled and all but sprinted off towards the parking lot, leaving Amber shaking her head in disbelief.

"The whole world's gone crazy," she chuckled, stuffing her hands in her pockets and starting off for home. "One little kitteh gets a web show, and everyone loses their minds!"

Walking home, her mind was awhirl. It was all too much. High school life had been difficult, back when the schoolyear had just started. Then there had been a few... incidents with the boys in school. She'd gone from a nobody to a freak, from a freak to a prize, and from a prize to a reality-show celebrity. She'd made some new friends, she'd made a LOT of acquaintances, and she'd actually made more of an effort to crawl out of her shell.

And that crawling had helped her discover an entirely new Amber. The Amber who partied. The Amber who drank. The Amber who got up in front of a crowd of strangers and sang her heart out. The Amber who smelled fear and lust and chased after it with a perverted perseverance that her feline ancestors would have been proud of. That Amber was a little bit scary, especially considering she was also scheming behind a certain bunny's back, purely to satisfy her own curiosity. She could just as easily have asked him... but that was scarier.

The crowds? They didn't bother her. They were cheering for their perception of Amber, whatever strangeness that apparition might embody.

The web show? That didn't scare her. They weren't in the room with her. She was practically alone.

The half-crazed fwoomping? Not her fault. She was a creature of hormones. Simple.

But walking up to a single person, making eye-contact, and opening herself up while asking them to do the same, that was terrifying. Her stomach flipped, thinking all the ways that conversation could go wrong. That was closer than she was willing to get.

"Amber!"

Five blocks out from the school, she glanced back over her shoulder at the call of her name, and felt her stomach drop so low it was probably fighting with her sac for real estate within her restraints.

"... Nico?" she said weakly.

The bunny was approaching swiftly. His house was in the opposite direction. Clearly, he was making a special trip. He closed rapidly, giving her a little time to actually get a really good look at him. He was about her height, short for a boy, a smattering of whiskers already starting to sprout on his plump little muzzle. He was a warm, pleasing mixture of blonde and dusky khaki shades, a short, neat mop of dark brown hair framing his electric blue eyes. His long ears were brushed back, giving him a sleek, no-nonsense appearance.

The lack of nonsense only highlighted the pure, unfiltered, blistering rage on his face.

"What-..." That was all she managed to get out.

"Call off your fox!" he shouted, storming right up to her. They probably would have been toe-to-toe, nose-to-nose, if the sheer voluminous bulk beneath her skirts wasn't keeping him at a safe distance. "That's how you treat people with secrets? That's how you respect other's privacy?! Blackmail?!?"

"I don't-..."

"She said she'd tell EVERYONE all about me, if I didn't come to the Spring Fling tonight! Now, it occurs to me, how could she POSSIBLY have found out about my secret?! Seems awfully COINCIDENTAL that it just happened to be in the SAME week I saw you at the mall!"

"But, she-..."

"I was going to the dance anyways!" he continued, arms flailing. "It's the last one of the year, I figured maybe it was time I got out a little more, maybe tried dancing with someone for once! Maybe see what the big deal was! Maybe meet someone... someone..." The bunny trailed off, a distance look in his his eyes. "Just... someone!"

Amber tried to steady herself; her lungs felt filled with sawdust. "I... I don't... I didn't..."

"So thank you VERY much for showing me what happens when for a second, just for a SECOND, someone gets close to someone like us! I'd hoped you, of ALL people, would understand! I don't have much of a choice anymore, so yes I will be at the dance tonight, but I'll just ask you for one small favor, and if you have even a shred of decency you'll oblige: STAY AWAY FROM ME!"

Her jaw worked, but all she could manage was a piteous mewling as the enraged lapine spun on his heel and marched off, little fists still clenched.

What... the fuck... was that...!

_ _

She stood there for several minutes, blinking away tears, wondering how she could possibly repair this sort of damage. Her first actual conversation with him, and he'd all but declared vendetta.

I was right to be afraid. Wait... no... I know what happened...

_ _

As if on cue, her phone rang. Paws moving automatically, she pulled it from her pocket, thumbed across the Talk button, and held it to her ear.

"Cindy?" she said numbly.

"Good news! Nico agreed to go to the dance! Told you I was awesome! See you tonight, babe!"

_ _

---

Amber couldn't recall ever feeling quite so depressed while looking quite so sexy.

It had taken all of her considerable acting skills to get out of the house without betraying her fears to her parents, or betraying even MORE of Nico's secrets to outsiders. That is, if she actually knew what Nico's secret was. She had a few hunches and educated guesses, but that was it. Cindy knew even less than she did, which wasn't a surprise, and her entire good-natured, well-intentioned threat to Nico had simply been a ruse.

Ruse or not, it had gotten Nico's attention, all right.

"So what are you gonna do?" Rufus asked, padding along slowly beside her.

Amber shrugged, taking her time chewing and swallowing the immense mouthful of jalapeno cheese nachos. A rather creative route between home and school led her to the Hub, where she'd intended to drown her sorrows in saturated fats before the dance. Rufus, just getting off shift, offered to escort her as far as the school grounds. "I dunno," she sighed eventually. "Try and apologize? Wait until he's had some punch and some cake pops, maybe hope I catch him in a good mood, and just tell him that I wanted to talk."

"And that you suck at talking," the huge Newftaur added helpfully.

"Yes, that will feature prominently. I don't think he'll have a problem believing it."

"Most likely." Rufus glanced down at his young kitteh friend, which was easy for him; her ears barely reached his chest. "Not trying to be subtle tonight, though? I'm surprised your folks let you out the door like that. Actually, I'm more surprised you fit out the door like that."

Amber giggled a little self-consciously, daintily grabbing another handful of nachos. "It's the last dance of the year. I wanted to make it one to remember."

"No doubt."

The pink dress was strapless, the first time she'd felt brave enough to show so much fur. Cunning assemblies of underwire and cotton panels gave her bust a lift she never thought she'd be capable of, showing far more cleavage than she'd dreamed. With every inhalation, the tops of her creamy white and gold swells bounced up and down by a good inch.

Perhaps more notable even than that was the way the pink dress seemed to have a short, somewhat poofy skirt, and yet still managed to provide mostly decent coverage to a hyper-herm who had expanded herself into the realm of two good-sized beachballs and a sheath the size of a rolled-up sleeping bag.

"The pink lends it some subtlety," he continued, achieving a straight face through sheer force of will.

"Oh, you hush," she snickered, elbowing his barrel. "Not like you're any smaller than me."

They both glanced back at Rufus's hindquarters. "Maybe," the bulky, floofy taur agreed. "But I hide it better. Plus I'm literally five times your weight."

"Showoff," she pouted, sticking out her tongue.

The big canine just laughed. "Look, far be it from me to say what you can and can't do with your body. I'm just saying, you're seventy-five percent hyper, twenty-five percent scared teenaged grrl right now. And the scared minority is still in charge."

"Don't remind it," Amber grumbled, downing the last of the nachos. "It's still trying to pretend everything will be OK."

"Does it do that a lot?"

"Constantly."

"Mmmm."

Already they could hear the pounding of the music from the distant gymnasium, the dull thrum of car engines and half-shouted parking lot discussions washing over them like the rising tide. Amber glanced down at herself, far larger than she'd ever allowed herself to get in public. Sure, she'd been bigger on the show, which by now EVERYONE at school had certainly seen, but this was different. "Maybe this was a bad idea. I mean, how am I even supposed to slow dance?"

"Big spoon, little spoon," Rufus said gently, placing a hand on her shoulder and leaning down to gently nose her forehead. "Learn to be the little spoon."

"That's very philosophical for a convenience store clerk."

"Wise is the man who knows that he works for less than minimum wage, yet still considers himself wealthy."

"OK, now you're just being a dumbass."

"Wise is the ass who knows when to be dumb."

She backhanded his chest, which was a little bit like smacking a shag-covered brick wall. "Doofus," she grinned affectionately.

"Rufus," he corrected. "Have a good night, babe."

"Not escorting me to the front doors?" she squeaked, suddenly nervous all over again."

"No, I think this is a night for you to make an entrance all by yourself." He glanced down at her lap, a pink crinolined bulge that obscured nearly everything from her bellybutton to her ankles. "Well, you and your entourage, of course."

"Don't leave home without them," Amber said weakly. "Well... thanks. See you, I guess."

"Doing your show tomorrow night?"

"If Nico doesn't kill me tonight."

"Oh, he'd never kill you."

"Why not?"

"He's an honor student. That would WRECK his college applications. G'night."

In spite of herself, Amber had to smile as her big friend sauntered off. "G'night," she whispered, smoothing down her dress. She peeked down at her decolletage once more, tugged it a fraction of an inch farther down, and inhaled to give herself a brief shot of self confidence. "Come on, girls. It's showtime."

Jamming the remains of her fast-food heartburn into one of the many scattered garbage cans, she had to remind herself not to march as though facing the firing squad. She added a little sway to her hips, which was certainly easy considering the immense mass tugging her back and forth, threw back her shoulders and sashayed up to the gym's big double doors, prepared for whatever destiny had in store for her.

Destiny decided to lead with wolf-whistles as she swept through the parking lot. Eyes turned by the dozen, and every time some tripped over their own feet or walked into a stationary vehicle Amber's confidence grew. Wow, she thought. So this is what it feels like to be Cindy. No wonder she seems to like it.

_ _

Climbing the stairs was a little bit of a chore, the immense extra weight difficult even for her hyper-strengthened muscles, and she was briefly worried that she was going to run aground, as it were. Once or twice she felt the leading edge of the steps brushing against her sac, but she managed to mount the flight successfully.

"Heather," she said with a grin, winking at the well-filled cheerleader that stood as guardian of the main entrance.

"Ahh... Aahhm... Aaaaaahmber..." Heather managed, staring openly and more than a little covetously at the shorter kitteh. "Glad you could... come."

"I get that a lot," she snickered, holding out her paw to be stamped. "Save me a dance before the night's over, all right?"

"Da-a-a-ance," the panda nodded as though hypnotized, stamping Amber's wrist on the third try. "Cindy is-"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm sure I'll bump into her eventually," Amber growled. "See you around."

"'Round," Heather repeated, watching the young hyper-herm walk away. "Yes. Round."

The dance was still in its very early stages, barely a third of the student body present. There was easily a hundred more in the parking lot, working hard to be fashionably late, with more arriving every minute. Streamers were everywhere, half a dozen disco balls hung from the retracted basketball nets, and the stage was set up with more decorations than Amber could ever recall seeing. There were two DJ booths, though at the moment both were empty; the music thumping through the vast space was clearly a pre-record.

By the ancient custom of sitcom soundtracks, there should have been an ear-splitting needle scratch the moment Amber walked in to accompany the sudden cessation of conversation. As though on strings, all eyes turned to watch her enter, then lowered slightly to observe her record-setting (hah!) curves.

"Hi," Amber smiled, waving.

There was a smattering of greetings, some nervous giggles, some fearful swallowing, and more than a few boys were smacked upside the head by their dates when they didn't break eye-contact fast enough. She scanned quickly, but Nico was not amongst them. This settled her stomach, which wasn't easy after the nachos, but not her spirit.

Gonna be a long night, she thought, adjusting her skirts and heading towards the punch bowl. I need glucose.

_ _

---

As the night wore on, Amber started to think that maybe there was some truth to Principal Kinison's madness.

All throughout the week, she'd noticed some slight changes in the way her presence seemed to be met by the students of Circe High. The new posters for the Spring Fling included her web show's logo, which was about as official as it could get, and she'd talked to the AV Club a few times to make up posters for the show itself! A handful of those went up around the school, and the hits to her channel skyrocketed. She had expected to become even more of a spectacle than before...

... but after the initial excitement of suddenly being plastered all over the school, having complete strangers suddenly saying good morning in the halls, having people confide in her that they'd purchased ten, fifty, a hundred raffle tickets, the chaos faded. By Friday, she felt almost normal again.

Maybe that was why I overdosed on the foreplay, she thought yet again, running her palms across her skirts. Even with both paws, she was only barely able to get her hands halfway around her sheath, and the puffy, shiny material did almost nothing to hide its outline. Still, I probably gotta get used to this sometime! This might end up being my smallest size someday!

_ _

Amber had no shortage of dance partners during the night, and she was pleased to discover that most of them were happy to keep their hands on her hips, or around her shoulders. At the start of the festivities the cheerleaders had all been taking turns, whispering that it was good advertising for last-minute ticket sales, but more and more regular students were lining up to cut in. Rufus's advice was also very helpful, and she found that being the 'little spoon' allows her to snuggle and grind far more than she would otherwise be able.

Despite all the attention, she now knew that she wasn't the centre of it, not nearly as much as she'd feared. Everyone around her was focused on their own dancing, their own partners, their own lives. Sure, everyone turned to stare whenever she rolled her hips and accidentally knocked down three random partygoers, but that was to be expected.

"I... I need... some more punch," she panted, grinning goofily up at her dance partner. She didn't know the big rhino's name, and was only vaguely aware that he was someone important on the football team (Go Whitefish!), but he was her eighth partner in a row and she was really starting to feel the effects of her size coupled with the steadily rising temperatures. She licked a bead of sweat off of her whiskers and leaned forward to give him a quick hug, which brought the colossal bulk of her skirts to bear against his legs. "Back in a few, allrighty?"

The rhino nodded, giving her a surprisingly dainty hug back before sauntering off to rejoin a large cluster of boys. There was much back-slapping and congratulatory smiles from the group, and Amber couldn't suppress a giggle. "Might be a few advantages to the bigger boys," she murmured to herself, causing one of the dancers nearby to faint.

Eventually making her way over to the refreshment table, she had to grip the edge to keep her balance. Her legs were weak, her knees wobbled, and everytime the DJs dropped the bass the thrumming in her restraints caused them to tighten a tiny bit further. She hadn't even known what dropping the bass was before tonight, but now she understood its importance. If she could have that sort of hands-free effect on herself, she'd probably do it more often!

Gulping down another red plastic cup full of red plastic punch, she struggled to catch her breath and take mental stock. Her dance card was probably full for the rest of the night, which was kind of awesome, but as enjoyable a distraction as it was it really wasn't doing anything to solve her two more pressing problems. "Cindy," she sighed, "and Nico. Damn, where the hell ARE you two?"

Even enlisting Curley's help, neither one seemed to have been present. Cindy was normally the belle of the ball, showing her presence at every activity and every darkened corner, making sure everyone was engaged in maximum safe acceptable levels of fun, while Nico was... well, apparently just very good at blending in, considering so few people ever remembered even seeing him in their classes.

"Crazy Cindy, and the blank bunny," Amber mused, easing her sore gams against the retracted indoor bleachers, taking a load off of her paws. The extra weight caused the entire assembly to creak and shift, but she didn't care about those particular weight problems. She finished off her punch, crumpled the cup and tossed it into the garbage.

"I'm just wasting my own time," she decided, straightening up and adjusting her dress down a fraction of an inch further. "I can talk to Nico on Monday, sort this whole thing out, and I just need to make sure Cindy doesn't read out his name when they do the raffle draw. LIke she's going to be hard to find when THAT happens..."

Walking slowly back into the bouncing, thrashing mass of teenaged hormones, drums and bass thundering in her ears, she felt only a twinge of remorse that she hadn't gotten to see Cindy's dress, or gotten to dance with the buxom vixen. For once, the young kitteh had been hoping to impress the unfazable, worldly cheerleader with her uncharacteristically revealing outfit, but she supposed that subjecting the rest of the school population to it would have to be a suitable substitute.

Licking another bead of sweat off her whiskers, she snagged the arm of a giggling mousegirl that had been working her way out of the crowd. "Hey!" Amber shouted to be heard over the music, smiling her least-threatening smile. "Wanna dance?"

The mouse, wearing a skintight purple dress that showed more leg than Amber could ever get away with while maintaining a PG presence, simply eyed the hyper up and down, swallowed nervously and nodded. "Can you dance?" she squeaked.

Amber's grin deepened, her grip tightening slightly. "Wanna find out?"

The ensnared senior looked longingly towards the exits, but her curiosity got the better of her. "Yeah," she blushed, walking slowly backwards into the press of bodies. "But this is just dancing, OK? I've got a violin recital tomorrow."

Amber threw back her head and laughed. "Relax," she snickered when she regained her composure. "I'm just trying to be normal."

A pair of nearby long, pointed ears perked up at those words, but the furre beneath said nothing. Interesting...

_ _

The mousegirl had danced for two songs before begging herself off, claiming dehydration and an extremely sore rump from attempting to twerk with the tightly-restrained hyper. Amber had danced with several others since then, including little-spooning with Heather. The kitteh suddenly appreciated taller dance partners, particularly when it meant her head was at the exact height to nestle in between the plump panda's breasts, and she was sad to see the cheerleader go.

Until she realized that the student planning committee was assembling at the base of the stairs leading up to the stage, and the head of the committee herself was already marching up, microphone in hand.

"Uhm... crap," Amber grunted, turning apologetically to the wolfboy that was trying his best to dance close to her without actually touching her skirts, or anything that might lie directly beneath them. "Uhm, can I take a raincheck on this one? I need to go see a fox about a rabbit."

The wolf frowned. "Was I dancing too close? I'm really trying not to, but... you... uh..."

The kitteh just laughed, turning to the side and giving him an affectionate rub with one badly swollen teste. "No, you were fine. Probably could have danced a little closer. Don't forget me, 'kay?"

His eyes glazed over and he mumbled something reassuring as Amber bobbed and swayed through the crowd. This is getting repetitive, she grumbled to herself. I think there's a reason I'm not this big all the time. Whoof! I need a PowerBar...

_ _

Cindy was approaching the microphone, and a cheer was already going up through the gymnasium. Hours of sugar overdosing, grinding bodies and deafening levels of electronic music had whipped them into a frenzy, and Cindy's outfit was doing its best to drive them into berzerker territory. It was white and silky, and Amber assumed that it had to be held on entirely with sticky-back tape and sheer willpower. The kitteh's dress was slinky and low-cut, but Cindy's defied logic, physics, and at least three school decency laws.

"I guess I'm not the only one trying to end the year in a big way," she muttered, but there was affection in her gripes. "Keep that dress, Cindy. I want to see it later."

The head cheerleader, head party organizer, head student council chair and all-around school queen spun on her heel, nearly causing a double wardrobe malfunction, and snatched the microphone from the stand. "HELLO, CIRCE!" she howled, throwing back her head and exulting in the screaming, thunderous applause.

"Showoff," Amber smirked. "Good lord, she has UNDER-cleavage!"

"How's everybody doing tonight?!" Cindy continued, to yet another half-crazed wordless roar.

"Are you ready to turn it up!?"

"I'm not even sure how you could turn it up any further," the kitteh groaned wonderingly, rubbing her ears.

"Don't forget, this is your last chance to buy a raffle ticket! Win a date with the lovely and dangerous Miss Amber!!"

Amber had finally worked her way over to the cluster of cheerleaders guarding the base of the stairs, but when she spun to yell something unladylike up at the stage she found herself staring right into a spotlight. The mobbed gymnasium screeched their approval, with heavy doses of hooting and whistling.

"We'll have the final draw at midnight, followed by a very special dance with our lucky winner and his or her incredible prize!! Until then... LET'S DANCE!!!" Cindy pumped her arm like a championship-winning quarterback and slammed the microphone back into the stand with a triumphant flourish.

Always the showman, Amber huffed a little enviously. Showwoman. Showoff. Whatever.

_ _

"We don't need you on stage yet, Amber!" Heather said, wringing her paws together nervously. "Do you... want to dance again...?"

"Later," Amber said, a little more brusquely than intended. "I mean... in a little bit. I just need to talk to Cindy." The fox in question was already descending the stairs, and from this angle her face was fully obscured by her infamous assets. She clung to the railing with both hands, well used to not being able to see exactly where she was going. "Cindy-"

"Whew!" the fox brayed, reaching the bottom of the stairs and knuckling the small of her back, an act that had a very pronounced effect on her bustline. "It is hot as BALLS up there! AMBER! There you are, babe! Been trying to find you the whole night!"

"Are YOU a bad liar!" the kitteh snapped crossly, dragging her eyes reluctantly from the just barely visible fringes of the fox's areolae. "I've been trying to find YOU the whole night!"

"I'm not difficult to find!"

"Neither am I!"

"So where were you?"

"Dancing! Where were you?"

"Organizing!"

The two girls glared at eachother, the air fairly crackling between them. As one, the other cheerleaders took a hesitant step back, knowing an unwinnable fight when they saw it. Heather actually opened her mouth, but one of the others, a whip-lean jackal girl, slammed a paw into the panda's muzzle before it could say anything fatal.

"Look," Amber said quietly, or as quietly as she could manage given the pulse-pounding music. "Just... forget what we talked about, OK? Draw a name out of the bin like you were planning. Any name. Just not his."

Cindy blinked and frowned. "What's the matter, hun? Getting cold paws? Look, I told you he'd be here, and he'll be here-"

"No! You threatened him, and you threatened him with THE WORST thing you can threaten someone like that with! And he knew that it had to be because of me! So, before you can make anything worse, please just forget everything we talked about before, and forget about Nico!"

The fox's frown deepened. "I didn't threaten him, I just... I said... look, I don't KNOW what his secret is, because you wouldn't tell me!"

"HE DOESN'T KNOW THAT!"

"Well, I'm SORRY! I tried to get his friends to get him to come, but he doesn't have many friends and they said he was already busy! I was just trying to help!"

"Then stop helping me like THAT! If you have to lie and cheat to be helpful, it's not worth it!"

"I'm sorry!!"

"GOOD!!!"

Even the devastating speaker stacks couldn't completely drown out their back and forth, and some of the dancers were bopping and shuffling away from the pair, keeping a wary eye out for any further explosions. Amber fairly hummed with pent-up frustration, her hyper-fueled little body wanting to either violently throttle or passionately pounce on her best friend.

The vixen opened her mouth, on the verge of saying something else. Her ears twitched, her tail fluffed, but whatever words were readying themselves died in her throat. "I need to check on... stuff," she stated, squaring her shoulders. "We'll talk."

"I hope so," Amber grumbled, not caring if anyone heard her.

Both girls spun on their heels and marched off in opposite directions, leaving the clan of cheerleaders anxious and rudderless.

"Do you wanna go after her?"

"Which one?"

"Uhm... Cindy, probably. It's usually her fault."

"That's not nice!"

"Niceness does not a truth make."

"Have you been talking to Rufus again?"

"What about Amber?"

"Amber's probably used to this more than we are."

"I could go talk to her, maybe...?"

"Heather, just... just no, ok?"

By the punch bowl, Amber was drowning her sorrows. She wasn't angry, exactly. Exasperated, absolutely. Weapons-grade annoyed, sure. Heck, she would go so far as to say that she was splenetic, after learning a host of new words for her Language Arts final exam. But with Cindy, it was difficult to be truly angry at someone who's heart was in the right place. It was just infuriating that her brain wasn't given the same directions.

A blue-eyed deer waved to her while grabbing some punch, and her growl of response caused him to leave with an empty red plastic cup and nary a backwards glance.

Dammit, she thought. _You can't let her ruin your night. This is the last big dance, except for Promcoming, and that one's going to suck because your... shudder... parents will be there. _

_ _

She smoothed out the broad landscape of where her dress draped artfully across her maleness, which was a little silly considering it was supposed to be a ruffled skirt. "Sorry," she called out to the horrified young buck. "It was a... cat thing... come back?" She tracked his antlers through the crowd for a moment, but lost interest in anything except chiding herself. "Awww, fwoomp."

Cindy had apparently gotten over her low profile, and over the next few hours she popped up like clockwork, shoehorning her figure between every dance track and appearing in every corner of the gym, keeping the night's energy going. Door prizes were awarded, schoolyear moments were commemorated on the big projector, and a sinful mercy to Amber's eyes when she didn't appear in any of them.

At least, until shortly before midnight.

Amber had expected her legs to give out from the delightful excess of dancing, the weight and the strain only increasing, but as usual her body showed a strange and startling capacity to rise to the occasion. Every time she hit a wall of exhaustion and started planning her struggle to the bleachers, strength flowed from seemingly nowhere and rejuvenated her. Well, she thought, I probably know where the strength is coming from. Only one place on me big enough to hide it all...

_ _

Her current dance partner was thoroughly enjoying his position as the big spoon, his heavy arms wrapped around her midsection, paws like mitts carefully snuggled up to her flanks in the narrow strip of chaste space between her bust and her swollen hermness. She leaned gratefully against him, the sturdy badger bowing but not breaking beneath the immense feline load.

"You sure you're OK back there?"

"Fine," the boy wheezed, tightening his grip briefly. His head rest gently atop her own, muzzle between her ears. "It's nice to be this close to you. Er... I just mean, usually you've got a bit of a crowd around you."

"I always thought I was imagining that crowd."

"No, ma'am," the burly boy chuckled. "Your fan club is very... dedicated."

"And you're not in the fan club?" Amber giggled, giggling her hips a little shake.

The badger rumbled, temporarily overpowering the bass from the music. "Every fan club has the quiet fans..."

"You know what they say. Beware the quiet ones."

"Right. You should beware of me," he chortled, flexing his fingers but resisting the urge to move his palms anywhere.

"Well, I'm just a poor, helpless, _defenseless_kitteh, lost and afraid in the big, scary world."

"I don't think anyone who watches your show believes that."

"You're clearly not watching hard enough."

"We're watching plenty hard, believe me." The badger froze, and immediately began to mentally backpedal, arms shaking. "Er, I mean, we, uh, were watching with intensity, not like we were, uh, hard, WHILE we were watching, because..."

The feline laughed, reaching back to pat him comfortingly on the hip. "Oh, relax. If you're not doing both, I'm clearly not doing my job." Her tail fluffed up between them, confirming that he was dancing quite hard, as well. Hmmm, this little spoon business might be a good idea...

The air above them flashed, the ceiling-mounted projector once again glowing to life. A thousand eyes turned to take in the huge white screen behind the stage, and the starkly illuminated silhouette of Cindy once again posing seductively by the microphone stand.

"IS EVERYBODY HAPPY?!" she shouted, tapping her toes and bouncing in place, much to the crowd's delight. The whoop in response was deafening. "ALL RIGHT! We've just got a few more highlights from the year, and then we can get on with the big, BIG prizes! AM I RIGHT?!"

As if on cue (and knowing her, it probably had been orchestrated well in advance), the projector screen flickered once and the white glow was replaced by a picture of Amber. It took the kitteh a moment to place the shot, not used to seeing herself from that perspective, but it had clearly been taken a few weeks prior, during one of the few moderately warm days at school. She was walking outside at lunch, a hot dog in each hand and a big grin on her face, while the warm spring breezes whipped at her skirt.

Her skirt, which was long and flowing, and at that particular moment was also quite airborne, displaying a considerable amount of leg and an even more considerable amount of fluffy white sac.

Her muzzle twitched, claws sinking into the badger's hip. The big boy winced and loosened his grip. "It's a... flatting picture?" he hazarded.

"If that ends up in the year book, I'm suing," she grumbled. "But thanks. I think."

"AND SPEAKING OF AMBER," Cindy continued to raucous cheering and applause. "I THINK IT'S ABOUT TIME WE FOUND OUT WHO TONIGHT'S REAL WINNER IS! WHO FEELS LUCKY?!"

"Subtle," Amber hissed under her breath, slowly extricating herself from the badger's arms. Dammit, why can't I remember his name? "Uhm... sorry to cut the dance short. I think I have to go whore myself out for money. Uhm... did you buy a ticket?"

The badger looked to be trying to swallow his own tongue, but he nodded and patted the pocket of his blazer. "Just a few," he managed, wrestling a grin from his nervous lips. "Good luck?"

"To both of us," she smiled, leaning in to give him a hug and letting him be the little spoon for once. He stiffened in her arms, in several ways, and then slumped dazedly to the gym floor.

As soon as she was sure he wasn't going to get trampled, she made her way to the stage. More pictures of her were being flashed up now, including one or two screencaps from her show. Fortunately, none of them were what Amber would consider TOO intimate, though there were a few teachers, and Ms. Kinison herself, standing in the shadowed wings of the stage waiting to seize control of the remote should that no longer be the case. There were handshakes and back-pats and a few butt-rubs as Amber pushed her way through the mob, and general whistling and cat-calls every time a new picture went up.

"I think someone forgot to get approval from me to use my likeness in this fashion," she seethed politely when she reached the stairs once more, and was once more politely restrained by the cheerleader patrol. "Fortunately, I'm not the litigious sort. I have relatives to do that sort of thing for me."

"Cindy said that-"

"Cindy says A LOT of things, and she gets away with it because no-one bothers to call her on her bullshit!" Amber snarled, a little shocked at her own response. Come on, a lot of those images of you are from YOUR publically-available web show, and these are the LESS naughty stills! Calm down! "Look, just... I need to be up there when I draw the dang name, right? Can you let me past?"

Heather exchanged glances with the others, looking for support. As the largest cheerleader, the duty of actually blocking the stairs had fallen to her. "We'll make it up to you, honest. We've already decided to talk to Cindy, because she's-"

"AMBER, HONEY, GET YOUR BUNS UP HERE!"

It took Amber a breath to realize that Cindy was still running her spiel on stage, and the big moment had arrived. Spotlights were roaming back and forth now, and there seemed to be a commotion on the other side of the brightly-lit fox.

"Heather? That's my cue." The kitteh got as much of a hold over her anger as she could these days and squared her shoulders resolutely. "I'm not mad at you guys... not really mad, anyways. It's just... Cindy."

Everyone nodded, knowing all too well the import those three words held. "Good luck," Heather piped hopefully, standing aside.

Amber was just reaching the top of the stairs when the pandagirl hurriedly added, "I hope you draw my name!" The feline squeaked and turned around, but the cheerleaders were already gone, at least to her spotlight-addled eyes.

"This way, Amber! Come on! A few more steps! You can do it!" The crowd laughed as Cindy coaxed her friend closer. "I'd tell you to watch your step, but I don't think you can!"

Amber smiled for the audience and turned her attentions back to her theoretical best friend. Cindy twirled the microphone expertly, beckoning with the fingers on her other paw. "Yeah, yeah," she laughed, rolling her eyes for dramatic effect. She threw up her arms and waved to the students. "Hi, everybody!"

The response was immediate and electric, and sent a thrill through her body. The anonymous webshow is definitely more comfortable, but there's a definite advantage to having a captive audience...

_ _

The girls hugged eachother, somewhat awkwardly considering their relative dimensions, and the crowd somehow found the physical capacity to go ever so slightly crazier.

"You know I'm going to kill you after this, right?" Amber whispered.

_ _

"You say that so often, it's lost all meaning," the fox murmured right back.

_ _

"I'm prepared to give it new meaning."

_ _

"Tease."

_ _

"Bitch."

_ _

"Here she is, folks!" Cindy proclaimed, once again at full volume. "Amber O'Malley! How's your night going, babe?"

"Oh, you know, not bad!" she remarked casually, tilting her hips and presenting her skirts to centre stage. "It's hard to find a dance partner, though! Everyone seems to keep me at arm's reach!"

They laughed and groaned at the terrible joke, but really, there was no other kind to make at a school event. There seemed to be some unwritten rule that the puns had to be as lame as possible. "Don't worry about it, babe, I'm sure you'll have a swell time!"

"I always do!"

"Are you ready to see who's won the year's final perfectly innocent and platonic date with you?"

"You betcha!" I'd like to thank the Academy... Amber thought, marvelling at her own acting skills. She still wanted to strange Cindy, but the show must go on, after all. "Bring out the box!"

"Well, we've had a little difficulty with that, actually," Cindy said with mock nervousness.

Amber blinked. "What do you mean, a little difficulty?"

"We had a few more tickets sold than last time."

"How many more?"

The commotion at the far end of the stage seemed to reach a denouement, and what Amber had taken to be a speaker stack turned out to be a painted plywood box larger than her double-sized refrigerator at home. Four little wheels spun and squeaked as it was pushed towards them, Amber only barely able to make out Curley on the far side.

"This many," Cindy said with a straight face, patting the box. "This may be my final year at Circe, but I'd just like to thank you, Amber, for helping us break the all-time fundraising records! By several hundred percent! AND THANKS TO ALL OF YOU OUT THERE WHO GAVE ME ALL YOUR MONEY!"

The crowd erupted once more as Curley, gingerly rubbing his lower back, tottered off stage with a vague wave. "I've said it before, and I'll say it again," Amber spoke gravely into the microphone. "You're all insane! And I love you all for it!"

The cheering eventually faded as Curley returned, this time with a small step stool, which he placed by one side of the colossal raffle bin. Whoops were replaced with laughter as Amber eyed the step stool, gingerly and blindly testing out with each footpaw. The pantomime continued as she balanced unsteadily on each step, while Cindy held the microphone to the tortured aluminum to pick up all the creaks and groans as its maximum weight was exceeded. When it became clear from the audience's reaction that Cindy was also likely peeking up her skirt, she kicked out wildly, missed by a mile and had to cling desperately to the raffle box to avoid causing another massive structural failure.

"Hey, watch it, girl! You could kill me with that!" Cindy paused for dramatic effect, and then added, "And the kick might have hurt, too!"

In spite of herself, Amber chuckled. We do make a good team... I just wish it was the sort of team that worked together! "My eyes are up HERE, Cindy!"

"Hey, that's my line!"

More or less safely at the top of the step stool, Amber peered over the edge of the box. Sure enough, there were enough raffle tickets in there to save at least half a dozen trees if they were recyclable. There was also a stick jammed into the pile, which Amber used to stir the mass up, a chore even for her hyper-enhanced strength. "You know, if everyone had just bought ONE ticket, this might have been a LITTLE easier..."

"We know you don't like to do anything the easy way, Amber!" Cindy supplied helpfully, to more laughter.

The kitteh tried to make out the names on the tickets, but the box was dark and the tickets were awfully small. Damn, I guess it really will be random, she thought. "Eenie, meenie, miney moe..." she sing-songed, ruffling elbow-deep in the mound. "Let's see, who feels like a winner?"

"Oh, just pick one! Watch out for Heather's, though, I think she was stuffing your ballot box!"

"She wishes," Amber deadpanned into the microphone to raucous hooting and footstomping. She rummaged around deep, trying not to peek out of the corner of her eye, and came up with a tiny paper rectangle. "OK, let's see what we have here. The winner is-"

Cindy, moving with a speed that would seem to defy the staggering mass of her torso, snatched the raffle ticket out of Amber's paw and held it up theatrically, squinting to read it. "The winner is... NICO KASSE! COME ON DOWN, YOU CRAZY WABBIT!"

Looking back, Amber supposed she sealed her own fate when she didn't immediately leap down from the footstool and defiantly challenge Cindy's proclamation. The feline was too struck with horror, eyes wide and jaw hanging slack, to respond. The crowd cheered, though there was a great deal of mildly confused head-tilting as the assembled masses tried to figure out just who the little-known winner was. A solid ten seconds had passed before the kitteh was able to draw breath, hissing out a single expletive through her fang-filled smile.

Cindy glanced back, tossing her flowing hair artfully over her shoulder and winking. "A promise is a promise, gurl," she spoke softly, locking eyes with the enraged herm. "The worst is in the past, and now you can talk to him and explain everything, and no-one needs to get outed!"

The crowd noise was fading, replaced by a spreading buzz of bewilderment. "Hey, I don't think he's here!" someone called out, to be followed by a chorus of throats chanting "Draw another name!"

"Now, hey, hey, we're not going to be drawing another name," Cindy smiled placatingly. "Think of how he'd feel on Monday! Right?"

Amber squeaked when the microphone was once more thrust in front of her face. She stood, pinned by the spotlights, paws wringing together and drawing quite a bit of attention to her badly overfilled pink skirts. "R-right!" she managed, trying to smile and hoping it looked mostly sane. "He... paid for his ticket, just like everyone else!"

Oh, gods, get me out of here...

_ _

Without anyone to cheer for, without a big winner to make a fuss over, without a satisfactory conclusion to the week-long storyline, Cindy snapped her fingers and cued the DJ to fire up the music once more. There was some good-natured grumbling, but the dance's energy was too relentlessly upbeat to be killed by a simple raffle draw.

When the spotlights finally died, leaving Amber and Cindy awash in the borrowed glow from the swirling rainbow rigs, the kitteh hauled off and struck the head cheerleader's shoulder with all the force she could muster. Fortunately, she wasn't nearly as co-ordinated as her feline heritage would indicate, and most of the impact was absorbed when her arm struck Cindy's sideboob first. "What the fuck?!" she rasped. "You said his name ANYWAYS?! After everything we talked about?!"

"You wanted to meet him, you wanted to get close to him, and now you can! Come on, it's the perfect plan! Especially since ANYONE who had eyes could see you weren't expecting me to say that, so no-one would ever assume that this was your idea! You're in the clear!" Cindy stood proudly, hands on hips though favoring her injured shoulder slightly. "See? Trust my zany plans."

"You... he... but that's not the point!"

"What is the point then?"

"He was... he was angry... his secret..."

"You haven't TOLD me his secret! It couldn't possibly be any more safe!"

"But...!"

Cindy rolled her eyes and leaned forwards, engulfing the shorter hyper in a very soft, warm and X-rated hug. "Honey, just go down there and dance like no-one's watching, and if you're still angry in the morning I'll give you one free kick. Deal?"

Amber vibrated, fists shaking at her sides, wanting to bite Cindy's neck where it rubbed against her cheek, but also wanting to rock her hips and feel her sheath pressing against the underside of the spectacular hyper-fox's breasts. "I'm still angry," she muttered, giving a brief, indifferent hug back. "Not cool."

"You hugged me, I'm off the hook!" Cindy squealed, slipping away from the embrace and darting off towards the far end the stage.

"I never agreed to that rule!" Amber hollered after her, angrily trying to force the upturned edges of her mouth back town. Dammit, she grumbled to herself. I'd revenge-fwoomp her, if I didn't think she'd enjoy it so much...

_ _

There was already a trio of students, none of whom she recognized, waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs and inviting her to dance. The theoretical leader of the group, a lean and quite handsome-looking stoat in a dashing tuxedo, also asked if she was going to try and make good on her date with Nico, a question she didn't entirely know how to answer.

"Of course, I'll try," she said, walking hand-in-hand with the other two girls, while the whiplike mustelid settled in behind her, assuming the position of big spoon. "I sort of know who he is... quiet kid, seems nice, and, let's be honest, he DID buy the ticket."

Her new dance partners laughed and nodded, each casually mentioning that they, too, had also bought tickets. I wonder if they know that there's easier ways to win a date with me, she thought. Like asking...

By the end of the next track, which was an extra-long number that found her little-spooning with all three students, Amber had to grudgingly admit that, in some ways, Cindy was correct. The kitteh really could probably make peace with Nico for the whole situation, and no secrets were actually revealed.

And a little bit of this was probably my fault. All I had to do was talk to Nico by myself, without dragging Cindy into this. But no, I wanted to be 'dramatic'... so why am I surprised when there's drama?

_ _

The fatigue of the evening finally starting to settle in, to the point where even her hyper physiology couldn't keep it entirely at bay, she begged off any further dances and made one final excursion to the refreshments table. Once again, she was disappointed that the student movement to get Cunt Nectar supplied for the dance had been stopped by the faculty, for reasons of 'unnecessary vulgarity'. She scooped out another cup of punch, grabbed one of the remaining half-melted cake-pops, and settled her bulk against the edge of the table, trying to simply enjoy the experience of being there.

Out of the corner of her eye, a strange motion, or rather a strange lack of motion, alerted her to the fact that she was not alone at the picked-apart buffet. She glanced over to the slender figure at the far end of the long table, a svelte light brown lapine in an impressively small, tight black dress. The rabbitgirl's eyes widened and she glanced away, making a show of concentrating on the dancing crowd, but a hesitant look back locked their gazes.

Amber's eyes widened. "Are you-"

The bunny stood up, already shaking her head, but seemed to catch herself before she could flee. Moving slowly, as though fighting her way up a river, she approached Amber, hardly taking her eyes off the gymnasium floor. Of course, this meant that for the last few yards she was in effect staring directly at the kitteh's hermness.

The bunny nodded. "Nicole," she squeaked.

"Inventive," the kitteh winked, noting the close resemblance. "Uhm... I suppose Nico told you about what... I did... or at least what it probably looked like I did..."

Hands clasped in her lap, Nicole leaned against the table, facing the stage and very pointedly not at Amber. "He told me enough. He might have over-reacted a little bit, but he still didn't feel right coming to the dance tonight." She took a deep breath, and Amber felt a little bad for peeking down at the bunny's small but very perky bust. "I guess that was the whole deal with making him come? You rigged the raffle?"

"No!" Amber said urgently, nearly sloshing punch on her skirts. "I mean... ok, YES, that was kind of the plan at first, but I changed my mind, because it wasn't fair to him, and I tried to get Cindy to help me with the plan, and THEN I tried to get her to FORGET the plan, but she DIDN'T, and... you can tell him he doesn't need to accept the date, if he doesn't want to. I just want to talk to him."

While Amber rambled, Nicole's eyes widened, nodding her delicate muzzle slowly. She still wouldn't turn to face the anxious kitteh, however. "About what?"

"I... uhm... I saw him at the mall the other day, and... I dunno. I thought we could talk. Maybe hang out."

"That's it?"

"That's it." Amber cocked her head. "Can you pass along a message for me? Or give me, like, his e-mail address or something? I really just want to say sorry, and start over from scratch, and tell him not to worry, Cindy can't tell anyone anything she doesn't know."

"She doesn't know?!"

"I wouldn't tell anyone that!" Amber gasped. "I've got a lot of my own, you know... 'issues'. I know what it's like to have secrets."

Nicole's face was flush with exhaustion and relief, much more than Amber would have expected. "Thank goodness," she exhaled, slumping against the table. "He was really worried. I mean, they're cheerleaders..."

"Yeah, you can tell him he doesn't need to worry," the feline nodded, pleased that the issue seemed to be defused, at least for now. "Oi. This year has been crazy. I went from just hanging out in the back of the class and being a dorky nobody to this... weird reality-show fame-whore freak. In a good way," she added with a wry chuckle. "Sort of. Mostly. Eh, it's probably best if he just avoids me. I think I blew it. Just tell him I'm sorry, and I won't bother him again. 'Kay?"

Amber straightened, downed the cake pop and washed it down with the last of her punch. The vibrant energy of the year's final dance had left her; all she wanted to do now was curl up in bed with Corporal Fluffybuns, the leader of her teddy bear collection, and gorge herself on her nightstand's collection of trans-fatty snacks. "Have a good night," she said softly, apologetically, patting Nicole's elbow as she passed.

"Wait!"

She froze, turning slightly on the fringes of the dancing throngs. She'd expected Nicole to say many things, most of them justifiably hostile or threatening, but there was a note of expectancy, of urgency, in that call. Gosh, they really do look similar!

_ _

"Do you want his e-mail address anyways?" Nicole asked, once again the very picture of shyness. "I... actually, I suppose he could just e-mail your show address. That's pretty easy to find."

Amber couldn't keep the tiniest smirk off of her muzzle. "He watches my show? Wait, you watch my show? Wait... you both watch my show?"

"We've... heard of it."

Amber giggled softly, her floppy ear perking up slightly. "Sorry, probably an awkward question to ask. Yeah, he can e-mail me anytime. Maybe we can start from scratch."

"Maybe we can," Nicole agreed with a faint, amused expression.

Waving once more, Amber turned and started the long, arduous trek to the gymnasium's doors. She knew she'd promised Heather a dance, but her heart really wasn't in to trying to put up with crowds anymore. Her extroversion was exhausted. Nachos... want nachos...

_ _

Wait a minute. 'We'?

_ _

Sandwiched between the changeroom doors and a throng of letter-jacketed bucks, she spun around and nearly swept their legs out from beneath them. The refreshments table was deserted, and seemed unbearably distant, but she could just make out the long, delicately-furred ears bobbing through the crowd and heading for the opposite exits.

"Wait!" Amber called, moving as swiftly as she dared and throwing half-heard apologies over her shoulder for the bucks she'd bowled over. "Nicole, hold on!"

The ears stopped, trembled, and then moved with vigorous intent away from the struggling kitteh.

"Ack! Hold on! Sorry," she gabbled, apologizing for the paws that somehow found their way beneath her feet and the hips she unceremoniously thumped with her heavily- restrained loins. "Sorry! Nicole! I just want to ask something! Sorry!"

It became obvious that the delicate bunny was making much better headway through the dancers than Amber wa, so she changed tactics. Crabbing sideways, she made it to the refreshments table for the twentieth time, darting behind it and awkwardly scaling the bleachers. There were singles and couples scattered amongst the benches, but more than enough room for her to navigate.

The wooden bleachers rattled as she thumped her way up them, angling away from Nicole but giving her a better view. She'd never catch her, but she could at least try one last time to get her attention.

The far doors opened, briefly highlighting the svelte lapine in the lights from the parking lot. Long legs, slender hips, arms held closely and shyly; Amber remembered that pose all too well. It was so easy to imagine the wire-rimmed glasses, the sensible slacks, the ears tucked against eachother as though themselves trying to hide from sight.

"Nico?" Amber whuffed, wheezing softly for breath at the top of the bleachers.

The rabbit stared back at her for a long moment, one quivering paw holding the door open, one foot inside and one foot outside...

... and was gone.

---

Saturday morning found Amber thoroughly ensconced within her mountain of blankets, comforters and assorted quilts. The house's linen closets had all been raided as winter temperatures plummeted, and were now as bare as the pantry (despite Sierra's best efforts at shopping in bulk for the ravenous hyper).

Amber was warm. Amber was comfortable. Amber felt safe and secure.

But she was also exhausted, frustrated and famished. She'd slept poorly, waking every few hours to stare at her ceiling, mumbling half-formed comments to herself. She'd watched the sun rise through her hanging blinds, managing one more brief cat nap before deciding that it was just going to be one of 'those days'.

"Nico is Nicole?" she slurred through sleep-deprived lips for the hundredth time, extending a paw to grope blindly, and fruitlessly, in her dresser for a treat. Every time it seemed like it was about to make sense, that the epiphany was just around the next corner of her mind, she tripped and stumbled backwards into crazy town.

There was a gentle knock at the door. "Amber, sweetie?"

Awwww, come on! It's a Saturday! "Yeah, mom," the kitteh called back half-heartedly.

"You ok?"

"'m fine, Mom," she grumbled, burrowing deeper.

"You sure?"

"Yeah!"

There was shuffling beyond the door, someone clearly not wanting to leave just yet. "I only ask because it's almost ten, and you... haven't had breakfast yet."

Amber's stomach growled so hard the vibrations were almost pleasant to some adjacent parts of her body. "Yeah, I know, just... lazy morning. I'll be down in a bit."

"There's pancakes keeping warm in the oven," Sierra continued, concern dripping from every word. "Your father made extra."

Extra pancakes. They must suspect something... "Thanks," Amber sighed, shifting her weight slightly, bed groaning in protest. "I'll be down in a little bit."

"Good," her mother replied with relief. "Hope you had fun at the dance!"

Killjoy. Amber gave up trying to find anything in her nightstand; the empty wrappers formed a moat around her super-king-sized bed. Stress-eating had reduced her emergency supplies to crumbs, the lure of pancakes eventually overpowering her desire to hide under her blankets until the eventual heat death of the universe.

The tossed back the twisted, knotted mounds of fabric and sighed once more, realizing just how large she'd grown during the night. "Brilliant," she groaned, dropping a pillow onto her face in consternation. "Just brilliant. Get used to sleeping without your restraints, you said. You need to learn how to control yourself, you said. Splendid."

She wore a baggy pink t-shirt festooned with huge-eyed kittens, and that was all; there was really no point in wearing anything else these days. Sprawled out on her back, she was unable to see her closet over the twin fuzzy excesses of her sac, stretching a few inches beyond the reach of her toes. Her sheath slumped to the right, the snug and twitching cuff just hanging off the edge of the mattress. She rubbed it fondly and shifted her legs, wondering how long she had before they both went numb.

"Oh-kay," she grunted, squaring her shoulders and slowly sitting up. "Let's get you girls to the shower..."

"Do you need any help, dear?"

Amber's floppy ear shot straight up. "DAMMIT, MOM, GET AWAY FROM MY DOOR!"

The house still smelled of pancakes when Amber finally emerged from the recently re-renovated bathroom, steam swirling around her towel-clad figure. It wasn't often that a single towel could go all the way around her hips and keep her decently covered, and she knew it wouldn't last long, so she simply left it on as she flounced down to the kitchen. A deep purple jogging bra kept her within the bounds of decency, even though her parents had informed her with upsetting regularity that she was free to go naked about the house if it was more comfortable.

It will never be comfortable if you two are home, she thought wryly, pulling the pancake-laden cookie sheet out of the oven and bringing the entire collection to the table. The twin stacks could probably have fed every student in her class, but her teenaged hyper metabolism had very pressing, and expensive, demands. Half a bottle of syrup later, she was digging into breakfast with gusto, cramming forkful after forkful into her grinning mouth.

"Feeling better?"

"'mmm f'mm, m'm," Amber nodded, hardly pausing for breath between stacks.

Sierra wandered in from the living room, heading for the coffee machine with laser-guided focus. Despite being Amber's mother, they were often mistaken for sisters, much to the elder's joy and the younger's annoyance. Sierra was a little more modest in the bust and a little heavier in the hips, and of course lacked Amber's more noticeable herm attributes, but beyond that they were difficult to tell apart. "You don't usually sleep in through pancakes, so I was-"

"'mmm ch'mmff... sorry," Amber chuckled, swallowing and clearing her throat. "As I was saying, I KNOW what you're going to say, and I KNOW you're concerned, and I KNOW you know something happened last night, and you know what? Something did, and it was pretty much my fault and shit's fucked, but it's my responsibility and I'm going to deal with it, and I'm fine. Really."

Her mother blinked, sipped her coffee thoughtfully and nodded. "Yeah, that covers everything, I guess," she agreed, suppressing a hint of pique at no longer being allowed to play the overbearing mother card. "Can I-"

"No, you can't do anything," Amber continued smoothly, slowly reducing her breakfast to a pile of damp crumbs. "Yes, you raised me to handle my own problems. No, it wasn't about sex. Yes, it will be all right."

"You're taking all the fun out of being your mom," Sierra pouted, slurping her coffee angrily. "Your father said this day would come."

The hyper-kitteh's tongue was making short work of the damp crumbs left on the cookie sheet. "What, me growing up?"

"Pretty much. You'll always be my floofy little kitten-"

"MOM!"

"-but I suppose I have to let go sometime," she finished with a little grin. "But I don't have to do it easily. What do you say to us getting a pedicure today?"

"MOM!"

"Oh, come on! You'll love it! You know how Enrique at the salon loves to do your feet... he looks so natural on his knees..."

"AUGH!"

---

Saturday was even warmer than Friday had been, the sun's rays aggressively pouring themselves across the final patches of snow and frost. In the end, Amber elected to leave her coat at home, simply grabbing a fetching burgundy sweater on her way out the door. The pancakes formed a comforting ball of warmth in her belly, helping to keep down the butterflies that swarmed there.

She knew where she had to go, but anyone watching her walk would never have been able to guess. Her route took her past Cindy's house, past the Hub, past Circe High, past Cindy's again, and took a long squiggly detour at the Book Barn. She had convinced herself that she wasn't STALLING, exactly; she was simply waiting until she was 'ready'.

Ready, it turned out, took several hours of preparation.

The pancakes were long gone by the time Amber eventually turned onto Klempton Court, and the butterflies were most definitely in charge. She'd passed by that corner twice already, each time hesitating for a long moment, toes wiggling with intent. On the third pass, she could no longer tell herself honestly that she still needed time to prepare.

"Urg," she winced softly, pressing her palms to her tummy. "I should have gotten some inspiration-nachos, or something."

She was as dressed-down, size-wise, as she could easily manage. She'd found an old skirt in the back of her closet, and with her restraints cinched up with every ounce of her hyper-strength she managed to fit everything nicely beneath it. Looking in the mirror, it seemed like she was back at the start of the school year, knees held nervously together. Really, even seeing her own knees in the mirror was a bit of a shock.

"You can do this," she chanted under her breath, slowly climbing the steps to the Kasse's front door. There were only five steps, but each seemed to add a thousand pounds to the burden of her conscience. "Come on. How bad could it be? I mean, seriously."

Her imagination proved that television and the Internet had not managed to suppress it by immediately presenting her with dozens of different interpretations of just how bad it could be, causing her to nearly bite through her lower lip. Shut up, brain! You're not helping!

_ _

Her paw lapsed twice on the journey to the door; when it eventually rapped knuckles against wood, it seemed to do so almost by accident.

If I start running now, I might be able to make it to the corner before the door op-

_ _

The door opened, revealing the smiling visage of Nico's father. "Hello?" he asked pleasantly, whiskers twitching. "Oh, wait, I remember you. We met at Addition'Elle. One of Nico's friends? Amy?"

"Amber," the kitteh squeaked, suddenly feeling very small, despite being the same height as the rabbit, and probably twenty pounds heavier. "I... yeah, that's me."

"Pleased to meet you, again," he chuckled softly, stepping back. "Please, come in. I can go get him, if you like."

"I... uhm... ok." She stepped hesitantly into the house, more than a little intimidated by the spacious, fancy interior. Her home wasn't small by any stretch, and Cindy's was designed to comfortably house about twenty foxes, but Nico's seemed to exude expensive taste. She felt a little frumpy just standing there.

Mr. Kasse trotted off through the adjoining living room, and Amber watched him climb an impressively showy staircase. "Yeeesh, this place is money," she mumbled to herself, smoothing out her skirts nervously. That simple motion had become a bit of a habit for her, and she had to occasionally remind herself that it was considered at the very least slightly impolite to grope one's nethers in public. "Wish I had this much room growing up... might have cut down on Dad's renovations."

"He says just go on up," the rabbit called out, trotting back downstairs and returning to wherever it was Amber had roused him from. "Do you know where his room is?"

"Uh... no..."

"Up, left, straight, and the last door on the right."

That's a lot of directions just to get to a bedroom, Amber mused with a faint smile. "Thanks, I'm sure I'll be able to find it."

Feeling as though she were in an expensive hotel lobby rather than a house no more than a dozen blocks from her own, she headed upstairs to meet her fate. The house seemed solidly built, eerily silent; hopefully Mr. Kasse wouldn't be able to hear Nico's yelling, which she was certain was waiting for her. "Left," she murmured, heading down a long, dark corridor. "Straight, and... last one on the right."

The air pressed in on her as she approached the solitary rectangle of light, door half-open but still obscuring whatever lay beyond. Her pawsteps faltered, and she wondered if she could sneak back out the front door without anyone noticing...

"We're rabbits," came the rich, throaty voice from the open door. "Our ears are very good."

"I gotta remember that," Amber grumbled, whiskers twitching. "Sorry."

Nico's room was, on first glance, surprisingly normal. It was like Amber's in many ways: large bed, large desk, new-ish computer, couple book shelves, the usual. The scale of it took a moment to sink in, however.

"Holy crap, this is like twice the size of my room!" she gasped, a little jealously. Even the ceilings were higher, two huge skylights letting in a tremendous amount of pleasantly natural light. "Can we trade houses?"

When her train of thought finally pulled all the way into the station, she blinked and shrugged sheepishly. "Sorry. My mouth is only connected to my brain on odd-numbered days."

"No worries," Nico chuckled. He was sprawled out on his bed, a book propped open on his lap and a small mountain of pillows piled behind him. It wasn't quite as big as Amber's bed, but that would have been very difficult to achieve, as hers was two mattresses stitched together. Still, compared to the slender bunny, it was enormous. "I have to say, I didn't expect to see you today."

"I... wasn't sure if I should come over or not," Amber mused carefully. "Part of me just wanted to wait until you e-mailed me, and then maybe we could sort all this out without having to, you know, be within smacking distance. You smacking me," she added hastily. "Not the other way around. I... I wouldn't... uhm..."

Nico's gaze never faltered, but Amber's eyes narrowed. "You're enjoying this, aren't you?" she asked, that tiny flicker of defiance springing back to life.

"Maybe a little," he snickered, sitting up. "We kinda got off to a bad start this week, didn't we?"

"It all worked SO MUCH BETTER in my head!" Amber wailed, catching herself and lowering her voice. "It was going to be all stupidly romantic and possibly even adorable. Teen movies have lied to me."

"I know your heart was in the right place," the bunny said slowly. "Not much else was, but your heart at the very least."

"Thanks," Amber snorted, sticking out her tongue. "You sound like Cindy."

"Hey, hey, hey, there's no need to get insulting," Nico huffed, eyes sparkling. "And... not to sound selfish, but she doesn't actually know anything?"

"Nope," Amber said quickly. She tilted her head and allowed herself a tiny smile. "Oh, you mean about you? No, she doesn't know anything about you, either."

"So it's just us."

"Ayup."

"So I can kill you, and still be safe."

"Yeah, you... what?"

It was a testament to Amber's overarching habit of always screwing something up that Nico was already taking his second breath in between laughs before she figured out that he was joking. "That's not very nice," she pouted. "I've been agonizing over this all night!"

When the bunny finally giggled himself out, he carefully folded his book onto his nightstand and slid off of the bed. "I know, I know, and I feel bad about that. I'm just so used to... to hiding, that I probably didn't handle myself very well, either."

"Then why were you in Addition'Elle?" Amber almost exploded, having wanted to ask that question for the better part of a week. It took all of her strength not to point accusingly at his pants, which were conspicuously not hyper-filled.

Nico moved past Amber, carefully shutting the door. "That was one of the first times I was clothes-shopping in person in... a long time. I usually just buy stuff off their website, and have it delivered."

"But... I mean..." Ahh, fuck it, she thought. I've made a big enough dork of myself so far! "Why... were YOU... in Addition'Elle?"

He followed her jabbed finger down to his trousers, and blushed, but much to Amber's relief he also giggled under his breath. "Subtle," he murmured. "I guess you really don't know."

"I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING!"

"I really wish I had my recording software on for that."

"I can kill you right back."

"Oooo, now someone's getting frisky." Nico was taking small steps over to the closet. "I think we've covered this so far, in a rooundabout way, but... can you keep a secret? Like, really keep it? For me?"

"Of course," she breathed. "I know I kind of fucked up this week, but I know what it's like to be... different."

"True, but you don't hide it. You flaunt it. You draw attention to every way you're not... like everyone else. You've made it the cornerstone of your identity."

"I..." Amber's jaw worked a few times while her thoughts piled up behind her tongue. "It's not the cornerstone of my identity, I just chose to embrace what made me different. What made me unique. I'm enjoying it as much as I can, WHILE I can."

"And you don't regret anything?" Nico asked pointedly, one paw on his closet door.

She wrung her hands. "Well... kind of. A few things. But they were still my decisions to make, and I'd probably make them the exact same way again. I'm never going to regret being who I am. Otherwise, why even be alive?"

The bunny seemed to consider this. "If anyone else had told me that, I'd probably have laughed at them," he said softly. "I kinda wish we'd been friends before this, but, to be honest... you kind of scared me."

"Perfectly normal, sane reaction," Amber nodded.

Nico laughed. "OK. Then I guess it's a deal. But if I find out that I get mentioned on your show, I should tell you that my dad is a lawyer, and you can probably tell by the house that he's a pretty good one."

Amber mimed zipping her muzzle shut. "Mmmmff, mmph mmrr mllff."

"I'll remember you said that."

With that, Nico parted the twin bifold doors, revealing the interior of a walk-in closet that made Amber immensely jealous. Ye gods, it's bigger than my bathroom! It took her a moment to realize that the clothing along the left side was of a distinctly different style than the clothing along the right.

She moved slowly, dreamily past Nico, fingering the sensible shirts and trousers on one side, and the sensible dresses and skirts on the other. "This... explains a little bit," she said at length, before reaching some items that were cut for a much more endowed figure. "And just raises other questions."

She heard hinges rattle and squeak, and turned around to see Nico closing the closet doors behind them. Light streamed in through a skylight at the centre of the walk-in space, giving the svelte bunny a subdued, ethereal quality. "I just want you to know, I like you as a friend."

"And you're saying this because... oh. Oh."

_ _

A flip and rustle of fabric, and the bunny had shucked the shirt and the pants with practiced, professional ease. Below, he wore a modest pink brassiere and a pair of adorable white cotton panties, both snug enough to indicate they each contained a noticeable amount of flesh.

"You're..." Amber breathed, comprehension dawning.

"A herm," the bunny nodded, chin held high, almost defiant.

"But you... wait... Nico, and Nicole?"

"Depends how I feel when I wake up. Or it used to. To make it through school, I had to schedule my courses accordingly. The principal knows, and a few teachers, but the students don't really notice. I guess I should take it as a compliment, that I can blend in so well."

"I never... I mean, when I was growing up, I always felt..." Amber chewed over her thoughts, trying to find some way to arrange them that wouldn't be horribly offensive. "I never felt like a... boy."

"Even with all that?"

"Even with. I looked in the mirror, and... well, I felt girly. Just girly with some bonus prizes," she snickered. "But you...?"

"Yeah."

Nico was taken aback when Amber gushed, "That's so AWESOME! That would have been pretty neat for me, but I guess I leaned too far to one side, inside. But you're both, you're REALLY both! That's sweet!"

"Are you making fun of me?" shi asked in a low voice.

"No! That's... gosh, you're really good looking, too," Amber continued, once again proving that her mouth could run itself without any brain involvement. "I mean, you work great as a boy, you're all little and cute, and you work great as a girl because you're thin but you've still got some curves! Jeez, so many days when I wish I could just pick one..."

Nico, or Nicole, looked as though shi were trying to glower, but the twitching smirk at the corners of hir muzzle was making it difficult to maintain. "You make it difficult to be angry at you," shi said with a hint of resentment, snagging a yellow dress from a hanger and pulling it over hir head. Just like that, with just the simple change in exterior fabric, Nico became Nicole: the dress was a little tighter across the bust, highlighting what modest mounds were present, and fully obscuring what lay between hir thighs while amplifying hir rump.

"That's AWESOME!" Amber said again. "So now you're Nicole! That's great! Does your dad know?" Nicole gazed levelly at the kitteh, who shrugged sheepishly. "OK, stupid question. Uhm... I have a billion more questions, but it's probably none of my business and you probably just want me to get out of your fur."

"Quite the contrary," Nicole replied airily, stepping back out of the closet, her every motion undoubtedly feminine, far from the grumpy boyish movements of just a few minutes prior. "I won the Spring Fling's grand prize. The crazy part is, I didn't even buy a ticket!"

"You don't need to go through with that," Amber waved her paws quickly. "Never happened. Totally my fault."

"I intend to accept. According to the entire school, I'd be a fool not to."

"You can bequeath it to a friend, or something, and... what?"

---

"He said yes?!"

_ _

Amber had barely gone three blocks before Cindy had phoned. The late afternoon sun was syrupy and golden, and the entire world seemed warm and inviting. "He did," she murmured, her tail maneuvering to absorb more rays. "We talked it over, and I apologized, and he accepted, and... yeah. We're going out tonight."

"THAT'S AWESOME! You have to tell me what it's like! I mean, I'll probably see the aftermath on the news tomorrow-"

_ _

"No, no no no, no. No. It's not going to be THAT sort of date." This, at least, was true. Although Amber's baseline sexual attraction for all living beings was most certainly triggered, she was far more interested in Nico/le as a person, and a friend. "It's probably just going to be chili nachos and a movie, or something. Maybe hit the mall."

"Ohhh, the mall! Lingerie shopping time? Maybe ask him to help you buy condoms-"

_ _

"Can you get your mind out of the gutter for ten fucking seconds?!"

"Ten seconds of fucking? Damn, grrl, that's some hare trigger! GET IT?!"

_ _

Amber rolled her eyes. "You're depraved."

"Thank you! So you'll tell me his secret tomorrow?"

_ _

"What? No! Of course not!"

"You promised!"

_ _

"I actually did the OPPOSITE of promise you."

"Close enough! Come one! Tellmetellmetellmetellmetellme-"

_ _

"I'm hanging up now."

"TELLMETELLMETELLMETELLME-"

_ _

The call-ending beep was one of the most satisfying sounds in Amber's life, particularly when it cut off the overly-excitable fox. She tucked the phone away, glanced left and right, and then allowed herself a girlish twirl in the sun, skirt flaring out like a blossoming flower.

I can't believe that went all right, she sighed to herself, a week's worth of tension and paranoia flowing out through her dancing toes. I can't believe that he's a she, or that they're both a hir... gah, pronouns! I can't believe hir dad said it was nice for Nic to have a friend over, for once! I can't believe... I can't believe...

_ _

She blinked. I can't believe I forgot to ask why they were at Addition'Elle!

She remembered a few items from Nico's closet (aaargh, I don't even know what to call him in my own mind! Her? Shi? Dammit!) There were trousers that would have been roomy for someone like Amber, at least at her current state. There were dresses that would have almost allowed Cindy to squeeze her breasts into them. She was even almost positive there was a dress cut for both male and female endowments of a fairly impressive scale.

"So... they're a grower?" she mused, tingling spreading through her insides. It was certainly plausible, even probable: herms were far more likely to be hypers than either stock gender. Another twinge of jealousy passed through Amber's body, remembering just how dainty the bunny's proportions were. Amber herself had been unable to pass as just a female since she was nine.

She patted her bulging skirts affectionately, though, and giggled. "Don't worry, girls, I wouldn't trade you for the world," she cooed, already wondering if she should add a couple inches before her date. Just to keep up appearances...

---

Amber spent the rest of the afternoon performing an impromptu live show on her webcam. As that Saturday's show had already been scheduled 'on hiatus', most of her usual fans weren't online, but there was still a couple dozen to help critique her wardrobe selections and bounce relationship advice off of.

"So, that's nine votes for the blue dress, ten votes for the pink dress, twelve votes for the blouse and the black skirt, and seventeen votes for 'naked', which, as I've already said, I'm not counting."

The chat screen filled with depressed exclamations of unfairness, which Amber politely ignored. She did wink at the camera, however, and continued with, "So that brings us to the next important question: what undies should I wear?"

Walking in and out of the camera frame with a new bra and panties set each time, she knew that she was being purely selfish and feeding her own ego but also had to admit that, every now and then, her ego needed it. She didn't have that many pairs of panties that were cut to fit ALL of her, generally resorting to her restraints to keep her sizes manageable, and she didn't need anyone's help in selecting just the right ones, but it felt good to be desirable.

At least, it felt good until she sashayed into view once more and posed, cream-and-gold fur contrasting mightily against the purple-and-black floral patterns of her favorite pair. She then leaned in close to check on the responses, giving an impressive view of her cleavage, and observed that there was a chatter with the bold font of a Premium Member commenting that it probably didn't matter what color her undies were in this particular date.

"And why not?" she asked, eyebrow arching. She read the username again, and felt her stomach pull an impressive three-sixty. "NicoLeBun...?"

"Just a hunch."

_ _

"I, uh... I didn't exactly plan on picking the underwear for THAT reason..."

"I told you I watched your show."

_ _

"You just said you'd heard of it!"

"Still technically true."

_ _

"Cheater!"

"If you want to bring up who was breaking more rules, be my guest."

_ _

"How fast can you type?!" Amber snarked in exasperation. "I mean... ahh, never mind. Because a few people might have been too focused on the video feed to notice, I suppose I should just say that NicoLeBun is the person I'm going on a date with tonight. Say hi, everyone."

The resulting flood of greetings and questions temporarily stalled out her computer. She quickly scrolled up through them, but gave up trying to keep up with the sheer ridiculous volume, as well as the sillier queries. "You're in for it now, Bun," the kitteh grinned. "My fans are very possessive. You'll have to fight them for my honor. Or something. I don't know how chivalry is supposed to work in relation to partially-naked webcam grrls."

"Poorly."

_ _

"Oh, ha ha, very funny."

"I trust you'll keep your mouth shut about me here, too?"

_ _

"Of course!" Amber proclaimed, pressing a paw to her bust in mock offense. "I'm a gentlewoman!"

Dozens of chatters were frantically typing personal, probing questions now, and bemoaning the lack of personal information on NicoLeBun's profile. "Relax, everyone. It's a date, but it's not a DATE date, if you know what I mean. We're probably just going to go to church and enjoy a nice spot of tea."

"While playing chess."

_ _

"With our parents."

"It will be wild."

_ _

"Hedonistic, even." Amber giggled, quickly dropping a sizeable purse of webcam tokens into NicoLeBun's account. "OK, everyone, time to cut this short! I need to go put on my mumu! Take care, and I'll see you all next Saturday!"

"I'll wear my best frock."

_ _

"Oooooo, be still my quivering lady parts! BYE!"

She clicked the Stop Show icon and sagged against the edge of her desk, almost gasping for breath. Her shows always took a lot out of her, bringing forth a gregarious, energetic side that she scarcely knew existed but always leaving her feeling drained afterwards. To top it off, it was one thing to know that people she went to school with watched her show, but it was very much another experience entirely to talk to someone she would shortly be meeting for coffee.

Amber glanced down at herself, heavily-underwired bra giving her impressive lift and immensely-stretchy undies straining around male swells like a pair of volleyballs supporting a two-liter bottle of cola. "Well, shi's already seen the good stuff," she snickered, wandering off to track down the blouse and skirt. "How bad could it be?"

---

Two hours later, after a swift and evasive family dinner with her parents, Amber was sitting at a tiny table in the Mean Bean and sipping a salted caramel mocha latte. Somewhere in the mug's creamy depths there were traces of actual coffee, but she was more concerned with the raw sugar content (and after her first experience with fancy coffees, with the fact that there was no alcohol this time).

At least two other tables in the spacious and tastefully-darkened coffee shop held patrons around her own age, and she was positive they were paying an undue amount of attention to her. She cursed her terrible memory, wondering if they were students at Circe; if so, they almost certainly knew that she'd won a date with someone, and it was plainly obvious that the hyper kitteh was waiting for someone. She shifted her legs, feeling her skirt tugging softly, and was glad once again she'd chosen to limit her size. Any bigger, and she'd probably not be able to fit beneath the table.

Just ignore them, she thought, sipping her drink and licking the errant foam flecks from her whiskers. You're the Happy Hyper Herm. People are going to be staring at you for the rest of your life. See it as a plus! Oh, gods, one of them is taking a selfie with me in the background...

_ _

A knuckle rapped sharply against the glass next to her and she squeaked in alarm. Looking up, eyes wide, ears both straight up, she saw the grinning face of Nico beaming down at her from the sidewalk just outside the coffee shop. The Mean Bean was one of many little commercial outlets in a strip mall, easily reached by foot from both Amber's and Nico's houses.

"Hey!" Amber waved nervously, left ear drooping once more. Nico, very much dressed boyishly, jerked his thumbs towards the main entrance and trotted off. "Boy-Nico," she breathed, trying to change mental gears so she didn't embarrass him, or out him, or worse. "Check."

She had several minutes to do so as Nico entered, got in line, ordered and waited to receive his drink. This gave her quite a bit of time to openly examine him, the first time she'd really been able to do so. Knowing now what she did, she was also picturing him wearing a bra beneath his sensible striped sweater, if he was wearing panties underneath his slightly loose black slacks. It was weird, switching his gender around so often, but apparently even his parents did that; when he was around the house as Nico, he was a he, but when she was Nicole, she was a she. Apparently the young bunny still preferred to identify or at least present as one of the extremes, rather than as the herm shi was.

And cute buns, she grinned to herself, sipping again. She could now see the ever so faint traces of femininity in his face, in the way he held his ears, in the way he shuffled his slender legs while he waited. Likewise, she could understand how she'd first seen the masculine traits in Nicole the night before. He blends so well into either one... and he's beautiful as either one, she added jealously. Some people get all the luck.

_ _

"So you showed," he smiled, sitting down opposite her, holding a tiny cup of steaming inky blackness.

"You didn't think I would?"

"I wasn't 100% certain."

"If there's caffeine involved, you can be certain," she grinned, jiggling her quart-sized mug. "Caffeine, or sugar."

"So it really didn't have anything to do with me, then..."

Amber gently smacked his free paw. "Oh, you stop. I'd never deny someone the grand prize honor of winning an evening with ME," she snarked. "I'm more amazed you showed."

Nico shrugged. "I don't get out that much. Being invited somewhere never happens. This is an honor."

"Careful, a grrl might think you were flirting with her."

"I'm pretty sure you think the furniture is flirting with you."

"Did you see that couch? It was totally giving me 'the look'."

The young herms smiled at eachother, leaning a fraction closer together over their drinks. "For someone who doesn't get out much," Amber murmured, "you seem to get along pretty well. Most people I go out with are so... nervous and awkward around me, they can barely speak. And that's not bragging, I swear! It's kind of annoying."

"Well, you can't ignore the fact you've got a... reputation."

"This was before I had a reputation! Mostly, at least. But, I mean, reputation or not, I'm still just a regular person. Everywhere that matters. I can still be talked to."

Nico arched an eyebrow. "Really."

Amber's whiskers fell and she gripped her mug a little bit tighter. "You don't sound like you believe me."

"You can't really blame me," the bunny shrugged. "All I've had to go on is graffiti and a very popular webshow. And, perhaps, the occasional poorly-shot candid video."

"There's NO proof that's me in that hotel room!" Amber's tail twitched violently now, thumping rhythmically against the plate glass window. "So that's it, then? You've formed all of your opinions of me from what other people say?"

"And from what you say on _your_show," he replied pointedly.

She opened her mouth to retort again, but caught herself before she could end the date with record-breaking prematurity. "That's... not always an accurate representation of me," she grumbled, taking a vicious sip. "That's me... exploring my more gregarious side. On my own terms. When I turn the camera off, I'm just..."

I'm just a lonely grrl snuggling a pillow and eating chocolate in the dark, she finished in her head.

Nico nodded, but said nothing. They finished their drinks in silence after that, Amber occasionally glancing up at his eyes and trying to find the words to fix whatever she'd somehow done wrong.Just one conversation without cramming a Roofie-sized paw in my mouth, she wailed privately. Is that too much to ask?

_ _

"I guess neither one of us is really honest with the world," the bunny said at last, licking the last drops of his tiny beverage from the cup. "There's a little bit more to me than I let on, and... there's maybe a little bit less to you."

Amber mulled that over. "I can't tell if you just stealth insulted me or not."

"It was certainly not meant to be an insult," he said smoothly. "If anything, I'm impressed. Maybe a little jealous. You've given the world a larger than life Amber, which is no easy feat considering... well, just considering."

"I could almost take that as a compliment, if I were so inclined."

"It's neither an insult nor a compliment, it's just an observation."

Amber's lips twitched, smiling half-heartedly. "You don't suppose there's maybe a little bit of a compliment in there? Because I could really go for one of those right about now..."

Nico's paw slid across the table and gently squeezed hers. "You don't need any compliments from me." Her floppy ear drooped a tiny bit lower, almost obscuring one eye completely, but before she could protest, he continued. "You're already smart, witty, confident, driven and gorgeous. What could I possibly say to make you feel any better about yourself?"

The kitteh's jaw was still hanging slack when Nico withdrew his paw and stood up, shifting and stretching his back. "So, if I haven't offended you too much, are you still willing to show me around the mall? I've only been there twice, and I never really got much of a chance to look around."

"Wha...?"

"The mall," Nico repeated, winking down at the stunned feline. "Feel up to it?"

"Oh. Right. Uhm... yeah, sure." She shook herself and eased out of her seat, her skirts hiding a tremendous mental battle to keep her unrestrained size under control. She smoothed them out, only catching herself mid-grope when it was too late to stop, and blushed.

Outside, walking shoulder to shoulder and feeling the brisk evening air on her fur, she leaned in closely and whispered, "You think I'm witty? Really?"

"OK, that might have been pushing it too far..." Nico demurred.

"HEY!"

---

Circe Centre Mall on a Saturday night was quite a different sight from the previous Monday. Nico had nearly given up at the edge of the parking lot, nose twitching in terror.

"There's too many people!"

Amber scoffed. "What do you mean, 'too many'? There's more than a thousand of us at Circe High, and you blend in there well enough."

"Yeah, but I'm not hanging off of YOUR arm in school!"

"So you're just embarrassed to be seen in public with me?"

"Ye-... ok, that's not fair..."

Nico was unable to fight against the fact that, ultimately, this date really WAS his idea, and reluctantly joined elbows with Amber once again to march resolutely through the neatly parked rows of cars. Every time his steps faltered and his stride faded, the kitteh was right there to drag him forwards, ever forwards. "You really need to get out more."

"You keep saying that. I do not think it means what you think it means."

She stuck out her tongue at him. "You spend too much time alone! You and your... and Nicole," she chuckled, "have friends, but even they don't know much about you, and none have been over to your place. That's not friends, that's acquaintances. That's no way to live."

"Speaking as an expert in the fields of online pornography and sexually explicit property damage?" Nico asked archly.

"Hey, at least I lived," she grinned, surprised as all get out that she wasn't hurt by his words. She knew she should have been, but that was the old Amber. "I'll look back on my youth and see all the mistakes I've made... and I'll laugh, and maybe wish I'd done a few things differently, but there won't be any regrets."

"That's one way to look at it."

"What's yours?"

The bunny was silent the rest of the way to the great neon-framed mall entrance, brightly-lit outlines of tropic plants and animals seeming to dance and spin to jangling and slightly off-key elevator music. Amber bounced with every step, and a great deal of tightly-packed flesh bounced along with her, drawing many appreciative glances their way. A few of the locals from school called out greetings, and she waved back gaily, tugging Nico closer. There were many curious glances at her reluctant date, as well.

He squeaked, just once, as they pushed through from the brisk air outside and into the chaotic, pounding, feverish world within. On Monday, the mall had been dry, dull, sparse. On a Saturday, it was a party.

He backpedalled once, but Amber was ready for him, tightening her grip. He was strong, though, much stronger than he looked, and they were locked in a brief tug of war until the kitteh won out through sheer stubbornness. "Hey! You promised!"

"I'm firing my lawyer," Nico snerked, but Amber thought she detected the tiniest little ripple of a smile on his lips. "Sorry. Reflex."

"Your reflexes suck."

"No, YOU are."

"Nuh uh!"

"Real mature."

"You started it."

"Did not!"

Amber smiled reassuringly, slowly easing her grip off of Nico's arm, until they were walking side by side but he no longer seemed to be a flight risk. "See? Look at you, out and about like a real live genuine person. Soon you'll be hitting on girls and trying on dresses like the rest of us."

"Not all of 'us' are like you," Nico murred carefully.

"I suppose if everyone was, I wouldn't feel special. Some of us need to be the crazy ones, I guess." She elbowed him gently in the ribs and grinned. "And the perks are pretty awesome."

"There's some advantages to being... anonymous."

"You can jog," Amber agreed.

Nico glanced down at the kitteh's overloaded skirts and blushed. "That's not quite what I meant." He looked around, suddenly seeming to realize that they had been walking the entire time. "Where are we going?"

"Right now? Nowhere in particular. How often have you been to the mall?"

"Uhm... three times, I think. Just to get some measuring done properly and make a customer profile at-"

"Nothing fun. Got it. Well, little bunny-buns, this is what's known as a 'food court'," Amber explained patiently. "It's where young, hip folk like ourselves go to debase ourselves and thoroughly disprove any theories that we might be evolved or civilized, but most people just refer to them as 'chili cheese fries'."

Nico walked just a half-step behind Amber, still trying to burrow into his sensible outfit and away from the sights, sounds and piercing eyes of the thronged shopping centre. The food court was a bold, brash assault on the senses, in particular his sinuses, though the clash of odors seemed to be giving the hyper-kitteh extra energy, as though she needed more. She waved at people she knew, shook a few more paws, and somehow navigated her skirts through the packed plastic tables with a minimum of impacts.

"So? What do you want inside you?"

"What?!" he barked, startled.

Amber gestured up to the panoply of neon-limned menus. "Nachos? Whistle dogs? Poutine? Bacon cupcakes? Are you a vegetarian? I know bunnies usually are, but I've met some pretty non-standard furs this year. Everything Burrito makes a Vegan Supreme that I can barely finish, and I've been known to put buffets out of business..."

"Er... I'm not really hungry..."

Amber's brow lowered. "If you're even a little bit of what I think you are, then you're never not really hungry, as much as you may try to hide it. I tell people all the time that I'm not really hungry, but I don't mean it."

Nico glanced up at the menus again, spinning slowly to take them all in before bashfully managing, "Poutine Salsa Grande sounds pretty good..."

"YES! That's what I'm talking about! With extra jalapenos! Come on, I'm buying."

Little by little, Amber could see the tension slowly working out of the tightly-wound bunny's shoulders. He twitched and seemed to shield himself from unexpected loud noises, and he was checking his outfit with a nervous regularity that the hyper-kitteh recognized all too well Faint taps at the front of his pants, as well as a very innocent-looking brush of the back of his thumb across his chest. Checking to make sure you're not showing, hrrmmm?

They ordered and sat, with Amber picking up most of the conversational slack. Nico slid almost gratefully into the little moulded plastic swivel-seat, happy to be out of sight, and poked at the small mountain of refried starches and cheeses he'd somehow ended up with. "Gosh," he murmured, sniffing hesitantly.

"You've got three of the major food groups there," Amber explained patiently, her own Volcano Picante Poutine struggling not to dissolve under the onslaught of its own seasonings. "That's practically healthy. Practically. I mean, it's got vegetables on it."

"And you eat this?"

"Every day. Or some variation. Usually I don't come to the mall unless I really want to splurge." She giggled and nudged his leg beneath the table. "That just means treat myself, not... you know.."

"Yes, thank you, I know what that word means."

"Good! Some people don't, and I don't want there to be any miscommunications. See, like, this one time I was helping Cindy and some of her friends study, and they're cheerleaders so they're not always the sharpest bulbs in the shed, and I said something offhand about cramming, and honestly you'd think they were NEVER going to stop giggling."

That amusing anecdote usually goes over better, Amber thought to herself. Nico smiled and chuckled, well within the bounds of politeness, and then focused all of his attention back on his meal. The first bite caused a ripple of conflicting emotions across his face, whiskers twitching, but in the end he seemed to settle on 'edible' and began to eat. Not willing to let her own fast-food catastrophe congeal, Amber shrugged and dug heartily into hers. She was, however, careful to leave one of her fluffy footpaws cuddled up close to the bunny's ankle, as a reminder.

"S'mo," she mumbled when she finally neared the molten core, jalapeno-infused cheese-product speckling her muzzle. "Wh'mere do you w'manna go nex'ft?"

Nico chewed thoroughly, swallowed, and dabbed at his lips with a napkin in complete defiance of food court etiquette. "I don't know," he replied demurely. "This is your world."

Amber's eyes narrowed. "What makes it any more my world than yours? We're both the same age, we both go to the same school, we're both within walking distance of here, and we're both hyp-... ah, we're both physiologically-advantaged," she smirked. "It's just that ONE of us is a big old scaredy-cat. Ironically, not me."

"Not scared," Nico snapped.

Ah hah, the kitteh gloated to herself. Hit a nerve! "Oh, of course not. I'm sure there's perfectly rational reasons for you to have spent all the time and energy building up two distinct personalities, separating and compartmentalizing your life into opposite sides of a closet. I mean, you'll need the practice, right? For when you're doing that for the rest of your life."

"I'm not going to do it for the rest of my life!"

"Oh! That's good!" Amber smiled, swallowing another forkful. "Because that would really be a shame, you know. Twisting yourself into suppressed, socially-acceptable versions of yourself and unpacking them when required. Especially when 'socially-acceptable' is really just bullshit rationalization."

"I'm not-" Nico began, half out of his seat and ears drawn back. His plastic fork hovered accusingly in the air between them. "You're doing this on purpose."

"Me?"

"Yes, you. You're trying to make me... upset, or get me to argue myself into a circle, or something."

"Me?"

"And you can drop the fake innocent routine. No-one who's even HEARD of you buys that you're innocent."

"Me?"

"Stop that!"

Amber tried to hold onto her expression of feigned purity, but she was a terrible actress and soon dissolved into fits of giggles. "Sorry," she said, though even she wasn't sure if she was actually sorry. "I just know what's worked on me in the past. You are a tough nut to crack! And I'm not talking about your-"

"Hey!"

"Anyhoo," she breezed along smoothly, "I certainly don't want your first date to be all antagonistic or anything, so I want the next part to be as fun and friendly and silly as possible."

"... next part," Nico sighed softly, surprised to discover he'd finished off his ridiculously extravagant meal. "Do I want to know?"

"Probably not, but you'll be happy to know it's away from the crowds."

The relief on Nico's face was short-lived.

---

"Come out!"

"NO!"

Amber sighed and crossed her arms, leaning against the thin door in consternation. "Look, there's no-one out here, ok? I mean, there's other people in the other rooms, but they probably don't care. Or they're staring at me." To drive the point home, the kitteh waggled her fingers at the slightly incredulous mongoose lady who was stepping into one of the little booths at the far end of the corridor.

"That doesn't help. Look, I didn't agree to this-"

"You did."

"-and I don't think this is really necessary!"

"It is."

"Because, what? You said so?"

"Now you're learning! Look, just let ME in THERE, if you're going to be a wuss about it."

The silence on the other side of the changeroom door was ominous, but the young hyper smiled with relief when the latch finally clicked. Pushing slowly, carefully and politely, Amber stepped into the changeroom, keeping her eyes cast dutifully down at her feet, or at least at where her feet would be somewhere beyond the scope of her skirts. "See? Nothing to it! And... wow."

Nico's body language was one of borderline violence, little fluffy paws clenched into fists of barely restrained pummeling. His whiskers were flared forwards, his ears back, his stance one of fight or flight. This somewhat contrasted with the pink polka-dot bikini he wore, but Amber thought they complemented eachother quite well.

"So do I call you Nicole now?" she smiled.

Nicole inhaled, which did some wonderfully subtle things to the snug little two-piece. "That's generally how it goes, yes," she grumbled slowly, her posture becoming noticeably more feminine. "It's... sometimes easier for me to think of them as two different people."

That's remarkable, Amber thought wonderingly. I couldn't pass as a boy if I tried! "Well, I think the problem lies with the pronoun 'them'... there is no 'them', dear, there's just you."

"Yeah, but when I feel like being one or the other, or when I just decide it's going to be that kind of a day, I can-"

_I will not facepaw. I will not facepaw. I will not facepaw. _ "I understand what you're saying, or at least I understand what you THINK you're saying, but what I'm hearing is you don't want to be who you are, because it's way easier to be two completely different people. Honestly, have you never SEEN a romantic comedy? Pretending to be two people doesn't work, especially if you're brother and sister. Actually, you know what? I'm renting you Jack and Jill, it's for your own good."

Nicole's muzzle twitched in what could almost be a smile. "You'll never take me alive," the bunnyherm chuckled. "I know what you're saying, too, but... this is just easier for me, all right? I know I'm different, I just don't want to be different... all the time."

"How often have I said THOSE words..."

"What?"

"Nothing. You look great, by the way," Amber added, knowing all too well that Nicole didn't receive nearly enough positive reinforcement in her life. "You've got that tight little body, you could pull off way more outfits than I could, that's for damn sure. Even if you do look a little filled-out in the front pouch there..."

Eyes suddenly brimming with panic, Nicole pressed her paws to her bikini bottoms, turning away in shock. "I'm... wait, no I'm not!"

"Would it matter if you were? Look at me!" the kitteh proclaimed, realizing she was probably being a little louder than department store changerooms were allowed to be, but not really caring. She hunched forward slightly and gripped the outer slopes of her basketball-sized swells, the thigh-thick mound of her sheath clearly visible beneath her skirt. "This is very nearly as small as I can get these days. There hasn't been a dress in fashion for at least three hundred years that can hide these puppies, and that's BEFORE I start growing. You could pass for a runway model right now."

"I don't want people to-"

"-see you for who you really are."

"Stop that! Let me finish a sent-"

"No."

"Argh!"

And still not a twitch out of her. Him. Whatever. Dammit, bun-bun! You must have a trigger! One that I don't need to go THERE for... "Fine, we'll go back to trying on boy outfits if you want. Hell, I'll even try some on with you. I've always wondered how their pants would fit me, considering I'm 90% within their target demographic."

Nicole dragged her eyes up from where Amber was still cradling her swollen hermness and sighed. "I already have enough outfits at home. We buy them online, and most of them fit loose enough that I can keep them for-"

"You don't go to the mall to try on clothes because you NEED NEW CLOTHES. Jeez! That's beginner talk!"

"What, you just try them on and give them back?"

"Better than a movie," Amber grinned. "Tell you what... I will let you pick something for me to try on. Anything at all. As long as I get to do the same for you."

The bunny frowned, sensing a trap. "You're not going to make me try on anything stupid, are you? Because I don't-"

"Aaargh! You're missing the golden opportunity here!" the kitteh growled in exasperation. "I'm giving you a hall pass to get back at me for all the grief I've caused you! The offer is only good for three seconds. Two seconds. One second. And-"

Amber reached for the changeroom door, but a surprisingly swift and powerful little arm shot past her and slammed it shut again. She stared into Nicole's eyes, which were now narrowed with what could only be called anticipation, or possibly malice. "Deal," she whispered, her nose an inch from Amber's.

When Nicole was dressed again, briefly back in the role of Nico, the two teens scurried out of the changerooms and into the overstocked clothing department of Diamond's. It was a more upscale store than Amber was used to, and while they didn't have a hyper section, it was all she could do to get the nervous bunny to agree to trying on outfits at all, so she would gladly take what she could get.

"Like anything in here is going to fit me," she snickered under her breath, patting her skirts with one paw and briefly groping her breasts with the other. "Unless it's made out of lycra, or it's maternity sizes. Feh. Good luck there, grrl! Now, what can I make her wear... ooooh, this could be good!"

Article by article, Amber gathered an armful of garments that did not technically coordinate, but she was a terrible judge of fashion to start with; she'd happily wear yoga pants and tank tops every day, if she were allowed, but apparently that violated ordinances against public lewdness. Besides, no-one else was likely to see them, and she wasn't selecting them because they would look good, in the strictest sense of the word.

By the time she found her way through the maze of racks and kiosks back to the changerooms, Nico was already there, a little breathless and with a bundle of multicolored fabric in his arms. "Took you long enough," he winked.

Wow, a wink! Coming out of your shell. Bout damn time! "I don't know why you're looking so smug. I've worn ballerina outfits on webcam before. I doubt there's anything there that's going to give me pause."

"Good, because I can't wait to see it."

They traded bundles and, exchanging nervous glances like soldiers peering over the lip of their trenches across no-man's land, retreated into their adjacent changerooms.

"Oh my gods," Amber groaned, sorting through her pile.

"Oh, HELL no," Nico replied from the other side of the partition.

"What the hell made you pick THIS?"

"How, exactly, is THIS supposed to fit?"

"If that's what I think it is, honey, you KNOW how that's supposed to fit."

"But I have to go home after!"

"ONE of you has to go home after!"

"You can't be serious!"

"YOU can't be serious!"

"You have to wear yours! You promised!"

"YOU PROMISED, TOO!"

"Shhhh!" This last utterance came from the corridor and was promptly followed by skittering footsteps as the mysterious patron retreated.

Working in silence, Amber stripped down to her undies. At least she didn't pick any of THOSE for me to wear, and... oh bloody hell, she did. "Just between us grrls, these, uh... stringy purple things aren't going on. Like, it's physically impossible. Space travel would be easier than getting these on me."

"Fi-i-i-ine," came the long-suffering reply from the other side. "Just for that, I get to pick the next outfit for you, too."

"That wasn't the deal!"

"I have altered the deal. Mmmph."

Amber paused, one foot into a highly unlikely pair of pants. "What was that sound?"

"Nothing. Just... getting into my outfit."

"It sounded... moan-y."

"Never you mind."

Nicole's changeroom was silent after that, but Amber more than made up for it with the grunting, groaning, and occasional shoulder-slams into the particleboard partitions as she struggled to cram her treacherous anatomy into outfits never designed for such abuses. "You couldn't even TRY to find clothes that fit," she muttered, gripping her sheath and shoving as hard as she could.

"I did!"

"Liar. I'm altering our deal, too."

"That's not fair!"

"Your definition of fair amuses me. Rrrrngg. Amuses me greatly. I think I voided the manufacturer's warranty on these. You coming out or what?"

"Ready when you are."

"You first."

"Nuh uh, YOU first."

"On three?"

"... fine."

Hinges squeaking softly, they both emerged into the long, mirrored and thankfully empty changeroom corridor. They gasped, each taking in the peculiar visions reflected back at them before checking out the other. The gasps then quickly mutated into barely-stifled giggles and snorts of mirth.

"That's.... interesting."

"THAT'S obscene!"

"That was your idea!"

"That's no excuse!"

"I rather think it IS!"

Amber stood uncomfortably, tail swinging low in embarrassment and fearful that every breath would cause an unstoppable chain reaction of ripped seams and burst stitching. She wore a rather stylish black suit jacket, which under normal circumstances would have fit her nicely were she not blessed with a rather full bust. One single button was done up at her midriff, the lapels spread wide around a blue and white striped shirt of a distinctly nautical motif that was perhaps more daringly cut than anything she owned. The level of cleavage exposed could best be described by pointing out those few remaining square inches of fur that were NOT covered.

She tugged down on her jacket, which only served to push her decolletage out further and didn't even begin to cover the rest of her lap. The belt that had been included was cinched up as tight as it would go around Amber's narrow waist, as the pants themselves were cut for someone MUCH larger than she, but even that extra room barely allowed her to get them on and zipped up over her maleness, of which every crease and crevice and vein was highlighted by the silver-on-black pinstriping. To make matters worse, the pants felt silk-lined, a particular weakness of hers, and she was fairly sure that she was filling up and out with each passing moment.

The tiny pink scarf tossed jauntily over one shoulder completed the attire.

"So, exactly what am I supposed to be? Tuxedo Sailor?"

"I was thinking more along the lines of Lavish Seaman."

"Sea-..." Amber gawked. "Oh, you're terrible."

_ _

"It looks good on you! I, er, thought the top would fit better, though," Nicole giggled, chewing her lip thoughtfully. "I didn't think you were quite so... big."

"It's an optical illusion. Everything about me seems smaller because of my junk."

"Makes sense. Couldn't be worse than what you picked out for me. I couldn't wear all of it, so I just sort of grabbed at random..."

It was still seeping through to Amber's mind that she was looking at the same bunny she'd picked up earlier in the evening, let alone the same bunny that she'd shared a changeroom with so recently. Nico was slim and reserved, shy and nondescript. The female lapine form was quite similar, constantly shuffling her legs and turning her hips this way and that as though unsure how to stand to draw the least attention.

Whoever was standing in front of the kitteh now was none of those things, and more.

Thigh-high rainbow-striped stockings drew the eye inexorably downwards, highlighting those shapely and well-muscled gams, which had been Amber's first concern. A few inches of warm brownish fur formed twin strips, the border between those gaudy socks and the pair of skin-tight tennis shorts Nicole now wore, complete with the uselessly frilly ornamental skirt. A loose sparkly-golden vest hung open in the front, even though Nicole tried keeping it closed with her paws, and offered a fine view of the sturdy purple-and-black bustier she now wore. It had the appearance of corsetry buckles and straps, even though it simply zipped up in the back, and enhanced the bunny's shapely hips.

"Honestly, why did you get THIS size?" she pouted, staring down at herself.

"Are you serious?!"

_ _

The bustier's cups had clearly been intended for someone built more on Amber's scale, far larger than Nicole had been going in to the changeroom. It had been a gamble, the kitteh knew, and she had been fully prepared to give in on the suggestion, but much to her delight Nicole had obliged, and answered another question about the bunny's curious biology. The tight top was filled to the brim... both brims, actually, the rabbitgrrl now sporting cleavage that could easily compete with Amber's own.

Nicole tugged self-consciously at the top, spangly bracelets clanking together. "Why, exactly, did you pick this top?"

"I saw your closet, don't forget," Amber tittered, admiring the suddenly top-heavy bunny's form. "There's definitely no Nico in you anymore."

"Shhh! You shouldn't use my name."

"Why not?"

"I don't want people... knowing."

Amber looked around the mostly deserted changeroom corridor, and could barely hear any commotion from the department store itself over the piped-in muzak. "Nico. Nico! We've got Nico here!" she cried, dancing obnoxiously and pointing with both paws, to exactly zero reaction. "See? Nobody cares. Nice hat, by the way. What are you supposed to be, an otaku secret agent?"

Nicole snatched the jaunty black fedora from between her ears. "Hey, you picked it!"

"I know, and it looks AWESOME on you! Seriously, chicks in dude-hats are hot. It's going to catch on mainstream big-time, trust me. Put it back on! Put it on, put it on, put it on!"

Blushing, but smiling in spite of herself, Nicole returned the hat. "What, exactly, was the motif for mine? I, at least, came up with a terrible pun for yours."

"Uhm... to be honest, it was pretty much just 'kitty likes shiny objects," Amber confessed. "And rainbows. And lacey things. And... boobs."

Both of them glanced down at the bunny's more-than-ample bosom, though Amber's gaze was much more admiring. Nicole, if anything, looked chagrined. "I don't know why I did that."

"Because it's awesome?!" Amber goggled. "You're not just a hyper-herm, you're a dual hyper! Augh! I'm so jealous I could piss glue right now! If I could out-Cindy Cindy for just one day, I'd... I'd... I don't know, but it would be FUN!"

Nicole grimaced sourly. "You're clearly much more at home being a super-sized spectacle than I am," she sighed, leaning against the mirror and gazing at herself, fingers plucking at the bustier. "Don't you care what people think when they see you? When they talk to you? When they ask you out? You're not just that pretty kitteh from math class, you're that hyper-herm. You're not the girl buying the nachos at the Hub, you're the hyper-herm. You're not that lawyer, that doctor, that mayor, that admiral... you're just that hyper-herm."

A lady came around the corner, spotted the strangely-garbed girls, and quickly darted into a changeroom. Another door opened and another woman walked out, carrying her purchases with her. Amber's tail twitched, but she took her time collecting her thoughts before she spoke.

"Are you saying I should stop being a hyper-herm?"

"What? No!"

"Then what should I care? It's who I am. They'll see me for who I am, no matter what I do, no matter what I try, no matter what I decide to become in my life. That's their fault, not mine. And when they get used to that part of me, if they're worth my time, they'll get to learn all the really good things about me."

Nicole chewed her lip and tried to tug the vest closed, again to no avail. "You're different than I thought you'd be."

"Exactly."

"What?"

Amber stepped closer, her pinstriped nethers pressing gently against the bunny's hip, and rest her paw on Nicole's shoulder. "You are worth my time," she purred, giving her new friend a squeeze. "Not the boy from math class, not the girl from the dance... you."

_ _

A shiver passed through Nicole's body, her ears fluffing up noticeably. "I join a very exclusive club then," she said wryly, trying to act as though she weren't thrilled by that brief contact. "But thank you."

"Thank you," the kitteh replied. "For trusting me enough to let me drag you out of your house, stuff you full of saturated fats, and let me doll you up like a chorus line reject."

Nicole chuckled. "I... don't know how far I trusted you, to be honest, but a promise was a promise. And I DID win, after all."

"Yeah, still sorry about that..."

"It's fine. Really. This has been... fun."

Amber was leaning very close now, the twin swells of her sac pressing quite heavily against the bunny's thighs, breasts a scant breath apart. Her whiskers twitched, and she flicked her droopy ear out of the way. "What do you mean, has been?"

"Well, it's getting late, and I'm not sure there's too many more humiliating outfits you can try cramming me into."

The kitteh gawked in disbelief. "You want to go home?!"

"I... uhm... it's getting late..."

"It's only like nine-thirty!"

"Yeah, but-"

Amber generally didn't like it when it happened to her, or at least didn't approve of it at the time, even if she generally felt differently about it afterwards. She hadn't intended to push these boundaries at all on this fight, instead hoping to win the recalcitrant hyper-herm over with friendship and hijinks and fried cheese. She felt as though she needed to prove to herself that she couldn't solve all of her own problems with intimacy.

Next time, she thought guiltily, darting in and silencing Nicole's protests with a kiss.

The classical narrative called for both teens to pause, awestruck, at the gesture. Amber's eyes would remain closed, while Nicole's would grow wide with surprise before softly falling with demure approval. They would press their bodies a fraction closer, maybe raising their fingers to the other's cheek, maybe inhaling carefully through their noses so as to not break the moment.

Nicole may have read those stories, but she clearly hadn't spent much time anticipating their inclusion into her life. She jerked back so hard that her head deflected off of the mirror, which seemed to start a chain reaction of off-balance, desperate stumbling. Her large, heavy footpaws, which Amber had always secretly thought very fetching, became tangled with one another, rainbow socks zigging and zagging in a maelstrom of color. She flung out an arm to brace herself, gripping the edge of a changeroom door, which she realized too late was mounted on hinges.

The slam echoed back and forth through the corridor, and drew several pairs of disapproving eyes from the other stalls. Amber stood in mute shock, paws over her muzzle, staring down at the prostrate, dazed figure of Nicole.

That... could have gone better.

_ _

"I..." Nicole wheezed, apparently trying to stand but unable to properly communicate her wishes below her hips. "I... you... that... you can't..."

"I know! I know, I know, I know, I'm sorry, that was stupid!" Amber blurted out. She was vaguely aware that her trousers were nearing their ultimate yield point, the initial rush of hormones still powering her bizarre reproductive physiology. "I was trying to make a point, and be romantic, and it was supposed to be sappy but still kind of endearing and-"

Nicole managed to get both feet working together and she rocketed upright, dashing backwards into the changeroom and shutting the door.

"-and... uhm... well, maybe now you've got a better idea of just how most of my 'wild dates' end up going," she confessed, pawing ineffectually at her pants and knowing she either had to get out of them, or end up paying for damaged goods. She waved at the other ladies in the changing area, some of whom were frowning but a few smiled sympathetically, and moved back into her own stall. "You can go home. I won't mind. Really, it's probably better for both of us."

She fumbled at the latch with one paw and fiddled with the button-fly on her pants with the other, able to feel the pressure rising against her thighs. Her pupmakers were definitely wider than her hips now, even with the compression the trousers afforded, and the lack of room was forcing her sheath upwards and forwards in a way that she normally would have been extremely proud of. As it was, though, she just hoped her original outfit would still keep everything covered.

She grunted in satisfaction when she finally managed to get the fly undone, but squeaked in shock when the still-unlatched door was suddenly shoved open. Amber opened her mouth to protest, both hands now moving to try and cover her loins, but her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth when she realized that Nicole was now in the cramped little space with her. The bun slammed the door closed, the latch shut, and pressed her back up against the cheap panelled wood, breathing so hard she was in danger of completely overflowing the bustier.

"Uhm... if you want to hit me, I can kind of understand..." Amber mewed nervously.

"I want you to kiss me again."

The kitteh's oversized eyes widened still further, her perpetually-floppy ear standing ramrod straight. "You what?"

"I want you kiss me as hard as you can."

Ok, I'm pretty sure I've just had a psychotic break, Amber thought to herself. "You want me to kiss you," she said numbly, at a loss for what else to say.

"Yes!" Although she was stage-whispering, the plaintive note in her voice struck a chord with the much more worldly feline. "How much can you know about yourself if you've never been kissed?!"

"Well, I mean, that couldn't have been your first-"

"It was!"

Amber's whiskers drooped, and she completely forgot that her freshly-undone pants were slowly unzipping themselves as her maleness continued to expand, new tissue working hard to produce still more seed. "That was?"

"Yes!"

"Just now?"

"Yes!"

"Dressed like a Cloud Cuckooland stewardess in the changing rooms of a Diamond's department store?"

"YES!" Nicole's eyes were huge, and wet, and earnest, paws wringing together and tangled in her spangly vest. "I didn't know what to do! I panicked! I'm sorry!"

"You mean, you... not Nico, not Nicole, not you... after all these years at Circe..."

"You don't have to rub it in!" she wailed quietly, if such a thing were possible. "You don't think I don't know how stupid that sounds? I thought this could be my year, I thought I could finally go out and be ME, but then you came back from summer break ten times bigger than when Grade 11 ended, and Cindy doubled in size, and suddenly I saw my future, I saw how you were, and I saw how people were around you, and I saw what it was LIKE to be a HYPER in HIGH SCHOOL, and I just-"

When Amber's lips pressed against Nicole's, the bunny's head tried to retreat once more, but with her back flat against the door there was nowhere for her to go. In the end, this turned out to be a good thing, and the classical narrative was finally allowed to bring the dual-natured lapine past that all-important milestone.

Amber giggled softly when she felt the other grrl's fingers brushing her cheek. She felt a sweet, romantic tightness in her chest when Nicole inhaled through her nose so as to not end the moment prematurely. Her tail thumped hard into the cheap walls of the changeroom when Nicole's other paw came to rest gently against the side of one still-swelling teste.

The feline squeaked again and glanced down, just able to make out between their cleavage that her hermness was now only partially covered by her trousers, and were all put pinning the bunny against the door. She took a step back, allowing everything to fall weightily back into place, the oversized pants dropping into a heap around her ankles and leaving her fully nude from the waist down.

"Uhm..." Amber snickered, much more used to this sort of a situation. "I think we might have skipped a few bases here."

"Wow," Nicole mumbled, eyes still closed, paws groping blindly at the air in front of her. "That... that was nice."

"Nice? I look like this, and it was only nice? I must be losing my touch. Dammit, where the hell did my skirt go?!"

"I want to do that again."

"Honey, I hope I can help you do that about a million more times, but right now I need to keep this from becoming another black mark on my dad's personal insurance policy. Oh, you're STANDING on my skirt! Could you just move a little bit to one side...?"

"No..."

Amber leaned against the back wall of the changeroom, trying to keep her nethers as far as possible from the inexperienced bunny, as well as trying to prevent any accidental contact that might cause her to start growing again. She was still at what she considered 'Level Two', which was definitely swollen but which didn't interfere too much with her walking. Each swell would be considered a healthy size for a late-summer watermelon, and there was no chance she could get both paws around her sheath even if she squeezed. "Uhm... pretty please?"

"I don't want our date to end."

"I don't want it to end, either, Nicole, but I still need to walk out of here wearing something..."

"Exactly. And so do I."

"Then-"

"I have a plan."

---

Eventually Nicole relinquished her skirt, which was a relief, and it made it much easier for her to concentrate on the plan. Really, it wasn't so much of a new idea as it was just a continuation of Amber's initial plotting, but to hear it coming out of the bunny's mouth made the kitteh immensely happy.

The skirt did keep her mostly covered, the folds and pleats giving it quite a lot of room, and it allowed the grrls to venture out once more into the department store. This time, though, they ventured together, hands held tightly, heads pressed close, whispering and giggling and winking at one another.

The new outfits they selected as a team weren't quite as garish or ostentatious or flat-out silly as the previous ones had been, but they were certainly eye-catching, especially with their new curves. "That's why I'm always biting my lip at school," Amber explained in hushed tones as they segued from the formalwear department into the lingerie department. "It's... well, my therapist called it a fidget, and it's something that lets me-"

"-focus your brain on one thing so it's not wandering around unchecked!"

"Exactly! Do you have one, too?"

"My ears. I rub the tips together. It takes a lot of concentration."

"I THOUGHT I saw you doing that at the food court! That's neat!"

"Thanks, I guess. Not as cute as the lip-biting."

"That's what you think! So, do you have a trigger, too?"

"A trigger? You mean, like..." Nicole gestured down at Amber's hips, or at least at the vast expanse of dark fabric that flared out around them. "When you kissed me?"

"Yeah, but... I mean, that term hardly works for me. EVERYTHING is a trigger. Gods, there's gum commercials that set me off now."

Nicole snickered, leaning her head sideways and rubbing the top of the kitteh's head with one dextrous ear. "I'm kind of the same, but I don't think I'm quite as... uh... energetic as you."

"If you were, nothing you're wearing would fit now."

"Touche. Most things don't really MAKE me grow, though... I have to put in a little bit of effort, but, you know, yeah, some things make it a lot easier."

"Showoff."

"What?"

"Nothing."

They were heading back to the changerooms now, this time with much more carefully-selected items. Although Amber had kept checking the price tags, weighing everything against her recent webshow earnings, Nicole had insisted that she would pay for everything. She had an allowance that she rarely had much chance to use, but when pressed as to the actual amount of that allowance Nicole just blushed and mumbled and changed the subject.

"So are you going to... put in the effort?" Amber asked meaningfully, bumping her hip against the bunny's. "I mean, that was why I picked it out..."

Nicole inhaled, an act which was rapidly becoming a favorite of Amber's as long as the lapine continued to wear that bustier, and nodded. "I'm panicking a little at the thought, but... gods, I've wanted to do that... do this since forever."

"Then why not do it?"

"I'm pretty sure we've covered that more than once tonight," Nicole grumped. "I'm a big coward. I thought I could just... wait it out, and things would be all right, eventually."

"Metaphorically hiding under a pile of coats until the exam is over, so to speak."

"Apt."

"I'm REALLY good at metaphors about rationalizing," Amber snarked. "I've been living off of them since last summer. If... if you do decide that this is what you want to do, and this is where you want to go with it, with so little of the school year left to go, then I can't promise it will all go well. I CAN promise, though, that you will have my unwavering support. And Cindy's. And most of the cheerleading squad. And a couple boys whom I can generally bend to my will."

Nicole smiled gratefully and leaned in to hug her unlikely new friend. "That means a lot, it really does. It probably won't go all according to plan, but if I've learned anything from... from that kiss," she added with a faint stammer, "it's that sometimes things work better when they don't follow the plan."

"Story of my life. Can you believe I wanted to be a ballerina?"

The bunny couldn't help the snort that ripped through her muzzle, and she immediately began apologizing once more, but Amber's genuine laughter soothed over any hard feelings.

They walked into the changeroom corridor once more, with several frustrated and resigned sighs emanating from the occupied stalls. "Sorry!" Amber called out. "This is the last time, we promise! She's new here! Thank you for your patience!"

"I don't know how to fashion!"

"She literally can't even!" Amber chortled.

"I accidentally the whole thing!" Nicole added, barely able to speak through her giggles.

Their stalls were still empty, as were several stalls to either side. They've probably decided we're too dangerous to be around, Amber thought to herself. Or at least just me. Hyper-herms don't do well in confined spaces...

_ _

Nicole was shutting her door behind her, and Amber decided she couldn't take the suspense anymore. She grabbed the edge of the door, coughing and clearing her throat. "Uhm... I just want to say one thing. Well, I want to say one thing and I want to ask one thing. Uhm, if that's OK."

The lapine's head tilted, the tips of her ears rubbing together thoughtfully. "Yes?" she said slowly.

"Uhm... ok, I just want to say that, and please don't take this the wrong way, but I've had lots of problems with communicating this sort of thing BEFORE hand, and... well, a lot of people have heard things about hypers, especially hyper-herms, and you've probably heard more than most people, so I just wanted to warn you that... that I..."

"Yes?"

"I don't want to have _sex_with you," Amber blurted out, jaw snapping shut when she heard herself.

Nicole blinked, a slow smile spreading across her face. "Coming from you," she spoke carefully, "that's... incredibly touching."

"I meant that to sound a little more gallant..."

"Can I ask-"

"I just wanted to be FRIENDS with you! That was all! Another hyper, FRIENDS! I mean, sure, I still thought you were a boy when we started this, but I still just wanted to be friends with a boy. I guess Rufus counts, but he's older and it was HIS idea not to do it, not mine, and I wanted it to be MY idea, and-"

This time, it was Nicole that silenced the babbling kitteh with a kiss.

When the classical romantic narrative played itself out once more, she pulled back and ruffled Amber's blonde locks playfully. "I understand. I think. And... I'm honored. I really am. But, I didn't hear a question in there."

"What... I wanted... to ask... was..." Amber said weakly, patting her loins and trying to make sure she wasn't progressing to 'Level Three'. "Uhm... keeping in mind that I DON'T want to fwoomp you..."

"Yes...?"

"... can I still watch you grow?"

Nicole's smile nearly reached all the way around her head now, ears rubbing vigorously. "I thought you'd never ask," she stage-whispered, pulling the squealing feline into the tiny changeroom, the door swinging shut with a 'click'.

---

In the end, it wasn't that Nicole's method was so different from her own. It was hardly even a 'method', really... more a relaxation of self-control to the point where the body's natural desires, urges, instincts could take over. It just seemed that Amber's urges were of a far more weapons-grade nature than Nicole's; the kitteh was still holding on with her teeth to grow at a reasonable rate, while the bunny needed a much more hands-on approach.

"I guess you're just like me, but with a built-in safety," Amber pouted, gnawing hard on her lip to keep from bursting a seam, or a gasket. "I'm so... jealous right now."

"Just jealous?" Nicole murmured, eyes closed, leaning against the far wall. She wore the new svelte cream-colored capris that Amber had helped pick out, firm and fuzzy like flannel but remarkably stretchy, and right now her paws were coaxing more and more stretch out of them. Bit by bit, rubbing and caressing with practiced ease, she was becoming more and more obviously a herm, and undoubtedly hyper to boot.

"Ok, maybe horny, too..."

"That I'd believe." The capris hugged every inch of her, and there were several more inches with each passing moment. Amber noticed that Nicole was sheathless, an exotic trait for a bunny, and her rapidly expanding maleness looked smooth and soft and sleek, and very, very thick. It strained to reach Nicole's knee, but the ever-filling mounds of her sac kept the goal just out of reach. "And you need your hands to do it?"

"Mmm hmm. Never really been able to try with someone else's, but... yeah, I need to touch."

"Still lucky. I've got the hands-free model."

"I saw the episode of your show where you stress-tested your restraints. Did you really get up to two hundred pounds on the scale?"

"Two-oh-six!" the hyper-feline winced, remembering that show, and the resultant bruising. "When I use my hands it goes faster, and when I use someone ELSE'S hands, well... you've read the newspaper."

"I still can't believe you can-"

"YOU can, too," Amber said meaningfully, reaching out to touch Nicole's paw but realizing that might be a terrible idea. "When you're ready. When the time is right. Uhm... and seriously not to be one to ever say this lightly, but you might be big enough. For now, at least."

"Hrrrmmm? I'm not... oh!" She yanked her paws away from her lap, standing upright and nearly losing her balance. Her capris were still holding, and for once Amber was able to see just what her own expressions must have been like. "Did I overdo it?!"

"Not at all," Amber grinned, inching a little bit closer, for inches were all that remained within the changeroom. They were very nearly the same approximate size, but whereas Amber's sheath was plump to the point of obscenity, Nicole's furless shaft stretched out and over and down, and was close to starting up the back. "You look bloody hawt, babe, and that's hawt with a W. Come on, get the rest of your duds on... Nicole's hitting the town."

"Actually, I was thinking about that," the bunny murmured, turning to face away from Amber while she removed the bustier. The act of modesty, considering the last few minutes of their company, was oddly endearing. "Nico was me as a boy, and Nicole was me as a girl."

"Yeah-h-h," Amber nodded, eyes locked onto the other grrl's rump, enjoying the extremely skin-tight sight from the rear.

The rabbit turned around, putting the final adjusting tugs on a frilly black and gold blouse with several buttons undone, just showing the fringes of the blood-red lacey bra beneath. With her ears drawn back, Amber was struck by just how much she looked like a glamour model from the Addition'Elle catalogues. "How do you think I would look as a Nikki?"

---

It was true that a change of clothes could change one's outlook, and nearly three hours later Amber marvelled at just how much the outfit seemed to have rejuvenated the anxious bunnygrrl. All mentions of it being 'late' had ceased, and now the kitteh was worrying that she might have an entirely new problem with getting Nikki to LEAVE the mall.

She was still the same grrl; Amber couldn't pretend that she had been responsible for ALL of Nikki's progress this night. Deep down, it was still the same bashful, demure bookworm that sat silently at the front of the classroom, working studiously and anonymously. It just so happened that now she had the sort of body that could be spotted from several blocks away, and tended to set off klaxon alarms in the minds of all who beheld her.

After strutting out of Diamond's with their new purchases, old outfits rolled up into the tiny pink paper shopping bags, the public reaction had been immediate. People were used to seeing Amber bouncing from store to store, a decidedly bottom-heavy social butterfly, but they were most certainly not used to seeing her accompanied by someone who just might be even larger in several prominent regions. There were gasps, there were stares, and after a half hour of solid rumor-milling, there were introductions.

"My name's Nikki," she would say, shaking paws left and right and waiting for the inevitable follow-up question. "No, I didn't just move here. I'm actually in your class, I think. Art Theory with Ms. Doyev, right? Yeah. Yeah, I'm not sure how you didn't notice me either..." At which point, Amber and Nikki would walk away, tails held high and giggling like the schoolgirls they were.

"You're terrible," the kitteh grinned.

"Oh, I'm so not. If they looked at my face, they'd totally recognize me."

"You sit at the front of the class. They might recognize your ears."

"Or my butt."

"No offense, but they're not looking at your butt right now. I am, but they're not."

Nikki hopped on one foot for a moment to adjust her pants, or more specifically to adjust their contents. "It's hard to keep everything... centered. You're lucky, you've got the sheath that mostly stays put."

"'Mostly' leaves a LOT of leeway, especially if I'm standing behind somebody cute in line at the coffee shop."

"Really? That happens, when you're just trying to live your life?"

"Ehhh... sometimes," Amber relented. "One, I've gotten a lot better at controlling my reactions over the past year, and two, I've still generally got my restraints and my numbing cream."

"Oh. Do-"

"Neither of them tonight."

"All righty then," Nikki chuckled, moving a little further away from Amber. "I'll just be over... here then... don't mind me..."

Amber laughed as they rounded another corner and found themselves in the wing of the mall that held several book stores, snack shops, the Wensleydale Cheese Emporium and the Vie En Rose. Even around midnight it was still well populated, though the older shoppers had largely cleared out. "I had no idea this was where people hung out," Nikki breathed. "At least not to this extent. Explains why Dad never took me here on a weekend... wow."

"We can't go to the bar yet, so we have to have somewhere to waste our money and be loud and stupid," Amber agreed. "Ever been into Vie En Rose?"

"No. What is it? Wait... 'The Pink Life'..."

Diamond's had a section well-stocked with bras and panties and various items labelled 'sleepwear' that were definitely not for sleep. Addition'Elle had a section far more specialized towards hypers, with a little bit more creativity and underwire, but it was still fairly tame. Vie En Rose was a revelation to the sheltered bunny, as far from conventional undergarments as was possible to achieve and still be considered wearable.

A murmur passed through the sparse crowd near the front as Nikki walked slowly into the neon-lit red-and-black interior of the boutique, and Amber wasn't surprised to see a few furres break away from their conversations to follow the bunny in. "I realize they have a lot of things in here that might not fit you, but they do have some very attractive... items," Amber purred vaguely. "I showed off a few of them on my show."

Nikki fingered a collection of black, squeaky straps and silver rings thoughtfully. "Where, exactly, does one wear THIS?"

"Anywhere you want, though Principal Kinnison might have a problem with it."

"That's not what I meant, I mean, like... do my ARMS go HERE, or do my LEGS go HERE, or what?"

"That might be a little bit advanced for you," Amber giggled as they pushed deeper. "You're a beginner. Let's start with the simpler stuff."

"Gosh. Dad's gonna kill me if this store ends up on my bank statements..."

"And for your first lesson, kids, we're going to learn the important skill of 'hiding sneaky shit from your parents'."

"Awwww!"

The exotic and erotic items at the front of Vie En Rose were the most enticing, in order to attract their clientele. Towards the back of the store the bits and pieces became a little more straightforward, and moved to encompass more than just Size 0. "You can probably find someone not too ridiculously X-rated back here that they might not flay you alive over. Ooooo," Amber growled softly, fingering a collection of brassieres in various wild feline prints. "These weren't here last week. What do you think? Am I more of a cheetah-boobs or a leopard-boobs?"

The music being piped into the boutique was a tail-thumping techno beat, and the number of browsing customers had tripled in the last few minutes, so it took Amber a moment to realize that her question hadn't been answered. She glanced back over her shoulder and found herself unexpectedly alone in a jungle of bras. "Nikki? Grrl? Hallo?"

Moving carefully, not wanting to knock over any mannequins with a poorly-timed sway of her sac (again), she backtracked and found Nikki next to several displays of poofy-trimmed, frilly one-pieces and teddies. Much to her surprise, and dawning delight, she found Nikki focused not on the outfits but on the large, nervous and soft-spoken tiger wearing a Vie En Rose nametag.

"I don't really know if it's me, though," Nikki was saying, feeling the faux-fur trim on one corseted teddy in particular, her free paw patting the clerk's elbow thoughtfully. "I mean, yeah, sure, it's cut to go around my, uhm, figure, but... pink? Really?"

"Pink would really complement your earth tones," the clerk rumbled, his barrel chest nearly dropping his voice into the realm of inaudiblity. "Though if you're looking for something a little less 'girly', these come in an assortment of fuscias and violets."

"Violet, you say," Nikki murred, inching herself a little closer, one very heavy seed-swell resting against the clerk's thigh now. He towered over her, easily twice her mass, but he almost seemed to cringe at her touch. "If I try them on, will you tell me what you think?"

"Yarp..."

I know how that goes, Amber grinned to herself. You go, grrl. Don't let him get away!

_ _

Amber snuck up behind Nikki and pounced, hugging the bunny from behind and allowing herself one incredibly un-subtle grind of her sheath against the other grrl's rump. "Hey, there you are!" she exclaimed, giving Nikki a squeeze. "I thought I'd lost you."

"Sorry, I got... distracted," Nikki winked over her shoulder, patting the clerk's arm again. "I was looking at... trying some things on."

"Mmmmm, that would look great on you," the hyper-kitteh replied, not sure if they were referring to the outfit or the tiger. "Anyways, I was just going to say... it's getting a little late."

"Awww, really? I mean... well, I suppose it is..."

"So I'm just going to head out," Amber continued swiftly, before Nikki could talk herself out of a date. "I'll see you Monday morning, all right, babe?"

"What? You-... oh!" Nikki swooned, eyes growing wide with understanding. "Right! Uhm... yeah, no problem! Thanks for showing me around! It's been... a great night. Really. I mean that."

Amber rolled her hips once more, chewing her lower lip and sighing. I promised myself this night wasn't about me, she lectured herself. It's about Nico. Nicole. Nikki. Whatever. Just get out of here and let the bunny fly! "I'm glad," she murmured into the bunny's ear, giving her a final squeeze. "Will you be all right?"

"We'll be fine!"

Amber glanced up at the hulking clerk (Terrence, she read) and licked her lips. "Just don't spend too much on your first night."

"Oh, you know me."

"Do I?"

"You hush."

"Hey, that's my line!"

The kitteh walked slowly and thoughtfully out of Vie En Rose, twirling her Diamond's shopping bag absently. It... might not have been the best idea in the world to leave Nikki alone, turning the newly-outed hyper-herm loose on an unsuspecting Circe Centre Mall, but she supposed that, at this late stage in the bunny's life, it was time to stop tip-toeing around and just jump into the deep end of the pool.

She pondered just what Nikki and Terrence could get up to when the store closed, and felt another faint ripple of expansion pass through her nethers. "Deep end, indeed," she murmured. Over the course of the night, Amber had given her numerous tips and tricks and pieces of advice that the more experienced hyper-kitteh had picked up over the course of her fairly active senior year. She hadn't expected Nikki to try putting any of those tips to use so soon, but the lapine had confessed that she seemed to have a preference for partners much larger than herself.

That will come in handy, Amber thought. You're going to need the room...

_ _

The brisk walk back home was uneventful, steam pouring off of her body as her hormones fought to send her fully into Level Three. She managed to stave off any further growth, though, and when she unlocked her front door and slipped inside, she was still covered by her new outfit.

Ears perked, on edge for any evidence her parents were still awake, she padded gingerly up the stairs, exultantly shed all of her clothes and crawled exhaustedly into bed.

"Who knew," she yawned to herself as she drifted off to sleep, "that NOT having sex... could be so... tiring..."

---

The gentle rapping at her door came, by her best guess, about twelve hours too soon.

"Amb, honey? You awake?"

Amber scrunched her eyes shut and burrowed her head deeper into her protective bunker of pillows. "Nngmmlmbbrrrr," she groaned. "G'way-y-y-y..."

"Sorry, honey, just checking."

Just checking, my pretty floral bonnet, she growled to herself, shifting her weight and trying to roll over onto her side. You just wanted to mess... with... me... awwww, fudge.

_ _

Her paws slipped down her body, across her trim tummy until they reached the unnervingly broad, dense flesh of her sheath. Her paws had to roam a considerable distance before she could feel them against her sac, a situation she was rapidly coming to know as the Sunday Morning Special.

She threw back the blankets and sighed. She wasn't going to be rolling over onto her sides any time soon; both legs were pinned by twin swollen swells the size of overstuffed beanbags, her sheath easily as wide as her torso. "Ok, so... maybe she's a little sexy..." she chuckled in resignation, remembering the highlights from her date the night before. "Damn, I was this big yesterday morning, too! Maybe we should go on a regular date. Just once..."

"Does that mean you're coming down for breakfast?" her mother called from her position on the other side of the bedroom door.

"MOM! Do you camp out there all night, or what?"

"Just while the second pot of coffee brews, sweetie. Come on down when you're ready."

Uh oh, Amber gulped. That sounds ominous.

_ _

It took a minute to get to her feet, a long process of wriggling her butt down to the foot of her bed and easing all of her considerable weight onto her hips. Once upright she was pleased to discover that she could still walk, though she'd have to be careful. She pondered grabbing one of her silk sheets and taking a few selfies for the web-show page, but if her mom walked in on THAT, it probably wouldn't end well.

"Eh, it's Casual Sunday," she shrugged, throwing on a bathrobe that really only kept her covered from the belly button up. It had taken some time for everyone to get used to, but it had been her parents' idea, after all, in an effort to help her feel more comfortable; when Amber reached these sizes, or beyond, she usually just walked around the house free and au naturel. "Their problem, not mine."

She wobbled into the kitchen several minutes later, stifling a yawn behind an oversized paw. "Morning," she mewled softly, padding over to the coffee machine. "Do I smell bacon?"

Sierra and Liam O'Malley glanced at their spectacularly-endowed daughter, but as usual it was her mother that had a hard time looking away. Her father was a high-grade hyper himself and was well used to these sorts of situations, but he rarely it ever allowed his condition to ever be glimpsed. "It's in the microwave," he rumbled. "Sorry your mother woke you up. Again."

"S'okay," Amber grumped. "I catch up on sleep at school anyways."

He chuckled and was rewarded with a slap on the leg by Sierra. "You better not be, young woman," she older feline warned. "You're so close to graduation, and you really don't want your grades to slip."

"Mo-o-om," Amber whined. "I'm fine! Relax! It's too early to be all... parent-y."

"That's not a word."

"It is before nine in the morning."

"It's almost ten!"

"It's too early to tell numbers apart. Need coffee."

Walking very slowly, and carefully, and more or less walking backwards, Amber rounded up a large mug of coffee and the plate of leftover bacon and eased her bulk into one of the heavily-reinforced kitchen chairs with a thump. Sierra winced, but Liam just chuckled again, hiding his expression behind the newspaper. The hulking doberman was easily larger than both felines put together, but he knew better than to get in between them. "Long night?"

"Not actually," Amber yawned, dunking her bacon into her coffee. "Spent the whole time walking, though. Wears you out."

"At the mall?"

"Yeah, at the mall. With Nico. Nicole, actually. Well, Nikki. Uhm, it's a bit of a long story, actually."

"I'll bet."

The air was thick with anticipation, and Amber paused. "Uhm... I think I walked in after the real discussion," she said uncertainly. "What's wrong?"

"Are we going to be getting a phone call from Emergency Services again this morning?"

"What?" the young herm gasped, sitting as upright as her resting sheath would allow. "Of course not!"

"Are you sure?"

"No, mom, I'm lying my ass off! YES, I'm sure!"

Sierra frowned, suddenly appearing uncertain. Liam stroked the back of her paw reassuringly and gestured to Amber's wildly-overfilled maleness. "She does have some evidence in her favor, dear."

"Oh, she could recharge like that in no time," her mother stated. "I know you can do that."

"MOM! Augh! What's this about?"

Her mother sighed and pulled her smartphone out of her pocket, sliding it across the table. "I recieved a text message this morning. I... well, I suppose that I didn't need to LEAP to conclusions, but..."

Amber picked up the phone and stared at the picture that appeared on the screen. It was the mall, that much was certain, and it was definitely early in the morning; the sun could be seen rising in the distance, the sky a deep orange glow. There was a police car, an ambulance and three fire trucks at the far side of the parking lot, against the southern face of the mall's broad brick facade. Numerous small, uniformed figures milled back and forth, some of them carting wheelbarrows.

She squinted, and found she could make out a section of the wall that seemed to be some sort of stretched-out tiger print...

"SAW THIS ON MY DRIVE TO WORK. AMBER'S HANDIWORK? #YOLO," Amber read the attached message slowly, lips twitching.

"That wasn't you?" her mother asked, by all appearances a little disappointed that she could no longer be angry at her daughter.

"That," Amber grinned, patting her sac with one paw and sliding the phone back with the other, "was not me. It will, however, definitely make the rest of the school year very... interesting."