Tails, Scales and Scones

My friend Amalasuntha sent me a writing challenge the other day: 500 words – no more, no less – with a given starting line. As I’ve not done much writing for a while, and because I’m terrible at endings, I took this challenge on. See what you think of the results.

“I think I’m friends with the real you.”

He turned and looked at me, blinking slowly as if I’d just said “I want to flange your stiffling tape.”

“You’re what?” he replied. Now that I listened to his voice it was ever so slightly… wrong. Mixed in with his soft, caramel baritone, there was a gentle purring – a rumbling, thrumming coming from deep in his chest. But beneath THAT was… something. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what was wrong, but it tickled at the back of my brain.

“I said, I think I’m friends with the real you,” I repeated. To soften the words, I reached up and caressed his cheek. My fingers brushed past his whiskers and caressed the soft, ginger fur of his cheek. I found myself marvelling at the softness of that fur.

He reached up and placed a paw on my chest. “I AM real,” he replied. “Can you not feel my fur? Hear my voice?” An amused smile spread across his cleft lips. “I’m not a ghost.”

I took a deep breath and stepped closer to him. Slipping my arms around him, I felt our bodies contact – just as they had in so many fun ways, so many times before. I felt his fur crush against my bare skin all the way down, felt the warmth of him against me. I laid my head on his strong, defined chest and sighed.

“But you’re not real. Yes you feel real, yes you sound real and yes…” I paused to push my nose into his chest and take a good whiff of that musky, masculine scent “… you smell real.” He grinned down at me and slid his arms around me, holding me tight. He fingers caress down the skin over my spine in that way he had that just made me melt inside. “But this isn’t the real you.”

He slid his hands lower and cupped my buttocks, his thumb curling around the stump of my tail. I gasped with delight at that touch – that touch which I had come to associate with good times with him. “You don’t love me?” he whispered, feeling pained.

I shook my head. “I DO love you,” I replied, trying not to give into my feelings, “but that’s just it. I want more.” I raised my eyes to his. “I want to take this relationship… further.”

Never removing his hand from my rump, he held my gaze for a long moment. Oh, the agony of those seconds! I loved this man. We had spent so much time together, gotten so intimate – emotionally as well as sexually. What if he said no? Had I gone too far? Would he…

“Shall we take these off then?” he said. His voice was nervous, but tinged with the excitement that I felt myself.

I nodded and, together, we reached up to take our VR helmets of…

Somewhere, deep inside a server room, a green LED ceases blinking…