It'd been a great party, the first you’d attended in far too long. Working from home was a luxury you were unbelievably grateful for, but still, just being in the same room as people, being able to wander up to groups of people and start conversations had felt nothing short of magical. You’d missed people, old friends, new friends, and even:
“More milk!” Etci demands, slamming her white-stained glass down on the table. A few drops run down her chin, creating lines in her fine white fur at the corners of her pink lips, where the tips of her fangs are just visible. The white of her face stands in stark contrast to her already unruly brown and black hair, streaks of orange speckled throughout, her darkly furred and pointed ears most visible for their light pink insides.
“Say please,” Jerrie insists, the tall woman taking Etci’s cup and adding it to her own with a clink, “quietly if you can.” Her hair is long and glossy orange, striped darker orange down its considerable length, the same stripes cupping the outside of her orange arms and legs, accentuating their length too. Her orange furred ears are slightly smaller and rounder than Etci’s, angled forward attentively, her lighter orange face fixed on Etci with infinite patience.
Etci throws up her hands, “Fine!” Then she smirks, turning to Jerrie to drawl with sickly sweetness, “P-lease.”
Jerrie sighs as she takes Etci’s glass, who stays smirking to herself right up until her ears and body tense straight, her fur standing on end as Jerrie ever so lightly steps on the end of her tail while passing.
Across the table a small voice politely asks, “Please?” Vikki reaches out a small hand, white as the liquid staining the glass she holds. Her entire body is glossy white, her dress too, in contrast to the light green of Jerrie’s dress and the tight red of Etci’s top each offsetting their owner’s fur. But Vikki is all white, her quartz hair long and wavy, large ears pointed attentively, their bright pink insides focussed on you.
Not for the first time you worry your own simple blue dress is far too, well, simple.
Jerrie stops beside you, resting a warm hand on your shoulder, “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to try some?”
“Um,” you try, “What is it?”
“Ha!” Etci’s golden eyes are alight with amusement. “It’s just fermented milk,” she raises up a mostly empty bottle of vodka, “with a little extra kick, for those who like it rough.” She smiles broadly, showing her fangs, and not for the first time you worry how much that excites you. Or maybe it’s just the look in those large golden eyes, the angular outer corners raising with her smile, slitted pupils dilating as she openly stares at you.
Jerrie’s hand squeezes your shoulder ever so slightly, “You don’t have to if you don’t want to, no matter what Etci says.”
You’re still looking at Etci as she runs her tongue from fang to fang. You clear your throat, “I… think I’d like to.”
You look up to see Jerrie smiling broadly. She’s very beautiful, not as scandalously attractive as Etci, but definitely more beautiful, the tips of her fangs a little less visible in the corners of her generous smile, the jade green of her eyes smiling reassuringly down at you. And her light green dress is very well cut to emphasise two parts of her you are pointedly not looking at.
Still smiling, she reaches past you for your glass, her dress brushing the top of your shoulder and making your whole body go stiff. You're still stiff, trying not to think about which part of her just softly rested on your shoulder, as you hear her crossing the dark living room to the open kitchen occupying one side, the opening of a fridge followed by the tinkle of glass bottles.
You look across at Etci, seeing her still smiling knowingly at you, making you aware of the heat in your cheeks. Are you blushing? Instead, you look over at Vikki, who's still sitting small in her chair, both hands fiddling with a silver pendant she’s pulled free of her dress. It’s small and slightly tarnished with age, making the tiniest clinking sounds as she moves the interior parts. Her ears are still focussed on you.
“So,” you ask, desperate to make conversation both as a distracting from the heat in your cheeks and from Etci’s gaze, and as a way to involve Vikki in the conversation. You point at her necklace, “is that a time turner?”
She looks up at you, pink eyes wide. Then she looks down, “No. I have a time turner necklace, but…” she trails off into a small nothing.
“So you’re a fan then?” You gently try to coax her out of her shell.
“HA!” Etci laughs hard enough to make you flinch, “Is Vikki a fan? She only read them all on the day of release. And when she was waiting in line for the last one and some guy started yelling out spoilers, fuck, the look on his face when she landed on him!”
“As I recall,” Jerrie adds, placing a tall glass full of what appears to be milk before you, “we both had to drag her off him.” She goes around the table, placing a glass before Etci which is immediately topped up with a disturbing amount of vodka. When she comes to Vikki she places the glass before her, then leans down to wrap her arms around her from behind, hugging her close.
Vikki’s voice is an emphatic whisper, “He was being selfish! Ruining it for everyone!”
Jerrie kisses the back of one large ear, “Yes, and all the other people waiting in line and the security guards somehow hadn’t seen a thing, so I think they were grateful.”
You stare at Vikki, at the shy little thing, struggling to imagine her flying through the air at someone. You clear your throat, “I would have been grateful too. Those people were the worst - I’m just glad I got my copy without any of them there.”
Vikki looks up wide eyed at you again, “You like it too?”
“I… did? I’m,” you shake your head, “I’m still figuring that out, trying to reconcile something precious from my childhood with the author’s recent… opinions about people like me.”
Vikki tilts her head to one side, “People like you?”
“Trans women.”
“Yeah, fuck that noise,” Etci announces beside you, leaning forward to pour vodka into your glass with a clink. “Thought that helps explain your deliciously complicated scent.”
You just stare, not even noticing your steadily rising drink, “Complicated scent?”
“Etci,” Jerrie interjects with a tired tone, “What did we say about respecting boundaries? For the drink as well as… whatever you’re doing.”
“Oh, come on,” she says, still staring into your eyes.
“Etci.”
She pouts and stops pouring, putting the bottle on the table without looking away from you. She leans even closer to whisper in your ear, “You smell very good by the way.”
Jerri squeezes Vikki goodbye, then comes around, tail flicking behind her. She shoos Etci back as she moves to replace your vodka’d glass with her own.
“It’s okay,” you interrupt her movement with a voice slightly higher pitched than you’d intended. You clear your throat, “I’m okay. I think I could use a drink.” You recall the amount of vodka added to the glass, “Or three.”
You’ve been pacing yourself all night, nervous after not drinking socially in so long. But now everyone else has gone either left, or gone to bed upstairs, and you’re barely even tipsy. Well, you look around, Etci’s eyes and Vikki’s ears staring at you, almost everyone.
Jerrie hesitantly takes her hand back as you take your drink, smelling it. You smell vodka.
“Here,” Jerrie sifts through the mess of empty bottles and forgotten drinks on the table, finding a clean straw and using it to stir your drink. “Try now.”
You smell again, and still smell vodka, but also the rich smell of milk, somehow smelling richer than you’d expect it too. You take a sip, tasting a mix of the cool burn of good vodka and the soothing warmth of very flavourful milk, followed by a creamy and every so slightly sour aftertaste. You take another sip.
“This is good!” you announce, “Really good! Why haven’t I ever seen this before?”
Jerrie sighs, “There aren’t many nekos in this country, so there isn’t really a market for it. Not while everyone thinks of it as a weird ‘cat’ drink anyway.” She squeezes your shoulder, smiling down at you again. “I’m glad you like it.”
It’s true you hadn’t seen many nekowere, and never had a chance to really sit down and share more than a few words with one. And now you're at a table with three of them all focussed on you, painfully aware of your ignorance. You have so many questions you want to ask, but fear all your questions are the ones everyone insensitively asks.
As their conversation continues on around you, Etci and Jerrie having firmly opposing views about which movie was the best one, both making room for Vikki’s quite but forceful interjections, you surreptitiously turn on your phone in your lap and tap a question into a new browser tab. You’ve just opened the first result and scrolled down a little when you realise the room’s gone quiet. You look up into Etci’s gleaming eyes.
“What’s that,” she demands, pointing at your phone with a sly smile, “Boring you are we?”
Jerrie’s tone is low with warning, “Etci.”
“No - not boring, I,” you stammer, lifting the phone, hesitating between handing it over and hiding it in your chest. Before you can decide Etci plucks it from your hand, pupils narrowing on the open page. She makes a strangled laugh, and reads aloud:
“What You Can’t Ask a Nekowere. Question 3: Are you in heat?”
“Etci!” Jerrie snatches the phone back lightning fast, turning it off and passing it back to you while still glaring at Etci. “Don’t be so rude!” Her tone softens instantly as she looks down at you, “I’m sure she’s just curious, right?”
You mutely nod.
Across the table, a tiny voice whispers something.
You look over to Vikki, not sure you’d heard it. Did she just whisper: ‘Yes’?
You definitely hear Etci on your other side groaning. “Gaaaahaaaa! It suuuucks!” She leans back in her chair with her glass at her lips, sculling the very alcohol contents before slamming the glass back to the table. She’s still leaning back in her chair as she turns to look sidelong at you. “Talking about questions you can’t ask, human hormone cycles also sync up, don’t they? Like if you have a group of women living together eventually their cycles all align, right?”
You feel Jerrie’s hand tighten on your shoulder.
“I’ve heard that,” you interject, trying to keep the peace, “but I wouldn’t know myself - different hardware.”
Jerrie leans down, glaring at Etci but saying with barely strained warmth to you. “It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about this.”
“I don’t mind, really” you answer honestly. You’re not sure if it’s normal, but you personally enjoy talking about something that’s an enormous part of your life, something you’ve done a lot of research on as part of a very rewarding journey of self re-discovery. At least, you enjoy talking about it with well-meaning people, and while Etci straddles that line, you think she’s well-meaning, deep down.
She groans again as she leans back further on her chair, on the edge of overbalancing. “Well nekowere cycles do sync up, and it is not fun having a group of horny girls in a house trying not to kill each other over who ate who’s sandwich.”
“Etci,” Jerrie cautions, “Vikki already apologised for eating your sandwich… and for trying to take your throat out.”
Etci barrels on regardless, “And the only way to remedy it any time soon also comes with a very serious risk of being treated like a fetish. So no, you can’t ask a neko if they’re in heat, not if you expect the answer to be ‘yes and I’ll do it with anyone, where’s your car?’”
She looks sideline at you, grinning. “But,” she lowers her chair, her tail swishing behind her, “if you expect the answer to be ‘yes, interesting person I’ve gotten to know and quite like, and I would really really enjoy you riding me six ways to Sunday,” she leans forward, purring under her breath, “then maybe you can ask.”
“Oh,” you manage, “that sounds… nice.”
You groan inside, mentally kicking yourself over and over for saying the stupidest thing possible! You take another long swig of your drink, enjoying the frigid burn of the vodka.
Jerrie’s hand is still on your shoulder, thumb stroking thoughtfully. “Maybe we’d be more comfortable if we moved over to the couches?”
You hear movement, look across the table to see Vikki’s empty chair rocking to a stop. You look over to the three deep grey couches arranged around the large tv, the darkness and dark couch fabric only serving to highlight the white shape of Vikki sitting innocuously on one of them. She’s not sitting in the middle, but off to one side, looking forward but very clearly waiting, her ears pivoted over to you.
Jerrie leans down to ask, “Would you be more comfortable here?”
You swallow. After everything that was just said, two equally strong emotions war in your head: the excitement that someone - that three people may be propositioning you, and the terror that you’re reading a proposition into something by being a narrow-minded assuming idiot. But… Vikki is over there, sitting forward with her hands resting on her knees, radiating the fact she was waiting for you without making a sound.
“Sure,” you announce, seeing Vikki’s ears perk up. You start getting up, finding yourself sandwiched between Jerri and Etci still leaning forward, grinning up at you. She barely moves back as you get up, your crotch much closer to her smiling face than you’d meant to. You reach for your glass, see Jerrie is already holding it, shrug and make your way over to the couches.
It was just a change of seating, right?
No comments:
Post a Comment