I cried while I clicked through the porn.

Actually, it was art, not porn. At least, it was on an art site, but it was porn to me. I was too jaded to look at the real art any more, and too cowardly to buck up the thirty Q for a real porn site, and risk having to explain the charges on the credit card or the email in my inbox or the bookmarks.

The messenger window blinked, and for the third time that night I told someone that, Yes, I’m fine. No, I’m really fine – but thanks, I appreciate it. I know my status says I’m feeling blue, but it’s just a little bit of silliness – just a bit of being emo for an evening.

It really was a bit of silliness, setting my status like that. I wasn’t blue; I was cry-on-my-keyboard depressed, and I didn’t want any cheering up or people to ask me about it and give me trite advice or bombard me with funny videos. I wouldn’t resent them for it; it’s kind of a societal obligation, isn’t it? You talk the people you know back from the ledge, even if you’re out on that same ledge yourself the next day. They were just acting the part of good friends, but not the kind I needed.

I wiped away a few more self-pitying tears and clicked again on the screen. Rows and columns of thumbnails promised shots of thick thighs squeezed into tight rubber, of red-painted lips and glistening pink tongues and other glistening pink body parts, but I clicked next. They weren’t what I needed.

I needed my wife. She was at her aunt’s again. Her family demanded more and more from her now – it seemed like someone was always sick or in an accident or short 200 Q on their rent and just needed a floater. But these were good folks, really, not freeloaders, and I couldn’t resent them or my wife, even if I wanted to. We always got paid back, eventually. We always got remembered at Christmas, even if it was to regift that awful sweater we’d given them the year before. I couldn’t resent them any more than my online friends, even after we moved to the city to be closer to them, even after my wife had to quit her job and I had to pick up the extra hours to make our own ends meet. At least I got to work from home, and got to spend time with our daughter.

Molly was the one thing my wife and I agreed on: she was the brightest spot in our lives. She was two years of clumsy, precocious joy, and she was a lifetime of my hopes and ambitions and dreams – all of that had been moved from my emotional savings account and transferred to her. I knew that some day she could be the brooding, morose teenager even the best parents seemed to wake up to discover one day, but for now she was a love mirror.

The problem was (and I know how selfish this sounds): Molly was “The Last Time” for me. Before we married, my wife and I had been the kind of couple that went for a risky quicky in the backyard, or a long, naked afternoon and evening on the couch, or a little roleplay and dressup. (In fact, I found her vixen-ear headband just the other day, in an old box of clothes destined for charity.) After we married, our sex life became about having a litter of our own, and we tried for so long and so hard that the processes became mechanical. I know she began to resent me asking for special favors, and I began to have trouble performing to her satisfaction. That meant we missed a checkbox on her calendar, and I got a scowl and a cold shoulder. And then “missionary” became our only position, because it was the best for conception. I’d suggested after a few months we give ourselves a break to rekindle the passion – that it was passion that fueled the loins – but she insisted. Every night, tired or sick or angry, we copulated. Not fucked, not made love. Copulated. We argued, more and more. That last time we argued while we copulated, and it got so tense between us that she bit me, hard enough to break my skin where her fangs sank in. That’s when I came. That was the last time, and that was the time (we were surprised to find a month-and a-half later) that Molly was conceived.

And that was that. After that she was pregnant, then she was sore from nursing, then she was tired, then she had migraines, then her family…

I was feeling so sorry for myself that I minimized the art site and clicked that hidden bookmark, that one I’d renamed “Accounts Payable” and always made sure to clear out of my history. Flash filled the screen, and loaded the image of a verdant green island ringed by shining white-gold beaches. A red-tile-roofed villa sprawled across one side of the island, facing out over a wave-clipped ocean. Marandara. The title built across the screen, and then links popped up around the outside of the image and I began to click. I’d already been through the entire site a hundred times before, even scouring the site map for links I might have missed, but it was still a strange sort of craven comfort to browse through the gallery again. I knew which pictures I liked best.

The thing was, I loved my wife. On a rational level, I loved her, and there were the moments when my heart and body caught up. She was a good person, and I really couldn’t blame her. It wasn’t her fault I hadn’t made any friends in the city. It wasn’t her fault that I was such a screwed up mess of kinks that my constant little requests and favors had burnt her out on sex entirely – even if she had promised me when we first met that that could never happen. It was as much my fault as hers that we’d let the romance slip out of our marriage until we were just two people living in the same house, people who barely touched each other beyond the mandatory, emotionless goodnight kiss, people who had no common interests and nothing to talk about except their kid, or to complain about how hard their day had been. I was a prisoner of solitude, bound by my wedding ring – I’d never cheat on my wife, never divorce her, and that meant I would never have sex again. Worse – far worse – it meant I would never be touched again, never be kissed in a way that made me feel wanted, never have naughty-sexy things whispered into my ear, never have anyone who would let me – want me to – explore their body.

I was crying again, and I couldn’t even see the monitor. I wiped the tears away as fast as they came, to keep them from leaving brown stains on my muzzle and giving me away later. That‘s what I wanted to tell the people IMing me. Then I’d get what I really needed – some sympathy and commiseration, and maybe even someone to agree with what I really thought: that I was better off dead. It sounds a lot less extreme when you’re crying at your computer in the middle of the night, trust me. It sounds logical. If I could just die quickly, painlessly, in an accident, my wife would collect on that insurance payout and be able to provide for Molly a lot better than she could with me spending seventy-five hours a week expediting parts orders in our attic office. Sure some people might be sad for a little while, but they’d get over it and Molly and my wife could trade in on my early passing for sympathy for the rest of their live. It was so simple, so obvious. Molly would be so much better off with a Mom who doted on her than a Mom who was busy bickering with a lonely Dad.

That gave me a good solid cry, enough to finally empty me of tears and give me that hollow feeling that would eventually put me to sleep and be gone the next morning. Except this time, Marandara’s gallery pages were waiting on my monitor. The first page of thumbnails was all tourists and visitors; I’d already clicked through that. The next page was filled with what I wanted: thumbnails showing a three-story purple-gray dragon – half of her by herself, or in social functions as the island’s Maitresse D (and de facto queen), and half of her in various stages of gulping down her guests. It was that last half I clicked through, and my erection had already bulged against the inside of my shorts before the new tabs had opened. I nibbled my fingers as my eyes wandered over the first full-page shot of the scaled beauty. Her neck was thrown back and her mouth opened wide into a red-fleshy nest in which sat a pudgy pig. From his euphoric expression, there was no doubt what her tongue was doing behind the cover of her lips. Other pictures were more graphic; the dragoness liked to play with her meals, and was not at all shy about exposing either herself or them in the most compromising positions for the camera. The site said that all of her meals were volunteers, but I liked the ones best where her meals looked a little frightened; where the otherwise gentle dragoness was threatening them with her teeth or claws. I imagined myself in those pictures, clenched between her jaws while she did goodness-knows-what to my lower half, my brown eyes rolled back in fright to meet her blue. The look she gave me in my imagination let me know she was delaying the inevitable gulp as much as possible, just to enjoy my squirming.

I’d already been clicking from picture to picture, saving my favorites for last, when I finally pushed back from the keyboard in a hurry.

I felt guilty while I cleaned up, like I always did. It was that apex predator fixation that killed my wife’s sex drive, and it had completely possessed mine. I don’t think I could even have normal sex any more, not unless I was fantasizing at the same time. I wasn’t the only creature with that kind of a fetish, or that dragoness would have starved long ago, as would have the outlaw predators you read about on the web from time to time, but it wasn’t the kind of thing you brag about with your friends. I was basically alone. Even if I had been the type to cheat on my wife, to seek some affection in an affair, I had no illusions about finding someone willing to play that game with me.

I came back from the bathroom, and the Marandara site was still up on my computer. It was a sign, I thought. Not that it was still on my computer now; that wasn’t the first time I’d been careless, but it was sort of serendipitous how the little island had come to my attention in the first place. I’d read about her on the web; even though it wasn’t every day that a new nation is granted UN status under threat of veto, or even that a country would be willing to give up the most worthless chunk of land to allow a new sovereign nation, it was page eight news, nearly buried entirely.

A couple of nights later I saw her, the dragoness, on the Tonight Show. It was one of the few nights my wife and I were both home, and she wanted to change the channel. (If Molly wakes up it will put ideas in her head, she said. Molly never wakes up after 10, I countered. I don’t like it, she said, expecting that to end the conversation. It usually would have. But I was uncharacteristically impulsive that night, and I told her that I didn’t like watching all those reality shows, but how often did I complain? Every night, she said, and left the room.) A lot of people thought the dragoness’ name was Marandara, but that was her island. She was Ariendel, and now that she had diplomatic immunity she was delighted to be able to return nature to the state it was intended. Her island had had more than 2 thousand visitors since they became their own nation, and she’d personally helped more than one hundred and thirty of her visitors fulfill what had, in most cases, been life-long fantasies. When pressed on the morality of her predilections, she brought up the fact that the meat on everyone’s table had to come from somewhere, and at least she knew where hers came from, and knew that its source was willing, and that she had made them happy. The host made jokes instead of picking a side in that unpopular political issue, and laughed off the suggestion of sending a camera crew down Ariendel’s throat, though they did segue out with her grinning red lips closing over camera 1.

The next morning there was a banner ad for the island on my favorite forum site, and I clicked through. I’ve never seen another ad for the island since.

I sat back down in front of the computer, and as I’d done dozens of times before, I went to the Contact Us page. This time, though, I actually picked up my phone.

* * *

Things went quickly after that. The Customer Service agent who picked up the phone had deep, smoky, feminine voice that I imagined belonged to some tropical alligator. She was efficient on the phone and very professional. I tried to get her to stop calling me sir, but she laughingly insisted. Once I told her about the insurance and my wife, she knew just what to do; she had me clear out my browser history and install a fake file for the last two weeks, and leave right away. Any delay would open the chance that I’d slip up and write a note, or say goodbye to my wife and daughter, she explained. Leave now, as soon as we hang up, and I’ll have everything ready, she assured me. Insurance companies were like sharks when it came to sniffing out suicides. Besides, it would be better for them this way, believing I’d been in some kind of accident. The more sudden, the better.

I left my car idling in the park-and-ride like she told me and took the taxi that was waiting to the airport. I didn’t have a suitcase, and I’d left my wallet in the car, but a duffel and fake ID were waiting in the back seat of the taxi; this was the deluxe package, for which Marandara’s finest Customer Service agent said they’d skim a little bit off the insurance payout. Just a little off the top. They had their ways, and my wife wouldn’t even notice.

I was surprised by how easily I made it on the plane. The show of security at the airport was so imposing I expected to be tackled by a team of agents from the moment I walked in, but all I got were smiles and tired midnight eyes and well-wishes for my trip to (pause, look down, check the ticket) Hoover City. I couldn’t sleep on the plane. I wondered if anyone else there knew where I was going, and why. I wondered if they cared. I asked myself if I cared if they were going for the same reason. I didn’t, which was good, because it probably kept me from crying on the flight and giving the whole things up.

At the Hoover City airport, instead of a transfer to an overseas flight I found another taxi waiting for me. The rabbit driver wasn’t very talkative, and didn’t have an explanation for why he was taking me out of the city and past the county lines, where – famously – most of the legal prostitution in the country occurred. We were driving up a bumpy dirt road as the eastern sky was starting to glow when I was pounding on the glass between us and insisting he’d made some kind of mistake. All the lousy hare did was point to the neon sign on the roof, where a twisting purple dragon was reclining over the letters spelling Jackalope Ranch. “Right place?” he asked. I nodded and got out of the car.

A large cow waited in the yellow light of the doorway. I should say, she filled the doorway, as curvy she was, and it was no small doorway. My wife and I were always sleek and trim (as was the nature of our breed) but I had to admit that some species could carry the extra weight well. This cow was an exemplar.

“Sully?” She extended a hand – two hoofed fingers and a pair of thumbs which, despite their clumsy appearance, were remarkably flirtatious on my shoulder as they took my bag. It was stuffed with paper (I’d checked earlier) so I didn’t say anything when she closed the door behind me and tossed the bag off into the corner. “I’m Loreane.” She proceeded to spell it out, just so I’d know she wasn’t like all of the other Lorraines out there, as if I could have made that mistake “We don’t really see many border collies coming out this way – at least not for what you’re after – so you’ll have to forgive us all if we stare and lust a little, okay?” She winked, and her tail swished against mine; purposefully, I thought.

I didn’t mind at all if they were staring; I was too busy staring myself to notice. I’d seen Loreane’s shape in silhouette in the doorway, but now I was able to get real eyeful. She was big, and I don’t just mean “curvy” now; she was twice my height, and a bunch more in every other direction. Silky brown hair spilled down from between her horns and spearhead ears and around a tastefully made-up bovine face (just some eyeliner and lip gloss was all I noticed, but I didn’t have an eye for these things, as my wife reminded me each time we went out). Her body was covered in a fine brown hair speckled into different shades, except for a blaze of white that shot down her neck and disappeared into her breasts – those breasts! She had some kind of red satin corset squeezing her belly into an unnatural hourglass shape, but the result was a pair of buttocks and a pair of breasts ballooning out of each end like the knobs on the end of a cartoon bone. That analogy probably doesn’t convey just how alluring I found her shape. Her thighs disappeared into a pair of black boots that accentuated the angles of her hoofed feet and pointed my attention back up her thighs to the mound barely hidden behind the thinnest of nylon panties.

Two black-faced ewe-sheep appeared beside each of Loreane’s thighs, which they hugged as they stared at me, smiling and blinking ridiculously long lashes. They wore matching lacy sets, one blue and one periwinkle, and they didn’t say a thing. On their tip-toes they were barely an inch or two shorter than me, which made me truly realize just how much bigger than me Loreane was. “These are Eunice and Marta, respectively. They’re shy, so don’t feel bad if they don’t say anything.” The sheep waggled their fingers at me and giggled.

Loreane turned around the room and pointed at each girl she saw in turn. The sleek black cat in the green gown was Tess; her eyes – the same color as her gown – looked me up and down in a way that would have been unnatural for a cat appraising a dog anywhere else. Her crossed legs swished against each other when I came over to shake her hand. The Rattlesnake draped against the bar was Anne; she was a bondage and asphyxiation specialist, so I just smiled politely. The exotic striped horse-creature – I didn’t know her species – was Thera, but she was too far into what was going to be a nap to pay me attention.

A thick-muscled cougar squeezed into shiny black latex slinked into the room; after Loreane, she was easily the second largest of us. She glanced down at me and placed her hands on her hips. “Did somebody call for the lineup?”

Loreane looked up to see a green light blinking behind the bar; with a frown she reached over to flick a switch and turn it off. “No, they shouldn’t have.”

The cougar eyed me in almost the same way as Tess had, but from her the threat had teeth. “Then who’s he?”

“He’s on his way to Marandara.”

“Oh…” The mood in the room changed immediately; now I wasn’t a potential client, I was a conversation piece, a curiosity. Even that striped horse pricked up her ears. The cougar took a few steps toward me and licked her whiskers. “You know, fella, you don’t have to go that far if that’s what you’re after.” Her claws had extended from her paws to tap against the wall beside my head. She was the type who kept her claws kitchen-knife sharp. “I’ll take care of you any time you like – on the house.”

“Stop it, Ginger!” Before the cougar’s boots could plant themselves on either side of me, I was yanked out from beneath her and clutched to Lorraine’s side. “That’s not your decision now, is it? Come on, Sweetie, let’s get you back to my room before they jump you out here.”

Once we’d gone down a tangle of white halls lined with paintings of what I assumed were photos of all the girls – there were dozens of them, but I noticed Ginger the cougar among them – she bundled us into a bedroom. I glanced around while she checked the lock on the door: black-and-white checkered walls, hangers on chrome racks draped with lingerie, an over-sized vanity, and a massive bed framed with chrome rails. Loreane showed me the extra step that allowed someone of my size up onto her bed. “Well, Sweetie – you’re going to be here for awhile; is there anything I can get for you? Something to drink? Or if you just want to talk, I’d love to know more about you. I heard that you were feeling pretty blue lately – why don’t you tell me all about it?”

“What am I doing here?” I furrowed my brow, and expected that I looked quite serious. “I don’t mean to sound rude – thank you for the hospitality – but I expected to be on a plane over the ocean right now instead of at a…”

“A brothel, Sweetie?”

“Right. A brothel outside of Hoover City. I’m married, you know.”

“I saw the ring. You’re not first married man who’s been here.” She smirked. “But we don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. I can put on a robe, if the way I look bothers you. But if it makes you feel any better, you’re wife’s a widow, now, isn’t she? Back where you live, they’ve probably already found the remains of a body in what was your car.”

I hadn’t even thought of backing out before, but no-one likes to hear that they’re legally dead, do they? I think my ears drooped. “No. I mean, no, it doesn’t bother me, what you’re wearing. You look… you look ravishing, Loreane.”

She batted her eyes and pressed her fingers to her breastbone. “Thank you, Sweetie. That’s always nice to hear. So you don’t mind if I sit down with you?”

When she said “with me”, that’s what she meant – right beside me, and her weight in the bed tipped me up against her thigh. She put her arm around my shoulder, which meant there wasn’t any way to regain my personal space without being rude. I settled for an awkward, rigid-backed slump.

“You’re here because overseas flights are much more expensive than domestic, and you’re paying for this out of your insurance, aren’t you? That means we’re not using your real name, and you’ll take longer to whiffle through customs. And besides, Ariendel isn’t always at the island; she’s a busy traveler, so depending on her schedule she may just come by here to swoop you up. So you’re stuck with us – with me, and that’s not so bad, is it?” Her fingers traced up my arm and over my shoulder. “Oh my, you’re so tense. Why don’t you let me help you feel better?”

I protested – that’s the kind of coward I was, but somehow she convinced me to lay across her thigh for a massage, and then a few more soft words in my ear had me sitting naked in her lap, and then I’d opened up and told her everything, every last detail. The best part was that I hadn’t cried at all or made my wife – my widow, she reminded me – out to be a terrible person, but I still felt like she sympathized with me. I felt like I’d gotten what I always wanted when I set my stupid IM status, and I knew that she wasn’t going to try to talk me out of “a stupid decision”. She agreed with me; she was helping me; she wanted to make it as pleasant as possible.

I laid back against her chest, against the satin of her corset, with my head cradled in the swell of her bosom. Her wide tongue lapped over my ears while I talked – it was a fond and affectionate gesture in my species, and it felt the same from her, but more, too. I didn’t just feel like she liked me, I felt like she wanted me. Her fingers played gently over the taut, bare skin on my belly, and I thought it was classy that even when I was talking about my sentence of chastity she didn’t fondle me. Classy, but I was kind of wishing she had. What she did do was wait until I had caught up to the present moment in my life story, right about to that awkward sort of pause where I was looking for a climax that wasn’t there, and she ran her fingertip between my lips. Her finger was wet, and it was wet again when she pressed it between my teeth and against my tongue for a second pass. It tasted of something rich and vaguely sweet. The next pass wasn’t her finger, it was the swollen flesh of her nipple. Once she’d pressed it between my lips, she squeezed her breast and a jet of thick milk filled the back of my mouth, forcing me to swallow or choke. I swallowed. She squeezed again, and this time my lips closed and I suckled. I loved breasts as much the next fellow, but I’d never had any desire to do something like this. Still… with her stroking my head and shushing me as I drank, it felt natural and comforting. When she picked me up and transferred me to the other breast, I didn’t peep.

Nor did it seem especially strange when, still nursing me, she reached down and began to roll my sheath between her fingers, gently encouraging my erection to pop. Just as gently, as calm and shushingly, she scooped her breast away from my muzzle once she had me fully extended, and she laid me back into her comforter before settling herself down over my cock. Neither of us spoke, but we stared into each other’s brown eyes as her hips rocked against mine. She had swallowed my entire length (little wonder), and her warmth extended all the way down to my scrotum and seeped out around my belly. The sex seemed to last for an age of the earth, but in the right way – there was no hurry to an orgasm before I shriveled up, no frantic gasping or repositioning or tails caught in the way. I never asked her to lick her lips or nibble my fingers, but I came. I came with a wide, goofy grin instead of a forced grunt. I came with the release that you can only understand after two and a half years dry, but it was wrapped in the most calming, peaceful moment of my life.

For a while she continued to kneel over me, just sharing the bodyheat between our mis-sized parts the way long-time lovers share an hour-long side hug on a park bench. When she finally slipped forward and bent down to kiss me, she asked, “Is that what you needed, Sweetie?”

It was.

“Do you still want to go to Marandara?”

I was surprised to find that I did. Even with a completely sated sex drive, even with the pressures of my old life lifted so far from my shoulders that I could barely remember what they were, I did. It was my fate, I thought. I was on railroad tracks to that dragon’s maw. I was meant for it. I thought about saying all of this, but I knew I tended to gush after sex and I didn’t want Loreane to laugh. I just nodded.

“I’m so glad, Sweetie. So, so glad.”

She reached over to the side of the bed, and I don’t know what she did, but a moment later the locked door opened and the two ewe sheep came in with a box. The cow scooped me up as easily as if I were a child, and held me to her chest while the sheep spread a plastic tarp over her bed.

I clung to Loreane instinctively. “What’s going on?” I think my eyes showed fear, because she cooed and stroked between my ears.

“Don’t worry, Sweetie. That’s just so we can shave you without making a mess.”

“Shave me?” It was more of a bark than a question, and it startled the sheep.

“Yes.” Loreane held me tightly now, against the possibility that I would try to struggle out of her arms. “You have a very thick coat, Sully. A beautiful coat, but it would choke anyone.”

“On the website-”

“I know, Sweetie – trust me, I know. The website has a lot of promotional material, but that’s what it is: just marketing. I promise it won’t hurt a bit, and if I know you, you’ll appreciate how much more you can feel against your bare skin.” Her fingers slipped down again to the pink of my belly to illustrate her point.

So I Iet her hold me still on the plastic tarp while the two ewes ran metal clippers over my body, from ankles to wrists to the top of my neck where my mane disappeared into the shorter fur on my face. They were efficient and steady, like they’d done this a hundred times before; to judge by the poodle-like bobs to which their wool was groomed, they’d probably practiced on themselves. One followed behind the other, brushing away the cut clumps and working a sagey-smelling balm into my pale, sun-starved skin. The few times they nicked a fold of skin, Loreane actually “kissed it better”, pressing her wet tongue and lips to the wound until the bleeding stopped. “I wondered,” she mentioned at one point, as she traced the border where pink skin met brown behind my shoulder, “if you were different colors all the way down.”

One of the ewes – Marta I think – straddled my naked back to work on the thick hair of my mane. I didn’t have the dramatic ploof of a standard collie, but it was still thicker and required extra attention, and was the pride of any collie’s coat. Feeling her thighs straddling my unbalmed bare skin – feeling her body heat in contrast to the cold air – felt so much more intimate than I was prepared for, even more intimate than Loreane nibbling at the small of my back. It broke down that last vestige of a wall I had around my emotions, I guess, because suddenly I was tearing up again. Saying goodbye to my mane was really saying goodbye to life. It was saying goodbye to Molly, who I’d never see again. Molly had my markings. The sister ewe must have noticed; when Marta turned me over to work on my neck and shoulders, Eunice kissed at the drops collecting at the corners of my eyes and shushed me.

Loreane’s voice broke the tenderness of the moment. “They told me they want you to eat them out while you’re being eaten.” Now that I was on my back, Loreane had caught both my ankles in one hand and lifted them from the bed. “It will take a while, so there’s time. And you should be flattered – they don’t usually go in for toothies like you.” The way her eyes brightened as they picked over the cords of muscle in my thighs was unsettling. I could feel my scrotum tighten, and that’s why, even before her flat tongue swiped up the back of my leg, I knew:

It was happening now.

“What about Ariendel?” My voice was surprisingly steady, and I was proud of that.

Loreane chuckled, and from my vantage I saw the tops of her breasts quiver like two magnificent drops of water. “There is no Ariendel, Sweetie. You should know that – dragons don’t exist.”

“What about-”

“The Tonight Show appearance, or the island? Those are the big two, right?” She spoke between long licks up my legs, and I realized that as sensual as it felt, as much as it gave me sheathpeek, she was methodical, like a painter. “Faked.” She turned my leg thirty degrees and swiped. “The host is one of us, and finally got the leverage he needed to bully the segment onto his producer.” Thirty degrees and swiped. “Marandara is a real island, but if you had looked it up on a map, you might have been surprised. It’s barely big enough for a beacon and a flag. The pictures you saw were from an old Disneyworld brochure.” She stopped to spread my thighs and nuzzle her lips down against my tender spots. “It’s just you and me, Sweetie – nobody else. Nobody else in our little world but my girls, if you’ll let them stay.”

The clippers had been put away, but Marta still straddled my chest. She stroked the fine hair on top of my muzzle and smiled.

“I know you’re surprised about Ariendel, but I also know it won’t change your mind, Sully. You were made for this. Walking away would be like a great artist tossing down his brush and learning to drive a streetsweeper. And, for what it’s worth, you’ll mean so much more to me than you ever could to a dragon, real or imaginary. You’d be a tasty snack to her, but to me, you’re a holiday. I’ll be working you over for days and days before I have everything I want from you, and even then you won’t be gone. A moment on the lips, forever on the hips, you know. That reminds me.” She reached back and began to unlace the corset.

I blinked at Loreane, and she smiled sweetly in return. Her breasts fell pendulously as the corset slipped to the ground.

The ewe sheep who had kissed away my tears nibbled at my ear. In a deep, smokey, feminine voice that couldn’t possibly have come from her lean body, she asked, “So can we sit on your face, Sir?” She had the voice of Customer Service.

I nodded. A moment later I felt a warm tongue slip under my footpads, and lips close around my ankles.

* * *

Loreane was right when she said there was plenty of time. Unlike the fake dragon’s greedy gulping, she swallowed her meals by inches: licking and wriggling and nibbling along the way. By the time my knees were at the back of the cow’s spacious throat, Eunice had already come and gone from my lips, and was now covering my teeth with her hands so her sister could sit in my open mouth and push her full weight down on my tongue. Loreane’s mouth was too full to speak, but each major landmark on my body that she swallowed made her moan like we were having phone sex. If it hadn’t been for the convulsing quivers in her thighs and the wild flare in her eyes, I wold have thought it was just an act. My erection was swollen in anticipation of what she’d do with it once she had it inside her mouth.

Loreane took a break with her teeth resting just below my ribcage. Everyone had already cum but her, so the sheep – still glowing from their own conquest of my face – had disappeared behind her thighs to solve that problem. I touched Loreane’s face and ears and ran my fingers through her hair while she stared at me, gagged and anchored by my body, and allowed herself to be manipulated to orgasm. When her moans finally gave way to delighted screams, I brushed the happy tears from her eyes and tried not to wince as she bit into my chest.

The sisters kissed my ears and eyes and cheeks and nose as they disappeared behind Loreane’s lips; they were smiling and waving and touching themselves more than a little bit. Loreane was sitting up on the bed now, so gravity and her final gulp pulled me away from last light and into the tight sack of her stomach – or one of her stomachs. Her voice was hoarse the first time she tried to use it, but another swallow honeyed it. “Thank you, Sweetie. Thank you so much – you were as perfect as I could ask for.” I hoped she knew how much it meant for me to hear that. “That was the last fun part for you, though, so I’ll make this quick.” A great rumbling belch, then another, drew away the air she’d swallowed with me, leaving the folds of her stomach to cling to all of the hollows around my face and body. I didn’t struggle, didn’t fight for breath, so I barely noticed when the black in front of my eyes became the sparking white of asphyxiation.

* * *

The cow reclined in her bed, sighing around her overfull belly. She’d sent the sheep away, though they’d be back to check on her later. She liked to spend alone time with her meal and feel him slowly digest – to feel the meat that had been the muscles of his shoulder she’d worked the knot out of, or that bit of thigh that had made him squirm when she nibbled on it, to feel his fingers and toes all turn to mush and be absorbed. It took days for that to happen, and then there would be plenty more alone time in her bathroom as well; though that was as much to spare the other girls as to enjoy the pleasure of evacuation.

There was something she had to attend to first, though, before she could let herself relax. She stretched for the phone on the nightstand, and in a few minutes a weasely voice answered.

“Hey. I just found out that she ID’d the body in the car. There wasn’t much left of either, so she must have wanted to believe it was him. She was a real mess. I think I could push her a bit, and she’d be ready in a few months. You could probably have her and the kid both.”

“Cyrus!” There was warning in Loreane’s voice.

“Alright, alright. Whatever. They’re golden, then.”

She paused to let the sweetness return. “Where did you find a body match for him?”

“Why do you always ask when you never want to know?”

She snorted into the phone. “And the rest?”

“I cleaned the Trojan from his computer; everything else I could see on the remote was clean as a cucumber. The insurance will clear, don’t you worry about that. And – hey.”

“Yeah?”

“I got a list of names and email addresses of some of his friends from the site. He had real addresses and numbers for a few of them. Enough to work with. You want ‘em?”

This time she smiled, wide enough that he was sure to hear it. “What do you think?”