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Things went quickly after that. They Customer Service agent who picked up the phone had deep, smokey, 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; shey 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. Beside, 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 didnt’, 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 was waiting in the yellow light of the doorway. I should say, she was filling the doorway, with how curvy her belly and hips and breasts were, 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 things, as my wife had 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 had come up beside each of Loreane’s thighs and hugged them while 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 seemed unnatural for a cat appraising a dog. 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 Moranda, but she was too far into what was going to be a nap to notice me.
A thick-muscled cougar squeezed into shiny black latex slinked into the room; after Loraene, 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 seemed to prick 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.” Her claws had extended from her paws to tap against the wall beside my head. I could see that 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, Loraene.”
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 anyway 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 come over here and 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 was laying 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’ 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 shooshingly, 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.”