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The Elemental Portals

Book I – Terra

Chapter V – Annie Takes the Reins

Annie stopped by the Douglas Trading warehouse on the holiday Monday to drop off the mail she had collected at Jimmy’s house the week before. She was certain that someone would be there to take it because of the rare merchandise they kept stored there, finished gems in particular. Even though they had a security system second to none there was always the possibility of being robbed so the Chief Accountant, the Foreman and the Manager took turns coming in on weekends and holidays to verify that everything was in place in order to keep the insurance company happy. That way they were also available to accept foreign deliveries from countries that did not recognize weekends or Canadian holidays.

On duty today was Bill Decker, the Foreman. Annie gave him the company mail mistakenly addressed to the Douglas residence and he gave her some envelopes for her to take back.

“There’s some stuff in there for young Jimmy.” He informed her. “First aid and hazardous material handling certificates that he needs to have work here in the warehouse. I made copies for the employee file so he can keep the originals in his wallet in case an inspector shows up when I’m not around.”

“Oh? I thought he was away with his dad all summer?”

“Don’t think so. He called form the house yesterday to confirm we were shipping some special order of steel and charcoal to the Renfrew Warehouse. When you see him tell him it’s all set. It’ll be there before lunch on Tuesday.”

Annie was confused. Surely Jimmy would have called if he was back in town? Maybe he had called from overseas and Mister Decker just assumed he was in town because he recognized the cell number.

Either way she would stop by the house to drop off the mail, and if Jimmy was there she would give him a piece of her mind for ignoring her. Maybe she would tell him that she had decided to accept the scholarship in Vancouver, although in truth she had not made up her mind yet. Her parents were pressuring her for an answer soon though.

Jimmy’s house looked empty from the street. She noticed that the curtains were closed and tried to remember if they were closed or open when she picked up the mail on Wednesday. She could not say for certain either way. She glanced through the small window on the garage door and saw that it was empty, as it had been the week before. So far it looked like Mister Decker had been mistaken.

She paused though at the front door. Although it was locked, as she had left it, she could see through the side window that the alarm was disarmed because the light on the console was green. Had she forgotten to arm it when she took the mail? She didn’t think so. Could a burglar have gotten in and disabled it? She doubted that they would have the code to put it in “occupied mode” as opposed to outright disabling it, but she was not an expert in such things. So either she forgot to set it or Jimmy was indeed home. But then where was the car?

Her mind filled with doubt and a little apprehension, Annie used her key to open the locked door and took a tentative step inside. She dialed “9-1” on her phone and stood with her thumb over the final “1” as she called out.

“Jimmy? Hey, Jimmy, you home?”

There was no reply, but she did think that she heard some movement coming from the kitchen. There was a strange smell too, a farmyard odour that she could not identify and … cat? But Jimmy never had any pets, because his father was always travelling and Jimmy’s father did not want to burden a housekeeper with tasks that parents inevitably assumed when their children got dogs or cats or ferrets, he had said. Maybe a stray had gotten into the house, either that or Mister Douglas had relented now that Jimmy was old enough to vote, and to engage in other adult activity she thought with a blush.

Either way, she had never heard of a burglar working with a real cat, not even a cat burglar. Emboldened she put away her phone and followed the scent through the empty house.

It was strongest in Jimmy’s bedroom, where his unmade bed reeked of feline. Annie was glad that she wasn’t allergic to the beasts like so many people were these days, because his bed was coated in orange and black hairs that definitely did not come from his crimson head. There was another smell in there too, a sweet sticky kind of smell that she was not familiar with. She moved on, wondering if the cat had left some sort of territory marking scent behind.

His father’s bedroom was clean and untouched, but while the bed in the guest room was made up it too had obviously been used lately. The farmhouse smell was strongest in there, and some of Jimmy’s clothes were folded up on the chair beside the bed. Had Jimmy returned from his father’s business trip early with a guest? A guest with a cat, perhaps? A guest with a cat but with no change of clothes?

Perplexed she continued her inspection. She paused by the guest bathroom, where she could hear the sound of the shower running. Curious, she took a quick peek inside. The person in the shower was definitely not Jimmy. The silhouette behind the frosted glass was much too curvy for that … much too curvy. And the voice singing a tune in a foreign tongue as it worked the shampoo on its head into a lather was definitely female.

Annie puled her head back and quietly closed the door. She stood with her back against it, her brain whirling madly as it tried to fit all these facts into a coherent picture. Jimmy was not the one to be bringing strange women home, or was he? And why would she be using the guest room if they were lovers?

She smiled as the solution came to her. Of course! Mister Douglas had taken Jimmy to meet his real mother. An exotic gem from some farming community that the senior Douglas frequented in his search for artisan goods, she must have returned to Canada with Jimmy on the spur of the moment. If they arrived yesterday, a Sunday, she would have to borrow some of Jimmy’s clothes until the stores opened again on Tuesday. Meanwhile he must have gone out to the convenience store to restock the fridge. It all fit.

Comfortable with her conclusion, Annie proceeded to the kitchen where she half expected to find the slow cooker bubbling away with one of the smaller roasts from the freezer and a package of instant pot roast spice.

The smug smile was wiped from her face when instead of a pot roast she found an upright horse in a “Kiss the Chef” apron stirring pancake batter while listening to smooth jazz through a pair of Bluetooth headphones perched precariously on its head.

The horse had been walking around the kitchen, facing the other way when Annie appeared, but he turned to face her as the music moved him. He froze for an instant when he saw the unexpected visitor but recovered his wits quickly. He put the bowl on the counter then removed the headphones and placed them down carefully. He stuck out his hand, as he had seen humans do on television.

“Uh, hello. My name is Gael. You must be Annie. Jimmy has told us all about you.”

Annie managed to close her mouth. “US?”

“Junafir and I. Oh, there she is now.”

Annie looked around to see a tiger walk in on its hind legs. It had a distinctly humanoid and female body, which the wet fur did nothing to hide. It was rubbing its head with one of the Douglas bath towels and hadn’t noticed Annie yet.

Annie stared at the naked tigress, at her orange fur and black stripes. Just like the pictures Jimmy liked her to draw for him. Then she recalled the state of Jimmy’s bed, and the truth exploded in her head like a bomb going off.

Suddenly realized what the other smell was. It was the smell of the alley behind the strip club they cut through sometimes to get downtown, of the motel they had stopped at for directions on a family vacation, of her parents room after one of their “late night date nights”. Her vision went red.

Her face must have reflected her thoughts because the horse took a step back and picked up the batter laden spoon to defend himself with.

“Uh, Junafir.” He called loudly, finally getting the tiger’s attention. He gestured towards Annie and then back to the door leading to the bedrooms. “Maybe you should go dry off … somewhere.”

Junafir looked confused then her eye caught Annie and she gasped. Annie’s face reminded her of her mother when the rabbit was on a slow burn before a rampage. Wisely, she retreated. Unwisely, she went to Jimmy’s bedroom and closed the door behind her, reinforcing Annie’s latest conclusion.

“Listen Annie, it is Annie, isn’t it? I can explain.”

“Oh no need for that, Bojack. I think I get the picture.”

“You … you know about us?”

“Sure, it’s all Jimmy ever talked about. I just want to know why he felt he had to lie about it.”

“Well, I think that it’s because not many humans know about us and …”

“Oh, cut the bullshit! Everybody has heard about furries, and drop the roleplay, I’m not in the mood.” She hung her head and rubbed her temples. “Listen, if Jimmy prefers to sneak off to furry conventions and bring a couple of fursuiters home for an orgy that’s his business, but he can pick up his own goddamed mail from now on.”

“Orgy? What Orgy?”

“I saw his bed, and the smell, Jesus.”

“Well I certainly had no part in that.”

“But that striped slut did! And while wearing her fursuit by the looks of it.”

“Oh, they were doing that before we came to Earth with Jimmy. And its not a suit, it’s her real fur.”

“I told you to cut the …”

Before she could finish Gael had put down the spoon and moved close to her. He pulled the apron off and stood there, wearing nothing but a pair of loose boxer shorts. He took one of her thick hands and placed it on the muscles of his chest.

Her mouth hung open and her eyes went wide as, guided by Gael, she moved her hand over his torso and sides.

“See? No seams.”

She looked down at his shorts, the only place where a skin-tight two-piece suit might join, but they were hanging so low that she could see the “vee” where the last abdominal muscles met the tops of his thighs. Her hand inched downward but she pulled it back. A movement behind him caught her eye. His tail was swishing expectantly behind him. She looked around to see where it joined his spine. He had not bothered to turn the shorts around and pull his tail through the fly, so she could see that it was a continuous appendage, and that he had the ass of an athlete.

“Holy crap! You’re real!”

“Well, I’ve always thought so.”

“And the tiger?”

“Her too, yes.”

It was a lot to take in. Annie stopped to ponder the situation for a few moments. Gael let her think.

“She’s still a slut.” Annie said finally.

“By our standards, certainly. Probably by yours too, if they are similar. Maybe it would help if I explained where we came from and how we came to be here.”

“I’m sure it would.” Annie hauled herself onto a tall stool at the counter. “Begin.”

Jimmy arrived some forty minutes later, parking the SUV in the garage and entering through the front door. He was surprised to find it open, as he was sure that he had locked it on the way out. He hoped that Junafir had not been tempted to go outside. Since the incident in Cornwall daytime excursions were forbidden; even the back yard was not safe as several nearby houses had widows overlooking it.

He had gone to the Farmers market they held at the Square in downtown Kingston on Sundays and holidays to get more fresh produce for supper and for a picnic during the trip back to the portal the next day. One could always get fried chicken or fish and chips at a drive through but five pounds of oatmeal and salad was definitely not on the average fast food restaurant menu.

With the delivery confirmed for before noon Jimmy figured that they could have a big breakfast before heading north and have a picnic outside the building before deploying the shop magnet on a stick he had found among his father’s tools. Once they were back in Terra they were likely to be separated so they might as well enjoy the ride and one last meal before facing the music.

He had also stopped off at the pharmacy to pick up a box of double-extra-large condoms for Gael, who had been too embarrassed to ask Jimmy’s father to stock them in Dougs-ur-Mark. Unfortunately, the same clerk as the first day had been on duty. She had held up the box for the old ladies and old men in line to pay for their prescriptions and buy lottery tickets to see and tapped the ‘XXL’ sticker.

“Honey, you are fooling no one but yourself.”

“Just put it on my debit card, okay?”

“You got a loyalty points card?”

“Not for very friggin’ long.” Jimmy mumbled as he collected his purchase and left.

He kicked the front door shut behind him.

“Hey Gael, Junafir! I’m back.”

“We’re in the kitchen.”

Did Gael’s voice sound funny? A little strained perhaps? Jimmy shrugged it off. He had been worried that the police would show up asking about the fight in Cornwall but there was no black and white outside and they would be gone from their jurisdiction, and them some, early enough tomorrow. He swung his bags of groceries and Gael’s rubber cock socks happily as he entered the kitchen and smiled toward Junafir, who looked a little pissed for some reason. He put the big box of condoms on the counter and turned his grin to Gael, who fluttered his eyes and jerked his head to the side while mouthing some like “Fanny”. Jimmy’s eyes went in the indicated direction.

“Oh, hi Annie …. Annie! Jesus, Annie, what are you doing here?”

“I would ask the same thing,” she said, tilting her chin to the box on the counter, “but your little supply run speaks for itself.”

“What? These? These aren’t for me.” He showed her the sticker with the size on it. “They’re for Gael.”

“You have enough for you and the tigress already I suppose?”

“Yeah, for now I guess ...wait, no. I didn’t mean that … mean to say that, I mean.”

“Not out loud.”

“Right.” He stood there, eyes wide and expectant for a long while but Annie just stared back with her thick arms crossed over her broad chest. “You mad at me, Annie?”

Annie hung her head and thought about that. She was surprised to find that no, she wasn’t mad at him, not much anyway. She had expected to be, but then again, she had been anticipating this day for so long that she must have come to accept the fact that Jimmy would never be her lover, just a friend.

She had always thought that she was in love with Jimmy, but maybe that was because he was the only guy who had been nice to her after puberty changed everyone’s priorities. She had no claim on him, and it was obvious now that he would never claim her the way he had done the tiger. But maybe that wasn’t a bad thing, because something new had come along and she wanted the freedom to explore it.

Her aunt had horses on her farm outside Kingston and ever since she was a little girl Annie loved to ride them. After she had started menstruating she noticed that the motion of the horse and the hard ridge of the saddle against her groin was doing things to her that she had never confessed to her aunt. She never developed any special feelings toward the horses whose galloping bright this new sensation on though, partially because it did not matter whether she saddled up a mare or a stallion, it worked either way. Then she discovered that rubbing herself on any hard surface would do, and there was no need to visit her aunt to feel that way. Talk at school and a bit of internet research led her to experiment with fingers, cucumbers, broom handles and, once, her electric toothbrush.

It was around then that she started to fantasize about boys when she did it. At first it was the usual stock of celebrity singers and actors, but as she got older Jimmy began to replace them in her imagination. By then he was taller than her and had started developing the physique that was making the girls at school look twice when he played for the skins on the schoolyard basketball court.

Oh, how she had longed to touch those burgeoning muscles! To feel the smooth, downy skin over the ridges of his abdomen. But even as he developed into a red-headed Chris Evens her sexual fantasies of him faded, to be replaced with a warm glow whenever he was around … a friendly glow, she admitted now.

Masturbation had lost most of it’s thrill by then. Lately, in an attempt to bring back the fire in her loins, she had started hanging out at her aunt’s more often. She took care of the horses, currying their coat, brushing them, tending to their hooves, rubbing their thick muscles after a good run … and they took care of her, so to speak. But they were still just a means to an end, she did feel any attraction to any of them.

Not like the one she felt for Gael.

Usually it took a good ten or twenty minutes of riding to feel even the slightest tingling down there, but running her hands along Gael’s firm muscles under his warm, smooth hide when he was proving that he was not wearing a fur suit had brought that moist feeling back without the need for friction.

He was big and he was strong, as an athlete herself she could appreciate that, but he was also nice, and a bit shy. She picked that up while they talked about how he and the slutty tigress had ended up in Jimmy’s house. She was attracted by his sweet disposition in such a appetizing package, and maybe it was her imagination, but she thought that she picked up the some of the same vibe coming from Gael.

“No.” She finally answered Jimmy. “I’m not mad, just disappointed.”

“Good. I wouldn’t want to lose my one best friend.”

“Hey!”

“You are very important to me too, Junafir, but I’ve known Annie all my life. She’s like my sister.”

“Oh, well. Okay then.” The tigress gave Annie a smug glance when Jimmy was not looking and stuck out her tongue.

A few days ago that would have hurt, Annie thought, but now it was fine with her. She wanted to explore her relationship with the horse and now she was clear to do so.

“So how long did you guys say that you were staying?”

Jimmy’s face fell. “I have to take them back to Terra tomorrow, and I may have to stay there,” he looked at Junafir, “forever.”

“Frig, Jimmy, it’s not a prison sentence.”

“Sorry Junafir, I didn’t mean it that way. It’s just …”

Annie tuned them out. She had been on the receiving end of enough of Jimmy’s apologies to know how it would go. He tended to be too honest and open for his own good. Always saying what he was thinking without choosing his words first.

She sighed and looked back and forth between the horse and her human friend. Jimmy was a great guy who had always had her back. He was brave, loyal and kind, but he was not the sharpest tool in the shed … and where he was headed sharp tools were a necessity. Gael on the other hand seemed to be more thoughtful, cautious and prepared, but also someone who could still have some fun in the right company. She wanted to protect Jimmy and learn more about the roan Blacksmith, and there was only one way to do that.

“I’m going with you.”

Jimmy stopped in mid-apology as all three looked at her. “What?”

Junafir frowned. “Oh, no. We have all the humans we need on Terra, once you’re back, that is Jimmy.”

“I think it’s a great idea.” Gael said, a shy smile playing about his lips.

One vote for, one against, she thought. She turned to face Jimmy. “Jimmy? It’s your family portal.”

“I … well … Jesus …” his head swivelled from Annie to Junafir and back several times.

Long term friendship and loyalty beat out a purely sexual relationship that he probably shouldn’t have gotten into in the first place.

“Okay, Annie, you can come. I don’t know how long my father will let you stay but you better pack for a few days anyways. Can you be back here by nine tomorrow?”

“I’ll be back in an hour.” She said, keeping her eyes on Gael as she turned to take the keys to the SUV from Jimmy’s hand. “You’ve got to fill me in before my first visit to your home world.” She said to the Blacksmith as she left.

Jimmy squinted in confusion. Junafir looked a little relieved and winked at Gael.

“I think she likes you.”

“Really?” Gael thought about her parting words. “Do you think she was insinuating something?”

“Nyah.” She shook her head and bit her lip slyly. “I’m sure she just wants to get you alone and talk about what ever comes up. Just don’t let it come between you.”

“You really do have a dirty mind, Junafir.”

* * * * * * * * *

Being an assassin in the city was fairly easy, there were lots of nooks and crannies to hide in, dark shadows to lurk in, and dim alleys to flee down. A black cloak and hood were all one needed to disappear. In the rural areas, however, it was somewhat more difficult. Unless one’s target happened to abide in a dark forest full of twisted paths and smelly bogs the black cloak was a dead giveaway, and wearing a hood in a market town was sure to draw suspicion. It was still possible to fulfill one’s contract though, providing the target was isolated and didn’t have many friends or relatives that might take unbridgeable with their murder.

That was proving not to be the case in the village of Dougs-ur-Mark.

Chris had made a tentative reconnaissance of the village and had not made it as far as the pub before some crazed rabbit doe was following him, swinging a cleaver and squinting suspiciously at him. Sevade had tried next, circling around to come in from the other side, but he was marked as an assassin by is scars and chased out of town by a group of armed canines that had poured out of a warehouse that they had been told might be a place to find their target. He could have fought back but killing non-contract civilians was frowned upon and there were too many of them anyway. Before he slipped away, however, he saw a red-haired figure standing in the doorway of the warehouse. A fully dressed figure that had a furless patch on his face, just as they had been told the target would. That was a promising development.

Wart, with his eye-patch and missing tusk did not bother making the trip into the village.

The three decided to mount a surveillance operation to gather more intelligence on their target’s movements. There were three hills overlooking the town, but one had a gated compound on it with no good hiding places. Neither of the others was close enough to the road for a guaranteed kill with a bow and arrow, but Chris had a pair of crude binoculars that his Guild master had lent him and Wart had a brass spyglass, so they split up to watch both sides of the village. As Wart was the one most in need of a bath the other two suggested that he take the hill south of town, near a sandy pond, while Chris and Sevade took the one west of town that overlooked the warehouse and the compound on the hill.

They moved into position after dark.

“Do you think that Wart will take the opportunity to take a bath while he’s near the pond?” Sevade asked Chris in a low voice after they had been in position for a few hours.

Chris shrugged, the movement barely visible in the dark. “I doubt it. When I suggested he could use one he said that doing so would wash the naturally camouflaging odour from him”

Silence descended on them again. Neither of the two foxes particularly liked the other. Chris thought that Sevade was too serious, even for an assassin, and Sevade disparaged Chris’s quirky sense of humour, believing it not befitting a practitioner of their profession.

“If you think I have a sense of humour you should see Master Nighthawk at the annual Assassin’s Dinner.” Chris had said the first time Sevade chastised him. “His favourite trick is to put a big, black rubber spider on the seat of any Master that gets up to go pee before the speeches.”

Sevade had shuddered at the mention of the spider, something that Chris had noted and the next time the red fox was squatting in the woods with his trousers down, helpless, he dangled a bundle of twigs by a thread in front of Sevade’s face, with satisfying results. So satisfying that Wart had to get between them to keep the two from killing each other.

“That was a cruel trick.” Sevade had hissed from under Wart’s arm

Chris’s had dropped his crossbow and started laughing, which only lasted until Wart told him that there was a real spider on his neck if he cared to capture it to torture Sevade with later. Chris ad screamed in a voice two octaves higher than his normal tone and clawed madly at his tunic until the ripped and torn garment was laying in the dust and he had combed through every inch of his ashen ruff. When he looked up Wart was rolling around on the ground holding his stomach as he bellowed laughter and Sevade was looking smugly down on him.

“Who’ the fool now, Mister Cinereo?”

Wart had made them swear a ‘no spiders’ pact and they had hardly spoken a word to each other since.

They took turns sleeping until dawn, then took turns scanning the village and surrounding farmland with Chris’s binoculars. Soon after sunrise they were rewarded with the appearance of the red-haired man.

He emerged from the cottage that was at the junction between the Warehouse and the compound on the nearby hill. He was wearing only short trousers, and they could see that he was in good shape. Stuck through the belt was a long sword in a slightly curved scabbard, a type that neither Chris nor Sevade were familiar with. He had a towel in one hand and a loaded crossbow in the other, one with a longer range than Chris’s pocket model. He was heading for the pond Wart was watching over.

“If that is our target, we’re going to need Wart and his long bow.” Chris commented.

“He’s our target alright. Look at hat torso, hardly a hair on it. Disgusting.”

“He certainly has the red hair on his head we were told about, but didn’t the client say that his face was bare?”

“It’s bare. All around his eyes, and there’s that big naked nose. Even his ears are hairless.”

“But he has some around his mouth and covering his chin. Aren’t they part of the face?”

Sevade shrugged. “Maybe, but do you see any other red-haired humans around here?’

“Not yet, but we’ll keep an eye out for more.” Chris shook his head. “I just can’t help feeling that this guy is not a ‘young man’ as our target is supposed to be.”

“Oh come on, look at that hair! It’s like a signal fire! It shows that he is young. Old humans have all-white hair.”

“They do?”

“Sure.”

“How do you know?”

“The client, Rory Douglas, he has a portal in Dainis. He brings in scrap metal and such to trade for gems, but he brings it in huge carts of Human garbage for processing too. Plastics to be melted down and shaped into utensils, broken things to be striped down for the salvageable parts and strange machines with copper wires and green boards that bleed silver and gold once they are treated with heat. He recruits the poor and homeless to work in his mills, and since he opened them the rate of sickness and death among them has doubled, but no one cares; Rory Douglas runs Dainis and the region.”

Sevade’s voice grew more intense. “The only way out for an orphan like me is to be taken in by one of the Guilds, but before that it’s inevitable that one work in in one of Douglas’s ‘recycle’ mills. It’s either that or starve. The one I worked in separated paper that could be sold back back on Earth where it came from from those that couldn’t. We burned the worthless paper to run the steam engines that drove the conveyors in the mill; you would not believe the stink. Anyway, a lot of the paper products we processed were food containers from Earth. Wrappers soaked in something toxic called ‘Ketchup’ and boxes that food was delivered in.”

“Paper boxes? For shipping in the carts? They would go soft and burst the first rainy day.”

“Yeah, weird. Anyway, many of the Human chefs that prepared the food had their pictures on the wrappers and boxes. The old Master Chefs all had white hair. There was an Uncle Ben who prepared rice, a Chef Boyardee that produced something called ‘Spaghetti-Os’ and an army chef named Colonel Sanders who specialized in chicken.”

Chris absorbed that, but it was so strange that he could not quite accept it.

“You never saw products produced by red-haired Humans?”

“Well, there was one ... some wrappers with the image of a girl named Wendy, but they didn’t smell like real food. They smelled more like oily potatoes and ... cows.”

“Maybe she ran a dairy farm?”

“Could be, some of the cups had traces of stuff that smelled like sour milk. But she was definitely the exception, and she appeared very young, no breasts, so she was not yet mature. She did not have hair on her mouth or chin either, but Douglas did say a young ‘man’, not a young boy or girl.”

“You have a point.” Chris grudgingly admitted. “But let’s not rush to conclusions. If no other red-haired humans show up by dusk tomorrow, we’ll move on this one.”

“Agreed.”

* * * * * * *

Several minutes later, in a copse of woods on the hill overlooking the pond, Wart was trying to undo his trousers while holding the spyglass to his good eye.

“Oh yeah.” He moaned as he focused the telescope on the naked human who was standing thigh deep in the pond, scrubbing himself with a bar of soap. “Work that up into a lather for me you hairless beauty. Scrub those pecs for your big boar daddy.”

As he wiggled his swelling prick out and juggled the spyglass to free his good hand Wart sighed and ran his palm over his own furless hide.

“Friggin’ furry mammals don’t know what they’re missing.”

* * * * * * * *

Annie returned with her backpack full with clothes and a few things she felt necessary to bring on an inter dimensional voyage, a picture of her parents, a blank journal, drawing pencils and a towel, because for all she knew now Douglas Adams had not been writing fiction. She was happy to see that Jimmy or one of the others had thought to set a place for her at supper, which was just about to be served.

During dinner Gael, who had travelled extensively on Terra before settling in Dougs-ur-mark, regaled them all with tales about the other parts of his home world and the portals that connected it with other worlds.

“There are a number of them that connect Terra with Earth.” He informed them. “Dainis has a big one, and of course there is the other Douglas portal in my home region of Pastoria. They do good business there, like they do in Dougs-ur-Mark. A very respectable family, except ...”

Jimmy’s brows shot up. “Except?”

“Nothing. It’s not my place to gossip. Anyway, different portals come out at different places, and times, here on Earth.”

It was Annie’s turn to furrow her brows in confusion. “Different times?”

“Oh, yeah.” Jimmy interrupted. “Dad mentioned something about that. Something to do with time and space being the same thing in different forms.”

“I don’t know about that,” Gael admitted “but they say that some portals open up to different times in Earth’s history. A wanderer can travel not only around the universe but back and forth in time. With the right maps you can come out on earth hundreds or thousands of years before now. Of course, if you go back through the same portal you lose the time you’ve gained.”

“Why would anyone want to do that?”

“I suppose that you could go back and hide something that is common back them but valuable in your own time and retrieve it later. Or if you went forward you could learn something of value, like which businesses to invest in.”

“Or which teams to bet on.” Annie mused. “That theme has been explored in a few books and movies. But why not just cross over to a different portal and come out ahead of time somewhere else?”

“You could, if the interval was small, but go back or forward too far and you risk not being able to find the other portals. How long would it take to go from the one we came through to one on the other side of the Earth back in your ancestor’s time, Jimmy?”

“Months, if you didn’t get killed by the warring factions between you and the ports. Then there would be the language barrier, and what would you use for money?”

“Gold and gems seem to be the universal currencies, although salt is priceless on some worlds”

“War is certainly an issue, and sometimes war on one side can spill over through a portal. My Father told me that there was a portal connecting our city to a place on Earth called France, and several times over he last few hundred years it had to be closed with spells because of the type of people and things coming through. One time, he said, something called a ‘shell’ came through with so much force that it passed completely through a nearby fort that was made of stone. Scholars that came to study it said that it should have exploded on contact with the wall but fortunately for the nearby soldiers the stuff inside didn’t work here on Terra.”

He ate some of the salad he had prepared, chewing thoughtfully.

“Then there were some Humans called Nazis that came through and tried to take over. Their weapons didn’t work either, but they had knives and a lot of blood was spilled on both sides before we could seal the portal.”

His story had cast a pall on the group. They ate in silence for a while before, wanting to lighten the mood again, Annie spoke up.

“You mentioned wanderers.” She said. “What are they?”

“People from the various worlds that have made mapping the portals their life’s work. They have a society that spans all the known worlds, with sanctuaries in the lager cities. The only one on Terra is in the city of Cognitionis, the city of knowledge.”

“Ohhh, is it as big as they say, the city?” Junafir injected.

“I don’t know, I’ve never been there. But the folk I’ve met who have been there say that it is huge.”

He went on to describe how the city was built on a dormant volcano, whose steam vents powered the mills and the lifts that moved creatures up and down the steep slopes between universities, schools, research centres and more libraries than anywhere else on Terra. Annie watched him while he talked, animated for the first time since any of the others had known him. Soldier, blacksmith, scholar or wanderer, she wondered, which was the real Gael?

She lost track of the conversation while she studied his face and way he moved when he gestured to illustrate a point. The lines of his muscles were well defined, better than hers, and very symmetric. More than once she found herself wanting to reach out and trace them with her fingertips.

Something Gael was saying caught her attention. “That’s where the multi-portal is, in the bowl of the volcano”

“Sorry, a multi-portal?”

Gael turned his big hazel eyes to hers. “Yes. They say that when the volcano erupted it was so powerful that it opened up a number of portals to many different worlds, all clustered together. The city of knowledge grew up around them.”

“Do other world have multi-portals?”

“I have no idea.” Gael said, spreading his hands helplessly. “My father stopped my education as soon as I knew enough to calculate how much to charge for a job or the goods we produced for sale.

The conversation dried up after that partially because the tiger had slid closer to Jimmy and was whispering things in his ear that made his face go red. Annie also noticed a growing bulge in his trousers, one which he had to keep slapping Junafir’s hands away from. She glanced over at Gael, who was also looking slightly embarrassed at the foreplay going on across from them.

Junafir crooned something into Jimmy’s ear in a voice that was almost a purr and rubbed herself against him in a manner any cat owner on Earth would recognize. Jimmy’s face went as bright as his hair, but his eyes glowed in the kind of anticipation that Annie had only seen when she was about to reveal another sexy furry portrait for him.

“We, ah, have to make an early start tomorrow,”. Jimmy said, standing as he took Junafir’s hand. “So, ah, we’re going to retire.”

“Is that what they call it now?” Annie said, dryly.

Jimmy gulped and went another shade of red darker. Junafir giggled and tugged him out of the room. Even Gael stifled a chortle.

After they left Annie and Gael were left entangled in an awkward silence. She thought of why she had come back this night and of her wasted days pining for Jimmy. When discussing training strategies one of her Shot-Put coaches had once told her, “You do what common knowledge says works best until it doesn’t, then you try something else entirely.”

Yearning looks had not won her Jimmy’s love, or attention, so if she wanted to get anywhere with the muscled but shy Blacksmith, she needed to try a different tack.

Annie gathered her breath, and her nerve.

“So, Gael.” She said in as nonchalant a voice as she could muster. “What is the word for ‘fucking’ on Terra?”

She thought that he was going to swallow his own nose but after sputtering for several seconds he gathered his wits and answered.

“Well, it, uh, depends on which language you, uhm, use. If I was peaking English I would use ‘fuck’ I suppose. But in Terran, which I am told is similar to one of your ancient languages, we would say ‘futuere’, or more commonly ‘futuo’ or ‘fututa’, depending on the tense, the sex of the speaker and whether one was, uh, intent on fucking a male or a female.”

“Interesting. How would you say, ‘I want to fuck you’ to a female if you were, oh, let’s say a large, male, equine type?”

Gael regarded her. She was smaller than him, most creatures were, but she was broad in the chest and shoulders too. She had smooth edges, but there was strength beneath that layer of softness, and she was not shy. She was, in fact, everything he liked in a partner. He even found her square face and blocky frame attractive, because it reminded him of the mares from Pastoria, he supposed; strong, firm, thick and self-assured.

“Ire te futuo.”

She stood an held out her hand. “Okay. Let’s”

He stood and accepted her hand. She led him to the guest room, looking back over her shoulder the whole while in case he had second thoughts. But his hazel eyes were clear and his smile was soft and assured.

Once inside the room she went to the clock radio by the bed. She tuned it to a station that always played smooth jazz uninterrupted on Sundays and holidays. It was an old thing but the sound wasn’t too bad, sufficient to set the mood and drown out any distracting noises from Jimmy’s room, anyway. Then she turned to face Gael.

“Undress me, Gael. Please.”

The big horse stepped closer. He was a full head taller than her so he had to look down his long nose to see what he was doing. She had worn a buttoned blouse so he started there, using his blunt fingers deftly to slip the small disks of plastic through the slits in the material. As he eased it back over her shoulders she tilted her head up and, catching the hint, he lowered his to kiss her.

It was different from what she had imagined it would be, she thought, as Gaels thick, warm, black lips sealed themselves against hers. She and Jimmy had played kissing games when they were children, long before the act had any sexual undertone, but she had read enough descriptions in the trashy teen novels to get an idea of what to expect.

It was nothing like this.

The horse’s lips seemed to be a lot more flexible, prehensile almost, and could alternate between firm and soft in an instant. She found her lips parting of their own accord and her tongue reaching tentatively out to explore. He responded in kind, softly at first, running his much larger appendage around the edges of her lips where the skin was sensitive. Then it wandered around inside a bit, between her lips and teeth, and she did likewise. But as soon as hers passed his large ivory dentation into the cavity beyond he went all in.

Annie almost chocked at first. Gael sensed that it was too much and pulled back a bit, but left enough in to tickle her tonsils and wrestle with her tongue.

Oral limits established, it was time to move on. He raised his hands to her breasts, which were covered by a sturdy brassiere. Females on Terra did not wear such things and he was at a loss as to how to remove it. Without disengaging her tongue Annie reached behind her and suddenly the bra was loose. With a shrug the straps were off her shoulders. All Gael had to do was to let go and it dropped to the floor by their feet.

This was a new experience for him too. All of the females he had laid with were professionals, like Selena. Some were friendlier than others, but there was a definite difference between faked passion and the real thing. Besides, none of them could fake the trembling, tentative kind of passion Annie was exhibiting now, the kind that came only once to each.

Gael pulled his head back to speak. “Is this your first time?” he said as his hands massaged her flanks.

“Yes, but I’m not exactly a virgin, physically, I mean.”

“I understand. I left the box Jimmy bought for me back in the Kitchen. I’ll go get it.”

Her embrace tightened. “Don’t bother. My mom has had me on the pill since I was seventeen, just in case. I packed a few months supply.”

“Okay, but you know those things might not work once we get to Terra.”

She put a hand behind his head to pull it back down. “Let’s talk about that later.”

The intense kissing continued while their hands explored each other’s torsos. She thrilled to the feel of thick muscle moving under velvety hide. He marvelled at the smooth softness of bare skin. When her nipples went hard he trapped them between his digits, filling his hands with her breasts as he squeezed them gently.

They had to stop when she pulled his shirt off over his head. He took the opportunity to unbutton her jeans and pull them off her legs. They were good, strong legs, like his, but smooth and hairless. White cotton panties hid the area where they joined. It was another garment that was not generally worn on Terra, but one easier to figure out how to remove.

Gael dropped to his knees as he lowered the cotton briefs down so she could step out of them. He ran his big hands along her thighs as they came back up, massaging the big muscles and parting them as he gazed at the part that had been covered up. There was hair there, he saw, as dark as the hair on her head, but cut short above the fold of her vagina, which was shaved on each side. Freshly shaved, he wondered?

It smelled good, sweet with musky undertones, and when he slid one finger along it he found that it was already damp. Moving his head closer he reached out with his long tongue and gave it a tentative lick. The taste matched the smell, and she must have enjoyed it because she had a hand on each side of his head and was pulling him in as she shifted around to spread her legs.

As he explored her sex with his tongue his hands wandered wherever it could reach. With his eyes closed he could imagine that he was with some solid filly from one of the working breeds, except fore the lack of tail. Gael had never known anyone who didn’t have some sort of tail, even short stunted ones like the bears or thin curly ones like the boars, but her spine just seemed to end above her tailhole, although the little triangle of skin there was very sensitive, he found.

Annie was leaning back against the bed as Gael’s clever tongue parted and penetrated her. It was long enough to get up to the spot that she liked to rub with her fingertips, and agile enough to swirl around her clit when it was outside.

She could have stayed like that until she came, but she wanted more. So, pulling him up by the thick hair on his mane she made him stand up so she could undo his shorts and take them off. He was wearing them backwards so that the fly was buttoned up over his tail, but she had drawn enough Anthro characters in similar dress to know how to get them undone quickly.

Once he was naked he stepped back to look at her and she in turn looked at him.

“Magnificent.” She mumbled as her eyes traced the lines that stood out all the more in his excited state. Not the least of which was the long tube that was slowly extending and swelling at his groin. Annie gulped. She could get a considerable amount of her large fist inside her when so moved to do so, and had often worried about being too big down there to satisfy a man, but this might be too much even for her. Still, as it rose up to hang there parallel to the floor between them, she unconsciously licked her lips.

Gael had been exposed to many females in his travels, from hairy bears to sleek felines, but he had always favoured the solid draft mares of home. Annie was shorter than them, but just as solid, with big hazel eyes and long dark hair framing a broad, open face. She had, he thought, the kind of classical beauty found in paintings that hung in museums and over tavern bars.

“You are beautiful.” He said, simply and sincerely.

“As are you.”

He blushed and looked at his hooves. “I’m nothing special.”

“Oh yes, you are. You are special for telling a plain girl that she is beautiful and meaning it.” She moved back until her legs found the edge of the bed and then she first sat, then lay down on it. “Now come here.”

Gael did not need any more encouragement. He slid onto the bed beside her. Jimmy had told him that this kind of bed was called a ‘Queen Size’. Gael thought that they must have small Queens on Jimmy’s world, because his hooves hung out the bottom and he covered most of the bed when he was spread out. But he managed to get on his side against where she was laying on her back with some room to spare.

In this position he could reach just about every part of her body, which he proceeded to do. With the arm under her neck he was able to caress her breasts and trace the lines of her face. With his free arm he could explore the rest of her, feeling the firmness of her thighs, brushing it along the downy hair on her belly, lifting a leg to reach her calf and her five toed foot, which he examined in detail. And it was not just his hands that examined her. After another few imputes of deep kissing he used his agile lips to feel and taste her hairline, her ears, the nape of her neck and the hard nipples that stood out on her full breasts. He did not stop there though, leaning over and raising himself up on one elbow he able to reach down to her abdomen, to trail kisses along her thigh, and, when he bent her leg, to suck the naked toes on her feet.

Other than returning his kisses when their mouths were engaged, she concentrated on stroking his broad chest and strong thighs. But the she couldn’t ignore the warm twitching tube laying across her thighs, or the hot sack containing his testicles that was pressed against her hip.

She rested her hand on his cock, marvelling at its girth and length. Softly, almost tenderly, she traced its length from sack to tip. The balls were large, and hot, twitching in readiness at her touch. The shaft was warm, almost solid now, and throbbing with fresh blood. The tip was broad, and flattened, but flexible and sensitive. Clear fluid was dripping from it, which she gathered and spread along his shaft, making it slick.

His fingers found the slit between her legs and dipped inside. He easily reached the spongy spot where she longed to be rubbed with his big digits. When he pulled them out he dragged the tips along the edges of the protruding lips, sending electric shocks through her. Then he teased her clit a bit before plunging them inside her again. Before long she was wiggling and writhing and begging him for more.

Meanwhile, she had grabbed his cock and was stroking it with both hands, up and down, sometimes caressing his balls when her hands were close to them, sometimes wringing the broad head like she wanted to draw water from it.

When it was as stiff and as long as her forearm she rolled over onto her side, pressing her firm rump against his hip. She raised her leg and guided the tip of his cock toward her cunt.

“Do me now, Gael, now.”

Gael was happy to oblige. He slid in closer, until her ample behind was up against his ridged abdomen. He hooked his right arm under her upraised leg as she rubbed the tip of his cock against her moist, open vulva. He cupped her head with his other hand as he inched forward, his stiff cock bending painfully as the broad head fought to enter a chamber designed for a more tapered torpedo. Then, with a snap that made her gasp, it was in.

“Are you alright?” He asked.

“Yes ... yes. Just ... go slowly, okay?”

He did not answer directly, but he pushed only the slightest bit before drawing back again. On the next thrust he pushed it in a little farther, helped by the lubricating juices leaking out from around his shaft. As soon as he felt resistance he pulled back and let those fluids gather and spread before driving forward again.

After a dozen thrusts he had a portion the width of one of his big hands inside, and he paused to ask if that was enough.

“No.” She gasped. “More. I can take much more.”

His cock was possibly not the widest thing that she had ever had inside her, but it was certainly the warmest, most filling thing to ever penetrate her ... and somehow the most fitting. Each time it moved inside her she felt a thrill unequaled by any of her self-manipulation. The broad head ensured that every sensitive spot inside her was serviced on its passage, and the throbbing veins of his thick shaft sent sparks flying along the tender flesh that rimmed her opening.

Gael continued to drive deeper with each stroke. Two fists worth was the most that the slightly built Selina would allow, but Annie did not even flinch as he passed that mark. It was not until he was in three fists worth, almost his entire length, that he felt the head of his cock bump up against a wall of unyielding flesh. He backed it off a bit on the subsequent strokes.

“No!” She demanded. I want to feel you up against my womb. I want you cum right inside it if you can.”

Gael was not an expert on female anatomy, but he had been warned by his father that a horse could damage smaller species through overly energetic lovemaking. On his next thrust he went in until the flat tip was pressed hard against her cervix and marked the spot in his mind. From then on, like a boxer practising with his shadow on a stone wall, he wen only that far before stopping himself and pulling back again.

That did not mean that he was not putting some force into his thrusts. He was using his considerable ass and thigh muscles to their full extent when he drove his big cock into her. He pulled it out somewhat slower though, allowing the sensation of her tight pussy lips sliding along his shaft to linger, to both their delight. The only thing missing was any stimulus on her clit, because in this position his shaft did not come in contact with it, and even if he could go all in no part of him would touch it. He solved that problem by stretching out the hand on the arm holding her leg up until the tips of his fingers brushed the hard bite of flesh emerging from the folds of her cunt, forced out by the thickness of the fleshy piston inside her.

Annie shuddered at the contact and moaned when he drew moisture from the rim of her twat to rub into her clit. She fought to hold her impending orgasm back, placing one hand on the mattress and gripping the pillow behind her head with the other. Her eyes were jammed shut in concentration, her mouth contorted from the effort as bolts of lightning from three different sources - cervix, vagina and clitoris - struck one after the other in quick succession.

Gael was holding back as well as he could too. It was his first time with a human, and that was exotic enough, but it was also the first time that was doing it with someone he had feelings for, and the mere physical act of sex was not enough.

He leaned over her, turned her face toward him, and kissed her as passionately as he ever had kissed anyone without pausing or breaking the rhythms of his stroke.

Annie’s mouth latched onto his as if she were drowning and he was the air she needed to live.

Their lips were still sealed when she began crying out because her insides had suddenly turned molten. Liquid fire shot out of her, filling her channel and forcing its way past the tight seal of her twat on his shaft. He grunted and tried to bite his own lip mid-kiss as his balls heaved and fired a wad that was just as hot through tubes squeezed tight by her needy cunt. But pass they did, and he had to pull his head back in a gasp as the lava of love travelled the final three fists worth to where the flat head of his cock was wedged firmly against the opening of her uterus.

Then he felt the strangest, and most erotic sensation of all, that of her cervix moving and sucking eagerly at the sponge that shot out, as if to have every drop inside the womb. He caught himself wishing that she was not using her earth science to keep them from fulfilling their purpose.

Annie felt it too, the eagerness of her body to take in all of his sperm. She did not know that this was something few woman experienced, but she knew that she had to hold onto it, to him, for as long as she could.

They stayed that way, frozen in time, his cock twitching inside her as more and more cum shot into her, the back wall of her cunt eagerly sucking it all in, for what seemed like an eternity.

Finally he realized that he was squeezing her head too hard, and she discovered that she had torn the sheets pulling on them. They both relaxed their grips, and as they did his cock slid out from her to lay limp against his thigh. She lowered her leg and rolled over to face him. Hands trembling with the strength of newfound knowledge tentatively touched lips, breasts and brows.

“Annie ...”

“Yes?” She answered eagerly, hoping that he would suggest that they repeat the miracle that had just occurred.

“... if I die tonight, I would die fulfilled.”

“Gael ...”

“Yes?”

“Shut up and fuck me again.”

Paul Collieman © Collifan

Gael Tholkes © MarcusXLight

Junafir Pawstone © Frostlupus

Ruth Pawstone © Bunners

Chris Cinereo © Kyroo Echos

Sevade © Frostlupus