Chapter Text
The scent of blood and flesh filled Legosi’s nostrils. It curled deep within his sinuses, grabbing and twisting all his senses towards a single point. It gathered behind his eyes, like a gas, and exploded in the caverns of his head, like a supernova. The rush radiated over his brain like waves in an ocean.
The blood in his veins and arteries rushed through him. It coursed down his neck, down the chest and abdomen, through the legs, and finally entering the growing erection that pressed against his cheap work pants. Drool poured down the side of his lips, onto his sweater, and onto the shaggy carpet floor. A soft whine escaped from his throat, barely audible among the pulsing beats of the background music. His nails scraped against the plastic barrier separating him from the gyrating white rabbit.
He could not take his eyes off her. The smooth fur on her naked skin glistened in the cold dim hues emanating from the overhead lamp. He took it all in, drank it like water from a bowl: the blur of her body, the fine movements of her breasts, the waving of her swaying ears, the black sliver of her pristine eyes as they grazed over him from under near-closed eyelids, the small silver knife in her hands as she delicately cut into the skin under her collar bones with a graceful flourish. The crimson liquid from the thin cuts dripped down the side of her breasts and over her abdomen, like rivers over snowcapped mountains. It stained the wooden stage on which she danced, adding to the mosaic of dark spots gathered from past sessions.
Legosi’s mind worked itself into a loop, obsessed by the girl in front of him, a girl he barely knew, yet she bared everything to him. His mind spun and spun around contradictory thoughts, wrapped in the combined agonies of desire and hunger, fixated on her very existence. She’s beautiful. She’s gorgeous. She’s perfection. She’s prey. She’s meat. She’s sustenance. He imagined his jaws around her neck, fangs puncturing deep into that soft tender flesh. His mouth watered again and he swallowed so that he wouldn’t get even more saliva on his clothes.
The knife clattered on the wood. His breathing slowed. His lips trembled and his heart banged against the walls of his chest. Warm sweat streamed down the sides of his head. Pain began to radiate from his erection as his nails dug deeper into the barrier. The panting grew in volume and frequency. Legosi could barely contain himself. This was it. This was where the magic happened.
A display appeared on his HUD, warning him of dangerously high blood pressure. It threatened to ruin the entire experience, take him off the way to ecstasy. “No, go away,” he muttered under his breath. With some effort, he force closed the alert with a mental command. The interrupting message blinked off into the void. Satisfied that he had taken care of that little annoyance, Legosi turned his attention back to the rabbit.
To his relief, the moment had not been ruined. She had stood there and waited for his reaction. Their gazes met. Her body stilled and she flattened a palm against the barrier. His hand, more than double the size of hers, stretched out to meet it. They held their palms against the plastic, almost touching except for the thin material between them. The hairs on the back of his neck rose, energized by the electricity from the near contact.
A heartbeat pulsed. His breath caught. If only he could reach across—
She withdrew her hand. His eyes followed it as her fingers slowly and sensually rubbed the length of her ears, caressed the fur where the blood pooled around her nipples, and explored the inner thighs. Moments flashed by, but it seemed to be an eternity. Her eyes closed and her mouth opened in a small “O” as she brought her index and middle fingers up between her legs. She massaged there, slowly at first, then faster and more vigorously. The fingers moved in rhythm with the beats of the music.
Legosi could not see what they were doing but the reaction of her body told him everything. Soft moans escaped her lips. Thirty seconds passed. Her legs shook, so slightly that he would not have noticed if he hadn’t been so focused on her entire body. A minute passed. Tears fell down her face. Her cheeks flushed, even under all that white fur. It triggered an empathic part of his brain and he began to pant and grunt in unison with her.
The HUD screamed at him now. Numerous screens and alarms filled his vision. Popups appeared with messages in obnoxious fonts. “ABNORMAL HEART RATE.” “DANGEROUSLY HIGH BODY TEMP.” “ARE YOU IN NEED OF MEDICAL ATTENTION?” He ignored these warnings as he synchronized his climax with hers, ordering his brain implant to activate the chemical pathways that would plunge him into pure ecstasy. He closed his eyes. White bands filled his vision as he fell into an ocean of sensation. He forgot the memories, forgot the pain, forgot the emptiness. There was only the pure feeling. He could not put it into words. There weren’t any words. What could he describe in his limited vocabulary? A bliss… tinged with longing. He wished he could hold onto this forever.
Then it ended. Exhausted, he sighed and fell back into the only chair in their private room. The music stopped and the multi-hued light turned off to be replaced by a harsh fluorescent one. The rabbit stood still, her hands hanging at her sides, and gave him one last look. He looked away, feeling a small twinge of shame. She lowered her eyes and began wiping the blood off her fur with her hands. She turned around and left through a back door, silent as the snow on a winter day.
Legosi sat in the hard wooden chair, letting his body calm down. The image of her reaching towards his hand lingered in the air. He watched her fingers thrust in and out. In and out. The image dissipated. He sighed again as the tightness in his pants faded away. He sank into his seat and relaxed his arms to his side.
A knock on the door pushed him out of his reverie. Without a word, a gigantic brown bear walked in carrying a mop and bucket. A nametag displayed ‘RIZ’ in large letters on the lapel of his jacket. Legosi stiffened in his chair. The bear gave him a look with his beady eyes and turned his attention towards the stage. He wrinkled his nose as he surveyed the fresh stains. “Excuse me,” he said as he walked past Legosi towards the plastic barrier. The metal and plastic of the bear’s own implant gleamed against his dirty brown fur.
“C’mon! It just ended. You didn’t kick me out last time!” Legosi stood up, glaring, but keeping himself a good distance from the bear’s massive frame.
“Need to prep for the next customer. Lots of demand.” The bear fiddled with something on the plastic barrier, causing it to collapse and allowing him to remove the partition, which he placed on the floor. He picked up the rabbit’s clothes that she had stripped off during the dance and laid them against the wall. A wet plop emerged from the bucket as Riz plunged the mop into it and began cleaning the stage floor. The blood spread around in distinct watercolor patterns over the wood. They reminded Legosi of a Paulhawk painting he had seen as a child.
Another plop as the mop hit the stage again. Riz coughed and cleared his throat. “You mind? I only have a few minutes before we start again.” The bear’s low grumble snapped him back to attention. He hadn’t realized he’d been staring at the blood. Rabbit blood. Herbivore blood. The thought of it almost made his pants harden again. Legosi gave a slight shake of his head to get rid of the image.
“Sorry, I’ll go.” His apology came out in a mumble.
Riz turned his face towards him and offered him something, a small corner of the mouth rising up in a quarter-smile, perhaps in an attempt at reconciliation. He noticed the bear was careful to curl his lips over his fangs. “Don’t take it too hard. We’re all living on borrowed time, anyways. Virus or Six Eyes, pick your poison. Let some of the others have fun, yeah?”
Legosi crossed his arms. “I guess.” He slowly pushed himself off the chair. “Fine. I’ll go.”
The bear sniffed the air. “Oh, and we’ve extra pants in the closet. It’s next to this room. It might be more… comfortable for you.”
Legosi said nothing as he grabbed his jacket from a nearby hook and left through the door back into the dim hallways of The Prancing Prey. The bear made no comment on his obvious rudeness. However, he did take up Riz’s advice to change his pants. He found a pair close to his size, changed in a nearby bathroom, and threw the cheap work ones into a nearby trashcan.
At the front desk, the retinal scanner at the unmanned register congratulated him for being a repeat customer, causing him to grit his teeth. The Prancing Prey didn’t have the best reputation in town, and especially not in proper society. He anonymously paid the usual price plus some extra for the performance with his rapidly dwindling supply of satoshis. The stench of stale cigarette smoke wafted in the air. A smattering of other carnivores, mostly canines like him, sat around the lobby, smoking silently and studiously avoiding each others’ gazes. Loud music and even louder whooping and hollering emanated from the bar, likely since the pole dancing had begun. Legosi started for the front door, but then thought better of it and exited it into a back alley.
A gust of cold evening air hit him as he stepped outside, making him tighten his jacket around himself. The sun had long ago disappeared and his eyes had to adjust to the neon lights of the Herbivore Ghetto. No one else was in the alley. Legosi reached into his jacket pocket for a cigarette. Below the holster for the Barracuda, he picked up the carton, but found nothing inside when he opened it. Great. No smokes. He stood staring at the empty container, trying to will a cigarette to appear. His tail hung limp between his legs as the effort failed. After a second, he realized that nothing was going to happen. He could go try to get another one from a vending machine, he supposed, but he had already paid a good sum for the session with the rabbit.
Legosi leaned back against the brick wall of the strip club. His fingers scratched its hard surface as he steadied himself. He let his eyes adjust to the flashing neon and halogen neighborhood. Then, a light from above caught his attention. In the window of the opposite building, the dark shape of a small animal stood silhouetted against some lamp light emanating from inside. Short, rounded ears adorned its head. It appeared feminine. He squinted, and saw that it was a beaver. She wore glasses and a rumpled cleaning outfit. Their gazes met and with a start, she quickly reached to the side of the window and closed the blinds. The light turned off.
Not for the first time, Legosi had the distinct sense that he didn’t belong here. He chuckled softly. Of course he didn’t belong here. This was the only semi-safe sanctuary in the city for the herbivores and he was invading it, as the predator he really was. Too bad this was also the only part of the city where he could satiate his desires. No one could understand. Legosi, the pervert wolf, those back home said. The weirdo, the loser, the freak. The shame of his species. It was hard to disagree.
He closed his eyes tight to shut out the voices. A huff escaped his throat as his thoughts subsided and he pushed himself away from the wall. No point in sticking around now. He adjusted his coat and took a step towards the alley entrance. The street outside was quiet and mostly empty save for a group of herbivores that quickly crossed to the other side when they saw him. Ignoring them, Legosi went to his motorcycle parked next to the curb.
It was sleek and expensive and far above his pay grade. But it was his. He could sell it but it still had sentimental value. He unlocked it and put on his helmet as he sat down on the leather seat. The roof of the helmet squished against his ears. He wished he had gone for the custom canine design, but he couldn’t afford it, and working as a CPF officer didn’t provide any decent amount of disposable income.
Before he could start the ignition, a shrill alert appeared in the middle of his vision. The angry red box threatened to fill up his entire HUD. He gave a mental command to accept the message. Priority message from the CPF. Code H-1311. Legosi groaned inwardly. Of course. The Citizens’ Protection Force always called at the worst possible time. He had so looked forward to collapsing down on his bare mattress in his bare apartment to forget his bare existence. He connected and set the call to audio to stop the incessant beeping.
A nameplate designated BILL, CPF COMMANDER, popped up on the side of his HUD. “Legosi, we got a more difficult than usual herbivore problem. Aoba said you’d be suited for this one.” The audio wave visualizer under the nameplate stretched and undulated. The voice on the other end growled out its syllables, as if all this effort to talk was just a waste of time. He could also imagine the tiger holding back the urge to spit. Bill always was the resentful type.
“I got that from the 1311. Care to tell me what it’s about?” Legosi’s hand tested the grip on his throttle.
“I’ll tell you when you get here. Meet us at the Stoneclaw Mall. 47th and Main. Oh, and if you’re late again, I’ll dock your payment by 30% rather than 15% like last time.” Bill cut off the call before he could respond. The darkness wrapped around him. Legosi snorted as his hands tightened on the crease of his pants. A flush of heat crept up along his ears. He kicked the front tire. Who did that cat think he was? What was his problem anyways?
Taking a deep breath, he pressed his thumb against the motorcycle’s fingerprint scanner. It beeped in recognition and the ignition activated, releasing a satisfying roar from the exhaust. If no one in the Ghetto noticed him before, they’d notice him now. He put on his gloves and grabbed the handlebars. The motorcycle rumbled as Legosi backed away from the curb and rode towards the freeway. The flush in his ears subsided with the rush of acceleration and velocity. Winter air rushed past him.
He passed dilapidated and broken down businesses, rotting and crammed apartments, and plain piles of trash. Strip clubs like The Prancing Prey, countless hole-in-the-wall bars, seedy loan stores, and pawn shops tried to beckon him with garish neon signs and even more garish grafitti. Small, frightened eyes watched him from dark hiding places as he drove past.
They knew what he was. They understood that no sane herbivore would try to bring attention to themselves, especially with something as obnoxious as a motorcycle. Or even any sane carnivore, for that matter. So he was a dangerous one, someone to keep an eye on. He could sometimes hardly believe he owned a motorcycle himself, so antithetical was it to his nature. Yet he did. It was a gift that he intended to use. It beat the old scooter anyways.
At the edge of his vision, he noticed flashes of movement as the inhabitants rushed to get away from him. Let them, he wanted to think. I’m the big, bad wolf. But he couldn’t let himself think like that. It was wrong. He had been the one to violate their safe space, to remind them of the fear and terror the world bestowed upon them. I’m sorry, he thought instead.
The corpses of buildings and the stench of anxiety all came and left his attention as he left the Herbivore Ghetto proper and approached the towering skyscrapers and bright lights of the city center. The landscape gradually changed as he entered carnivore civilization.
The totality of the city slammed his senses like a swarm of locusts. Aircars, antigrav engines glowing in the sky, swarmed around the kilometer-tall buildings. A number of skyscrapers broke above the cloud cover. Giant holograms glowed like sentinels against the night sky, advertising impossibly attractive men and women with perfect white fangs and long tongues, fat crocodiles cutting juicy cuts of meat, pills to cure everything from depression to erectile dysfunction, and the manifold scratchings of corp logos.
So many logos. They were ubiquitous, all fighting to dominate his attention and every other animal in the world. Triangle. Squares. Rectangles. Hands. Feet. Tails. Letters in every possible configuration. Obscure symbols from a caffeine-addled graphic artist. All of it meaningless.
Spotlights flooded the remaining space, as if the city planners were afraid that leaving any spot dark would bring bad luck. A giant blimp floated in the air, the giant billboard on its side exhorting citizens to make more babies. A PROSPEROUS FAMILY MAKES A PROSPEROUS NATION, its text screamed. He chuckled, the laugh getting lost in the roar of the wind. It was a good thing he would never have that problem.
The lights cascaded over his helmet and danced around his eyes as he entered the freeway. He passed trucks and cars rolling on the road, their headlamps receding into the darkness in the rear view mirror. The wind rustled through his jacket and the bare fur on his neck. A river of invigoration rushed through his spine as he increased his speed. No need to worry about what others thought of him or what the future had in store. It was just him and the road. He passed more vehicles, more glowing street lamps, more holograms, more logos, and more concrete skyscrapers, every object that made up the body of the city.
A flash of an explosion at the horizon caught his attention. The towering inferno of smoke and fire announced the launch of a rocket from the space port. He watched the rocket, a single point in the expanse, ascend further into the night sky and towards the stars, a glowing fusion trail marking its movement. An X-404 cargo class off to the outer colonies with supplies and asteroid miners, no doubt. A faint roar could be heard even over his motorcycle engine and the screech of rubber against the road.
Legosi’s gaze followed the rocket’s trajectory. Once, long ago, he had dreamed of going up there, to the gas giants and asteroids. Maybe even another star, far off beyond any beast’s imagination. See what was beyond the Earth. A lump appeared in his throat.
A memory came up unbidden.
“Legosi, do you ever wonder how many stars are in the universe?”
“Teacher said that there are more of them than grains of sand on the planet.”
“I’m going to be an astronaut someday and explore them all. You want to go up there with me?”
“I’ll do anything, as long as it’s with you.”
He remembered the conversation as clear as water. Jack had wanted to… had wanted to go— He couldn’t finish the thought. The pain was too much. A swallow forced down the lump. He turned his attention back on the road, away from the rocket, away from something that could never be. The rocket’s roar receded into the background, like the rest of his memories.
The few minutes’ drive to the Stoneclaw Mall continued on without any further event. The façade of the building stood against the night sky. When he arrived at the cross streets that Bill had mentioned, a crowd gathering at the entrance hindered his path. A line of CPF vehicles blocked any further progress, their blue and red lights rippling back and forth in his sight. This must be a serious situation, indeed. Legosi wondered how a single herbivore could cause so much trouble. The mass of carnivores gawked at the dark mall, its lights off, its lots empty. They whispered among themselves. Rumors of terrorists and killers permeated the air. He stopped at the edge of the street, parked his motorcycle, and locked it against opportunistic thieves.
Many of the women and even some of the men in the crowd turned their stares towards him, their curiosity switching towards this tall wolf with the loud motorcycle. A burst of self-consciousness hit Legosi as he removed the helmet and let his face absorb the night air. He wasn’t used to this much attention in such a short period of time. A blush that he hoped was hidden under the fur burned on his cheeks. He strode towards the command vehicles, turning on the IDENT signal from his implant.
A panther patrolman stopped him when he reached the CPF perimeter. They exchanged no words as the smaller cat queried the database for Legosi’s identity. After a second, the momentary check satisfied the officer. He nodded and pointed the wolf towards the command vehicle where Bill waited. Legosi checked if his Barracuda was still in the holster and loaded. Satisfied, he went off, curious to see what job they had in store for Legosi, the herbivore lover.