Titillating Tintinnabulum

Story by The Wizened Raconteur on SoFurry

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#5 of The seX FIles


The object hanging from within the high grade Lucite box on Smolder's desk was obviously old, dating to the era of Roman conquest, and from the looks of it apparently had been absconded from some museum or private collection. She had seen such things in books before, and thus knew its nature before he had a chance to tell her.

"So Fox, why do you have a tintinnabulum?"

He raised his eyebrows.

"Really? You go and spoil the surprise by knowing what it is?"

"I'm mildly versed in ancient history, and photos of these guys always were good for a cheap thrill back in college."

"Cheap? Having you any idea how much something like this is worth?"

"Not as much as if they were made of gold, but I'm sure they're worth a pretty penny."

"You had better believe it."

"Something you purchased with your secret bank account?"

"No. This has recently been recovered from a robbery that occurred a few years back. I diverted it here prior to its going back to the museum from whence it was stolen."

"Why? Just to say you had one within your grasp?"

He chortled. "How do you mean that Sully? Like a penis...within my grasp?"

She actually turned red. "No! I mean the artifact!"

He snorted at her discomfiture.

"Yes, I know what you mean. But there is a slightly darker reason for it being here, and is possibly the grounds upon which this item was stolen from the museum."

"Well, it looks like it would be one hell of an uncomfortable dildo, so I suppose that specific reason is out."

"Sort of. This item was once held in a Victorian household, whose surname has been erased from the records due to the stature of the family involved. It was recovered from an archeological dig, and as such was considered just another shocking portrayal of lewd Roman society. But apparently it caused a change in the nature of this family, to a degree that eventually this item was assumed to be the culprit, and thus it was sent to a museum to be locked up and placed out of harm's way."

"Harm? What harm could this thing cause?"

"The story, like the family name, was subdued to prevent a scandal. But from what I have been able to ascertain, the family's maid disappeared for a week and when found tied up in the basement, reported that she had been repeatedly raped by an unknown assailant. When confronted with the evidence, the head of the household denied any wrongdoing, and even provided the fact of his absence from the house for a few of those days in question."

"Ok. So obviously someone else had to have perpetrated the act. Other adult males in the household?"

"The footman. The maid claimed a sexual relationship with him already and knew it was not he who attacked her."

"Any other?"

"The valet, but he was gone with the master of the house, so it could not have been him."

"OK. So it was a case suitable for the great Sherlock Holmes. She was raped by...this thing?"

Fox shrugged. "There was blame laid upon it, though there never was any evidence to what role it could have played in the ordeal. I was curious to examine it before it went back to the museum just in case there was something to that old story."

"And your conclusions?"

He pulled out a piece of tablet paper with several rows of scribbles on it.

"I have the weight, the general dimensions, and the fact that it is original to its purported time period. It has no unusual properties within the realm of typical testing, such as conductivity or chemical composition. Essentially it is what it looks like, minus the accompanying bells that would have been attached to it."

"Then I suppose your investigation on it is finished?"

"Yeah. I have to leave this afternoon for New York, and this thing goes back to the museum in the morning."

"What are you doing in New York?" Then she reconsidered. "Never mind. I don't know why I ask such stupid questions."

"It's not stupid. But if you don't want to know, then I'll not tell you."

She happened to glance down at his paper, and saw something odd written there. She used her fingers to turn it one hundred and eighty degrees so she could read it.

"What's this?" she queried of her partner.

"That? Just the inscription on it. A household blessing that often accompanied items such as this."

"Da mihi potestatem virilitatis?"

He nodded. "Your Latin is at least serviceable."

"I'm not sure what that means."

"Oh, the usual. Something about giving the household the power of the male, or masculinity, or some such nonsense. Recall that these things were thought to have protective powers over the house, home and hearth."

"Phallic idolatry was never big with many modern religions. As far as I know a lot of this stuff from the digs around Vesuvius were hidden away as being to morally shocking."

"You've got that right. It's only been recently that many of these more scandalous relics have found their way where the general public can appreciate them."

"So why was this one stolen?"

"Good question. The person who stole it is no longer living, so that question will remain unanswered."

"An old collector?"

"No, a young one, and not really a collector that we know of. But she did have some of the information on that Victorian household in her personal effects, which is where I first heard of it. I ran the information through a series of my underground channels and found it to be accurate as far as it went."

"So what he did hope to gain by stealing it?"

"She. And like I said, we'll never know. The thing has value, but since it was never offered up for sale, we can only speculate."

"She? Really?"

"Yeah, I thought it mildly unusual too. She was a student of history among other things, but even then, this was a strange thing to steal."

"How did she die?"

"The coroner deemed it a heart attack. Something stress induced, or some such thing. They found her dead in a park on the east side."

"Anything else?"

"Nothing solid."

"Meaning what?"

"You know how crimes are often committed a single zone? The unimaginative thief, for example, goes only so far as he can walk or drive in a single night?"

"Of course. You can pinpoint their general home base as being the epicenter of their crimes."

"Correct. Well, someone at the D.C.P.D. happened to notice her apartment was smack dab in the middle of one of the rape investigation's plottings. Most everyone dismissed it as being irrelevant since she was female."

"And you didn't?"

"Not at first, knowing about this relic. But she was anatomically incapable of doing anything more than being a recipient of such an attack, not being an attacker in her own right."

"So no chance of her hiding a raging case of hermaphrodism?"

"Not according to the M.E."

"Weird. Could she have stolen it for someone else?"

"Again, we'll never know. So, for once in my career, a hunch I had proved false. This is just a bronze chimera made up of penises with a pair of wings. Period."

"Isn't that enough?"

"It is for now. And look at the time. I have to get home and pack. Will you make sure that this goes to Danny in Quarantine in the morning? He's in charge of making sure it goes to the proper facility."

"What are doing with it in the meantime?"

"I was going to leave it on my desk, but now that you mention it, maybe it's not the best place for it. How about if you take it home tonight and bring it back in the morning? That'll make sure it's in safe paws."

She smirked.

"So you want my paws on your penis?"

He chuckled.

"Oh no! This thing is your responsibility now. It'll be your paws on your penis!"

He grabbed some gear, blew her a mock kiss and was gone down the hallway. She sat there on the edge of his desk for a moment, bemused by her impromptu and handily volunteered guardianship over this oddity. She picked it up, container and all, and went with it to her office. Not wishing to make a display of herself, she closed the door and did her work until it was quitting time. She nearly forgot at that time that she even had the darned thing. She debated leaving it under her desk but reconsidered. She did sort of promise to watch over it. One night of having that thing sitting on her coffee table was tolerable.

Then she remembered she was supposed to be house-sitting for a friend tonight. They were gone for the night but didn't trust the neighbors. Dana had offered to watch the place for the evening. Oh well, one place was much like another. So was one coffee table.

She showered, dressed in a spare robe, made some supper and sat down on the couch, turning on the television as she got comfortable. The news seemed to be nothing more than the usual political garbage and the chaos in the world at large. None of those things were really interesting to hear this evening so in frustration she turned it back off. Then the neighbors started fighting, which was a fairly regular event according to her friend. Dana herself had been over before when those two were quarreling. The husband was a misogynistic swine, always berating his pig of a wife until Dana just wanted to go over there and teach him a lesson.

No, this wasn't Dana's personal opinion precisely; they were the Hammonds, and they were duly married as boar and sow. However, they weren't the best of neighbors, considering the quality of the neighborhood, and on more than one occasion the police had been called in to the residence due to domestic violence. Dana wasn't particularly fond of Mrs. Hammond, but she detested the husband right down to her core. He was just so mean all the time. If not for her position within the bureau, she might have gone renegade and dealt with him in her own manner. But she didn't need to get into trouble just because of some asshole living next to her friend. So she always swept the matter under the rug and tried to forget about it.

Tonight however, the porcine missus got pissed off enough that she left the house with a valise and burned rubber backing the car out of the drive. At least, Dana thought, the rest of the night would be peaceful, serene and without disturbance. That was going to be boring, but it was just going to have to do.

She sighed and looked down at the relic she was babysitting. She lamented the fact that right now she could use a good cock; a real one, to help remove the tension and frustration from her physical being. She wasn't dating anyone at the moment, and after some of their recent job-related exploits, she doubted she would find a male who was physically capable of satisfying her. The bar had been set pretty high as of late. Sometimes she wished she could switch sides just to see if it was easier.

Curiosity got the better of her and she pried open the case, gently lifting out the bronze ornamentation and holding it by the ring on the end of the chain. How Fox could have thought that this thing was involved in any sort of supernatural phenomena was beyond her reasoning. It was a pound or so of brownish metal that could easily be melted down and turned into something else. Affixing magical properties or whatever it was he thought this thing had was pure nonsense.

She turned the object over in her paws, silently reading the crooked but clearly embossed lettering underneath it.

"Da Mihi Potestatem Virilitatis"

She could just about picture this thing hanging in a garden behind a Roman noble's house, the little brass bells tinkling in the breeze. She wondered if the lady of the house took it down once a week and polished it. Then again, she was probably polishing a real one made of flesh. That would have been a lot more satisfying.

She thought of Fox, and males in general; and how having a penis seemed to grant them power in the world. It was completely unfair. There were agents in the bureau who got their job only because they knew someone who knew someone higher up, and they often lacked the credentials or the intelligence to be where they were at. Dana, being a vixen, was looked upon at times as though she were a pariah, despite carrying a full medical degree, which was more than a lot of the flunkies in the FBI could claim.

She secretly wished at times she had been born something other than female, and wondered at other times simply what it was like to have a cock dangling between your legs. Even if it were just for one night...

She sighed, and rereading the inscription, stated it aloud, "Da mihi potestatem virilitatis."

There are times when wishes can be granted. Always be careful what you ask for, for you never know when that will be.

She had just placed it back in the box when the feeling hit her. She didn't know what the feeling was, but it was unlike anything she had ever felt in the past. It was getting struck with the flu, complete with nausea and body aches, and getting sent through a taffy pulling machine to be completely reworked.

She sat on the couch, wondering what the hell was happening to her. She was too disoriented to attempt dialing nine-one-one, so she held still and hoped that this aberration would pass. Her skin crawled, and her hair stood on end, and even her mouth and throat felt weird. She had the sudden urge to void her bladder, which she steadfastly refused to allow it to happen on the furniture. This went on for a few minutes until everything snapped back to normal.

Then again, you need to define what normal is.

Dana was dizzy. The room was spinning, but her desire to urinate was strong, so she got up and stumbled to the bathroom, forgoing the light switch to just drop onto the toilet. She sighed with relief as the urine splashed into the bowl, but even then something wasn't right. She reached down and grabbed a hold of an appendage that hadn't been there before.

"What the fuck!"

The voice wasn't hers. Her fingers got wet as the last of the contents of her bladder dutifully emptied themselves into the toilet bowl. Whereas before she needed to wipe herself dry, now she was quite capable of shaking the last few drops away. That is, if she could call herself a she.

She jumped up and flipped on the lights, standing shakily in front of the vanity. Staring back at her was a macho looking fox, with almost wolf-like features. Her chest was flattened, and in place of her curvy breasts was a well built muscular chest. And dangling between her legs was a hunk of red meat that would have made Smolder take notice. Hell! It would make a porn star take notice!

She touched it gingerly at first, and then finding that it was real and not some weird hallucination, she grabbed it and gave it a yank. It was flaccid, but just a little encouragement made it grow up nice and tall. Her paws were dry, and taking a cue from her partner's many solo ventures, she squirted some lotion on it to making stroking it easier and more pleasurable.

Masturbation as a female was a fun pastime, though nothing quite like some of the strange things that she had suffered through while working with Fox. But this was totally different, and she was beginning to understand males a bit better. She stroked it for several minutes, trying different pressures and grips until two things happened.

The first was that she blew a load. The orgasm was far different from her usual and made her feel weak in the knees, much like her usual, but in a different way.

The second, following upon the heels of the spurt of white that shot out and coated the wall, was that she should have been freaking out from this and she wasn't. In fact, she was reveling in it. She knew it had to do with that relic, but how and why didn't matter right now. Unless this change was permanent, she knew she had only a short time in which to test it out.

She hoped the effect wasn't permanent. That would be highly difficult to explain, not to mention necessitating an entirely new wardrobe.

She cleaned up the bathroom and contemplated what to do with her newfound power. The relic still looked the same as it did before, and it offered no answers to her present and infinite supply of questions. Whatever powered it, it was good only for the transformation, not explaining the uses of the resulting changes. Those where up the person thus affected.

She had to think on it only a moment before coming to a conclusion. Luckily for her, there were a few bits of clothing in the closet from her friend's past boyfriends. She tried a few things on, finding the combo not to her liking, but remembering that for what she wanted, fashion sense wasn't a requirement. She grabbed her holster, making sure to clear the gun clip before cinching her belt. She looked odd, but then nothing concerning her appearance was going to change that until she reverted back to being her old self.

She rummaged around until she found a few select items, which she secreted about her person. Now was the time for some a nasty bit of fun. She turned out the lights and locked the door, hiding her key in the mailbox. She didn't want anything on her person should her present course of action go awry. No one would recognize her as she presently was, and she hoped to accomplish her goal well before things snapped back to the way they were supposed to be.

She scouted out the neighborhood, but despite the early hour, the street was deserted. Still, she opted to go around to the Hammond's side door, out of view of most of the houses and the one most used by the piggish couple. She pounded on it with a heavy fist.

"Is that you, you fat tub of lard? What'd you do, forget your goddamn key?"

The door opened with a rush of air. The boar stopped dead in his tracks at the sight of a gun barrel pointed directly at his forehead.

"W-w-w-what the hell is this?" he stuttered.

"Shut the fuck up and get inside. Turn around and don't do anything stupid or I'll splatter your puny brains all over the walls."

He turned slowly and stepped back into the hallway. Dana had never been in the house, but many in this section of town followed similar floor plans. She knew what she wanted and she knew where it most likely was. She therefore directed him to the bedroom and closed the door behind them. It was a bit risky, seeing as she didn't have any ammo in her gun, but he didn't know that and she assumed that in real life, he was just a pathetic coward. No matter what she ended up doing to him, she didn't want to accidentally shoot him. That would have been going too far.

Then again, he might have preferred that.

"What do you want? Money?"

"No. Now shut up and do as I say."

"Yes. Of course."

"Get undressed."

"What?!"

She hit him in the back of his head with the butt of the gun.

"You heard me."

"Yes. Right away!"

It didn't take long for him to doff his clothing. Dana found him just as unappealing naked as she did when he was dressed. That was good, because she wanted to give him a dose of just how she felt towards his unsavory ways.

"Get on the bed!" she demanded, surprised at how forceful her voice was.

"The bed?" he whined.

She put the gun barrel against the back of his neck.

"I can paralyze you or you can do it yourself. The choice is yours."

He was face first on the bed, shaking with fear.

"Good!" she told him, "Now I'd suggest you behave or else I might just decide to something I might regret."

As quickly as she could, she used the old clothes line from next door to secure him to the bed. She hoped it was strong enough to hold him, but then he valued his pathetic life enough to heed her warnings. The cold metal of the gun sent shivers down his spine.

She got undressed, pulled out the lotion and worked her newfound toy into a stiff and throbbing erection. She climbed up on the bed and between his pudgy legs.

"So little piggy; what makes you squeal? Hmmm?"

"Oh please no! Nothing like that!"

"Really? You like to make others do it, now don't you? You're all tough when you think you're in charge. How about now?"

"Please, no. No, no, no, NOOOOOOOO..."

She pulled up his curly little tail and plunged into his ass with as much compassion as he typically showed his mate. Dana felt like she should be repulsed by her actions, but upon closing her eyes and thinking about how it felt, the feeling of revulsion faded.

The boar hollered as she drove in the entire way, pressing herself right up against his buttocks. She wasn't sure how a vagina felt, but if it were anything like this she was well on her way to understanding the male sex drive. It was a totally eye-opening experience. And to make it more titillating was the vocalization he was presently having.

"Oh God! Oh God no! OW! OW! Stop please. Oh please stop!"

Dana leaned down to whisper in his pinkish piggy ear.

"How many times in the past have you hit your wife? How many times have you attacked her in such a manner as this? And how many times did you stop when she asked? I'll give you the same treatment you gave her. Only I come better equipped for it then you do."

She reached under his portly belly and found a thin, corkscrew shaped cock. That much she expected. She didn't expect it to me stiff.

"Why you kinky bastard! Look at you! All hard and ready to go! And here I thought I was going to be punishing you! You're into this, aren't you?"

"No, no, no, no!"

"The hell you aren't. That's you problem! You aren't filling the proper role. So tonight, you're my little piggy bitch!"

Dana shoved her cock into him hard, pulled back and slammed him again. Her cock was easily four times as thick as his was, and she was finding out that wielding it was easy and a whole lot of fun. She dug her claws into his hips and pounded away on him, doing her best to keep him squealing. Hopefully if the sound managed to carry to the neighbors, they'd just think the couple was back at it again with their fighting.

The boar buried his face in the pillows, biting his tongue as ten inches of hot, engorged canine cock reamed his ass to three sizes larger. He had never had anal sex before, but whoever this stranger was seemed to know that he inflicted himself upon his mate. That the whole scenario was somehow turning him on distressed him even more, for his cock had stiffened up early on in this attack. He was ashamed that this was turning him on.

And now, despite the pain his attacker was causing him, he felt a familiar build up in his balls.

Dana was slowing down her assault, taking the time to enjoy both the physical feeling of having intercourse as the opposite gender, and to also revel in the fact that the piggish male under her seemed to be getting into the whole thing too. That hadn't been her original intent, but it somehow seemed to heighten the experience.

His complaints diminished over time, but her thrusting and shoving went on unwaveringly for a good hour. Had she not blown a load back at the house, she would never have made it this long and she knew it. She only wished she could have made him squeal a little while longer. Then it happened.

A knot formed; something she had forgotten about completely in her excitement to try out the newher, and the piggish cries started all over again. This time however, the masculine voice of her victim dissolved into high pitches, guttural wails. She went with it and kicked in with enough pent up anger and rage that the boar nearly broke his bonds before passing out entirely.

Dana relaxed, waiting until he came to again. This wasn't going to be any fun if he didn't know it was happening. She took the brief respite to wiggle her cock back and forth, testing the tautness of his rectum.

"Wrecked-em" she quietly corrected herself in a macho-sounding voice.

The fact was though that his hole had never been tapped in such a manner, and therefore was at present, stretched to the breaking point. She pulled back with some force, and letting go of his hips, found that even with her full weight tugging against his hole, she wasn't going to pull out. That was good to know.

After a few minutes he slowly came to, and the fun started all over again. He had temporary amnesia, and couldn't remember anything leading up to where he was now. All he knew is that he was tied down on his bed and someone was shoving a log all the way to his tonsils. At one point, he even thought it was his wife.

"Honey, please untie me! That's enough fun for now!"

Dana growled at him

"Fun! You haven't had anything close to fun yet. Maybe I should show you the difference!"

She returned to leaning back away from him, threatening to pull him inside out as she allowed her full weight to rest upon his tight little anus. She then began thrusting against the drag, making him howl like a hurricane.

"Yeah! That's more like it mister pork chop. You just keep singing while I dance!"

Pretty soon her entire body was jerking back and forth, all the while the boar was grunting in time with her thrusts. Then, out of the blue, she could feel his ass tighten up around her knot so tautly that it hurt. At the same time he blew a load on the sheets and squealed out loud;

"Oh God, oh God, oh God!"

Dana was amused beyond words. She had set out to punish this guy and here he was totally getting into it. No wonder he harbored so much rage; he was out of his element being married to a sow. He needed a real male to handle his needs. Oh well, he was getting a magically converted female for the moment. It was going to have to do.

"You don't sound like someone who is getting punished, now do you?" she asked sarcastically.

"Oh God, why are you doing this to me?"

Dana smiled, knowing he couldn't see it.

"What can I say; I like pork butts. I was told your's was primo, but it just needed to get smoked. So here I am."

"That's not funny!" the boar whined.

"That's as funny as it gets fat boy. It seems to me you need a little more tenderizing."

She resumed slamming away, knowing damn well that eventually she was going to blow a load into him. She wondered belatedly, that if he did call the police (which she found unlikely) what DNA testing would show? It was going to be difficult to pin this on her since she was a female. She might just have to stick her nose into that aspect of the case should the matter end up arising.

As for now, a different matter had arisen, about an hour or so ago, and still need dutiful attention.

She rammed it home again and again, driving into him with as much force as she could muster. The time came when she couldn't hold back any longer and with a growling cry of her own, released a torrent into his backside that was sufficient to shame an elephant.

Hammond came up off the bed as he had yet another orgasm, and the constant squeezing on her cock made Dana last even longer, pumping until the load was gone and continuing until the spasmotic pumping became too painful to endure.

He was left sobbing on the bed as she tried to disengage from him. It was no good. There was a historical, biological reason for that function and it was perfectly illustrated here and now. The knot kept a couple together until such time as a mating could be considered successful. There was going to be no progeny conceived this day, but her body wasn't aware of that. And so they remained firmly affixed at the site of entry.

A half an hour later and she was beginning to grow worried.

Fifteen minutes after that she was beginning to grow stiff again.

Five minutes after that, having gotten her second wind, she ripped into him again with new vitality. He dug his pudgy hands into the sheets and grunted. She didn't know if his acceptance of this was a turn on or not. It was originally supposed to be retaliation for his boorishness, the pun there being intended. But this whole experience was new to her, as it was to him, and she just went with the flow.

Three hours later, with both participants being totally exhausted, the knot finally diminished enough where Dana was able to pull out of his much-abused ass. His corkscrew tail was now as straight as a pencil, and from the dark depths of the gaping hole that was his rectum there ran a steady stream of cum.

Dana surveyed the scene and felt rather proud. True, there was some revulsion at what she had done, for her actions had been no better than those he had perfromed. But the night had not been a total waste, for she had gotten to see the flip side of the situation was like. And it seemed she might have opened up some possibilities for him as well. He was snoring now, totally spent from an evening of raucous rape and reverie. She knew without a doubt the rest of his life was going to be far different because it.

Just then she heard a noise, and recognized the sound of a car entering the driveway. It seemed as though the wife had returned home despite her earlier anger. Dana didn't have time to untie him or clean him up, so she simply grabbed the lotion and her clothing and left him tied up, slipping out the rear window and onto the grass below.

She looked in on him with a certain fondness, knowing that she was never going to be able to look him in the face again (not that she had this entire time of course). With a big smile she stuck her head through the window one last time and stuttered;

"T-t-t-that's all folks!"

As Mrs. Hammond entered through the side door, Dana snuck past it, past their car and to the front porch of the house she was watching. She grabbed the key, but before going inside, she waited. Sure enough, there was a loud, yet muted cry.

"Harold!"

Harold was going to have a lot of explaining to do. Not concerning the bonds, which was going to take some careful words on his part, but the fact that it was his sperm was coating the sheets underneath where he was tied.

And Dana?

Well, luckily for her she was correct. Whatever effect that relic was capable of endowing upon a person, it was temporary. By the morning she was back to normal, sans the protuberance that seemed to the focus of so much trouble in the world. She never spoke a word of it to anyone, and the item was carefully placed in the capable hands of Danny in Quarantine.

Fox was none the wiser.

And neither was her friend.

On a return visit a few weeks later, the subject of the obnoxious neighbors came up. Dana did her best to avoid saying anything, but the matter was broached regardless.

"Dana," her friend began, "you know what a pain in the ass the Hammonds are, right?"

"Mmmm Hmmmm," she said around a mouthful of strong wine.

"Funny thing that."

Dana went from drinking to shoveling food into her mouth. She was still chewing, rather slowly to be truthful, and shrugged for her friend to go on.

"Well, you know how they always argue and fight?"

"Yep," was the only reply.

"Well now suddenly they're inseparable. It's like a totally different couple moved in. You're studying aliens and stuff, right?"

"I assist Smolder in studying anything that's out of the ordinary, why?"

"Oh, I don't know. Everyone on the street has a pool going. They think they were abducted and replaced with some sort of clones."

"I doubt it was aliens. As far as we've discovered, if there are aliens they don't come down to Earth. Smolder says there's no intelligent life down here worthy of visiting."

"Are you sure? Because those two have been nonstop with the bedroom antics since around the time you were here house sitting. Are you sure there weren't strange lights in the area at that time?"

"Pretty sure."

"So then, what would account for such a strange change of heart?"

Dana made with the paws in the air.

"How should I know? Maybe that jackass of a boar finally got packed with a little sausage of his own."

"Dana! Really? How rude of you! How much have you had to drink?"

"What do you want from me? I'm just saying that maybe the big bad wolf came a knocking on his back door, and did a little huffing and puffing and blew his door in."

Her friend looked appalled.

"I don't know why I even ask you things if you can't even give me a well-thought-out answer."

Dana shrugged.

"Hey, if you really want to know, ask him, not me. I'm sure he would have an entertaining story to tell. If not, then use your imagination."

"I'd prefer not to, thank you very much."

Dana sighed. "Maybe he just needed to get hog wild to get whatever was eating him out of his system. Maybe he was being a bed hog. Maybe he needed to ham it up a little. Good God Tracy, I really don't care. You should never look a gift horse; err, pig in the mouth."

Her friend just shook her head.

"I think you've have enough wine for one evening."

Dana picked up the bottle, feeling a little tipsy as she did.

"Not yet I haven't. And if you're going to make me think of Hammond any more, you can fetch me another. All this talk of pork and porking is making feel all weird inside. The last time I felt weird inside I almost regretted it. Almost."

She had the sudden urge to urinate.

Hopefully it was just because of the wine.