FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

"The enemy has only illusions behind which he hides." - Bruce Lee

He'd never seen anyone quite like her.

They met at the Bolgia, a nightclub that Ogun had first brought him to because Ogun played sets there sometimes. It was a good place to dance, a good place to perform, and a good place to drink - but he didn't drink. There was also a ring set up there for people to spar in, perhaps bet on if they felt like it, although management had instated a local culture in which causing permanent damage to other contestants intentionally was frowned upon. She'd been going there for a while, but he was still a bit of a newcomer to it at that point. He was a newcomer to a lot of things, but better late than never, he figured. She looked just a bit older than he was, but not by much. The shark grinned at him toothily as she climbed in the ring.

"You're going to need a bigger boat," she taunted him with her left leg forward, knees bent, beckoning him to 'come here' with her left hand with a playfully insolent expression on her face. "Peace be upon you," the bat smiled genially as he adopted one of the deceptive, intricate fighting stances of his homeland himself. "What kind of catchphrase is that?" She tilted her head at him. "Fighting isn't about catchphrases," he answered back coolly. "Ah, you're that girl who beat Betta that time, aren't you?" Her face seemed to light up when she suddenly recognized him after all. "What did you just call me?" He frowned. "What?" She started bouncing in place in front of him as though the wind were going through her like a chime.

Was she doing this deliberately, or did she really not know? He couldn't tell from looking at her. She didn't seem malicious, but it wasn't always easy to tell intentionally hurtful attacks from honest mistakes. He knew how he looked, even though he didn't like it. "Prepare to welcome the peace of defeat," he said, a fiercer expression on his face despite his lighter frame than hers than he'd had when he'd spoken to her earlier. "That's better," she tried to smile back at his new catchphrase to try to dampen the impact of whatever she'd said wrong while he slowly zigzagged his way toward her alternating between high and low stances as he went. But she kept her eyes right on him - was she just not blinking? It looked like she wasn't blinking.

Not letting him close the distance between them first, she went from her bounce to hop right at him first, breaking the distance between them during one of his stance shifts to throw off his balance. Thanks to the way his arms swept the space all around his body at all times like tentacles trailing behind an octopus' shifting trajectory as he moved, always avoiding his wings as they went, he did manage to parry her first strike, but he was still forced back by it, and had to right himself by retaking a different stance to be ready for her immediate return. She didn't give him a moment's respite before coming at him again, already closer to him than it seemed like she should've had any right to have been. What manner of style was this?

It vaguely reminded him of Bridges' but not quite. The otter's style was softer, more evasive, more circular than hers seemed to be. Where the otter moved like a melody, her movements were more like a staccato. He couldn't afford to spend a lot of time thinking about it because she had a fast, intricate arm game, it turned out, always keeping the pressure right on him. Even with all of his training, when she suddenly threw a kick in there he totally didn't see it coming. She had no tricks up her sleeve like Betta had, and while the red fish had been no slouch in the ring either, he was already thinking he'd have a harder time beating her than he had her predecessor. Even if he won, she was going to make him earn this one, for sure.

She broke right through the spatial boundaries between them as if she had no respect for the 'rules' of fighting, the thought occurred to him. But what *were* the 'rules' of fighting, exactly? He supposed there were none! He hadn't really thought about it like that until then though. At first it kept seeming as though she was moving more than it was necessary for her to move, as though she'd simply had so much energy to spend that she didn't know what to do with it all and was just throwing it around all over the place for no other reason than to get rid of it as fast as possible. Yet every time he least expected it, this or that unnecessary move would turn into another feint, becoming an attack he didn't see coming until the last second.

Even while his train of thought traced a mental model of what he was finding out seemed to be her process in his mind as they fought, she still always kept finding new ways of establishing and breaking patterns that lulled him into a false sense of security then abruptly shattering it, breaking his expectations along with them. How was she managing to pull this off? His mother had taught him the tricks of the trade of the martial hypnotists of his homeland, and how to see through them so as not to get taken in, but his training didn't seem up to the task of resisting her onslaught. She seemed to be having such a great time! He got the sense that, win or lose, she loved fighting for what it was, with her whole heart. It almost made him smile.

He still gritted his teeth as defeat seemed imminent despite his best efforts. He was keeping her on her toes, and forcing her to go all out to keep up with him as well, but she always seemed just this one bare extra step ahead of him. Every time victory seemed within his grasp, she'd find yet another way of getting around his defenses. She would walk right into a punch to get to him and laugh it right off. It seemed as though her forearms were glued to his at times, so much that it was becoming hard to tell the difference between when she was attacking and defending. At times, rather than block, she'd punch his arm right out of its way mid-punch. He wondered if her fins slicing through the air increased the speed of her arms.

"Oh, come on, man!" He'd come so close to getting her this time that it seemed positively egregious to him that she would've managed to retake control of the fight yet again after having already done it so many times in a row in such a short time. It really seemed to him like this one should've been his - surely he'd earned it this time with how much of an effort he'd made, hadn't he? Ah, to have it snatched away so easily! Yet at this point, her countenance darkened. "What did you just call me?" He blinked at her, not understanding what she meant either. "Huh?" She charged at him so fast that, before he could even blink a second time, he was already on the ground, the raccoon referee lifting the shark's arm over her head.

She walked over to him to help him up as the crowd cheered her on. "I'm sorry, man, I hope that didn't hurt *too* much." He wasn't sure if she meant verbally or physically but, grabbing her hand to stand up, he was grateful for her apology either way. "Thanks." It was when he'd accidentally done the same thing to her back that she figured out what she'd said after all. "So..." He struggled to think of the right thing to say. "What's a girl like you doing in a place like this?" She laughed. "C'mon, lemme buy you a drink. We trans fighters gotta stick together, right?" They ducked back under the ropes on their way out of the ring. "Oh, I'm sorry! I don't drink." He seemed to wish he could have accepted her offer on some level though.

"Ah, that's okay," she smiled back toothily. It was sort of difficult for her not to. She was a shark. "Coffee, then? No pressure, mind you." He was struck by just how sharply her fierceness in the ring contrasted with her easygoing warmth when she spoke to him, already so soon after they'd just finished kicking the crap out of each other for all the world to see. There was no aggressiveness in how she was asking, no real insistence, just a firmly articulated desire to connect with another person. Be that as it may, he got the sense that, if he'd excused himself, she would just as soon have politely accepted his refusal and moved on. For a moment, he wondered how 'honorable' her intentions were, then he just shrugged it off.

He didn't want to come off as 'interested' in that way and end up disappointing her by his lack of interest. It was good that she knew what she'd have been getting if she did, at least, but he *was* gay and, just because she knew he was also trans, it didn't mean that she wouldn't possibly still assume he was straight even though he wasn't. But why was he assuming that *she* was straight, he asked himself in turn? She'd given him no more reason to believe that than he was. Her tone *sounded* friendly enough. Certainly it was no sin to sit and to have coffee with someone, even if he knew it couldn't go any further than that for any number of reasons. It didn't mean that he was leading her on by promising more than he could deliver.

"Sure! Coffee sounds good," he thanked her as they made their way to a table to order from. "You can drink, if you want, though." He always made sure to let people know he wouldn't have had a problem with them doing that. He didn't mind. "Nah, Im'a have coffee too," she shrugged off. "At this time of night, you're sure?" He tilted his head at her. As a bat it was natural for him to have coffee at night, when he'd be up anyway, but he wasn't used to other people following suit. "I'm a caffeine addict," she grinned, "and I don't sleep." He gasped. "Oh, that's right, fish people don't sleep! I keep forgetting," he apologized. "I should've been able to tell you were a caffeine addict based on how much you hop around," he winked.

"You mean up there?" she chuckled. "Yeah! You have a very hyperactive fighting style. You move like something in you is fighting to escape," he elaborated. "In a sense, I guess something is," she reflected, "and I *am*, in fact, hyperactive." She turned to the cockatrice waiter to order two coffees for them. "Oh! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be insensitive," he apologized again. "Nah, it's okay. It's not surprising that people would notice, it's a very... outwardly visible characteristic, by definition," she waved off. He was finding out that she talked with her hands a lot, which was consistent. "Then again, if we sharks stop moving for too long, we die, so it makes sense we'd be most at peace in constant motion, doesn't it?"

He nodded. "Yeah, I guess it does. So... What should I be doing different?" She stopped to think about it. "Well, your silat is pretty good, to be honest. Whoever trained you did their homework, I can tell. Your offense is solid, but you still leave yourself open too much... That's how you get hurt," she explained. "I bet most people have a hell of a time getting through," she acknowledged. "But you still managed to make it through my defenses somehow," he conceded, "and you recognize silat, just like that?" She nodded. "I've studied every style to be able to recognize them." He seemed impressed. "No shit!" He strove not to swear, because it wasn't very pious of him, but it was hard not to absorb how most people spoke around him.

"I have no idea what your style is, myself," he admitted. "It's Jeet Kune Do," she said, "Bruce Lee's style." A look of understanding seemed to dawn on his face. "Ah, that makes sense!" he said. "Bruce Lee *almost* had a silat guy in Game of Death, did you know?" He shook his head no. "I did not! Why didn't he?" She went on. "Well, Bruce Lee wanted the silat expert to lose to him, because that's what the movie was about... It was so he could show how his style overcame the flaws of traditional styles, one by one. But the guy didn't want his style to lose, so he said no. Can you imagine turning down all that money and fame for pride like that? I bet he really kicked himself for that later," she finished, blowing on her coffee as she did.

He seemed to ponder what she said for a moment. "Hmm, I sort of get it, on some level," he admitted. "Really?" She seemed surprised. "Well, yeah. I mean, on one hand, you could say it's great exposure, shows off his name, shows off silat to a population that might not know it, but... If they see Jeet Kune Do beat silat, even if they now know silat exists if they didn't before, wouldn't they be a lot likelier to go to a Jeet Kune Do school instead?" He'd had conversations with Klein about this kind of thing, because capoeira lost in so many movies, to the skunk's chagrin. "Sometimes you have to think in the long term, you know? He might have thought of it as 'throwing a fight' for money, for all we know." She stopped and thought about it. "I hadn't thought of it like that... I hope I didn't make you look bad tonight," she apologized.

"Nah, that was fun!" he waved off just as she had. It was surprising how communicative her behavior proved to be. "I'm glad," she smiled. Did she have an Australian accent? He thought that sounded like an Australian accent. "Besides, I'm not running any schools," he grinned. "Bruce Lee was super wary of people running schools after he'd be gone," she was reminded. "Really?" he tilted his head at her. "Yeah! He was worried that people would try to 'be too much like him, and not enough like themselves,' when his whole thing was to try to be more like himself than like anybody else. He was wary of people being so caught up in trying to recapture the past that they wouldn't make the most of the present moment for what it was."

He took a sip of his coffee. "You really admire him, don't you?" She nodded. "Oh yeah! He did so much for dragon rights, you know?" Bruce Lee had even been known as *the* Dragon - that had really been saying something. "He was so relentlessly curious about the world around us," she said, "that he's really been an inspiration to me, for more than just fighting I mean. Most people only know him for the fighting, but there was just so much more to him than that. He was a really spiritual person. I've had a hard time moving on from my past in some ways, but he was the first person who made me really stop and pay attention to the moment. Whatever it is, there's just never gonna be another moment like it again, you know?"

She was sure giving him something to think about. He could tell from talking to her that her mind was every bit as restless as her body was. She seemed like she always kept taking new information into account, never atrophying into a viewpoint she'd learned to take for granted as much as he'd gotten used to expecting from people. "I guess! When you say spiritual, do you mean religious?" He knew those weren't always synonyms, but as a man of faith, he was respectfully curious about other people's beliefs as well. "Well, that sort of depends on your definition," she shrugged. "He didn't believe in God, but he was religious if you think of Buddhism as a religion... He wasn't if you think of Buddhism as a philosophy," she explained.

"And how do you think of it, yourself?" he asked her. "I *am* a Buddhist, in fact... You should know that about me... I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name?" She'd gotten to a point in a sentence when she'd normally call someone by their name, but she realized she'd forgotten to ask. "My name's Rakim," he extended his hand out to her. "I'm Scylla." Her skin was cold and rough to the touch, but for some reason he found the feeling of it against his own skin surprisingly pleasant. Grey on grey. "I'm a Muslim, and I don't mind what you believe either way," he scratched the back of his head. "You should also know that about me too, I guess, Scylla," he stuck his tongue out. These were difficult subjects for a lot of people in this world.

However, by that point, some of the people in his life who were closest to him were an ex-Voodoo atheist and a pagan, so he wasn't so easily fazed. "That's not a problem for me either, Rakim," she smiled at him. He was certainly relieved to hear that. It didn't mean he wasn't flesh and blood just as she was, mind you, just that he did his best to treat people well within that. "So... What's it like being a Buddhist?" he asked her. "Well, for one thing, it means I believe that, on some level, this? Everything we see?" She gestured to the world around them. "What we think of as 'reality,' I think is an illusion. The 'real' reality is something else, underneath that, but you need to pay close attention to see it for what it is."

That resonated with him. "It also means I believe that, when my current body will be gone... I'm going to get *another* body, one that'll still be 'me,' but *different*... More 'me' than I've ever been."

***

They ended up ordering a second coffee, and talking more and more into the night, getting to know each other better as they did. She'd been born in Australia, it turned out, but her parents had moved to North America in her teens because of work. She used to surf when she'd been younger, but they'd moved rather far inland, so it ended up becoming one of the things she didn't do as much. "Do you miss it?" he asked. "Sometimes I do," she answered, "but I've had to learn to live with it. You gotta make the most of the moment while you have it, right? That way, even when you can't get it back, you can still think back on it and say to yourself, 'I made the most out of that.'" He supposed that was true.

"So you don't resent your parents for it, then?" She stuck out her tongue. "Not for *that*, no." He tilted his head at her. "What *do* you resent them for, then?" Rakim didn't resent his mother for anything, really. "Let's just say they didn't take me being a girl all that well," she scoffed. "Why, didn't you have that problem?" It was hard to imagine he hadn't. "Not from my parents, no... From a lot of people, yeah, but not from them as such, no." She seemed surprised. "I can't even imagine that." Part of him wanted to reach for her hand, to hold her hand in his to comfort her, but he didn't want it to seem like he was coming on to her. "I can't imagine making it through the things I've had to without my mom," he admitted back to her.

"You really look up to her, don't you?" He nodded. "Yeah..." He seemed to almost the way she looked up to Bruce Lee, she couldn't help but think. "Have people done that thing to you where they use things about you to deny your transness, though?" This much, he certainly related to. "Oh yeah! All the time," he said. "My parents used to tell me I was just a straight guy who wanted a loophole because straight guys are supposed to have a thing for lesbians." He shook his head at her. "That's so shitty!" So she was a lesbian. So much for him having had to worry about sending her the wrong signals as he'd been since they'd met, he thought. "People used to tell me I was just a straight girl who didn't know what she wanted either."

Her eyes widened. "Oh, so you're gay too!" She hadn't wanted to assume either way, but... Did it change how she should be reading his behavior or not? She wasn't quite sure. She couldn't tell. "People even used the fact I was into martial arts to deny my transness... They said it was a 'male' interest and proved I was just kidding myself. Even though Bruce Lee lived the first 18 years of his life with a girl's name..." With that, she downed the last of her coffee. "People used the fact that silat looks graceful like dancing to say I was a girl for doing it," he commiserated. "Yeah, well," she gestured at the waiter for a refill, "I'd like to see the people who said that stand against you in the ring for as long as I did," she smirked.

"Have people ever asked you the 'oh, if you've never *tried* being straight and cis, how do you know you wouldn't like it' line?" She rolled her eyes. "All the time! Ever get your fingers stuck in a car door?" He shook his head. "Well, I don't need to try *that* to know I wouldn't like it either," she added, tongue firmly in cheek. "So, do you have a boyfriend, Rakim?" He looked almost embarrassed. "I have two." She looked surprised. "Two! Any chance you could turn one into a girl and give him to me?" He chuckled. "So you're still looking for a girlfriend, then?" She nodded. "Yeah, it's not easy. Wait, you mean they know, they don't mind?" This was an intriguing concept to her. "They have two other partners too. We're in an open relationship."

A look of understanding dawned on her face. "Ah, I see! That must be... interesting," she pondered. "It is!" In every sense of the word, it certainly was, he couldn't deny that. "It must teach you a lot about what kind of person you are," she observed. "That's true. So... What kind of girl are you looking for, Scylla?" She sighed. "Gosh, that's not an easy question... It's already so hard to find someone who understands and accepts even the most basic things about me, you know? At the same time, I don't want to have to settle for anyone who will, because I think we shouldn't have to... I guess I'm looking for someone who 'hooks' me," she chuckled, "hook, line, and sinker."

Her expression changed when a new song came on. "Ooh, speaking of hooks, the hook in this song reels me in every time," she grinned. "Did people's dismissals burn you on dancing, Rakim?" She had to have used the word 'burn.' He couldn't quite explain to her why it caught his attention yet. "Nope!" That would've been letting them win, he reasoned. "I love dancing," he smiled. "Wanna get up and shake it to this a bit, then? Are you game?" She looked like the kind of person who did things on dares. The list of extreme sports and outdoor stuff that he'd learn she was into later certainly turned out to confirm his guess. "Sure!" She was happy she'd gotten him to agree. She hated having to sit still for too long. She wanted to get up and move.

"Did Bruce Lee dance?" he asked her as they stood up. "Bruce Lee was a cha-cha champion," she answered as they stepped on the dance floor. Rakim's bat ears had always paid close attention to the music that people in his life liked, and to what it meant to them. His mother liked Middle Eastern music, Ogun liked video game music, Soma liked snake-charming music. This song, Dragon's Heartbeat, it turned out, was one of Scylla's favorites. Later, he'd learn that, the first time she'd heard it, she'd felt as though her heart had always been encased in ice, and it had melted its way right through to it, like a breath of fresh air that had been the first to plant the idea in her heart.

She could be *free*.

***

So they started seeing each other, first another time, then another time after that, getting to know each other better and better every time they would. They would sit at the Bolgia, drinking coffee, observing the fights on the ring, listening to the music that would play, get up to stretch their legs on the dance floor, and talk about their lives. They became used to each other's presence. One day, she started going out with a clownfish girl she met at the bar on a night there on her own. At first, he was happy for her, glad to see the smile that making out with her new girlfriend was putting on his friend's face. Scylla could have used a break and, for a time, this girl seemed to have been it. She even told him about their first few dates.

One night, he came into the bar to find her having downed a few drinks and being well on her way to downing a few more. He couldn't see her clownfish girlfriend anywhere and he was almost afraid to ask what had happened. "She broke up with me," she said flatly as she put down her glass. "Aw, no! But why?" She sighed. "We turned out not to be compatible... down there, I guess," she shook her head. "I mean, don't get me wrong, we both went in knowing what we were in for, just... She said she thought she could get past not being with a cis girl, even though she's a lesbian, because in her mind she knows I'm still a girl, but..." She seemed uncomfortable. "... well, she couldn't get it up." So she also had a...

"Oh gosh... I see," he understood. "I guess it wasn't her fault," she went on, "her body couldn't keep up with her mind. She was really sure it could. She said I was how she found out." She tried to shrug, helplessly. "You always have to find out the first time somehow, right?" He wiped a tear from her eye. "I guess that's true," he nodded. "Well, I got hooked all right... Hook, line and sinker, just like I said," she remembered, "it just turned out to be the old bait and switch," she chuckled bitterly through her tears. "You were still attracted to her, though?" She nodded. "Well, yeah! I was... Ugh." It was frustrating. They'd mostly avoided sexual topics until then. "Well I was really raring to go. She got me pretty worked up before dropping that on me."

She blushed. He couldn't help but notice she was still sporting a raging boner, but it seemed like it would've been rude for him to mention it. It was just the sort of thing that naturally drew his eye. Fortunately for him, she didn't notice that he'd noticed it and, letting her head fall forward to rest on her forearm in front of her, let out an embarrassed sigh. "I'm soooo horny, Rakim!" She confessed dejectedly. "I mean, I know it's not a very ladylike thing for me to say. Yes, I'm heartbroken, yes, I'm going to miss her for more than that, but damn it... I'm flesh and blood, you know? I can't help that either. I thought I was gonna get laid. Now I'm just... all dressed up with nowhere to go, you know?" How crass he must've thought her.

"It's just been so long. I hope you don't think less of me," she worried. "No, of course not!" He didn't want her thinking that. "For what it's worth, I..." Should he admit this to her? "Well, let's just say if you *were* a guy, I'd have probably made a move on you by now." Too late, he had. "You're just saying that to cheer me up," she waved off. "No, really!" Was he serious? She couldn't tell. "Well, then... If you *were* a girl, Rakim, I'd sure be letting you catch me on the rebound in a heartbeat right now, I can tell you that." He smiled. "You're just saying that because you're drunk." She was just returning his compliment out of politeness, he'd decided. "No, really! I might be drunk, but you'll still be hot in the morning," she laughed.

Well shit. Should he have been worried the whole time after all? Should she? "Do you... Do you really mean that?" She scratched the back of her head. Where was their conversation going, exactly? Should... should either of them have been worried about where it was going, or not? What was the worst that could happen, after all? "I'm sorry, am I making you uncomfortable?" He shook his head. "No. Do you mean it?" She rolled her eyes and sighed, amused by the situation's absurdity. "Man, if you weren't a man, I'd eat you out like that guy from Jaws," she jested. "Well, girl... If you were a man, you'd be in my mouth like a couple of sushi rolls," he chuckled back at her. Her hardon strained against her shorts' fabric still.

She looked at him. He had such a nice, feminine face! He looked so gentle to her, like a flower she could've plucked from a field. She would've never told him that to his face. She started to wonder about the size and shape of his breasts, about how wet he must've gotten when he'd rubbed himself thinking of other guys... Her imagination was running away with her like a train. Meanwhile, he was staring at her transfixed, his eyes following the contours of her pronounced muscle definition, the results of all of her years of training, imagining his hand tracing patterns across her flat chest while they basked in the afterglow, what her rear must've felt like to her when she'd be fantasizing it was already her vagina giving her what she wanted...

He almost jumped when he noticed they were holding hands on the table. "Oh gosh, I'm sorry! I..." He could hear her heart beating so fast. She could even hear his, even though she didn't have his bat hearing. "I didn't really mean to do this on purpose either," she grinned apologetically. "Uh, don't... feel obligated to do anything you wouldn't normally do," she added, looking down. He was somewhat reassured she'd have been saying so, since he'd just been worried he'd just been the one to have put her in that situation. Would this mean, in some way, if they did what they both had in mind, that they'd be denying each other's transness to themselves? But they'd talked about it so much! How could it have meant that?

He could see stains of pre start appearing on the fabric on her pants, seeping their way through it, the smell of it hitting his nostrils like an aphrodisiac, making him salivate at the thought of tasting it. "You know... I think I'd *like* to do something I wouldn't 'normally' do, for once..." She tilted her head at him. "Yeah?" He nodded. "Yeah! Just for once, I mean. Going somewhere you'd never go is the best way to end up somewhere you've never been, right?" She smiled as they got up from the table and slowly headed for the door, still reeling about the sense of unreality that the whole situation felt like it was taking on for both of them. "So we're really doing this?" He shrugged. "Looks like it," he chuckled disbelievingly as they'd walked out.

***

"Did people ever try to scare you out of transitioning? Like, did people ever tell you that you might miss what you have now?" He knew he was looking at it from the 'wrong' perspective, but being who he was, her shafts seemed like something that would've been hard to part with, especially for someone like him who'd wanted one without having it all his life. He didn't want to phrase his question as asking her to keep it though. It seemed more encouraging as a friend to inquire as to whether other people had. "All the time," she nodded, "but I *really* know this is what I want, though." He tilted his head. "Really?" She was emphatic. "Oh yeah!" He almost couldn't believe it - although he was 100% determined to transition himself.

"What do you think you're going to like better about it?" He was curious to compare and contrast her reasons with his. "Have you ever been kicked in the crotch, Rakim?" He winced. "I'm sure that must be less pleasant for you than for me, that's for sure." She grinned. "I can't believe you'd be so easily willing to part with what you've got either, for another thing," she mock-punched his shoulder. "Why, what's so great about it?" He didn't care much for it, himself. "You get to come over and over, for one thing! Did you know when you shoot one of those things off you have to wait like *forever* before it'll go off again? It's true! It's *super annoying*. With parts like yours I'll be able to just jump right back in, you know?"

He covered his mouth with his hand in thought. "I guess so! I hadn't thought of that. I just... keep finding it frustrating that the urge keeps coming back right after I'm done? It seems like it'd be nice to be able to get it all out in one go, and not to have to take it forever to get off, to be able to just rub one out." She scoffed. "I guess it makes sense you'd think like that! Also, I gotta say, the only really good orgasms I've ever had have all been handsfree..." His eyes widened. "It's supposed to be really hard for cis guys to get off like that, though!" He'd tried to get off both of his boyfriends without directly stroking them himself a few times. It had proved a lot more challenging than he expected. He always ended up having to use his hands after all.

"Tell me about it! First of all, I have to wait for like, several days before even trying, because the most recently you've gotten off, the more difficult it's supposed to make it. I don't have a lot of patience for things like that though! I just keep craving the chemical release so it's really frustrating for me to wait that long. When I do manage it though, I can usually keep going without having to stop for some reason. It doesn't deplete you as much that way, so it doesn't take as long to get another one after it either. It's more 'like a girl' that way too, you know?" He agreed. "I get what you mean, yeah. So you just never stroke?" She sighed, shaking her head. "I don't have the willpower not to but it's like trying to come while hearing nails on a chalkboard."

He winced. Bats had very sensitive hearing. It was an effective metaphor. "What about you? I mean, how do you usually...?" He tilted his head. "You mean on my own, or with someone?" She thought about it for a second. "How about both?" They'd come back to her place for the night. They were alone. "On my own, it's kind of a pain if I want to make it feel really good, and not just a slog from point A to point B... I have to try to juggle a dildo, some fingering and rubbing my 1-inch penis down there, which is hard to get a good grip on, lemme tell you. With only two hands, I can't get good stimulation everywhere I need to at once, so it's dispersed. I keep going back and forth between different spots so it can take a while."

She seemed puzzled. "Oh, because you also like to have something... back there?" He blushed. "Well, it makes me feel more like a gay guy." That made sense to her. "But the way you are now, you can't get off from it, can you?" He shook his head. "No... So I need to have something in my front hole because it's the one that feels enough, but on its own it makes me feel all dysphoric, so I kind of use the one back there to 'distract' me from it. I sort of try to 'trick' myself into believing that the feeling that's coming from my front is coming from my back, into believing that what I'm rubbing down there while I'm doing that is just a little bit longer, and can shoot stuff. I kinda had to develop a whole process through trial and error."

She looked down at her current double equipment in sudden understanding. "So the idea of being with someone who could go in both at once is..." He gulped. "A real fucking turn-on, I gotta admit," he laughed nervously. "One of my boyfriends wears a strap-on on top of his cock to top me sometimes, so he can go in both at once. Once they both held me up in the air right between them, one of them behind me, one of them in front of me. My legs couldn't even touch the ground! So I just wrapped them around the front one and buried my face between his shoulder and neck while they went to town on me..." She seemed flustered to imagine it. "I can't wait to be able to do that! Won't you miss that?" He chuckled.

"Well, right now, I still like topping better than bottoming, emotionally I mean, because it makes me feel a lot more like a man than bottoming does, since it's coded more masculine. When I'll be able to do both maybe I'll be more evenly switch, I don't really know." She clucked her tongue. "But you can't come from topping them with a strap-on, can you?" He shook his head. "No. I can't *wait* to be able to come from topping them. It's all I can think about sometimes. I fantasize about it almost every time I get off. It just makes me feel so in charge and safe, you know? Like I could take over the world, if I weren't such a nice person." She giggled.

"So, would you... like to top me?" Blood rushed to his head and nether regions. He could swear he could feel a phantom boner springing up from his crotch. "Yeah..." he nodded as they started to disrobe, tentatively running their hands across each other's bodies hoping not to hit any sore spots on each other as they went. "That sounds like fun," he added, holding her close as the shark and bat kissed each other awkwardly but passionately, the first time either of them kissed anyone of the opposite sex after having spent their whole lives until then certain that they never would. "So you *want* me to top you, right?" He nibbled on her neck as she felt his binding pressed against her chest, struggling to resist the temptation to remove it.

"Oh, yeah!" she nodded as he grabbed her ass, envying her the ability to come from having it penetrated while kneading her buttocks and poking at her entrance to tease it. She grabbed his crotch, just like anyone grabbing a man's package, and yelped when she felt him lick and nibble on one of her nipples affectionately. She may have been flat-chested so far, but for her, it was still a huge turn-on to have her nipples played with, acknowledged as a female thing that way. She rubbed his back between his wings while he ran his hands across her back fin. He wanted to take her up on shoving her lengths down his maw like he'd hinted at wanting to do earlier, but she was eyeing his mound between his legs like a bag of Halloween candy.

"Can I eat you out first? Just a bit?" He looked pleased at the suggestion, she decided, as she knelt in front of him while he caressed the fin on top of her head in front of his crotch. She spread his labia apart like a pearl diver opening an oyster, her mouth watering as she started running her tongue all over his vulva like a divine smorgasbord of delicacies from all over the world served for her sole enjoyment. All she could think about licking him was how much fun she was going to have once she'd be able to get someone to give her proper cunnilingus just the way she was giving him, projecting her future self into his every moan and spasm then as she lapped up the juices that he'd squirted in her maw while he'd involuntarily thrust into it.

"Ohh wow..." he panted, "someday you're gonna make some girl *really* happy, I can tell you that," he petted her approvingly as his first shudder died down. He tried to kneel down to put her dripping members in his mouth, eager to return the favor as well, but she'd already turned around to grab something out of a handbag she'd been keeping nearby, which piqued his curiosity enough to dampen his disappointment a bit. "Would you like to do the honors, sir?" She winked at him while handing him a belt with a strap-on on it and a bottle of lube, which he grabbed from her before she turned around to go down on her hands and knees in front of him facing away from him, turning her head over her should to look at him invitingly.

"But of course," he said, adjusting it around his waist with the well-practiced motions that his previous experiences topping both of his boyfriends had given him. "Anything for my lady," he added, opening the lube bottle to pour some on his strap-on while he knelt between her legs behind her. She had such a great big tail! Fortunately, she'd also had some measure of practice keeping it out of the way well enough to make herself as easily accessible for him as he needed her to be. It wasn't going to be the first time someone used a strap-on on her either. Just as his wet, borrowed tip was pressed right against her pucker, he bent over forward a bit to ask "Are you sure you don't want me to fuck you missionary?" She had such a lovely face.

She shook her head. "No, my back fin." He hadn't thought of that. "Cowgirl?" He shook his head. "No, my wings." Neither of them could rest comfortably on their backs, it looked like. "Here it comes, then," he concluded as he pushed his plastic erection gently forward under her tail, listening to the sounds she made while he gave her a chance to adjust to the intrusion and moving only the tip in and out of her anus slowly, adapting his pace to how she was responding as they went. He felt her balls brushing against his thighs when he'd gotten going well enough to be able to start thrusting back and forth all the way, picturing what it would have felt like to have them slapping against his own balls as he'd have pounded her rectum with his own flesh.

"Oh, you're so warm and soft," he complimented her, caressing her back fin in front of him. Her blood was usually cold, but they were sharing so much body warmth that he wasn't lying. "Oh, you're so big and strong," she told him, even though he was smaller than she was, as he held her tail in his mouth proudly like the catch of the day. While he wasn't getting any closer to an orgasm, topping her like this made his heart sing like a boss, and it was still going to be an unforgettable experience, he could tell. This wasn't so different, this wasn't so hard, he told himself, vainly attempting to deny the illicit thrill that made every hair on his body stand on end. If he could top a man, he could top her, he thought, struggling to resist stroking her cocks.

Looking down between her legs, he could see a larger and larger pool of pre forming under her crotch as his thoughtful pistoning slowly milked it out of her. As difficult as it was supposed to be for her to come handsfree, it certainly seemed like he wasn't having such a hard time pleasing her through it for what it was so far after all. As she pressed her rump back against his crotch, he asked himself whether or not he was going to be able to get her off from it on its own, figuring he should let her make the call and stroke herself the rest of the way while he focused on fucking her if she felt too frustratingly close without getting there herself, so he wouldn't risk robbing her of a handsfree climax. He leaned forward to grab her nipples.

Finally, he felt her tailhole start clenching around his strap-on with the same passionate desperation with which his boyfriends' anuses would contract around his strap-on when he'd topped them before. It made it just incrementally more difficult for him to move in and out of it, yet so much more rewarding to think about the sensations he was providing her. Groaning delightedly, she impaled herself back on his length over and over to increase the pleasure she felt as he could tell that her untouched boners had been so touched by how well he'd treated her prostate that they were spewing spurt after spurt of her semen out of her balls through her urethra and onto the ground under her chest in thanks for it. "Aww, good boy!" she shivered.

He chuckled, satisfied with himself for having done so well. He sure knew what he was going to think about next time he'd jerk off, he thought slyly. She laid down on her side after he pulled out of her, removing the strap-on belt from around his waist after having done so. "Can I... I'm sorry, tell me if I can't, but can I taste them?" She hesitated. "Sure... If you want, sure." She figured she could let him have that, after he'd made her feel so good just before. "Oh, thank you!" She knelt with her hands on his head, petting him as he licked the cum off her penises on his hands and knees in front of her, craning his neck as he alternated between rubbing his 1-inch penis and fingering his front hole. "Mm, it tastes so good!" he exclaimed.

He licked his lips as swallowing her ejaculate made his body cry out for sloppy seconds. "Heh, I'd kill to get fucked by those, really," he grinned as he paused with his tongue on one of her frenula. "Really?" she tilted her head at him. "Well, no, of course not," he answered, embarrassed, looking up at her before kneeling upright in front of her to sit on his haunches. "I mean, I get not liking using them, obviously I'd get something like that, you know?" He scratched the back of his head, mortified at the thought of accidentally pressuring her into anything. "I just meant it seemed like fun, that's all. You'll know that from experience someday, I'm sure," he added. She stopped, and really, really thought about it. "Get back on all four."

He gasped. "Really? No, I really don't want to make you do anything you'd..." She grabbed his shoulder and gave him a very, very serious look. "Listen, I'm only gonna say this once. This is your one chance, buddy, got it?" He nodded just as seriously. "I'll take it," he added meekly, striving to contain his excitement as he went back down on his hands and knees while she knelt down behind him to mount him. "You're still hard?" He sounded surprised. "I told you it was easier to keep going after getting off handsfree," she smirked as she spread his butt cheeks in front of her, holding her boner in one hand to try to guide the tip of her top glans under his tail. "Gosh, could you hold these open for me? I have to hold and guide both at once."

He nodded. "Of course," he complied, gasping when she grabbed both her bottom erection to direct it into his front hole and her top hardon to push it into his anus. "Oh f-f-fuck!" he cried out. "Is it... UNF... everything you imagined it would be?" she asked him as she started cautiously moving in and out of both of his holes in front of her, a little surprised that it didn't feel all that bad but with her heart racing at the thought that she'd go soft or slip out and ruin it when she'd least expect it. "Oh, yeah!" he nodded emphatically as he reached down between his legs to rub his 1-inch penis while she settled into a slow pace that only gradually increased to carefully medium as she slowly started getting more confident she knew what she was doing.

He was used to at least one of the members fucking him being synthetic, artificial, with only one of them pulsating flesh and blood that could feel his body welcome it, having experienced two flesh ones only once, and never with both of them attached to just one person. It brought him to a good place. She continued to move in and out of him like the ebb and flow of the tide. "Hah... I hope you're liking this," she told him, caressing his wings in front of him, which he responded to strongly enough for her to tell that they were sensitive in a way that made him like it. "Oh, it's so good! Is it okay?" He was almost embarrassed to be liking it so much. "It's all good," she chuckled, "nothing wrong so far," she winked.

But she just kept thrusting in and out of him longer and longer as the night went on. Her panting grew louder and louder, and she was putting so much effort into maintaining her pace and in staying hard while she did that he was soaked from head to toe from how much she was sweating over him. It was as though she'd hit a prolonged phase of stimulation that, while better than no stimulation at all, wasn't slowly increasing toward an orgasm but just staying frustratingly stable in her loins without building up to anything. She was starting to get dehydrated from how much sweat she'd been letting out on him, which was bad for a fish. Her heaving chest felt like an exhausted marathon runner's chest on his back, it occurred to him.

"We can - ah!" He actually slipped on her sweat on the ground under him to fall face down on the ground, her members slipping out of him when he did while she struggled not to also fall face down on top of him from how slippery it was. "We can take a break if you want," he laughed nervously. "No way, buddy, we're doing this!" she raised her finger at him while getting up to grab a towel so she could dry herself and the floor under them with it before putting another dry one on the ground for the bat to go back down on all four on top of. "Do unto others, right?" she winked, laboriously sliding her shafts back into him. "Well, you did it to me... Time for me to do it to you!" She bent forward between his wings to nibble on his ear.

"Oh, that's nice!" he chirped. He felt like he was having a better time than she was and felt slightly guilty about it though. "Are you getting close?" He didn't mean to sound impatient or anything. "Don't 'are-we-there-yet' me, I'll turn this car around right now, mister," she chuckled against his back as she reached down to rub his 1-inch penis herself. Ooh, that felt a little nicer actually... Fuck, it felt almost as though she was rubbing her own clit between her legs. Yes, she imagined Rakim's mound was her clit, or her girlfriend's clit, or both, they both had one, Scylla was the girl on her hands and knees in front of her, it was her girlfriend who was humping her behind her, they'd just temporarily swapped perceptions but it was really her...

"Oh, man!" she exclaimed. "I think I'm actually starting to get closer," she panted into his ear disbelievingly. "Oh, good!" She chuckled at how openly relieved he sounded. He liked a top with endurance as much as the next guy, especially without a physiological limit to how much he could come like the one he'd told her he'd yearned for so badly, but even he had his limits. This had hit on the part of her that liked extreme sports, outdoor stuff, dares and sparring: it was a challenge that she was too determined to surmount to give up, not yet, not while there was still a chance that she could. Even with the incremental increase in pleasure that she'd just celebrated, it was still just barely out of her reach! She whimpered desperately.

"GAH!" Inches from crossing the finish line that seemed so close, yet so far away, she'd finally reached down at the key turning point, the point after which she felt that, if she didn't get off then, she wouldn't be able to get off that night no matter how hard she'd try... and grabbed his breasts through his binding under her chest. A primal cry escaped her throat like a caged animal at its first taste of freedom as the bat's eyes widened, torn between intense shock and an embarrassing desire to let her get away with it because, even though his entire body screamed at him against it, he was still so far along that he wanted her to come inside him just badly enough to surrender himself to her ejaculations. Her cocks fired in both holes wantonly.

He was too lost in the throes of his own orgasm from her tip hitting his cervix while he came to interject the way he normally would have. He'd once explained to his boyfriends that, if either of them ever grabbed his boobs, even while they were having sex, he'd slap them then and there, and refuse to have sex with them ever again. They hadn't argued - they understood. Normally, this would've always been a deal-breaker for him, but... She'd been trying so hard for so long by that point, just to satisfy his own fantasy even though she didn't share it herself. He'd certainly imagined she'd been a man penetrating him near the end, she just didn't know. Could he judge her for reaching for the feminine she craved to carry her across the threshold?

She fought to catch her breath, almost collapsing right on top of him. "Hah... Did, did you come?" she asked him through her panting. He nodded. "Uh-huh..." She just noticed his hand had moved from rubbing himself to grab her forearm under him, instinctively pulling it away from his chest. She gasped, withdrawing her arm from his chest to kneel upright behind him. "Oh shit, I'm sorry!" she exclaimed apologetically. "Yeah, I don't normally do that," he laughed nervously as he could feel her last few drops oozing out of her penile slits into his front hole and tailhole, "but I'll let it slide just this once. Don't tell anyone." She shared in his nervous laughter, ashamed to have wanted to come badly enough to go this far. "Thanks. I won't."

She carefully pulled out of him and fell down to the floor, breathless. "I'm gonna have to go get cleaned up, do you want to go first though?" He shook his head. "No... It seems like you need it more than I do, but yeah, I'm definitely going to - oh my God!" She tilted her head at him. "What?" He pointed at the clock. "We've been fucking for three hours!" She gasped. "Holy shit! I had no idea," she shook her head. "Yeah... You were one determined contender, I can tell you that," he complimented her. "Yeah... Did I ever tell you I'm a mountain climber, Rakim?" He nodded. "I think you did, yeah." He encouraged her to continue. "I climbed a really high mountain one time... during a rainstorm. The ground was muddy as all get out, you know?"

He nodded again. "But I just kept going and going up against it, even though it was really slippery and I just kept being forced back again and again..." He tilted his head. "Did you make it?" She nodded. "Yeah, I did, just... I don't know. When I finally got up there, and took in the view... It looked nice, I mean, it really did, you know?" He was starting to be able to tell where she was going. "It was just... Well, as much as I like to climb mountains in general, I couldn't help asking myself, then and there... had it really been worth *that much* effort? If I did, like, a 'cost/benefit' analysis?" He gulped. "So when you have friends with benefits..." She nodded sadly. "They're also friends with costs, aren't they?" She sighed.

"Well... operation make-you-feel-better seems to be a bust, huh?" he looked down at her fluids seeping out of his holes dejectedly. "No, don't say *that*," she smiled as she moved over to hug him, her softening lengths inadvertently brushing up against his leg as she did. "You *did* make me feel better," she added, her hand on his shoulder with an encouraging expression on her face. She did sound convincing, he had to admit that. "Thanks," he smiled back. "Hey... We're... We're still gonna keep hanging out, right?" She laughed. This time she truly did feel better. "Of course we'll keep hanging out! We're friends, aren't we?" He hugged her back tightly. "Friends for life," he answered, relieved.

***

Years passed. They stayed in touch for quite a while, even though they drifted in and out of spending more or less time with each other over time in general. Then, a bit longer passed than usual between the times they saw each other, enough that he started wondering if she was gone for good this time. "Scylla!" Who had it been who had just stepped right back into the ring with him after all this time, if not her? "It's good to see you again, Rakim." She still had an Australian accent, but... her voice wasn't quite the same. It was higher. "I've been wondering where you've been. The years have been kind to you." She eyed the chain that extended out of his arm as he electrified it and started whirling it near him like a flail. "And to you as well, I see."

His voice was lower. "So you finally went and made the big plunge, huh?" she said, pulling some nunchucks out of her pocket as she did. "Yep... I'm a cyborg now," he winked at her. "Ready for a rematch?" She swung her nunchucks around her a few times, then held out her arm, and dropped them on the ground. "You know it," she laughed as she jumped at him bare-handed. "Oh, come on!" he said, almost outraged that she didn't even think she'd need nunchucks to be able to stand against him now that he had the powers of the gods of chrome and electrons on his side. Yet she fought fiercely, brazenly, with the same refusal to fear his new abilities with which she refused to fear anything else at all. And she won again!

"You gotta be kidding!" The referee holding her arm over her head didn't seem to be kidding. "But I've been training non-stop! I'm a freaking cyborg!" Not that he underestimated her skill, but really? That seemed a bit much. "Nothing's impossible if you're determined enough," she stuck her tongue out at him. "Yes, that sure is a lesson we've learned before, isn't it," he jested at her as they stepped off the ring to find a table to share another of their beloved coffees. "So... I was going to ask what you've been up to, but I guess I have a clue about at least some of it," he said, taking in what her chest now looked like. "Likewise," she replied back. "Why a cyborg, though?" He shrugged. "Why not?" She chuckled. "Fair enough."

He was glad she didn't mind. Some people found it a little off-putting, at least at first. "S'your body, right?" she smirked. "I guess that's true," he nodded. He'd learned not to take this kind of acceptance for granted, though. So they sat, and talked, and caught up with each other about the time during which they hadn't seen each other as much for a bit. She learned that, while one of his boyfriends still had both of his other partners, his other boyfriend had lost both of them since last time, and that Rakim was spending more time with him than he used to as a result of it. He learned the story of how she'd transitioned. She learned about how he almost died, only to be saved in extremis. He learned she'd finally met a girlfriend herself.

"Oh wow, that's great!" he hugged her. "I knew you'd meet someone who'd make you happy one day," he added as she hugged him back. "She *does* make me happy," she admitted, smiling back at the bat as she did. "It's pretty great, in fact." He mock-punched her shoulder. "See? I told you that clownfish girl didn't know what she was missing." She looked up with her arms crossed behind her head, seeming to be reminded of something. "You know, it's funny you should mention her..." He raised an eyebrow. "Oh? How so?" She went on. "Well, believe it or not, once I'd transitioned, she actually tried to track me down." He gasped. "Really!" She nodded. "Yeah. She said now she'd... definitely be interested in trying again."

He tilted his head at her. "Were you tempted?" She gave him a dubious expression. "Under different circumstances, I might have been, I mean, she had everything where it's supposed to be, you get me?" He nodded. "With how things happened, though... I gotta say, I kinda just wasn't feeling it, you know?" He understood. "Now I'm with a cis lesbian, who's nice to me, and who likes everything I've got... It's a pretty sweet deal, to be honest. I'm glad I pushed through everything I did to get there. I'm glad I didn't give up. If I could go back in time to tell my younger self about it, I'd tell her the wait was hella worth it, I can tell you that." He smiled. So many of his friends had struggled so hard. It was heartening to hear she was well.

"So, what kind of relationship are you two in? I hear open relationships are way more of a thing with gay guys like me than with lesbians like you, for one thing." She gave him a sly expression. "Are you asking for any particular reason?" He became flustered. "No, no, of course not!" She grinned. "Right." He laughed nervously. "No, really, I was just curious." She nodded. "Sure. Actually we *are* in kind of an open thing... tentatively. She's really my main squeeze, though, you know? We have this thing where no one can come between us. We can have a few other girls here and there on the side but it doesn't come up often. We're honestly more interested in each other in the first place in general, there's just... exceptions now and then."

He nodded. "Sounds reasonable." She raised an eyebrow at him. "How about you, met anyone new since last time?" He hadn't expected she'd ask. "Yeah, actually! They're just a friend with benefits, though, not a full-on boyfriend like the others. I already have two of those, I figure that's enough, right?" She tilted her head. "They?" He went on. "Yeah! I've only ever met them in the dark. It's sorta their thing. They don't see themselves as either, so they don't want their partners to see them so they won't become stuck on a fixed idea of what they are." She seemed curious. "But they still get you off, right?" He chuckled. "Oh yeah! They're pretty good at it, at that," he winked. Somehow they were back to talking about sex again.

"So, when do I get to meet her?" he asked her excitedly. "Oh, my girlfriend, you mean?" He nodded. "She's busy tonight, but sure, I'll introduce you to her! Why not?" She ordered another coffee, emboldened by how well her evening was going. "You know, when I used to order too many coffees - what an oxymoron, right? As if there could be such a thing," she joked as he encouraged her to continue, "I used to have this problem where they'd go right through me. I'd need to pee pretty bad, it would all add up to my bladder putting too much pressure on my prostate, so it'd give me these embarrassing erections in public where I couldn't get up without everyone seeing I was hard. But I couldn't go to the washroom without getting up!"

He laughed. "Well, I guess you don't have that problem anymore, do you?" She shook her head. "I do not," she agreed understatedly. "So now, I can drink as much coffee as I fucking want," she grinned toothily, "and no power in the universe can stop me," she winked. "So that's what finally convince you to make the plunge?" he asked. "Infinite coffee?" She looked at him matter-of-factly. "Well, first of all, if it was, could you blame me?" Was she serious? "I guess not, no!" He sometimes couldn't tell. "Good," she punctuated her sentence by finishing yet another coffee mug right in front of him then and there. "I was talking to one of my other trans friends just before I did, since you asked." She wiped her mouth... and ordered another coffee.

"Yeah?" Gosh, he'd just finished another one himself. Her love of coffee was certainly infectious, he reflected. "Yeah... They'd finally just finished transitioning themselves after having wanted to for, like, a whole decade, without ever really getting around to it. So I was out celebrating with them, congratulating them about it and whatnot, kinda like you and I are doing right now I guess." He nodded. She had his full attention. "Well, they just started talking about how they wished they'd done it ten years before that, though. It was like... They said that, even though they were glad they finally had after all, they'd never get back the past decade of their life, or get to enjoy it as the person they really were. They'd always miss and regret that part."

A look of understanding dawned on his face. "And you didn't want to end up looking back like that, and wondering what might have been." She nodded. "Exactly. It was just the push I needed at the time. That friend did me a solid. I only wish it hadn't cost them such a long wait to do it." He seemed to twitch and squirm in front of her just a bit. "I'm sorry, am I saying something that's upsetting to you?" She tilted her head. "I... I'm sorry, this is kind of embarrassing," he blushed. "What do you mean?" She couldn't tell what he was talking about. "Well, I... I need to go to the washroom." She shrugged. "So go." He looked down, and blushed again.

She laughed in understanding. "That's what you get for matching me coffee for coffee!"

***

"Hey, Scylla?" he asked her after coming back from the washroom after all. "Yeah?" she answered, pulling out his chair, wondering why he wasn't sitting back down with her. "Do you still have your old surfboard from back when you used to live in Australia?" He'd noticed she still had it when they'd gone back to fuck in her apartment a couple of years back, but he didn't want to assume that she still did if she didn't. "I do," she nodded, "I keep it as a souvenir. Why are you asking me?" He smiled. "Can I see it?" She tilted her head. "Sure, but why?" What did he have in mind? "I'd just like to, I guess." He was being cryptic. He knew she couldn't resist a mystery.

So they went back to her place again, and there it was, still looking the same as it had before, the small fins on it still reminding him of the small fins on her. "Your building's stairs go all the way up to the roof, right?" She almost worried about his statement at first before his wings caught her attention again. "They do." Was he going to show off how he'd learned to surf on the wind? Regardless of what he was thinking, he wasn't talking, intent as he seemed not to spoil the surprise. She led the way up her building's stairs to the rooftop, carrying her surfboard with her on their way as he'd recommended that she do. "Hold on to it tightly," he advised her, putting his arm around her as cold sweat dripped down her back. "Do you trust me?"

What a loaded question that was. "... Yes." Was he really going to? "Good," he nodded firmly. He couldn't have been... and then he did. Wrapping his arms around her as she held on to her surfboard in her own arms, he dove, right off the edge of the rooftop, spreading his wings on his way down to catch an updraft back up to above most buildings after having made her heart leap in her chest from just how close to the ground he'd swooped down just before. He span in the air a few times while carrying her, more to go with the flow of the current of the wind than to show off as such, as much of a showoff as he could be anyway, but it sure was a sensation that was completely unlike anything she'd ever experienced.

So this was what flying was like, she thought. This was what so many living beings had worked so hard to develop the technology to achieve by artificial means over the entire course of history, all over the world, that bats had simply been born with, without having had to have done anything to deserve such a gift. Rakim carried weird guilt knowing he could fly when most people could not, and wished they could so dearly. Before he'd become a cyborg, he never would've had enough strength to have been able to carry a whole other person in his arms while he'd flown. If he'd tried to do so then, he'd have probably fumbled and crashed into a building, assuming he'd have even been able to take off in the first place. But now he could.

As her wonder about the new experience that he was now able to share with her openly washed over her, she began to forget her earlier questioning about why he'd asked about her surfboard altogether. Finally, he landed back down with her, setting her down next to him with her surfboard in hand... on a gorgeous, deserted beach, facing an ocean just like the one she'd remembered from her childhood. "Oh, wow!" She almost forgot to breathe for a moment. "You... You didn't have to do this, you know? I mean, thank you!" He smiled. "Ever since you first talked about it all the way back then, I always wanted to watch you surf again. I mean, I can't surf - the wind catches in my wings. It'd make me so happy to live it through you..."

Her considerable jaw had dropped. "Of course, yeah... I'd love to, Rakim!" Before he could say anything, she was already running across the beach like an excited child on summer vacation. Deep down, part of her had started to believe that she'd just never surf again, that she'd never have the money or time to do it. She tried to tell herself that she accepted it, that she was an adult, that giving up certain things was okay, but in her heart, the part of her that had loved to surf would always ache. Being able to finally do it again after all that time turned out to be even more of an emotional release for her than when the bat had just taken her with him to fly, even though many more other people had fantasized about flying than about surfing.

He sighed contentedly to himself as he watched her ride the waves, amazed at how much range of motion she was capable of displaying despite depending on the currents to do it. It shouldn't have surprised him, he tried to tell himself. After all, he partly had to depend on the air currents that circulated through the sky around him when he flew as well, didn't he? This was just like flying, just different. It was like flying on the water's surface, in two dimensions, only not really in two dimensions because the waves kept going up and down at different heights, meaning she had to pay constant attention to where everything was around her. He was surprised she was still so good at it after so many years. You never forgot how, he guessed.

He handed her a towel to dry off when she'd come back on the beach, one of the very same towels that she'd used to dry up after he'd slipped and fell on his face face-down in her sweat that time. She hadn't fallen off even once, but she'd still been hit by water from waves splashing against her surfboard as she'd deftly sliced her way between them, so she still needed to dry up a bit. "That looked like so much fun!" She grabbed the towel out of his hands to wipe herself dry with it. "It was!" She looked at him as she caught her breath. "I didn't remember it even felt this good," she admitted. "Could it partly be because it's been so long?" he tilted his head at her. "Could be," she nodded. "Time gives a special resonance to things sometimes."

He was still thinking about her story about her other trans friend, about not being able to get back the time you'd lost. "It does... Do you ever wonder what things would've been like for you if you'd transitioned, like, way earlier than you did?" She stopped and thought about it. "I don't know. So many things would've been different! I mean, if we had, we'd both be radically different people today, you know? We might never have even met." He supposed that was true. "I mean, I've certainly wondered what it would've been like if *I'd* transitioned before *that* time, if that's what you mean, just not if *you* had," she winked. "Hey, I've wondered what it would've been like if *I'd* transitioned and *you* hadn't," he grinned back.

"It was a sweet thing you did, bringing me here," she smiled, looking him right in the eyes. Finding himself hesitant to sustain her gaze, he looked down, smiling back as he crossed his arms behind his head. "Aww, thanks," he said quietly, blushing when she moved forward slightly to give him a peck on the cheek. He looked back up at her. "You know, I-" She kissed him on the mouth, startling him right out of his train of thought, almost pulling back out of fear that she'd been too presumptuous for having made a move on him right before he started returning her kiss just as passionately, thrusting his tongue into her maw between her sharp shark teeth just as she'd thrust her tongue in his own maw between his small, cute bat fangs.

"Oh, Scylla..." What had seemed so unthinkable only a moment before now seemed all too inevitable to each of them, and they both liked it that way. "Oh, Rakim..." She petted his head affectionately, running her hand down his back between his wings as he caressed the fin on her back, feeling her boobs pressed against his chest while she felt his boner rubbing up against her pelvis. "Wow, so *that's* what those feel like!" She giggled. "That's right, you've never played with someone who had those, did you?" He shook his head. "Not that I know of, no." She looked back down at the soft beach sand behind her. "Hey, you know what I just realized I can do here?" He tilted his head. "I don't know, what?"

She laid down on her back on the ground behind her, spreading her legs toward him as the soft sand welcomed her back fin right in it even more easily than if it had been a knife slicing through warm butter. "I can lie on my back here," she wriggled her toes at him while pulling her top over her head as he untied his shorts. "You don't say," he said with vivid interest as he pulled down his shorts around his ankles to step out of them so he could kneel in front of her. "But the sun is so hot and bright," she mock-lamented while pulling her underwear down to remove it through one leg after the other, "Will you make your wings my parasol, sir?" He bent forward over her to plant his hands in the hand around her head, happy to oblige.

"That would be an honor, my lady," he said, his bat ears twitching at her pleased yelp when he nibbled on her neck. Lying face-down on top of her, he reached down between his legs to hold his cock in his hand so he could try to guide it into her, reluctant to have to pry his eyes away from looking at her face to look down so he could see what he was doing. After all, he'd never penetrated a vagina before and doing so blind the first time wasn't the easiest way for someone in that situation to do it, echolocation or not. She looked up at him eagerly, raising her legs around him and holding them apart to make his entrance easier. Finally, he grunted as he managed to push his way into her, falling back forward on his hands without crushing her.

His body was completely aligned against hers. It was an interesting sensation for him to be able to hold his body that close to someone he was topping face to face without having to worry about leaving room down there so he wouldn't accidentally crush his bottom's balls and erection as he topped. He could feel her bare, grey, rough mound pressing right against his own furry, grey, inverted triangle right over where his new equipment had been set up. He remembered from having had one just like it himself that, every time he moved back and forth on top of her, it was rubbing her clit with his pelvis in a way that would make her feel like he was masturbating it for her, in addition to the vaginal stimulation his hardon provided for her.

The only place where he couldn't press his body against her as tightly was her chest, since her boobs pushed up against his own chest when he did, but that incidentally forced his upper body into just the right kind of slant for his angle of penetration into her to be the best that it could possibly be to offer maximum stimulation to both of them. He could hear and feel as her great big tail swung a bit between his legs under him, her body responding strongly when he'd keep hitting her sweet spot over and over at an ever-increasing pace. She welcomed him into her even more easily than the sand had welcomed her firm fin into it under her when she'd just laid down on it.

The friction that thrusting in and out of her was causing to all of those wonderful new nerve endings in his length, especially combined with the magic of the moment that had led up to it for each of them, was soon going to make short work of the remaining distance between him and his goal, he was certain of that. He moved his head to lick each of her boobs in turn, making her squeal delightedly when he did before returning to burying his head between her neck and shoulder, panting as he kept pounding into her while she wrapped her legs around his torso and grabbed his butt with her hands, determined to pull him into her as far as he could go and not to let him out before he'd cum. His pistoning loins felt like they were on fire, but good.

One of the differences he noticed was that, while her vagina didn't quite contract around his dick the same way his boyfriend's anuses did when they came while he fucked them, what it did do was secrete a whole bunch of orgasmic fluids around his penis when she hit her peak, making her entrance slicker and making it easier and easier for him to move in and out of her. He moaned as he shuddered from the unexpected way in which it increased the sensitivity of his glans and shaft when it did. The closest he'd come to a sensation like this before had been when his boyfriends had blown him, salivating more at the taste of his pre the closer he'd gotten to climaxing in their mouths. This was like she was giving him a blowjob with her crotch.

Doing something so new and weird with each other so late in their sex lives almost felt as fresh and exciting as losing their virginity all over again. "Oh, YEAH...!" he groaned as he ran across his threshold effortlessly, at least compared to what they'd both expected from their lack of experience. "OH...! Oh... Oh, unh!" She heard him let out another involuntary moan for every split-second during which she could feel his twitching boner squirting yet another spurt of ejaculate into her, stunned that he could've ever even thought of having sworn off something that could feel so incredible without a second thought. His whole body shuddered, a shiver going down his spine as he squeezed out his last few drops into her while catching his breath.

When he pulled back out to sit on his haunches in front of her, she sat up to wrap her arms around him and kiss him again. "You really liked that, didn't you?" He blushed. "Yeah... What about you?" She smiled. "Yeah, that kicked some ass!" He chuckled. "Well put." She tilted her head. "So... Did your prediction about how you'd be 'over and done with' after coming after you'd have transitioned turn out to have been right?" It clearly wasn't an entirely disinterested question. "I take it your prediction about how much you were looking forward to being able to get off over and over *did* turn out to have been right from you asking me that, isn't it?" he teased her. "Is it that obvious?" He looked down between his legs. "Well, I *am* still hard..."

She raised an eyebrow at him. "Ready for round two, then?" He chuckled, almost apologetically. "I do have a *bit* of a refractory period, just... not prohibitively so. Just give me a moment to work my way back up to it," he added, gently pushing her back down on her back as he went down on her. "Ah, that's right, clean your mess right up, you dirty boy," she told him, her head thrown back with her hands on top of his head as he ate her out. So this was what these tasted like? When he realized he wasn't sure the tastes of which fluids in his mouth belonged to him and which of them belonged to her but that they were all just as delicious to lap up, he was so turned on at the thought his erection sprang back up even firmer than before.

Even after he'd transitioned and all thoughts of not having the right equipment receded to the status of distant memory, being called a 'boy' by one of his lovers would always feel like a special treat to him, something that encouraged him to give them the very best of himself to be the best boy he could be. "Ohhhh...!" Was she coming again? He realized with minor regret that her equipment sometimes made it harder for him to be able to tell whether she was coming or not. "Hey, are you a waterproof cyborg, Rakim?" She turned to her side, struggling to open her carrying bag next to her so that she could find and pull something out of it while he licked her clit. "I am," he nodded without stopping. "I got a wicked idea, buddy. Are you game?"

He looked up to look at her slyly. "Always." She seemed very glad he'd accepted. "Good. You'll like this, you'll see." He gasped. "Oh, you brought *these*!" She pulled her strap-on belt and lube out of her carrying bag. "I just never leave home without them. I mean, you never know when you're gonna need them, right?" she winked. Bringing him with her into the shallow ocean water, she put the strap-on belt around her waist. "So," she asked casually as she poured lube on top of it, "what about your prediction that you'd become more of a full switch than mostly top after you'd have transitioned?" He nodded excitedly. "Yeah, I nailed the hell out of *that* one," he almost drooled at the thought of what she was about to do to him.

"Wait, isn't it a bit..." She grabbed his shoulders to turn him around in front of her, directing him to bend over forward so she could carefully slip her strap-on in his rear without too much resistance before pulling him back up to stand in front of her while still lodged in him. "... deep?" She wrapped her arms around his torso, striving to make sure that she wouldn't accidentally slip out of him while pulling him down on top of her crotch as she sat down on the ocean floor with his rump on her crotch. "Don't worry, I only had to do the insertion out of the water so it wouldn't wash off the lube and make it harder on your poor tailhole," she nibbled on his shoulder, making him gasp. They were sitting in saltwater up to their shoulderblades.

"Down I go," she grinned, throwing herself back against the ocean floor like a deep sea diver letting themselves fall back out of a boat, startling him as the water surface she fell through behind him splashed over his head. "Whoa, what was...?" She crossed her forearms underwater in front of her to bring one of them across his abdomen and the other one across his back, slowly uncrossing them with her hands on his hips as, understanding what she was trying to do, he slowly maneuvered himself into a full 180-degree spin on top of her to face her without letting her strap-on slip out of him so he'd ride her cowgirl. He looked down at her face through the water's surface worried, grabbing her shoulders to pull her up in a sitting position.

"What are you doing?" She grinned. "I can breathe underwater, remember?" she winked. He brought his palm up against his forehead. "Oh, of course!" He blushed. She laid back down in front of him with her dorsal fin firmly embedded in the ocean floor under them and, as she'd hoped he would, he started riding her, slowly at first, moaning as he took in just how good it felt to have her strap-on pressing so fully against his prostate. "Oh, that's so good..." She didn't need to hear him well through the water to be able to tell that was how he felt. After a bit, not satisfied to let him move up and down on her himself, she grabbed his hips to start thrusting up in his rectum herself, making him squeal as it quivered around her thrusts.

She started stroking his cock while he rode her underwater. She could only see his ecstatic facial expression and hear his cries of pleasure distorted through the water's surface between them. Fortunately, she didn't need to see or hear them all that distinctly to be able to tell that what she was doing to him was working *very* well. Struggling to get it together enough to be able to put a plan in motion of his own, he reached back down under and behind his ass to slide one of his fingers into her vagina so he could start fingering her as she humped him. She growled, not expecting he'd be returning the favor to her quite so soon, and could only instinctively keep increasing the pace of her thrusts, which now pleased her as well as him.

Soon, so soon that it surprised her based on how long it used to take her to be able to get to a point at which she'd finally be able to ejaculate, she could already feel her upward thrusting into him start meeting just that little extra bit of resistance from his movements up and down around her strap-on as his anal sphincters squeezed around it during his emission phase. As she kept right on stroking the penetrated boy's erection while he came a second time, she looked at his dick flailing underwater over her, releasing his semen in those trailing, fractal patterns that the squirts of an ejaculation took on when it took place in that most secure embrace of water everywhere around it, giving his little swimmers a place to swim free after all.

Standing back up in the water, he faced her with a thankful expression on his face that she could only find extremely rewarding. She started playing with his balls as they kept making out, wondering if she could somehow get him to have a third go at it even after he'd already just gotten off twice. He didn't think he'd be able to by that point, but somehow the cold water was having the opposite of its rumored effect on him, making his blood flow so vigorously through his metabolism that his length was somehow already becoming engorged again. "Oh man, can we try something else?" He nodded. She handed him her strap-on belt and her bottle of lube. "Can you... do me the way I did you that night? I want to know what it felt like!"

He didn't even take the time to respond, strapping it around his waist over his dick just as one of his boyfriends used to have to do for him, stroking himself a couple more times just to make sure to make himself well and hard enough for his flesh hardon to be able to keep up with his plastic shaft the whole rest of the way. She turned around to go down on all four in front of him, her head bent down under the water's surface near the ocean floor while her rump was raised just above the surface so he could guide her strap-on in her ass without having the lube washed off. She spread her buttocks in front of him with her hands as he grabbed both the strap-on in one hand and his penis in the other to push them into her anus and vagina.

He could hear her snarl ecstatically even under the water's surface, seeing a whole slew of bubbles escaping from her maw to rise up to the surface hurriedly. Looking in front of himself as he moved back and forth under her tail, with her being the one who felt his balls brushing against her thighs this time, he could see her dorsal fin sticking out of the water in front of him, an iconic image of a shark if there had ever been one, and he started caressing it, having guessed correctly that it doubled as a stealth erogenous zone. This was so much like his first time with her, but it was so much better! He could feel everything he was doing with her around him, his own nerve endings stimulated by it, and it was everything he'd dreamed of.

Sensing that her vulva was about to receive another one of his loads in it soon, he became determined to do everything he could to make sure to get her off before he'd finish or at least while he'd be finishing. He didn't want to go soft from having already come a third time, unable to get it back up a fourth time because that *was* starting to feel like a lot for him to expect, without having made sure she'd be satisfied by what he'd have done for her. He started rubbing her clit under his pistoning cock, both of her trembling passages around him in response to his ministrations giving him the impression that he must have been doing *something* right. As he felt himself just about to cross the final stretch, he got an idea.

He leaned over forward, and reached for her breasts underwater, gently pinching her nipples, running his hand across them, grabbing them to knead them and to feel their fullness in his hand like precious fruit he was assessing for their firmness and ripeness. A primal cry escaped from her throat underwater as he could feel her getting wetter around his fleshy dick in a way that felt very much like the way it'd felt when she'd clearly come as he'd fucked her on the beach. Relieved to know the most important part of his efforts had yielded the results he'd wanted, he moved back to grab her rump and, with a blissed out expression on his cute face, humped his way through a third orgasm, roaring fiercely as he emptied his balls into her.

His knees buckled as they walked back to the beach to dry off. He started trying to talk about flying to get home, but he couldn't even fully form words and she told him he was in no condition to fly. He could just barely remove her strap-on belt from around his waist before he collapsed on the ground face-down, his face now resting on a pillow formed by his crossed forearms under his head, his rear exposed to the elements unselfconsciously as his gentle snoring put a smile on his sated lover's face. The horizon seemed so peaceful, she thought, staying up at first, as she always did, relaxing with the passage of time while waiting for him to wake back up. Land dwellers were so cute when they slept, she couldn't help but think. So odd.

At first she thought he'd woken up, but then she noticed he was just grinning and chuckling in his sleep, as though he were having a conversation with some unseen person in his mind. Ah, this must've been one of those things that the over-grounders called dreams, mustn't it? She tried to remember what she knew about dreams as she rested her hand affectionately on his butt cheek. It must've been a good dream - she saw him start humping at the sand under him in his sleep, gentle, small humps at first, as though he'd just started having sex with someone from his dream. Was he dreaming about one of his boyfriends, about his friend with benefits he'd told her about? Or was there any chance that he was dreaming about *her*?

She smiled. It didn't matter to her who he was dreaming about. Dreams were private things, weren't they? Snickering devilishly to herself, she slipped her finger in her mouth to make it wet, and surreptitiously snaked it right into him under his tail as he slept face-down. He twitched and, for the space of an instant, she believed he'd woken up again, but he was still firmly lodged in slumberland. The only difference was that he now churred softly every time his unconscious humps into the sand would make him push his rear back around her finger in-between them. What a pain he'd have getting the sand off his cock, she grinned, petting his head with her non-fingering hand, but how could she wake him? He looked so happy...

Finally, he made an incoherent sound, something unlike even any orgasmic sound that he'd have ever made while awake, knowing that someone could hear it, something that drew on a primeval, animal part of his mind that his body could only have access to while he slept. Despite his three shots before that, she could clearly see his butt twitch under his wagging tail around her invading finger as he unrestrainedly pumped yet a fourth load of his semen into the ground under him, probably dreaming that the sand under him was a loving bottom receiving his seed, and her finger, a passionate lover's cock shooting his own load in the bat's rectum while he came. His tongue lolled out of his mouth adorably as he basked in pleasurable warmth.

She grinned to herself. It took so little to make him happy. Maybe there was something to this dreaming business after all, she thought to herself. In fact... Should she? Well, it wouldn't have been the craziest idea she'd have tried to put into practice on that day, not by a long shot, she could be certain about that. She laid down on her side next to him, her arm around him, feeling his furry body radiating its warmth into her. There always had to be a first time for everything, hadn't there? And late was always better than never, as late as it could be. So for the first time in her life, as an adult, she finally tried something that, while all fish *could* do, no fish *needed* to do, and that many fish went through their whole lives without trying.

She tried to sleep, and began to dream...