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Veronica's call through the cool, still air of the mansion was like a gunshot: "Alex Ryan!" Her voice was beautiful in a curt, hardened way unique to her upbringing, but it carried powerful authority. Her husband and her daughter both knew to heed it.

Kahnso was sprawled on the basement rec room's deep lounge sofa, enjoying a snooze. His bones still ached from a tour he completed three days earlier. It had taken him from Los Angeles to New York and back again.

His ears perked up at her voice and he stirred. In the middle of this cold boot, he didn't quite understand words, but he got the shape of them in a kind of language intuition. He knew that Alex Ryan was in no way shaped like Kahnso when it rolled off the tongue, and he fell back into sleep as if he had never woken up.

Veronica started up the stairs. Her footfalls were deliberately heavy, an effect which was not difficult to achieve for a woman described by her husband as an amazon, and not always playfully. She wanted Alex to think a beast was trudging up after her. "Alexandria Jamie Ryan!" she snapped, already halfway up the carpeted stairs to the east wing.

The footsteps shook Kahnso awake, depositing him into a drowsy stupor. Then came the words, and he felt a pang of sympathy for his girl. Oh, full name. She's done for.

A smile twisted his face up. It echoed the buried but unforgotten wickedness in his heart. It was an expression of somebody attending the execution of a wanted criminal; relief and catharsis brought on by the knowledge that the law was coming down on somebody else.

He got up and stretched his arms and legs, scratched his graying chin, and tugged the wrinkles from his drool-stained t-shirt. He never realized how quickly he had settled into the role of a layabout father with drugs, boozing, and constant sex forced out of his life by the presence of Veronica Ryan. Becoming a couch potato who still worked out and toured the world felt like a natural role to him as he neared middle-age.

Kahnso ascended the stairs first to the foyer, then followed after Veronica to the east wing. Her plodding steps masked his own.

You know, hon, it's scary what a good mom you turned out to be. Good thing, of course! The years-old conversation stuck out in Veronica's mind as she neared the confrontation with her little girl. Her best friend Jamie had said it to her sweetly while holding her second child, still an infant then. I mean it. Alex is such a good little girl. Me and Aaron just love it when we get to babysit her, you're doing awesome with her.

For twelve years, Veronica been a positive influence on her daughter's life while she performed the most thankless work imaginable. Kahnso was there too, and for his part he cleaned up messes and enforced some token chores, at least when mom was around. Veronica fielded the questions, and when the plot called for a heel, she was there to be the bitch while dad played the hero. Veronica didn't mind it because Kahnso's wealth let her give a child the kind of upbringing she and her brother never had. She was raising a child to be better than her own childhood, which she spent taking care of her younger brother while mom and dad got high any way they could. She was doing this for Alex in a home which music about drugs and sex had paid for, and her husband was a reformed party animal. The irony was not lost on her.

The kangaroo balled up a fist lightly pocked with aged scar tissue and knocked on her daughter's door. She knew it wouldn't be locked. Alex didn't even lock the bathroom door when she was putting down roots, as Kahnso had euphemistically called it. Veronica nevertheless respected the boundary of the closed door. It was difficult not to respect a door when most of the hovels she lived in usually didn't have them.

A fussy, nearly shrill cry rang from inside: "What do you want!?"

Veronica didn't recoil. Worse people had said much more biting things. She twisted the doorknob but found that it wouldn't give, and that was a shock to her. Her long ears splayed back and the hardness in her face dissipated into a concerned frown. "Alex, baby," she said gently, "you all right? It's time to go to school, kid."

Suddenly shrieking until her voice broke, Alex cried, "I'm not going to school!" Savagely, missing only a thunderclap for maximum punctuation: "Ever!"

Kahnso sidled up to Veronica. He laced his fingers behind his back and laid his chin on the kangaroo's shoulder. He whispered, "Having a friendly chat?"

"Her door's locked," Veronica whispered back, as though that explained everything. It did.

The big fox blinked, then smiled. This was a job for Superdad, who could melt the iciest of his little girl's moods away just with his proximity. Gently he knocked on the door. Alex shrieked that she wasn't going to school under any circumstances and Kahnso answered her in his most dulcet voice. "Nobody's forcing you to do anything, sugar. You need to talk about something?"

An agonizing pause came to pass. Kahnso and Veronica exchanged perplexed looks, the smile falling off of Superdad's face. He was about to suggest that he and Veronica go partake of some mid-morning sex while Alex simmered down on her own. Finally the girl uttered a monumental groan. She said, "Fi-i-ine... I want to talk to mom."

"Don't let her take you hostage," Kahnso whispered in her ear, and Veronica nearly started to giggle. She slugged Kahnso in the chest, bruising him. He didn't wince for her.

The lock clicked. Veronica entered into her daughter's room, the den of inequity as she saw it. Alex was very much her father's daughter. Fuzzy vinyl posters of her favorite bands lined the walls and ceiling, purchased at local outlets which dealt primarily in drug paraphernalia, all labeled as being For Tobacco Use Only. On her bookcase was a blacklight, a lava lamp, and a vinyl player with a stereo deck loud enough to shake the mansion down to its foundation. Alex was seated on her bed, dressed in her jammies. Tears shimmered in her eyes.

Veronica sat down beside her wordlessly. She slipped an arm around her girl's back and squeezed her in close. Alex was hesitant at first, but gladly pressed into her mother's flank after a few moments. "What's the matter, honey? Talk to me. You know you can always talk to me."

Alex opened her mouth, started to speak, broke off into a whine. She held up a fist. Puffs of toilet paper jabbed out of her fingers like the spikes on a knuckle duster. Veronica knew what she was about to see even before Alex opened her fingers. Drying blood permeated the toilet paper, leaving it wrinkled and weak.

"It just-, it just started coming out and I ruined my underwear," she bleated, then began to choke up. She looked as ready to fight as she was to sob. "I don't know what happened."

"Yeah... you're not going to school today, sweetie," Veronica sighed. She smooched Alex between the ears, meeting her scalp through lush black hair. She had her father's hair. "Come on. Let's go into your bathroom here. I should've had this talk with you before."

"Yeah? A talk?" Wariness. "About what?"

"About... well, woman things. About that," said Veronica, indicating the wad of toilet paper. "And afterward, your father wanted you to blow off school anyway so he could take you to Dairy Queen. Would you like that?"

"Y-yes. I would," Alex whimpered.

Veronica came downstairs an hour later and found Kahnso in the kitchen, sipping from a frosty glass of apple juice. It was Alex's favorite, but to Veronica's amusement, Kahnso had taken a shine to it as well. The fur on her arms was damp in spots and her shirt bore splashes of water, but not in the places Kahnso would have liked to see wet.

"What's the damage?" Kahnso asked somberly. Then he wiped his chin on the back of his wrist.

A weary smile creased Veronica's lips. She kissed Kahnso and then sat at the island counter. Her face was drawn and tired, and for the first time since she'd had Alex, she felt her age. "Our little girl is growing up, y'know. She's developing." She chuckled. "Not gonna be long before you're threatening teenage boys and losing sleep over where she is."

Kahnso pouted and held his glass of apple juice firmly. This was so amusing that Veronica had to look away before she started to laugh. "Hey, I'd never chase off any boys. They'd just be looking for the same thing I was when I was their age."

"Jesus, Kahnso," the kangaroo tutted. "I'm gonna remind you that you said that the first time some fourteen-year-old boy comes sniffing around here because he noticed your daughter's boobs."

He sat down beside her, resting his elbows on the counter. "Well... I mean, I wouldn't suffer any boys who acted like I did, exactly. I'd be cool with the nice ones."

Veronica wanted to ask him to define nice, but decided she'd save that for a day when she more desperately needed a smile. She leaned against him, feeling very safe and stable against his flank. "She's taking a shower right now," she told him, and wrapped an arm around his middle. He smelled slightly of sweat. Under different circumstances, his natural musk would have rendered her very receptive to him. Maternal instincts pushed her past sexual wanting. "After I gave her a little help to get her started."

"She's bleeding, isn't she?"

"Yeah. Yeah, she is." A drawn-out sigh. "Goddamn, Kahnso, she's already twelve. And she's only twelve, too."

"You were eleven," he murmured. "Or that's what you told me, anyway. Hell, I'd lost my virginity by then."

"That's not it. Not entirely. I guess it just feels like twelve years... they just kinda went past quickly. Just whoosh, gone."

Kahnso grinned. "Do I bore you that much, mon amour?"

She nuzzled in close to him, giggling like she was half her age. Sometimes Kahnso made her feel so youthful, and other times he seemed like another child to take care of. She kissed his chin, his throat, his neck, feeling she could indulge despite her daughter's plight.

"Mo-o-om! I need you!"

The fox sighed. He smiled pensively. "There's the little hellion again. Better go see what she needs now."

"Mhm." On her way out of the kitchen, she turned and said, "By the way, you're taking for to Dairy Queen when she's feeling better."

"Am I?"

"You wanted to so badly that you were gonna call her school and say she's sick."

He sipped his apple juice. "Sounds like something I'd wanna do. Gotcha."

A half-hour passed, putting the time at nearly eleven o'clock when Alexandria Ryan shuffled an awkward Frankenstein's Monster lurch into the kitchen. Her thighs were tightly pursed, knees locked as though she had been superglued. The expression on her face reminded Kahnso powerfully of Veronica the moment she began to dilate. That accusing grimace would forever be burned into his memory.

"We-e-ell. There's daddy's girl," he said amicably, smiling. "How you feelin'?"

"Daddy," she whined, creeping closer, her face softening. "This really stinks."

Kahnso enveloped her in a big hug. He kissed her between the ears just how Veronica had done earlier in the morning. Her blow-dried hair smelled faintly of citrus. "It'll be all right, sweetie." Mom stopped in the doorway, resting on its frame, arms folded. She smiled narrowly at Kahnso.

"Hey... Alex-baby," said Kahnso, squeezing a little tighter on her narrow body. "You wanna go on out and get some ice cream? Breakfast of champions, says I."

"I gu-e-e-ess." She held fast to him and he felt her hot and uncomfortable tears soak through the breast of his t-shirt. His smile mellowed, then died. He looked at Veronica with an expression of helplessness.

It took some coaxing to get Alex into the car. Her concern, which went unvoiced, was that she might get blood in the seat of daddy's car. She balked, saying she didn't really want ice cream. She relented and said she did want some. Finally she got in, but never closed the door. A few second later she suggested he just bring her back some. Eventually she admitted why she didn't wish to go with him - she was terrified of making a mess of the car - and climbed back out onto the driveway, her thighs ever clenched like she needed to use the restroom.

Kahnso appreciated her pragmatism, but he trusted his wife to set their daughter up with a pad. "Come on, sweetheart. You're not gonna make a mess, and if you do, I don't even care. Blood washes out, leather can be replaced, it's all good." He leaned over into the passenger seat and patted it encouragingly.

The girl's thighs remained tighter than a bank vault. She glanced at Veronica, hoping to appeal to mommy with her big, blue eyes.

"You want me to take you instead?" Veronica asked, knowing the answer would be no.

"Not really," Alex said. "Daddy, let's just-, I don't know... I don't feel like ice cream. I wanna go lay down."

Kahnso looked at her, smiling sadly. "All right, sugar. You don't gotta go if you don't wanna." Alex turned to enter her mother's embrace and Kahnso hit the start button. The Lamborghini came to life with a low rumble. "Driving's nowhere near as fun without my copilot, though. Gotta have someone there to take over if I pass out from the g-forces."

Alex's long ears erected and twisted around to the sound of the car. Her entire body followed a second later and her ears simultaneously straightened as if they were torquing her. She eyed the silver car almost lustfully. Kahnso pulsed the gas a few times and the engine's idle purr rose and fell in pitch and volume. He leaned across from the driver's seat into the passenger's seat and grinned. "Come on, sweetie, you know you wanna go."

The young girl glanced back at Veronica, who only smiled. She found Kahnso's love for his fast cars cute on its own, but Alex sharing the passion with him was unbearably adorable.

Kahnso stomped down the gas and earned Alex's undivided attention. The Lamborghini's engine rose to a banshee wail and ethereal blue flames jetted from the twin exhaust pipes. The engine was still spooling back down when Alex bounced into the passenger seat and buckled in.

Like an adult letting their worries wash away in a hot, bubbling bath, Alex's palpable anxiety about her strange new bodily function wore thin in the Lamborghini. She was still tiny, even at twelve years of age; the speed limit seemed incredibly fast to her. She watched Los Angeles traffic rush by from her window. The long kangaroo rudder of her tail swatted and thumped against the door and a massive smile creased her snout.

"Let's go faster," she said in a delighted tone. "Faster!"

"Maybe just a little bit faster," Kahnso said, trying to sound like the voice of reason. He was smiling too. They passed the Dairy Queen and Alex said nothing. The Lamborghini was going faster through the smoggy morning, weaving through mid-morning traffic and miraculously catching all the green lights. The speedometer pointed to sixty, an almost suicidal velocity in such dense traffic, but the car was nimble and Kahnso, when sober, had the reflexes to make it move so smoothly. The engine's cry rose to a yowl as the needle hit seventy. Alex shrieked in adrenaline-junkie giddiness and clung fast to the edges of her seat.

Up ahead, the four-way was empty, and few buildings blocked the way. It was clear. Kahnso's knuckles gained a white pallor under the fur as he gripped fast to the wheel. "Don't tell your mother about this!" he cried, and flew the car into the intersection, cutting the wheel hard as he did. He mashed the brake. The wheels, still slowing down, skipped across the rough pavement, bouncing the rear of the car as it whipped through an almost flawless one-eighty.

Alex screamed in terror and delight. She could see only barely over the dashboard of the car, narrowing her view down to the whipping horizon. When Kahnso stomped the accelerator and took the car back down the main drag toward the Dairy Queen, she was pulled into the seat and her stomach tightened. Daddy's driving was more fun than any roller coaster she had ever been on.

"Yes! YES!" Alex cried, giggling idiotically on the way back to the restaurant. She slumped into the seat, clapping and laughing so riotously that tears sprouted in her eyes. Going fast with daddy was a rapturous experience. "Ye-e-es!"

When they got to the Dairy Queen, both of them had to comb their hair out of their eyes. They got their Blizzards - two Oreos for mom and dad, a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup for Alex - and headed back. Alex tore into her Blizzard before they even left the parking lot.

"You feeling better, honey?" Kahnso asked her as he brought the car to a stop. It seemed like every stop light in the city was getting revenge on them for their earlier drag.

Alex swallowed a big mouthful of candy-filled ice cream. "Mm, I guess so," she said unconvincingly. The euphoria of the adrenaline was thinning out, the coppery taste of fear in the back of her throat buried under ice cream. "I just can't wait for it to stop."

You'll only have to wait about forty years, Kahnso wanted to say, but decided not to. He was glad he didn't when Alex started to talk again.

"Mom said it won't stop, not for a long time, that it's gonna happen once a month." She whined and self-medicated with more ice cream.

"Every girl, every woman, they go through it," the big fox said. The light turned green and he went. "Honey, I'm not gonna lie, it's kind of a shitty deal. Guys don't deal with that." He glanced at her hurt face. "The consolation, I guess, is you get to-." He realized how absurd it was that he had so freely spoken filth all his life, but trying to talk about his daughter's period made him stammer. "You can, eventually, if you wanna, have a kid of your own. Which sounds gross and stupid, because who'd want to have a kid like you?" He shot her a grin and a wink.

"Ha-ha," Alex scoffed. She sighed. "It's just so gro-o-oss. Usually it's kinda cool when there's blood, like those pictures of when you tore your arm open."

Kahnso winced.

"But this, it's like... it's coming from my thing, and it's nasty, and-." She groaned, whined, ate more ice cream.

"You're gonna be all right, baby," Kahnso said, and patted her knee. Green turned to yellow ahead of him. He thought better of trying to rush through and slowed. "Gimme a bite of that."

Alex huffed, but spoon-fed him a bite of her Blizzard. She even made sure there was a chunk of candy in it.

"Hey, that's pretty good," he said brightly.

"How's mom deal with this? It never seems like there's something wrong with her. Aunt Jamie too."

Kahnso licked at his fang. Alex had smeared some ice cream on it. "They've been dealing with it a lot longer, honey. I guess you get used to it. You stop complaining 'cause you know it doesn't do any good. Or you get married so you have someone to yell at when it's happening."

Alex blinked. "Does mom yell at you?"

The large fox smiled. "Nah," he lied. "She's always nice."

"Mmn." Alex ate more of her ice cream. She was starting to scrape the bottom of the tall cup. "Thanks... some of my friends have mean parents. Like, dads who drink a lot. And a lot of them think you're a mean dad because of your music, I guess."

Kahnso wasn't surprised. He patted Alex's knee again. The light turned green, the last stoplight on the way home. "I figure some people don't know what's important. I think you're important. You mean a lot more to me than my car and my money."

"What about mom?" Alex asked. She had on a tight smile.

"Yep, you mean a lot more to me than my car and all my money," Kahnso said with a happy sigh. Alex started giggling.

They were nearly there, coming up the hill towards the gated community where they lived. "What do you think, honey? Are we gonna fly, one more time?"

"All systems ready for takeoff," Alex said, grinning.

Kahnso gunned it. The Lamborghini climbed the hill like a missile on its deadly arc. From Alex's point of view, the hazy sky rolled past as if before the cockpit of a fighter jet. It went faster. Fifty now. Faster, sixty. Faster, and seventy. The engine was a scream. The truncated exhaust pipes were flickering jets.

The Lamborghini crested the hill, and though its tires never left the pavement, the feeling of weightlessness was sudden and striking. Alex shrieked as her body seemed to leave orbit for that one precious second, "Liftoff!"

She was still coming down from her giggle fit when they pulled into the driveway.