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Matchmaker: Prelude

By Green

Outside, it was a bright and sunny day. Inside the Matheson household, calm and contentment reigned, for once, and everyone had found something to do with their Saturday morning. Tiffany, the youngest, was in the living room, helping her father Ralph with a particularly tricky crossword puzzle. The slender skunk doe's wide, fluffy tail floated back and forth behind her as she concentrated on the clues. In the kitchen, directly adjacent to the living room, without so much as a wall to separate them, Maddie, the eldest girl, sat at the table, dividing her attention between her phone and her mother, Stella. At the moment, Maddie was frowning slightly.

"No, Mom, I told you, I didn't leave Jeremy for his sister, that would be cruel!" the shapely skunk said, "It wasn't until after we broke up, and besides, he's my friend, I wouldn't have felt right dating her if he hadn't been okay with it!" Stella shook her head, frowning in a maternal sort of way.

"I just don't understand why you left him in the first place," she said, "He was such a nice boy..." Maddie paused in the message her thumbs were tapping up to sigh quietly.

"Yes, he was great, and he didn't do anything wrong, he just... I could tell his heart wasn't in it anymore," Maddie said, "And, well, a few times when I was out with Jeremy, I noticed Jessie was checking me out, so once we'd called it off, well..." She reached back and rubbed at the back of her neck a little sheepishly.

"Let's just say it's been an interesting year at school..."

A small smile appeared on Stella's face.

"And I thought college life was complicated when I was your age," she mused, "Alright, Madeline, if Jessie makes you happy, then I'm happy for you." Maddie veritably beamed at her mother.

"Thanks, Mom, that means a lot to me... I know a lot of people whose parents wouldn't be." Stella stepped closer and gently laid a hand on Maddie's shoulder.

"It's like I told you when you came out, sweetie," she said, softly, "If you want me to stop loving you, you're going to have to try a lot harder than just being bi." The older female grinned.

"Maybe rob a bank or burn down an orphanage or something," Stella suggested with a wink. Maddie grinned back, but was still quietly relieved when Stella walked out into the living room, where she'd been playing a match-three game on her laptop on the couch next to Ralph's favourite chair.

As if her presence had stirred something in the room, Ralph raised his voice a little, just a hint of exasperation in his tone.

"No, no, wait a minute, that one can't be 'belly'," the older skunk said, scratching at his ear as he gestured to the newspaper, "If that one's 'belly', then that one starts with a Y, and there is no four-letter word for, uh, 'To throw forcefully' that starts with Y." Across the way, Maddie smiled and suppressed a giggle, keeping her eyes on the messages on her phone as her sister gently broke it to their father. Tiffany was well-suited for that, with her soft, quiet voice.

"No, Dad, look, it's 'yeet'," Tiffany said, pointing, "and then that E can start 'earthling' for 'Take me to your leader, blank'." Ralph looked up, perplexed.

"What?" he asked, "What the hell's a yeet?" Tiffany giggled, and Maddie's grin silently widened.

It was at this moment that Maddie's brother Aidan, who was between herself and Tiffany in age, made his way into the kitchen. They briefly met eyes, nodded to each other, said nothing. Aidan, who was listening to his iPod, made a beeline for the breadbox, where he began assembling himself a sandwich. Maddie reflected on the fact that her entire family would be here, if not for the absence of her older brother Jake, whose school's break didn't quite line up with Maddie's. Though even if he was away at medical school, at least his family could still reach out and say hello; it was Jake that Maddie had been exchanging IMs with this entire time, humble-bragging about her latest victory.

You see, even at her young age, Maddie had already discovered a great passion in her life, and that was finding people who had chemistry, and getting them together. She had a unique, almost uncanny aptitude for detecting when people had feelings for each other, even if they were trying to hide them, and once she had, the romantic skunk found it very difficult to resist the temptation to meddle in their lives until they were a couple. Sometimes it was easy. Jonas and Megan, for example, had been way into each other, but the pair of them were both deeply shy introverts, afraid to make the first move, so Maddie had poked around until she learned they shared a hobby - photography - and gotten them talking on the subject of cameras, which had been the perfect icebreaker. Other times, it was a bit less straightforward. Her most recent match had been one such example. A new message appeared, and she turned her attention back to the present.

VagueDoctor: Okay, so you saw Logan and Preston making eyes at each other, that does't sound too different from the last time

VagueDoctor: *doesn't

Matchmaker19: Well, what I didn't mention is that both of them were in denial over being gay at the time.

VagueDoctor: <_<; ohhhhh

VagueDoctor: Yeah...

VagueDoctor: Yeah, that would do it lol

Matchmaker19: so getting them to bond over their love of 80s metal wasn't exactly going to work. :P

Matchmaker19: I almost gave up on this one, ngl

Matchmaker19: I kept asking myself if I'd imagined it, if I was just bothering two straight guys for no reason

Matchmaker19: but omggggg they were so happy when they finally kissed

Matchmaker19: I thought Logan's tail woulld never stop wagging

Matchmaker19: *woudl

Matchmaker19: fuck

Matchmaker19: **would

VagueDoctor: You're a natural, little sister

VagueDoctor: I keep telling you, you need to find a way to get paid for this

Maddie smiled at the compliment, but paused in her energetic tapping, considering her response. The truth was that people didn't really go to for-hire matchmakers anymore; that kind of thing was done by apps and algorithms these days. But before she could tell her distant brother that her passion had been replaced by technology, something completely unexpected happened. Tiffany, clad in a modest pink blouse and a skirt of respectable length, came strolling into the kitchen, to retrieve a drink for Ralph and herself, and just as Aidan was sitting down at the table opposite Maddie, Tiffany's wide, fluffy tail brushed against the side of the table and knocked a spoon someone had left there onto the floor.

"Oh," she said, quietly, as it skidded between her feet and behind her. Turning around, Tiffany bent over to grab the spoon off the floor and return it to the table - and as she did, Aidan's gaze shot straight to her rump, which he gazed at approvingly for the second it took Tiffany to bend over and stand up straight again.

Maddie was so surprised by that little glance that she almost gasped out loud. Oblivious, Tiffany turned back around, looked down at her older brother... and quickly averted her eyes self-consciously as she continued on her original path to the fridge. Maddie was trying to play it cool, fly under the radar, but her mind was going at a hundred kilometres an hour, putting things together. She suddenly remembered a few other times since she'd gotten back that Tiffany had seemed embarrassed or uneasy around Aidan. Now, Tiffany was once prone to drama, so that didn't necessarily mean anything, but Maddie couldn't un-see the expression on Aidan's face as he'd looked at his sister's can. It had been desire. He hadn't been looking at Tiffany like she was his sister, he'd been looking at her like she was just another girl, and he liked the cut of her jib... or less euphemistically, the shape of her ass.

Maddie's mind reeled as she took all this in. Sometimes, she had to admit to herself that she was reading too much into something, but she'd been looking right at Aidan from directly in front of him, so there was going to be no talking this down with boring, reasonable logic. Maddie of all people would know, being a self-proclaimed expert in romance: Aidan was definitely attracted to Tiffany. With this scandalous new information, the elder skunk couldn't help but imagine equally scandalous possibilities about her siblings. The way he had looked at her, and the way she'd avoided looking at him... was Aidan abusing Tiffany somehow? The very idea seemed ridiculous, offensive, but a tiny, niggling doubt remained despite Maddie's best efforts to banish it.

All these thoughts ran through Maddie's mind in a remarkably short amount of time, and she was still trying to process them when Aidan visibly realized what he'd just done and who he'd just done it in front of. The nervous male tensed up, looking slightly panicked as he abandoned the other half of his sandwich and attempted to flee the situation without so much as meeting Maddie's gaze. He was in such a hurry to leave, in fact, that Aidan tripped over his own feet and fell gracelessly to the kitchen floor. His knees hit first, bracing his lower body, but the flustered buck failed to catch himself with his hands, so his upper body flopped down and sprawled. This left him in a most undignified 'face down, ass up' position, and in a daze, his tail flopped limply forward and draped over his back.

"Aidan? Are you alright?" called Stella from the couch, maternal concern dripping from her otherwise calm words. And then, for the second time in about a minute, something completely unexpected happened.

Naturally, everyone had turned to look when Aidan had flopped to the floor. But when Tiffany came out from behind the fridge door (catching her sister's attention), she stopped, looked down upon her brother's form... and as Maddie watched, Tiffany's eyes were drawn almost magnetically to Aidan's pert, upraised butt. She gazed upon it appraisingly, and to Maddie's skilled eye, she clearly liked what she saw. Then she caught Maddie looking at her, and the younger female turned beet red and retreated back to the fridge. Maddie sat in her chair, her phone forgotten in her hand, trying not to explode from the sheer weight of what she'd just discovered. She felt light-headed, and distantly wondered if she was in shock. Meanwhile, Aidan groaned, pushed himself up to a kneeling position, and waved a hand over at his mother.

"I'm - I'm fine, Mom," he called, sounding slightly strained, "Don't worry, I landed on my d-dignity... Ooof..." Stella still seemed concerned, naturally, but when Aidan stood up and sheepishly walked out of the room under his own power, she lay back down and returned to her laptop. Of course, Maddie was oblivious to all of this, as she had just had her mind seriously blown twice in the span of a commercial break.

She fluttered back to reality as Tiffany hurried past again with a pair of drinks, looking extremely self-conscious as she glanced at Maddie along the way.

'Am I going crazy?' Maddie wondered, 'Is this what having a psychotic break feels like?' She kept examining her memories over and over again, hoping to remember some key detail that would change the conclusion she came to each and every time. Aidan was attracted to Tiffany... and Tiffany was attracted to Aidan? This vital piece of information changed everything about her perception of the situation. Looking back again, she realized there had been just as many moments since she got back for the break when Aidan had acted shy or nervous around Tiffany as the other way around. He wasn't abusing his little sister, he - they were crushing on each other, hard, and they weren't hiding it very well. At least, not to Maddie's expertise. Other people had sometimes seemed oblivious to what the doe found painfully obvious, admittedly. Their behaviour actually kind of reminded Maddie of Jason and Sophie, one of the first couples she'd helped out, who'd been too shy to even talk to each other at first.

It was then, as she casually remembered one of the matches she'd made, that Maddie's brain made a connection for the first time. The very instant she felt it, her eyes widened and her heart began to race, for she knew exactly what it was. The urge. The quiet, but insistent drive to help people like only she could. The unbreakable conviction that had helped her push past her own doubts when her plans went awry.

'Oh no... please no...'

But it was too late. The thought had entered her mind, and now she couldn't stop thinking it: she'd found a longing couple, and now the Matchmaker needed to investigate.

Maddie's phone buzzed in her hand, drawing her thoughts back to the here and now, and she was slightly surprised to find that she was suddenly halfway up the stairs, as if her body had been fleeing to her room on autopilot after her mind blue screened from the revelations of the morning. Looking down at her phone, she realized that she'd started to tell Jake about how she'd overcome the seemingly impossible challenge of getting two guys who wouldn't even admit they liked guys to confess their feelings for each other... only to trail off into silence as their other siblings turned her world upside-down. To her chagrin, she realized he'd sent more than one message since then that she'd been oblivious to.

VagueDoctor: C'mon, Mads, you're really gonna leave me in suspense like that?

VagueDoctor: XD You've really got me wondering now

And then the message she'd received just now was a post of the Frodo Baggins 'Fine, keep your secrets then' meme. Even as emotionally confused and overwhelmed as she was, Maddie managed a small smile at this. Jake was good at that. Always had been, really, it was one of the reasons they'd grown so close; no one else called her 'Mads'. She liked that he was clearly more amused than annoyed by her silence.

Matchmaker19: sorrysorry

Matchmaker19: Uhh, some shit may or may not be going down, I'll finish the story later

VagueDoctor: uh oh

VagueDoctor: are you okay?

Matchmaker19: Yeah, I'm alright, I just need to do some thinking for a while

She had erased the words 'I think' after 'I'm alright', not wanting her brother to worry, but otherwise it seemed to go well. Sighing, Maddie pocketed her phone and hurried into her room, locking the door behind her before throwing herself onto the bed and hugging a pillow tight against her chest. Pillow-hugging helped her think. She'd never faced a situation like this before. Well, actually, she'd faced a bunch of 'em, that was the problem. Two people who secretly wanted each other, trying to ignore their feelings and pretend they weren't there, this was matchmaking 101, and normally she thought of it as her responsibility, nay, her duty, to help such people reach out to each other. But this was Aidan and Tiffany! Brother and sister! Her brother and sister!

"It's none of my business," she whispered to herself, "I - I should just pretend I never saw anything, let them figure it out." When she'd thought Tiffany might be a victim, that option had been the furthest thing from her mind, but now that she realized that they were both perving on each other, and no one was being hurt, surely staying the hell out of it would be the smart play. Surely.

Maddie groaned and pressed her face against the pillow, sighing into the fabric and feeling the warmth of her own breath spread across her face. If walking away was the right thing to do, why couldn't she stop thinking about this? She lay there, unmoving, for several seconds, stubbornly willing the storm in her mind to calm down. When it failed to work (incredibly), the troubled skunk reluctantly lifted her head, and admitted to herself that she couldn't stop thinking about the problem because if she didn't do anything, this... thing between her brother and sister could get messy. That was a lot of powerful emotions to just leave floating around unresolved. Frustration would build up, even if the attraction was only subconscious. An argument between the two of them about just about anything could ramp up into an angry screaming match as they took out their inner confusion on each other. Or there could be jealousy whenever one of them started dating someone. Aidan seemed the sort to resent the guy who got to be with a girl he liked, even if she was his sister.

But even if there weren't any emotional outbursts or misplaced envy, they would almost certainly keep throwing furtive glances at each other and sneaking inappropriate looks here and there. Maddie had kept silent, but what if someone else_saw them? There'd be humiliating conversations, dirty laundry getting aired for all to see, maybe even legal ramifications... She closed her eyes and winced with a potent mixture of shame and guilt as she remembered that upon seeing Aidan checking out his sister, she'd immediately wondered if he was _molesting Tiffany. With that in mind, she couldn't help but imagine court-mandated separations, maybe Aidan's name getting added to one of those awful lists...

Letting go of the pillow, Maddie rolled onto her back.

"No!" she blurted out loud, burying her face in her hands, "Stop it!" That had been directed at herself, the person who was torturing her with these hypotheticals. She needed to stop dwelling on worst-case-scenarios and think: if doing nothing wasn't a good option, what was she going to do about this? Rolling onto her side, facing the wall, Maddie lifted one leg and brought her tail down and under it, so she could reach down and pull the wide, fluffy appendage up and hug it close to her chest. It was a habit she'd picked up from the last girl she'd dated before Jessie, a squirrel named Mona who often slept in such a position. Maddie maintained it was cuter when Mona did it, but still found herself doing it when she was too troubled for the pillow thing to help. It was partially because there was a time when young Maddie had not been fond of her tail, as it felt like a big, monochrome reminder that a lot of people weren't fond of skunks. But she was not trying to ponder her past hang-ups, or the specism of others, she needed to work out how to help Aidan and Tiffany.

Nuzzling against her own tail, breathing deep of the perfume she'd spritzed there that morning, Maddie pondered her options. She could sit down with the two of them, one at a time, and maybe talk them down? She was no Jake, who radiated confidence and felt like someone you could trust just by standing there, but she was still their older sister, maybe she could break it to them gently that no good could come of longing for your own sibling... get them to accept it and let go of their feelings. But even as she thought about that, the doe squirmed on the bed and whimpered. She was a matchmaker at heart, it wasn't just her hobby, it was her passion, the thing that gave her life meaning. So the very idea of deliberately going in and sabotaging a relationship before it even began caused her physical distress, made her feel itchy all over, like ants were walking along the underside of her skin. Groaning, she scowled most unattractively.

"Well, if walking away isn't the right thing to do, and talking them out of it isn't the right thing to do, then what the fuck is left?!" she angrily asked no one in particular.

Maddie sat up and tried desperately to ignore the itchy feelings.

"No, no, that's g-got to be it," she said, "N-no one gets hurt, no one else n-needs to find out, I'll just talk to b-both of them and get them to s-see that... that..." Flinching, she said the last part as fast as she could, like ripping off a band-aid. "...That they-shouldn't-be-together-because-they're-siblings!" She groaned as the feeling got worse, shuddering in revulsion and squeezing her tail tighter.

"C'mooooon, this - this isn't about my p-personal pride as a romantic expert," she whined, "They're - they're brother and sister, they c-can't be a couple!" To give herself something to think about other than the possibility of having to do the exact opposite of her personal calling, Maddie tried to consider the situation in a more abstract way. Letting her tail whip around behind her, rising up to press lightly against her back - its natural resting position - Maddie crossed her legs and pondered.

"Okay, say I have... say I have a bomb, and there's no timer on it, so I don't when it's going to go off, but it's definitely going to go off eventually," she mused, holding up one hand and imagining an ominous device in it. "So if I'm the bomb squad, I can't just walk away, because the bomb is still going to blow up if I don't do anything. And, uh, let's just say that defusing the bomb so it'll never go off isn't an option, for... reasons."

She shuddered at the phantom memory of that itching and quickly moved along.

"Right, so if I can't leave the bomb or defuse the bomb, I could..." the shapely female trailed off, blinking slowly. "I could move the bomb to a safer location, where it won't hurt anyone, for... a controlled detonation." She grinned at that, feeling quite clever about herself, at least until she remembered that under these circumstances, a 'controlled detonation' would involve setting up her own brother and sister to fall for each other. But what if that really was the solution? If they were struggling with whether they even wanted each other at all, the confusion and frustration could lead to unpredictable emotional outbursts, but if Aidan and Tiffany both faced and understood what they were doing, maybe they could be safer, more secretive about it...

"Oh my God, I'm actually thinking about it!" Maddie realized aloud, dismayed, "How can that be the solution? This is so fucked up..." Reaching up and rubbing her forehead, Maddie whimpered, her worrying going into overdrive. She had once called matchmaking her joie de vivre, the air in her lungs, so what if it was so deeply engrained in her that she was going to hook her siblings up whether she wanted to or not?! Catching her mind running away with her, Maddie shook her head.

"No, no, that's crazy," she muttered aloud, the very picture of sanity, "I need to calm down... I'm not going to accidentally or unwillingly get them together, I don't have a compulsion or anything..." At that moment, her phone buzzed again, and she retrieved it, grateful for the distraction. It was a text from her father, Ralph, and it read 'Are you okay in there? It sounds like you're talking to yourself again.'

Maddie took a deep breath even as she turned just as red as Tiffany had been when she'd been caught leering at Aidan's upraised bum. With her cheeks burning aggressively, she carefully tapped out a message, trying to salvage her dignity by claiming she was calling her girlfriend. Flopping back down, she returned to her original position hugging the pillow. Being heavily embarrassed had helped clear the frustration from her mind, but she still found it hard to believe she was seriously considering this option... The doe tried to sort further through her feelings, but it was like she'd hit a wall, and couldn't push through it. Biting the bullet and talking her siblings out of something crazy seemed way more like the 'responsible adult' option than deliberately getting them together so they'd have more control over things, but since that 'responsible' option literally made her skin crawl, she couldn't stop considering the other one. Getting out of bed and reluctantly leaving the pillow behind, Maddie sighed, recognizing that she was thinking in circles. If only she could talk this over with someone, that always helped when she was stuck, but who? And how?

Before leaving her room, Maddie stepped over to her mirror and took a moment to smooth down her clothes and run a comb through her hair. She had been very particular about her appearance from a young age, which would have been more endearing if it hadn't been caused by bullying. Many morphic species suffered from having unfair stereotypes hanging over them. 'Rodents are diseased criminals.' 'Foxes are unfaithful sluts.' 'Lizards are unfeeling and untrustworthy.' But while many were hurtful, few made such easy fodder for childhood taunting as 'skunks are smelly creatures with poor hygiene'. Young Madeline Matheson had taken more than her fair share of jibes as a child, and to try and counter it, she'd started putting a great deal of effort into making sure her clothes were neat and presentable, that her hair and pelt were well-combed, and that if anything, she smelled pleasantly of perfume. But today was not a day to dwell on her hang-ups or her childhood trauma, she reminded herself as she set down the hairbrush. No, today was a day to dwell on other peoples' hang-ups, because her siblings had fallen for each other and she was dumb enough to get involved...

Her mind full of unfamiliar, conflicting feelings, Maddie found herself leaving her room. She just couldn't sit still, alone with her thoughts for even one minute longer, and so the restless skunk left, even though she had no real idea where to go. Maddie really needed someone to be a sounding board for her ideas, but as she'd realized earlier, she didn't have the slightest idea who she could go to with a problem like this. Normally, she'd turn to her girlfriend Jessie, her BFF Jean, or her big brother Jake for advice, but this particular obstacle in her life's path was tricky because the scandalous secret wasn't hers. Distantly, Maddie wondered if there was such a thing as an anonymous advice service, some phone line she could call about the problem, someone who wouldn't have the context to act on gossipy information. Staring off into the infinite void, the shapely doe slowly walked down the stairs, brooding over the day's confusing collection of new information. Eventually, Maddie found herself back in the kitchen, where she was unable to stop herself from thinking the words 'the scene of the crime' as she remembered the mirrored acts of ogling she'd witnessed. The pervy siblings in question were nowhere to be seen, but Ralph had moved from his chair to lie down across the love seat, where a laptop sat on his chest and headphones were clamped in place, suggesting that a) he would be watching a movie or something on Netflix, and b) that he would be totally oblivious to anything going on around him below a certain volume threshold. Maddie resisted the instinctive self-destructive impulse to say the secret out loud, knowing her father wouldn't hear it. She was especially thankful for this choice about one-point-three seconds later, when she nearly jumped out of her pelt at the sound of her mother's voice.

"What's bothering you, Maddie?" Stella asked gently, which would have been totally fine if not for the fact that for the fact that she was standing silently behind the younger female, and Maddie hadn't had the slightest clue that her mother was still around. Whirling around, eyes wide, Maddie threw up her hands into a vague approximation of a martial arts defensive stance, no doubt due to all the kung-fu films her father watched during her formative years.

"Jeez, Mom!" she groaned, visibly relaxing and lowering her arms, "Gimme a heart attack, why don't you? What are you doing, just hanging out by the sink?"

"Waiting for you to answer the question," Stella said smoothly. Being a mother of four, the older doe was an expert at shrugging off attempts to change the subject.

Sighing, Maddie averted her gaze.

"I... it's nothing," she lied, "Don't worry about it." Stella made a face.

"Come on, girl, I'm not blind, I can see that something is eating you up inside," the elder female said, insistently, "Don't you try to 'it's nothing' me, Madeline, I was telling your grandmother 'it's nothing' before the Internet was born."

"Worth a shot..." Maddie whispered, then closed her eyes and sighed a second time in abject surrender. After opening them again, she sat down at the table and leaned down onto her elbows, wondering how she was going to get out of this without spilling the beans about Aidan and Tiffany. What they were up to was not a good idea, sure, but Maddie was no snitch!

"I can't really go into it, but it's... it's, uh, these two people I know," she said, "Let's call them - uh, actually, forget nicknames..." She was afraid if she called them anything, she'd slip up and call them by their real names.

The slender skunk took a moment to find the right words. She'd need to downplay the Bad Idea factor a little, or her mother might get curious enough to pry.

"Well, I saw that they might, you know, feel something for each other, and normally I'd try to help them close the deal, you know, give 'em a push in the right direction... but they're totally in a situation where, uh, they'd have trouble getting together, and part of me wonders if they really should, because there's a lot of people - like a lot of people - who would think the worst was happening. I'm trying to fight my instincts to help things along, but..." Maddie paused a moment, swallowing thoughtfully.

"...But I know them, and however people might look at them, I know that they'd never do anything harmful or, uh, whatever the stereotypes might be..." She was mentally patting herself on the back for that, feeling quite clever, but she'd missed a spot, so to speak.

"Stereotypes?" Stella asked, reaching down to the steaming mug Maddie had failed to notice and retrieving a tea bag, then tossing it in the trash. "What kind of stereotypes?"

Suppressing the urge to panic, Maddie shrugged.

"Oh, uh, he's a cat and she's a mouse," she lied, "You know how people are about predator/prey relationships..." She didn't feel good about lying to Stella's face, but felt it was better than admitting to her mother that she was referring to the way society felt about siblings who kiss with tongue... She momentarily felt the instinctive fear that her mother would see straight through her deception, but Stella just nodded.

"Ohhhh, right..." she murmured, "Well, specism is no reason for them not to be together, they should forget what small-minded people think..." Maddie swallowed back the comment about how her mother had married a member of her own species, and thus perhaps wouldn't be an expert on this subject, and instead moved on.

"It's - it's more than that, Mom, there's... there's a bunch of different reasons they shouldn't be together," she insisted, "We're talking Romeo and Juliet here, except it's not as straightforward as family rivalries, eh?" Stella nodded ever so slightly, but curiosity continued to gleam in her eyes.

"So, their parents wouldn't approve?" she asked, blissfully ignorant of the irony suddenly taking up a lot of space in the room. Clearing her throat, Maddie too-intensely studied her own feet, as if she'd never seen her slippers before.

"...There's a strong chance," she said, delicately, "Y-yeah, I'd agree with that."

The younger female swallowed another sigh. As she'd struggled to explain the situation to her mother without giving the specifics away, it had really sunk in what a Big Deal this could be.

'Things could get bad if people even see them making eyes at each other,' she thought, reluctantly putting her siblings' well-being ahead of her (un)professional pride.

"I... I guess the right thing for me to do, the best way to help them, is to, um, ignore my usual instincts and, like, talk them out of any funny ideas about each other," Maddie said, before a mighty pout appeared on her face. "Man, being responsible blows sometimes..." The slender doe was so focused on how unappealing she found the prospect ahead of her that she barely took notice of her mother until Stella said it.

"Hmmm... naaah, to hell with that."

Lifting her head, Maddie regarded Stella, shock plain on her face.

"Mom?" she asked, not sure she'd heard that quite right. That was about as close as she could remember her mother getting to actual profanity. The older skunk had followed her comment by calmly taking a sip of her tea, and now, she set it back down, as gently as you like and onto a coaster, before turning to her deeply confused daughter.

"Well, you keep saying things like 'they shouldn't be together', and 'people would think the worst is happening', and 'their parents wouldn't approve'," Stella said. Maddie frowned slightly.

"You said that last one," Maddie pointed out, crossing her arms defensively.

"And you agreed," Stella replied, without missing a beat. "Anyway, you keep saying things like that, but you're dancing around the point, Maddie. Do they love each other?"

"L-love?" Maddie repeated, suddenly feeling slightly dizzy.

"Yeah! You started off by saying you think they have feelings for each other," her mother replied enthusiastically, "So? Do they or don't they?"

"I... I don't know," the younger skunk admitted, "I've b-been keeping my distance, didn't want to get involved yet..."

"Well then, find out!" Stella said, smiling encouragingly. "Number one, you might find out you're wrong this time, and there's nothing to worry about in the first place. Number two..."

Maddie resisted the urge to groan in frustration as her mother paused to take another sip of her tea, as if the two skunks had alllllll the time in the world. It wouldn't have sped things up any, after all... When Stella finally set the mug down again, she regarded her daughter with a small smile.

"Number two, if they do love each other, isn't that the most important thing?" she asked, gently, "In my experience, nothing good comes from letting other people decide who you can and can't love." Suddenly, her brow furrowed.

"Wait, neither of them is, ah, a child or anything, right?" she asked, "We aren't talking about anything illegal here?"

"No, no, they're, uh, they're both of age," Maddie quickly replied, carefully stepping over that second question. "But it's more complicated than that, Mom..."

"Is it?" asked the older doe, raising one eyebrow, "It seems to me that there are quite a few people out there who probably don't think you should be allowed to love Jessie. Should you be listening to them?"

Maddie blinked, taken aback.

"I... uh..." she trailed off as her girlfriend's dazzling smile appeared in her mind... along with the decidedly Karen-y ferret who'd tried to give them shit for 'living in sin' the last time they'd gone out together.

"W-w-well, I mean, we haven't exactly said that we..." Maddie stammered, blushing hard, but Stella interrupted her embarrassment.

"But you know what I'm talking about, don't you?" she countered, "There are people in the world who would see you with Jessie and write you off as an awful degenerate without knowing anything about you, except that you like to kiss other girls." The elder doe sighed, and Maddie was mildly chagrined to realize that it sounded almost identical to when she herself did it.

"Too many people like that..." Stella murmured, gazing darkly into the distance for a moment before returning to the present.

Maddie's mind was going at full speed, her already conflicted, confusing thoughts now whipped up into a frenzy of activity, and the poor girl felt so overwhelmed with strange new ideas that it was all she could do to agree with her mother.

"I... I guess I never thought about it that way..." she murmured, nodding slowly. Stella pushed off from the counter with a grunt, not being a spring chicken anymore, and picked up her tea. Walking over to her daughter, the doe with the kindly eyes patted Maddie on the shoulder supportively.

"Or hey, maybe not. I know I don't know all the details," Stella said softly, "But I know you, Madeline. You're a good kid. Whatever the right thing is, you'll find it, and you'll get through with flying colours." Maddie smiled softly as her mother gave her shoulder a squeeze.

"I love you, kiddo," the older skunk said.

"Love you too, Mom," Maddie replied, patting Stella's hand. "...Thank you."

As her mother walked off, sipping her tea, Maddie looked down at her hands where they lay against the table, trying to sort through her thoughts. Her Mom had had a good point, and she felt a little sheepish for feeling surprised at that. Before she acted on what she'd learned about her sister and brother, Maddie needed to learn more about their situation. After all, it seemed unlikely to Maddie that Aidan and Tiffany had just spontaneously started lusting after each other, and at the same time, to boot. But she couldn't just rush off and start prodding her siblings for information. The idea of Maddie's brother and sister realizing she was trying to get them together was almost as unpleasant to contemplate as the idea of her siblings getting caught lusting after each other.

"God, I would look like an even bigger freak!" Maddie whispered, before catching herself talking to herself in a shared space again, and falling silent. But the point remained, she needed to approach this delicately. Fortunately for all involved, if there was one thing the Matchmaker was good at, it was planning out exactly these sorts of shenanigans.

That night, as she was getting ready to sleep, Maddie sat on her bed, brushing her hair and pelt. It was sort of pointless, given that she moved around a lot in her sleep, but it always calmed her and helped her think, so she liked to do it at the end of the day to release some tension. As she sat, she pondered how surreal this entire scenario felt. Was she really plotting to use her talents on her own siblings? What if it turned out to be legit, and they did want each other? Would she help them get together? Would she be able to sleep at night if she was responsible for Aidan and Tiffany having sex? She sighed and bit her lip. The very idea was bizarre, Maddie was having trouble even thinking of her younger siblings as people who have sexual desires and needs at all. She'd liked it much better when she woke up that morning, and her mental impression of her family members was as sexless as Barbie and Ken.

"Insert immaculate conception joke here," the brooding doe muttered. Still, it probably wouldn't hurt to at least try, in order to better help her get her mind in the game, so to speak...

Maddie paused in her brushing for a moment, closed her eyes, and focused on imagining Aidan naked, his cock fully hard... and drooling pre-come as he took in the sight of Tiffany before him, eagerly fingering herself with one hand and beckoning her brother closer with the other. Yelping out loud, her eyes snapping open, Maddie buried her blushing face in her hands.

'Okay,' she thought, 'I definitely got a bit carried away there...' She felt a little warmer all of a sudden, but (quickly) dismissed it as being flushed from embarrassment. Pushing the lewd scene of impending incest she'd conjured up from nowhere out of her mind (or at least to the back of it, where she could deal with it later), the embarrassed skunk set her hairbrush aside and decided a distraction was in order, so she picked up her notebook. She needed to work out an approach that would get her the information she needed without tipping her siblings off to what she was up to. Maddie knew these 'subjects' better than any she'd helped in the past, which felt like an advantage, though she also felt anxious in a way she'd never had to deal with before.

After spending a few minutes pondering the situation, Maddie thought she had her angle; she was pretty sure Tiffany was going to be the best bet for intel, since Aidan would almost definitely get nervous and clam up if a female family member started prying into such topics. This would be true whether or not Aidan was attracted to Tiffany, unfortunately, the lad could be really quite shy at times. After taking some time to go over what she'd jotted down (which was really more of a stream of consciousness record of her thought processes than it was an organized plan), Maddie smiled confidently. Conflicted feelings or no, she prided herself in her work, and if she pulled it off, this would be some of her best work yet...

* * *

Upon waking up the next morning, Maddie found that she regretted putting off that scandalous mental image to deal with later, as her subconscious had apparently decided her dreams were the perfect place to do just that. Waking up blushing was a strange sensation to the shapely skunk... though admittedly not as strange as waking up to discover herself more than a little turned on from her deeply lewd dreams. Slipping a hand into the underwear she'd slept in, Maddie shivered.

"Holy shit, I'm so wet..." she breathed, not daring to raise her voice enough that anyone outside might hear her, "God, my panties are soaked right through..." Obviously, her first thought was to relieve the problem by rubbing one off before she started her day, but after this particular set of dreams, the young matchmaker decided to err on the side of caution, and instead, she wrapped herself up in a robe and scampered off to shower ASAP. This quickly felt like the right idea, as the warm water soothed away the tension she felt after those strange dreams... as well as the evidence of her shameful arousal.

This time, Maddie made sure to push the dreams far, far out of her mind, lest they find some inopportune time to pop back up again. It helped when she started focusing on her plan. She needed to find Tiffany, get her alone, so they could have a nice, sisterly conversation. As she scrubbed fur shampoo into her tail, which drooped much more than usual as it was weighed down by water, the soaked skunk idly wished her big brother was around. She'd always been able to count on Jake backing up her ridiculous plans, and she thought about how much easier it would be to get information out of Aidan if she could just send a guy to ask him. Pausing in her cleaning, Maddie smirked and shook her head. On second thought, Jake would almost certainly find out what was up with Aidan and then refuse to share the juicy details with Maddie, probably citing 'the bro code' or something as he did so. Maybe it was for the best that she was flying solo after all...

Maddie spent some time in the fur dryer, buffeted by warm jets of air as she ran a comb through her hair and pelt, then slipped back into her robe and hurried off to her room. There, she spent, in her estimation, entirely too long picking out something to wear, but she would admit after the fact that she'd been overthinking it. When she finally emerged from her bedroom, the doe was clad in a nice, casual blouse and a pair of slightly-too-old jeans she refused to throw out. Maddie strolled through her home at a casual pace, hoping her sister hadn't left to spend the day - or longer - with her friends. When her gaze fell upon Tiffany on the couch, Maddie felt a thrill of excitement, then tried not to feel weird about it, to mixed results. She hadn't eaten anything yet that day, so she went and threw something together while surreptitiously studying her little sister. People were arguing angrily on some reality show, and Tiffany was watching, enraptured. As she ate, Maddie found herself idly wondering what it was about Tiffany that had attracted Aidan to her despite the fact that they were related.

'I mean, she's cute, sure, but it's not like she's Helen of Troy or something...' Maddie thought, chewing thoughtfully.

Happily, Tiffany's show came to an end just as Maddie was bringing her dishes to the sink, and as the credits rolled and Tiffany's attention turned to her smartphone, Maddie casually walked over, careful not to hurry, and sat down next to her on the couch. When Tiffany looked up, Maddie smiled widely.

"'Sup?" she asked, warmly. Tiffany smiled back, though not quite as strongly.

"Hey sis," she replied, with her typical softness, "Good morning." Tiffany didn't look back to her phone, clearly waiting for Maddie to explain why she'd picked this spot, or at least for the other shoe to drop.

"I don't think we've had the chance to talk, just the two of us, since - what was it, the Christmas break?" Maddie asked, and Tiffany brushed a long lock of ebon-black hair out of her eyes and nodded.

"I think so, yes," she said, "It's been a while..." The younger skunk was doing a good job of keeping her face neutral, but Maddie was sure she felt a hint of nervousness off her sister. Tiffany was soft-spoken, true, but she wasn't normally shy in the way that Aidan was.

"Right?" Maddie replied, enthusiastically, "So tell me, what's it been like for you and Aidan, having the house all to yourselves now that I've moved to the dorms?"

That did it. Tiffany blushed ever so slightly, as if the very mention of her brother's name was a taboo subject.

"Oh, um, you know, it's - it's quieter," Tiffany said, then flinched slightly, clearly aware of how nervous she sounded. "Yeah, it's, um, kinda nice, actually, I've been able to take up meditating, it's really relaxing." This lead to a light conversation about how Tiffany had discovered a whole trove of guided meditation videos on the Internet, which in turn lead to a general talk about the sheer variety of Stuff one could find online if they only knew where to look. Okay, it wasn't the most scintillating discussion Maddie had ever had in her life, but she knew she couldn't just approach Tiffany and immediately start asking pertinent questions about her attraction to Aidan. That would only set off alarms in the younger doe's mind, just as surely as it would for her brother. But unlike the anxious-by-nature Aidan, if Maddie waited until Tiffany was relaxed...

A few minutes passed as the sisters chatted about this and that. The impatient part of Maddie's mind aside, it was really quite nice. The truth was that even aside from nosing into her sister's business, Maddie really had missed Tiffany while she was away at school, just like she'd missed the rest of her family. When the two does fell into a lull in the conversation, Maddie decided the time was right to put her plan into action. Scratching at an imaginary itch under her chin, as if to make herself look more relaxed, Maddie kept her tone calm and casual.

"Hey, uh... this may seem like an odd question, but did something, uh, happen between you and Aidan recently?" she asked, innocently, "It kinda feels like there's a, I don't know, a weird tension happening here, but I can't put my finger on it." Tiffany's shoulders hunched and she blushed again, harder than before.

"T-tension?" she repeated, "Oh, God, you can tell?!" Averting her gaze, she began to rub her forehead with one hand.

Maddie leaned back, pretending she was surprised by this reaction.

"Whoa... okay, that's a definite 'yes'," she observed, dryly, "What happened? You're not acting like you got in a fight, so..." Her tail drooping down to the couch cushions, Tiffany groaned, blushing even harder.

"Oh God, i-it's kind of embarrassing, can't we talk about something else?" the uncomfortable doe whimpered.

"Definitely not a fight then..." Maddie observed, "But come on, Tiff, I can tell whatever's hanging over you two, it's eating you up inside. Sometimes you guys don't even seem comfortable being near each other. I just want to help." The younger mephit avoided Maddie's gaze by staring at the coffee table in front of the couch, biting her lip anxiously as she silently came to an internal decision. Sighing reluctantly, Tiffany gave her sister a slightly plaintive look.

"Okay, okay, I'll tell you..." she muttered, "But only because I don't know what to do!"

Tiffany leaned back, taking a moment to gather her thoughts, and Maddie studied her. They were about the same height, but Tiffany was thinner, which Maddie felt gave her a somewhat fragile appearance. Tiff also wore her hair longer, hanging well past her shoulders when she left it down, as she had today. The way Tiffany was letting her head droop made that hair fall in front of her face, giving Maddie the distinct impression that she was trying to hide.

"Okay, so it was, uh, maybe a month ago?" Tiffany finally started, "Mom and Dad went off for a business retreat or something for the whole weekend, so it was just me and Aidan." Maddie's mind immediately tried to take that in a lewd direction, but this was an impulse she had to deal with frequently, so she had no problem cutting that idea off before it fully formed.

"I... I don't know, it was a slow night, and I had just finished streaming all the shows on my backlog," Tiffany continued, "so I'm just kinda sitting there on my bed, poking around Twitter on my phone, listening to how quiet the house is." She dared to make direct eye contact, and shrugged.

"The house was always so full and alive when I was little, everybody running around, talking, laughing," she said, smiling slightly, "But with Mom and Dad at their thing, and you and Jake away at school, the house just felt... big and empty. It wasn't windy or raining or anything, so all I could hear was the house sort of creaking in the cold. So I felt kinda isolated, eh?"

Maddie nodded, maintaining a calm, sympathetic expression as she listened. She hadn't entirely been lying, she really did want to help her siblings! It's just that she was toying with the idea that the best way to help them was to lead them into each other's arms... Oblivious to her sister's plotting, Tiffany continued.

"And right when I'm sitting there thinking about how alone I feel," the younger female said, "There's a knock at my door, and it's Aidan, and he says to me 'Hey Tiff, have you noticed how the house is super quiet without everybody in it?'" As she recalled the moment, the skinny skunk smiled warmly, her eyes unfocused, dwelling on her memory. For her part, Maddie was surprised by the soft, affectionate look in Tiffany's eyes. The last time Maddie had seen that look on her own face in the mirror, it had been because of someone she knew... someone she ended up dating, an especially passionate affair.

"I just thought it was so funny that he shows up and says that when I've just been trying to ignore that feeling for hours," Tiffany mused, "But he just smiles when I start giggling and says 'You wanna watch a movie or something?'."

Maddie felt a shiver of excitement running down her spine, leaving a tingling trail in its wake, as she contemplated the way her sister had reacted to that part of the story. Maybe she really was onto something here, because her instincts were telling her that if Tiffany smiled like that when she thought about Aidan at her door, it probably went a little deeper than thinking Aidan had a nice ass. But she was getting ahead of herself...

"So I assume you said yes?" she replied. Tiffany nodded.

"We just headed out here, he was sitting right where you are now," the younger doe explained, gesturing, "And we didn't even have anything in mind, we came out here and just started poking around Netflix, looking for something that looks good." The smile faded from from Tiffany's face as she looked down at her feet.

"So, uh, this Drown the Lie movie from last year comes up on the list, and neither of us have seen it yet, so we put that on..." She trailed off, hesitantly. Maddie shuffled over a little closer on the cushions, reaching out and putting a supportive hand on her sister's shoulder.

"What happened, Tiffany?" Maddie asked as gently as she could, "Did Aidan do something that made you... uncomfortable?"

Tiffany turned to her big sister with a look of dismay on her partially-covered face.

"No, no, nothing like that... at least, uh, nothing he did on purpose, anyway..."

"What?"

"Oh God..." Tiffany groaned, "I - I'll only tell you if you promise not to say anything about it to Aidan, I'll die of embarrassment if you do!"

"Gee, I dunno, sis, if it's that embarrassing it might be fun to tease him with it..." Maddie mused, scratching her chin again thoughtfully.

"Maddieeeeeee! Don't you dare!" protested Tiffany, as she pouted and reached up to cover her blushing cheeks with her hands. As the youngest in the family, Tiffany tended to get a little whiny when things weren't going her way. As a general rule, mentioning this to her was not a good idea.

"Alright, alright, you win," the elder mephit said, holding up both hands in a slightly sarcastic gesture of surrender. "Aidan won't hear a word of this from me, I promise."

That visibly calmed Tiffany down, and after letting out a sigh, the younger female started self-consciously twiddling her thumbs, staring down at her hands while she gave them something to do.

"So it's this sort of, uh, it's kind of a noir-style detective movie, all moody and serious," Tiffany said, "And we're watching for a while, and it's pretty good, and, um..." She trailed off, biting her lip again for just a moment before she let her breath out in a quick huff.

"W-well, a month ago it was really cold, eh? Colder than this, anyway," she started, "So we're watching the movie, and I'm starting to wish I'd brought a sweatshirt, rubbing my arms as I'm sitting there." Tiffany shrugged. "I'm like one second away from just going out to get one, and Aidan just... holds out his arms to me. Says 'You're cold, come here,' like it's the simplest thing in the world..." Tiffany swallowed as she reached up with one hand and began rubbing her other arm, but whether it was in memory of the cold or in anxiety, Maddie could not say.

"So, uh, I move over to his side, and we, um, lie down together, with me in front, and he pulls Mom's quilted blanket over us while we watch." As Tiffany explained, Maddie tilted her head slightly to one side, as if trying to regard her sister from a different angle.

"You're saying the two of you just started spooning out of nowhere?" she asked, curiously, "Tiffany, are you sure this is where it started?"

The younger skunk slowly looked up and met her sister's eyes, looking embarrassed, maybe a little regretful, and definitely confused.

"I know, I know, it's k-kinda weird, we were basically cuddling, but..." Tiffany sighed again, and her habit of doing so seemed to be something she and Maddie had in common. "I've been... really lonely lately, sis. The house is quiet a lot, and it seems like everybody I know is busy this time of year. Plus, I'm always depressed in winter, so... I guess I just wanted some... I guess my psychology professor would call it 'interpersonal connection'." As Tiffany looked forlornly down at her feet, Maddie reached back out and touched her sister's shoulder again, giving it a gentle squeeze.

"Hey, uh... I don't think it's that weird," she said, gently, "I mean, look at cats, cats never really stop cuddling with their family members." Tiffany smiled slightly at that, seemingly relieved that her sister didn't think of her as a weirdo. Yet.

"So we're, um, cuddling... feels weird to say the word... and we're watching the movie, and I'm much warmer, and it's just, just so fucking nice being held by someone else again, even if it is just my brother, and..." Tiffany groaned softly. "And things got weird. That Drown the Lie movie? So the human private eye and the golden lab lady who hired him are poking around some dead guy's office looking for - I don't know, it was a paper, some kind of old record, and, uh, suddenly they're not looking anymore." She lapsed into a rather heavy silence.

"What do you mean?" Maddie asked, having a feeling where this was going. Tiffany gave her a pained look, as if she hadn't wanted to say the words.

"So they'd had chemistry together for the whole movie, and I guess going through this murder victim's personal files got them hot and bothered? So suddenly they're kissing, but then, uh... they just start fucking, right there in the middle of the office! I mean, okay, the owner wasn't exactly going to show up and interrupt them, but come on..."

"Maybe it was more about being alone together than going through a dead man's files," Maddie helpfully suggested, trying not to giggle at the irritated look on her embarrassed sister's face.

Tiffany pressed her hands over her face, but left her muzzle sticking out between them so she could talk.

"God, and they showed so much more than I thought they would!" the self-conscious femme groaned, "I mean, it wasn't like, porn, or anything, mostly just grinding against each other with their clothes unfastened, but you could see the guy's ass, and the girl actually got her boobs out!"

"Were they nice?" Maddie asked, totally earnestly, waiting until Tiffany gave her an annoyed look before wiggling her eyebrows lewdly. Despite herself, Tiffany giggled.

"Dammit, Maddie, I know you swing both ways now, but I'm not telling you this story so you can look at breasts on Netflix!" she protested, giving her big sister a playful smack on the leg.

Her smile didn't last long, though, as she returned to her tale.

"...So we're lying there, brother and sister holding each other, and we're watching them getting it on, and it's just, the most awkward thing I've ever experienced in my life. Like, if a plane had crashed into the house and blown me up right then, I might have been okay with it. And then it got worse..." Tiffany returned her hands to her face and whimpered with embarrassment.

"So we're s-spooning, right? I'm like, pressed back against Aidan? Well, he, um... he... Oh, God, I can't believe I'm telling you this... Well, the sex scene is just going on and on, and Aidan started getting hard."

Maddie cleared her throat, having forced down the urge to gasp. This was it, it had to be!

"And you know this because..."

"Because we were pressed together so tightly I could feel... it, against m-my butt," Tiffany explained, sounding humiliated, "I was shocked, and I've never been more embarrassed, but I didn't know if he could tell or not, and I didn't want to draw attention to it, s-so I didn't say anything about it."

"You're saying that Aidan offered to cuddle and then pressed his penis against you?" Maddie asked in a shocked voice, deliberately wording it as bluntly as possible, "Tiff, do you want to talk to Mom and Dad about this?" The younger skunk looked alarmed, raising both hands in front of her and waving them in a hasty 'no, no' gesture.

"Wha- Wait, don't say it like that, you make him sound like a sex criminal!" Tiffany protested, looking around nervously, as if afraid that Aidan might overhear. "I - I mean, it's not like he was getting turned on because of me, we were basically watching a softcore porn scene!" She whimpered and looked down, beyond embarrassed by this whole conversation, but Maddie was having to resist the urge to smile. Tiffany had jumped on the opportunity to defend Aidan, had seemed genuinely offended by the idea that her brother had ulterior motives when he offered to share his warmth. This was definitely giving the Matchmaker information she could use, and if the two subjects hadn't been siblings this time around, she would have thought of this information as a definitively good thing, instead of feeling all weird and conflicted about it.

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry," Maddie said, playing her part and backing away from the unspoken suggestions, going back to being the sympathetic listener.

"You should be, he's your brother too," Tiff reminded her, crossly, which sounded more cute than threatening in such a soft voice. "I can't believe you'd think he was actually perving on me..."

"So what happened?" Maddie asked, "Did you stay? Did you leave? Did you two talk about it?"

"Omg, Maddie, of course we didn't talk about it!" Tiffany gasped, pronouncing 'OMG' as if it were a word, not an acronym, "If I die without ever talking to a guy in my family about his prick, I think that's a life well lived!"

"Well, then...?" Maddie asked, looking expectantly at her little sister. The emotion was genuine. At this point, it was as much about hearing the rest of this scandalous story as it was about gathering useful information. Tiffany sighed again, and averted her gaze, but continued.

"I... I didn't do anything," Tiffany admitted, "I didn't want him to know I'd noticed, s-so I didn't say anything or move, I just, um... lay there, with Aidan pressed against me, for the rest of the movie. When it was over, I thanked him for inviting me, pretended everything was normal, and went and hid in my room until I stopped blushing. There, now you know, okay?" She slumped back in her seat and sighed, relieved, as if a great weight had been lifted from her. But Maddie leaned forward, narrowing her eyes just slightly, as if she suddenly suspected her sister was actually a counterfeit skunk and her stripes were painted on.

"No, no, you're leaving something out..." Maddie murmured, rubbing her chin thoughtfully as she stared at Tiffany.

To the younger doe's credit, she didn't immediately look worried, merely frowning slightly at Maddie.

"I'm not lying, that's what happened," Tiffany grumbled.

"I didn't say you were lying, I said you were omitting something," Maddie clarified, before she widened her eyes as if an epiphany had just come to her. Letting a grin slowly stretch across her face, she raised one hand and pointed at her sister, her accusation coming out barely above a whisper, the proverbial pin dropping in a silent room.

"...You liked it, didn't you, Tiffany?"

Instantly going right back to full strength blushing, Tiffany shook her head frantically for a few seconds... then suddenly slumped down, as if she recognized that her own cheeks were giving her away.

"I... I... I don't know," the younger skunk admitted, "A-at first I was just super fucking embarrassed, like I said, I was trying so hard not to think about it..."

"And then?" Maddie prodded, quite enjoying herself.

"It didn't work," Tiffany whimpered, "I couldn't stop thinking about - about Aidan's cock, pressing against my butt, and at first I'm disgusted, l-like he's my brother, right? But... after a while, I..." Leaning back, Tiffany reached up and brushed her hair back over her shoulders, suddenly exposing her face and the shameful, plaintive expression on it.

"Oh, God, sis, I - I started getting turned on... like, really turned on..." the younger doe confessed, "Wh-what the hell is wrong with me, Maddie? My own brother made me wet!"

Before Maddie could answer the question, Tiffany yelped with embarrassment and covered her face again.

"Once I n-noticed, I tried so hard to fight it, to push it back down, but I c-couldn't, I got all hot and bothered while cuddling with my big brother, and I felt like such a freak!" Another sigh. "And ever since, I just feel... weird whenever I'm around him, like - I don't know, I'm just so confused..." She raised a hand to her forehead and whimpered quietly. Maddie shuffled over and put her arm around the other doe, hugging her tight. She felt like she had all the information she needed, so now she needed to be a big sister.

"Hey, it's okay, breathe, Tiffany, breathe," she whispered, lightly rubbing her sister's back. "You're not a freak, okay? You're fine, sweetie." Shivering silently, Tiffany leaned against her sister, letting Maddie support some of her weight.

"I feel like one..." she mumbled, miserably, "Aidan and I used to be like best friends, but now I can't even meet his eyes without thinking about - about him, pressed against me, about getting turned on in his arms... and I keep catching myself..." She trailed off again, but this time, she seemed to be unable, not just reluctant, to finish that thought. Maddie didn't pry, as she could infer from yesterday's moment in the kitchen that Tiffany was talking about catching herself checking Aidan out like he was 'an available guy' and not 'my brother'.

Moving her hand up and beginning to gently trail her fingers through her sister's long, straight black hair, scritching behind Tiffany's ears each time she passed them, Maddie continued to talk in a soft, soothing tone.

"Look, sis, just because you liked it doesn't mean you, ah, want your own brother, or anything," she said, delicately, "It just means... you've been lonely, and you wouldn't mind having someone to, you know, wrap their arms around you, hold you close. I mean, when you think about how it made you feel, you're probably imagining some kind boy who offers to do nice things for you, tries to make you smile. Am I close?" Still hiding her face, Tiffany snickered, but said nothing. Maddie felt like that was a good sign.

"And don't read too much into getting wet, okay?" the shapelier skunk continued, "No one can be blamed for their body's automatic responses, that's not being fair to yourself. Your body didn't care that Aidan was your brother, only that he was male, and that he was turned on. It's just instinct, even if it is embarrassing." The younger doe met her sister's eyes again, and this time she just looked uncertain.

"...You mean that?" Tiffany asked, barely audibly.

"Of course I do," Maddie said confidently, "I know you, sis, you're no weirdo. Let's just try to push all that aside. You had a physiological reaction, just like Aidan did. I'm sure you could ask any guy you know and they'd have an embarrassing story about something that got them going in a bad situation. Why should either of us be immune? So instead of cursing your body for feeling something, why don't we try something else?" Tiffany smiled self-consciously, but also gratefully.

"Thank you," was all she said, but to her older sister, proud she could help, those words spoke volumes, and they had nothing to do with Maddie's plan.

A moment of warm silence passed between the two mephits, and then Maddie leaned back and regarded her sibling.

"So it's just awkwardness between you and Aidan?" she asked, "You're not fighting or anything?" Tiffany shook her head.

"To be fighting, we'd need to be able to speak more than a sentence at a time to each other," she sighed. Maddie nodded and swiftly moved past that.

"Well, as long as things are gonna be alright between you two, I can relax, eh?" she said, "I get that this is, ah, an uncomfortable topic for you, so let's move onto something more fun!" Tiffany regarded her curiously, but said nothing.

"Since you were spending movie night with your brother, I suspect that means you don't have someone special to do it with instead that I haven't heard about," Maddie observed, "But is there someone out there making my sister's heart flutter? Or do we just have to imagine one up?"

Tiffany regarded her in surprise, then shrugged.

"Sorry, Maddie," she said, "I appreciate that you're trying to take my mind off, um, the Couch Incident, but I haven't really been into anyone since I broke up with Danny." Maddie swallowed an unnecessarily snarky comment about how wrong for Tiffany that bull had been. They'd already split up, so it was water under the bridge, and also - Maddie pointedly reminded herself - most people didn't have her innate talent for assessing how well a given couple would work. Nodding at that sympathetically, Maddie leaned back against her own tail and shrugged.

"Okay, maybe you don't have a name, but what would he be like?" she persisted, "You know, how would you describe the kind of guy you wouldn't mind snuggling with? Or girl! I'm not judgin'. I can talk about my ideal cuddle buddy first, if it would make you more comfortable."

Tiffany giggled nervously as a little blush returned to her cheeks.

"Wait, d-did someone tell you I'm into girls?" she asked, surprised, "Oh, no, it would definitely be a boy. No way I'd ever, um..." She trailed off as she glanced over and met Maddie's eyes, looking distinctly more nervous than she had a second ago. "N-not that I have anything, um... I mean, my f-friend Veronica is a..." Trying not to chuckle, Maddie held both her hands up and interrupted her sister for mercy's sake.

"Let me stop you there, Tiff, before we go through the whole 'some of my best friends are gay' routine," she teased, "and get back to the actual question." Falling silent, the younger female nodded gratefully, which just so happened to flick her hair back out in front of her face.

"I find it's important to understand what you're looking for in an S.O.," Maddie said, hedging her bets and going with 'significant other', "I had a really lousy string of dates right after I first realized I was bi, it was like suddenly everyone I went out with, guy or girl, turned out to be all wrong for me." She shrugged. "It took me a while to realize that the problem was that what I was looking for in a boyfriend was actually pretty different from what I was looking for in a girlfriend. I guess I had all the attributes from both sides just sort of... thrown in a big pile, and went out with people who matched more than a couple things in the pile, even if they were from different sides." She turned to the side and lowered her voice.

"It would certainly explain that Amber girl, crazy bitch..."

Pushing that unpleasant evening out of her mind, Maddie turned back to Tiffany.

"So... now that you're so much wiser and more knowledgeable," Tiffany said, with an uncharacteristic amount of playful sarcasm in her voice, "What do you want in a guy?" Amused, Maddie clicked her tongue as if in judgement.

"You're lucky you're my sister, and not a date, because I don't like sass in a woman," the older skunk said, matter-of-factly, and then, as Tiffany's eyes grew as wide as saucers and her cheeks darkened, Maddie pretended not to notice her sibling's reaction and rubbed her chin thoughtfully.

"Actually, that's a total lie, I've never met anyone who loves sarcasm as much as Jessie, and I adore her," she chuckled. Tiffany had taken great efforts to appear calm and collected again by the time Maddie looked back over to her.

"But we're not here to talk about what it is about girls that makes me swing both ways," the shapelier doe said, cheerily, "To answer your question..."

Maddie paused a moment, gathering her words.

"Well, there's the obvious physical stuff, like I prefer guys to be taller than me and maybe have some muscle definition, I love being held by muscular arms," she began, "But trust me, for the right person, the physical stuff should be optional. A guy being shorter than me will not be a deal-breaker. What's more important is, ah, is how he makes me feel." Reaching up and brushing her own bangs out of her eyes, Maddie smiled softly.

"I want a guy who really appreciates me, who smiles when he sees me because he's genuinely happy to see me. I want a guy who's warm and supportive and outgoing, you know, the kind of guy who always knows what to say." Maddie found herself smiling even imagining this hypothetical perfect man, who for no reason she was aware of took the form of a wolf with black fur in her mind.

"I'd want him to be... not just kind, but actually working to make the world a better place," she continued, "You know, finding ways to help people. Is that childish? Sometimes I feel like I'm looking for a Disney prince..." A curious smirk had come over Tiffany's face without explanation, but it didn't reach her words as she responded.

"No, no, I don't think that's childish at all," she assured her big sister, "I think it's sweet."

Maddie smiled at that, then gestured to the slender doe.

"So, what do you look for in a guy?" she asked, in as inclusive and friendly a tone as she could manage. To no one's surprise, Tiffany looked away bashfully, scratching nervously at the arm of the couch with one finger-claw.

"D-do you really wanna know, or is this just smalltalk?" she asked.

"Call it a bonding moment," Maddie replied, "Come onnnnn, Tiff, the only other girl around is Mom, and I can't exactly talk about guys with her!"

"Okay, okay," Tiffany said, holding up both hands in a gesture of surrender. "Um, I guess... I guess I don't want a guy who's loud and obnoxious, I went to school with way too many of those... so I would want a guy who is capable of just, you know, shutting up and listening when he needs to, someone I can talk to about my problems, about how I'm feeling, and know that he's really getting it and not just hearing it, eh?" She looked down as she folded her hands and rested them in her lap.

"I... I want a guy who isn't afraid of his feelings or mine, who won't bottle everything up or resist being supportive just because it doesn't look 'manly', you know?"

Tiffany lifted her head and uncertainly met her sister's gaze.

"I-is that a good answer?" she murmured, "I tried to be honest and stuff..." Maddie, meanwhile, was trying very hard to contain her delight. She really had been trying to gauge where Tiffany's head was at regarding boys, but about halfway through her sister's response, Maddie had thought of a trap she was practically vibrating with anticipation to spring.

"Oh, that's a perfect answer, Tiff," she said, struggling to keep the sass out of her voice, "Really gives me an idea of what you're looking for..." As Tiffany grinned, Maddie took a deep breath, savoured the moment, and then, with her voice as sincere and innocent as she could possibly make it, she dropped her bombshell.

"You know, sis... maybe it's too soon," she said, "but... your ideal boyfriend kinda sounds like Aidan."

To Maddie's well-disguised delight, Tiffany turned even redder than she'd been earlier while discussing Aidan's penis. The younger doe glared angrily at her sister while screwing up her mouth as if she'd bitten a lemon clean in half - or as if the very idea of what Maddie had said made Tiffany need to wince just as much as it made her annoyed with her sister. The curvier skunk expected her sibling to get super pissed at her, but instead, Tiffany just leaned back, crossed her arms over her chest, and gave her the dirtiest Look Maddie had ever received.

"...Very funny, big sister, that was great," Tiffany murmured, her quiet voice having lost all of its usual softness, "But, you know, now that I think about it, your ideal boyfriend kinda sound like Jake."

Maddie reeled back as if she'd been slapped across the face, and she felt just as stunned, too. While she sat there, dumbfounded, Tiffany gracefully stood up, raised her nose imperiously, and walked past her sister with a huff.

"Too bad you're dating that raccoon girl," Tiffany murmured icily, "We could double date."

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry..." Maddie mumbled, still not quite recovered from how impressively that bombshell of hers had, well, backfired. Her first thought had been 'Okay, but she didn't need to be rude about it', but as she sat there thinking about it, Maddie had realized, to no small amount of chagrin, that her big brother did line up surprisingly well with the attributes she liked in males.

'Well, he does have really nice arms...' she thought, sarcastically, then made a face and shook her head. She couldn't even joke about it, as just thinking about Jake that way made her feel... weird. Pushing Tiffany's excellent counter-tease out of her mind (with no small amount of relief), Maddie focused instead on the useful intel she'd gathered in that conversation.

She really had chosen well by confronting Tiffany instead of Aidan, Maddie reflected. Her younger brother knew he'd gotten hard against Tiffany's rump (even if Tiffany preferred to believe it was because of the movie), but he would have had no idea that the youngest Matheson got wet because of it. By talking to Tiffany, Maddie had discovered evidence, however circumstantial, that both of them were attracted to each other. Her triumphant smile fell, however, as she realized that in her excitement, she'd actually managed to forget that she'd originally been hoping to discover she was wrong. And ever since she learned of the 'Couch Incident', ever since she'd seen in Tiffany that she was genuinely attracted to Aidan (even if she insisted otherwise), Maddie had felt the same feeling of excitement, of anticipation, that she'd felt with all of her other matchmaking projects.

"Oh my God..." she whispered, to no one, "I... a part of me actually wants to get them together!"

Maddie struggled to deny it, even if only to herself, but her feelings were unmistakable. Even as she sat here, her thoughts were turning towards ways of gently coaxing her brother and sister into each other's arms.

"Dammit, this was supposed to make things less confusing, not more!" she muttered to herself, pouting as she crossed her arms over her chest. Feeling deeply, deeply conflicted, Maddie decided to push back against her matchmaking instincts by focusing on one specific piece of information she still did not have: confirmation of Aidan's feelings. Oh, sure, it was almost guaranteed, but it was technically possible that the bashful male really had gotten hard because of the movie's sex scene, and his sister's pert bum was merely in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maddie blinked.

'Did I really just describe Tiffany's butt as 'pert'?' she wondered, and it was such an odd idea that it nearly derailed her train of thought. But she set aside word choices and focused on Aidan. If he wasn't really into Tiffany, then it would be wrong and manipulative for Maddie to try to get them to hook up, and not merely taboo and manipulative. This certainty held back her instincts to start meddling, but she knew it was only a temporary solution, and she wasn't sure what would happen if she found out her brother wanted her sister back...

Not wanting to linger on the idea that she might actually end up trying to help Aidan and Tiffany fall in love, which felt more and more real with the passing of each unsettling second, Maddie got up and started walking before she was sure where she wanted to go. There was a lot she didn't want to think about today, she briefly reflected, but the introspective skunk tried to focus on working out where Aidan might be. He hadn't been in the living room, where Maddie had been having her little heart-to-heart with Tiffany, of course, and the kitchen had been visibly empty the entire time they'd been chatting. So Maddie headed out to the front of the house, on the hunt. Whether or not this... situation between them was real, right now, Tiffany and Aidan were no doubt working overtime trying to convince themselves it was not. And the best way to do that, Maddie reasoned, was to avoid those pesky, confusing feelings that were no doubt springing up around each other. So it made sense that the answer to the question 'where can I find Aidan Matheson?' was... Maddie grinned.

"Somewhere Tiffany Matheson isn't," she whispered to herself, and she headed towards her brother's bedroom.

Maddie borrowed a move from her mother (feeling quietly uncomfortable as she did so) by knocking on Aidan's door, then immediately opening it and leaning inside. It would have made her task a whole lot easier, frankly, but Aidan was not furiously masturbating to one of Tiffany's beach photos, though he was almost as embarrassed as if he had been. The slender male yelped, nearly falling backwards out of his chair as his sister barged into his space.

"Maddie!" he cried, very obviously annoyed. His tail twitched where it was pinned against the chair behind him, as if it were instinctively trying to raise itself into 'firing' position as a warning.

"Heya, Aidan!" she replied, pretending not to notice her brother's glower, "I think we need to have a talk." She stepped into his room and decided not to lock the door behind her. She'd hate for someone to rudely interrupt them the way she'd just interrupted Aidan, but she didn't want to send her brother the wrong message...

As she crossed the room, Aidan growled quietly, seemingly more from frustration than anything else.

"You can't just... agghh, what do you want?" he asked, surrendering to the unstoppable force of his big sister's enthusiasm. Maddie was about to get on with it, but got distracted as she realized that Aidan's screen was showing a video editing program, and the preview window currently showed... a rather large pair of tits, barely contained by an extremely tight bikini top. Where Maddie had a heartfelt passion for, well, passions of the heart, Aidan had clearly heard the siren call of video editing. The younger skunk was always working on this video or that video, and he was studying the subject in classes at the local college, so Maddie was confident he was going to find himself a career sooner or later. This was, admittedly, the first time one of his works had featured such a blatant breast shot, though...

"Is that your new project?" she blurted out, raising her eyebrows. Turning to the screen, Aidan yelped a second time, hastily moving the cursor back to the beginning of the video timeline, which was a wide shot of an empty beach.

"It's - it's not what it looks like! That was just unfortunate timing!" he insisted.

"Oh yeah?" Maddie asked, and she leaned forward and tapped the play shortcut.

"No!" Aidan cried, his eyes widening, but it was too late, the video was beginning. Through a series of quick, abrupt camera changes, the empty, serene beach was quickly filled up with increasing numbers of voluptuous, minimally-clad morphic badger women, dancing and twerking energetically and with what Maddie could only assume was a high level of skill. This was set to absolute silence, which was odd, but it was a work in progress, after all. Crossing her arms, Maddie slowly turned to her younger brother with an expression on her face that expertly combined 'disappointed older sibling' and 'modern woman exasperated with the follies of men' into one deeply unimpressed Look. Turning so red it was a wonder his cheek fur wasn't singeing, Aidan whimpered and gripped his hair in both hands.

"Oh my God, it's not what you think, it's not what you think!" the younger skunk pleaded.

"Really?" Maddie asked, "Because I think you've got a video full of T&A that you were trying to keep on the down-low. Come on, Aidan! What are you even doing, filming a twerk team? What would Mom think?" A sudden moment of inspiration. "What would Tiffany think?" She made the emphasis as subtle as possible, and she made careful note of the flinch that flickered across her brother's face at the sound of his sister's name.

Aidan groaned with frustration.

"Maddie! Just - just listen!" he said, then turned to the program, scrolled it back to the beginning, and dragged a file in from another window.

"I was still working on the timing, that's why I hadn't imported the music yet!" Aidan said, and before Maddie could ask him what he meant by that, the embarrassed buck pressed play again, and this time, the dancing badgers were accompanied by a song which Maddie hadn't thought about in at least ten years.

"You set a twerking video to 'Badger Badger Badger'?" she laughed, despite herself. She'd been enjoying putting him on the spot for this, but the truth was that she was mostly just teasing.

"It's just a shitpost," he muttered, rubbing at the back of his neck, "I didn't film that twerking video, they get pros for that shit! I'm just chopping it up and setting it to a goofy meme song from the dawn of time." The elder skunk's smile fell, one eye twitching slightly.

"2003 was not the dawn of time..." Maddie muttered, her irritation briefly becoming more genuine.

"Look, Maddie, did you just come here to bust my balls over this video, or what?"

Resisting the urge to go 'oh, right' out loud, Maddie regarded her brother with a more sympathetic expression.

"So, I've been watching you the past couple days," she said, "and I can't help but notice that something feels a little off. Something that makes my Maddie-sense start to tingle." Aidan sat up a little straighter in his chair, looking a little tenser from head to toe. It was an expression she'd seen a few times before, unmistakable; the face of 'does she know?'. She let him sweat for a few seconds before she continued.

"Look how tense you are, you're a wreck, little brother," she said, gently, "but I get it. I really do."

"You... do?" he asked, cautiously.

"Sure. I may not know the details, but I'm betting you realized that you really like a close friend, and now you're afraid that it will make things weird between you."

Maddie didn't let it show on her face, but she wasn't at all surprised when Aidan's reaction was to relax slightly. He still looked conflicted, though, and he turned back to the computer before he answered.

"I... I... Oh, God, what's the use?" he sighed, "Y-yeah, alright, it's true, okay?" He turned to her, and this time, it wasn't just embarrassment in his eyes, it was genuine shame.

"You win, okay, Maddie?" he snapped, uncharacteristically, "You guessed correctly, you're always right about these things, and no one knows relationships better than you. Is that what you wanted to hear? Now why don't you just leave me alone..." Squatting down to get closer to his eye level, lowering her tail and letting it rest on the floor behind her, Maddie reached out and put a hand on her brother's shoulder.

"Hey, hey, I'm not here to show off my uncanny ability to sniff out romance," she said, facetiously, pleased when Aidan grinned despite himself, "You're my little brother and I'm here to help!"

Aidan regarded her cautiously.

"Help with what?" he asked, in the manner of a buck who isn't sure he wants the answer.

"I don't know, Aidan. What do you need help with?" she replied, winking at him, "When it comes to this kind of problem, Big Sister Maddie's gotcha covered!" He blinked at this, surprised, and she leaned in a little closer.

"It's Megan Hauser, isn't it?" she asked, lowering her voice conspiratorially.

"Wh-what? Meg?! No!" Aidan replied, "Why the hell would you think...?" He trailed off as Maddie turned to the side and rather pointedly looked at the monitor, where the twerking remained frozen. She could practically see the neurons firing in Aidan's brain as he made the connection to his good friend Meg, who happened to be a female badger.

"Oh come on! It's an all-badger team because I'm setting it to the song about badgers! God, Maddie, you're killing me," he moaned, covering his face, "Do you embarrass everyone you 'help' like this?"

"Just the ones that are related to me," she replied, matter-of-factly, "Well, I thought it was going to be Megan, but whoever it is, I'm sure she'd be lucky to have you." She smiled at him warmly, and he swallowed nervously.

Maddie stood up again to have mercy on her knees, and went and sat down on Aidan's bed. A thought that felt lewd started to make itself known, but after the day she'd been having, the doe just took that thought and immediately disposed of it before it could even come into focus.

"Look, Maddie, I... I guess I appreciate what you're trying to do here, but I don't want your kinda help," he admitted, "I don't want this to be a relationship at all!" He sighed and let his head hang down.

"I guess you can just go," he murmured in a voice so quiet, that for a moment he sounded a lot like the object of his affection. "I'm sorry, I know you love playing Cupid, but... not this time, sis, not this time."

"Aww, come on, Aidan, you make it sound like you've got a terminal disease or something, not feelings for a girl," Maddie said. The younger skunk snorted in bitter amusement.

"I'm sorry, I - I can't even tell you who she is..." he said, sounding pained, "Trust me, Maddie. It depends on the girl."

She didn't, technically, have a definitive answer one way or the other, but Maddie didn't want to press Aidan too hard, or he might get suspicious about her intentions. It might have helped if she were clear on what her own intentions were...

"Alright," she said, standing up, "But if you ever need to talk to somebody, I try not to judge." But just before her hand made contact with the doorknob, Aidan called out behind her.

"Wait!" he blurted out, rubbing at the back of his neck self-consciously as she turned back around.

"Um, I wanted to ask... have you ever, like, done the opposite of what you normally do?" he asked, tentatively, "You know, make people not right for each other, when they've been thinking about dating?" On any other day of her life, Maddie would have laughed in a carefree way and replied 'You mean used my powers for evil?', but today was not any other day. Pretending she couldn't feel a mild blush of her own, she shrugged.

"Considered it once," she replied, "Can't say I followed through..." She had to resist the urge to add the word 'yet' to that.

Aidan didn't even try to hide the disappointment on his face, or the fact that he practically deflated.

"Oh..." he replied, "Yeah, I - I guess that makes sense, always calling yourself a matchmaker and all..." Maddie walked forward again, returning to her brother's side as he nervously avoided her gaze.

"...But you were hoping your big sister could just do her thing and, what? Make your feelings for this friend disappear?" She reached out and gently touched the younger mephit's shoulder again, gently giving it a squeeze.

"It's a talent, Aidan, not a magic wand." She said it gently, not scoldingly. "Besides, I'm not sure how much I can help if... Well, normally before I get started, I at least know who both people involved are." She raised her hands before she even finished speaking to interrupt her brother's inevitable protest, and firmly added "Not that I'm going to press you for details."

Swallowing, the troubled male gave up the computer pretense, rotating his chair to face his sister before slouching down dejectedly.

"I didn't want it to happen, it just kinda... did," he murmured, after a moment, "I wasn't paying attention, and we were having a really nice time, and suddenly... suddenly all I can think about is how good her hair smells." Thinking about Aidan and Tiffany spooning on the couch, Maddie shivered with excitement. That was close to confirmation...

"Things are so good between us right now, and I just know if this keeps up I'm gonna fuck everything up forever!" Aidan groaned, "God, I just want it to go away! I just want things to feel normal between us again!"

Maddie had wondered if keeping a secret as big and as dangerous as being attracted to his little sister bottled up inside might be getting stressful for Aidan, but she hadn't dared hope that he might actually reach out to her. She genuinely felt for him; if it had been a month ago, and he'd been trying to deal with it alone this entire time, no wonder he needed to talk to someone about it.

"Everything's gonna be ruined," Aidan repeated, "And it's gonna be all my fault, me and these weird, stupid feelings..."

"Hey, now, don't say that," she gently scolded, "C'mere, little brother." She patted the bed next to her, and the anxious buck reluctantly stood and moved to join her, though that tension had returned to his muscles. Not wanting to send the wrong message, suspecting he was already worried about being attracted to a sibling, Maddie buried the sisterly instinct to tease and just put a hand supportively on his shoulder.

"Aidan, you're so caught up in how you might ruin this relationship you already have, but I think some of that might be up to her," she said, gently but pointedly, "Shouldn't she - whoever she is - have some say in whether or not this is something the two of you might, you know, try out?"

Aidan whimpered.

"You don't understand, sis," he groaned, "I - I shouldn't even be interested in her, it's wrong! But ever since we got so close, I... I can't stop thinking about her." Normally, Maddie would pounce like a feral lioness on the 'it's wrong' part, but since she already knew he was talking about incest, she let it slide so that he wouldn't get nervous and clam up again.

"I've been dreaming about her, Maddie, dreaming about her!" he complained, "And when I wake up, I'm always - well, uh, it's bad." The elder skunk did not blame him for not wanting to talk to his sister about his morning wood.

"And when I'm awake, I keep catching myself looking at her, ch-checking her out, and I feel so fucking skeevy... " Maddie leaned forward, closer to her brother, as if she were trying to scrutinize his downcast face.

"You almost sound like you're worried you're going to hurt someone," she said, softly.

"I'm kind of afraid I might!" he blurted out, "God, I don't know... I mean, I haven't done anything more than, uh, look, but even that makes me feel like a bad person. And, well... these stupid feelings? They're getting stronger. The more time I spend with her, the more I feel it... and a part of me worries that if I'm a bad person, then if it keeps getting stronger, m-maybe there's a point coming where... where I could do more than look, and that upsets me."

Maddie gave Aidan's shoulder a squeeze.

"Hey, listen up," she said, reaching over with her free hand and gently turning him to face her, "You are a sweet guy, Aidan Matheson, twerking badger shitposts aside. I've known you since you were in diapers, and the very idea of you touching a girl who didn't want to be touched is absurd!"

"You aren't old enough to remember me in diapers..." he grumbled, trying to sidestep the point.

"Come on, Aidan, can you really see yourself forcing yourself on a girl just because - what, you were overcome by the power of lust?" she insisted, but he just grimaced and raised one hand to the side of his head.

"I - I don't know anymore!" Aidan said, "I'm experiencing a lot of shit lately that I didn't see coming! I just don't know!"

The younger skunk was clearly getting very agitated, and Maddie felt a sharp desire to help him that had nothing to do with her plan. Leaning over, she pulled him in close for a hug, rubbing his back as she cooed to him soothingly.

"Hey, hey, hey, now, it's okay, little brother, it's okay," she whispered, "You're gonna be okay, you're gonna be just fine." He hugged her back, tightly, and she felt him shivering against her with the force of the emotions he was wrestling with. Even his tail was droopy. Once she felt him relax a little in her arms, Maddie continued.

"Now, Aidan, regardless of our disagreement on how long I've known you, I can say with certainty that you are not a monster," she said, firmly, "and liking a girl doesn't make you one." She paused a moment to rub his back a little more before adding "You know, the surest way I can prove that is because a monster wouldn't worry about the things you're talking about. They'd just think it was alright, and then go out and do it."

"I - I guess that's true," Aidan mumbled, "I n-never thought about that..." He sniffled loudly, and Maddie smiled at him.

"That's right. And furthermore, I don't know what sort of reason you have to think it's wrong to be feeling things for this friend of yours," she added, feeling a sudden burst of inspiration, "but I happen to think that what two grown adults do behind closed doors is nobody else's concern. Which means that if you should ever find that this girl could possibly return these feelings of yours, I'm not sure I could find fault with you seeing where things went from there."

Maddie blinked, fighting to keep her expression calm. She'd practically given Aidan the greenlight to pursue Tiffany! Why in the hell had she said that?! But now was not the time to fall apart, so the flustered female pushed her inner turmoil to the back of her mind and focused on her brother, who seemed kind of conflicted himself.

A whole host of emotions played across Aidan's face, and then he slowly nodded, his expression settling on something unreadable.

"...Okay," he finally said, "I'll, uh, k-keep that in mind..." Moving a hand to his cheek, Maddie patted him gently.

"Good," she replied, simply, "I'm glad to hear it. Because I know you would never lay a hand on someone if they weren't interested. And for what it's worth, I think anyone would be lucky to have you as a boyfriend." They released each other and leaned back, and Maddie stood again.

"I'm gonna get out of your fur, sorry for getting you all worked up like that," she said, gently.

"Uh, it's - it's okay, sis," Aidan replied, sounding tired, "I think I needed that. Thanks." "You're welcome," she smiled over her shoulder as she opened the door - and found herself unable to resist. She glanced back at the computer rather obviously, and raised her eyebrows.

"Hey, are you sure it isn't Meg?" she asked, innocently.

"Maddie!" Aidan protested. She held up her hands in surrender and stepped into the hall, keeping her head inside and giving her brother a playful smile.

"Hey..." she said, "Maybe it's not badgers, but... you like 'em black and white, don't you, Aidan? I always suspected that about you..." His eyes widened and shock washed over his face as Maddie hurried away before he could recover enough to say something, the sound of her delighted giggling following her down the hall.

Having left her brother with a few very interesting thoughts to ponder, Maddie retreated to her own room, to reflect on all she'd learned and ponder the next step in her plan. It was invigorating at first, going through her chicken-scratch notes and incorporating the new information. Originally, Maddie had been hoping to find an excuse to stop, that her biggest challenge of the week was going to be working out how to - as Aidan had put it - do the opposite of what she normally did, and free her siblings from this awkwardness between them.

"But that's not what I found," she murmured to herself, "Noooo, it could never be that simple..." Instead, she'd found credible evidence that Tiffany and Aidan had some serious chemistry brewing between them, the two skunks confused and dismayed by their attraction to each other, seemingly without either of them having the slightest idea that the feeling was mutual. Now, as the happiness she'd earned from that last conversation slowly evaporated, the shapely skunk realized she felt more conflicted than ever.

And upon realizing that her siblings had a Thing going, Maddie had felt the surge of excitement, the eagerness, the sense of drive that came with all of her other private projects. The moment she'd been fearing was upon her, the band-aid solution torn away, as all of a sudden, absolutely nothing was holding back her matchmaking instincts, and now only Maddie's willpower was keeping them from running wild with ideas on how to trick Tiffany and Aidan into each other's arms.

"If they do love each other, isn't that the most important thing? In my experience, nothing good comes from letting other people decide who you can and can't love." Maddie couldn't help but whimper to herself as she sat down on her bed and hugged her tail tight to her chest.

"Somehow I feel like Mom might not agree with this particular case..." she mused with a sigh.

Reaching up and rubbing the base of her muzzle, about where the bridge of a human's nose would be, Maddie took a deep breath and held it for a few seconds before letting it out. This was silly. Surely she didn't have to set two people up, even if they did have chemistry, right? If she noticed a spark between two people who were dating other people, she wouldn't very well try to hook them up. Even if Aidan and Tiffany did find each other attractive, that didn't mean this was a good idea. Maddie frowned as she pondered her situation. Somehow, the urge to start meddling didn't seem terribly moved by her dispassionate analysis of the situation. She still felt so confused, so overwhelmed. She'd never been less sure what the right thing to do was, never faced such intimidating stakes as these, and it was weighing heavily on the troubled female. But before she had time to really dwell on this, or the insecurities it brought up, Maddie was distracted by a ding from her laptop. Setting her notepad down for a moment, the curvy skunk gratefully turned to her computer and opened it up, checking the notification from her messenger program of choice.

VagueDoctor: So what are their names?

Maddie blinked, and a little red appeared on her cheeks. They hadn't spoken - well, exchanged words, anyway - since the previous day. How in the hell had he...? She decided to play dumb.

Matchmaker19: What are whose names?

VagueDoctor: Oh please, little sister. You went offline in the middle of a story, and you spent a whole day with your social media running silent. That tells me you've gotten yourself a new mission. So come on, out with it, who are the lucky lovebirds?

The embarrassed doe blushed a little harder and pouted adorably. Ever since they were children, Jake had been able to read her like a book. She wasn't delighted to learn his skills weren't affected by distance.

Matchmaker19: Alright, you got me, I'm scoping out a possible couple. But I can't tell you who it is, for reals

Matchmaker19: there are

Matchmaker19: uh

Matchmaker19: Extenuating circumstances here

She felt pleased about that choice of words, it felt somehow professional.

VagueDoctor: oh yeah? What kind of circumstances?

Matchmaker19: Look, they're crazy for each other, but they're way in denial about it, worse than Logan and Preston were about being gay. Plus, there's a

Maddie scowled as she accidentally pressed Enter while trying to put apostrophes around the next word, sending the line prematurely. In keeping with IM tradition, she immediately continued as though nothing had happened.

Matchmaker19: a 'situation' that makes them dating kind of... dangerous.

VagueDoctor: Is this like a human/morphic kind of thing, a predator/prey kind of thing, or a Jew/Muslim kind of thing?

Matchmaker19: Yes.

VagueDoctor: Goddammit.

Matchmaker19: :3c

Matchmaker19: But seriously, I'm... not sure if this one is gonna work out, so I'm keeping it on the DL.

VagueDoctor: Hmmm

Matchmaker19: What?

VagueDoctor: I was just thinking

VagueDoctor: That doesn't sound much like my little sister Maddie

VagueDoctor: Normally as soon as you get people in your sights, you start going off about what a great couple they're going to make, and you're all bubbly and excited and hyperverbal

VagueDoctor: or whatever the text equivalent of that is lol

VagueDoctor: But this time you seem all troubled, won't say their names even to me, and since when are you ever not sure it's gonna work out?

Maddie closed her eyes for a moment and whimpered. For one long, agonizing minute, she seriously considered telling Jake everything. That it was their brother and sister. That they had real chemistry together. Even about the spooning incident between them. But in the end... she was afraid. Not that he would warn off their siblings, though that seemed like a real possibility. No, Maddie was far more focused on how Jake might reject her, think she was disgusting for even considering this. The very idea of not being able to turn to her big brother when she needed advice made her feel a little hollow inside. After thinking about it for a figurative eternity, Maddie reluctantly leaned forward and typed out her response.

Matchmaker19: They're people I know, but that's part of the problem. Usually when I get people together, it's friends I talk to occasionally or friends of friends I meet at parties and stuff. I'm good at it, but it's always been sort of... low stakes for me. This time, if I get it wrong and things blow up, I'm going to be hearing about the aftermath for a long, long time.

VagueDoctor: And what if you get it right?

There had been almost no delay between her message being sent and his reply coming in. Jake was on the ball today. But Maddie just blinked. It wasn't a question she'd asked herself.

Matchmaker19: Well, uh

She hesitated, then remembered the way that Aidan and Tiffany looked at each other. The way both of them had been so concerned with how the other would think of them after the spooning incident.

Matchmaker19: it feels weird to say this, but I really think they could make each other happy

VagueDoctor: And from the sounds of it, they probably aren't just going to randomly stumble into a relationship with each other?

Matchmaker19: Oh, no way

Matchmaker19: But I think, with the right push...

VagueDoctor: Then I think you should absolutely trust yourself and go for it, Maddie.

Matchmaker19: you do? o.o

VagueDoctor: Hell yeah I do! If your instincts are telling you they're right for each other, you should listen. You have a gift at getting people to find the ones they love, and I can't think of a better way to improve the world

VagueDoctor: *aside from eating the rich, of course

Maddie laughed, feeling a pleasant warmth inside. This was classic Jake, through and through. The only thing missing was a big hug, as he whispered to her that it was going to be okay.

Matchmaker19: You always know just what to say, Jake. n_n

Matchmaker19: Thank you.

Matchmaker19: I'm lucky to have a big brother who believes in me so much

VagueDoctor: Awww, thanks, little sister! <3

After that, the two of them fell back on more normal conversation, and Maddie felt significantly better by the time Jake dragged himself away to study. From there, her determination renewed, the curvy mephit returned to her notebook to work out the next stage of her plan. As she worked, she listened to the Carol of the Bells - or as Maddie liked to think of it, 'the Home Alone planning music'. She may not have been 100% convinced by that conversation with Jake, but for the first time, Maddie felt like the world wouldn't end if she listened to her instincts, like maybe that was the right thing to do. The dedicated skunk worked straight through lunch, trying to draw up every single thing she knew about her siblings in order to come up with a plan to manipulate - guide them to the romance that was lurking just below the surface.

"It's good to have a plan ready, even if I decide not to go for it," she muttered to herself, as if she were trying to convince herself, "Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it..." Thankfully, Aidan and Tiffany had provided more information than they'd realized. Just being in each other's presence had both skunks blushing, and Maddie had a hunch that the more they were unable to avoid each other, the harder it would be to ignore their feelings. Therefore, above all else, the goal was to get Aidan and Tiffany to spend more time together. And she had some excellent ideas towards that end...

Eventually, Maddie took a break to get some dinner, bringing a tupperware container filled with leftover spaghetti back to her room, as she still needed to work some things around in her mind. There was a significant piece missing from one of the most crucial steps, after all, and she wasn't quite sure how to fill it. Laying down at the head of her bed, Maddie turned her TV on so she could focus on something else for a while and avoid going crazy. After only about ten seconds, Maddie decided to prioritize comfort over style, unbuttoning her blouse and slipping her jeans off, baring her long, shapely legs and making herself comfortable in just a little more than her underwear. Making eye contact with a stuffed bear that smiled vacantly in her direction, the doe frowned, sniffing dismissively.

"What? It's my room, I'll get comfortable if I want," she said, defensively, "It's easier to clean spaghetti sauce out of fur than jeans anyway!" She paused a moment and then giggled to herself. She'd felt judged by the gaze of a plushie. Maybe she'd been working too hard...

"Why are you looking at me like that, anyway?" she asked, audibly more relaxed, "I've had you since I was six, and you've never worn pants!" The bear said nothing in the face of her excellent comeback, and Maddie giggled again.

A little while later, Maddie had polished off the spaghetti (while getting minimal sauce in her fur) and was taking a moment to relax, watching a nice, shallow reality show she could follow even as her mind kept working over the puzzle of Aidan and Tiffany, looking at the situation from every angle she could think of, and trying not to think of it as 'tricking her siblings into an illegal relationship'. This wording was, itself, an admitted improvement over the first version, which was to worry that she would be 'condemning' Aidan and Tiffany to a life of incest. No, she preferred to think of it as helping them be with their soulmates, who nature had cruelly hidden within their own family. She couldn't help but smile self-consciously as she thought the words, though, as it seemed a bit silly, and didn't entirely help with the anxiety over this match that just wouldn't die. Picking up her notebook, which she'd of course carried with her to the bed, Maddie frowned at the large question mark on the last page she'd been working on. She hated when she ran into a gap like this, she could never focus on anything else until she'd worked it out. But this one was especially tricky, as the element missing was an excuse, something to keep Maddie's siblings from suspecting anything odd was afoot. If Aidan and Tiffany realized what she was up to before they'd admitted their feelings to themselves, it wouldn't be pretty...

At the exact moment that thought crossed her mind, Maddie's phone began to ring from her pants on the floor. The aged denim buzzed with vibration as the chorus from 'Brown Eyed Girl' played cheerily.

"Jessie!" the half-dressed doe cried, happily, and she gratefully grabbed hold of that excuse to put that worst-case scenario further out of her mind than any thought she'd ever avoided before. Unfortunately, though the actual mental images of her siblings realizing what she was up to were gone, the dread they had summoned up was lingering. Maddie took a deep breath to steady herself.

"I've never tipped my hand yet, and I don't plan to start now..." she muttered, as she rolled onto her stomach and stretched down to the floor, her upper body sliding off the bed since her pants were inconveniently far away. Her hips swayed from side to side, trying to balance herself, as she giggled at the idea of what a pleasant view someone sitting on the bed with her would have. Finally snagging the jeans on a finger, Maddie pulled the garment closer, retrieved the phone from her pocket, and sighed with relief as she flopped back into place, pushing the green button beneath the smiling and winking image of her girlfriend.

Reaching out and idly picking up her fur brush with her free hand, Maddie grinned even wider and greeted her lover.

"Baby!" she said, audibly delighted.

"Heya, stripes!" came the reply, "Oh, it's good to hear your voice."

"You too," Maddie agreed, "Missed you, Jess." She could just picture the raccoon, sprawled across a bed or couch like she owned the place, one foot up on the cushions with her, swaying her colourful tail. The slightly punk raccoon had taken to dyeing her tail in the distinctive colours of the bisexual pride flag, pink, purple, and blue, and Maddie thought it made her girlfriend's tail quite beautiful.

"Mmmm," Jessie Cook churred softly into the phone, agreeing without words.

"You get back home okay? How's the family?" Maddie asked, allowing the conundrum about Aidan and Tiffany to slowly drift out of her mind. She could practically feel the tension leaving with it.

"Family's great, they're doing fine," Jessie replied, "Even my Uncle is improving, they've got him on these new meds and he's soooo much better." Maddie began brushing herself as she spoke to her girlfriend, since she was mostly exposed anyway, and she found both activities to be very calming, particularly when combined.

"Good!" she said, running the brush down her abdomen, "Everyone's great here, too. It's just too bad Jake's break barely crosses mine, I haven't seen him since Christmas."

"You say that like you two haven't been messaging every night," Jessie teased. After what Tiffany had said earlier today, just a hint of a blush touched Maddie's cheeks, but she still giggled good-naturedly.

"So what's up, babe?" she asked, carefully stepping around the subject of her big brother for the time being.

"Well, we're doing a family get-together, we're over at Aunt Cassie's, and it's great seeing everyone again, but, uh..." The raccoon lowered her voice. "It gets kinda boring after a while, eh? So I just thought I'd, you know, check out how my favourite skunk was doing." Maddie smirked, pausing in her brushing for a moment.

"My mom is doing great, I'll let her know you asked," she teased. Jessie just laughed, the sound lighthearted and delightful to Maddie, who was emboldened enough to continue, adding "You know, I should get you her number, so you can just call her directly next time."

"Oh, very funny," Jessie replied, "Look, I haven't even met your mom, but I'm pretty sure she's not the one who - who does that thing you do with your pinkie finger, so you definitely get the edge over her." She'd lowered her voice after the moment of hesitation, and Maddie could perfectly imagine the other woman peering around to make sure no one was within listening distance before referring to the pinkie trick.

The two of them chuckled together, and for just a moment, Jessie didn't feel so far away to Maddie. Feeling happier just talking to her girlfriend, Maddie began to brush her wide, bushy tail, smoothing out the distinctive stripes.

"So," Jessie said, "I hope things are less boring on your end. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love Great-Uncle Stu's stories about the war, but hanging out with the oldest members of your family is a bit, uh, dry." Her smile faltering, the shapely skunk let out a sigh before replying.

"Oh, things are less boring, alright," Maddie muttered, "In fact they're not boring enough..." Then, after a moment, she blinked.

"...I said that out loud, didn't I?" she asked, quietly.

"You did!" Jessie cheerily replied, "And lucky you, now your girlfriend is all ears and willing to pester you until you explain!" She sounded like she was doing that exaggerated smile of hers, Maddie decided, the one she usually puts on after delivering a double entendre or terrible pun that takes a moment to work out, while she's waiting for the groan.

"Jessie..." Maddie grumbled, sitting back again as she moved her brush to her legs.

"Aww, c'moooooon," Jessie begged, "Dish! I haven't heard a single bit of gossip since I got back home, I'm practically shrivelling up over here." Despite herself, and despite not wanting to admit that she'd caught her brother and sister checking each other out, Maddie smiled.

"Well, we can't have that," she replied, "I'm too young to have a shrivelled-up girlfriend."

Thinking fast, Maddie took a deep breath.

"Okay, it's like this... I came home for the break because I needed a break, you know? And not just from my classes, I had just hooked two guys up and I thought it would be nice to give my mighty relationship skills a rest, eh?"

"But no such luck?" Jessie guessed. Maddie caught herself nodding, even though it wasn't a video call.

"Yeah, I saw some people, you know, looking at each other in ways I'm not sure they're supposed to, and I'm trying to work out how I feel about that." Jessie's response was immediate, to the point, and panicked.

"I can explain!" she blurted out. Maddie blinked.

"What?" the doe asked.

"What?" the sow echoed. About five seconds of heavily awkward silence followed, and then Maddie narrowed her eyes just a little.

"...Go on," she said, "Now I'm all ears."

"Oh, shit," Jessie groaned, and Maddie could picture Jess sliding her fingers into her bangs and running her hand straight back through her hair repeatedly. It was something the tomboyish raccoon did when she was stressed.

"Okay, okay, I was, uh, I went out to dinner last night with Jeremy, alright?" she said, uncharacteristically flustered, sounding like she was blushing, For just a moment, Maddie's mind attempted to conjure up the image of the Cook twins, naked in each other's arms, but Maddie quickly took that image, covered it in metaphorical gasoline, and then allegorically set it on fire. She was having enough problems dealing with thoughts about her own siblings (who were actually into each other) without projecting her issues onto other people, and she wasn't going to stand for it!

"It was just a nice dinner with my brother, I swear nothing bad happened," Jessie said.

"Well, that does sound pretty harmless," Maddie acknowledged, grinning even as she paused for dramatic effect before going for the killing blow.

"...But if all you did was go to dinner with your brother, then why did you freak out about it just now?" The skunk smiled silently as Jessie responded with an incoherent, embarrassed noise. Maddie was only distantly interested in why Jessie was actually all blushy, as she trusted her girlfriend and didn't think she'd been messing around behind Maddie's back, especially not if she was just out with Jeremy.

'No, it's only my siblings who have been dreaming about each other,' she thought, briefly frowning as all the worries and uncertainties she was carrying around about this particular match threatened to push back into her mind and overwhelm her.

"Promise you won't get mad?" Jessie said, softly, pulling Maddie out of the mire of her own thoughts and back into the present.

"Alright..." Maddie said, slightly dubiously.

"I kinda panicked because, uh... because when me and Jeremy were having dinner together, we sort of... talked. About you." Maddie sat up straight, frowning slightly, as she perfectly envisioned the sheepish, nervous smile on the raccoon's face.

"So let me get this straight," Maddie said, after a moment, "We go home for the break, it's our first holiday away from each other since we started dating, and you immediately... have a nice dinner with my ex-boyfriend in order to exchange notes about me?"

She could almost hear Jessie blinking in surprise.

"...Wait, I -" she started, only to be cut off as Maddie continued, careful to sound more annoyed by this than she actually was.

"What, were you exchanging notes on how better to please me? Were you really going to your own brother for sex advice?" she asked, hiding her smile very well, "I mean, Jer was really good at giving oral, but that doesn't mean -"

"Can we PLEASE not rate how good my brother is at sex?" Jessie interrupted, rather crossly, "Because I'd rather talk about, oh, I don't know, how about anything else?" Maddie cringed hard, actually leaning her head away from the phone for a moment, as if it had suddenly started emitting hot steam.

"S-sorry, Jessie, that was too far," the skunk murmured, her tail sagging towards the bed a little. With embarrassment radiating out from her like an aura, Maddie shook her head and mouthed a profane word. She couldn't believe she'd been so casual about making a sex joke about Jeremy to his sister! Swallowing nervously, she wondered if this was because so many of her thoughts of late had been focused on incest.

She'd just had time to conjure the worrying thought that all those incestuous thoughts, and the unexpectedly positive nature of many of them, were rubbing off on her, before Jessie brought her back to the here and now.

"Thank you," the raccoon said, tersely. Still feeling the weight of a great deal of awkwardness in the air, Maddie felt a mighty need to change the subject as soon as possible.

"I'm sorry," she repeated, rubbing the top of her muzzle, "You didn't call me to talk about Jeremy, I'm sure... Uh, actually, what did you want to talk about?" Jessie sighed, but it sounded more tired than annoyed.

"Well, I'm... ah, hell, I mainly just wanted to hear your voice," she admitted, "Maybe just... distract myself from old family stories I've heard a few dozen times. I mean, I love those old-timers, but when they're all in one place it's kinda like it's one continuous story, and they just trade off who's talking. A call like this is about the only way I can get away right now."

Maddie smirked, exhaling sharply but silently through her nose. That definitely sounded like Jessie, alright.

"Awww, baby! That's so sweet!" she cooed, before adding "Well, not the part about the old people, the part about missing me." Jessie chuckled, and Maddie's smile widened, imagining the lopsided grin on the raccoon's pretty face. This, in turn, reminded the shapely skunk of the last time they'd been together, the two of them just cuddling on the couch in Jessie's dorm room, half-watching some forgettable romance as they held each other, nuzzled against each others' cheeks, and occasionally stopped to kiss, eagerly and deeply. Having finished brushing her legs, Maddie set the brush aside and lay back again, stretching out atop the bed. As she thought about what had happened after that cheesy movie, she felt a sudden impulse, and had to fight the urge to giggle as the opportunity to be playful with her girlfriend presented itself to her.

"So, you need a distraction?" she asked, facetiously, "I can think of something that would certainly take your mind off your family... How about we make this call a little more... intimate?"

Incredibly, this didn't seem to spark joy with Jessie.

"Uh, as great as that sounds, like I said, I can't really get away right now," the raccoon explained, "I'm kinda just standing on a balcony so I don't disturb anyone." Mentally updating her mental image of her girlfriend, Maddie moved her free hand to her chin, tapping it with just one finger.

"Hmmm... well, that may be true, but you know, now that the idea's in my head, I can't really think of any reason I can't do my part alone while you stay on the line. You did say you wanted to hear my voice, after all!"

"Are - are you serious?" Jessie asked, sounding genuinely uncertain, "You're just going to... while I'm standing here listening, with my family in the other room?" The pause, and then the intentional word-skip, were almost certainly in case someone was listening, and Maddie enjoyed that she could see her girlfriend peering around nervously in her mind's eye.

"Is that a no?" Maddie teased.

"...You wouldn't dare," Jessie replied, quietly.

"Really?" asked Maddie, with a faux-curious tone to her voice, "Because it seems to me that I'm rubbing myself through my panties right now, and mmmm, it feels nice..."

This was true, of course, Maddie had moved her free hand down between her legs, and she was gently, unhurriedly rubbing her fingertips up and down along her mound, tracing her slit through the thin material of her underwear.

"...Are you kidding me right now?" Jessie's voice was low, and her tone was incredulous. Maddie churred into the phone playfully as she continued to rub and tease at her labia, feeling her body starting to respond, her juices beginning to flow.

"Mmmm, I'm starting to get wet, Jess, I wish you were here..." she murmured, by way of response. The raccoon laughed, despite herself.

"Oh come on! You can't just get off with me here!" she protested.

"You're always free to hang up," Maddie teased in a sing-song voice, as her fingers moved slightly northward to circle her sensitive clitoris. She moaned shamelessly into the phone, and Jessie made an exasperated noise... but stayed on the line.

Giggling with delight, Maddie tucked the phone against her shoulder so she could use her now free hand to peel up her shirt. Leaning forward, she reached under herself and strained to reach the clasp on her bra. She must have made a sound of exertion, because Jessie sighed again.

"So you're really doin' this, huh?" she muttered.

"Oh yes," Maddie agreed cheerily, "Just - just trying to set my girls free... Yahtzee!" The skunk giggled again as the confining garment popped open, leaning back and pulling the bra away from her boobs as she sighed contentedly and began to squeeze and knead one soft teat.

"Ohh, that's so much better," she said, "Mmm, my nipples are so sensitive today..."

"Dammit, stripes, you're going to make me so hor- worked up if you do this," complained the raccoon disingenuously, "and I'm around my family today..."

"Sorry, what was that?" Maddie replied, not even trying to hide her amusement, "I was rubbing my clit instead of listening for a bit there."

"God, you really are shameless," Jessie chuckled, "Ohhhh, you are going to get it the next time I see you, skunk..."

"I don't doubt it," Maddie replied, "But why should I wait when I can have it right now?" She tittered to herself as her distant lover groaned in frustration. Teasing Jessie was turning out to be great foreplay!

As she squeezed a nipple and twisted it gently, Maddie shuddered pleasantly.

"Mmmm, Jessie..." she sighed, imagining that it was her girlfriend's hand on her tit. On second thought, she made it the one between her legs, rubbing and massaging her pussy, which was growing hotter and needier by the second. She churred again, pleased to discover how damp the fabric of her underwear had become, clinging to the moist flesh of her heated vulva.

"Fuck, I'm so turned on, m-my panties are getting soaked," she observed out loud, "Nnngh, I need these off... Shame you're not here, babe, I bet you'd like a souvenir..."

"That's not fair," Jessie whined, "You know how hot the scent of a horny girl gets me! Shit..." That last word was quieter, as if she hadn't said it directly into the phone. Maddie imagined that sexy sentence slipping out of the raccoon, and Jessie looking around to make sure no one had heard her say it. Maddie chuckled at this, and then giggled a little harder as Jessie's response basically confirmed what she'd imagined.

"God, this is SO not cool," the raccoon complained, weakly, "You're getting all Black-and-White Beauties with yourself and getting me all worked up, and I can't even talk about what you're doing!"

"I don't see a well-hung zebra around anywhere..." Maddie replied, facetiously.

"N-no, not that part!" Jessie insisted, "The part with the, the badger chick by herself in a bedroom, touching herself and being all slow and sexy about it!"

That had been a rather excellent scene that had gotten Maddie and Jessie so turned on that they'd fallen upon each other while the video was still playing, but at the moment, being reminded of sexy badger girls brought Maddie's mind back to the twerking video that Aidan had been editing earlier that day, which in turn brought back all the stressful incest thoughts that Maddie had been trying so hard not to think about. Inhaling sharply, Maddie yanked her hand away from her crotch as her little brother's smiling face flashed through her mind. Then she frowned, lifting her cute butt from the bed so she could reach back and pop the clip on the strap that ran over the base of her tail, so she could take her underwear off. Hooking her thumbs under the waistband of her panties, she began tugging them down her thighs. Once she settled back down to the bed, Maddie sighed, and tried to push the irritation out of her mind before it started harshing her vibe and killing her arousal.

"...Well, if you wanted me to play fair," she said, matter-of-factly, "you sh-shouldn't have gone to dinner with my ex-boyfriend!" Jessie laughed, and then growled in exaggerated frustration.

"What am I supposed to do, never see my twin brother again?" she asked, sarcastically.

"Well, if you're offering..."

Jessie made a sound that was a curious mixture of a frustrated groan and a delighted laugh, as if she couldn't help but be amused by her girlfriend's shenanigans.

"Hey, listen, s-sweetie, I'm not saying you can't see your brother," Maddie said, as she slipped a hand back between her legs and began massaging her wet pussy again, "I'm j-just saying that I don't want you using the opportunity to search for my weak points! Ohhh..." It was an audio call, and there was no visual element whatsoever, and yet, Maddie was somehow absolutely certain that Jessie initially responded to these words by holding her phone away from her head, looking directly at it, and blinking in surprise.

"What?" the raccoon finally asked, sounding medium-strength bewildered.

"Comparing notes can only lead to you finding out about my most vulnerable places, and my deepest secrets! I can't have you exchanging notes with my exes, such secrets must be maintained..." Jessie snorted, which hadn't been the response Maddie had expected, even as exaggeratedly dramatic as she'd been acting.

"You say that like I don't already know what happens when I nibble your ears," Jessie said, lowering her voice conspiratorially. Maddie giggled, unbothered, even as her cheeks reddened.

"Yes, but now I have to wonder if you really figured that out on your own... or if your brother coached you on being amazing in the sack with me!"

As Jessie protested her innocence, insisting that she wouldn't go to her own brother for sex advice if her life depended on her skills in bed, Maddie moved her hand to the top of her pussy, pressed her middle and ring fingers together, and unceremoniously slipped them between her folds, burying her slender fingers in the moist, pink warmth beyond.

"Ohhh, fuck, Jessie, I needed this so bad..." she sighed, letting go of the jokes about collusion with Jeremy for the moment in favour of more direct teasing. "Mmmm, my pussy is squeezing my fingers s-so hard, you'd think I hadn't done this in weeks..."

"Oh, you bitch..." Jessie whispered, with no fire whatsoever, "I always loved that about fing-uh, about playing with you... the way you squeeze down and tug on my fingers when I pull them out..." Maddie whimpered wordlessly, since she'd been grinding the heel of her palm against her love button the entire time she'd been fingering her needy pussy. Now, she pulled her fingers free and brought them to her muzzle with a smile.

"You always loved the way I taste, too," she noted, and then she took her fingers into her mouth and gave them the loudest, wettest slurp she could as she licked off her own nectar and shivered at the naughty, feminine taste. "Mmmm... delicious."

"Oh man..." Jessie whispered, "I think I almost preferred it when you were talking about how my brother was great at oral... Actually, no, this is still better."

As her hand returned to her heated mound, Maddie moaned softly.

"Ahhhh, this is nice..." she murmured, as she resumed massaging her slick inner walls, giving special attention to the more sensitive spots, and smiling as her toes curled up reflexively from the jolts of pleasure. Acting on impulse, Maddie lifted one of her breasts towards her face, and took her own nipple into her mouth, swirling her tongue around the hard, wrinkled nub jutting out from the soft teat. She spent a few moments just suckling, and enjoying the sensations as she tried to imagine that it was somebody else's tit - or, depending on how one wanted to look at it, somebody else's tongue.

"Wait... are you doing that thing where you suck your own tiddies?" Jessie asked, listening intently to the sounds, "God, girl, you know I love watching you do that, this is cruel and unusual!" The skunk responded to this flash of insight by laughing with delight, which of course made her boob slip free from her mouth, but she put it back juuuust long enough to turn her phone around, wink at the camera, and snap a pic, which she gleefully sent to Jessie's phone.

Maddie didn't hear the sound of her lover's message alert going off, but almost immediately, Jessie sucked in a deep breath through clenched teeth and swore under her breath.

"Oh, damn, Maddie..." she breathed, desire dripping from her voice even at such a subdued volume, "This is so hot I can't even think of a joke..."

"Let me update you down here, too," Maddie replied cheerily, but no sooner had she started to move her phone away from her ear and towards her pussy before she heard Jessie's voice in a disapproving tone.

"Wait, wait, wait, this was sexy and all, but - but I don't want anyone coming up behind me and seeing the screen," the raccoon said, reluctantly, "N-no more photos, okay?"

"Well, okay," Maddie said, exaggerating her disappointment, "but I'm not gonna stop."

"No," Jessie sighed, "I don't suppose you will..."

As Maddie let out a shuddery breath and began working three fingers at once in and out of herself, Jessie made a rather frustrated noise.

"Just how far were you planning to go, babe?" the raccoon asked uncertainly, "A-are you really gonna, uh, make yourself come while I'm right here on the line?"

"How far do you th-think?" Maddie giggled, "I'm not really in the habit of - aahhn! - of stopping before I finish, you know that... You know, you could find a b-bathroom if you really wanted to join me..." Jessie let out a groan as if all the stress that was melting away from Maddie was reconvening in her girlfriend.

"I caaaan't," complained Jessie, "God, I'd love to, but with all these old folks around, I can't just take over one of the bathrooms like that, they've got bladders the size of a walnut!"

"Even better!" Maddie replied, joy radiating from her voice, "Then I'll just k-keep teasing you until I finish!" Her girlfriend half-groaned, half-growled in response.

"Awww, it's not so bad, baby," Maddie cooed, "You might not g-get to come too, but at least you get to come along!"

With that, the banter fell by the wayside for the moment, as Maddie began to focus less on teasing her girlfriend and more on touching herself. Spreading her legs a little wider, she imagined Jessie watching her, the needy raccoon squirming with arousal and biting her lower lip as she watched a writhing Maddie working her glistening digits in and out of her needy pussy.

"Mmmnnh... F-fuck..." she mumbled, shuddering with pleasure as her snatch clenched down hard on her fingers. Her arousal raised to new heights by the knowledge that her girlfriend was listening, Maddie squirmed and shuddered, panting with exertion as she worked her sensitive parts, distantly enjoying the way she just could not stop her feet from twisting all around, clenching her toes at random, as random pulses of pleasure shot down her legs straight from her heated femininity.

"God, yes..." she moaned, "Oh, J-Jessie, my clit is throbbing s-so hard, I th-think I can feel my heartbeat through it..." Jessie whimpered wordlessly through the phone, and Maddie imagined her lover (reluctantly) wearing some nice, formal outfit, listening intently to her phone and struggling to hide how turned on she was... as well as to resist the urge to rub herself through her clothes. Deeply turned on by the (probably inaccurate) mental image, Maddie's entire body briefly tensed up as a small burst of ecstasy flowed outward from her pussy to spread, tingling, along her nervous system, like a harbinger of bliss to come...

Panting with need, Maddie raised her hand away from her heated vulva and marvelled at the amount of feminine nectar glistening on her fingers... and her hand... and her upper arm... and her inner thighs.

"Jesus, I'm really j-juicy tonight," the trembling doe observed calmly, "Gonna leave a wet spot on the b-bed all by myself at this rate..." She swallowed a moan as she began licking her fingers clean of girl honey, but as her tongue sampled her own slightly bittersweet flavour, she thought she'd failed to suppress that noise until she realized the soft moan of desire she was hearing was Jessie's.

"Oh my Goooood, you're killing me..." the raccoon protested. Once Maddie's hand was - well, not clean, but certainly clean-er - she rolled onto her side and reached out to the small cupboard directly beside her bed. Opening the bottom drawer, she found a romance novel she'd been meaning to start, half a box of tampons, and more importantly, several sex toys. She'd taken her favourites with her when she moved out, of course, but there were still some solid options here...

"Ah, here you are," the skunk said with a grin, as she lifted a bright green rubbery dildo with a hard plastic base out of the drawer.

As Maddie rolled back over, her lover stirred impatiently.

"Wait, here what is? What's going on?" Jessie asked, suspiciously. Instead of responding, Maddie turned the toy over in her hands and looked at the base, where one would find a switch with three power settings (four if one included 'off'). Popping open the cover on the battery compartment, the skunk visually confirmed that the batteries had not gone off and started producing weird sludge since the last time she'd been home, but would they still work? Putting the cover back on, Maddie switched the toy to its low power setting, and was instantly rewarded with a strong, confident humming noise.

"Oh my God!" an exasperated Jessie cried, "Is that a -" After suddenly falling silent for a moment, Jessie's tone was noticeably lowered. "Is that a vibe? You're really gonna play the vibrator card on me?"

"Heavens no, sweetie," Maddie said reassuringly, "I'm gonna play the vibrator card on me!"

As Jessie groaned with frustration yet again, Maddie switched the toy off and turned it around again. She moved it down and touched the tip of the glans against her wet entrance, pushing it against her labia and whimpering with anticipation. Forcing herself to wait, she began rubbing the dildo up and down against her slit, just the tip at first, getting it nice and slick with her juices, but then she began slowly dragging the toy back and forth, keeping the underside of the shaft in contact with her pussy.

"G-God..." she whispered, feeling her inner walls twitching and clenching with need as the glistening toy ran back and forth against her clitoris. The skunk needed that thing inside her, and bad, but she made herself keep waiting, deliberately teasing herself to make it better later. Sometimes when she was playing this game, Maddie would fantasize about a male lover who refused to put it in until she begged him to fuck her in the lewdest ways possible, but with Jessie providing plenty of mental inspiration, Maddie was content to leave the mind games out of this one. She wasn't much in the mood for guys today anyway...

Maddie took a deep breath, preparing herself, before she finally ceased teasing the toy back and forth across her clit, bringing it to a halt so the crown rested directly against the skunk's love button. Contact with her body had warmed the toy up, and every inch of its surface now glistened with her flavourful juices. She left it right there, just for a few moments, as if she and the vibrator were daring each other to make the first move.

"M-Maddie? You still there?" Jessie whispered, sounding uncertain that she really wanted her girlfriend to continue masturbating while she was still stuck, frustrated, on a balcony. The shapely mephit took this as a sign, and flicked the switch on the base of the toy. It instantly came to life, buzzing away steadily, with the source of the vibration being - hey, how about that - directly on the bottom edge of the crown, where it was in contact with Madeline's clitoris. Arching her back off the bed and tensing up from how overpowering the stimulation was, she cried out with pleasure, a bit louder than she intended. She briefly wondered if anyone heard that, but it was hard to hold onto that thought with that relentless buzzing directly against the single most sensitive part of her entire body. Maddie forced herself to hold the toy against her clit as she lifted her butt from the bed, her toes curling up hard and her tail twitching and shaking behind her.

"Oh - oh God, fuck!" she gasped, yanking the toy away as a powerful pulse of bliss and pleasure spread out from her pussy. As these anticipatory shivers tingled along her nervous system, the slender doe flopped back down to the bed, churring softly as Jessie whimpered in envious frustration and reluctant desire.

Maddie shuddered happily and brought the toy to her lips, giving the still-buzzing vibe a quick kiss that tasted of her own pussy.

"Mmmm, this thing is great, I f-forget why I left it behind..." she murmured, already eager to feel it inside her.

"So you could tease the shit out of your poor, innocent girlfriend," Jessie grumbled. Turning the toy off for the moment, Maddie brought it back down between her legs, spreading her knees a little as if bidding it welcome. As she lined it up with her entrance, she chuckled into the phone.

"You and I have very different definitions of the w-word 'innocent', my dear," she teased, "Or do I have to remind you about that night with the leash?"

"Maddie! Ix-nay on the eash-lay!" the raccoon hissed. It didn't sound like Maddie was on speakerphone, and Jessie had said she'd found privacy before calling, but perhaps she didn't want her designated CSIS agent listening in on her secret kinks, as the meme went.

Maddie briefly considered bringing up more lewd details from that unforgettable night, but she decided to be merciful (this time) and instead focus on the pleasure she was so effectively bringing herself. The skunk moaned softly as the head of the false cock parted her labia and she pushed her toy deep into her own wet heat. She then moaned again, rather the opposite of softly, at the sensation of the toy stretching her tight, slick inner channel.

"Mmmm, J-Jessie, I feel s-so fuckin' full..." she murmured, squeezing down on the rubbery shaft and relishing the way it felt. Without missing a beat (or relaxing her inner muscles), Maddie switched the toy back on, and punctuated that sentence with a sharp gasp of pleasure, just a quick "Ah!" as she felt the buzzing start, deep in her vagina, reaching several of her more sensitive spots at the same time. Squirming on the bed, Maddie let out a shuddery breath, unable to keep her feet still as she slowly pulled the toy back out of herself. In her mind's eye, Maddie had been imagining Jessie as sullenly sitting off to the side of the room, allowed to look but not touch - Maddie or herself. Now, as Jessie fell silent for a moment, it was easy for the Matchmaker to imagine her girlfriend staring raptly as inch after inch of the buzzing toy slipped back out of Maddie's dripping wet pussy.

"God, this is horrible, every sound you make is so goddamn sexy, I'm going crazy here, Maddie! You're - you're making me so fucking wet, and I can't even do anything about it!" Jessie quietly whined, unintentionally helping that imaginary narrative, "How the hell are there people who are into not being allowed to come?!" As the toy slipped free of Madeline's needy snatch, the skunk put on a slightly lopsided grin.

"Come on, baby, n-no kinkshaming," she teased, and she couldn't help but giggle as Jessie groaned with frustration yet again.

Maddie whimpered as she slipped the vibrator entirely out of herself, feeling the emptiness within much more keenly than she had a few minutes earlier. As she moved the tip of the toy back down to her clitoris, the skunk yelped again, reflexively rolling her hips forward to push her clit against the rumbling toy. She ran the entire length of the dildo along her love button and moaned with pleasure again, unable to keep herself from thrusting her pelvis and keeping her wet slit in contact with the buzzing toy.

"Ohhhhh, Jesus..." the skunk mewled, her black and white fur glistening beautifully with sweat, "Oh Jessie, I - I need to come, s-so fuckin' bad..." The raccoon on the other end of the line let out a harrumph.

"What, do you need my permission or something?" Jessie grumbled, "Well, definitely not then, you can deal with it just like me!" Maddie giggled.

"Good thing I'm - hnngh! - n-not asking, then..." Unable to stand it for even one second longer, Maddie pulled the toy away from her clit, shuddering from head to toe for a moment afterwards and feeling the sensitive nub throbbing in the warm air of her bedroom. Bringing the tip of the toy back to her labia, the slender female easily slipped the toy back into her pussy with another whimper, sliding it all the way in to the base with ease.

Maddie immediately began pulling back again, but this time instead of pulling the vibe out completely to tease herself again, she simply reversed direction and hilted the toy in her needy pussy once more. Soon she was thrusting into herself again and again, quickly building a nice rhythm.

"Mmmm, Jessie, I... I'm f-fucking myself with it n-now..." she panted, wanting to make sure her lover didn't miss any details, "And it f-feels so g-goddamn good, oh, fuck..."

"Go ahead, have a great time," Jessie complained, "I'm timing this, just so you know, and the next time we meet, I'm gonna tie you to your bed and edge you twice as long!" Maddie moaned.

"You p-promise?" she replied, totally undaunted. Jessie laughed despite herself, but did not reply, clearly seeing she was beaten. Maddie was so close to the release she was aching for that pretty much anything would sound sexy right now.

Struggling to keep her voice contained, lest her family hear her pleasured cries, Maddie let out a shuddery breath and reached up to wipe the sweat off her forehead, only to whimper as this reminded her how strongly her fingers smelled of her own feminine nectar. Reaching down and taking hold of the base of the vibrator with both hands, the shapely skunk braced herself, then switched the toy from LO to HI, skipping right past MED. The buzzing then increased in both volume and intensity, and Maddie cried out in something close to shock. She always had found it overwhelming, turning up the power like that when it was already inside her...

"Oh God oh God oh God," she panted, shuddering and shaking as the vibrations spread out to every part of her pussy, making her entire slick channel tingle at once. "Oh, J-Jessie, I'm s-so close, I'm so fucking cloooooose...." After a moment, Jessie sighed rather heavily.

"Well, alright, you might as well, then..." Jessie sighed, not having held any actual malice against her girlfriend. "Go on and come, sweetie, but it better be amazing, because if all this wasn't worth it..."

Moaning gratefully, as if she couldn't have come until she was granted permission, Maddie began working the near-violently buzzing toy in and out of her pussy at a feverish pace, thrusting hard enough and moving quickly enough that lewd, wet noises began to ring out in the room. She briefly wondered if she was wet enough and turned on enough that Jessie could hear those noises through the call, and the idea just turned her on more. At the same time, she reached up and once more began to squeeze and fondle her neglected breasts, and she swallowed a groan of bliss as she pinched a sensitive nipple. Her heart pounded in her ears like a drum, and she couldn't stop the trembling anymore. Maddie could feel the point of no return hurtling towards her, as her toes curled up tight, as her pussy clenched and relaxed again and again, as her clitoris throbbed angrily against her fingers. The trembling skunk had been fighting it for so long, wanting to make sure she enjoyed it enough, that her girlfriend was sufficiently teased. Now, though, the time for resistance was over, since she wouldn't be able to hold off much longer anyway...

"Oh... oh, Jessie..." she moaned, closing her eyes and letting go, "I'm... I'm - I'm coming!"

Arching her back up off the bed, Maddie cried out wordlessly as she was taken by a powerful orgasm in the form of an eruption of overwhelming pleasure that quickly spread out through her entire body. She'd moved one of her breasts back up to her lips at the last moment, both so she could suckle on her own nipple and so she could work her pussy with both hands. With one hand, her fingers worked nearly to a blur on her throbbing clit, rubbing and stroking the little nub without mercy. With the other hand, she thrust the vibrator back into herself one last time, sheathing it fully inside herself just as the spasms began. Her vagina clenched and relaxed in rhythm with the waves of pleasure washing over poor, dazed Maddie, and each time it did, the feeling of her slick walls squeezing tightly against the powerfully vibrating shaft of the dildo only sent a new burst of pleasure out into Maddie's body. The trembling, shaking skunk whimpered and moaned around her own nipple as a powerful climax went on and on, and her shapely body was wracked with ecstasy.

All of the beautiful skunk's thoughts were washed away in that first moment of release, and it was as if Madeline Matheson had been put on pause, and for a while there was only pleasure and shuddering and moaning. Even her eyes perceived only flashes of light, as if fireworks were literally going off inside her head. Finally, just as suddenly as it had started, it was over, and Maddie slumped lifelessly down to the bed with a groan, almost knocking her phone off the bed as she did so. In that first moment, she reached down and hurriedly turned off the vibrator, which had been teasing her poor, oversensitive pussy right after she came. Slipping the toy out of herself, Maddie lay back with a contented sigh. The sated female's afterglow was surprisingly potent, considering she was by herself. She shivered as a mild aftershock washed over her body, squirming tiredly as her inner walls clenched in on themselves. She did miss that sensation of being stretched out by the toy... But for the moment, Maddie was focusing on the way that while her body was practically glowing with warmth built from exertion, just one of her nipples felt cool in the air of her room, thanks to its coating of saliva. Maddie wished she could have left her boob out of her mouth, been a little more vocal and really teased the shit out of Jessie with the sound of her orgasmic cries... but unfortunately, she was still in her parents' house, and she'd kinda been pushing it so far as it was, and so she'd sucked on her own titty instead.

Maddie had been lying there for somewhere between four seconds and a hundred thousand years in a comfortable daze when she became aware of the sound. Turning her head on her pillow, the skunk smiled gently. Through the phone, Jessie was sending her the unmistakable sound of sarcastic slow clapping.

"Congratulations," the raccoon deadpanned, "You came." Maddie laughed tiredly and brushed some hair, damp with sweat, out of her eyes.

"Thanks, I feel pretty accomplished," she replied, as she heard the sound of Jessie picking her phone back up. Now that her hands were free, Maddie did the same - after wiping the juice off on her bedsheets.

"And all it took was driving your girlfriend half-crazy with frustration," Jessie observed, before lowering her voice. "God, I'm so fucking horny now, and I can't do anything about it until we go home, are you proud of yourself?"

"Yes, amazingly so," Maddie immediately replied, without a hint of shame, "One hundred percent." Jessie laughed, then made an amused groan, as Maddie silently held up a fist in triumph.

"Goddammit, stripes, you make it really hard to stay mad at you, you know that?"

The two women laughed together, and Maddie felt like a million dollars, finding herself unable to remember why she'd been so tense all day in the first place. When the tittering tapered off, Jessie spoke up, unable to completely hide the curiosity in her voice.

"So, it occurs to me that our calls don't usually end with you rubbing one out," the raccoon observed, "Something got your blood running hot, babe?" Maddie tried to tell a lie of convenience, really she did, but explicitly lying to her significant other made her extremely uncomfortable, and it was a struggle.

"Nnnnnnnnnnnyes..." she admitted, her afterglow fading away as she worried about how she was going to word this.

"Alright, look, I... I guess I was trying to distract myself from something that's been bugging me for a few days, and rubbing one off is a pretty nice distraction."

The doe frowned slightly before continuing, gathering the right words. "I've found a new match," she said, "I wasn't exactly expecting to indulge in my hobby on family time, but there they were, two people who were into each other."

"You've hooked up plenty of people," Jessie replied, "I haven't seen it get you this hot to trot before." If she hadn't pleasured herself to climax so recently that her fur was still damp with sweat, Maddie might have blushed, but her cheeks were already too flushed from exertion for it to show.

"O-okay, that's true," she admitted, "But this one is different, and it's..." She strained to find the right words to reassure her lover, but stopped, deciding that it was okay to be totally honest about part of it, at least. "...it's kinda messing with me, Jess."

The tomboyish raccoon's voice lacked any of the frustration and annoyance that had been clinging to it while she was being mercilessly teased, instead sounding soft and gentle and supportive.

"What's wrong, stripes?" Jessie asked, "You wanna talk it out?"

"Yeah..." Maddie replied, reaching up and rubbing her forehead with the heel of her palm. She imagined Jessie pulling her into her arms and letting the skunk rest her head on the other female's shoulder, where she enjoyed her girlfriend's natural scent while Jessie ran her fingers through Maddie's hair. She did so love cuddling...

"You know how I get with the matchmaking stuff," she said, as a statement, not a question, "The better the pairing, the more it gets into my head, and it's all I can think about, and I just... need to reach out and help them, it itches at me if I try to ignore it!"

"Why would you even want to ignore it, hon?" Jessie asked, "I don't understand, you love getting people together." Despite herself, Maddie whimpered.

"I knoooooooow," she whined, "That's what's making this so difficult!" She sighed, reflecting on the fact that someway, somehow, she'd gotten a lot of practice in explaining this problem while avoiding the fact that the people she'd found were her brother and sister.

Stopping herself for a moment, Maddie took a deep, slow breath and tried to re-balance herself.

"I do love getting people together," she repeated, "and my instincts tell me these two are all the way hot for each other, but... but they really shouldn't be together." Jessie let out a quiet whine that didn't sound all that different from some of the frustrated noises she'd been making while Maddie was diddling herself.

"Come on, Maddie, enough keeping me in suspense!" she said, "Just tell me who these mysterious, star-crossed lovers are!" As much as she would rather be enjoying some naked cuddles right now, Maddie was briefly relieved that Jessie wasn't actually there, as she flinched something fierce when she heard Aidan and Tiffany referred to as 'star-crossed lovers'.

"I - I can't tell you who they are," Maddie replied, reluctantly, and not at all sure she could hold back the truth if Jessie persisted, "But trust me on this, if these two hooked up, it would be, like, scandalous if anyone found out."

"Jeez, this one_is_ getting under your pelt if you won't name names," the raccoon observed, "You love gossiping about the people you want to match up almost as much as you love it when they finally kiss." This, in turn, brought back that shocking mental image of Tiffany and Aidan in a tight embrace, kissing like they needed it to live, and Maddie cringed again, having to fight the urge to whimper.

Biting her lip, Maddie made a fist and bopped herself on the forehead with the soft heel of her hand, struggling to find the right words to explain her turmoil without outing her siblings.

"I don't know, Jessie, m-maybe I'm wrong about this one," she replied, perhaps a little hopefully, "maybe I'm just off my game and it's, what's the word, a false positive or something..." She was not exactly expecting Jessie to respond by snorting derisively, yet there it was, all the same.

"Oh, come on, babe, don't give me that," the raccoon replied, a smile in her voice, "You've had a nose for what people need in each other for - for longer than I've known you, and I've yet to see your nose fail yet." Maddie blinked, caught by surprise. Everyone kept insisting that she could do it and that she knew her stuff, almost immediately after she'd express doubt. It was almost like the universe was trying to tell her something...

Reaching up and rubbing her forehead, the naked mephit swallowed another sigh.

"Th-this one is different," she insisted, a little more meekly than she'd have preferred, "If I make a mistake here, if word gets out that they're even into each other... God, I don't know, Jessie, I know what my instincts are telling me, but... I just can't be right, I can't be meant to set these two up... What if I make everything worse for them, and they'd be better off if I just left them alone?" This certainly get the clothed female's attention, because she immediately spoke up.

"Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey!" Jessie said, very quickly, "Don't be so quick to put all that on yourself! All you're doing is getting two people together, the relationship part is up to them to figure out. Just because you give someone the keys does not make you responsible for how they drive." This time, Maddie couldn't help but whimper, feeling genuinely consoled by those words.

"Jessie..." the skunk whispered, unconsciously moving one hand to her chest and resting her fingers over her heart (just under the plush tuft of fur nestled at the top of her cleavage).

"But for real though, I'm dying of curiosity," Jessie admitted, "I mean, you kinda make it sound like this could ruin their lives! Are they married to other people, or what?"

Studying her toes at the opposite end of the bed, Maddie squirmed on the spot, feeling a little interrogated, but she told herself that was just paranoia over hiding Aidan and Tiffany's little secret.

"It's not that... but it might actually be worse," she finally replied, "I'm sorry, I really can't tell you who they are..." Jessie let out a quiet hmph and Maddie could almost see her girlfriend hunching down slightly and pouting.

"Fine, fine, I won't press," she replied, "Jeez, Maddie, did you wake up this morning and decide you were gonna be a huge tease, or was it a surprise to you too?" Despite herself, Maddie smiled, relieved that Jessie was going to resist her curiosity, something she knew the raccoon found difficult.

There was a lull to the conversation, as if Jessie was pondering what she knew and what she didn't, and how she could help her emotionally-compromised girlfriend. As someone who could read interpersonal signals as easily as she could, Maddie saw this clearly, even through a phone call, and found herself feeling moved.

"Okay, look..." started Jessie, "You're - you kinda don't sound like yourself right now. You're like the most confident girl I know, and here you are, being squished by the weight of your own doubt." For a moment, Maddie moved her free arm over her nipples, suddenly feeling more naked than she already was.

"S-sorry, Jess, I -"

"I'm not done," the raccoon interrupted, "I wanted to say that out of everything you said, the thing that sounded the least like you was when you were questioning your, I don't know, your matchmaking powers." Maddie chuckled softly, smirking.

"I don't have superpowers," she said, gently.

"Well, your mad skills then, your instincts, whatever you wanna call 'em, they're amazing, stripes," the raccoon said, "If you're questioning that, what can you trust, eh?" The skunk blinked. That hadn't quite been what she was expecting.

Maddie wasn't sure what to say to that, so it was just as well that Jessie kept going.

"You're so afraid of what might happen if you get these two together," the tomboy said, "you've lost sight of the most important part of the problem!" Finally sitting up and stretching, Maddie reached out and picked up her panties, feeling a little self-conscious as she slipped the still-damp garment back on.

"And what's that?" she asked, as she tugged the undies up so they felt snug, and then closed the snap over the base of her tail.

"These two mysterious people," Jessie replied, "Do they love each other?" Freezing in place, Maddie suddenly discovered her flush had receded some, because all of a sudden she was blushing again.

"L-love?" she repeated, stumbling over the word. Somehow the mental image of Aidan and Tiffany, holding both hands as they gazed adoringly into each other's eyes, before leaning in to kiss passionately, was almost as off-putting and conflicting to their big sister as the thought of the two of them in a carnal embrace. "I... I don't kn-know about love, I m-mean it's p-pretty early and all..."

"Well then, do they want each other?" Jessie insisted, "Are they attracted to each other, and do you think they'd be good for each other? Good to each other?"

Maddie blushed even harder, pausing in bending over to pick up her bra to flinch yet again as her girlfriend forced her to face these ideas she'd been struggling desperately not to think about. She'd tried everything short of sticking her fingers in her ears and singing 'la la la, I can't hear you' at the top of her voice to keep from answering that damnable question: what if Aidan and Tiffany really were right for each other? And when Maddie thought about the way her siblings looked at each other, the way they talked about each other... there was only one conclusion her experienced mind could come to.

"...Y-yeah, they're attracted to each other, and, uh..." she hesitated, before finishing, "I think they'd treat each other well."

"Alright," Jessie said, and Maddie could almost hear her nodding, "next question: Do you think they're going to be nearly as happy apart as they could be together?"

Thinking her options over, Maddie abandoned her brassiere and just retrieved a big, loose T-shirt she could wear without her bra. After tucking the phone against her shoulder and draping the voluminous garment over herself, the half-dressed doe sighed loudly.

"God, I - I don't know, that's kind of a broad question, don't you think?" Maddie asked, evasively. Jessie said nothing, and Maddie groaned, hanging her head just a little.

"...Alright, alright, I don't know how happy they'd be as a couple, but they - they're feeling for each other right now," she said, reluctantly, "and I can't help but feel that if they don't face those feelings, it could send them in some... bad directions." Mercifully, Jessie did not ask her to elaborate.

"Stripes... Do you realize what it does to someone, not being able to be with the one they love?" Jessie asked, her voice softening, growing quieter, more solemn, "It tears them up inside, makes them avoid anything that reminds them of the person they can't have, and usually they end up with somebody wild and exciting just so they can feel something."

Maddie swallowed, looking down at her bare feet and biting her lip. That sounded an awful lot like Jessie was talking about someone specific, like she had watched a close friend go through it, and while Maddie was dying of curiosity, it also sounded like something that deeply troubled Jessie, and the Matchmaker didn't want to push her girlfriend on the subject. Raising her hand to her forehead, Maddie swallowed a whine. God, she couldn't remember the last time she'd been this confused... maybe all the way back to the first time she'd had warm thoughts about another girl. She just didn't understand it! This was the third conversation she'd had since witnessing Aidan and Tiffany leering at each other's butts where someone whose counsel she deeply trusted had encouraged the troubled skunk to follow her instincts, to trust in her abilities, and that this 'mystery couple' would be happier together than apart. Everything she'd ever been taught told her that siblings must not cross that particular line, that what Aidan and Tiffany felt for each other was a crime, was wrong, full stop, and that only misery could be the outcome. But everything Maddie felt told her that what they felt wasn't wrong, or sick, it was... well, it was potential. The potential to be something great, if it only had a nudge in the right direction. Moving her hand over her heart and closing her eyes, Maddie sighed, then took a deep breath, and as she exhaled, she made a conscious effort to let go of the formless worry that filled her mind every time she thought about this, to just let go of the what-ifs and worst case scenarios that had been causing her so much stress the last few days. She let out her breath, she set all her concerns aside, and she just... listened to herself.

Shivering, the scantily-clad skunk sighed again, her shoulders sagging as the tension left them. Reaching up and brushing her hand back over her hair, Maddie opened her eyes, which now glimmered with purpose, and bore no trace of the conflict that had stormed within so recently.

"...Okay," she said, softly, "even if it takes a while to sink in, I can take a hint."

"Wait, what?" Jessie replied, sounding confused. Maddie smiled just imagining the blank look on her girlfriend's face.

"I've been making myself crazy this whole time trying to fight my instincts," she said, by way of explanation, "You could tell, Mom could tell, even Jake could tell through IMing. I need to stop pulling myself in two directions and just trust myself."

"See, now that sounds more like my Maddie!" the delighted raccoon exclaimed, and her lover couldn't help but giggle.

"Thanks for the advice, Jess," Maddie said, leaning against her desk, "Between you and everyone else saying it, I guess I should maybe listen. Which means I've got some thinking to do."

Jessie chuckled at this.

"Alright, babe, glad to hear I helped," the sow said, "Seriously, though, if you need to talk, just call me, okay?"

"Okay," Maddie replied, turning and walking over to the bed. As she sat down, her smile widened from the realization that it still smelled distinctively of female ecstasy and her own arousal pheromones. On that note...

"I, uh... I promise next time I won't be, ah, quite so aggressively horny at you," she said, a little sheepishly.

"You say that like it's going to save you from the consequences of your actions," the playful tomboy replied, as if she were genuinely befuddled by that. Maddie laughed.

"Uh-ohhh..." she said, not sounding particularly worried.

"Oh, you laugh!" Jessie replied, "But trust me, after getting me that worked up? You will pay for this. Somehow, some way, I will have my revenge."

Strangely enough, this just caused Maddie to laugh harder, and this time the raccoon joined her. Once they'd calmed down, Maddie leaned back, resting her weight against her wide tail and one hand.

"Ahhh... It's good talking to you, Jessie."

"You too, stripes."

"Okay, I'll see you online."

"Until next time."

As if they'd practiced it in advance, both women said 'bye' as one and then hung up. Maddie set her phone aside, taking a moment to just enjoy the quiet after such an... involved social experience. Then, the shapely female found her eyes drawn to a notepad sitting on her desk, the one which she'd been using to jot down her initial observations about this most unorthodox match - without naming names, obviously. But Maddie slowly nodded at the notebook, a distinct look of determination spreading over her features.

"Okay... I know what I must do..." she whispered to herself, "I need to pull out all the stops and get my brother and sister to see that this freaky thing they've got going on just might be love!" Frowning just slightly, she looked down at her feet.

"And I've got to do it without anyone catching on, especially them..." This wouldn't be the first time she'd had a limitation like that, but she'd never faced stakes like these before, where being discovered could damage her very relationship with her family. Even getting Logan and Preston from homophobic to hand-holding hadn't had such a price for failure... But deep down, she knew she could do it. After all... she was a Matchmaker.

She just needed to find a way to make this happen, to get Aidan and Tiffany to admit to themselves how they felt about each other, and then to get them to show it to each other. She wasn't entirely clear how to do that, just yet, but she had some ideas, mostly revolving around ways to get her siblings to spend some time together. She noted the word 'MOVIE', which was circled, double-underlined, and had a small arrow pointing at it, just in case the rest of the emphasis was not enough. Maddie smiled to herself; it had been while sharing a movie that Aidan and Tiffany had started to realize how attracted they were to each other, so she knew there was a way to use a movie to bring them even closer. They'd never agree to anything too obvious, like a romantic comedy or one of those fantasy series where the women can't keep their shirts on, but the clever skunk was optimistic that she could find the perfect film, she just needed a little time. She continued to ponder this, and other ideas for helping her siblings, as she briefly left her room to take care of her nightly rituals, like filing her claws and brushing her teeth. The more she thought about it, the more new ideas occurred to her, and the more confident she felt in the ideas she already had. Once the shapely female returned to her room, the three-headed beast of fear, anxiety, and uncertainty that had stubbornly clung to her for the last few days had almost completely faded, to be replaced with the conviction she normally felt when she was in her element, when she knew she was on the right path, when she was deep into matchmaking. By the time Maddie slipped into bed, she felt worlds better about her situation, and she found that when doubts inevitably popped back up, she could help tamp them back down by reminding herself that her mother, brother, and girlfriend had all driven home the importance of trusting her instincts. By the time she fell asleep, Maddie was genuinely looking forward to getting started with her schemes. As she slept, she dreamt of this match to be, and despite what she might have thought only days earlier, it brought a comforting smile to her face.