Pillow Talk
#13 of The world of the Spirit of '67
A scene that's been rattling around in my head, which is a continuation of the 'City Mouse' story. I'm not sure I'll be able to fit it into a larger narrative, but I thought it worth putting up here. I'm not sure how much you'll get out of this if you haven't read City Mouse, though.
Troy woke with a jolt, tail flexing out straight, gasping for breath. The dream. The dream again. He was in theatre, dragged right out of bed and into the theatre without time to get cleaned or sterilized. They were pumping hte person on the table full of antibiotics as he came closer for them to wire his arm into the surgery interfaces. You're a good boy, Troy, the doctors had said. You're helping her. Her. And when he'd pulled back the surgical sheets to see just who it was there on the table, itw as a pretty sandy-furred girl with red hair, nude and perfect. But still he'd lifted the saw and... and... The hand that gently snaked onto his chest was the same pretty yellow-brown, perfectly shaped. He glanced aside. The light was low, gentle. They hadn't turned off the lamps after their lovemaking. She smiled up at him tiredly, eyes half-closed. "You awake?" He nodded slightly. "Yeah." He lay his right hand over hers gently. "Sorry." "It's alright," Jennifer replied, rubbing her head into the pillows with a slight grunt, her red hair pooling around her head. "I wasn't asleep yet." Troy propped himself up on an elbow, leaning across her to tap the lamp's slider, switching it off. She shifted a little, turning her back to him, slipping her shoulders back she lazily reached out and dragged his arm down over her body, snuggling it down against her almost white stomach. He rubbed his hand into her fur, closing his eyes a little. Maybe he could get back to sleep. He ducked his head a little, sniffing at her hair, the dusky smell that was Jennifer. Pretty Jennifer, holding him when he cried, there to hold and smile with, there to shiver with in pleasure when they made love. Always warm, always gentle, always somehow slightly apart from him. Had she ever said she loved him? He didn't know. "I love you," he whispered into her hair, shifting his legs a little to stop pressing too hard against her stiff tail. He found himself shifting to free the arm under his body, li ghtly running his fingers up along her spine. Troy was fascinated by Jennifer in more ways than the obvious. About midway on her back, just underneath where tiger stripes began to creep up over her fur, her spine changed. The vertebrae shifted in size, in shape. But her fur beneath his thumbs was soft and smooth. She reached back, pulling his leg over hers, wedging her tail between his thighs in the process, grinding her shoulders back into his chest until she felt comfortable again. He loved the way her shoulders moved, graceful and lithe. "What're you thinking?" Jennifer asked, voice soft, only a husky whisper. She'd twisted a ltitle, peering down and away. Troy could make out the green glint of her wide open eyes on the polish of her bedside table. "Right now?" He kissed the back of her neck lightly. "That you're warm and soft and beautiful." She twisted around, glancing back at him. Her neck and shoulders were so flexible that she hardly shifted under his touch, but still he could make out the corner of her eye, a faint smile on her muzzle by the city's light pouring in through an open window. "And before that?" "Well I should have been worrying about quark doping," Troy teased, snuffling his short snout into her hair. "But I ended up distracted." She chuckled a little. "What's quark doping do?" "Mmm, well you've got the various flavours, up, down, bottom, top, strange - and the one I associate with you, charm." Jennifer rolled over, putting her hands on the bed and making the matress shift a little as she twisted over. He pulled his leg back to free her tail, and soon she lay facing him, shifting close untill her breasts were up against his chest, a quiet smile. "Mm. No. I meant, what's it do, not how." "Oh, well," Troy offered, putting his snout against hers lightly, so he could look into her pretty eyes, "If I can figure out how to get the crystals in this new free-quark doped artificial matter lined up right against in an alloy with stuff like, say, uranium, it'll freeze the half life." Her breath was hot on his skin, ruffling the fur, her eyes playful. "Which translated for a pretty girl means?" "It won't give off any radiation. Quark doping might let us clean up radioactive fall out, waste from reactors. I'm hoping to find someone at the conference tomorrow who'll fund the research." He smiled a little. "Not real good pillow talk, though. And now all I can think of is you." She pushed on his chest lightly, till he got the message and rolled onto his back. She snaked her arms around him, stinging a little when she pushed one underneath his back, but when she settled it was warm and gentle again. Jennifer lay her head on his shoulder, pushing her ear against him for awhile before settling. She rubbed her fingernails, kind of clawish, into his chest, dragging trails in his fur. "Mind if I tell you a story?" He shook his head slightly. "I like them," he offered, shifting a little to get an arm around her shoulders. "This one's a little different. It's about a girl named Jen," she said. "Not Joan, or Jean, or Jane. But Jen." She shifted a little uncomfortably, crooking a knee across his abdomen after a moment, making the boxers he wore crinkle. "When Jen was a little girl, she lived in a great big house with lots of her sisters. When she was growing up, she and all her sisters heard lots of stories. But they also watched a lot of movies." She clung at his fur for a moment, making him hold his breath. "Oh, beautiful movies, Troy. All about love. They were all different in many ways, but mostly they were about when a man came into a woman's life and made it perfect. Wonderful, a dizzy dream that never, ever ended. They'd go dancing, he'd love her forever, he'd make her whole." Jennifer smiled a little into his chest. "Maybe there was a little too much sex in them for little girls to understand, but it wasn't perverse or anything. Just... just part of love." He could feel her throat working, the uncomfortable swallow she took, trying to wet her mouth before continuing. Troy squeeed her shoulders close for a moment. "And one day the girl, Jen - not Joan or Jean or Jane - had to grow up. And it was scary, and confusing. But then, when Jen was around nineteen, she met a very nice man while doing temp work as a secretary. And his name was Danny." "Danny was just like the men in the movies. He had lots of money, and a clean white smile, and he made Jen feel just like the women in the movies she'd seen as a small girl. He smelt just like the men in the movies would smell, if the movies Jen had seen had any smells in them." Jennifer shut her eyes, smile shaking a little. "Jen fell very much in love with Danny. She quit school, didn't see any other boys and went to live with Danny in his apartment." She trailed her finger through Troy's fur. "Danny gave her nice things, like the men from the movies, and took her dancing, and made her smile, and made love with her every night. But in the mornings he'd be gone, leaving for work, and sometimes he didn't come home in the evenings, and sometimes he smelt like other women. But Jen didn't say anything and made love with him anyway, because she loved him more than anyone in the world and maybe he'd love her too if she tried hard enough." Jennifer forced on another smile in the dark, her shoulders shaking just a little. Tears began to soak through Troy's fur as she ground her face into his shoulder. "Jen loves Danny a lot, Troy, but Danny doesn't love Jen. Not even a little bit. One day she went through his files, because she was still his secretary, and she found a reciept from Estian Incorporated, who made the girl like all the other girls in a cloning lab. You're a clever boy, Troy," she whispered shakingly. "Do you know what a reciept is?" He nodded quickly, hardly daring to breathe. He kissed her gently. "I do," he replied. Her hand clutched at his fur, tight enough to hurt. "It was for a vial of chemicals called pheremones. So Jen looked and she found it in Danny's things, and it smelled just like the men in the movies Jen watched as a girl." Her smile was tight, forced. "Because when they played the movies, they put the smell into the room where the girls watched. And then they sold it to Danny, so that Jen would love him." She pushed away a little, looking down at Troy, her eyes catching all the light and making it sparkle on her tears. "And then Jen left Danny, even though she loves him, because Danny was treating her like a whore. So Jen said she'd never, never ever love anyone ever again. But Jen's very lonely and it only goes away when there's somebody there to think she's pretty. To tell her she smells nice and..." Jennifer shook her head, eyes squeezed shut. Tears dripped down her muzzle and from the tip of her nose onto Troy's chest. "And... and that's the story." She tried smiling a little. "About why Jen loves Danny and won't ever let herself be in love again. The end, they all lived happily ever after," she finished, smile turning to misery, dropping her gaze quickly, eyes squeezed shut. Troy pulled her close, crushing her body against his. "I'm sorry." "Why should you be sorry, Troy?" she whispered, putting her arms behind his back, cradling his head with her hands. "It's just a story. Just a story." "I love you." He felt the damp of her tongue on the side of his face while she shook. "I love..." Her voice choked. She shook her head quickly. "Thank you, Troy," she said. "You're very, very nice."