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This 10,000 word tale of madness, tentacles and fine dining got published early as part of the SoFurry House Party 2013. So if the continuity is a little off, well, don't worry... Cleo and Terrowne are used to that sort of thing. In fact they've seen far weirder stuff than just changing reality a little bit. Read the rest and you'll start to understand why.

This chapter of the SoFurry house party was contributed by Ziusuadra

The parking attendant sighed.

Inside, the party was just starting to get into full swing but here he was, parking cars. He looked up at the wide-hanging banner sign, which was already starting to curl up at one corner, predictably. "The SoFurry House Party 2013: The Premier Event For..." Someone will be swinging off the end of that sign before the night is through, he concluded. Still, there were worse ways to swing. He'd heard a rumor that some of the rooms had been outfitted with slipknots for breath-play, although he wasn't sure if he believed it. Perhaps they'd simply persuaded Slipknot to play as part of the backyard gig and someone had misunderstood the sentence.

So while his luckier friends were presumably getting up to all sorts of no-good as an integral part of the festivities, serving food and drinks and admiring fine femmes, here he was. Still, someone had to do it, and quite possibly this was the safest place to be working. There was no telling what might happen in there by the time things officially ended at six in the morning, at which point there would be simply too much light to hide some of the nights more extreme goings-on. Basic hazmat suits had already been stockpiled to allow the cleaning crew to get to work immediately at dawn.

The next car pulled up, but it was decidedly strange.

It was definitely a Cadillac, it even said 'Cadillac' on the front bumper, but it looked brand-new and was an open-top model barely the size of a small sports car. It had all the characteristic details - the chrome finish, the upswept fins - but the paint job was a transparent lacquer direct onto metal, and this was metal that had never been touched, welded or repaired. As it drew closer, he realized that there was yet another smaller logo reading 'Sports Coupe 2012' underneath. The roof seemed to be automatically retractable with power assist, and the number plate was some sort of foreign or international variant that read '4U2TAME'. The '2' had been drawn into the space underneath the left crossbar of the 'T' using a black marker to keep the whole thing under some sort of arbitrary six-symbol limit.

Through force of habit, he opened the door and welcomed sir and madam.

"More like sir and mistress," said the elegant lioness reclining next to the driver, who was a sleekly black dragon the color of dark carbon fiber, wearing a perfectly white tuxedo shirt and black slacks under an oddly modified black jacket that seemed to have small insets of some sort of armoured plate built into it. The dragon grinned and leaned over to give her a kiss.

Once he'd helped madam out of the car, ensuring that her long graceful tail was well clear before closing the door, the dragon threw him the keys. "I wonder if you could do me a small favour?" the dragon asked, and the parking attendant nodded. "Could you please drive out to somewhere handy and get me a fresh tank of petrol? Well, gasoline, I guess they call it out here. Whatever the richest fuel mix they have is. I always underestimate the required distances when I'm in the states."

The dragon handed him a whole handful of assorted bills and change as he stood speechless. There were coins in there that were square, octagonal, rectangular, made of several types of metal or had a hole in the middle. Some, based on the weight, were solid gold or silver, mostly from countries he'd never even heard of or which couldn't possibly exist anymore. And that wasn't even considering the bills, some of which were made of some sort of polymer with transparent cut-outs and patterns.

"I'm sure you can manage something with that lot," said the dragon. "You can keep the change."

"I told you we should have rented that Buick '08," complained the lioness.

~*~

Watching the attendant drive away with a baffled expression, which only got worse as he took in the dashboard controls and leather interior, the lioness and her mate stepped up and headed toward the doorman. "Do you think you could accommodate a 5' 10" shadow dragon and a 6' flame-resistant lioness at this little party of yours?" enquired the dragon, assuming the door-wolf would know them.

"Names?" demanded the door-wolf, who had already deflected any number of party crashers as well as some particularly persistent paparazzi, who had been forcefully invited in and would now become part of the evenings entertainment against their will and minus their cameras.

"Cleo Ymaris Estarr," said the lioness. "And I'm Terrowne Kilroy Ziusuadra," completed the dragon.

"You may have heard of us," they chorused together as some sort of private in-joke.

"From South America somewhere, are you?" grunted the door-wolf, looking through his list.

"Actually yes. Originally we're from Azatlan, although we live elsewhere now. How'd you guess?"

"They don't make double-barreled names like that anymore," growled the door-wolf, saving time by flipping his list over to go directly to the last page. "And 'ere you are. Please head on inside."

~*~

Normally Cleo wasn't one for the little black dress, it being a little too subtle, but this had slits up the side, and at the front and back, and under the bodice. Lots of little sparkly crystals distracted from them like a cloud of fine cold frost, but you could sense they were there and it had a clever psychological impact. Guys couldn't keep their eyes off her. Terrowne thought she looked incredible.

At the coat-room, he bribed the attendant to put his plated jacket anywhere it would be safe other than actually in the coat-room. "You know what always happens in coat-rooms after enough drinks," he pointed out, trying to talk over the attendant. "They'll end up all making out in a heap of other peoples overcoats. I have no problem with that and I rather enjoy doing it myself, but do you have any idea how difficult it is to get this thing dry-cleaned?"

"You're the one who wanted to wear the reverse 'slender suit' with the perfectly white shirt and absolutely black pants," pointed out Cleo, perversely taking the side of the attendant as she angled for a bigger tip. "You're going to get stuff on it, it's inevitable. Some of the stuff will be mine."

After doubling the bribe, the attendant agreed to keep the 'special jacket' in her own little recess for the evening. "I still think it will have an accident by whatever means necessary," insisted Cleo. "She's far too sharp and far too pretty to end the evening alone at a party like this. Your jacket is in for more action than it can handle. They'll use it as a throw rug."

"Hey, you'll be the one wiping it off if we suddenly need to get bulletproof," Terrowne pointed out. "I have my scales, but your little black dress, amazing as it is, probably won't stop a round."

"It's a party, what could possibly happen?"

"Famous last words."

~*~

The main ballroom had been turned into a sumptuous festival of madness.

Cleo had been looking forward to seeing 'the Gatsby mansion' ever since she heard that the party was going to be held in the same building extensively renovated for the recent bio-pic. Five floors, with naked rave in the basement (faintly audible near the side stairwells) main party at ground level and an extensive range of private 'themed rooms' accessible up the main staircase (if only to see all of who was coming and going). Live concert out in the back yard and fun whispers of spicy 'alternative' goings on in the old servants quarters for those brave enough to try a little something different.

She'd actually been here once before, in the actual 1920's, ironically enough. She'd seen the movie and thought it went on a little long (they could have easily cropped it down by a half-hour) but the attempt to restore some of the original grandeur had impressed her. She especially wanted to find the hallway where the string of pearls got broken in the movie, and see if she could get a crown of pearls of her own, of a more explicit sort, in the exact same place. It would make for one hell of a story.

But first things first....

"Wanna work the party?" asked Terrowne, looking around. A multitude of small tables, couches and chairs had been placed around the perimeter of the room to break up the space, leaving a clear area at the center for dancing and an open ring around the outer edge to allow the guests to circulate. Various points around the outer wall hosted an open bar, a restaurant with meats turning whole on a steel spit over a self-contained brazier, and a group of piercing and branding specialists working overtime to accommodate the audience demand for body modification. An impressive number of topless waitresses were barely able to keep up the flow of food and drink.

"It'll be far more fun if we split up and explore," she insisted above the noise of the crowd. "I'm sure we'll run into each other once or twice before the nights over. We can compare notes."

"I know you think I spend way too much time focused on chasing that shapely lioness ass of yours," he objected, "but you really are the one I want to end up with when the night's over."

"You need to fuck new people, it'll help broaden your horizon," grinned Cleo with a flash of teeth, to disguise the romantic sentiment that tugged at her whenever he said things like that. It made her heart beat triple-time. "Besides, I have to get a few drinks down first."

"You and your drinks. By the time this is over you'll be doing one of your dances and everyone who's still awake will be staring until you fall off the table."

"Damn, I hope so. That worked out really well when we met, didn't it?"

"It really did." He stroked her muzzle affectionately. "Go get yourself a couple of really lethal drinks, kitten. I want to see you dance."

~*~

An hour or two in, word makes its way around that the charity slave auction is about to kick off in the auditorium, which was used back in the 1920's to show movies and music, and will now be hosting an open auction of voluntary submission. The original aim was to round up a full hundred volunteers, but numbers have fallen slightly short even with some fixed-rate hires from a local brothel contributed by a generous female donor. It seems that some of the guests are now being encouraged to join in, since copies of a legal waiver entitled 'Binding Contract' in heavily-inked mock-gothic lettering are being circulated. Terrowne examines a copy and finds that it does, indeed, specify exactly how one can be bound, tied or restrained. The good news is that matching collars and leashes will be provided.

"The terms and conditions of service are outrageously non-specific," insists a wolf who seems to be into bondage and civil law, talking to a well-known author. "I keep telling them that, but they never listen to me. I even arranged a demonstration with that nice herm panthress you told me about, but they just wanted to know whether they could use it as advertising!"

Terrowne is watching three female dobermans dressed in combat bikinis casually forming an attractive security perimeter around a fellow dragon, wondering whether they could be distracted from their duty by the prospects of a five-some, when he realizes that someone is talking loudly from his left to try and get his attention. It seems to be one of the party's planners, trying to find out whether he could perhaps persuade his beautiful lioness girlfriend to volunteer for the auction?

While it would be fun to drop Cleo in it without really asking her permission properly first, the thought of being unable to have her in that incredible dress because someone else bought more ready cash is what makes up his mind. "Oh, she's unlikely to participate in the auction," he says regretfully to the party planner. "She prefers to give these things away for free. Anyway, I'm not sure quite where she is at the moment. You could always find her and ask her."

~*~

Having gotten a pleasant sense of dissociation going on by way of one absinthe (green, but on fire) one cocktail (blue, yet slightly spicy) and one unidentified shot glass (purple, possibly cough syrup) Cleo has already wandered through the live concert going on in the park-sized back yard. Several bands are warming up, adjusting strings and tuning amps. Apparently Slipknot and some other big-name acts will be playing later, but it's between sets at the moment. She borrows a guitar and plays some low-key Azatlani music that no-one has ever heard before, just to warm up her fingers.

It's technically impressive and she rapidly picks up a small audience of roadies and music fans. The night is shaping up nicely - outdoors, the party organizers have gone for a theme involving open tents and marquees, several small stages and as many open flames as possible, with upright torches lighting the paths and fire dancers from the pacific islands spinning flaming staffs and long poi's at the end of ropes. A gorgeous, long haired Tahitian otter is managing the display and ensuring that no-one gets accidentally set alight.

Cleo likes fire, and the patterns made by the flames against the darkness as they move between the tents and marquees are positively mesmerizing to her. She plays until the next band strikes its opening chord, then eases off, leaving the roadies disappointed. It's always a pleasure for her to resurrect a little of the music from her lost homeland.

The outdoor party is fun, but she wants to see everything that is going on, and it's somehow inevitable that she finds herself outside the ground-floor entry to the 'servants quarters' at the side of the main building. She grins wickedly and slips inside.

~*~

Terrowne has just gotten himself a truly excellent prawn cocktail on a bed of fine lettuce, with not too much sauce, when his reminiscences of swimming in the shining abyss, gulping down whole schools of the iridescent creatures, are interrupted by some sort of event which seems to have started on the other side of the room. He watches with interest as the crowd pulls apart to make space.

While the rules for the main floor are strictly 'keep it classy' it seems that the organizers have proved willing to make an exception for the start of the slave auction, both to get the excitement going and as a way of letting everyone know what's going on and where it's going to. A procession of sorts makes its way ceremoniously across the floor, an impressively long line of completely naked and submissive furs overseen at regular intervals by their more dominant counterparts, all of whom are dressed in their favorite bondage gear and dramatically flick whips, scourges and tassels to keep their chainless coffle going, without ever actually quite landing a hit. Most of them are having trouble not grinning at the opportunity to put on such a show, whilst their charges are being made to crawl on all fours and other suchlike gestures with their muzzles practically in each others crotches. A minor exemption has been made for a couple of feline taurs, who have their arms tied behind their backs and are being ridden by their handlers up and down the column to herd any stragglers back into line.

The procession takes quite a while to pass and a surprising number of phones and cameras are either surreptitiously or openly produced to document the proceedings. The dominatrices take it in their stride like stars, posing for pictures and standing next to party guests, feigning fierce snarls and waving their various accessories threateningly. One of the more playful ladies drapes herself around the shoulders of a pleasantly surprised male squirrel, then pushes the grip of her whip upwards underneath his chin until he is forced to bare his neck to her teeth. Predator over prey relationship established, his girlfriend takes numerous pictures with apparent delight.

As the column finally exits the ballroom, drawing with it any number of interested bidders following this living navigational line to the auditorium, and quite a few party guests just wanting to enjoy a little window-shopping they can't afford, Terrowne strolls casually over and takes advantage of the distraction to annexe several more prawn cocktails, a waiters tray and everything else he can fit on it. Such a bounteous largesse of seafood should not be questioned, it should be eaten, most preferably immediately. Which reminds him of something else entirely.

~*~

Five somewhat blurred minutes later, Cleo finds herself in a horse race where she is the horse.

It seems part of the old servants quarters was once a stable, and the wide-open, wooden floored space is large enough to hold a new sort of race, as well as a small crowd to gamble on it and take forfeits. Four exercise treadmills have been set up alongside one another, and four femmes including her dressed up with saddles on their backs, girths pulled tight about their waists, and bridle-bits pulled roughly up against the corners of their mouths. The reins are loosely tied to the bars of the treadmills, to keep them out of the way, and each femme gets her choice of jockey, to stand behind her and drive her to victory with choice blows of a riding whip. Cleo has chosen an enthusiastic looking werewolf, because she's always been partial to the breed.

Just for laughs, leather straps have also been cinched firmly around their breasts, swelling them and making them flushed and sensitive, the nipples huge and hard. A daring jockey could whip his mount to victory that way, if she wasn't afraid of a little pain.

The starters block cracks and hey are off. Each race is five minutes long, which doesn't sound like much until you try to run as far as you can on all fours for the entire duration with unlimited additional motivation. The crowd cheer and whistle the whole time, and she is driven to give her all until finally she collapses, dripping with sweat, and allows herself to slide off the treadmill as time runs out. The whip marks all over her breasts and proudly raised ass are already fading.

She actually comes last, but her opponents were an arctic husky, a racing mare and a greyhound. None of them took anywhere near the whipping she did, or made half the effort. The cheering crowd raise her to her feet and strip off all the leather, drying her down with a towel and congratulating her.

She proudly selects her forfeit, having a small notch cut into her ear, and the crowd support her as a tiny, very sharp knife is used to cut away a little triangle of flesh in two careful, inward slices. She does not flinch and it clots almost immediately, once the appropriate treatment is applied. It'll grow back eventually, but until it does she'll have a little reminder of her achievement.

She presents the small triangle of excised flesh to the greyhound girl as a souvenir. The greyhound girl is amazingly slender and light, as though someone tried to assemble her from the least possible amount of material, and she has a tiger-striped pattern of brown and black fur down her ribcage like a girt dog. She already has a small collection of two or three other notched pieces, with different colors of skin and fur, but when Cleo gives up her own piece, still slightly warm, a strange expression flickers across her face ever so briefly, almost as though Cleo has done her some great and unimaginable honor. It's a look almost like love.

~*~

Upstairs but safely distant from the jacuzzi, Terrowne admires the tentacle beast and marvels that it could possibly be passed off as an endangered, genetically engineered squid from China. "Yeah, well, the immortal leaders of the cult that provided it are in China, maybe, but that's about as close as it gets. These things have a whole ecosystem of their own on the other side, you know."

"Oh come on, that's nonsense," complains the badgeress. "You sound like a fake psychic."

"I'll have you know I try my very best not to be psychic at all times," says Terrowne, slightly insulted. "I can grow tentacles too, if I want. All of us elder things with tentacles are related, in the same way all life on the earth is related. We know stuff."

"I don't believe a word of it. Come on, grow some tentacles then!"

Terrowne sighs and begins to remove his perfectly white and utterly unmarked shirt, folding it neatly as he does so and placing it as far away from the jacuzzi as possible to avoid tempting fate. The three femmes of various species who are riding the tentacle beast to indiscriminate climax open their eyes to look, somehow alerted by the creatures response inside them.

They're probably hoping for a muscular physique of rippling scales, but the dragon of shadow draws his strength from other sources and so his body is lean and perfectly smooth, the placement of muscles and tendons purely functional. Attractive in its own way. Just like anyone else he has two nipples, conventionally sized, admittedly with a golden ball capture ring through each of them.

Nothing remarkable. Then he stretches, and the tentacles extend from his spine, infinitely flexible and capable of taking whatever form he wishes.

For reasons having to do with symmetry in higher-dimensional spaces, he can extend a maximum of seven at once without any complications, but in this simple little bilateral world he normally restrains himself to six, three pairs of two, one from under the shoulder-blades, one from the upper back and one from mid-back. They snake up and over his shoulders and beneath his arms, moving independently in multiple directions at once, reshaping themselves according to some set of individual parameters that is not consciously but autonomously determined.

He looks into the eyes of the badgeress, checking for the irrational fear that this sometimes inspires. She's only slightly afraid, which is acceptable to him. "Just call me the slender-dragon," he jokes, and caresses her gently in six different places with the tips. He has no barbs or ridges; the perfectly mimetic surface of the tentacles is smooth and the same sleek carbon-black as the rest of him.

He withdraws his touch almost immediately and reaches out to the tentacle beast, which responds with several stray extremities of its own before they even come into contact. The tentacles twine together, exchanging information and generating fluids that convey data about what they are and what they are in contact with.

"Oh, aren't you sweet," he says, moved by their exchange in the same way one might be moved by petting a stray puppy or a friendly kitten. "Don't be scared, this place is safe. There are lots of living things here that want to get to know you and let you taste them. They don't know how to talk to you but they want you to touch them very much, and they'd tell you if they could."

He is surprised to find the badgeress has slipped inside the embrace of his tentacles whilst he was busy communing with the tentacle-beast, and is carefully removing his pants without disturbing them. "I suddenly want to fuck you very much right now, and I have no idea why," she growls, hooking the belt with long sharp claws and pulling downwards.

So of course he obligingly extends tentacle number seven. If you're going to bother with genitalia, why not make it as responsive and flexible as possible? There's a certain amount of guesswork involved, as to what would best pleasure a slightly older female badger, but he has plenty of practice and the sight of her dark tight slit (she'd already stripped for her turn in the jacuzzi before he arrived) is enough for a quite decent estimate of the situation.

To avoid confusion as to what is and what isn't between his tentacles and his cock, he creates a swirled purple pattern of fractals, like a tattoo but part of the skin itself, the same as on his tail. Femmes like to trace the pattern with their fingers, getting nowhere quickly but enjoying the attempt.

It's also easy enough to create a heavy set of balls and fill them. The exchange fluid that the tentacles secrete can be changed easily enough to express a specific composition. If anything the result is too perfectly white, reeking strongly of the ocean, all identical rather than a mixture of seed and semen. To actually breed a female and express any of his own higher traits would be quite a challenge, but at least he doesn't have to worry about accidents.

By the time the badgeress has gotten his clothes entirely off and is leaning him gently back onto the nearest ledge so she can seat herself atop him, not wanting to disrupt his befriending of the tentacle-beast, everything is up and ready and hard and the badgeress looks vaguely impressed, which means he may have overdone it just a little. But she seems up for the challenge, pressing that tight slit down against the head of his cock and then letting her weight carry her down until she can feel his balls being pushed gently up against her. He doesn't want to hurt her so he cums just a little, enough to soothe her inside and make it easier.

His cock investigates her rich internal juices, and suddenly he knows all about her. Older, but healthy. Three children, each by a different male. She has had numerous lovers and someone different ejaculates inside her on an average of once a fortnight. She's on a powerful contraceptive but would be fertile if she wasn't. She's strong and has impressive stamina.

Terrowne decides he likes her and she needs to be well and thoroughly fucked, so he draws her down, kissing her and working his hips against her inviting warmth. It's surprisingly refreshing for simple, straight sex with no extras, but the tentacle-beast responds to every stroke and shows all the excitement they don't. By the time she comes, neatly and tightly and without a sound, the three femmes riding the tentacle-beast are screaming with multiple orgasms and assorted juices are being sprayed all over the room, splattering messily onto the tiles. By the time he comes inside her, filling her full to her eager pleasure, they are whimpering and nearly passed out, slithering off the tentacles in exhaustion.

In total defiance of fluid dynamics, not one drop gets on his skin or clothes. It seems getting creamed by tentacles is something that happens strictly to other people. He wipes his cock off on the black stripe along her muzzle, an action which has her thankful and licking her lips, casting happy glances at him as he dresses himself back up and exits the room.

~*~

Poolside, Cleo is arguing the merits of philosophy as one can only do after having sampled the full range of available beverages, with a questionable cigarette in hand.

"Anything that involves an entire row of blindfolded girls dressed only in their panties is by definition shifty," she asserts, extending one claw on her forefinger to make her point. "I mean, what, were they afraid of seeing just how big their tits had gotten? Wait. What was the question again?"

The entire group of stoner wolves in swimming trunks are profoundly moved by her eloquence and all agree wholeheartedly, but since none of them can remember the question either, it is difficult to see what, if anything, has been added to the sum of philosophical knowledge about the world.

Three spectacular alpha females, clasping hands, run naked off the edge of the pool and hit the water with an enormous splash that sails in every direction like a depth charge. Enthusiastic males scream and cheer as inflatable pool toys are left high and dry in the shallows.

Cleo goes to take another hit from her cigarette, only to discover that the water has splashed over the tip and put it out. It's pretty sodden and attempts to relight it get nowhere fast.

"You know what, suddenly I am feeling really, really hungry," she declares, putting one arm cheerfully about the nearest wasted wolfie. He attempts to return the embrace, only to have her shove the soaked spliff into his outstretched hand. Before his reaction times can catch up with what just happened, she is up and heading indoors, for the barbecue-style restaurant where she remembers seeing all manner of delicious meat cooking. Thinking about whole-roasted goat gets her mouth drooling.

Unfortunately for her raging appetites, once she's found her way back to the main ballroom, it turns out that she's not the only one and all the whole-roasted meats have been completely demolished by every vaguely carnivorous guest in sight. There's plenty of meat, yes, and apparently new cooked sides will be ready in a while, but she's hungry now, dammit.

The chefs are doing their best to cover the shortfall by quickly preparing copious numbers of thin cut barbecue steaks, slathered in sauce and pepper and all sorts of delicious things, and there's plenty of roast vegetables to hand, potatoes and carrots and parsnips and you name it, but it's not what she really wanted. She chows down a couple of plates worth, eating so fast she nearly bites her own fingers and is licking sauce continuously off her muzzle, and that takes the edge off. But it's just not quite the same.

She swigs down a couple of beers to rinse away the spicy taste, and looks around at the frustrated patrons nearby and the empty spit. Some of them seem almost as annoyed as she is, especially the ones that have showed up in groups of three or more and were expecting a serious dining experience on the classy main floor before getting involved in the real partying later on. Several of the diners can be seen surreptitiously checking their watches, hoping for their meals to arrive soon but obviously wondering whether they should just cut their losses and simply hit any one of the other places supplying the party, to avoid missing out on the action that's going on literally all around them.

Cleo can confirm that extreme stuff is happening in pretty much every corner, and it's really not right that anyone is missing out. She has another drink and then her eye alights on the empty spit over the flaming brazier, busily cooking nothing, and she has a brilliant idea.

With a slightly drunken sway of her sexy lioness hips that makes her, if anything, more graceful, she strolls over to the harried barbecue chef and strikes up a conversation.

"Those cooking things must be really strong to hold up a whole side of beef," she says, with a feigned drunken naivety. "I mean.... I mean... it must weigh, like some huge amount. Like a hundred kilograms or something. Like, really heavy."

"They're rated up to two hundred kilograms, ma'am," the barbecue chef tells her, frantically flipping thin-cut steaks and slathering sauce onto things, pausing to slap the finished ones on plates which are getting claimed quicker than he can cook them. He has an incredible sweat going on, from the heat of the grille and the warmth of the room and all the guests.

"Oh! Well that's really great then. See, I was worried they might break or something." She strips off her little black dress in one astounding, sinuous motion, sending a spray of tiny crystals flying, then drapes it neatly inside-out over an empty pre-warmed plate. "Look after this for me."

The demands of fashion and the evening being what they are, quite naturally she's not wearing any underwear. She dashes out in front of the hungry patrons and essays a sweeping bow, showing off her large breasts and sharply delineated cleavage to impressive effect.

"Femmes and gentlefurs! In the absence of dinner... let me give you a show!"

Without giving anyone a moment to pause she strides over to the grille, grabs the stainless steel spit with both hands and swings herself onto it, in the same style as a stripper beginning a pole dance only exactly sideways. The metal is greased with the rendered fat of the previous occupant, which makes it quite slippery enough for her to spin around easily, but the metal should be burning hot and as she spins around it, her breasts quite clearly swing through the open orange flames of the underlying brazier, her nipples outlined by the rippling heat of the fire.

There is a moment of stunned silence from the assembled diners, mixed with an undertone of horror as they are briefly convinced that she is voluntarily cooking herself. Then it soon becomes apparent that the flames are having no effect on her whatsoever, because her hair fails to catch fire and her whiskered grin remains completely unscorched. As she continues with her routine, she bathes her breasts and pussy in the flames, obviously enjoying the sensation.

Suddenly the tension eases, and everyone is watching with great interest. A wolf in sunglasses who is accompanied by a carnivorous female rabbit laughs nervously as his companion picks at her barbecue steak. Further back, a male kangaroo demon, his graceful purple girlfriend of the same species, and a sleekly white dragoness with a pink nose and rainbow wings are suddenly very, very interested in the proceedings. The dragoness keeps licking her lips uncontrollably.

"Hoping for dibs on the rump roast?" the purple kangaroo demon asks her friend slyly.

~*~

Cleo got most of the way through her very best routine, admittedly sideways, before Terrowne showed up again in the main ballroom, lured by the possibility of any remaining seafood. The prawns or shrimp or whatever they were had been delicious, and communing with tentacles whilst making classical full-out love to a sensitive older badgeress had really rekindled his appetite.

He had just set his sights on a seafood platter with lobster, oysters and some steak in the best surf'n'turf tradition when he noticed several burly macro types dressed like bouncers in cheap suits converging on his approximate location. Hoping to avoid any trouble, he followed their trajectory forward along the timeline and realized that it wasn't actually him they were after at all. Because a certain type of mind insists on these things, he took the extra few seconds required to grab the seafood platter on his way past. No sense in going hungry, after all.

By coincidentally happening to be walking through all the empty spaces in the crowd, he wound up between the two front tables, watching Cleo grind her hips up against the flames, well before security could finally arrive to enforce the 'keep it classy' rule. In all fairness, she wasn't the first one to have broken it, and wouldn't be the last, but it seemed likely that this particular routine was something that had been officially been decided to belong in one of the upstairs fetish rooms. The audience seemed to be enjoying it but limits had to be set, and she was being her usual transgressive lioness self.

"You know I wanted to see you dance, but I think watching you cooking is even better," he declared cheerfully, tearing the steak to pieces with his teeth. The lobster would have taken too long and he was saving the oysters for later.

Cleo finished her current swing and turned it into a swift somersault off the bar that landed her neatly and poised in front of everyone with her arms spread gracefully wide.

"There you are! I was looking for you in the crowd at the top of each move!" she exclaimed, before taking a happy and slightly exhausted bow. Terrowne decided to play along and so took her in an open embrace and bowed with her a second time. "All part of the show, folks! Enjoy the party!" he added, acting it up for the crowd, many of whom had actually gotten dinner during the course of the dance and been so distracted they hadn't really noticed being served.

"Could you please grab her dress for us?" he ordered the nearest bouncer, with the absolute conviction that he would be obeyed. It worked so well that Cleo was shimmying back into her bodice before it even occurred to them that they were supposed to be doing something about this breach of the rules. Which is what they had just done, apparently. They all seemed a bit confused.

It took another minute or so for the head of security to arrive. She was a hugely muscled and enormous cougar who towered over everyone, but unlike her lesser minions she was fully capable of independent thought. Terrowne waited with interest to see what she would say, if only because it was so much fun to meet someone who probably wouldn't be totally predictable.

"Aren't these guys just idiots?" exclaimed the cougar happily, taking in her own team of bouncers. "Seriously though, that was a really great dance. Naturally, the boss wants to meet you."

"I do hope we haven't caused any trouble," said Cleo insincerely.

"No, he liked it! And the thing your mate did with the tentacle-beast drove him nuts!"

"I'm sorry, it was just so very cute I couldn't help myself," Terrowne apologized.

"He wants you to do a private show in one of the upstairs rooms!"

"Is the upstairs hallway where they dropped the pearls free?"

"Well, yes, I suppose so. Why?" asked the cougar.

"You're going to love finding out."

~*~

Having dispatched her lesser bouncers on another mission, the tall cougar made it hers to escort them personally up the main staircase. Cleo hadn't had the chance yet to promenade up it, taking in the view, so she swept her head back and made believe she was the guest of honour, because in a certain sense they currently were. She could feel the warmth and hot smells swirling off an entire ballroom of excited furres, delicious food and sharp drink, and relished the sensation.

On the side landing, the cougar turned aside to a small wooden door set into the wall, barely noticeable, and pulling an old-fashioned copper key on a slender chain out from around her neck, set the teeth of it into a round opening that was not immediately recognizable as a keyhole. "The irony of being head of security in a building refurbished exactly to the 1920's," she explained, noting Cleo's interested glance. "Any lock you can actually see could be probably picked by a determined cub using a dinner fork. I mean sure, behind the scenes it's all good, the kitchens and loading bay and stuff are tight, but just about everywhere else it's ridiculous. It's exactly the reverse of the way it would be anywhere else."

The cougar led them through into a narrow spiral staircase, a steeply winding metal frame of the sort popular at the time and still seen occasionally in other art deco buildings and libraries. It was only wide enough for one furre at a turn, but that was probably the idea. "Watch your step," observed the cougar, "they only refurbished the exteriors, or it would have gone way over budget even for Hollywood."

There was barely enough room for the seafood platter to travel up the stairs with them. Terrowne was reduced to supporting it using only one hand and great dexterity, like a perfectly suited waiter.

Reaching the top ahead of them, she opened a much better door with a swipe-card and a numeric entry pad. She covered her hand whilst entering the numbers, but Terrowne reconstructed the values from her finger movements purely out of force of habit and was amused to find that the access code had been set to thirty-four, sixty-nine. She obviously had a sense of humour.

The room the stairs opened into was an office that spoke to the epitome of executive management in the roaring twenties. There were chairs with red leather upholstery, wood and metal art deco paneling over every free surface. In an incongruous contrast, a relatively modern corporate-style desk had been moved into the center of the room and was covered in enormous stacks of bills, copies of both outgoing and ingoing receipts, and miscellaneous paperwork. Space had been made off to one side, by shoving some of the papers onto the floor, for an ashtray full of hand-rolled remnants.

"I wondered where the wolves down by the pool were getting something that good," Cleo declared by way of introduction.

Sitting on the chair next to the desk and surreptitiously taking a quick hit was a young leopard with a stripe of pure white fur between his ears. Terrowne recognized him as Roxan, the self-made billionaire from California who'd reaped a fortune after accidentally discovering the composition for a whole new category of transformational chemicals whilst trying to improve the flavor of a hand-rolled marijuana cigarette. While it was the legal chemicals that had made him his money, he'd made no bones about the fact that it was the illegal ones that he liked the most, and once you had that much money, you could pretty much get away with whatever you wanted.

"Oh, hey there Cleo!" Roxan responded enthusiastically once he noticed her. He looked a little blitzed by everything that was going on. "I saw that little show of yours on the hidden cameras after cougar-babe here flagged it for me. You had them hungry, girl!"

"How's that thing with Drakkhan Pharmaceuticals going for you?" Cleo asked, perching herself on the edge of his desk like the expectedly slutty secretary out of an old movie.

"Oh, no business tonight," explained Roxan, exhaling smoke slowly. "Tonight it's one hundred percent party. Did you know it took six caterers to handle all of this? And that's not counting the other suppliers who handle the drinks." He spotted a piece of paper that had obviously escaped earlier and skewered it on a small spike. "It's just lucky I can supply all of the recreational chemicals myself."

Cleo rubbed one of her feet affectionately up against his thigh.

"You need to relax a little the old-fashioned way," she purred. "No chemistry, just good company. I'm sure that between us all, we could really ease your mind."

"You may be right," sighed Roxan. "I keep telling my secretary that a project of this epic magnitude is just too big for one furre... where is Kiba anyway?" he demanded of the cougar, who was waiting with patient stillness off to one side.

"I last saw him heading into one of the bathrooms to adjust his tie, sir," she replied.

"I hope it wasn't the one on the first floor in the servants quarters," said Roxan, alarmed.

"If it's any consolation, he looked very good in his new suit, sir," she grinned.

While Cleo and Roxan had been chatting, Terrowne had been looking for somewhere to set down the seafood platter and taking in the view. The office opened out, to the left, onto a dedicated balcony for the owner from which the entire estate and backyard were clearly visible. The doors were opened and locked back to let out the smell of smoke, and music could be heard leaking in from the outside, so he walked out to take a look. The torches lit up the night, and the glass-enclosed pool area was a blue glow off to one side. There was something oddly familiar about the current set, a song which was only a few months old but seemed to have been freshly remixed with something he'd heard somewhere else, a very long time ago.

"Anyway, I'm kind of forgetting myself here," continued Roxan, noticing Terrowne looking down over the party. "Would you guys like some scotch? It's really excellent stuff, only just arrived with the last batch of booze. Black label, specially aged in the cask. I'm planning to have a private toast out on the balcony with each of my 'special guests' who helped make the party possible. Do it right, and I should be completely out of it by the end of the evening."

"Let me get you some ice," suggested Terrowne. He was never shy of taking a little of the good stuff, and this one came in its own special case of four. "So where's the drinks cabinet?"

The executive office proved to have a complete fold-out drinks cabinet, with a complete matching set of the original glasses from the previous century. There shouldn't have been any ice, given that it hadn't been restocked beforehand, but to Terrowne this was a small detail and he simply reached out sideways into the set of all possible worlds to pull out a silver ice-bucket that was surplus someplace else. It even had thin slices of lemon and lime, and a set of very small tongs for grabbing the little blocks of ice.

Terrowne busied himself making and pouring very precise drinks, a task which he rather enjoyed, as Cleo and Roxan continued chatting. Cleo explained all about her ambition to recreate the famous spill of pearls in the upstairs hallway, only using a very different set of materials. "We'll need to recruit some interested werewolves from the party, to get the volume right," she concludes. "Of course, you and cougar-girl here are welcome to join in. Just like in the movie, someone has to count the pearls after it's over and make sure none of them get lost, right?"

"Ah... I should probably go, sir," interrupted the cougar, apparently not completely at ease with the idea of cleaning up the sort of pearls Cleo has in mind. "Otherwise goodness knows what those idiots will get up to downstairs. I haven't heard from them over the radio in quite a while now."

"Wait. Before you go," suggested Roxan, rummaging around in the case, "here's a bottle for you and the boys. On the house. Just don't get to drinking too much until the whole thing's over, okay? Maybe you should just put it someplace safe for now."

"Ah... that's very generous sir. And now I really must be going."

Cleo can be seen visibly trying not to giggle as the cougar in charge of security flees the room. "She's totally up for it, she just can't quite bring herself to say yes," she murred behind her hand to Roxan in tones of total conviction. "I am so going to persuade her before the evening's over."

"Oh, would that be a bet?" provoked Roxan, intrigued.

"Well, it's not like you really need the money," pointed out Cleo. "Although I definitely like money and I could always use some more. How about this... if I can't talk over the cougar, then you can share us instead. We'll do - whatever - you want..." she adds persuasively.

"And what does it cost me if you win?" enquired Roxan, interested.

"Hmm... well then, you have to buy me the actual pearls from the movie. To go along with my exciting story," Cleo concluded, after thinking about it for a bit.

"So, are we going to do this toast now or what?" interrupted Terrowne. The drinks had been done for a while now, there was even an oyster from the seafood platter positioned discreetly next to each with a tidy dash of sauce, but he'd been enjoying listening in on the conversation. The beautiful cougar would be awe-inspiring, but a handsome and wealthy leopard would come a very close second. Both would be even better, but he couldn't see that happening in any immediate future.

They headed out to the balcony with their drinks to enjoy the view and a fresh breath of night air.

"To the first inaugural SoFurry House Party. May it live forever in infamy!" Roxan declared gleefully, waving his glass in the general direction of the back yard.

"Skål," agreed Cleo in the perfect original pronunciation, clinking their glasses together.

"Gutår," concluded Terrowne, recognising her toast and honoring it with the correct reply.

They'd only just gotten started exchanging some of the fifty or more different ethnic expressions they both knew for raising a glass when the inner door of the office suddenly burst open and the female cougar dashed back inside, fresh from whatever was going on downstairs.

Now that Terrowne came to notice it, there were actually a whole spread of almost immediate futures involving the cougar that he simply couldn't see. In fact they were completely blank...

"Sir! I think we may have a problem sir!"

~*~

Terrowne braced himself for a second and then walked calmly through the shattered door, adjusting the micro-structure of his scales as he did so. Assuming everything worked as it should, the points would interlock on impact, distributing even the most powerful hit evenly across his body.

Behind him, Cleo was gingerly wiping the last of the stains off the armoured jacket and licking her fingers clean with her long, supple lioness tongue. She draped the jacket over her little black dress and zipped it up in a single abrupt motion, producing that characteristic sound that almost proclaimed the wearers hardness. It actually went together fairly well as an outfit, and she liked to look classy whilst doing insanely dangerous stuff.

Inside, there were remnants everywhere of what could only be summarized as your common or garden variety sex-magic ritual, only this one seemed to have been going all night, covered by the noise of the naked rave still going on not twenty feet behind them. The door-frame exploding hadn't even created a pause in the frantic bacchanal, and techno music pulsed off the walls around them, creating a worst case scenario in which they wouldn't be able to hear anything coming until it was too late.

The cougar in charge of security had sensibly gotten her back against a structural support to the left of the doorway and was ready for anything. If it went, there wouldn't be a sub-basement any more, so it was probably the safest place to be.

The ritual, it seemed, had been basic, but the sheer volume more than made up for it. It didn't look like anyone had actually died, or at least not in any immediately irreversible manner, but there was blood of various shades absolutely everywhere, as well as a multitude of other bodily fluids of different sorts. Most of the blood had been used to draw an assortment of badly written angular symbols, the magical equivalent of poorly-formed request headers. However, it seemed that one or more of the random combinations had been successful and something had definitely been summoned.

Cleo passed a young lynx girl who had been hung by her ankles from the ceiling, cut shallowly with blades in a quite attractive scarification pattern and then left to drip. She was still twitching, apparently having an ongoing orgasm that just wouldn't stop. A number of small shallow bowls and smoke-censers littered the area around her, suggesting that there had been some fairly intensive use of mind-altering substances during the course of the evening.

Cleo ignored her, because she was only one of many. Numerous other male and female furres had been restrained around the room in a what were actually a quite imaginative range of ways, from the classic tied-over-an-altar to innovative modern machinery of all sorts designed to give the participants no choice in their own stimulation. The design she liked best, she decided, was a simple frame made of silvery polished wire just slightly too heavy to bend, that gave the impression of lightness and freedom and not restraining you in any way at all, except that it would be impossible to escape. An automated device designed to draw the arms up behind the back against a sleekly curved plinth came second for simplicity of concept.

Most of the implements of the ritual had been dropped or abandoned when it surprised the participants by actually succeeding, and everyone who wasn't tied down had fled out into the naked rave, which was actually a sensible response. Ditching the robes and amulets and diving into a sea of naked bodies might help disrupt the occult trace of the sex-ritual, making its perpetrators harder to track down for whatever they'd summoned. If they could rub up against enough of the glow-stick wielding ravers whilst making enough distance, the majority of them would probably get away. Unfortunately, this would be very bad news for the five-hundred plus others at the party when whatever they'd summoned finally came looking.

The back wall of the sub-basement was already starting to show the characteristic signs of dimensional strain, an appearance of depth that seemed to recede off into infinity inside a circular event horizon as the basic topology of the room multiplied by extension. The fact that the outer wall of the basement was set entirely up against the local country rock and this space couldn't possibly exist didn't seem to be slowing it down at all, which was somewhat troubling.

In the depths of the extended space, shadows could be seen moving about in unexpected ways, as though they were some form of negative light that endarkened rather than illuminating. There was a hint of rippling motion, as barely visible tentacles began to extend through into the local universe.

Cleo picked up a stray copy of what looked like 'The Sacred Book of The Werewolf' by Victor Pelevin and looked it over. It seemed the original owner must have been experimenting with ritualistic kitsune humiliation, because the parts near the end were heavily footnoted. She lobbed it experimentally into the affected area. As soon as it hit the interface, it fell sideways and directly away from her into the infinite distance until it disappeared.

Terrowne, unimpressed, extended his four ears into a non-linear array and peered through the darkness into the depths of local space-time to determine just who was crashing the party from the outside. He was very surprised to find it was something familiar. "Well, hello again," he drawled with his forked tongue, a fraction of a second before he and Cleo both booked it from the room.

Once they were safely outside and also backed up against the wall either side of the door, he felt he owed the cougar in charge of security something of an explanation.

"You'll never guess, what came back, to visit," he exclaimed, trying to catch his breath.

"What is it?" demanded the cougar impatiently, her lips curled up into a snarl.

"It's a thing from the outside that got fried like calamari by Cleo here, in the middle of Exmoor back in 1983. In fact I think that was exactly thirty years ago now, but my memories of that night are a bit hazy. It seems to be a little bit upset that we're going to have killed it."

"That doesn't even make any sense!" exclaimed the cougar.

"It's non-local, it doesn't experience linear time like you do. Unfortunately, it has the same abilities as I do, and so I can't use them against it. Last time it nearly made me lose personality integration."

Cleo has been counting on her fingers and reaches a conclusion. "Yes, exactly thirty years ago, after allowing for the time difference. It would have been August 1st, 1983 and I killed it just before sunset. It's taking advantage somehow of the exact temporal interval to have a go at us."

"Was it visibly damaged or injured in any way the first time you saw it?" Terrowne demands.

"Not as far as I could tell. I managed to lock it down using that observer-based effect you told me about, but it seemed fine right up until I started hitting it."

"Well that's inconvenient," Terrowne muses. "Means we can't stop it with anything that might leave a mark. Non-lethal tactics for an unstoppable elder thing. That's just great."

"Perhaps we could counter the ritual and bounce it straight off of local space-time," suggests Cleo. "Actually hell yes, I like that idea. It comes here, and it crashes the party without even asking for an invitation and it makes a mess, damn straight it needs to get bounced and we are the bouncers."

"But how would it work? You were always the one for practical magic. I just cheat and manipulate reality directly to get what I want. This calls for a certain level of subtlety."

Cold air begins to rush out of the shattered doorway to the ritual room, and faint roaring sounds can be heard now over and above the music of the rave party, approaching from a vast distance. The visitor is getting closer and has nearly made its match with local reality.

"Do you still have that bottle of scotch?" Cleo suddenly asks the cougar. "The one that Roxan gave you just before we had the private toast out on the balcony? I don't recall seeing you ever actually put it down."

"You want a drink? Sure," exclaims the cougar, flipping back the fold of her jacket to reveal the whole bottle slipped into a pocket in the inner lining. It's something that only someone as tall, muscular and stacked as her could get away with hiding there. "Now would seem to be the time, since we're all about to get raped to death by something a lot less friendly than your boyfriend."

"No, don't drink it!" exclaims Cleo, mind making connections at incredible speed. "In fact, leave the cap on and don't even try to open it. Roxan said this was some sort of special brand, aged in the cask. Exactly how special is it?"

"Thirty-year old black-label," sighs the cougar, looking wistfully at the bottle. "I wish I'd had time to drink some."

"Don't you see, that's how it works," she says excitedly. "For the whole thing to make sense, there has to exist a series of events in which the present matches the past. And here we are with a bottle of thirty-year-old scotch, exactly thirty years later!"

"What are you planning to do?" asks Terrowne worriedly. There's a level of uncertainty to all this he's not used to or happy with, especially when it involves Cleo. The two of them try their best to trust one another to make it through things unscathed, but that doesn't preclude trying to help each other.

"Just leave this to me," declares Cleo, a look of determination crossing her muzzle. "You said before that you wanted me to go get myself a couple of really lethal drinks, so you could watch me dance."

"So?"

"So, I've got my drinks. Now watch me dance."

~*~

She leans outward from the wall and strides forward into the jet-stream.

Air is flowing out of the room with incredible force and pressure as a partially-infinite corridor into higher dimensions collapses into the here and now. The flow whistles coldly past her, painful across the ear where the notch was cut out and hasn't fully healed yet.

She has her bottle of scotch and her little black dress. This is going to be one hell of a party.

The restrained and semi-conscious participants in the ritual are starting to experience physiological side effects, twitching and straining against their bonds and moving in time with one another, their eyes rolled back in their heads. As she watches, one begins to bleed from the nostrils. That puts a time limit on it, because they're starting to take actual physical damage. She's going to have to end this quickly.

She reaches the wall at the far side of the room and stares into the gulf. The shining abyss, Terrowne sometimes calls it, when the dragon of shadow remembers its origins and tries to show them to him in dreams. The endarkenment effect is getting subjectively closer, and the writhing tentacles have become clearly visible, snaking in ever greater numbers out toward the room.

As they reach out toward her, she very calmly holds up the bottle of scotch, as though making a toast of her own, and begins to dance. And reality cannot look away.

Each motion and gesture of the dance is in fact a recreation of complex spatial geometries physically expressed, as she tries to undo what has been done in this place over the course of the entire evening. Twists of her fingers express specific chiral rotations, the directions of her arms define angles in higher dimensions. With her hips she leans persuasively on the curvature of local space, as her tail insists on a different second derivative for the surface tangent.

A description that took a room-worth of symbols carefully drawn in blood, and the descent to subspace of thirteen willing souls, is written again backwards in under a minute by the movements of her body. As she completes the dance, the tentacles finally attempt to grasp her, and she casts the bottle of scotch out toward them just as she did before with the book. The tentacles flinch for just a second, uncertain as to what is going on, and this is all the time she needs to stand straight, bring her hands to her sides, and raise her palms upward as they burst into flame like an ignited shot glass.

The symbols written all over the walls and floor explode into flame as well, consumed instantly and reduced to smears of living carbon. The books full of strange words and geometric diagrams are fully and viciously engulfed. The bottle of scotch accelerates exponentially into the abyss and is lost in the darkness for a moment before it detonates like the world's most expensive molotov cocktail in a beautiful blossoming of flame.

And none of this is capable of doing serious damage to an elder thing, but instincts of self-preservation cause it to try and get out of the way, avoiding the short burst of intense light. As the spatial distortion collapses and rebounds on itself, reality snapping back into place like frayed elastic, the creature throws itself in the direction of safety, thirty years into the past and half a world away, where the drink that will one day be thrown at it during a party has only just started to gain alcohol content in a remote distillery.

~*~

Suddenly, everything is back to normal, or as close as it can get in a room full of symbols burned into the walls and willing sacrifices tied to things. Air rushes back into the room as the pressure equalizes, and Cleo slaps her palms together, dusting out the flames.

The lynx hanging upside down suddenly coughs out a mouthful of something that isn't blood, her scarification cuts abruptly cauterized with a neat pattern of permanently raised burns. "Damn, that was awesome," she gags, and reaches up to start fingering herself.

On the other side of the room, a kitsune wearing studded leather cuffs regains consciousness. "Pull my tail," she begs Cleo, "yank it hard and show me what a slutty bitch I am!"

Cleo sighs and shakes her head, walking out of the room. Some furres just never seen to learn when to stop. She'll leave them right where they are until the cougar can send down her medical team, assuming she has one. For a professionally organized party with five hundred guests, it's probably a given.

Having seen what just happened around the very edge of the frame, Terrowne meets her at the door to the ritual room, where they observe the furres who are only just waking up.

"So, you ever watch that Narnia movie?" she asks, apropos of nothing, knowing that he has.

"Yeah. I thought Aslan was exceedingly sexy," he jokes, and she whacks him on the shoulder.

"I always thought that him and the Witch should just go get a room," Cleo explains. "She could buy him a nice collar, he could buy her a nice whip, they could have some fun together. I always imagine them going home together at the end of the day, to sit in matching thrones and argue over who won."

"Yeah, I kind of see what you mean, actually," concedes Terrowne, given that something resembling the stone table scene as implemented for real is currently right in front of him. "There is something just a bit excessively bondage about all of this. You think Roxan might be able to swing us a private room for a couple of hours, once you've done your thing in the upstairs hallway?"

"We did just save his party from being literally crashed by a creature from the beyond."

"Well yes, but it was after us. And my communing with the tentacle-beast in the jacuzzi upstairs probably made us easier to find. Technically most of this was our own fault."

"Eh, mitigating circumstances," dismisses Cleo with a flick of her wrist.

"You guys still owe me a bottle of thirty-year-old scotch," complains the cougar.

"Perhaps we can offer you something even better," purrs Cleo seductively.

~*~

When the dawn finally arrives, lighting up the ballroom sideways through the open doors and windows with a golden light, Cleo and Terrowne are slow-dancing out in the center of the floor. Everyone else seems to have found themselves a friend, or has fallen asleep at a table surrounded by bottles, or has gotten deeply-enough knotted that they've decided it isn't worth the effort to get loose.

The head of security is upstairs sleeping under warm covers, breathing happy little snoring purrs after they both made it up to her for destroying her bottle of scotch. Things quietened down considerably once it got late enough, and it was nothing her team couldn't handle themselves, so she allowed herself to be persuaded. Unbeknownst to her, on the table beside the bed there is now another bottle of even rarer scotch, in fact the best single-malt that could possibly be to hand in any timeline, with a short note expressing their appreciation to such a beautiful cougar for sharing herself with them.

"That was a great party," murrs Cleo against his shoulder, still wearing the jacket but unzipped now.

"Yeah, we should really thank Roxan," agrees Terrowne. "I haven't had this much fun in ages."

"You know how you said it was me you wanted to end up with at the end of the evening?"

"Uh-huh," he agrees as they sway to the last music playing, a simple rhythm with no effort.

"I wanted to end up with you too. I just didn't want to say it because it was so cheesy."

"I know honey."

~*~

Only after he swirled her around in a little circle at the end, agreed everyone who was still awake and could remember it, was the party finally over.