Lady Chatterlynx's Lover (Third Portion)

Story by Tyler David Coltraine on SoFurry

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#3 of Lady Chatterlynx's Lover

Another day in the life of Oliver Jones, companion to the voluptuous Lady Victoria Chatterlynx.

A shorter segment, something to bridge the gap and provide a bit of canon. I promise the next segment will, in fact, be more plot than pointless buggering between consenting adults!

For those wondering, most of the content here is the same. I grew quickly disappointed in the 'it was all a dream' conclusion of the original revision, and offer this one as a superior alternate.


Some of you, readers of mine, may have come to the conclusion that the Chatterlynx household was or perhaps still is some sort of house of ill repute and that its lady and her staff are nothing more than hedonists who revel in sins of the flesh in the isolation of the English countryside. I would insist, my friend, that you consider this simply a story and hold firm that despite the implication of continuous improprieties by all accounts the house of Chatterlynx was much the same as any of its era. There were simply...unusual occurrences, and we shall leave the topic at that.

As there was no one left about, I excused myself from the dining room, blessing whoever could hear my voice for the empty hallways. Victoria had completely ruined the fastening of my trousers, and I was forced to stumble tiredly to my bedroom with both hands working to keep myself even somewhat decent. I had at the very least been able to wedge my half-swollen member into my underthings before leaving the table, not that it made very much difference. The smell wafted with me like some sort of phantom companion, and the darkness only made a token effort at hiding the stains and streaks along my pant legs. I cursed my parentage for that--foxes sadly have earned their reputation as somewhat messy creatures, and in bedroom activities the fact remains the same. It may seem a bit unseemly to discuss one's emissions in such an indelicate way, but I daresay that if you find such things offensive I could not guess as to your purpose in continuing to read this story. It shall certainly not become less vulgar in later pages.

Finally I managed to escape the hallways. My tail had bottled itself to double its normal already impressive volume in nervousness, and I could barely pull my ears away from my skull. Wandering about the home in sullied trousers was the realm of kits and the infirm, not a strapping lad of my age. I rationalized that the conditions of my predicament were not those to be embarrassed of, sitting at the foot of my bed and letting my frayed nerves rest. Indeed, some men would have given their very livelihoods to be in my position and all of its, ah, unexpected benefits.

I shrugged and allowed myself a sigh and began to undress. It would do no good to whine about the situation. Instead, I should learn to accept and perhaps even enjoy Victoria's exceptionally amorous advances. She certainly was not an unattractive representative of her species, and I could not deny that as unnerving as it had been at the moment her...interactions with me at supper had been most pleasant. I smiled slightly, undressing and preparing for slumber. To my mild frustration, Delilah had not returned my pyjamas from laundering, and I instead wore a nightshirt, thankfully still having one about despite such a thing being quite out of fashion. Hopefully tonight would be far less, ah, intense, and I would be allowed to sleep calmly.

If the night's sleep was difficult, it was not the fault of Victoria Chatterlynx and her husband. If in fact the two did engage in another evening of exuberant and vocal coitus, I was not conscious to partake of any of it--unlike the night before, I found myself in a sleep deep enough to get lost in, dreaming so vividly that I was quite often unsure if I were actually not awake.

She did not however leave me be. At the very least my mind would not let me be free of her presence. At first, she simply wandered through the dreamscape, a specter of sorts, staying on the periphery. But as the night progressed, she grew closer, more distinct, impossible to ignore. Before I could comprehend her steady invasion into my imaginings, I found her standing before me, my body frozen as I sat and stared in silent admiration. Unlike our real-world encounters, this Lady Chatterlynx was dressed in considerably less than would be appropriate--I suppose I could blame my own perverse subconscious for creating the complex array of lace and silk that wrapped around her form, holding her feminine curves tightly while working to hide virtually nothing from the wandering eye.

"Why do you think of me so much?" she asked. Her words were playful and her posture drew my gaze along her belly to her hip where slim fingers stroked over the grey pelt.

"It is not deliberate, I assure you."

Victoria's specter laughed. "I guess it's irrelevant. Here we are, hmm?" She slipped her fingers along the shoulder strap of her lingerie, adjusting it, her bust swaying gently with her movements, nipples the color of champagne visible through the sheer lace. "Such a naughty little fox you are, Jack. The cunning little fox who uses wagging tails and pointy ears to scheme a bit." She nibbled at her lower lip. "I'm flattered."

I swallowed as Victoria turned on her heels, arching her spine and running her fingers through her loosed hair. How could I have such a real feeling lump in my throat? "I, ah. You're quite welcome." I resisted every urge to tilt my head, to ogle the sumptuous curvature of her hips and bottom as they swayed gently with every move. It was rather in my favor that she had only a bob of a tail to flick; a huge plume would have left me speechless in my own dream-world.

I felt the touch of her fingers against my neck before I was aware she had even approached my side; her perfume filled my senses as an arm slid across my bare chest. "It's a very unusual design. But I don't think you know very much about women's frilly things, do you?" My hair was curled around a slim fingertip. "Or do you? I've heard stories about the foxes in Europe. Filthy ones..."

"Rumors of my interest in cross-dressing are greatly exaggerated," I responded, ending the sentence with a slight wink and a chuckle. Why should I be ashamed? This was my bloody dream, and if I wished to prance about with the Queen of England herself in naught but a pair of frilly cotton knickers in my own head then I would.

Victoria laughed as she slipped into my lap, draping her arms across me, pressing her nose softly to the underside of my chest. Warmly she rumbled for me, eyes lidded, for all intents a housecat who had come to enjoy the comforts of her master. We kissed, lightly at first, the fleeting glances of contact turning into something much warmer too many moments escaped. She was hot against my body; the heat took my breath away and left me gasping. The sights swam in my vision.

"Such a wicked creature, the fox. How does England survive when they run around freely with these kinds of dreams in their heads?" The straps of her clothing fell away of their own accord, the clasps separating to leave us both joined in our collective nakedness.

"This won't last, you know," she hissed into my ear before nipping the tip.

"It will last as long as I want it to," I answered, squeezing her plush backside in my palms, struggling blissfully to manage it.

Victoria shook her head. "I'm afraid, my lovely Reynard, that simply isn't true."

The scene melted away in a flash of white light, and I was left lying in my bed, sweating profusely under the thick insulation of the woolen comforter. The room was lit only by the first rays of the dawning sun; I had some time left before I would need to rise and meet Victoria for whatever today brought.

Sodding hell. I had come in my sleep again.

The rest of my sleep was uneventful; there were no dreams of voluptuous felines or any other sort of interesting minutiae. Only the blackness abyss of pure unconsciousness awaited me. I may have slept the entire day away, were it not for a persistent chill. The blankets had been so stifling I am sure I had kicked them away, and I shivered fitfully. October would be here soon and the English winter would be close on its heels, nipping at us with icy teeth. Ah, wonderful old Britain and its delightfully predictable weather.

"Oh, I see yer awake, sah. Good mornin' to ye."

"Ah, yes, thank you Emma, and the same to you as well."

After a substantial rest, a man's mind must be expected to be somewhat slow to process. It is a piece of machinery in a sense, is it not? And a cold machine rarely functions well until given time and warmth. So it should go without saying that my casual response to the servant girl's presence in my room before I had awoken was the result of, shall we say, a stiff gear in my mental workings.

Slowly, though, the situation as it was came into focus. I had met Emma briefly the night before during dinner. I had paid her scarcely any mind, being more...concerned with the goings-on below the table than those above. A kingfisher, I believe? Ornithology is hardly my strongest suit, but blue plumage is not a common sight--not in the western boundaries of Europe, at least. It was impossible to miss such a lovely cerulean tone as it stood sharply against the plain black of her uniform.

"What...what are you doing in my room?" I said, perhaps a bit more emphatically than I would have preferred.

Emma chuckled lightly, setting down a basin and a few cloths. "Me job, sah. Bein' as I am a chamber maid and such, would be most unsightly for me to not tend to the bedchambers." Her voice was a thickly accented chirp, as if someone nearer my homeland were singing it rather than speaking. "Do forgive me for sneaking about, though, sah. I presumed you were up an' about with Lady Victoria already."

"I see. Well. You can come back later, Emma. I shall be out for much of the day." I pulled the blankets up to my waist, both for a smattering of warmth and for a modicum of decency. It was hardly proper for a gentleman to have a conversation in naught but his night-shirt!

The girl chirp-chuckled again as she prepared her washing-cloths. "There'll be none of that, Mistah Jones. Lady Victoria 'erself asked that I tend to you a'fore the days obligations, an' I'll have no fussin' from you." Without warning, Emma strode to the bed and grabbed the comforter in one feathered hand, tugging it away with surprising speed. "An' don't ye be coverin' up like that. Ye've nothin' I ain't see before." I sucked in my breath and grabbed for the blankets, but she would have none of it, pulling it entirely away and tucking the bundle into a pile near the door to the hallway. "Now, off with that gown, Master Oliver. I can't be spendin' me whole day in 'ere fightin wif you over a bit of linen!" Emma put both hands on the waist of my night clothes, grabbing at the only article of clothing standing between me and the greater world.

"Good grief, girl! What in blazes do you think you're doing?!" That question seemed to be the theme of the day. I wrestled her as much as I could allow myself.

She seemed to revel in the whole ordeal and before long I was left shivering in nothing more than my creator had seen fit to bless me with. I had to provide at least small thanks for my pelt--the less furred creatures of the earth must suffer so greatly in the cold. But the blessing provided no comforts in my particular situation, huddled on my bare bed as a mere chamber maid stood smugly next to me, folding my clothing and placing it near the comforter.

"Good effort, sah, but I 'ad six brothers growin' up. T'weren't a snowflake's chance in the devil's domain that you'd beat me." If she could have laughed like a hyena, I would wager my life she would have.

"Emma." I was angry, positively fuming, tail bristled out like a bottle-brush behind me. "I will ask you once more. What is themeaning of this?"

And yet again, my ferocious display unsettled the bird not a single bit. She went back to her basin and cloths, chirping a cheery little tune to herself as she brought the tray closer to my bedside. "Wif all respect due, Mistah Oliver, why are ye so agitated by a spot o' cleanin'?"

"Is that what this is? I am fully capable of attending to my own bathing, thank you very much. I hardly need a servant-girl to teach me of hygiene." In hindsight, I perhaps should have fastened a lead to my tongue, for it was quite a length ahead of me and seemed hell-bent on leaving a torrent of troubles in its wake for me to deal with.

The sudden press of a warm cloth against my thigh prevented me from any further verses of my tirade. Carefully it stroked with the grain of my pelt then against it, working deeply. Her touch was that of a practiced hand, steady, smooth. It did little to reduce my anger, though--in fact it may have made it worse. This was something done for the elderly or an idiot who could hardly manage to not soil himself. I was a young adult in my prime, and I would be damned if some feathered bint were going to treat me as some sort of invalid!

"A'fore ye open yer big gob an' shove yer toes in, this was Victoria's idea, not mine."

That certainly changed the situation.

"But why--"

Emma wrung out her cloth, rubbing a bit of soap against it before soaking it once more in the slowly cooling water. "Because, Master Jones, ye smell." She looked up at me, bead-like black eyes meeting my own with a glare of motherly sternness that did not suit such someone of her age. "An' don't ye be tellin me' that ya washed an' soaped an' wotnot. I know ye did."

I threw my head back in frustration, trying to push away without hurting Emma. She was only doing her job, so much is true, but it was such a demeaning task. And did she have to be so damned vexing? I would have better luck finding a sober Irishman at day's end than getting a clear and simple answer from this thrice-cursed girl!

"How in heavens can I be so displeasingly _fragrant_if I've bathed? Are you calling me a liar, or perhaps just incompetent?"

The kingfisher clicked her tongue against her beak. "Yer a laborer, right?" She interrupted my response. "I know y'are, on account of you've got habits like one. Talk fancy, dress rather nice, keep yer pelt trimmed and at least kind of brushed out. But a laborer once, a laborer always, an' there's an odor aboutcha what you don't pay a single mind."

"Emma, you are proving to the be the most frustrating female I have dealt with in all my years..."

"Oh for heaven's sake, ya great dumb animal, ya smell like jism an' sweat!"

The air hung still in the room. Emma did naught but glare at me, and I did little else but wither under her piercing eyes. It was a blow to the ego to have a slight young girl tell you such things in no uncertain terms. To say I was dumbfounded would be an understatement to truly behold.

"Quiet now? Thank you." Her face softened so much as it could and she turned back to her work, scrubbing as firmly as was comfortable against the matted and dried expulsion resting dried against my groin. "Sorry t'be so blunt, Master Jones. Yer a bit like I was when I first came t'be employed 'ere."

"Your accent. You're Welsh, yes?"

Emma nodded. "Aye. Swansea." Her motions never slowed or ceased; back, forth, careful as if she were tending to a child. "Born an' mostly raised there."

"What brings you all the way to the eastern point of England, then?" I sighed softly despite myself; Emma's hands were masterful, and the light grazing of feathers certainly added to the pleasure. If only all chambermaids were so well-provided and attentive.

The avian sighed a bit. It still came out musical, tinkling like tiny chimes in her throat. Her bill barely moved as she spoke, and I could only guess that what allowed her less 'uplifted' brethren to trill in the boughs above us had granted her speech. Truly, a fascinating thing, nature; one could sit and meditate for hours on the pure nature of how things such as birds or the lizardfolk had come to such similar and yet differentiated states--walking about on two feet, speaking, interacting in this way.

"I imagine," she finally continued, "that it's much the same fing what brought you outta where-ever it is you're from." Emma went and picked up another basin from closer to the fire, I presume where it had been resting and staying warm. I took the opportunity to watch her--as I said, avians were not a common folk in my lines of work, particularly not the smaller types such as Emma, so seeing how she strode about was merely an exercise in observation, and observation, as anyone will tell you, is the very keystone of scientific pursuits.

I was for the most part stymied by the maid's uniform. For all our shifts away from the Puritanical norms of centuries ago it was still only proper that an upstanding woman serving at a mansion such as Chatterlynx's dress appropriately. The skirts, admittedly, were cut somewhat differently to account for her tail plumage, and I could hear the slight click of claws against hardwood. Did her knees work as mine did? The gulls who called the wharfs home certainly did, but many a messenger pigeon arrived and bobbed about with each step on their reversed joints. It has since become clear that those birds who made flight their nature kept the leg structure best intended for roosting and tucking under, while their kin who roamed the land instead found themselves walking as did their mammalian kin. The sleeves of her blouse had been cut away to accommodate the long, startlingly blue feathers that formed over the length of her wing-like arms, leading to the slim digits that formed a sort of hand. Ah, but if I had just the opportunity to study her form in detail...

But I am wandering from the topic at hand. Emma returned to my side and poured a small portion of the cooler water into the new basin to cool it. "There's very little there." The washcloth returned to my skin, working through it again, the bird needing to leverage a bit. Just how much had soaked in? It suddenly occurred to me that I had come not once but twice--I had been too tired to clean up after supper. A slight blush rose up in the white of my fur, something I hoped Emma did not notice. "It's a town of miners an' tourists. Unless I wanted ta spend my days cleanin' up after one or the other, well, t'weren't nowhere for me." The dark iris-less eyes rose to mine again. "But let's not talk about me life, eh?"

I gave a slight nod, adjusting my position on the mattress. "If you insist. Are you quite d--" The last word clipped itself off and fell away as I felt the sharp heat of the cloth roll upwards along the underside of my scrotum. It was not uncomfortable but rather unexpected, joined afterwards by the light tickling of feathers against the underside, lifting my testes upwards. Emma watched me, watched my face so closely, her eyes lidded. She was enjoying watching the flush in my cheeks and hearing the soft gasp from my lips as slender hands did a most pleasurable service to me.

"Dirty boy," she murmured, turning back to her 'work', leaning closer to my crotch to examine her task in finer detail. My dampened sac was left to settle against the sheets as Emma's attention shifted upwards. One blue feather-tip rolled down the length and made me shudder, grabbing onto the sheets as I instinctively shifted away. "Oh, Master Jones, please stay with me..." I had never had words of lust sang to me before, never heard them trilled, and my heard took a moment out of its beating to allow me to contemplate them without the worry of blood reaching my brain for a few moments' time. Emma giggled to herself, watching as the life which was no longer needed by the higher organs of my chest or head instead rushed to my lap and took refuge in my nethers.

The cleansing fabric met my erection and took to scrubbing away the unspeakable that had accumulated there over the night's...adventures. Rather than the stark hotness felt just a few moments before, the water almost felt cold against the rising heat of flesh. Emma smiled, or at the very least her voice did, as she deigned not look at me. "An' here, I was afraid I'd need to coax a bit of enthusiasm out of you. Now..." Her hand wrapped around the girth of my phallus, soaping along the shaft with metered strokes. "Hold this. If you dirty yourself again, we'll need to start from the beginning." The other fingers worked along the base, slipping along the fur there, cleaning with the same studious diligence that any maid would put towards her charge.

I had never been quite so happy to be a bit of furniture in a bedchamber, laying back and resting my head on the pillows as Emma set to task. In a different situation I might applaud her technique, how the near frictionless motion of her feathers coupled with the twisting of her wrist made my willpower waver like a thin reed in the wind. My belly pulled tight and my jaw tensed. There was no way I would ever beg to go longer with the lovely lady-bird's hands, not out of lack of desire but out of a will to be able to leave my room under my own powers at sometime that day!

"Oh, it's so red an' angry. I see why Lady Victoria likes it so." There was a huff of hot breath over the crown and fingers squeezed the base like a tube, rolling very slowly upwards, milking my cock like a teat. If it were milk she was after, then she had set about on both the right and wrong tactic for divining it and drawing it out. "I so wish I could just...swallow it whole..." I started to suggest she go ahead, before the reality of it set in between aroused crashes of my heart--her rigid bill would never allow such a feat. It might even hurt me in a way I would prefer to never even consider.

But I held. For so many endless, torturous minutes I held back the desire to empty my ejaculate upon her hands and face, to leave unmistakable white lines across unbroken blue and to force her to tend to her own grooming before bringing mine into question again.

It stopped. By all the blessed ears that had heard my pleas, it had finally stopped and my aching member was left to its own lonely fates. I lifted up, expecting Emma to be finishing her task and preparing to leave so that I may finally get dressed and begin my day.

How many times had I been wildly inaccurate in my assumptions that day? I had completely lost count, so this occurrence simply added itself to the list. Rather than moving on to other duties about the estate, chambermaid Emma had chosen--or had she been instructed?--to linger in my chambers for a slight bit longer, fiddling with the waist of her uniform, as if considering her options at great length.

I opened my mouth. Emma trilled sharply at a pitch that left my ears stinging, and with one tilt of her hips turned to face the wall. Without her feathered fingers holding them up, her black skirt puddled to the floor at her feet, leaving only her knickers and other such underthings to hide her nudity from my flushed gaze. Rather, they would have, had had been wearing any such thing. Instead I was presented by, well, a presentation, a full display of rounded hindquarters and a distinctly raised tail plumage that refused to hide away the swollen mound that tucked itself between deep blue thighs. I could consider a scientific curiosity satisfied now that I knew her legs were of my own variety and feathered just as the rest of her until the knee joint, where they switched to soft orange-red before her toe-claws spread on the floor. This, however, was not the highest point of focus on my admittedly hormone-addled mind.

I moved behind her, close to her, resting my cock between her legs and along the cleft of her own arousal. There was no need for foreplay--we'd quite had enough of that already, and delaying our passions much longer would leave us spent on our own rather than together. And she so badly wanted to feel me. It was impossible to think otherwise. The soft trilling was like a beckoning mating call, drawing me forward, fur pressed to feathers as I placed my hands upon hers.

The first thrust is something I, as a male, savor. It is when your partner is at her most prepared and when her desire for you is at a peak. Sliding my cock between azure folds into the moistened depths of a common chambermaid should be anything but spectacular. Yet Emma drove my libido frantic.

"It may have been a poor decision to tease me," I growled into her ear as another inch of flesh sank itself through her. The only response was a musical moan of delight, her head thrown back against my shoulder as her passage way worked to accommodate me. Her body was that of a woman just approaching the final steps of full womanhood.

"We...don't have much time, Master Jones." It was the sad truth. We had already dallied further than was in either of our best interests, and the time for lingering love-making had passed us by. I nodded and pressed my fingers firmly against her hips, clutching Emma to me and slamming the last of my maleness into her. The feeling was like passing a finger into a glove, the finest glove of the most wonderful material imaginable--soft, warm, tightly fitting, and welcoming. I stayed in that position and drank in the heat and the scents, reveling in the situation.

"Faster," she said, trilling for me. "Harder. Quickly, boy..."

I growled to her--no, at her. This was her doing, and now she saw fit to make demands of me, to tell me how I should handle an inexperienced girl such as herself? This would not do. It would not do at all. I felt her shudder under my palms and saw her eyes go wide in their sockets--the point had been made and perfectly so. There was no need to faff about any further.

With palms firmly pressed into Emma's slight hips, I pulled her upwards, never once removing my firmness from within her sex. In fact, I would daresay that the sudden surge of dominance made both my resolve and my stiffness stronger than ever. Every part of me longed to use this poor girl, to take her and fill her with my seed until she begged for me to stop as much as she had insisted we begin.

Onto the bed she landed with a grunt and a cough, catching her breath from the rough treatment I was providing her. Her tail feathers were pushed out of my face with one sweep of my hand, pressing the palm firmly against the small of her back to hold the writhing blue frame against the sheets. I could see the pleading eyes turn and find mine, staring like ebony stones. But they did not tell me to stop, that I was too rough, that this was not what she wanted. No, it was exactly the right thing...

Our coupling--no. Coupling is the wrong word. We mated, like the animal do, our primal ancestors trotting about the forests and savannahs or whatever blessed place you could think about. Every thrust and stroke was driven forward with every ounce of strength my legs could muster. My chest pumped with deep breaths and the rapid pounding of my heart. Beneath, squirming in unabashed delight, Emma laid sprawled out in all directions, her legs spread so far apart that I might fear she would injure herself.

Quickly that problem was solved, each subsequent meeting of our hips pushing her up further and further still until her multi-toed feet left the floor altogether. I clutched her ankles (or what passed for them) in my hands, lifting her up and away, angling my manhood down and into her cunny into spots where I imagined, in my animalistic haze, that no male had ventured before. It made me grin like a crazed beast to think that I would be the very best she would ever have.

Her cries grew louder and sharper, turning from music to a fast cacophony of trills and hisses. I could feel the heat roll from her body into my hands, the bitter stink of sweat filling the room. Thrust after thrust, slap after slap. I could feel her juices drip into the bedsheets and stain them. The entire chamber would stink of this for days to come, until Spring arrived and the windows could be thrown open to let the clean air of April in.

"Oh...oh, oh God in Heaven, I'm coming!" I don't know which of us announced our climax first. We came so closely together that it mattered not a bit who had won the rabbit's challenge to find the orgasmic finish line. We were together, sullied with each other's fluids, a stinking, sodden mess of a couple. But it had been wonderful. Each fired burst of my come was like a cannon that made my entire body shudder and burn with the report.

We collapsed, my body sprawled across Emma's back as if she were some great feathered quilt to dream upon. We were forced by weary muscles to rest. There was no hurrying about it. To sleep, perhaps to dream, hmm?

When I stirred, I was alone on my bed, resting on my back. Emma watched me with as much a smile as her hardened features could create.

"I take it that sah approves." She bend at the waist, giving me one last glimpse of her womanhood before the heavy skirts prevented any hope of such a delightful sight.

"I did indeed, Emma. You are a most excellent example of your profession."

The kingfisher curtseyed exaggeratedly before stumbling on still shaky knees. "I must be off to tend to the master's quarters." Gathering her basins and cloths she gave one last bow. "Daliah shall be by in a moment's time to collect your washing. Until tomorrow morning, Master Jones." She trilled a happy tune before disappearing into the cooridor.

Tomorrow morning? If this was to be my morning routine...my word. Never before had dawn been quite so pleasant an event to look forward to.

A scant hour later, I met with Lady Victoria in the vestibule of the manor house. "I had wondered if you were going to spend the day in bed, Oliver," she chuckled as I took her arm.

We walked out in to the autumn air, my whiskers bristling at the sudden cold against face and feet. "You can expect no such thing, Victoria. I have a duty to maintain and I intend to treat it with will the respect and dedication it deserves."

Victoria snorted through her nose as we walked along the stones. "There's no need for quite so much formality. A simple apology would have been enough." She paused, holding me fast, looking about the grey English skies.

"Is something amiss, ma'am?"

She did not answer at first. Instead, she tilted her head back further and took a deep breath, as if picking up an ill wind or unusual aroma on the breeze. Then I felt the smile creep across her muzzle, the familiar feline expression of smug satisfaction.

"I see you've met Emma."

I could not possibly have flushed any more crimson. How had she...her nose. Oh. I took my own tentative sniff and found room to blush until I feared I would burst into flame.

I made a mental note: next time, pleasure _before_business.