Cocoon [bahamut 6sic6 commission]

Story by SiberDrac on SoFurry

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Wheeee, writing! bahamut6sic6 commissioned me for this like... two and a half years ago. Well, 'request,' since I understand commissions are paid, but, requested this like two and a half yeas ago and I finally figured out how to write it a month or so ago, and only just now cleaned it enough that it could be posted. So! a thousand apologies for it taking this long; I am astounded that it was remembered at all, but I'm glad you reminded me and that I sat down and wrote it, 'cuz it was out of my comfort zone and thus a fun challenge to do. t3h p05t, 4 j00

[Stan Melgar and John Smith are both bahamut6sic6's characters; interviewer is mine; the rest are things I made up]


Big deal.

Hah. Take you all day to think of that one, did it? But alright, I'll bite. Guess you could say I was. Hold on a sec; lemme light up.

...

Aaahhh... fuck. Guess how much this cost, huh? One blunt. Took half an acre of leaf, I'll bet. I contribute more to air pollution than some gas stations. But the buzz is nice. Can't see the forest for the tree, you could say.

Feel like that's what they all see. One guy. 'cuz, y'know. Takes just one of me and about a hundred of them, each commish, in my line of work. Hey guys, we need a new hotel. Well hey, there's the cheap shits who collared a macro. Go with them.

...

Fuck that's good.

Name's John. Glad you took the time to airdrop in. I'd get you somethin', but, y'know. Don't get many visitors your size. You can skinny dip in my coffee cup, if you want, cute stuff; you know us macros are used to nudity. Gov't won't afford to give us more'n a pair of shorts or two and then gets all pissy when we sweat and it rains on someone's car, hah. Yeah, yeah, got off track. Forest for the trees. We have a whole fuckin' culture, and it's fuckin' impossible, but hey. 's what we've got. They keep us employed, give us these nice little cubical complexes like the thing you're in now - sky-scraper apartment buildings made of concrete, Duct tape, and glue, I'd bet money on it. They keep us fed, and that, that, man, is a miracle. We've got that one little collective out west and another in Europe 't fends for 'emselves, but goddamn, I dunno how we'd keep alive without gov't subsidies.

Alright, so, my story. Goddamn, man, this seems wrong. It cheapens the whole fuckin' thing. Just... make sure you keep in the real stuff, yeah?

John Smith. Grew up in bumfuck New Jersey. Hah, no, not literally, man, don't fag it up. Uh. Gay it up, sorry. But yeah I mean I got some action on both sides of the fence. Bein' macro hits 'round high school, you know. Puberty comes late and then fucks ya straight up into the clouds, but for the half a year before I got taken off to the happy farm, I was everyone's wolfy wet dream. Still am, hah. I mean, come on. "Gentle," brown eyes with those pretty little flecks of gold in 'em some folk get, raging with testosterone and this sleek, ivory bod; I'd wink and like a magic trick, I'd be in bed with someone. Girls and guys, both, but mmmmmm, it was that ass I was after. Two, three, six in a night. Could cum in all of 'em at least once, pick up two against a wall if I wanted, or sometimes just lie there while they crawled and licked over me; it was heaven, before... Well... Eh, I still feel bad for the guy. I was 'bout ten feet tall, I knew I was under gov't supervision, I was mad as fuck and horny as fuck and I broke a bed frame pounding ass and then something took over, I opened my eyes wide, trapped his arms, opened my mouth, and... swallowed some poor kid whole. I was surprised they didn't put me down. Guess I was penitent enough about it or somethin'. I still think about him sometimes, nights.

He was fuckin' delicious, and you can put that in your porno.

Spent the next couple years in all those metal vests they had made for us. Y'know they don't weigh those down just to keep us slow. They make us strong on purpose. Make us into skyscraper-sized yaks, but... they starve us pretty good, on the way. Good way to punish folk our size.

Made some friends. Me and this big badger, Tom, we used to get into all kinds a shit. He asked me what it was like to eat a normal. I told him what I told you. We got hungry, man, him and me. We looked at all the workers. We got some plans in our heads. Never panned out, lucky for the locals. We'd think we'd cornered one finally and then, whup, flash bangs outta mortar shells and rubber bullets the size of medicine balls. Aaaaah, man, we were such kids. It was good to have a buddy, while they were breakin' us. He grew up first and went down South to, y'know. "Entertain." Said he'd write and when he'd saved up he'd come see me, or I could come see him and we'd fuck on the beach, hah. The industry suited him right, 'cuz he knew how to do it, 's for damn sure. 's what I wanted, too, at the time, but... like I said, man. They were breakin' us, little by little.

At first I resented it. I was like "fuck, ain't we people?" and then they'd always remind me of that kid. The one I ate. And y'know, I'd nod and say yessir, then go back to my bunk, tear up some fag's ass - ah, damn, sorry, still haven't gotten used to it - but I'd bang a boy-slut, and when I was takin' the buzz off after, I'd think, "Y'know? Maybe we ain't people." 'cuz I'd sure as fuck be out there, creatin' cold cases out of whole towns, if I didn't have a team of snipers watchin' me. I didn't feel bad about eatin' him. I had a stomach ache for a while and it is an adventure to shit out a skull, let me tell you, but I didn't feel like I'd done anything wrong. Some part of me did, and does. I mean... fuck, I'm tearin' up, now. You think I was born a murderer? 'cuz I do. I look out there. I see my goddamn boss. Fatass, dickless buck. I can smell his fear ninety feet up. I wanna feel him tapdance on my tongue. And I remember what it was like that night. That wasn't a decision. That was an instinct, and not one I fought. But I'd do it again. It felt right, man.

...

Fuck, this is good.

Alright, so, I'll tell you about work, I guess. I got off the happy farm, and they'd broken me pretty hard. I went for construction. Build somethin' out of a shattered life, some teenage emo shit like that. Parents visited now and then, but I couldn't take it. Those sad eyes, every time. I can't exactly stop 'em visiting, but I told 'em to fuck off eventually.

Work. I said I'd talk about work. Construction job with a dickless buck, now, but it started with some vixen broad I've forgotten. She was pretty forgettable and by the time Carl the cock-sucker hired me, I was used to everything. Growl by accident, get a taser round. Step on a car, get a taser round and starved for a week. I learned to reign it all in once I saw a mouse from the happy farm get gelded for givin' too much lip. Hah, didn't feel too bad for him - he'd given me a different kinda lip and then gotten all bitchy about it, after. But it kept me quiet. I wrote back an' forth with Tom. He was kickin' back, apparently. Laid out on a nude beach and let pervs walk all over his balls. Drank grain alcohol out of a bucket. Put on shows now and then and wash off in the ocean. Like a fuckin' movie star, hah; I think he was even in one! And I just stayed here, tryin' to save up and losin' it every time I stepped wrong and broke a foundation. I'd see other fuck-ups like me. We'd nod, and you know the nod. "You're life's shit, man. I know it." "Yeah, man. So's yours; I know it." And move on. Put up a new high rise, move on. Get starved as punishment for shoddy work, for showin' up late; all of it... and just move on. Never allowed around many other people unless they signed waivers 'cuz of that one dumb shit in Michigan't went nuts and killed, what, two hundred people before the teams could get a shot off? Cocked up the whole lifestyle for all the rest of us.

I'd eventually trained myself not to think. Thinking hurt. Thinking reminded me of Tom. Thinking reminded me of Mom and Dad and middle school. Middle school was goddamned awesome. I had so many friends, most of 'em fake, but so many of 'em. I had three girlfriends and two boyfriends at a time, sometimes, and they loved it. My parents yelled at me for makin' bad grades, I was on all the athletic teams I could be, I was on a slow but steady track to an education, and then... dammit, 's why I couldn't think about it. It all went away and got forced down this one narrow road.

But then Melia and Amos showed up. Cute couple of kids. I was workin' on this high rise, 'd gotten it up to maybe the twelfth floor, was about dawn, when all of a sudden I feel these four feet scamper up my arm. I almost freak out and send 'em flyin' before I realize what it is. Two foxy teenagers, got up to my biceps and started shoutin' at me, all happy. I had the blank face on and tried not to care. They caught my eyes, though.

"Hey hot stuff!" Amos shouted. "Anyone ever tell you you got beautiful eyes? Like stars, big guy!" White tufts, red fur, ratty jeans, green vee neck down 'tween his pecs, scarf the color of shit, but he made it look good. She had on those bondage pants - you know, the ones't make ya wonder how they move without trippin'? but she had 'em all tight around her ankles, and a fuckin' hot pink sports bra and ain't nothin' else, and her hair... goddamn, her hair. Ebony, streaks of silver; gold shimmer off the void in the dawn. Eyes amber as mine. Indian, I think, or somethin'. "Me and my girlfriend wanted to say hi! What's your name?"

She slapped him. "I'm not your girlfriend!"

He pulled her tail. "You're so my girlfriend!"

Teenage shit, right? So I said hi back and asked 'em to get down. Said it was dangerous.

"Dangerous is for cowards! Hey, can we get on your head? The sunrise has gotta be awesome from there!"

Guys, I said. Look, I can get shot for this; they probably haven't just 'cuz you're here, I said.

"Yeah, so put us up there and we'll keep you safe!" she said back.

I didn't have a choice, I figured. Plus, what she said... cut me deep and slid in something that soothed. Didn't know I'd been burning for that. You bet I let 'em ride, once I'd gotten over the shock of those words. I let 'em ride for... for two years, yeah. They kept comin' back, different times; never let me rest, hah. Midnight, sometimes. Halfway through a shift, havin' lunch or whatever you call it, since the gov't makes us nocturnal, right, and they show up on my food like it's cute, like if I fucked up and ate one I wouldn't get a Buick through my throat. I was pissed off at 'em, a lot, but... I mean it was like they adopted me. I needed it, man. I needed it bad. I started posin' for 'em, 'cuz I could tell they liked it. And then I remembered that I liked it. I learned who they were. Reminded me of those six months, man, before they took me away, but... better. They loved me. One night... they... asked me to get on my back, and...

...

Heh. I wonder if that counts as me gettin' both of their V cards? Romantic as shit, son.

Bah, alright, fine, I'll tell you about it. Was maybe two in the morning, I was on my lunch break. I could smell the two of them when they arrived, and this time I could smell that they had a certain set of thoughts on their minds. Now, I knew they just generally had those thoughts - they stood right up near my head and I caught the scent of musk pretty regular. But this time, I think one of 'em was in heat. By that night, we'd talked a bunch. Really curious kids. "Ever eaten someone? Can we watch you tear down a building? What was school like? How big's your cock?" And hey, man. The answer's yes to all of that.

Let's talk about macro cocks for a little bit. Little bit of math for you. So, ideal situation, yeah? Normals have cocks that're, what, a twelfth their height, average, maybe a little over average. So, six foot dude, six inch piece, give or take an inch or two, yeah? Alright, well, I'm ninety feet tall, give or take. Should be a seven- or eight-foot cock, then, right? Cool, cock the size of your doorway. But alright, let's think about when macro happens. Puberty. And it's like, mega-puberty. Balls? Wrecking balls. Shoulders? Like excavators. The big ones. An Adonis ass. And double the cock. Like a dude with twelve inches and like a fifteen-foot tree. But hey, the really nicely endowed guys get up to like nine inches, and if you're a real rare gem, a foot. I woulda been somewhere in that range if I were normal, but you bet your ass I wasn't. So now we're talking a twenty-two-foot piece - 's what I got - a quarter my height. And trying to keep that thing all wound up inside cheap, gov't-issue shorts? Well, son. Sheaths are nice, but they don't hide everything - hah, yeah, I've seen you lookin'. I could fit you inside it if you played nice.

And hey, y'know, let's talk about what I look like for a bit, too. I mean you've gotten pieces from the story, but I wanna make sure you write this down. I have a ninety-foot wingspan. Fuck, no, I don't have wings, wake up, hah. Arm span, whatever. I do leg and arm work every night, all night, and you bet my core is ripped to keep up proper with all the lifting. You could make a slip-n-slide outta the veins on my calves. This eight-pack could be used as a climbing wall. One of my pecs could seat a family picnic if they didn't mind a big black centerpiece. We had a demolition job, once, and for kicks, I wrapped an arm around a corner and just squeezed, and I flexed a building into concrete dust. Gave like six of the guys there and myself a boner. I could smell it. I'm fuckin' massive, and really, really, really fuckin' good-lookin', if I have a say in it, hah.

So Amos and Melia, sweet kids bein' sweet while I'm sittin' there all jaded to the world and mopey, say to me, "Hey, John!" Like I said, I'm on lunch break, and I take that outta city limits in this sorta woody, hilly spot without too many eyes.

And I say back, "Hey." 'cuz I was tough. And quiet. And enigmatic as fuck. Man I hate teenagers, even me when I was one of 'em.

And Melia says, "Amos... wants to see your dick."

And he looks at her all defensive and does a little blush and nods at me. "We sorta wanna see how big it is. I mean I know you told us, but..."

I stopped short, lookin' at 'em. That strange, sexual innocence on their faces. Cute kids all curious about me, and me lovin' to strut my stuff for the right audience. Didn't take me long to think. I dropped my drawers and let 'em stare. My sheath is the size of a beer keg. Not one of those you get for one of your pansy tailgating parties, nah - I mean the barrels, the tuns, the big things German monks store it in, wider than a dude is tall. My balls are each about the same size as that, give or take. I thought about all that, thought about those two crawlin' all over me, and wasn't long before I started to peak. Instead of answerin', though, I just let a slow, hungry smile crawl across my face and waited for them to notice.

Their ears wilted, but their eyes went huge. I dropped down into a perfect plank over top of 'em, putting their heads almost touching my landscape of abdominals, then held myself up on one hand and tugged the sheath down, just a little. My piece, ruby red and with veins almost as thick as the two kids starin' at 'em, had started droppin' out, and they got to see its shinin' length comin' right for 'em.

"H-holy... holy..." Amos backed off a few steps. Melia reached up and touched the tip of it. I groaned more than I needed to, flexed hard to make it push out more, and nearly pushed her down with it. It throbbed like a bass drum, growing out, and out, and out, 'til its own weight had it leaving a wet trail along the ground. I hadn't jacked it in months - too much cleanup. But I figured this was a special occasion.

I lowered myself 'til they started to panic, then rolled onto my back and propped myself up on my shoulders. The beast was layin' along my thigh, slowly straightening its way up towards my sternum and leaving a wet, shining trail as it went - the sexiest damn slug you've ever seen, hah. I put a hand near my waist, and the kids climbed up into the V of my hips. I closed my eyes, 'cuz I felt somethin' else I hadn't felt in a long time surfacing:

Hunger.

I didn't want to see their bite-sized bodies. Didn't know what I'd do. So I kept my eyes closed. I felt 'em crawl up on my balls. Felt their little feet walkin' around on 'em, tripping when they started churnin' from the touch and temperature. They walked onto my sheath, picked up the edge of it like it was a blanket, and I heard 'em gigglin' and I smiled. Amos started takin' his clothes off and I felt his sleek, young, slender, bare chest givin' one ball as big a hug as he could while Melia started walkin' up my cock like it was a balance beam. I shuddered out a breath and flexed slowly so I wouldn't throw her off, lifting her a bit in the air with it. I grinned again when I felt her toes clench to keep her footing, but she didn't waver a bit - girl has balance. She eventually straddled it - kinda sorta - and scooted up it to the tip. The body's huge, you know, that sorta swollen belly shape, but the tip's a little more manageable, so she got up there with a couple ladylike moans when the wetness soaked through her skirt and anything underneath - tickled like hell, lemme tell ya - and then lay down, spread her hands out in front of her, and gave one looooong tug just near the tip.

The rumble that came out of me could've probably been heard a few miles away, at least with seismographs. I flexed more firmly, just to feel her tighten all four limbs around it - as well as she could, anyway. I felt pre jump onto my chest, and a little more start drippin' down one side of the crown. Amos had walked up my belly by that point and I heard him moan at the sight, then little slurping sounds as the kinky kid drank it as it fell.

I could almost feel it as her eyes flashed open and she bared her teeth in a lusty grin. "Amos. Y'know what I wanna do?"

He wiped his lips off with his hand. "Other than hump his cock?"

"Yeah! We should..." and then she started whispering, and then he whispered back, and then she gave this sorta barking noise, and he yelped, and I heard her growling as she jumped down and tore his clothes off. They rolled around 'til they were just under the font of all that pre, right on my breastbone, and I heard him give that gasp of pleasure that happens the first time someone hugs your cock with their mouth.

She'd wanted this for a long time. I could hear it, in the way she gave it to him - in the way he took it. I put a paw on my shaft and started stroking as I listened to them and felt them making love under the waterfall of precum that started spillin' out of me. She coughed a little when he came on her tongue - don't judge him, you all know the first time is short and sweet - and I heard him whining and yowling like a kit and it made me throb, and I soaked 'em with the stuff. Their little bodies started writhing again while they murmured, and then they let out a little harmony of moans that I knew meant he was inside her. She rode him slow, the rhythmic movement of their hips against my heartbeat one of the purest things I've ever felt in my life. For a brief moment - just a moment - I opened my eyes and looked down at 'em. Their faces were bliss. Their bodies were bare, and beautiful. She was sleek and he was lean, and they shone in the slow bath I was giving them. The didn't know I was watching. They didn't need to. They couldn't care. I didn't want them to. I watched for that little moment, my stomach growled, and I bit my tongue, but I kept stroking after I'd closed my eyes.

He lasted a long time after that first spurt. Ten minutes of them moving, rolling, moaning about, then twenty, then half an hour, and I heard her start working him harder and a few sharp noises of pain as they figured out what was okay and what wasn't. I sped up my own pace, tossing aside any sorta trepidation about having to clean up after myself. They were coated by the cock towering over them and pleasure was starting to shoot through me like a thunderstorm - it was about time. I waited until I heard her cry out, and I waited a few minutes later 'til she came again and took him along with it, and then dug trenches in the ground with my claws, barely remembered myself, covered them up with my paw, and howled so loud I think Tom mighta heard me.

It was a real wolf's howl - one that echoed and crowed around the whole landscape, makin' people turn on lights, while I jacked myself through my climax and flexed and strained under and around those two, my paw the only thing keeping them from being blasted away and crushed by the torrent of cum. It splashed off my chin and through the trees, sending up flights of birds that hadn't left from the howl. Critters bolted, trailing it, and it seeped down from my throat to where the two of them had started humping furiously again until even with my hand coverin' 'em, they were in a pool of the stuff. It lasted for minutes on minutes, everything that I had pent up about myself and them released in a flood of ecstasy that painted the world behind me and the lovers upon me white. I just barely heard them both climax again as I finally came down off mine, the last sprays of seed soaking my hand dripping down onto 'em. My breathing steadied slowly, but I couldn't help but to laugh when I heard them both yipping in hyper-sensitive pleasure from the pump of my pulse jumping him into her with each heartbeat.

I sighed out all big, like a gale, and finally, finally, once I knew the moment was over, opened my eyes and looked down at 'em, grinning fit to brighten the darkest corner of night. He was hardly conscious and had wiggled out from under her to stop the extra pulses, but she, she was a star, even coated the way she was, and she jumped up onto my face, breathless, and hugged my muzzle. I closed my eyes again so I couldn't think of how easy it would be to tilt back and swallow, instead just cupping my hand behind her to support her and putting the other on Amos where he lay, giving both of them gentle squeezes.

We didn't need words, of course. I let them stay for a while, but I had work to do, and I needed to clean this mess up, somehow. They left after they'd had enough time to roll off in some blankets - turns out Amos'd thought ahead and brought some - and I mean, hey, we're animals. I licked up what I'd released and got back to work.

Gave me myself back, or a lot of it. Amos and Melia, fuckin' sweethearts. She and her night sky hair. Him and that shitty scarf. Them and their smiles. We didn't toy around much 'cuz I couldn't afford to get the boss on me, but we did some over the years. They moved off to Cali for college. They write, but I can't read it; too small. Wanted to get someone to read it to me, but couldn't afford it. Anyway, I started smilin' at work again. I'd stretch and stuff as the normal crews got in; flex and pose and all that shit. Watch as all those tough "family men" adjusted their boners. I mean, look at me, man, hah. I could go pro with the, whaddaya call 'em, "ultra heavyweight class" they're tryin' out in Germany? 's like fag po- uh, gay porn for dudes't ain't come outta the closet, yet. Heavy labor does that to you. 's why I like it.

Some of the guys started gettin' friendly. They'd ask for rides to work, hah. I loved it. I'd tromp to work at night, you know, and on my way in, I'd pick up two or three cars of dudes who shared the night shift with me, then take 'em back on the way home. If folks lived close enough I could do the opposite, too - get to work, take a few minutes to get 'em a few miles out to the suburbs, then get back in. I mean I hate workin' in a city - 's like people're tryin' to get themselves killed, gettin' too close and all - but I could help people out pretty easy there. They even threw me a goddamn birthday party, once! I made friends, man.

Anyway, I worked better; got bought off by a better company. Told Melia and Amos and Tom about it. Them two wrote back, I guess - letter's hopefully not torn up too bad in a drawer over there. Tom... I hadn't heard from in a while, but you know how it is with people; sometimes you don't talk to a friend for a few years, it happens. Turned out his life wasn't as easy as I'd thought. Sure, it's peachy in summer, but you know how much it'd cost to relocate him and the rest of the guys and gals they have out there? Ain't no one payin' that. We got more padding than any normal, but nights on a beach are cold, and when hurricane season started... dude got fuckin' pneumonia, man. Twice. My boy Tom, shoulders bigger'n like half my damn house, with pneumonia 'cuz those fucks wouldn't put him in a goddamn warehouse or somethin'. I mean he's fine, but now it's basically indentured servitude for the meds. Guessed I wouldn't be seein' him. Said he'd had some run-ins with security, too - macro management, and I'll tell you more about it later. Said he managed to get back at one for bein' a little shit, hah. Good old Tom.

It went back to bein' lonely pretty quick, with them gone, even with all that. I got a few knocks in the head, 'cuz y'know, once you learn you're alive again, sometimes the shitty parts of life start gettin' to you again and you act out. The breaking point was one of those fancy, anti-earthquake deals with the cool-as-fuck twenty-story pendulum in the middle? Well I bent that thing pretty hard outta whack with an elbow 'cuz I was pissed off one night and... that's why I'm workin' for Carl Castrato these days. He'd never had a macro on his team before and the crew I was with wanted nothin' to do with me, anymore. Cost 'em two weeks' construction with that move. And now it's just, fuck, man. I didn't think it could be worse than being treated like cattle. Not that I'm complainin', like I said. Gov't works miracles just to keep me alive and keep me from goin' Michigan on a place. But apparently you can be treated like stupid cattle, too. Starved for strikin' a pose. Shouted at every day. Harassed every break, like it was a crime to take one. He shows up at night, man, when I'm supposed to get my time to myself, just to treat me like shit. If I do ever go rogue, he's the first one I'm chompin' dow-

Ow, fuuuuuuuuck that hurts! I'm not actually gonna do it you Navy fuckheads! SHIT that stings. Right in the fuckin' earlobe, too. God_damn,_ do we live in fuckin' China? Freedom of fuckin' speech, man; it's a goddamn interview; I can say whatever the fuck I want.

...

Mmm. Sorry. The teams get all jumpy when they remember I ate someone. Hah, right? How could they forget, Jesus, man. I never do.

The years, man. When you get into that mindless way, like I was, they're just... years. They pass. It was winter, it was spring, it was summer, it was fall. A year. Christmas? Maybe I'd give a shit. Try to send a letter or two. Fourth of July? Haaah, freedom. Easter? I say prayers now and then, man, but it's just 'cuz Dad taught me to. And Tom was still the only dude I cared about. Melia and Amos, yeah, but somethin's missin' when they're that small, right? A'int the same. I've fucked a few chicks here and there, to vent, when I couldn't handle Carl anymore, and don't look at me like that - they do me the same way. It helps, when you're that lonely, if only for a night. I mean, yeah... I didn't tell you much about the guy, but do I have to? I told you I love him. What the fuck else do you wanna hear?

So... yeah. You wanted to know about Stan, though, you said. Heard about me and Stan on the radio. Stan Melgar. Quiet type. Always so serious. He just showed up one night outta nowhere, said he'd been assigned security. I said ain't no one ever been assigned security. He said well now he was assigned security. I said there's like six chicks with canons aimed at me all day and I've been pretty damn good. He said they were on vacation. I said oh. Alright. Y'know I'd actually gotten to know a couple of 'em. Nice folk. Hard, brittle, killers back from the Middle East, all of 'em, but nice folk. Sorta felt bad I hadn't thought about the fact they'd need a vacation from keepin' an eye on me before. So I said okay. And I got back to it.

Security's weird people. The macros, I mean. They get broken harder than anyone else, then get taught how to fight, then get broken again. I look in their eyes. Cold and dead inside. They hardly need the badge. This guy was a treat. German shepherd. Fawn fur, classic as you please, tar pit tips and lips, eyes a soft, flat, dead brown. Soulless. Chills the bones out of a man. Caught one of the normals looking at him once. All he did was stare, and I smelled the man shit himself.

Cold, dead motherfucker. Broken to the core. Watched me without watchin' me, every night; there before I was and not gone 'til I was. I kept my eye on him, too. Kept on eye on dat ass, hah. Watched to see where he was lookin'. Sometimes I thought I saw him take a look - y'know, a look - at me, but I never knew for sure. And never once saw even a retainer. The normals trusted him absolutely, and I learned two weeks later there was a reason.

"Smith."

He had a nice kinda baritone voice. Sorta, y'know, high-pitched, you'd think, for someone nine stories tall, but hey, so am I, and I don't shatter glass every time I hiccup. I put down an armful of girders and looked at him. I managed to meet his gaze for about two seconds before I had to look away. I sorta snorted to make up for it.

"Shift's up early today. Scrap yard forty miles north. With me."

Fucker had earbuds in. I'd heard they made 'em for folk our size. Probably listening to the screams of the damned, prison radio or somethin'. "What, there a pickup no one told me about, or someone finally paid to have me put down?"

"Follow or be carried, Smith." And he turns and walks off. Nice ass. Licked my lips. Dudes on site traded looks with me and saluted. I didn't know what was up, but I guess they did.

I followed. I'd heard shit about security. Tom said he'd run into one of 'em, last time I heard from him a year back. Said he saw a chick put a guy to sleep for lookin' too hungry at the locals. She didn't blink, didn't say nothin'. Just walked up to the guy, put him on the ground, and stood on his throat 'til he passed out. When he woke up, she asked him if he liked the sensation of waking up. If he'd like to keep feeling it. To stay in line if he did.

Forty miles north, took us about an hour and a half to walk, casual-like. He didn't speak. I felt lonely on the way. I thought a lot about Tom. Not sure why. Premonition, maybe.

Tom was the first dude to fuck me proper. Only dude, really. He and I got totally out of hand one day at the farm. Furious. Just... mindless, earth-shattering rage. I don't even know why. I hit him in the jaw and he threw me so hard I bounced ten acres. We both got shot a few times, but then I think they figured they'd just let us go at it. I got up and swept the fucker's leg. Earthquake. He jumped me and we broke our way through a forest. Deforestation. He was just so damn strong - badgers, man. Shoulders the size of oceans. Pinned me on my front. I heard him spit, and then I woke up the county howling. He almost broke my arm while he bred me. Bit my neck. I'm still scarred - will be my whole life, though it's hard to see, since, y'know, whole coat's white anyway. But yeah. He filled me up good, then rolled us over and gave me a reach-around - real gentleman, Tom. We kept at it for a couple hours. He pulled out, and we laid out on our backs, panting, bleeding, enough seed to plant a nation all over the place, and lookin' up at the stars together.

I love ya, man, he said. We'll get through this shit, he said. I said fuck yeah, man. I said I love you, too, man.

"Your friend Tom is dead."

I said now what the fuck did you just say. Well... well, no, I didn't say that. I looked over the scrap heaps. Orange at dusk. Reds shining off gray and aluminum; not even hell. Just rust. Decay; trash; forgotten; someone else's shit.

He was smoking. Not one of these things. Nicotine and trash. He looked dangerous. Looked like he courted Death and Death raised tail for him. "Pneumonia. Started coughing blood, got put down."

Like a dog. Too expensive for medical treatment. Not worth keeping alive. Got put down. Probably past his prime, too. Couldn't pull the younger crowd as much anymore. I looked over at Stan, and there was a crack in the flat, brown glaze that was his expression. He stepped over a power line, took my shoulder, guided me past it, then walked me to the middle of the scrap yard. Nothing but acres and acres of uninhabited wasteland. I moved, numb. Let him move me. He was a sweet guy, if you think about it.

I tried to tear his throat out, first. He didn't say anything. Put me in an arm bar, got his wrist against my throat, set me down when I started blackin' out. Tried to hamstring him. He sorta... turned, and knelt down, with his knee on my neck. Same thing. I sat up, waiting for my head to stop spinning. I stood up, was quiet for a minute, and tried to gut him. He rolled me - gentle as you please - onto my back and popped my shoulder out of its socket, then choked me halfway out again. I woke up screaming as he popped the shoulder back in. I scrambled up and tried to jump him, and he punched me.

Fucker knew how to punch. I guess they teach 'em how to keep us from takin' out buildings. Middle knuckle, right to my solar plexus, hit me like a bullet train. I hit the dirt and all I could do was look up at him, trying to make my lungs work. I snarled at him, and stopped when he convinced me he was real:

He snarled back.

"I didn't kill him." Angry, then gone again. My ears perked and I stopped trying to stand up. He didn't move. Stood there in some karate stance, foot forward, fist out, tracking me as well as any sniper ever had. "He always talked about you. How good a screw you were. How good a man you were. He loved you."

Motherfucking ice. "You knew... Tom?" He was dead. It all started crashing in, now that the rage was gone. How was Tom dead? I hadn't even seen him since the farm. How the fuck was Tom dead?

"The cold killed him. All I did was see it happen. He wanted me to come find you. Tell you to keep living. Said life's shit, but it's good memories that keep you going. That you were a good memory to him, John." He held my gaze. I couldn't look away this time. Not strong enough to. "Said no matter how cold it got, he knew you were up here, with a good head on your shoulders. Knew your place, but kept alive. Said you can't always jump the tracks, but you can sure as hell enjoy the ride until the next switch, and see if you can bump over, then." I believed him. Tom had always had shitty metaphors.

"You shut the fuck up."

"He said he loved you. And he said I should come see you, if I ever wanted to warm up a little. Because it's cold at the beach in the winter."

"You shut the fuck up!" I jumped him again, and he twisted my other shoulder out of its socket, quiet as death itself, with just a little -pop- to signify he'd done anything. A thud echoed through the still, dawn air. I ended up sitting down on the ground as though I'd meant to, grinding my teeth together and forcing myself not to whimper.

He sat down next to me, looking down into the core of the earth, and held out his cigarette. I mumbled something and took it from him. "I sorta had a thing for Tom," he said.

I sucked in a long drag and pulled myself up against a hill of debris, so that my bad arm was facing him. I gave him the cigarette back, then picked up some American pickup or another and put it in my teeth. I grunted at my arm and looked at him. He grabbed it, locked it, and popped it back in. I groaned, scrapped the car with my jaws, and spat it out instead of screaming, that time. "Yeah?" I wiped my lips with my wrist.

He nodded. "Yeah." Kept staring at the Abyss.

"Didn't know security had hearts."

"Eh, dunno if we do. We still got balls, though. Wondered what it'd be like to have that powerhouse screw me." He wasted the cig and lit another. Damn. One usually costs me a month's overtime.

"He probably got all soft, but it was a treat in his prime, lemme tell ya."

"Mm." We stared out over the scrap yard at dawn. It was gray - just a sliver of day groping for awakening. I worked my shoulders, hoping I'd be able to use 'em the next night. He looked over, and let his eyes walk up and down me. I watched closely; sniffed the air; listened. Heard the blood rush up into his ear tips and smelled him think about me. I smirked.

"Can I go?" I asked.

"I'll walk you back," he said. Frozen over again.

"Nah. I wanna be alone."

"That's not in my job description. Not since Michigan."

... "Man. Fuck Michigan."

"Yep."

We walked back to this place. I made coffee. I didn't want to sleep. He had some. We stayed up all day. He helped with my shoulders, making sure they were back in place. He made me follow him to the front office - it's just a normal with a megaphone sittin' in a tower - so he could pick up some clothes't'd been flown up for him. Fuckin' spoiled. Kept his earbuds in the whole time. Would close his eyes halfway and just listen, like it took him away, but he was always watchin' me. At night, we went back to work. I'm sure we were terrifying. Terrifying and sad; titans in the evening sky under burden of our station. Two pairs of soft, expressionless eyes, bloodshot, ninety feet up, nearly as big as a person, no accompaniment but the soft, shaking tread of our feet, and I'm sure, uncomfortably fast for just casually walking.

He came back with me every morning for a week. Said it was standard procedure. Give me time to get over most of my grief, so I didn't go crazy, he said. And yeah, man. We fucked on day seven. I'll get to it.

He'd been starin' at me all week. Not just watchin' like before. He stared. I felt it. Felt nice, really; kept my mind off Tom a bunch. I hadn't, y'know... really realized I was alone, I guess. We've got this whole complex, yeah? Hah, forgot to write about it, did ya? Yeah ya did. Like fifty of us livin' here in these cubicle warehouses. I chat with 'em. Cindy, Bob, Rachel, Trevor, all of 'em good people, but I haven't felt close to someone since Amos and Melia, and I guess I never took the time to think about it, but I haven't wanted anyone since Tom. So it felt good to have someone look at me. Someone I wanted to pin down and rut.

Maybe it was just the grief. Maybe I saw something cold and hard in Stan that I just wanted to break. Maybe I still felt like he'd killed Tom, even though he'd walked up here from North Carolina to tell me all that. Doesn't matter. What matters is that for a week solid, I made that fucker blush.

I showed up to work every evening and stretched. I'd never done proper stretches before 'cuz I never needed to. But I did. Ass flattened against my pants, bulge rocketing forward and, to the delight of anyone tall enough to look down, stretching out the waistband more than a little. I watched him look away. I leaned back to stretch my spine, grabbing my butt to do it and thrusting my hips out. I made sure every line of my lats and triceps showed as I did some shoulder stretches, then just flat-out posed and flexed my biceps and shoulders, passing if off as some bullshit stretch or another. I watched him cinch his belt tighter one day, to make sure nothin' got out. He never said a word, but by the end of it, every twilight, I could smell him, and sometimes, before it got dark, I saw him blush. Motherfuckin' bouquet of victory.

Day seven, still quiet, he stopped me from going home again.

"Smith."

"What, Stan? I ain't got any friends left I care about. If one got offed, tell me here."

"Scrap yard. Follow or be carried."

Well, fuck me if I didn't believe he'd do it, and I figured it was as good a place as any to make my move. I followed again, and smirked at some of the normals, 'cuz they were smirkin', too. "Fuck 'im good, John." I gave 'em a thumbs up and got a move on.

Another hour and a half of silence. He led, I followed, starin' at his ass the whole time. His frame was about as big as mine, but leaner; harder. Steel where I had meat, you know. Tail that could sweep a whole baseball diamond in a couple strokes. A good-lookin' kid. Sucked he'd been forced to throw in with security. Coulda been friendly with him, I think.

We stepped over the power line into the place, and he stared out over all the trash heaps while he lit up another cigarette. He didn't put it in his mouth, though. Just sorta... zoned out. Let it burn. Let the whole thing burn, and then dropped it and stepped on it. Waste of a goddamned paycheck. He turned to face me about the time I was gonna say something, took out one of his earbuds, and put it in my hand. I growled at him. The sound echoed out through the rusty landscape and made the trash slide down all its mountains. He just stared a little harder. I couldn't keep that gaze, man. I put it on.

Three minutes later, some broad... no... sorry. A... this... woman... erupted in my ears, and I started crying, and then Stan's lips were shoved up hard against mine and he'd put my hand on his ass and was pressed up close so I could feel his heartbeat and I tasted the aftereffects of the gov't-issue food on his shitty breath and he was shuddering and I could still feel, just, tears, crawling down my face, because of that... that woman...

He laid me down against a heap of cars and I could feel his cock pushin' up against mine and it wasn't 'til that registered that I broke out of the kiss and tore out the earbud and shoved him off me.

I breathed and figured out I was panting. "What the fuck."

"What's she feeling, Smith?" he asked me. His eyes were wet, but he was keeping them dead on purpose. His voice was cold, but it shook. The silence after what... what she'd sung... I spoke in a vacuum. Hollow, the whole world; an empty space inside a bubble; nothing, nothing in it except that... that woman.

"What the fuck, Stan."

He called the song "Unbelldy," which is a stupid-as-shit name fo- what? Whaddaya mean, I'm sayin' it wrong? Unbelldy, it's what he said it was and fuck you; ain't like you've heard it. Anyway, he said, "It's called Unbelldy. It's opera."

"I know it's fuckin' opera, Stan. What the fuck was she singin' about."

"What was she feeling, Smith?" It hurt him a little more, to say it the second time. "You know. You have to know." He was lookin' at me, finally, and this time, I couldn't have looked away if I'd wanted to. Those eyes locked me in a stare that made my hackles stand on end, but I couldn't do anything about it. God fuckin' dammit we're lonely people.

I answered him. Stopped every sentence to do it, but I answered him. "She's so goddamn lonely, Stan. She's so goddamn lonely and I don't think anyone gives a shit. And at the end she tells fuckin' everyone how much it fuckin' hurts. And then... I dunno. Then it's like she's dead. Song ends. I dunno if there's more. Fuck, is there more? I don't wanna hear it. Fuckin' hurts." I broke away from his gaze, after that. I had to. He was listening to every word. I didn't want him to get to care about me. I just wanted to pound his ass into the dirt and leave him.

"She's not just lonely, Smith." He turned away from me and just sat there, claws grippin' and ungrippin' and grippin' again in the scrap metal. Kid was a broken, tortured mess. What... happens to us, when they break us like that? "She's a concubine. She's been purchased and married by a man because it makes him look wealthy. He leaves for three years, but he's the only thing she knows, and that song is her saying she's going to be faithful to him, and she believes he'll come back. You listening, Smith?"

"Yeah, I'm listenin' Stan. You're fuckin' insane, but I'm listenin'."

He grabbed my chin and swung me around and his face was right in my face and all the hellfire that'd been trapped in that shitty brown gaze was burning, burning so hard in the rising light of dawn. "She's been bought. and she's in love. and her man is away from her but she fucking waits for him. It's what she puts faith in; it's part of her job, as a concubine, and everyone hates her for it." He let me go and zoned out again. "And then she kills herself later because she can't stand it."

Quiet, if only for a few minutes. "Yeah I fuckin' get it, man, and it hurts 'cuz love's a pile of shit and sometimes people kill themselves over it; what do you want?"

He lit another cigarette. "Your friend Tom made me listen to that song. Six years ago, when I met him." It burned between his fingers. "I listen to it every day. I wanted to know what it means. I want to know what she's feeling, Smith." Fuckin' cigarette worth a couple hundred dollars sittin' there burning in his hand. "I couldn't stand it anymore. I came up here to see you so I could figure out what she was feeling." He just sat there for a while. Then he started cryin'. Silently, but still. Big ol' sloppy sob-fest, both of us turned into little teenage girls again by a fuckin' bro- a... sorry. Yeah. By that woman.

A few things clicked in my head, and I sat up a little straighter. "What the fuck did you do to Tom?" I growled.

"I put down a woman he was interested in because she ate a kid." No pretense. Nothin'. No pride, no remorse. Nothin'. "Wasn't a Michigan, but the family wanted catharsis."

No wonder Tom'd tortured the fuck for six years. Good old Tom. He figured Stan was interested in him. Figured Stan hadn't had a soul for most of his life. Saw Stan be an asshole for the state. Gave Stan a song about a woman who'd loved, a woman who'd had faith in a system that hated her; a woman who'd killed herself. Made him empathize with one half of her plight; made him wonder if he'd ever feel the other half. Because...

It feels good to hurt. It felt good, to have Melia and Amos, and Tom. I got to have that. I missed those little fuckers and I missed the guy, and it punched me right ice cold in the gut, but it was better, so much better, than walking through every day soulless, like I had for so many years. 'cuz the hurt reminds you of the good that made it hurt. But Tom hadn't given Stan that. Tom had just put Stan in the shoes of someone who knew how it felt to hurt, and left him limping along in those shoes, not knowing what the hurt meant or what it was for, for six years, and then gone and died before Stan could figure it out.

"Good old Tom," I said. But it came out sorta hollow.

"He loved you," he whimpered, with his hands on his head.

"Yeah."

"What the fuck does that feel like?"

I didn't know what to say. I felt like... I felt like he deserved to hurt like that, for the kind of work he did, but Miss Unbelldy was another lesson, too, right? You can get caught up and stuck, doin' the thing you believe in, 'cuz ain't no way to know if it's wrong. And I mean... fuck. I know it better than anyone. Tom knew I know it better than anyone. Security's part of what keeps me alive; keeps me from killin'. 's like I told you - we're born murderers. The system keeps us from rampaging, but... I dunno. Maybe whoever wrote Miss Unbelldy had a point. She killed herself? That's fuckin' bullshit. She didn't do a goddamn thing wrong, 's far as I know. She was in the wrong place at the wrong fuckin' time and loved some asshole who left her alone. And that means somethin' in the system's wrong. We need the system to keep us in check, but we gotta fix a goddamn system that makes people kill themselves, right? Maybe it wasn't the kid's fault. Maybe I'd just kept passin' the buck into tomorrow and anything else I couldn't see. Maybe... Fuck, was I just gonna let the years pass 'til I goddamn died, waiting for fuckin' Tom? 'cuz now Tom's fuckin' dead and the only thing I was allowed to do was put up fuckin' buildings all night, every night, every week, every month, every year, every decade. I started feelin' something, and I felt it hard, but I didn't know what the fuck it was. Goddamned Stan was sittin' there all quiet, still crying because he'd never felt anything in his life and Tom'd stuck him with that woman's song for six goddamn years. Fuck. Fuck, I thought, fuck. What were we doing? Fuck! What... the hell were we doing?

I snarled, grabbed him, and kissed him again. I didn't know why. I needed to. He whined and kissed back, biting my lip. It hurt. We hurt. All the glass and metal in the scrapyard cut us pretty bad while we sucked face, but we didn't care. We needed it. We were stuck. We hurt. I threw him off me and shoved my pants off. He did, too. He jumped me. I dug my claws through that fawn and jet black fur of his. He scratched my ivory. We hurt. I groaned and felt my balls moving, one of 'em covering up a car between my legs. He shoved me down into a pile of sedans and we flattened a few between our chests as he dry-humped my abs, twenty feet of shepherd cock leaving a trail on my house-high piece as it slid alongside it. His mouth was everywhere, his paws everywhere, and I snagged that perfect ass of his I'd been watching so long, set it on top of my cock, and all I had to do to lube him up was flex a few times - all natural.

We were desperate. I fucked him proper, later, but right then, all he wanted was to feel, and he'd opened me up, even though I'd just decided I'd hate him a week ago, and now I felt things for the kid, so I made him feel. I sunk into him, foot by foot; stretched him out; made him hurt; made him love it; met his eyes and made him watch me. I hadn't had a good fuck in years; I rushed the job, 'cuz it was a tempest that hadn't burst for too damn long; just building, and too quiet to let me know it was there. I put my muzzle around his piece as he kept slidin' me into him. He dug trenches in the ground you coulda buried armies in. I put a cock the size of a double-decker bus in the kid, and he whimpered and told me to take him, with half of it making a silhouette in his chiseled abs.

God, that kid's body. I traced my fingers over every foot of it while I fucked him. I slammed him tight to me, kissed his shoulders, licked them, groaned as he fought me. He did the same, two giants, struggling just to feel each other struggle. He bent down and tilted his head and spread that mattress of a tongue over my nips and whimpered with pleasure just to be touching that much muscle. He put a beat-up fridge in the crook of my neck. I folded it just rolling my head to one side, and while I did, he ran his tongue around my throat, feeling my traps flex to do it. I bounced him on my hips, the burning heat and skin-tight fit of his ass making me hiss and moan. I wrapped an arm around his waist and picked him up when I felt him starting to spread around my knot. He clung to me, clutched me, kissed me, while my thighs burned. I walked over to a pile of decommissioned wrecking balls - those big-ass twelve thousand-pounders they replaced with explosives - and picked up a few. I handed them to him one by one and let the weight of each one just siiiink him down onto me. My pre flowed out like a river underneath him, dripping down my balls and thighs. Ten, twenty of the things later, I reached down and spread his cheeks a little with my fingers.

-pop-

I had him, and I was ready to burst, too. Slammed him on the ground and then registered our mating on the Richter scale. God he was tight! He started jackin' off, makin' all the muscle inside him clench around me with enough force to crush a subway but ooooh, damn, was it just right to fire me up. Husky pre flying everywhere - up his belly, on my chin, over his head, sprayin' like a goddamn geyser all over those tons upon tons of dog meat, 'til I howled and exploded inside him. I buried myself in deep, shoving him across the scrap yard, those shoulders of his like a steamroller, flattening everything in our path. A few seconds later, he went off, and we howled while he coated himself outside and I filled him up inside, spraying out onto my thighs once it'd backed up inside him. I needed it. We needed it. Twin volcanoes erupting and shaking the countryside, and then I looked in his eyes.

Soft. I was melting him. Warm as loam heated by the dawning sun. Hurt, and alone, and afraid. A little kid who killed his brothers and sisters 'cuz he was told to and 'cuz he needed to so the rest of us would be permitted to live, and we hated him for it. Somewhere still solid, somewhere still frigid, because they'd been frozen by the way he was forced to live, but he'd come up to see me 'cuz Tom'd said I'd help him warm up, and he was melting against me, around me. I didn't know what I felt. I don't know what he felt, 'cuz when he looked back at me, he whined, cowered, and reached up for me and kissed me again, head ducked low, and I held him and buried my tongue between his lips while we rumbled through our climaxes, too much feeling storming through us to register between what hurt and what was beautiful and what was terror and what was bliss and what... and if love was even a thing.

...

I fucked him proper right after, like I said. Slow, all rhythmic. Stroked him, sucked him, loved him like you're supposed to. We'd been laying there in a hellfire afterglow for a while, and he'd whispered thank you, and I'd whispered thank you back, and I'd realized I was still ready and so we did it again. Realized we'd drawn a crowd, eventually, and put on a show for 'em. Crushed trucks in our elbows, got all veiny and vain, "casually" flattened rows of SUVs with a few fingers or a toe. Took me two hours to pop out, and then he did me proper, too. Showed me all the ways he knew to move someone around, play with their bodies, from what he'd been taught. Made me burn, made me bark and whine like he had, but we ended with me back inside him; felt righter. Kid has a cute blush. Fell asleep with my nose practically in that blush, just holdin' him.

...

...

Stan left the next day. Put his earbuds back in, and before he left, I watched him listen through the song again. This time, I saw him get all glassy-eyed at the end. He could feel it. I... felt like I'd given the kid something. I know it sounds like we got confused and fucked so we could stop being confused; I've done before, but this wasn't that. It's sorta like that, but it's... the thing is, it was both of us. You don't really get an answer to your questions - not those questions. What's love. How do you fix what ain't broke. How do you fix the universe. Is there any point, at all, and what's the meaning of movement. You don't get an answer. All you get is the fact that someone else is confused, too, and it's okay, and you'll keep looking and every time you find one, you'll tell 'em what your answer is, and if they've found one, yet, they'll tell you theirs, but if you don't have one, it's okay. It'll be okay, man, and that means so much. It was a good fuck, yeah - a good five or six fucks - but it was his mind, it was his heart, and mine, and he needed forgiving, and I needed to remember that I'd just been... sitting here, not doin' a thing, just waiting, and everything'd be okay, and for showing each other that, I think for a little while we loved each other. Maybe we still do.

...

Y'know I'm not sure Tom's really dead. What he'd done to Stan'd made the kid into the kinda person that'd lie - hah, like a dog - to finally get an answer, he needed one so bad. I don't blame him, whatever. I've been savin' up for a year to get back down to NC and see for myself; go see his grave if he has one, go see the beach he jizzed all over for a living, at least. Got someone to send Melia and Amos a letter; said they'd meet me when I went. Didn't realize I'd been spending so much money on useless shit. Booze, coffee, cigarettes, earmuffs - hey man, it gets fuckin' cold here. Was pretty easy to hoard some away, though. So I'll see the two of them and maybe I'll see Tom and I'll probably see Stan and fuck him proper again, hah. It'll feel good. I... It hasn't felt like I'm alone, this last year, 'cuz of Stan. It sounds so dumb to me, all the time: I fucked a kid 'cuz we were both confused about different fuckin' things, and now I feel all happy and shit? Why didn't Melia and Amos give me that, huh?

'cuz they ain't me, 's why. You can get, God, man, you can get sympathy by the bucketload and it's a boon you need when there ain't nothin' else, 'cuz it's a true friend't'll do everything they can to help things not suck when they ain't even got a clue what sucks, but it ain't 'til you look in another motherfucker's eyes and see he's you and he ain't know any fuckin' more than you do that you know you ain't alone in the universe.

... God it feels good to say that. Lookit me, all emotional and shit, hah.

...

That enough for your porno?

...

...

The fuck? "Un Belle Di"? Wha... whaddaya mean, that makes me Madame fuckin' Butterfly?! Get back here you little shit! Aaaaahahahahahahaaaaaa goddamn, man, hah!