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Off the train and past the trees and the river was a vacant home. Two stories with a basement, a purple roof and some amenities included. It belonged to a local shopkeeper by the name of Nook.

Hershel peered through the windows, bumped his pink nose against the panes and cupped his paws over his eyes to block out the sunlight. With his solid black fur and punk clothing, he must have looked like a burglar. The notion crossed his mind but he ignored it, given that he was at the house on good terms, waiting on Nook to show up.

Inside the house Hershel spied badly crushed carpeting and ugly wallpaper. A pool table in the middle of the room with obnoxiously purple felt, an eggshell-colored fridge in the corner, a mismatched black stove beside it. He didn't know what was upstairs or lurking in the basement but he doubted to find anything much more exciting.

From just behind the black skunk, "Oho, there you are!"

Despite the fatherly charm of the voice, Hershel hiccuped, twitched and turned around. Sometimes his hiccups could take over for minutes at a time, but he was able to swallow the next one before they could get out of control. He pressed his back flush to the siding and set his wide eyes on Tom Nook for the first time.

Nook was a pudgy middle-aged raccoon sporting brown fur and tired eyes that offset a perpetual grin. His dress was humble, a pair of black slacks with a white button-down shirt emblazoned on the breast pocket with a leaf, his company logo. With paws clasped before his slight belly and spindly thumbs twiddling, he looked distinctly creepy to Hershel.

"Did I startle you?" Nook asked with a sympathetic tilt of his head. The grin was persistent.

"A little," Hershel mumbled through tight jaws. In slinking away from the siding, Hershel appeared to be peeling himself off of it. Not wanting to linger in conversation he timidly asked, "Are you Tom Nook?"

"Yes, yes I am!" said Nook with a chuckle. He took a step closer and offered Hershel a paw which the skunk tentatively shook. There was enough savvy in the raccoon's eyes to dissuade any attempts to fool him and he was much too sharp to truly be ignorant, but still he asked, "And you are...?"

Hershel puffed his chest out a little. "Hershel, um, Hershel Blackburn."

"Mister Blackburn," Nook smiled. He amused himself with the sudden mental image of having dollar signs in his eyes.

Hershel didn't smile back and didn't invite Nook to use his first name. "I wanted to look at this house," he said with an unnecessary nod at the building.

"Of course, of course," Nook jovially chuckled.

The front door was unlocked, as Nook revealed with no fanfare. As Hershel looked over the worn-out furniture and appliances slowly, Nook followed a few paces behind.

"As you can see, it's quite a nice home. A bit big for a starter but it's manageable," Nook doddered on.

Hershel paused near the window he had gazed into moments before and glanced through it. "So, um," still peering out the window, "how much is this place?"

"Oh, it's reasonable," Nook enigmatically said.

Turning to look at the raccoon and feeling tiny against those wise blue eyes, Hershel asked again but no more insistently, "How much?"

Nook was even more vague but ironically more comforting when he countered, "Well, how much do you have?"

Hershel turned his whole body to face Nook, clasped his paws behind his back, lamented his lack of bargaining skills. Bartering with someone like Nook was impossible even to a seasoned businessman. Poor, young Hershel had no chance. "I have two thousand," he admitted.

The raccoon popped an eyebrow up. "Dollars?"

"Yeah. What else?"

"Well, let me just..." Nook trailed off. With a calculator taken from his pocket he did some quick math, hummed thoughtfully in the interim. "Your two thousand dollars converts into twelve-thousand Bells and a little bit of change," the raccoon proudly announced. He wasn't surprised that Hershel's pink eyes widened at the number, but the savvy raccoon kept his poker face.

"That sounds pretty nice," Hershel admitted. Vacantly, "Um, what's a Bell?"

"Local currency, mister Blackburn," Nook said in that jolly way of his. "So, if you'd like to write a check or if you have cash, you could be sleeping in this comfortable little abode tonight!"

During bouts of insomnia, Hershel's brain delighted in upsetting him with reminders for every stupid choice he had ever made; this would be one of them. "Really? Tonight?" he asked, cutely baffled. Before he finished asking he took his wallet out.

Nook watched with a tight smile as Hershel flashed his thick sheaf of bills and counted them. Bells were Nook's bread and butter but he liked money in any form.

"Um, I don't have it all on me," Hershel said apologetically, offered Nook the bills. The raccoon reached out calmly but firmly pinched the bills in his fingers as if they were pincers.

"Mister Blackburn, it's quite fine," Nook chuckled, briskly counted then pocketed the money. "I trust you'll get the rest of your cash as soon as it's possible, yes-yes?"

Hershel smiled uneasily at Nook and suddenly he wanted the money back. Nook would have let him renege on the deal but the skunk was much too timid to consider it. "Yeah, I'll have... The rest of it," he answered with an awkward pause.

"Good!" Nook beamed. "Oh! But mister Blackburn."

"Um, Hershel," he offered.

"Hershel," Nook said with a sleazy tone, "this money only comes out to about three thousand Bells."

Hershel fixed Nook with a queer gaze, said nothing, tilted his head. What forced pleasantry had been on his face vanished while Nook's smile got bigger.

"I'd need at least ten thousand for a down payment. That's a fair percentage, I believe, a nice even number to start--,"

"How much does this place cost?" Hershel blurted, grimacing now. The brush of his tail lashed anxiously and his eyes were pink slits.

Mischief was too ingrained in raccoons for Nook to not to torment Hershel at least a bit. "Well, ten thousand Bells is about one percent," he said. Arbitrarily counting on fingers, "You multiply, carry the one, hm..."

Hershel's mind reeled. "One percent," said numbly from the side of his mouth. Mathematics had been a good subject for him in school and he knew his panicked reckoning was wrong, but he hoped against hope and said, "Suh-so it's a hundred thousand?"

Nook chortled, couldn't keep evil from seeping into it. With a sociopath's calmness, "One million."

A hiccup escaped Hershel's mouth. Nook chuckled at the sound and further encroached on Hershel's personal space. Hershel backpedaled, cornered himself in the unfamiliar room.

"Now Hershel," Nook crooned as he lay spindly-fingered paws on the skunk's shoulders, "I'm a reasonable businessman."

Hershel instinctively turtled his head down. He was taller than Tom Nook by an inch but his terrified, terrible posture made him distinctly smaller and weaker than the old ringtail. Equating Nook's creepy touch to tarantulas on his arms, he hiccuped and then whined, "Are you?"

First Nook smiled with devilish intent at the hiccups then bumped his small brown nose to Hershel's pink pad of a nose. He had surprisingly pleasant breath, scented from actual mint leaves rather than toothpaste or gum. As Hershel ate quite a lot of chocolate, he could notice subtle differences in the smells of mint. "Why yes, mister Blackburn-- Hershel, so sorry." A smile, jaunty and toothy with an audible swish of his tail. "The question is," said as his paws slipped down, "are you willing to be so reasonable?"

The skunk expected to hear a zipper but the raccoon had a button-up fly. All the same, Nook's pants hit the carpet with a soft thump of fabric and he eased off of Hershel by a few inches. A rapid-fire fit of nervous hiccups plagued Hershel, immobilized him, and in-between them were quiet whimpers.

Hershel suffering his hiccups amused Tom Nook but did nothing for his libido. Softly he stroked the skunk's back with those creepy fingers, shushed him with gentle coos that game to a wise raccoon tongue easily. In this comfort Hershel pressed close to Nook, putting aside what the lewd businessman had demanded of him.

Like an infant coddled out of a tantrum, Hershel was slowly relieved of his hiccups by Nook's insincere shushing and petting. When they tapered off fully, Nook reached down with his lurid old mitts and palmed the skunk's behind, first over the outside of his black denim.

Hershel arched against Nook to resist his old paws. He felt that his hiccups might flare up again; he swallowed them after missing the connection that they spurred Nook to coddle rather than molest.

Now Nook's long fingers slid between Hershel's jeans and his underwear. He could tell from the soft fabric that his new tenant was wearing panties, a fact that amused and aroused the lecherous ringtail. "So interesting a choice of underwear," he chuckled as he nuzzled against Hershel's cheek. Over that panty-clad ass he groped and tickled, slender fingers feeling so weird because of their lack of pads. They were fingers Hershel expected to find on a child-eating monster.

Poor Hershel whined uneasily, clenched his eyes shut, lay his muzzle on Nook's shoulder. Now Nook's fingers slipped beneath Hershel's panties and lewdly fondled the tight behind underneath, but he played only over the cheeks and avoided teasing between them for the moment.

"You should feel lucky, very lucky, Hershel," Nook smiled. Both spindly paws were squeezing the skunk's taut ass cheeks now. "I force most of my tenants to pay money and money alone. Here you are using your body for bartering, very admirable, reminds me of myself at your age," he chuckled in reminiscence.

Hershel's behind tingled where Nook groped and tickled. Being touched so lewdly was nothing new and sometimes it could be pleasant in an esoteric way, but never in the long run and not at all this time. Moved by desperation and not boldness, he pushed off of Nook and whimpered, "Please."

Even at an idle, Tom Nook's smile is typical of a raccoon in that it is cunning and malicious at the drop of a hat. This very smile is what made Hershel's ears wilt back against his skull, made his eyes well up with tears. "Please what?" Nook asked, his pleasant tone discordant with his lack of pants.

The skunk's maw opened, emitted a squeak and promptly closed again. He wiped off the tears on the back of his arm and shook his head hopelessly.

"Hershel, Hershel, Hershel," Nook crooned as he rubbed under one of the skunk's wet eyes with a thumb. "This is only as difficult as you make it, yes? It could be over so quickly and you could be in peace in this home - your home!" A chuckle, slight but evil. "Now get on your knees, yes?"

A short wail of a cry passed Hershel's lips at the command. Reluctantly he knelt and tried to blink away the tears but only spread them around, made his vision even more blurry. Now he wiped his eyes on the backs of his fists like a little girl. For the first time he gazed on Nook's crotch, a sight he had formerly avoided. Nook's sheath was plump, but still proportionate. The same couldn't be said for his balls, the girth rivaling oranges. In some bound and gagged part of his mind Hershel thought that Nook actually had a nice package; elsewhere he felt burning jealousy but even that was far beneath the fear and humiliation of being bullied into sex.

"Hershel, must I tell you everything you need to do, now?" asked Nook with a venomously condescending tone. He moved closer by a step and put his crotch mere inches from the skunk's face. Hershel recoiled on his knees. "If you don't want to sleep in this house tonight, please feel free to say so - the dump is quite a spacious place to sleep. Why, you may get lucky and somebody may put an old sofa there."

Hershel looked up past Nook's crotch and torso to that coldly smiling face. His vision was starting to blur but he didn't wipe the tears away again. With tentative paws he cupped Nook's heavy scrotum, stirred up potent and mature musk. It tingled in his nostrils but didn't put him off or arouse him. Nook crooned, but Hershel knew that just clumsily fondling those big brown balls wasn't enough. He closed his wet eyes, leaned in close, brushed his pink nose into that big sheath. To keep himself in line he replayed Nook's thinly-veiled threat about sleeping outside over and over. With no choice otherwise he snuffled that crotch and finally felt the bite of the musk's sexual potency. It sent shivers up his spine, brought him a familiar but distant tingle somewhere in his loins. That pleasure was a dragon he had chased since puberty to no avail.

Nook lay his creepy paws on the back of Hershel's head, stroked through his dark gray mop of emo hair. His sheath bulged lewdly against the skunk's reluctantly nuzzling snout, and soon the blunt tip of his cock made its grand appearance. It was instantly recognizable to Hershel even with his eyes closed, the flesh obviously bare compared to the lush fur that covered the rest of Nook's body. Thick pre dribbled from that emerging penis, left wet smears on Hershel's nuzzling and grinding snout. The raccoon cooed and chuckled but said no words in his pleasure.

Finally Hershel opened his eyes and wiped the tears off using the back of his arm. Nook's growing cock was a menacing and thick piece of meat, muted pink, adorned with a few pulsating veins. Just seeing it filled Hershel with envy, but grasping it, feeling its warmth and girth felt right to the skunk. Though still terrified of lecherous old Tom Nook, holding that thickening cock was somehow - but barely - relaxing.

Nook speared Hershel's damp eyes with his domineering gaze. "Yes-yes, have you found something you like?" he said as he might to a customer but with lewd charm. His erect shaft was every bit of eleven inches, the girth filled the skunk's mitt and the tip drooled with viscous pre.

By now Hershel understood that he wasn't escaping. With flushed cheeks he squeezed tightly upon Nook's member. Unconsciously he intended to harm the raccoon but his grip caused only pleasure. The raccoon arched his back, clenched his ass cheeks, squirted a wad of pre onto the skunk's cheek. It startled Hershel, spooked a quick hiccup out of him, but he aggressively swallowed it and stifled another to cut them short.

Coy old Nook had more than just a fumbling handjob in mind and years of cutthroat business tactics had made him aggressive enough to merely take what he wanted. For a moment his mind raced with possibilities. Here was a submissive and effeminate skunk who likely wouldn't head to the police, and Nook had the local precinct in his pocket anyway. This big dumpy house would be Hershel's financial tomb and Nook fantasized of often coming to collect "payment" from this svelte young thing. Nook smiled broadly with an evil, horny glint in his eye. Business was good.

Nook guessed that Hershel would do about anything to keep from sleeping under the stars so he sought to see where the skunk's limits lie and break them if he found them. He grabbed his balls up in a weathered old paw, hefted their plump weight, pushed forward and dropped them on Hershel's startled face before the twink could even hiccup.

Hershel huffed and whimpered helplessly under Nook's big balls. Escape would have been as simple as pulling back but the ringtail's lust was law as far as Hershel's submissive psyche was concerned, so he snuffled into Nook's taint and blasted hot breath across the winking pucker nearby. In the surprise he had relinquished Nook's penis which now dangled over his prone head, its dribble of pre making for a wet spot in his hair.

"Let me drop the civil pretense, yes-yes?" Nook chuckled. His speech patterns were not faked but now they had a lower, noticeably more lewd sound. "Rim me while you're down there, hm?"

Mortified but eager to please, Hershel was quick to oblige. With quick laps of his tongue he slobbered over Nook's snug pucker, slicked down his thin taint fur. At once Nook shuddered, arched his back and lashed his tail. His swollen penis twitched and spat pre in a lazy arc which landed partly on Hershel's tail and partly on the filthy floor.

The skunk maintained these licks for a short time before notching himself in deeper. Nook's musk was overbearing but in a curiously pleasant way. Hershel found that the smell of the ringtail's well-washed yet still musky privates reminded him of old partners, stirred up memories both good and bad of sex without gratification and only fleeting affection. Whatever pleasantry he felt passed quickly as the slithering knot of a stomach cramp might and Hershel returned to his rimjob without distraction.

For all his uncertainty, Hershel gave an excellent rimjob. He slathered Nook's quivering asshole with thick coatings of slobber, ground into the pucker and nearby furred flesh with firm licks. With nothing else to hold onto he put one shaking paw on Nook's thigh, free paw on his own knee. By the time the raccoon began to slowly, deliberately masturbate, Hershel was feeling the effects of having his air displaced by ringtail musk. Lightheadedness was good, it made things more tolerable, kept the ambivalent revulsion for Nook at bay. The further Hershel sank into the musk the more he acknowledged that in spite of being a pot-bellied old pervert, Tom Nook was quite an attractive man.

All things good and bad eventually end, and the rimjob was good for both Nook and Hershel in different ways. What came next would be pleasant only for the raccoon. Nook unhanded his penis, its flesh by then slathered in pre as was the paw Nook had used on it. He lay this sticky mitt on Hershel's head, threaded gooey fingers through his hair and tugged back. Hershel squeaked, hiccuped, gulped it down and glared up at Nook with his watery pink pupils.

Callous grin on his face which Hershel could see only around the swollen penis between their gazes, Nook crooned, "Up now, Hershel, and your clothes come off, hm?" He released the skunk's hair, backpedaled two paces, stepped out of his slacks which had pooled around his ankles. He watched with a writhing and swaying tail as Hershel stood.

This was the moment Hershel dreaded in any encounter. Mockery at worst and incessant questions at best. He took off his shirt without compunction, heard Nook growl approvingly at his proportions. Must be a chubby chaser, Hershel thought absently. The skunk glanced down at his own body for a listless moment. Ribs almost visible, skin delectably taut over sinew. Hershel was a twink lover's dream boy by any measure but he saw himself as even more tubby than Nook was. To hear the ringtail's lecherous and genuine churring was a relief to his frail ego.

Now came the painful part. While his perceived weight rarely bothered anybody, what lay under his pants usually did. He took in a deep breath, tried to steel himself, failed and felt more frightened than ever. Pathetically and with fingers on his fly he looked into Nook's eyes. The raccoon only smiled knowingly. No escaping this horrible situation.

"Okay, okay, all right, okay," Hershel mumbled. He did his best to sound impetuous to chase off tears. First he popped the button, then the zipper came down. Under his fly were pink panties which matched the tone of his flesh and irises. Nook smiled more, and down went the pants. Hershel stepped out of them, kicked them away with a little grunt to vent some frustration. Now he hooked his thumbs in his panties and pulled them down sharply, bent over as he pulled to hide his crotch until he had the underwear all the way down. As he stood he cupped his paws over his crotch, covered what was there easily while he kicked his panties away with similar aggression.

The raccoon had two expectations of Hershel. Either there was a laughably small penis under those censoring paws or an out-of-place pussy. In the former case, Nook had planned to assfuck the skunk anyway. That Hershel might have been a cunt boy was a more interesting idea altogether. He gave his mighty cock a few pumps to maintain his erection and Hershel stared at it longingly. Nook was right to assume that Hershel wanted it but not for the reason the raccoon had in mind.

Before Nook commanded him to move his paws, Hershel did so voluntarily. What he exposed was not male, female or both - it was nothing but smooth unbroken fur with a tiny hint of pink flesh where the skunk's urethra terminated. Hershel could feel Nook's gaze probing and judging his deformity. He splayed back his ears, put his head down.

Being a worldly businessman had shown Nook every emotional state imaginable. He had seen people lose everything at his own doing. Lives had been ruined before his eyes and he knew that the skunk's body language spoke of nothing short of complete humiliation. Well, Nook liked humiliation. It was delectable He already had Hershel under his thumb and now he had a chance to break the skunk completely. Toothy smile in full effect, he coolly asked, "Will I be able to fuck that?" A nod down at Hershel's crotch, a pump of his own cock.

Hershel snapped his head up and impotent anger flashed across his face. He wanted to be stern but instead quavered when he said, "Nuh-no you can't."

Already the raccoon was thinking of trying to do so anyway. It would be a pleasure for another day - the skunk's rear would do nicely for now. While slowly pumping his shaft to keep it stiff he said, "Yes-yes, of course. Well then, over the pool table, hm?"

Indignity cropped up on Hershel's face, anger hiding in those eyes with no outlet. Just one kick in those big balls would have sent Nook packing but Hershel was ever the submissive young thing. Silently he obeyed, bent himself over the pool table with his tail up high. It was a magnificent brush of black fur and it vied for attention with the perfect, subtle curve of his twink behind. Nook had no problem focusing solely on the latter with his thick erection guiding him, however.

Lewd sound of suckling as Nook wetted two fingers, a playful churr as he gripped one of Hershel's ass cheeks to ease it aside. Exposed to the cool air of the dormant house, Hershel's tail hole winked and flexed. It was inviting in its pink shade, sharply contrasting the dark fur around it. Smiling as a cheshire might, Nook buried his fingers and made Hershel squeal but not hiccup. The skunk wasn't a virgin but the ringtail's fingers were a surprise.

"Very tight, hm," Nook grinned. He dug deep into Hershel with his spindly fingers, teased tight anal walls until he found the pleasure center within. Hershel clenched down like a vise when Nook prodded into his prostate. It made him yowl and arch his slender back and he felt a heinous burn in his loins. His trembling paw left the pool table, cupped his loins, started to rub desperately around and including the sexually-useless piss hole. As he fondled himself and Nook massaged his prostate Hershel felt what the common male mind could only think of as edging pleasure, a sexual bliss that soared higher and higher with every bit of stimulation, but instead of an explosive orgasm at the end Hershel only ever felt bitter disappointment. He whimpered, whined, begged Nook with explicit pleads and gestures to rub harder. The old ringtail grinned and obliged and they worked toward the same goal for a minute longer but the pleasure capped and tapered off. Hershel lay over the stained and ripped felt of the table, body arched, cheeks lit with blush.

As Hershel let off, so did Nook. Smiling too coyly to be sincere, he asked, "You can't get off, hm?"

"No," Hershel bleated.

"What a shame," Nook cooed as his fingers left Hershel's ass. He hawked into his paw and slathered the saliva all over his thick erection, left it dribbling in natural lubrication. He held onto his penis tightly, thumb just under the ridge of the head as he prodded it against Hershel. Though the skunk did gasp, Nook paid the sound no mind. He overrode it with a pleasurable croon of his own as he entered Hershel and spread that genderless twink open wide. Great squirts of pre slicked the deeper reaches of Hershel's anal walls to do the work Nook's slobbery fingers hadn't.

Grimacing, crying, holding on tightly to the far edge of the table was Hershel. Being penetrated was actually pleasurable, but that was why he cried. It felt nice to have a domineering old stud like Nook entering him, now pressing up flush to him, but the pleasure would lead nowhere. Frustration and envy awaited the twink on another lonesome night with the added bonus of being in a new house in an unfamiliar town. Hershel hated his life.

"Oh yes, you're snug," Nook chuckled when he pressed flush to Hershel. Both creepy paws now came to rest on the skunk's shoulders and they pressed down, kept the twink perfectly still. Ringed tail lashing and fanning potent old musk around, Nook decided to take a pragmatic approach to fucking Hershel and so he went right into the thick of it. Harsh thrusts pounded the skunk's asshole and spanked his firm ass cheeks while heavy raccoon balls swung up to bump the backs of his thighs. All constant reminders of the manhood Hershel would never have.

Again came that itchy burn in his loins from the unwanted pleasure in his ass. Nook was so thick and long, so good at hitting all the right spots. Hershel wasn't the first young man he'd reamed in his time and his skill was obvious. Under his breath Hershel gasped, whimpered, pleaded to no one in particular. Fingers white knuckle on the edge of the table, toes curled, he looked like he should have been enjoying himself. He was certain that if he had one organ or the other this would have been a wonderful fuck.

Nook's needle-pointed teeth showed in a grimace flecked with spittle. He dug his fingers into Hershel's shoulders, pounded that nullified twink harder and harder with his fat old cock. It was obvious that he wasn't one to last long but he fucked like a true animal while he was at it. Not even his razor tongue could find words in the pleasure and he made only raw grunts.

Young Hershel's tail hole clenched constantly, kept a perfectly tight grip around every inch of the raccoon's cock. By all rights he had a cock-milking ass, a divine rear on an unfortunately genderless partner. Nook gasped, grunted, made only lewd and noisy cries with no typical raccoon chitters to break it up. His eyelids rolled down and clenched shut, his grimace widened, his big balls started to draw up. Hershel's ass was impossible to resist and Nook had no intention of edging or taking it slow. He wanted to cum and raping Hershel only added to the thrill.

Lingering close and bearing down on Nook was the sweet threat of release which couldn't have been more than ten seconds off. Nook's molesting paws slid down Hershel's slim back, took hold of his hips, squeezed them possessively. Such a fine shape there leading into a breedable ass; case in point, Nook's thrusts were now haggard and desperate. He smashed his hips against that fine rear over and over until Hershel was bruised inside and out. Rapid-fire pounding made Nook's tightened scrotum jiggle and the quick stimulation gave him that last burst of pleasure he needed. With a heady groan he shot his wad into Hershel in a half-dozen ropes, thick raccoon slopped over Hershel's anal walls and clung to them. The house was in Hershel's name now, the contract was signed not in blood but something equally hot and intimate.

After his orgasm Nook's chattiness was restored. "Ooh, well," he said between waning huffs, "now that this down payment is out of the way, we can discuss the rest of your little loan." A smile, friendly but unseen by the defeated skunk.

Deep in his bowels Hershel felt the pleasant warmth of Nook's seed, matched by the dull burn in his loins. With his anatomy he was obviously immune to blue balls but the emotional low that came with the typical dissatisfaction of sex had him miserable, lower than dirt. "Tonight?" he said balefully. All he wanted now was to curl up and stop existing.

Briefly chuckling his reply, Nook reassured, "Not tonight, Hershel! Tomorrow we will discuss it in my store, yes-yes? I believe we could take off a bit more of your loan then, hm?"

Hershel flushed with shame. "All right," was his soft-spoken answer.

The raccoon pulled out of Hershel and his exit precluded a quick rush of seed which dribbled over the skunk's taint. Nook's thick cock had left the twink slightly gaped but he was right to assume that Hershel would be tight each and every time Nook came to get a mortgage payment. For an added insult he wiped the excess seed off on Hershel's brush of a tail as if it were a hand towel; the skunk said nothing. "Well Hershel, I'll see you tomorrow." He gathered up his pants, slipped them back on, noted that the skunk relaxed and dropped his tail but stayed put otherwise. "I'll have my nephews tend my shop at noon, hm?" He patted Hershel's ass, grinned at the flinch. "We'll have plenty of time to discuss the details of your mortgage!"

Nook stopped at the door, smoothed his tail and brushed some dust off of his vest. Paw on the door, he glanced back at the skunk one last time. Hershel had finally stood, as if he found it safe to do so only once Nook was completely through. This thought crossed Nook's mind and made him smile. "And Hershel?"

Humbled Hershel tilted his head.

"Welcome to the town. I'm sure I'll enjoy your time here," said Nook. He stepped out, closed the door behind himself, and Hershel slumped over the pool table to cry.