I parked my pickup in front of the store, and turned off the ignition.  The cabin immediately began to warm, as the flow of cool air from the vents died with the engine, and the afternoon sun of a glorious late summer day poured through the windscreen.  I eyed the short distance to the doors of the store and considered just making a dash for it before deciding to be sensible – I zipped up my long coat, pulled the oversized hood up over my head and ears, and wrapped my tail around my waist under the coat.  The coat looked ridiculous in the middle of summer, but the material was specially made to be lightweight, and more importantly, almost entirely UV reflective.  The fun of being a white rat in summer – it was this, or dousing myself in sunscreen and hoping not to miss a spot, or sunburn within minutes – I’d burned my ears more than once, and it was not a sensation I was keen to repeat.
I hopped down from the truck, closed the door behind me, and then hurried for the air-conditioned haven of the store.  I strode through the doors, and let them swing shut behind me as I sucked in a lungful of air colder than anything the conditioning of my antiquated (but beloved) transport could provide.  I glanced round as I lowered my hood, the store hadn’t changed from when I was last here a few months before or much since I’d first seen it over a decade ago, still an old-fashioned sort of general store, the type one didn’t see often these days, with a selection of food, hardware and general supplies, and at one end of the store, a lunch counter.
The lunch counter was free of customers at this time of day, but was being industriously wiped down by an old lynx, who glanced up as I came in.  “Only one person I know who dresses like that in August,” he called down the store, “That you, Hickory?”
I grinned as I finished lowering my hood, took off my sunglasses and tucked them into the neck of my coat, and headed towards the counter.  “Hey, Mr Yankton.  How you doing?”
“Can’t complain, can’t complain. You headed out to the cabin?”
I nodded, “Yep.  Meeting a friend here, then we’ll drive out together.  Figured we’d get some supplies and probably lunch here.”
I hopped up onto one of the counter stools and ordered a root beer float.  I’d had one the first time I ever visited this store, with my grandfather, many summers ago, and they were part of the ritual of my trips out to the cabin.
I chatted with Mr Yankton as he made my drink.  His eldest son did maintenance out at the cabin, and – knowing I always stopped in at the store on my way out – had left some messages for me: receipts for work, things that would need to be ordered or considered.  Nothing urgent, which is why it could wait until now.
Every time a car went by outside, my ears swivelled to pick up the sounds of the engines, and I couldn’t resist glancing over my shoulder to see if it was the car I was waiting for pulling up.  Eventually, the blue hatchback I was waiting for parked, and my heart skipped as I saw the familiar form of its driver through the store windows.
She walked into the store, as I slid off the stool.
“Hey! Cassie!  Down here!”  I waved as I called out to her.
She waved back as she walked down the aisle towards the lunch counter, and then staggered back a step, as I barrelled into her to deliver a hug.
“Hello, you silly rat,” she said, as she wrapped her arms around my shoulders.  “Honestly, you’d think I’d hadn’t seen you only two weeks ago.”
“What, I can’t hug my best friend?” I pouted, as I looked up at her face, my eyes lingering over her tabby fur and delicately pointed chin, before meeting her emerald-green eyes.  My breath caught in  my throat as I looked into her eyes, my heart skipped another beat, and I hurriedly disentangled myself from her.  
“Ah… anyway,” I coughed, “good to see you.  You got here OK?”
“Oh yeah – I just headed down the road until I saw a store with an really beat-up truck outside, and I thought – ‘that must be where Hickory is!’”
“Hey! You be nice about Rocinante.  He’s a good truck.”
She shook her head.  “I’ve known you for years now, and I still can’t believe you named your truck Rocinante.”
“You’re the one who made me read the book.”
“Fair,” she conceded. “So, what’s the plan? Lunch, shopping, and out to this mysterious cabin of yours?”
“Pretty much – but the cabin’s not terribly mysterious.”
She arched an eyebrow, “Except for the mystery of how a twenty-three year old substitute PE teacher has a lakeside holiday cabin in the woods?”
“Oh, well.  I can explain. Unless you prefer the mystery?”
She grinned. “Well, I suppose it would reassure me that I’m not going to be spending the week with someone who moonlights as a drug-runner or assasin-for-hire.”
“I like the way you leap straight to assuming criminality, rather than winning a lottery or something. It was my grandpa’s cabin.  I spent a lot of time out there as a kid with him. He left it to me when he passed, with some money earmarked for maintaining the place.”
“Oh, neat.”
“Yeah – it’s lovely.  I generally come out when I can, to recharge and… .  You, uh…”  I twisted one foot nervously, “You’re actually the first person I’ve invited. I hope you think it’s as nice as I do. I might be a little biased by nostalgia.”
“Oh… wow. I’m honoured.”  Her tone was semi-humourous but her eyes were serious. “And I’m sure I’ll love it.  How can I resist a week in the woods with my favourite rat?”  
My traitorous heart skipped again, and I growled to myself  - Just friends, Hickory. That’s all she means.
I forced a chuckle. “At least… ‘a week in the woods, without also riding herd on a gaggle of summer campers.’”
She laughed in response, a merry peal.  Summer camp was how we’d met, some years before.  Working as counselors, trying to instil in kids the same joy and love of the outdoors that we felt.
Cassie ran her eyes over the menu board.  “So, what’s good?”  
“Everything.  But the cheeseburger’s amazing.”
“One cheeseburger for me then, please,” she said to Mr Yankton.
“Sure thing.  And same for you, Hickory?”
It was a fairly safe bet. Like the root beer float it had been my regular order for years.  But I hesitated.  “Actually… just a grilled cheese, please.”  I’d been thinking a lot about Cass in the last couple of weeks since we’d parted at the close of camp, and actually seeing her again… My stomach was full of butterflies.
The two felines both looked surprised.  I was not normally a light eater.  Mr Yankton just shrugged and turned away to the fridges.  Cass, however, enquired “Are you feeling OK? I’m not sure I ever remember you turning down a cheeseburger.”
“I… yeah.  ‘m fine. Had a big breakfast, hasn’t quite digested.”  I turned away and paid attention to my root beer float, but I could almost feel her gaze, an intensity that the UV-reflection on my coat did nothing to deflect.  However, she did not press the matter.
A couple of hours later, after we’d lunched, stocked up from the store and gotten nearly to the cabin, I was feeling better, distracted by herding Rocinante down the country roads, before turning into the gravelled track that led to the cabin.  At last, I pulled up on the wide sweep of gravel that served for parking, killed the engine and hopped out of the cabin, pulling up my hood as I did.  I was desperate to get that first deep breath of wild pine-scented air, and to see again the place that all through my childhood and even now was more a true home than the places I actually lived for most of the year.
As I breathed, Cass pulled her car in behind me, and I heard the crunch of gravel as she got out, and then a quiet “Holy shit.”
I glanced over.  She was staring at the cabin, slack-jawed.  I looked back at the cabin, and tried to see it through her eyes, rather than through two decades of familiarity.  It was admittedly on the impressive side.  Two wings spreading from a centre which rose above them with a mezzanine seating level.  Large glass windows on both front and back of the centre section, allowing, even from this vantage, a view through the cabin down towards the lake that  lay beyond.  Just barely visible, the edge of the hot tub that sat alongside the porch on the otherside of the building.
“Hickory…  What the hell?  I was assuming some sort of little hunting cabin.  That would be impressive enough out here. This is a palace!  Was your grandfather a millionaire or something?”
“Uh, something like that.”  Technically, he had been, in that a billionaire was also, by definition, a millionaire.
She turned wondering eyes to me.  “I’ve seen your pictures of your apartment.  I mean, it’s nice enough, but it’s a shoebox compared to this.  I take it you’re not secretly rich and just living there for the hell of it?”
I shook my head vigorously.  “No!  This place is pretty much everything of value I’ve got.” I paused, “I mean, I suppose if I sold it, I’d be pretty well off, but I couldn’t…”  Just thinking about losing the cabin made me feel ill.
Cass looked round at the tall trees stretching off to either side, and the glimmer of the lake beneath the afternoon sun in the distance.  “No… no, I probably couldn’t either.” She glanced back, “So, he just left you the cabin.”
I sighed.  “Yeah, plus the maintenance fund, but that’s locked up to only pay the bills on this place.  Everything else – the money, the business, his house went elsewhere. Mostly to my family.” My jaw tightened a little on the last.
“You’ve never really talked about your family.” It was half a question.
“No.”
“Got it.”  
I sighed again and tried to relax.  “Sorry.  It’s… not something I like to discuss.  Although, only about as much as they try not to talk about me. But… my grandpa, he was better than any of them.”
She came over and squeezed my shoulder gently, and for a moment, I rested my cheek on her hand.  I looked up, “Shall we get stuff inside, and I’ll show you around?”
“Sounds good.”
By the time we’d gotten everything inside, the groceries into the fridge, and Cass had admired the insides of the ‘cabin’ (she insisted it needed a better word, like ‘lodge’), the sun was starting to set, and I felt confident enough to leave my jacket behind, as I took Cass down to the lakeside.
“So, how much land comes with this place”, she asked as we walked down, gesturing at the forest to either side.
“Eh, about half a mile that way,” as I gestured left, “That’s where the nearest neighbours are.  A bit further on the other side, and that blends into national park, so that’s the direction to go if you’re after a longer walk.  And it’s back about a mile from the lakeside.  There’s walking trails through a lot of it, but a lot of it’s just wild.”
We arrived at the lakeside.  There was a short pier, and a small boathouse.  “Water safe for swimming?” Cass enquired.
“Sure! I’ve spent a lot of time swimming out here.”
“Awesome.  Fancy a swim now? I could use a stretch after the drive.”
“Uh, sure, but I left my swimsuit back in my room.  I can run fetch it?”
Cass gave me a quizzical look.  “I haven’t got my swimsuit either… but based on what you just told me, there’s no-one nearer than a half-mile, and I can see there’s no-one out on the lake…” She grasped the bottom of her shirt and started to lift it, revealing the white fur about her waist.
I froze, and glanced away.  Cass saw, and paused.  “Hickory… You’re normally the first one to talk about how great swimming in just fur is…  Something’s been up with you all day.  Talk to me, Hick.”
I looked down, and closed my eyes, not wanting to meet her gaze.  “I… I’m sorry, Cass.”
“...OK, now you’re worrying me.” I could feel her move close to me, a whiff of her scent carried on the breeze.
“You’re my best friend.”
“And you’re mine.  That’s nothing to be sorry for.”
“It’s just… just… lately, I’ve…” I screwed up my courage and blurted it out, “I’ve been thinking of you as more than just a friend!”
“Oh.”
“And… and, I know you’re straight, and I didn’t want to say anything, because… because I don’t want to lose you, but now I’ve made everything awkward, and… I…”  Hot tears were pricking at the corners of my eyes, and I was starting to sniffle.  “I’ll understand if you want to leave in the morning. I’ll cover your cost of groceries and petrol.”
“I… had wondered if it might be something like this that was bothering you,” she said,  her tone even.  “But, one – it’s not something to end a friendship over, even if I’m not interested. And… two, well… I might not be as straight as you think.”
That was not what I was expecting her to say.  I glanced up at her through the fringe that had fallen over my eyes. 
She continued, “Admittedly, yes, all my relationships have been with – well, I won’t say ‘guys’, since I know you’re a ‘they’, but let’s say… um…”
“People with penises?” I offered.
She smirked. “Yeah, ok, let’s go with that. Yes. All the people I’ve dated so far have had penises.  But from time to time, I do find myself thinking about people who don’t.  And…”  she put a hand on my shoulder, “More than a few times, I’ve been thinking about one specific rat.”
I wasn’t entirely sure I wasn’t dreaming.  “R-really?”
She nodded slowly.  “Mm-hm. You’re my best friend, Hickory.  Nothing’s going to change that.  But, I am up for also being best friends with benefits.”
For the second time that day, I flung my arms around Cass, and hugged her tight.  “Oh, Cass…”  And this time, I tilted my face up towards hers, and she lowered her lips to mine, and we kissed, gently at first, and then fiercely, our lips parting, my tongue darting into her mouth, teasing against her tongue.
After a moment that seemed at once to last forever and yet still be over too soon, we broke the kiss, and moved apart, although a thin string of saliva connected us for a moment before it broke.
Cass smirked, reached out with one hand, and before I could move, gripped the front of my throat – not squeezing, but a definite firm grasp.  “Now… why don’t you be a good little rat, and get naked for me.”
A sudden wave of heat rushed through me, and I swallowed, hard against the gentle pressure of her grip.  Oh… shit.  Over the years, I’ve told Cass everything about what gets me off… she knows exactly what buttons to push.
“Uh-huh,” I squeaked, and raised shaking fingers to the buttons of my shirt.  Eventually they yielded to my fumbling, and I slipped the shirt off my shoulders to fall forgotten to the ground.  I was bra-less as usual, my tiny tits not needing any support, and the cool evening air blew over my chest, chilling the silver bars through my nipples and bringing them to taut prominence.
“Mmm, very nice,” murmured Cass, raising her free hand to my right nipple and tugging gently on the piercing, tweaking it back and forth.
Desperately trying to focus through the sensation of her hand on my throat and her relentless assault on my chest, I kicked off my shoes and socks, undid my belt buckle, and in a single motion, slid my pants and boxers down over my hips, to fall to my ankles, before stepping out of them, stepping closer to Cass.
As I came closer, she leant in and kissed me again, before letting me go, and stepping back to survey my naked body.  “Damn, Hickory.  I know I’ve seen you naked before, but… you are hot.  I’ve thought about having you like this…”  Her breath was quickening, and one hand was creeping, unconsciously, towards the front of her pants.  
“So… was this the whole of the plan?  Get me naked, then, what? Go for a swim, was it?” I teased.
“No, I want you Hickory.  Here. Now. But…”  she looked adorably puzzled, “I’m not sure where to start.”
I smiled at her.  “Shall I show you?”
She nodded, and I moved in to grasp the hem of her shirt, and moving slowly, peeled her out of her clothing, taking my time, with many little kisses as I exposed new areas of her body, and gently stroking my fingers through her fur, continuing until she was as naked as me.
I dipped my head to her breasts and took one nipple into my mouth, sucking and licking, while I squuezed and stroked its mate, before switching, moving back and forth, as Cass let out small gasps and mews.
While my mouth continued its work on her chest, I stroked my hands down her back, tracing lines through her fur.  I kneaded the base of her tail, and down further to squeeze her tight buttocks, before stroking one hand round the side of her thigh to the front, and then up between her legs to her mound.
I found her as wet as I could have hoped for.  I slipped a finger between her nether lips, and stroked her clit gently, moving in slow circles.  Cass moaned, “Oh… oh, gods, Hickory.” I kept going, never hurrying, letting her pleasure slowly build, until after a few long minutes, her legs began to tremble, and I stopped.  She whimpered, inarticulate with longing.
“Lie down,” I instructed, and she obeyed, sprawling with feline liquidity over the sward, her orange tabby fur neon against the green grass.
I knelt between her legs, spreading them wide, and gently spread her vulva too, opening up her pink wetness to the air.  
“Hickory… don’t just look at me…”
I grinned, and with one thumb, resumed my assault on her clitoris, pressing with a firm circular motion, as I licked two fingers of my other hand, before sliding one, then the other into the warm grip of her wet cunt.  
She cried out in pleasure as my fingers slid into her, and again as I half-slid them out before thrusting back in.  I curled my fingers upwards, to stroke the front wall of her sheath, and continued to work my art upon her, her small utterances of ectasy the only sound filling my ears.
It was not long at all until she climaxed, bucking her hips off the grass, spattering her juices across the grass, as her cunt clenched around my fingers.  I let her ride it out, continuing to tease her G-spot with my fingertips, until at last she collapsed limp back to the grass.
I extricated my fingers from her, and sucked them, savouring her taste, before crawling up alongside her, lying next to her, my fur intermixing with hers, as I nestled my head into her shoulder.
“Was OK?” 
It took her a moment to find her voice again.  “Better than OK.  That was… I didn’t know you could do that with just fingers.”
“Really?”
She swatted at me good-naturedly.  “Obviously I knew you could just use fingers.  I didn’t know it could be that good.”
“Practice pays off I guess,” I grinned.
She looked suddenly remorseful. “But I didn’t do anything for you!”
“It’s alright… We’ve got all week.”  
I looked away from us and over the lake.  “How about we have that swim, and then, maybe after dinner, you can return the favour? If you still want to.”
“Yeah… that sounds nice.”  She paused, “Hickory?”
“Mmmh?”
“Thank you.”
“What for?”
“Being my friend. Inviting me out here.  Loving me.”  She paused.  “I think this could be a really good week.”
I nodded.  “Me too.  Love you, Cass.”  We kissed again, before getting up and running for the lake, the wind in our fur, the setting sun lighting our naked forms.