“Grampa, can me and Austin go play in the woods? Please!”

The old rat blinked behind his sunglasses, and sighed.  “It’s not ‘can’, it’s…?”  He waited for his granddaughter’s reply.

“Sorry. May we go play? Please?”

“Have you got plenty of sunscreen on?”  She nodded an answer to his question.

He glanced over at his neighbours, Austin’s parents, who had come over for the afternoon with their sons. The father shrugged, “Sure, why not?  But you stay in the stretch between the two cabins, alright?  And stick together.”

“Thank you!”  The tween rat grabbed her friend’s hand and dragged him towards the treeline before letting go and racing ahead, calling behind, “Race you to the oak!”

The young dog boy chased after her, his floppy ears flapping, yelling “No fair!” 

He’d caught up by the time they reached the trees, but dashing under branches and around undergrowth, the rat’s agility had an edge, and she was the first to throw her arms around the wide trunk of the oak.  “I win,” she crowed.

He slowed to a halt, hands on knees, pink tongue lolling as he panted. “Only because you cheated!”

“...OK,” she conceded.  “We’ll race again properly when we go back?”

“Fine.  Bet I’ll beat you”, he boasted.  “But you’ve got a lot faster since last summer.”

“I’m best in my class for gym!”  Her tone darkened as she continued, “Mom thinks I should spend more time doing my homework and less on sports.  But then grampa said that being sporty’s OK, and she said I could carry on so long as I kept my other grades up too.  Don’t think she’s happy about it though.”

“Your mom’s kinda weird,” Austin said.  “How come your parents didn’t come out with you this summer?”

“My mom doesn’t like it out here.  It’s not fancy enough for her.  She only ever came ‘cos she wants to keep grampa happy – then she figured out she could just send me and stay home with my sister.  Which… works for me.  Think gramps prefers it too.”

She stretched, interlocking fingers behind her, pushing her shoulders back.  She then realised that Austin was staring at her chest.  “What?” she snapped, wrapping her arms defensively across her front.

“You’ve grown boobs!”

“Have not!”

“Have too! I could see them!”

“Have not!  It’s just… my nips have gotten bigger.”

He looked unconvinced.  “Looked like boobs to me.”  He paused, then continued, “But if you haven’t got any boobs yet, then I guess its OK if you take your shirt off.  Then you can prove it.”
“I’m not taking my shirt off just to prove I’ve not got boobs yet!”

“Well just take it off because it’s hot then, look…”  He pulled his own T-shirt off.  “If you’ve not got anything to cover up, take it off. Otherwise I’m right.”

The girl hesitated.  She knew she was right, and did not want to concede the argument.   And Austin had seen her without a shirt on lots of times… last summer.  Before things had started to change.  She also suspected, although nothing had been said, that taking her shirt off for him was not something her parents would approve of.  But something deep inside wanted to take her shirt off for him.  She wavered, then conceded.  “Fine.”  Her shirt joined his on the forest floor, and she thrust her chest defiantly towards him.  “See, nothing!”

“How about those?” he argued, pointing at the two pink nubs that jutted through her white chest-fur.

“I told you. That’s just my nipples.  They… started getting bigger a few months back.  Mom says it means I’m going to start getting boobs soon. But,” she hurried on, “Not yet. So I was right.”  She looked down and sighed.  “Mom says I’m going to have to start wearing bras when I get breasts.”  The young rat sounded thoroughly unenthused about the prospect.  “S’stupid.  Not like I’m ever going to have big ones.  Mom actually wears special bras to make hers look bigger!”

“How come your nipples are sticking up like that?  They weren’t earlier, back at the lodge.”

The young rat sounded uncertain as she replied, “I think the running made them rub against my shirt.  Sometimes they get stiff when that happens.”

“Oh. Does it hurt?”

“No, it – it feels weird sometimes.  Tingly.”

“Can – can I touch them?”

“...I guess?”

The young dog reached out eagerly, and the rat girl took a deep breath as he pawed at her chest, running his fingers roughly through her fur and over her sensitive buds.  The tingling sensation was back, not just in her nipples now, but running like shivers of electricity into the pit of her stomach and lower, down to her groin.  She then sucked in a breath as he pinched one nipple between his knuckles.

“Not so rough!” She pulled away from him, but in truth, while it had hurt, the shock of pain had been paired with an equal burst of pleasure, and the two combined left her momentarily dizzy.

Austin looked remorseful.  “Sorry.” He reached out again, “I’ll be gentler?”

She stepped back.  “No!”  Paused and relented, “Maybe later.”

“OK.  So what do you want to do?”

“Want to climb the oak? See if we can find our initials from last summer?”

“OK.  Want a boost?”

She nodded, and he made a stirrup with his hands to for her to step into and be thrust up towards the lowest branches.  As she scrambled upwards, Austin made another discovery.  He could see up the leg of her shorts.  And she wasn’t wearing anything under them!  As she climbed, entirely unaware of the view she was giving, he felt a sudden rush of heat.

“Austin? Hey! Austin!” The call snapped his attention back to the process of climbing the tree.  She was now lying along the lowest branch and reaching a hand down to him.  “You coming up or what?”

He took her hand, and with her assistance was soon sat next to her in the branches.  She enquired, “You alright? You went spacey there.”

“Uh, yeah.  Um,  why aren’t you wearing anything under your shorts?”

“Oh!”  A rose blush spread across her ears.  “I guess you could see when you boosted me up.  Sometimes I don’t.  Maybe a lot of the time.  I like the way the air feels.  Anyway…”  She pulled herself up to the next branch. “Guess you’d better decide whether you want to look up my shorts or beat me to the top!”

Before she could get any further, Austin proposed:  “How about if I beat you to the top I get to look under your shorts anyway?”

“What, like, take them off for you?”  He nodded.  “Mmm, what do I get if you don’t beat me?”

“What do you want?”

“Dunno.  OK, if I win, you’ll owe me. I’ll work it out later.”

He didn’t like the open-ended nature of that, but he trusted she wouldn’t abuse it.  And he really wanted to see her naked!  So he nodded, and they started to climb.

Soon after, her cheer marked the fact that her agility had won her another victory.  “Beat you again!  And – look!  Found our initials!”  Her fingers brushed moss away from paired initials:  AM / HW, as Austin hauled himself up onto the precarious perch.  

“Great,” he grumbled.

“Aww, don’t be a sore loser,” she chided.  

“I’m not,” he lied. “Just worried about what I owe you now.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll think of something you won’t mind much.”  

“It’s that ‘much’ that worries me!”  He paused, “You got to decide soon, OK.  Don’t hold it over me. Please?”

“OK.  I’ll think of something on the way down.”  They made their way back down to the lowest branch, and she continued, “You go down first, give me a hand down? Guess you’ll get to look up my shorts again.”  Her grin warmed him, and he dropped down from the branch, landing softly on the mossy forest floor, before reaching up to offer her a hand.  
Which one of them slipped, neither of them was certain, looking back.  He would maintain that she fell on him, she that he slipped out from under her as she was coming down.  What is certain is that they went tumbling to the ground, landing with her lying on top of him, his arms wrapped protectively around her.

“Oh my gosh, Austin!  Are you OK?”

He groaned as he opened his eyes to find her staring at him, nose-to-nose, her blue eyes gazing into his brown.  “Yeah, I think so,” he said, a bit uncertainly.

“Oh, good,” she sighed with relief.  “Thank you for catching me.”  She found herself strangely reluctant to move.  His arms wrapped around her, her still bare chest pressed against his, warmth building between them.  

Austin could also feel the energy between them, and his young body reacted.  He suddenly wished that he were also going commando, as his underpants seemed very tight.  Her eyes opened wide as she felt the bulge grow between them.

“Oh!  Have – have you got a boner?”  He nodded bashfully.  “Because of me?”  Another nod, then a breathy whispered question, “May I see?”

Austin wrestled down the instinctive ‘Yes!’ that leapt to his lips.  “Is that the favour I owe you?”

She giggled and stroked his cheek.  “I think I spent that when you caught me.  So, no, show me if you want to. But I’ll take my shorts off too, if you still want?”  This time, he didn’t hesitate before agreeing.

She freed herself from the circle of his arms and rose, standing above him.  “You stay lying down.”  Her shorts were quickly unbuttoned and kicked off to lie next to her discarded shirt.  She stood with her legs spread, and reaching down, parted the lips of her sex with her fingers to reveal the soft pink between.  “There.  Am I the first girl you’ve seen like this?”

He answered, not taking his gaze from her revealed vulva.  “Yeah!  You’re so pretty down there!”

The rat girl made a face.  “I don’t want to be ‘pretty’. Especially if it’s only there!  But thanks, I guess.  I know what you mean.”  

She quickly stepped back and crouched over him.  “My turn!”  She unbuttoned his shorts and in one move pulled them and his underpants down his thighs, freeing his erection – which had only grown from her little show.  His cock bobbed up, nearly bopping her in the nose, as it was freed.

“Oh, wow!”  She looked at it like some kind of alien artefact, moving to see it from different angles.  Smirking as it twitched when her breath blew over it.  “Can – may I touch it?”

“Can I touch you too?”  

“You already touched my chest.”

“I mean, down there.”

She didn’t reply but sealed the bargain by wrapping her fingers around his penis.  “Oh! It’s so warm!”  He moaned slightly in response, and she jerked back.  “Did I hurt you?”
“No! No, that felt good.”

“Oh, OK.”  She took him back into her grasp, and let her fingers wander over his length curiously, stroking and prodding gently.  “I heard boys talking about ‘jerking off’.  Do you do that?”

“Yeah… sometimes.”  (Regularly.)

“Tell me how?”

“Just kind of stroke up and down.”  

She did her best to follow the vague instruction, and was rewarded with a soft whimper and the speeding of his breath.  She stroked more certainly, and with increasing speed, and it wasn’t long before Austin’s hips bucked as he came to a dry orgasm.

“Uh – uh! Stop, please… too much!”  He gasped.

She let him go and moved to kneel next to him.  “Good?”

He nodded vigorously.  “Loads better than when I do it!”

She parted her knees.  “Will you touch me now?  Here,” she touched her chest, then her mound “And here?”

He sat up and put one paw over her nipple, as the other slipped between her legs. She let him explore for a bit, feeling the tingles of sensation from her chest run down to her slit, and the entirely new feeling of someone else’s fingers along her sex.  After a while though, as her yearning grew, fuelled by the stimulation of her nipples, she put her hand over his between her legs, and guided him to where she wanted to be touched – to rub slowly over her clitoris, exquisitely slowly, her fingers twined with his, as her breaths came faster and faster until, at last, she exhaled in a sudden rush and gripped his hand tight as she shuddered.   

She drew him down to lay again on the leaf-strewn ground,  stretched out alongside him, nestled against him.  The two naked cubs were aware that their friendship had crossed a boundary and they were embarking on a journey towards something new, but for here and now, they were together, and that was enough.