Tailesium Part 3: Welcome to the Neighborhood

By Tehrig (aka stick)

	Jade gave a sharp twist of the shower handle, and soothingly hot water poured from the nozzle overhead.  The scattering droplets danced across her broad, powerful body like the fingertips of a hundred expert masseuses, and a thick cloud of steam rose into the air from the warming tiles beneath her large three-toed feet.  The dual-sexed dragoness felt every scrap of tension fade from her muscles, seemingly washed away along with the layers of sweat and sexual fluids that coated her scaly skin.

	“Ahhhhhhhhh,” she sighed.  She hadn’t expected this to feel so good.  Two separate, feverishly intense masturbation sessions were good for blowing off emotional steam, but they’d been less relaxing for her body as a whole.  Especially when one of them had involved expanding her belly to ginormous proportions via an oral injection of her own jism.  

	She rubbed her stomach at the thought.  Little more than a minute ago it had been distended to the extreme, as though she’d somehow swallowed an overinflated beach ball.  Now, her clawed fingers slid across a perfectly flat midriff, firm and toned.  Water flowed down from her cleavage and around the solid bumps of her abdominal muscles like they were stones in a mountain stream.       

	A smile crept across her thin-lipped snout.  She closed her eyes and looked up into the pleasant spray coming down from above, and it spattered across her reptilian yet strangely beautiful features.  Opening her mouth, she let water wash over her long tongue and into the back of her throat.  She gargled it briefly, savoring the cleansing warmth.  Her soft palate was still slightly tender from the pounding, riot-dispersing blasts of seed her fire hose of a cock had shot into it.
 
She lowered her head and let the liquid flow out the sides of her long muzzle, between her pointed teeth.  With no water or heating bills to worry about, she could finally spend as much time as she wanted in the shower without guilt.  Eventually she’d get the chance to, anyway.  Her friend Drew – known in this realm as an anthropomorphic fox named Ren Akari – would be arriving at her front door in less than a half an hour.  

In deference to her tight schedule, she decided it was time to actually start cleaning herself.  Preparing to wash her hair, she ducked head-first into the spray with eyes closed tight.  Water inundated the clumpy, disheveled raven-black mass, making the strands relax a bit as moisture whisked away layers of built-up residue.  

Jade grabbed a bottle of shampoo from the holder in front of her, and squirted a generous dollop into her open palm.  She pulled her hair together and formed it into a clump about her head.  As she worked the thick stuff in, building it into a frothy mass of suds, she couldn't avoid rustling her large, fan-like ears in the bargain.  

Gradually, she massaged it into her scaly scalp, unsure how long it was actually necessary for her to do so and mindful of her skull’s various inhuman accoutrements that made it more difficult than usual.  Eventually the outer tips of her ears became irritated and sensitive from being brushed by her arms, and her hands had butted up against her crown of horns multiple times, several of them a little painfully.  At least now the hair running through her fingers felt smooth and slick enough. She bent her head down again and rinsed it clean.

The effect was like magic.  Moistened locks of her ebon mane dropped from her head, untangled and straight as though she’d already given them minutes of thorough brushing.  Most of it unspooled down her back, the longest parts stopping just above her tail.  The rest fell about her head and shoulders, still wet but equally free of tangling.

“Freaking.  Amazing,” she muttered, contemplating a few strands as she twirled them around one finger.  Shampoo worked so much better when imbued with scripting as opposed to chemical compounds.  Five minutes or more had just been shaved off her preparation time, and with far superior results than she could achieve on her own.  

With that out of the way, she moved on to the rest of her body.  She reached back into the holder and grabbed a fluffy, lime-green loofah that rested next to the shampoo bottle.  As she lifted it into the air, the sponge began to excrete fruit-scented soap.  Jade set it to work on her shoulders, whipping up a thick, sweet-smelling lather.   

She slipped the sponge down her back and scrubbed.  For a moment, she worried about running over her hair and disturbing its straightness, but found that it automatically moved out of the way as her hand drew near, as though it and the sponge were oppositely-charged electromagnets.  

The emerald dragoness grinned to herself.  It seemed Tailesium faithfully reproduced the real world in most cases, but still gave the option to compensate for more than a few real-life annoyances.  A shame she couldn't have dispensed with that nauseating vertigo earlier from standing up in her towering 7-foot body.  But that, at least, was over.  Given her total lack of experience in cleaning and styling butt-length hair, she was more than happy to forgive that little bit of discomfort then for the assistance she had now.

She passed the loofah from one hand to the other behind her back.  Thick, meaty muscles tensed and then relaxed.  She could feel them bulge out against her scales as they struggled for space.   God, but I’m built, she thought.  So built that I can’t really reach back there.  But I think I know a solution.

Her tail rose into the air, sinuous and snakelike in its movements as ever.  With an easy grace that suggested its owner had been born with the appendage rather than acquired it only hours ago, it slid into a tiny strap attached to the sponge.  A curl of the tip secured a solid grip.  Reaching her back turned out to be awkward but doable, and before long she could scrub between her shoulder blades, albeit stiffly.    

“Hmmmmm.”  She arched her back, making it into a concave slope for the tail-borne sponge to slide over with greater force.  “Why my ape ancestors gave you up, I’ll never understand.  You’re so useful.”  

She reached behind herself with one hand and lightly stroked the base of her tail.  “Useful… and sexy.”

Sexy…. she’d never felt that way before.  But her tail was sexy.  In fact, every inch of her carefully crafted form followed that description.  From top to bottom, she was a deviant vision made flesh, a stunningly beautiful gestalt of the gods Adonis, Aphrodite, and Bahamut.           

Jade groaned softly to herself in combined annoyance and delight, feeling the fires of arousal flicker back to life.  She should have been satisfied.  She’d just had two incredible orgasms for crying out loud, each so powerful on their own they should have rendered her libido comatose as a narcoleptic grizzly bear in January.  So why did she feel the onset of familiar urges, ones that threatened to push all other thoughts from her mind and drive her back into a state of mindless rut?  

A stray spark of arousal in her groin instantly set her entire pelvic girdle ablaze with lust, and the question became irrelevant.  Her caresses turned to gropes while she clutched her tail’s thick root as though trying to strangle the life out of it.  The flexing cords of powerful muscle she could feel just below the surface fed her excitement, and she shoved her free hand between her massive breasts.  She pressed her shoulders inward and, with similar urgency but greater care, began massaging a voluminous tit from within her impossibly tight yet cavernous cleavage.  Her cock twitched, but she somehow managed to keep it teasingly sealed within its sheath.    

Jade let go of her tail and slid that hand downward to feel the rounded curves of her enormous, solidly muscled bubble-butt.  She moaned a deep, guttural moan and arched her back again, shoulders relaxing, titanic chest thrusting into the shower’s spray.  Lord, she was insatiable.  But looking the way she did, there could be no alternative.  Ren, Drew, whatever he wanted to call himself, he could wait – right now there was a draconic sex goddess who needed some more self-worship.    

In the holder, next to the shampoo, rested a tall bottle of body wash.  The horny dragoness eyed it, smiling. 

“Might as well kill two birds with one stone,” she cooed. 

She squeezed some of the bottle's contents into one palm and then let it clatter to the floor.  Both hands shot to her chest and violently rubbed the liquid into her pendulous flesh-pumpkins, transforming the soapy stuff into an effervescent, frothy mass scented of jasmine and vanilla.  Firm-yet-pliant breast flesh squished under her insistent ministrations.  The tremendous orbs jiggled and bobbled, distorting in tantalizing ways, their thumb-sized erect nipples bending under vigorous stokes, dark areolas momentarily becoming tight, pebbly ovals.  As she blissfully fondled herself, the scaly skin covering her undulating tits somehow became even slicker than before, as though made of slippery latex.  She groaned in pleasure while her breaths came quick and shallow, their heat and humidity noticeable even in the shower's steamy air. 

In spite of it all, her cock still had not left its home.  She could feel it desperately throbbing inside while its pendulous companions grew tight with seed, but still her sheath’s puckered mouth remained tightly shut.  The poor, trapped trouser-snake screamed bloody murder into her mind, as through it were suffocating in the withering fuck-heat of her loins.  Its protests only drove her arousal higher.  

Jade gritted her teeth and managed to force the edges of her mouth into a strained smile.  She’d developed a remarkable level of control over this body in such a short time.  But her discipline had a limit, and it was fast approaching.     

Trembling, she bent her spread-wide legs, pushing her breasts apart with one resting on each thigh.  Her heavy ballsac wobbled like a pendulum as it descended.  Once, her teenaged meat-self had been fond of doing this, squatting in the shower to feel the novel sensation of his junk hanging freely in the open air. But secretly, she’d always wanted more, wished that puny human scrotum could do better than pathetically dangle inches above the floor.  Now, her eyes beheld yet another long-sought fantasy realized.  Her ponderous golden sac’s inhuman enormity allowed it to span the space between groin and ground and rest a small part of its bulk on the warm, watery ceramic tiles.  

A delicious thrill coursed through her body, and she couldn’t hold back any more.  The pressure in her groin suddenly released as her sheath flew open and cock popped free, some eighteen inches of flaccid length shooting out all at once.  It hit the floor with a soft slap and sprawled limply across the surface like a thick strand of floppy black licorice.  

It laid there a moment, senseless and motionless, as though winded by its struggle for escape.  Jade watched, hardly breathing.  The sound and spray of the shower faded into the background.  She could feel her heart pound, circulatory system springing into overdrive, desperate to breathe life back into her unconscious member.   Luckily, its efforts took hold in seconds - the once-mighty phallus twitched slightly, then began to expand.  Slowly, its bent, sinuous mass expanded like a sausage on the end of a stuffing nozzle, filling up, becoming fatter and stiffer, folds and creases disappearing as it straightened.    

 As life flowed into it, Jade’s girlcock began sliding the rest of its length free from her sheath in short, smooth bursts like a tremendous black worm.  Simultaneously, its bulbous mushroom head swelled like a balloon, while the shaft’s charcoal skin grew shiny and taut from the continuous expansion.  

Tiny droplets of water struck along her maleness’ burgeoning length.  Jade twitched softly, as their impact on the sensitive surface felt more like tiny shards of ice than liquid.  However her cock could no longer feel pain or discomfort, only stimulation, and the deluge spurred it to grow ever faster. 

 It pushed forward from her crotch with renewed vigor, finally lifting off the floor with a jerk.  In the time it took the dragoness to draw three more rapid breaths, it had settled into its full 36-inch size.  Fearless in its proud draconic tumescence, it jutted headfirst into the stinging shower spray at a 45-degree angle, bobbing softly to its mistress’ heartbeat.

“C'mere, you,” growled Jade, and wrapped both arms around the trunk of her tumescent pole.  So incredibly sensitive, it leapt as she pulled it to her bosom as though trying to get away.  Its protests went unheeded; so too did the shots of amorous lightning they fired through the lust-crazed dragoness’ synapses.   Despite its resistance, the enormous penis found itself wrapped in a cloak made of meaty arms and mountainous breasts.  

Jade tottered backwards slightly, but a quick tail thrust against the floor kept her upright.  She continued to hold her manhood tight in a loving bearhug.  Love.  All she could feel was love for her cock, and the rest of her wonderful, wonderful body.  Narcissus himself would blanch at the levels of self-involvement she'd been wallowing in, that she realized.  But this world, this reality, had granted her heart’s desire.  It was a dream come true, the fulfillment of nearly thirty years’ worth of longed-for fantasies.  

The faceless bureaucrats of the FDA couldn’t imagine how painful it had been for her, separated from this for a month while they appraised her mental fitness for Total Immersion Virtual Reality.  It made sense, of course.  Their price controls, their session limits, their mood-stabilizing drugs – all of it had a purpose: suppression.  The alternative was a nationwide exodus from analog reality.  One that could spread globally like a virus until all of humanity had jacked in, turned on, and dropped out.

Stupid humans, she thought.  Always fearing what’s new, what they don't understand.  They don't know what this feels like.  They can't know, because they're stuck.  Stuck in those deteriorating lumps of meat they call bodies, slaves to a broken system with outdated ideas of what's real.  What's tasteful.  What's sinful.  

She furrowed her brow underneath the continuous downpour, and peeled back her upper lip in a contemptuous sharp-toothed sneer.  Sin.  What a ridiculous concept.  Invented to keep the herd docile, keep them in line, save them from the horror of actually experiencing some goddamn joy on this cold-ass chunk of fucking rock.  They think they can snatch happiness from my grasp and say they’re doing me a favor? Well, those sanctimonious pricks can shove themselves and their so-called “sins” right up my gaping cunt. 

As if to emphasize that thought, she sent a hand searching between tail and dangling balls.  Easily locating her feminine slit, she vigorously thrust two fingers inside.  Their pointed claws should have bloodily punctured the sensitive tissue, but it didn't surprise Jade to find that her vaginal flesh remained unscathed – she was a dragon after all, the strongest and toughest of all creatures.  No, the only thing she felt was a prelude to another glorious, body-rocking orgasm.  

She snarled softly to herself, reveling animalistically in the now-familiar sensation, but deep inside there were pangs of fear.  Why had she shifted so suddenly from arousal to anger?  Nobody was coming to take TIVR away.  They’d tried, but the genie was thoroughly out of the bottle.  And she didn’t really want to leave the physical world forever… right?

WHO CARES?  I’M HORNY! the dragoness’ all-consuming libido thundered across her consciousness.  The voices of anxiety didn’t have an answer to such a strong argument, and promptly shut up.  Jade was glad to see them go. 

 Her rock-hard cock tingled from base to tip, crying out for some stimulation of its own.  Jade had no intention of neglecting her tumescent tube again, but a satisfying wank would require better lubrication than just water.  Out the corner of one eye she caught a glimpse of the body wash bottle she’d cast away earlier, lying sideways and dribbling onto the floor.  She released her penis, and then twisted her upper body sharply; breasts swinging hard to one side, a hand still buried in her box.  Reaching out, she grabbed her prize and snatched it to her bosom with a predatory lunge.
 
With nary a second’s hesitation, she upended it over her erection.  A steady drizzle of translucent goop drooled from the bottle’s mouth, quickly blanketing the neck of her yard-long cock in thick, slippery liquid.  Once it was empty, she tossed the bottle behind her, then got to work. 

With jerky yet powerful strokes, she rubbed up and down her incredible length.  Heavy foam began to envelop the tremendous tool, and she squeezed it tighter, feeling its taut coal-black skin's tension beneath her grip.  Below, the muff-diving digits of her other hand applied similar force to her vaginal walls, moving in a frenzy of masturbatory motion.  The thumb stumbled upon her two-inch long clit and immediately took to strumming it like a nubby guitar string.

With eyes closed, Jade turned her sleek draconic face into the spray and let out a roar of pleasure into the artificial rain as though voicing the thunder of a tropical squall.  Erotic rage flowed like rivers of molten lava through her veins.  Each pump of her heart filled her being to bursting with unstoppable, righteous carnal fury.  A climax of some sort was fast approaching, and Jade smiled because it all felt so good.  So very, very good.    

Her vagina yielded first to the frenzied ministrations, and sent an orgasmic shockwave booming through her flesh.  Jade cried out in ecstasy, and a word from moments ago lit up across the inside of her brain like a movie marquee – cunt.  A crass, ugly name for the lovely hole she had her hand jammed halfway into.  Jacob Drake had hated that word, once.  But Jade the dragoness had used it just now without even a twinge of remorse.  Unlike the human she had one of her own, and calling it by that forbidden name juiced her synapses with a rush of liberation-flavored dopamine. Such a dirty, vulgar, whorish word, and it so perfectly described her, squatting there naked as a jaybird, tits swinging in the steam-filled air, fingers fucking that silken orifice like a sex-crazed demoness.  That was what she was, a filthy, nasty, slut of a creature, perpetually in heat, made for stuffing her fat, juicy cunt with every phallus she could find.  Not even the collective disdain of every God-fearing motherfucking soul on the planet could stop her. 

Her fingers gripped her labia like vise grips and she jilted even harder, needing more to boost the depth of her defiance.  Images of the forces arrayed against her ran through her superheated mind like a personal Two Minutes’ Hate.  She realized that the mere existence of anti-Simmer special interest groups and the pious demagogues that comprised them offended her to the core.  Their actual power was irrelevant; that there could be even a single organization dedicated solely to the extinction of “degenerates” like her, that would forcibly extract Jacob Drake’s nanites and deport him to a re-education camp if they had their way, was unforgivable.  

And they weren’t the only ones, she knew it.  Everywhere, knuckle-dragging agents of the past lurked in silence, biding their time, plotting ways to drag western society by its hair back to the days of Leave It to Beaver.  A kinder, gentler world of gender binaries, repression, and self-hatred was their vision of Utopia.  Well, she felt a glorious, semen-soaked reprisal to those retrograde puritan pukes growing in her loins.  

She grinned a devious sharklike grin as her testicles drew up in preparation.  Despite their gravidity they actually lifted several inches into the air, while her prostate tensed like a crouching tiger.  The muscular rod beneath her hand became even stiffer and the ebon head bulged proudly like a flexing bicep beneath the shower’s stinging rain.  

The dragoness reached for it, and encouragingly rubbed its sensitive underside.  She watched its mouth gape in what felt like slow motion, and then her hips bucked violently as an arc of pearly white herm-semen barreled up her urethra and exploded from within like a soupy cannonball.  

“FUCKING YESSSSS!” Jade screamed.  “SUCK IT DOWN, YOU ASSHOLES!”  

Exhilaration consumed her entire being.  Her cock sprayed jizz through the air like it hadn’t come in weeks, plastering the wall in front of her with thick, sticky cream.  With it, her squirting, slavering twat clenched around her fingers as though trying to eat them alive.  She hadn’t expected such potency from either so soon, let alone the volume of fluids.  Their orgasms possessed a strangely unique, unfamiliar texture thanks to a powerful aphrodisiac born of righteous anger mixed with decadent self-love. 

It wasn’t even close to enough.  Every heaving orgasmic clench of Jade’s body felt like an act of rebellion, like a ferocious double-bird in the faces of the status quo police.  Delirious, she needed more, to push her body harder, to orgasm deeper, to fill the room – no, the world - with an ocean of mixed fluids, one in which to drown her despised enemies.  She felt herself draw tantalizingly close to a threshold of release that could give her that power, and in the process transform her once-human body further, into a glorious anathema to all that was chaste and holy.  Eyes closed tighter than steel shutters, her roars shook the walls as her body quaked with desperate effort.  Both hands worked their sputtering charges like pneumatic jackhammers, copious lubrication only barely keeping the forces of friction at bay.         
 
Then, mid-spurt, a loud sound filled the room.

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT

“Urk!” 

 Every voluntary muscle in Jade’s body jerked like load-bearing steel cables that had suddenly been severed.  She tottered dangerously, hands coming free in a panic-stricken attempt to keep herself upright.  But their adrenaline-addled movements proved useless, and the muscle-bound dragoness toppled backwards.  

She hit the tile floor hard, tail wedged between it and her back, bent parallel to her spine.  Pain lanced through the appendage, but she hardly had time to yell out before her cock swung down like a felled sequoia and planted itself against her sternum, between her splayed breasts.  Already shrinking, it spat a few final bursts of pearl jam into Jade’s neck and hair as its orgasm perished of shock.      

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT

Jade twitched as the noise sounded again.  She lay there, frozen in place while the base of her spine throbbed and the shower’s spray rained down on her lower half.  Her heart felt as though it were encased in ice.  She wasn’t even sure it was still beating.  On the wall in front of her, four tiles shifted toward each other, coming together to form a single large square.

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT

Jacob managed a heavy swallow, one that seemed to stick in his throat on the way down.  He couldn’t believe what he’d been thinking, what he’d felt.  What he was still feeling even now, resentment and titillation faintly buzzing at the back of his skull.  This can’t be me.  Jade the dual-gendered dragoness was an invader, a foreign personality, a possessing succubus.  She had to be.  There was no part of her lust-consumed, fluid-gushing sexual rage in mild-mannered Jacob Drake, who worked a normal day-job, paid his taxes on time, called his mother regularly, and certainly never had fantasies of transforming into the weirdly oversexed form he now occupied.  

The white square on the wall began to flicker like a television screen that had just been powered on.

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT

Bullshit, a voice whispered in his ear and Jacob shuddered, wishing it would shut up.  He couldn’t afford to listen; he had no idea who he was anymore, and the safest way back to normality would be stuffing Tailesium and all its trappings into a box in some corner of his psyche, then forgetting about it.  

Tears filled his eyes while his Safe Word danced on the end of his tongue, just waiting to come out.  Jade’s tail still throbbed painfully, but Jacob tried to ignore it, to defy all that it had meant to him.  It didn’t exist.  It wasn’t real.  One word, and he could return to the raggedy couch in his darkened apartment, be a human man forevermore and never have to deal with tail injuries again.  Never have to face this terrifying confusion again.  Bullshit.  

A black and white image, shot from a high angle, of a humanoid fox clad in a Hawaiian shirt and Bermuda shorts appeared on the wall-square.

BZZZT.  BZZ-BZZ-BZZ-B-BZZZZZZZZT.

“Hey!  Hey, Jade!  C’mon girl, you’re not still in bed, are you?”

The fox was talking to him.  Jacob looked at its face on the tile-screen and squinted, focusing his eagle-like eyes.  He recognized its strangely handsome vulpine features.  They belonged to a friend who, in the real world, was called Drew Gibson.  

Jacob had a long history with the man behind that furry face.  As human college students they’d roomed together for years.  Months ago, however - more than a decade later - he’d learned of the secret longing the two of them had individually nurtured.  But cruelly, despite their closeness both physically and emotionally, that strange commonality had remained hidden, both men isolated, alone, unaware.  Maybe Drew had, like Jacob, spent his life coping with that deep, aching yearn for the fantastic.  Maybe he, too, had wished that whole time for a place where his dreams of transcendence could become reality, and where society’s judgment couldn’t reach.  And now he had found it. 

They had found it.  

BZZZZZZZZZT.  BZZZZ…

Jade groaned, rolling over onto one side to free her trapped tail.  “That’s… that’s enough, Drew,” she croaked, sniffling to clear her sinuses.  “I know you’re here already.”  Slowly and unsteadily, she rose to her feet.

The fox looked up into the camera with a smirk on his face.  “I’m sorry, Ms. Speaker Voice, I don’t know what you’re talking about.  There’s no Drews out here!”

“Sorry, Ren,” replied the dragoness, and then slipped in something slick that almost sent her tumbling back to the floor.  She wasn’t sure if it was soap or leftover jism.  The room seemed to be spinning again, thanks to the adrenaline cycling out of her veins.

“Theeeeere you go!  Glad to see you’re awake, bud.  Me and Tristan were starting to get worried!  Are you in the shower or something?  I can hear running water.”

Jade stumbled over to the wall.  She leaned on it with outstretched arms, both hands above her head, and gazed down into the screen that was just below her eye level.  “S…sorry, Ren,” she said, “I’m… I’m running a little behind.  Can you wait?  Just a little longer?”

“Not a problem.  Is there something wrong?  You sound kinda weird.”

“No.  No, there isn’t.  And, Ren?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.  Just… thanks.”

“Um… any time?  Don’t take too long, though; we’re starving down here!” 

“I won’t.  BRT.”

She placed a thumb and forefinger at the corners of the screen and pulled it apart into its four component tiles; the video image immediately vanished.   Turning, she put her back against the wall and slid to the floor, tail safely tucked between her legs. 

“Shall I buzz your visitors in, madam?” came a voice from the ceiling.

“Yeah,” muttered Jade dispassionately, “go for it.”

 A long, shuddering sigh escaped her muzzle as she blinked tears from her eyes.  Staring at the drain, she watched the shower’s spray wash away the last remnants of her misbegotten climaxes. 

 She had to pull it together.  This was what she wanted, what she craved.  A brief detour into a raw, uninhibited corner of her personality should be considered par for the course when unleashing feelings that had been bottled up for so long.  But in her mind, Jade still felt like oil to her, floating standoffishly above the water that was Jacob.  

Jade shook her head, trying to force the two to merge.  They were one and the same; she knew this.  Jacob had paid for VR nanite implantation, knowing full well what they could allow him to do.  Jacob had accepted Drew’s invitation to Tailesium.  Jacob had spent hours creating a body that to him was the very picture of beauty.  Jacob had willingly submitted to an exciting yet excruciating transformation so as to make the transition to that body as real to himself as possible.  And today, Jacob the human had laid down in his tiny studio apartment and closed his eyes, heart full of a giddy joy akin to what he’d once felt as a child on Christmas morning.  Jade the dragoness had opened them again, but she was still Jacob, just under a different name.  The physical form was nothing more than a shell; the person underneath remained the same.  Her brain had learned that lesson once and would re-learn it again and again, until it stuck.  In the meantime, she needed to meet her friend.      

One of the shower room’s stabilizing handles was directly over her head.  Jade reached up and used it to steady herself as she rose to her feet.  Her extra-large endowments felt much heavier than usual, and her body’s constant quaking didn’t help matters either.  But, with some effort and the use of both arms, she managed to stand.

She reached behind her head and brought a handful of moistened hair before her eyes.  It still looked all right.  Smelled mostly clean, too.  Just to make sure, she grabbed the shampoo bottle, squirted a small spurt of its contents into her palm, and proceeded to lather up once again.  Quickly, she washed the suds out, hoping against hope that it would be enough to clear away any new deposits of man-juice. 

A twist of the shower handle stopped the water flow, and Jade strode through the shower room, opened the sliding doors, and entered the bathroom.  A set of folded, alabaster-white bath towels lay on a small table to her left; they hadn’t been there before.  Nonplussed, she took one.  It was thick and fluffy, and as she dried herself it wicked the moisture from her water-resistant skin like a sponge.  

It felt good – too good.  Jade cringed, and softly bit her lower lip.  After what she’d just been through it should have been impossible, but somehow the act of rubbing her bouncy, bountiful breasts and girthy sheath still managed to turn her on a bit.  Apparently not even a near-psychotic break could snuff her predilection for self-love.  A part of her found that encouraging, but another worried that she’d always react this way, like a teenager hopped up on a near-fatal dose of hormones.

Pushing that thought from her mind she finished drying and, with some difficulty, wrapped the towel around her torso.  Her massive knockers resisted, but she still managed to cram roughly half of their bulks under the fabric.  The remainder bulged obscenely past the edges of confinement along with half of each nipple. 

After tying it off, she made her way over to the sink. With breath held, she stepped in front of it and gazed with trepidation into the mirror, anticipating another struggle with her poor, battered ego.  But none came; instead, as she looked over her reflection, the spoils of those hard-fought battles came rushing back to her.  In the glass, she saw a beautiful, muscle-bound emerald dragoness, clad in a towel that barely covered the lower half of her tremendous golden bosom, with stringy wet clumps of raven-black hair adorning her back and shoulders.  

Confidence returning, Jade smiled, and her mirror image smiled back.  That dragoness was her; there could be no question.  The conflicting forces in her head called a truce, and the last remnants of anxiety drained away. 

“Huhhhhhhh,” she sighed in relief, so very, very grateful that her latest identity crisis was finally over.  An irritating little bit of uneasiness still lurked somewhere deep down in her psyche, but she could ignore it if she just kept focused on what she needed to do.  Like dry her hair.

To her left there was an electric hairdryer attached to a cradle on the sink’s dividing wall. She took it, turned it on with a quick flick of a switch, and aimed the stream of hot air directly at her head.  

The result was pure magic – her hair immediately shed all its remaining moisture and exploded into the flowing, slightly bouffant ‘do from Jacob’s avatar schematics.  She shook her head back and forth and the featherweight tresses followed, so light and glossy their shine in the mirror was practically blinding.  When the movement stopped, they naturally assumed their original position, not a single strand out of place.  Perfect, as if she were an actress in a bizarro-world Maybelline ad.

“Hmmmm,” she hummed.  “Maybe she is born with it.”  

She set the hairdryer back in its place and left the sink, walking through the bathroom door into her bedroom.  What greeted her eyes actually took her aback a bit.  Despite the mess it had been left in, the place was back to its original state.  Her bed was properly made, the windows were spotless, and not a drop remained anywhere of the musky dragon-seed that had once dotted nearly every surface.  She inhaled deeply through her nostrils, and smelled the same scents that had greeted her upon waking up that morning – recently-dried paint, new wood, and potpourri.  

She let the breath out in a satisfied sigh, and smiled quietly to herself.  “Excellent work, Harlan,” she said. 

“My pleasure, ma’am,” said her house AI, his disembodied voice issuing from an indeterminate part of the ceiling.  

Jade hung a left, crossing in front of the television, then took another left into the closet.  Hanging from the rack closest to her was the ensemble she’d picked to wear out that day, an orange crop-top, khaki cargo shorts, and blue spandex undergarments.  She’d seen a combination like this in a piece of furry art back in her closeted college years, worn by a strutting hyper-herm otter, and thought it would look just as stunning on a similarly endowed dragoness.  She undid the towel and let it drop to the floor.  Cool air frisked her naked body as she removed the clothing from its hook, and she shivered in heady anticipation.  

Being that this was the first time the dragoness had attempted to clothe her bulky form, some difficulties ensued.  The top slipped easily over her head, but sized as it was to hug her bust tightly, snagged a bit on the nipples.  Additional pulling rectified that issue, though not without some mild chafing.  Threading the underwear past her digitigrade ankles proved a challenge, and necessitated some extra support from the closet wall.  Thanks to its dexterity, her tail had a much easier time getting through its hole, though she still needed to wriggle it a bit.  

Once the undies were on, they turned out to be worth the effort.  Their stretchy material clung tantalizingly to her package as though it were coated in glue.  The overall sensation was like a warm, tight, comforting embrace over every inch of her pelvic region's considerable surface area.  It made her realize just how exposed she had been up until then, insanely pronounced manhood flapping freely in the open air.  She felt safer now somehow, as though the silky-smooth, lycra-like fabric not only lifted and supported her loins, but provided protection as well.  And apparently security was sexy, because it made Jade want to paw herself.   But, she stifled the urge - no time.

Moving on, the cargo shorts were a simpler affair.  They were an item from the basic clothing assortment that all Tailesium newbies had access to when building their initial wardrobe, but the system helpfully made some automatic adjustments to fit the dragoness’ ridiculous proportions. Jade had made some manual changes as well, and as she fastened the shorts around her waistline, her blue spandex-clad junk thrust proudly through the massively-expanded fly hole, exposed in all its shiny, form-fitted glory.  The risqué display seemed to suggest a desperate struggle of cock versus clothing had taken place in those shorts, one that Jade’s awe-inspiring manhood had inevitably, and explosively, won.

She smiled and shook her body from side to side.  The weighty masses of her endowments shoved heavily against their new restraints, inertia dampened by the fabric surrounding them.  To feel them bound in such a way, pressed close against her chest and crotch, sent chills down Jade’s spine.  Her male and female parts were so tightly crammed into their coverings they seemed on the verge of bursting out at any moment.  The material was programmed to be flexible enough that they wouldn’t, but her imagination didn’t seem to care.  She still felt one deep breath or hip thrust away from a wardrobe malfunction of biblical proportions.

“Okay,” she said to herself, “I really need to see if this looks as sexy as it feels.”  

“It’ll only take a second,” she added, as though her friend outside could hear.

She walked briskly across the bedroom to the mirror beside the bed and positioned herself in front of it.  What she beheld in its three floor-length panels pleased her greatly.  The crop-top held her tremendous knockers close, their erect nipples blatantly tenting the fabric.  It wasn’t as though she needed the support, but the shirt’s lifting and compressing effect allowed an even better view of her washboard abs than usual.  Nearly a foot of cleavage was on display and plenty of excess titflesh muffin-topped around the sweeping neckline’s upper edges.

Meanwhile, the groinal display of her spandex/shorts combo fell just short of obscene, zippered chino cloth spread taut like a toothy, gaping maw around the elephantine tongue of her exquisitely-outlined junk.  Even compressed, with some vertical hang exchanged for horizontal thrust, her sheath and balls still overwhelmed the hole and draped halfway down her thigh.
 
Jade smiled, and turned so she could see herself in profile.  She admired the curvaceous fore and rear thrusts of her many assets.  In the grand tradition of clothing for hyper-endowed anthros, her ensemble covered everything, yet concealed nothing.  She was going to make a splash on her first day in Tailesium for sure.  

Some might take issue, certainly.  But they wouldn’t dare speak up, because she was just too damn sexy to report.  Even if all attempts to control her libido failed, and she wound up in public sporting a three-foot, pre-spitting boner, the rabble couldn't stop her.  The usual internal voice of dissent, shocked by her cavalier attitude, made to open its mouth.  She imagined smothering it in her abundant cleavage until it backed off. 

“That’s ‘decent’ enough, methinks,” she said slyly.  “Time to hit the town.”

With hips and tail swinging, she sashayed around her gigantic bed.  Straight ahead was the bedroom door, built tall to accommodate her stature.  It was made of finely-carved oak, and embedded in a wall of crystal-clear glass panels that sparkled in the sunlight.  The room on the other side was dimly lit by ambient light, but as Jade approached the door Harlan sensed her intentions and illuminating lamps along the ceiling winked on.  

She opened the door with a twist of its handle, and stepped out onto the mezzanine that overlooked her penthouse condo's huge, open-aired living room.  It was a narrow platform, about wide enough for three of her to stand shoulder-to-shoulder, with waist-height glass-and-steel railings and a space-agey inward curve that made it seem to embrace the space below.  A dozen or so yards to Jade's left was a second door that led to a guest bedroom.  The opposite end of the balcony had a similarly-sized door that concealed a large linen closet, utterly redundant given Harlan’s housekeeping abilities but added so as to maintain symmetry. 

Jade walked up to the railing and leaned over it, surveying the living room beneath her.  It was enormous and open, reaching two stories high, full of rounded edges tinted in soothing hues of tan, white, and gold.  The far wall was another multi-paneled window, this one extending all the way to the ceiling.  In its center was a set of double doors leading to a broad terrace, which featured a hot tub, swimming pool, minibar, and a surrounding garden filled with immaculately-trimmed and flowering greenery.  Beyond that more of the city could be seen, although a vast expanse of ocean interrupted the urban sprawl well before it reached the horizon.    

The dragoness straightened, inhaling deeply through her nostrils and smelling again the scents of new construction.  She looked to her right.  Between her and the linen closet was an opening in the balcony, surrounded on three sides by thick glass panels.  Inside, stairs led down to the lower floor. 

Elation took hold of her heart and lifted it skyward.  This creation, her living space, was huge, elegant, and beautiful, just like her.  The euphoric rush of seeing fantasy made real struck her again, and a rambunctious fancy took hold.  The stairs suddenly seemed far too mundane a method of descent for one such as her; a true dragoness would flaunt her species' superhuman agility and sturdiness, just in case someone was watching.  She crouched down slightly, each powerful muscle tensing like a spring, then put one hand on the railing in front of her and vaulted over it, nimble as a cat despite her heavy ballast.

She dropped the ten or so feet to the ground floor and made a four-point landing, crouched like a martial artist out of some Japanese cartoon.  Her restrained endowments lurched mightily in the throes of gravity and she felt the fabric that cloaked them strain, struggling to hold everything in.  But being scripted as indestructible the clothes proved more than worthy of the task, and as they pulled her heavy-hanging adornments back in a weighty rebound she followed their momentum, hopping to her feet with an ear-to-ear grin.  A stunt like that would have likely cost a similarly-weighted human a pair of broken ankles.  But not a dragon.  

Panting proudly, she looked around at her living room.  Her stunt had placed her directly in its center.  An invisible line extended perpendicularly from the terrace door, neatly bisecting the space into two hemispheres with clear purposes.  To her left was an area meant for eating and socializing, with a large oak dining table set for eight.  Not far from it, closer to the wall, there was a rounded free-standing fireplace surrounded by seats and assorted large plants in fine marble planters.      

The other side looked more focused on casual recreation.  It had a set of comfortable-looking couches, bearing end tables on both sides, encircling a long coffee table and a wall-mounted television screen so large it could have served as a stadium Jumbotron.  Then, near the window-wall, frocked by ferns, stood an extremely rare mint-condition Addams Family pinball machine.  It was just like the one Jacob's uncle once had in his rec room, except it would never need cleaning or repairs and always play as though fresh off the assembly line.  

“Hmmmmmm,” hummed Jade, giddy smile still plastered across her snout.  She spun 180 degrees in a clumsy pirouette to face the opposite direction.  Before her was a long hallway that led beneath the balcony to the palatial penthouse’s private elevator.  Two rooms flanked it on either side, opening both into the living room and hall itself.  

To the left, behind the staircase Jade had avoided using a moment ago, was what could have been called a “study”, although the dragoness had no intention ever doing such a thing while in Tailesium.  Two comfy-looking leather easy chairs were inside, and the room's many shelves were stuffed with books, some she had picked out herself, others automatically chosen.  They were a sideshow, though, compared to the main attraction: a glass case containing a selection of classic video game consoles.    

On the opposite side of the hall sat the kitchen.  Its dimensions were unnecessarily expansive, containing multiple sinks, an industrial-level dishwasher, and counters covered with various cooking instruments and devices.  Really, it looked better suited for a busy restaurant than preparing meals for herself or a couple of guests.  But it had been a quick cut-and-paste job, there to tick off a box on the checklist of things a home should have.  The only part she’d created herself was the diner-style counter that faced the living room, a casual alternative to that fancy dining table. 

Jade left the living room and entered the hallway.  She just couldn’t stop smiling.  This place was a palace, and she was its sexy, sexy princess.  As she strolled down the corridor the buoyant, carefree air filling her chest increased, and her stride became more and more overtly suggestive.  Her hips rocked back and forth while her muscular butt-cheeks oscillated up and down like a pair of pistons.  She thrust her ginormous, restrained chest proudly before her and girlishly elevated her arms.  Thick thighs took turns pushing her massive testicles against the spandex undergarments, their fabric stretching enough to avoid any discomfort.  The girthy sheath between them bobbed softly, inert like a sleeping giant.  It all felt like practice for her public debut, now only minutes away.

The elevator had its own little room at the end of the long hall.  There were stairs as well but, since the building would never suffer a fire or power outage, their presence only satisfied Jade's completionist streak.  She'd never use them; there were far better things to spend limited sim-time on than descending forty flights of stairs.

She slapped the Down button with an open palm, and the doors instantly opened.  The elevator car's interior looked a lot like the type seen in fancy hotels, full of polished brass, mirrors, and bright ceiling lights.  Its dimensions, though, were more like a cargo lift - a cube ten feet on each side and nine feet high.  No sense in letting a little growth render her temporarily homeless, after all.  But when she stepped inside and looked around her, even this size started feeling potentially inadequate.  What if she not only had to load her expanded body onto this thing, but that of a kindred spirit or two? 

Worries for another day, she thought, hitting a button marked “L”.  The doors slid shut and the elevator started its descent.  

Jade took a step back.  A glimpse of her reflection out the corner of one eye caught her attention.  She smiled.  Just couldn't help getting one last look at herself, one last narcissistic fling before leaving the land of mirrors.  

She turned to face the wall.  A snorted “hmmf!” escaped the corner of her muzzle when only the upper part of her body reflected back at her, the mirror cut off by a railing.  Not much good for making final adjustments, barely shows my entire bust!  I'll have to change that later.

Upon inspection, it looked like her left tit seemed situated a little higher inside that tight shirt than the right.  Or maybe it was the other way around.  The nipple tents looked misaligned, that was for sure.  Either way, she had a muffin-topping imbalance that needed to be corrected.  Both hands rose and adjusted her neckline, popping a little more boobflesh out of confinement here, pressing some back down there.  She looked again.  Dammit, now it's lopsided the other way!  Diligently, she went back to work. 

DING!  The elevator had arrived on the ground floor.  The doors opened, and Jade took one last look at her reflection.  Still imperfect.  She sighed and shook her torso.  Her titanic jugs jiggled a little, undoing all her efforts.  Let my rack fall where it may, she thought in resignation.

She stepped out of the elevator, and immediately stopped short, staring.  The lobby was a fairly standard affair for a luxury apartment building, wide and long with marble columns and hanging crystal chandeliers.  What had grabbed her attention was the large fountain in its center. Its central dais featured three outward-facing feminine figures arranged in a circle – a short, voluptuous canine, a curvaceous squirrel of average height, and a tall, slim horse.  All three were nude, had breasts each at least twice the size of their heads, and sported towering limestone erections which spurted intermittent streams of water into the surrounding pool.  

“Oh… kay?” said Jade out loud.

She walked around the fountain, still staring.  The statuary herms all had sly, come-hither expressions on their faces, expressing both pride in their outrageous anatomies as well as intent to use them.  Was this too much, she thought?  After the smorgasbord of excess her morning had been, she really couldn’t tell.  I mean, considering who the building’s named for, it makes sense.  But still, a watery hyper-herm circle jerk that everyone who wants to use the elevators is gonna have to walk past?  I don’t know…  And holy hell, that horse is actually bigger than me…  

“There she is!” came a voice from her right.  She turned, and saw Ren standing in the visitor waiting area some distance away, which was at the bottom of a short staircase.  Nearby a lop-eared rabbit morph was sitting in one of several couches, slumped forward and looking up at her with an inscrutable expression.    

“Long time no see, gorgeous!” said the fox, walking toward her with outstretched arms and a broad grin on his muzzle.  He looked the same as he had for their first meeting in virtual space, save for a change in wardrobe.  His Hawaiian shirt, worn open without anything underneath, displayed an athletically lean, six-foot frame, and he still had a spiky hairdo only made possible by either multiple bottles of fixative or a power level over nine thousand.  Also unchanged was the sizable bulge in his Bermuda shorts, which concealed a doubled-up set of male genitals. 

Jade tried not to think about that, nor how fluffy and handsome and fuckable he was.  On the other side of that appealing avatar was slovenly, flabby old Drew Gibson.

Ideally, that shouldn’t have mattered; Tailesium was all about leaving one’s imperfect flesh behind to effectively become someone else.  But she couldn’t stop thinking of the Drew she remembered from college, and the things he did.  Like his tendency to collapse on the couch after a drunken Saturday night and snore like a phlegmy freight train.  Or the times he ordered General Tso’s Chicken and then proceeded to render their bathroom unusable for several hours.  Or how he’d leave enough hair in the bathtub drain to fashion a merkin for Victorian London’s least discerning prostitute.  And that didn’t even include their personal relationship, which had been pushed near the breaking point more than once.       

Then again, she did have him to thank for that opulent living space she’d been admiring minutes ago.  Maybe she owed it to him to relax a bit, and let her memories of Drew fall by the wayside.  Try to let Ren establish himself as a distinct individual from his meat-space progenitor.  He’d clearly done the same with her and Jacob.

“Heeeeey, sorry I’m late!” she said, walking forward to meet him.  The two embraced at the top of the stairs.  Ren could barely reach all the way around Jade’s thick torso, while the dragoness’ bulging arms compressed the comparatively small fox against her humongous tits.  His muzzle was almost exactly level with her cleavage, a fact Ren clearly appreciated.

“Mmmmm, I could stay like this for a while,” he mumbled into her boobs.  Jade felt her cheeks growing flush.  She looked over at the rabbit, who cocked his head to one side and raised an eyebrow.  

Really blushing now, Jade let go.  Ren reluctantly followed suit, and took a step back.

“Maaaaan.  Nice outfit, sister,” he said appreciatively.  “I didn’t think you could be any sexier, but somehow you found a way.”

“Really?  Th- thanks,” said Jade.  Her face had grown so warm, it had to be showing.  Being physically desirable to others was a new experience for her, on top of all the other ones she’d been having recently.  

“No need to be modest, just telling the truth.” said Ren.  “So, how’s the new digs?  Acceptable?”                    
  
“Well uh,” said Jade, “I can’t thank you enough; the place is awesome.  Seriously, it’s almost like a palace.  You should come up and see it sometime.”  She winced internally after that last sentence - it could’ve been interpreted as a proposition.  Especially if her cheeks were as rosy as they felt.

“Maybe I will,” said Ren slyly, raising an eyebrow.  “If you’re anywhere near as good at designing penthouses as you are dragon-babes it oughtta be quite a sight.”  

Jade upgraded the wince to full-on mental facepalm.  “Anyway,” she said hurriedly with a jerky head motion toward the fountain behind her, “I don’t know about that.”

“Don’t know about the fountain?” said Ren, turning his head to look at it.  “What’s wrong, don’t you like it?”

“Well - yeah, kinda,” Jade admitted.  “But isn’t it a bit… much?”

Ren chuckled and clapped her on the shoulder.  “Babe, you’re a bit much.  Hypers in general are a bit much, by definition.  But I told you; that doesn’t matter here.  Plus, we’re in the middle of the hyper district.  I guarantee you; anyone who walks through that front door has to know what they’re getting into.”

“I suppose…” said Jade, casting her gaze downward.

“Don’t suppose, ‘cause it’s true.  And this is Winger Tower, for cryin’ out loud.  You wanna honor the guy it’s named for, right?”

Jade nodded, smiling a little.  The man was basically responsible for her love of dual-sexed females and outrageously oversized assets.    

 She looked at the fox.  “Yeah,” she said.  “Yeah, you’re right.  It’s fine right where it is.”

“Good on ya, girl.  Oh, and protip – try tossing a coin in there sometime.  I think you’ll be… pleasantly surprised.”  

“Oh?” said Jade, curiosity piqued.  “Why’s that?”

Ren’s ever-present grin widened.  “That’s something for you to find out in your spare time.  Right now, I need to stop being an asshole and introduce you to this guy over here.”

He descended the steps and walked over to the rabbit, who had his long ears flopped over both shoulders and was fingering their high-gauge plug piercings.  “This is Tristan Whitetail, a close personal friend of mine,” he said, gesturing to the lop.  “Tristan, I’d like to introduce you to Jade… um…”  He looked at the dragoness quizzically.  “Hold on, do you have a last name?”

“It’s just Jade for now,” said Jade.  She approached the two males with a smile.  “Nice to meet you, Tristan.”  She moved her arm in anticipation of a handshake.

Tristan stood up, lifting his generous cotton-tailed butt off the leather couch.  Jade did a double-take when she saw its size relative to his slim upper body.  Indeed, his ample posterior was nearly big enough to rest a drink on, and it came paired with hips like a fertility idol’s.  Both were girded by a pair of “skinny” jeans with a metal studded belt and wallet chain.  Over his cream-furred torso he wore a low-cut black v-neck with a mesh shirt underneath.

As he rose to his feet it became clear he was vertically challenged compared to the fox and dragon, with his head rising to roughly the level of Ren’s muzzle.  He smoothed his short purple-streaked blonde hair back with one arm warmer-clad hand and offered the other to Jade.  His feminine countenance looked up at her, frowning, one of his liquid blue eyes surrounded by brown fur.

The two shook hands.  Jade attempted a firm handshake, but Tristan’s grip was weak and he let go almost immediately.  Taking a step back, he folded his arms and cocked his head to one side with an expression of aloof appraisal on his face.
 
“Honey, are you really going outside in that?” he asked.

Jade’s heart froze.  “Y-yes,” she said, “I was…” 

“Don’t you think it’s a little showy?  Just all, ‘boom, here comes my crotch’?  You’ll get a lot of stares, dear.”

“I… I thought… I…”

“Hey Tris,” Ren popped in, “stares are the point!  If you’ve got it, flaunt it!  Just like you and that sweet-ass booty of yours.”

“My clothing is totally tasteful.  Modest, even.  That… it’s like she’s walking around with a big neon ‘FUCK ME’ sign over her head.”  The rabbit’s voice was a silky tenor with a hint of lisp, and every word it spoke was chipping away at Jade’s confidence.

Ren’s grin however, remained undamaged.  “That sounds like a pretty boss idea, actually.  Think of how much time it’d save!”

Tristan turned to the fox.  “Dear, I know you don’t think of much besides fucking, but some of us have standards.”

“I…” Jade tried to interject.

“Hey, you’re sleeping with me, right?” said Ren.  “Sounds like your standards aren’t that high, eh?  Eh?”

“Don’t push me,” replied Tristan, a smirk tugging at the edges of his mouth.  “I’m fully capable of kicking your poofy-tailed tush to the curb.”

“Er… I…”

“Not if I do it to you first.  See how far you’d bounce.”

“Hey, um…”

“Girlfriend, I’ll have you know this is all muscle.”

“Can I…”

“Izzat why it shakes like a stack a’ rubber pancakes when I give it a slap?”      

“Would you…”

“A stack of rubber pancakes?  Where in heaven did you get that?”

“Listen…”

“Well, you see pancakes are...”

“HEY!” bellowed Jade with a thunderous strike of tail against floor.  

Her booming voice echoed through the lobby, rattling the crystal chandeliers overhead.  Ren gave a visible start, his grin instantly vanishing.  Tristan jumped almost a foot into the air.  They both stared at the angry dragoness with wide-eyed expressions of shock, as if realizing just then that ignoring a seven-foot-tall mass of muscle and teeth might be a bad idea.  Jade savored their fearful reactions like balm for her wounded self-assurance.  

“Is. There. Something. Wrong. With. My. Outfit. That. I. Should. Be. Aware. Of?” she growled slowly and deliberately.  Ren and Tristan blinked at her for a moment, faces blank.   

“No…” said Ren in low, measured tones.  “I meant what I said – I think it’s great.  You obviously do too since you decided to wear it.  Nothing wrong with something a little sexy.”

Tristan sighed and shook his head.  “Honey, you shouldn’t mislead the poor girl,” he muttered.  

He looked Jade in the eye.  “My prejudice aside, there might be issues if you step out in that.  My fox will tell you the rules don’t prohibit specific styles of clothing…”

“That’s true; they don’t,” Ren interjected.

Tristan rolled his eyes.  “… but that’s only because we have communal standards in Tailesium.  If enough furs complain, the cops will give you a warning.  And if you ignore them for too long they’ll throw you in jail.”

“Jail?” asked Jade. She hadn’t heard of this before.

“Yeah, it’s basically a suspension,” said Ren.  “You can jack in, but you won’t be doing much other than stare at a cell wall.  They neuter you too, temporarily thank god, so you can’t have any fun that way.  But it doesn’t matter, because nobody’s gonna complain.  That getup is totally tame.”

“You sure?” said Tristan to the fox, hands on hips.  “I don’t think she wants to take the chance on her first day.  There’s a hyper district for a reason.”

“Look, if she catches any heat, I’ll put it out,” said Ren.  “Hear that, Jade?  I’ve got your back.  You go out there and be your sexy self.” 

“Thanks,” said Jade.  “But, let me get this straight – the only way I can find out if my clothes are too risqué is to go outside and see if someone bitches at me?”  

Ren nodded.  “If it helps, they probably wouldn’t do it to your face.”

“Great, passive-aggressives rule the world here too, then.  What an asinine way of running things.”  

“I agree, it’s stupid as fuck,” said Ren.  “Later when we go to see Zander, you could complain to him, except don’t because it’d be a bad idea to cheese the bossman off on your first meeting.”    

“Right.,” grumbled the dragoness.

“Hey speaking of, we should probably get moving.  Tris and I figured we’d all snag some food, then head over to the gym to meet with the boss-hoss.  Sound good?”

Jade looked at Tristan with narrowed eyes.  “That depends,” she said, “on whether the fashion plate here can stomach being seen in public with a shameless hussy like me.”

The rabbit made a dismissive wave.  “It ain’t no skin off my wiggly nose, hon.  You dress how you like.  I’m just tagging along.”

A low rumble sounded from deep in Jade’s throat. “Good!” she barked, vehemently enough to make Tristan give a small start, “wouldn’t want to besmirch your sterling reputation.”

“Sounds great, let’s go!” said Ren, grin suddenly resurgent.  He placed a hand on Jade’s back and gently nudged her toward the front entrance.  She swallowed her pique with some difficulty and followed his lead with slow, heavy steps.  Tristan visibly tensed as she lumbered by, but didn’t show any outward signs of conciliation.  Still, he waited a few moments before following behind at a prudent distance.  

As she trudged toward daylight thoughts of violence against the bitchy lagomorph played through Jade’s mind, but they were utterly toothless.  What she really desired was to take a rain check on the whole city tour thing until she could nurse her confidence back to health.  Where had that gone, she wondered, all the belief in her sexiness granting the right to wave her form-fitted junk around?  Only Ren’s guidance stopped her from turning tail and fleeing right then.                 

They entered an automated revolving door and stepped through into the great outdoors.  The air was comfortably warm, and Jade’s enhanced sense of smell picked up the scents of salt water, humus-laden soil, and baking road tar.  Out front, the Winger Building had a covered porte-cochère similar to a hotel’s, empty of vehicles.  In fact, the entire area surrounding it was lightly developed, without a soul in sight.  A road to the left led to what looked like the main throughway for the region, but Ren turned in the opposite direction.  He guided Jade past the edge of the building to a two-story concrete parking garage. 

The three of them went inside.  Ren made a beeline for the stairs, expecting his companions to follow.  Jade, however, paused for a moment to look around.  She noticed immediately that the structure was completely empty.    

“No cars…” she muttered.

Ren stopped and looked over his shoulder.  “Nope!  Not a single one!  You’re Winger Tower’s very first tenant, and you don’t own a car yet.  So, empty!  Well, except for mine, but it’s not exactly… well, you’ll see!”

He reached the steps and began his ascent.  Jade mulled her solitary occupancy over as she followed him.  Privacy is fine, but don’t know if solitude is a good thing for me, long-term; I get enough of that in meat-space.  Hope some neighbors show up soon and they don’t turn out to be jerks.  With that thought, she looked back and saw Tristan still followed behind - silently for now, thank goodness.  Jade wasn’t sure if the look on his face was sullen or just his neutral expression. 

Ren reached the top of the stairway and stepped out onto the sun-baked concrete.  Jade followed, with Tristan just behind.  Upon exiting the stairwell, she saw the second floor of this parking garage had just as many cars as the first: zero.  It wasn’t completely empty, though; near the center stood a futuristic-looking VTOL plane.

“There she is,” Ren said, gesturing to it proudly, “the pride of the New Delphi skies!”

Jade just stared.  The thing looked like a strange mashup between a military dropship from some sci-fi video game and a World War II bomber.  White and blue racing stripes ran along the sides of its sleek silver hull and along the fore and aft wings.  Near the wrap-around canopy at the nose of the plane was a painting of an extremely buxom skunk-woman lying atop the words “MEPHIT BELLE”.   

“Ughhhhhh,” Jade groaned.  

“I know, right?” said Ren.  “Ain’t she something?  Anyway, we’re burning daylight – let’s go!”

Upon their approach, a hatch automatically opened in the side of the plane’s belly.  Ren stood alongside, ushering the dragon and rabbit through and into a small, cluttered cargo hold.  After they were in he followed behind them, sealing the door as he went.  Darkness filled the tiny room, and Jade became concerned about tripping over one of the odd shipping crates or loose ropes she’d briefly caught a glimpse of.  

“Aren’t there any lights in here?” she wondered out loud.

“Huh,” said Drew, “she was supposed to power on when we came in.  One sec.”

She heard the sound of his footsteps approach from the left.  Then, she felt hands brush along the underside of her bust, followed by the stroke of a bushy tail along her junk.

“Hey, what the fuck?”  She gave the owner of the hands and tail a glancing shove.  Ren gave a shout and stumbled noisily into one of the crates. 

“Stop trying to cop a feel and get the lights on, you pervy SOB.”

“I’m really sorry; I didn’t mean to do that.”

“My ass you didn’t.”

“Honest!” Ren protested.  Jade heard him stumbling around some more, this time moving away from her.  

“You’re incredible,” said Tristan.  “Faking a power outage to sneak a grope?”      

A door slid open at the top of the room and daylight poured in.  Ren stood before it, cast in silhouette.  “No fake, really!” he said, poking a wall-mounted screen.  “Cargo hold lighting malfunction!  Says so right here!”

“Riiiiight,” said Tristan, moving toward the door.  “I think you mean scheduled malfunction.”             

Jade followed him.  The door was down a short corridor at the top of the cargo bay, and opened into the cockpit.  As she approached it, she had to duck down slightly to avoid bumping her head.  She used the opportunity to sneak a glance at the screen Ren had been referring to.  It did indeed say something about a lighting system malfunction; whether said malfunction had been deliberately set up, however, remained in question.  She decided to let it go.  If he went to that much trouble to touch my boobs it’s sort of a compliment, I guess.  No, fuck that.

“Look, if you wanna create conspiracy theories, that’s all up to you.  I’m just saying it was an honest mistake,” Ren said, taking his place in the pilot’s chair.  Tristan made to sit down next to him, but Ren held out a suppressing arm.  

“Sorry Tris, that seat’s reserved for the newbie.”

The rabbit stopped, his enormous butt hovering in midair above the padded bucket seat.  Slowly, he stood back up, staring daggers at the fox all the while.  Ren didn’t seem to notice.  He’d taken hold of the control stick and was spinning it in a circle as if trying to loosen the thing up before takeoff.  

Tristan let out an angry huff and pushed roughly past Jade.  She compressed herself against the wall as much as she could, which was barely enough to let him pass considering the sizes of both their endowments.  He had an intensely sour expression like he’d just bitten into a lemon, face quivering just slightly.     

Tristan went to the rear of the compartment and threw himself dejectedly into one of the passenger seats.  Jade watched with some sympathy.  Only a little, though.  He had insulted her outfit, after all.    

Ren patted the cushion of the now-vacant copilot’s chair.  “Come on, gorgeous!” he cajoled.  “Let’s go!”

Jade directed a level gaze at him and the big shit-eating grin that seemed permanently affixed to his angular face.  Out the corner of her eye she saw Tristan slouched in his chair, staring morosely out the window.  All right, she thought, enough of this high school love triangle bullshit.

  “I’m ready,” she said firmly, “but first, I don’t want you to call me ‘gorgeous’ anymore.  Or ‘beautiful’, or ‘babe’, or anything like that.  You’re showing me around, not taking me on a date, Ren.”  

Ren’s grin faltered almost imperceptibly.  “Okay.  I meant it all as a compliment, but if it bothers you I can stop.”

Jade sat down.  “I’d appreciate it,” she said. 

“I’m not trying to get into your pants, I promise.”

Liar. “I know.  But there’s someone here whose pants you do get into, and I think you’ve been giving him a bit of a brushoff.”  

Ren seemed taken aback.  “Have I?” he asked.  

“Yes,” came Tristan’s voice from behind.  “You have.”

“Well, I apologize then!” said Ren.  “Wasn’t my intention to sow any bad feelings.  Sorry, Tris.  And Jade, I’ll totally dial it back from here on out.  Cool?”

Well, let’s hope that jealousy bomb’s defused.  “All set, Ren.  Let’s see this city of yours.”

“Sure thing!  Just lemme fire up the ‘ol Belle here.”

Ren reached overhead, pulled down a flight helmet, and put it on.  His perky vulpine ears popped through a pair of strategically-positioned holes cut in the top.  He began flipping switches, and the control panel in front of him came to life with colorful screens covered in information.  Jade heard the muted sound of jet thrusters on the plane’s wings spinning up.  They reached full speed within seconds, and dust billowed out from all around them.

“Aaaaaand up.  We.  Go!”  

Ren pulled back on the throttle and the Mephit Belle slowly rose into the air.  Jade couldn’t stop herself from tensing.  “When did you learn to fly a VTOL, anyway?” she asked.

“Well, I replayed Saint’s Row 3 recently,” shouted Ren.  When he saw Jade’s worried expression he added, “the computer takes care of all the heavy physics lifting; don’t worry!”

“That’s a relief!” said Jade.  She’d heard about what it felt like to bite it in a sim, and even though it wouldn’t be nearly as unpleasant as in real life, she still wanted to put off her first TIVR death for as long as possible.

They were gaining altitude quickly now, and the parking garage was dwindling away to model-size.  “You know,” said Ren, “you could be doing this without a plane right now!  Dunno why you ditched your wings!”

“Well, first of all they got in the way, not being able to move them!” said Jade.  “Second, when I fly for the first time, it’s gotta be me doing it, not some artificial intelligence kludge thing!”

Ren threw back his head and laughed.  The plane lurched to one side.  Jade clutched her seat tightly, claws digging into the cushion.

“That’s so you!” he said.  “Still a perfectionist, huh?”

Jade recovered.  Maybe fastening her restraints would be a good idea. “Damn straight!” she returned.  “One of the first things I did in old VR was fly around like Superman, just like everybody else did!  I wanna feel the wind on my wings!”

“A lofty goal!” said Ren.  “Okay, I think we’ve just about reached the right altitude!”

Winger Tower was far below now.  The city spread out before them in all its vastness.  It was as big as Manhattan Island, maybe even bigger, and surrounded by crystal-clear blue waters.  

Ren eased off on the throttle, and the whine of the thrusters diminished.   “So, there you are!  New Delphi, population five thousand-plus.  Impressive, right?”

“I’ll say,” said Jade sincerely.  She could hardly believe such a tremendous metropolis could exist inside a computer, even with all the incredible hardware advances of the past decade.  “Only five thousand, though?”

“Give it time; the city's only six months old.  Moore's Law needs a chance to catch up.  By the by, that's six months in meat-space.  Local time it's been two goddamn years!”

“Holy shit.”

“I know, time dilation is crazy, right?  'Course it's pretty empty Monday to Thursday of the meat-week, since most folks wait till the weekend to spend their precious sim-hours.”

“Fucking FDA,” said Jade ruefully.

“They're a bunch of assholes,” Ren agreed.  “Ten per week isn't even close to enough.”

  He shifted one hand away from the stick, and pointed downward.  “Anyway, below us is the hyper district, as you already know.  It’s the most recent one to be formed.  It all started with the diaper district, naturally.  That’s right over… there.”  He pointed at a section of city near the water which, from their present position, looked completely nondescript.

“Diaper… district?” Jade inquired incredulously.

“Yeah.  For the babyfurs.  Then you’ve got the fatty district, BDSM district, balloonie district…”

“Why?”

“You can probably guess,” said Ren, pushing up on the stick to start the plane moving forward. “Some furs are tolerant of weirdo kinks.  Others can kick up a real shitstorm when they get squicked.  And Zander - our fearless leader, the guy who pays for this place – is a ‘path of least resistance’ type.  So all it took was a few fragile souls who couldn’t stand the sight of dudes walking around in Pampers and boom, diaper district.” 

He adjusted his grip on the stick and the Belle listed to one side, still flying forward.  They seemed to be angling toward the city’s densest and tallest cluster of buildings.  “From there it was kinda like a domino effect,” he continued.  “The babyfurs were pissed as hell, naturally.  They were all like, ‘Why should we be the one fetish that gets stuck in a ghetto?’”

“Because they’re sick and wrong?” offered Tristan.

“Thanks for the commentary, hon.  So then the grievance floodgates just opened up, ‘cause there’s always someone who can’t stand to look at dicks the size of minivans, or gals in leather leading around ball-gagged gimps, or chicks with big rolls of fat hanging out all over, or whatever.  To shut everyone up Zander started cordoning off bits of the city for each major flavor of freak.  It’s only fair, right?”  

“More like fucking idiotic,” said Jade.  “Why didn’t he tell those complainers to piss up a rope?”

“Because the boss-hoss doesn’t rock the boat.  Bad publicity is his kryptonite; whatever solution will stop the drama fastest is the one he’ll go for.  That, and he wants to keep making money.”

Jade leaned back into her chair and gave a loud draconic snort of disgust.  Really looking forward to meeting this guy.

Ren clapped her on the shoulder.  “Hey look on the bright side,” he said.  “Now you can walk around outdoors with a ten-foot hardon and nobody can stop you.  Well, so long as it’s not visible from the district border.”    

“Yeah, I guess that’s a plus, barely,” Jade grumbled.  “At least tell me there’s a macro district.”

“You like getting big in proportion too, huh?  Nah, there’s no macro district.  Those guys get their own planet.  Kinda hard to share a city when your idea of fun is growing to mountain-size and stomping all over the place.  They gotta pay extra for access, though.”

“Really?  On top of the subscription fee?” 

“Server space ain’t free, man.  If you’re poor you can still go giant in New Delphi, but over twenty feet and it’s pretty much impossible not to do damage to stuff.  Then you’re asking for…”

“…jail time, I bet,” Jade finished.  “So great, everyone goes into their little kink-enclaves and never comes out.  Wasn’t this place supposed to be a community?”

“Oh, downtown’s still a major meeting place.  More vanillas than kinksters hang out there, but them’s the breaks.  That’s where I’m taking us, actually.  But first...”

He pointed past Jade.  She followed the direction of his finger and saw an enormous structure below made of glass panels and steel girders.  It was like the showroom of a ritzy auto dealership expanded into a building the size of a football stadium.  But in place of cars it had a dozen large circular structures arranged inside, each a twenty foot-tall wheel set at the top of an ascending ramp.   

“That’s the Portal Complex,” said Ren.  “If you decide you wanna visit Macro World, those babies’ll take you there.  Otherwise, there’s a couple of other destinations at the moment -   Mystaria is the only one even close to complete, though.  It’s a fun world if you’re into hack and slash and need to make some extra spending money.”

“Mystaria?  Like from Dungeons and Dragons?” said Jade.  “How did Zander ever afford to license that?”

“Shhhhhhh,” whispered Ren, putting an index finger to his muzzle. “Also, before you ask, the portals definitely are not rips from that old TV show with the MacGyver guy.”

Jade had to laugh.  “Copyright infringement abounds, huh?” she said.

“Security through obscurity, bud.  Anyway, the gates’ll also send you to places outside the city, if you don’t feel like driving or flying there.  And if you’re feeling masochistic, you could take one out of Tailesium entirely, to the central Metaverse.  Although with all the assholes there who think furries are fair game, I dunno why you’d wanna.”

One of the portals had just activated, the circular frame becoming a whirling mass of chaotic energy.  Jade watched a pair of pastel-colored canids mount its ramp, their destination unknown.  Can’t imagine they’re going anywhere that isn’t here, she thought.  Why would they?  

She’d been to the public Metaverse.  It was a cesspool, an ad-supported hell for glitch-ridden goggle users and Simmers who, after dropping a fat wad for their implants, couldn’t or wouldn’t shell out for access to private worlds.  All the worst stories of harassment, stalking, doxxing, nonconsensual contact - the ones seized upon by popular media to demonize TIVR - originated there.    

“No.  I’ve been there” she said.  “And I’m not going back until the ops figure out that when you ask pubbies to ‘self-moderate’ you get lord of the fucking flies.” 

Ren shot her a look of sympathy.  “Bad experience?” he asked.

Jade sighed deeply.  “Yeah, and I’d rather not go into it,” she said.  It had begun with a surreptitious pre-implant goggle trip to a supposedly empty room to test a prototype of her current avatar.  It ended as a nightmare involving an invisible lurker, an army of his mocking sycophants, and a hack attempt on her personal information.

“Say no more,” said Ren.  “I’ll move on to something more pleasant.  Like self improvement!”       

He shoved the throttle and the plane barreled forward.  A cluster of skyscrapers loomed ahead, but the fox deftly manipulated his flightstick and slipped between them.  On the other side was a shorter, broader building in the center of a city block, surrounded by lush gardens.  It had a half-circle driveway leading to it from the street with a statue of a double helix planted in the center.

Ren eased off the throttle, bringing the plane to a hover.  “Feast your eyes on Genetech world headquarters!” he proclaimed proudly.  “New Delphi’s only one-stop shop for avatar upgrades.  Wanna be taller?  Or get the ability to grow and shrink your junk at will?  Maybe add another species to your New-U roster?  There’s where you go to do it.  Hell, that’s where Tristan got his rockin’ ghetto booty from.  Right, Tris?”

“Yeah,” replied Tristan half-heartedly.

Jade looked upon the complex with stars in her eyes, as though it were the lost City of Gold.  She’d built up so many body-modding fantasies over the years, and nearly every one could become real inside those walls.  And the increased processing power available to a private sim like Tailesium meant that every change would feel as real as her implants would allow.  

“I could go for some of that.  Especially the second one,” she said.  “I need to save up some serious credits first, though.”

“Yeah, TF ain’t free ‘round here,” Ren replied.  “How you gonna do it?”

“Well, I’m definitely not doing that meat-space money for credits thing.  So, not sure.  And waiting on my guaranteed Tailesium income to build up will take too long.”

Ren’s grin turned especially sharkish.  “I bet you’d make a kick-ass pole dancer,” he suggested.  

Here we go again, thought Jade.  “Har har,” she muttered.  “No, going to that D&D world and looting a few tombs sounds more my speed, I think.”

“Shame. You’d knock ‘em dead.”

“Maybe I would,” the dragoness admitted, “but…”

“You definitely would!” exclaimed Ren, interrupting.  “Dude, you can make some serious bank doing sex work in this town.  Think about it; you could wear a banana hammock and pasties or something if going full nude’s too much.”

“That’s enough, Ren,” Jade stated in as firm a tone as she could manage.  

“If you’re shy, you could jack in on the weekdays and do it then,” he continued, undaunted.  “Crowds’d probably all be NPCs.”

“Thank.  You.  Ren.”

“I could show you how to optimize your performance for ‘em.  Get the right jiggle-to-grind ratio.  They’d be showering you with C-notes in no time flat.”

“Enough!”

“Just throwing out some ideas.”

“Noted.  Now, weren’t we going to go eat?”  

“Of course.  Just let me find a place to set ‘er down.”

He pushed up on the throttle and set the Belle in motion once again.  Jade let out a sigh of exasperation and folded her arms beneath her breasts.  That turned out to be more difficult than anticipated – she could only manage it by cradling her bust like a pair of enormous swaddled infants and lifting it slightly.  As she did more compressed boob-flesh pushed out the top of her t-shirt, adding to the apparent depth and visibility of her cleavage.  It was a pleasant reminder of her supernatural curvaceousness, and the sensation distracted her for a moment until she saw the fox turn his head a little, stealing a sidelong glance out the corner of his flight goggles.  

She frowned - the purpose of that gesture had been to communicate her displeasure, not titillate.  The dragoness lowered her arms to rest both hands on her lap, but then realized she couldn’t do that without effectively groping her pronounced bulge.  The touch sent a tingle of arousal zinging through her sheath and into the sleeping leviathan within, which stirred slightly in its slumber. Abruptly, she let her arms fall to her sides to avoid any further stimulation. 

The tingle subsided.  She sighed again, this time in relief, and tried to focus her attention on the enormous green space toward which their craft was descending.   It seemed like her hypersexualized body could do very little that wasn’t flirty or erotic in some way.  She certainly found it satisfying being a femme fatale, but at that moment wished she could dial things down just a little; maybe extinguish the “FUCK ME” sign for a few minutes.  But such things weren’t in the cards for that afternoon – shortly she’d be strolling through downtown New Delphi, where every passerby could ogle at their leisure.

Actually, that doesn’t sound so bad.  Maybe I’m feeling this just because Drew’s being a creepazoid? I mean, I do enjoy being a walking wet dream, even if it’s impractical sometimes.  And the constantly-turning-myself-on thing’ll probably fade once I get used to being like this… although I like that too.  But then, I don’t want sex to be the only thing I do for fun in this place.  Gah, I need to get a handle on this shit, or it’s gonna drive me nuts.

“There’s the pad; time to set this baby down!”

Jade blinked.  It seemed she’d zoned out briefly.  They were now much closer to the ground, flying over what looked like a replica of New York’s Central Park.  Up ahead she could see New Delphi’s version of the Jacqueline Onassis Reservoir.  From what she remembered of the real thing it looked like a faithful rendition, aside from the gaping hole that had just opened in the center and disgorged a landing platform.

It only took a few moments for the small aircraft to close the distance to their destination.  Once they were hovering directly above, Ren punched a few buttons on his control panel to extend the landing gear, and then slowly pulled back on the throttle.  As a testament to his video game-honed piloting skills, he managed to set them down with only a slight bump.  He reached out and flipped a switch, powering down the engines.  

Immediately a loud mechanical whir sounded, and they began to descend.  The lake, whose waters had been parted by some invisible barrier, closed behind them.  Flat vertical walls of liquid at least ten feet tall smoothly slid inward to reclaim the empty space, but the platform dropped into an open chamber beneath the lake bed before they came too close.  Jade looked up through the canopy and watched the shaft of sunlight illuminating the pad dwindle away to nothing, sealed off behind a pair of flat-toothed metal doors.  Inky darkness followed, illuminated only by lights from the Belle’s control panel and heads-up display.      

With a shudder and metallic groan, the platform came to a halt.  Ren rose to his feet and flicked another switch, which activated the cabin lights to provide some illumination.  He doffed the flight helmet, revealing his formerly spiky black hair had been crushed flat by the heavy headgear.  The fox ran his fingers through it briefly to confirm this fact, and then shook his head violently like a wet dog attempting to dry itself until his coif spontaneously sprang back into its original state.

Jade undid her restraints and stood up.  She turned and caught a brief glimpse of Tristan’s enormous cotton-tailed butt as the door to the cargo hold slid shut behind him.  Ren put the helmet back in its place beside the control panel and turned to her. 

“Looks like your boyfriend’s in a hurry to get out,” she remarked.

“Ah, he’ll be all right,” said Ren with a dismissive hand wave.  “Little guy’s got a jealous streak a mile wide.  I’ve told him over and over it doesn’t make sense to get clingy in a world where everyone’s a swinger, but he can’t help it, apparently.  Don’t worry; a little sulk’ll do him good.”

“If you say so.”

“I know so.  Once he cools down a bit, he’ll realize this is all just flirting, what we’ve been doing.”

Jade raised an eyebrow.  “You mean what you’ve been doing.”

“Right.  Like you said, it’s not a date.  Anyhow…”  Ren made an elaborate gesture in the exit door’s direction.  “… after you, madame.”

“You’re too kind, monsieur,” Jade returned semi-sardonically.  Still, she followed his lead and walked past him to the door, which slid open again as she approached.  Once in the cargo bay she found that Tristan was nowhere to be seen, although the opened exterior hatch gave a clue as to where he had gone.  She carefully negotiated the detritus strewn about the chamber, and happily managed to make it to the exit without tripping or knocking anything over, despite a close encounter between her tremendous bust and a stack of crates.    

When she stepped outside, the transition from temperature-controlled recycled air to musty subterranean cave fumes nearly bowled her over.  Heavy, moist scents of mold and mildew assaulted her elongated nasal passages, and she let out a thunderous sneeze that echoed through the cavern.

“Gesundheit!” yelled Ren, right behind her.  Jade looked up, rubbing her snout with the back of one hand.  The place was no longer dark; a pair of spotlights hanging from the rocky ceiling nearly forty feet above now illuminated the landing pad.  A narrow walkway, about eight feet wide and lined with small white LEDs, ran from its edge to what looked like an elevator set in the far wall, about a basketball court’s distance away.  Tristan stood in front of it, arms folded and tapping one large foot impatiently.

“Da-da da da!” Ren sang, imitating the James Bond theme.  “Isn’t this a kick-ass setup?  Total secret-agent-evil-genius shit, am I right?  I wanna expand it into a secret lair or something eventually, but I haven’t had the time.”      

The lack of light left the overall size of the cave ambiguous.  From how deeply her sneeze had echoed Jade reckoned it could possibly be larger than the reservoir above, certainly big enough for a Batcave or something similar.  She heard the occasional soft tinkle of drops falling from the earthy ceiling into a larger body of water, which suggested that a second, underground lake lay below them.  A good thing too, as neither the platform nor the walkway had railings, guardrails, or really anything to keep someone from plunging over the edge.

“Not up to OSHA standards, I see,” she replied drolly. 

“Hey, it wouldn’t be an evil HQ without unsafe working conditions!” said Ren.  “It’s all water down below anyway.  I plan to put some man-eating piranha with frickin’ laser beams on their heads in there, but not till later.”

Jade smiled.  Jokey, lighthearted Ren was what she wanted to see more of, as opposed to lecherous, borderline-stalker-y Ren.  

Tristan gave a conspicuous cough that rang through the cave.  “Would you boys like to get a move on?” he shouted across the distance.     

“On our way!” Ren called back.  He turned to the dragoness.  “C’mon Jade, let’s go!”

The fox stepped out onto the walkway.  Jade hesitated.  Her fear had returned.  At the top of that elevator were the kink-adverse streets of Downtown New Delphi, where her tremendous assets and provocative outfit could draw the kind of attention she wanted least on her first day in the city.  She was a hyper in a town where that could be a jailable offense. 

She closed her eyes and took deep breaths in hopes of steadying herself.  She became acutely aware of her body, of a ginormous bosom beneath an overstretched T-shirt, the tautness of scaly skin stretched tight over bulging sinew, a long beautiful tail that swished majestically through the air at the slightest thought, the pleasant pressure of a monstrous phallus bound beneath unyielding fabric.  She saw a picture of what had greeted her in the mirror that morning - a towering mythical muscle-goddess blessed with the very best both sexes had to offer; a creature who should never hide, nor fear punishment for being what she was. 

 Pride and confidence swelled up in her chest, and with a resolute stride she set out after her vulpine friend.  It was time to introduce herself to Downtown New Delphi, whether it liked it or not.