I slept for pretty much the rest of the day on Sunday. On Monday, I pulled the stamina-fortification trick and headed over to see Doc Duggan in order to get some pain pill prescriptions, which he provided quite willingly amongst the abject chaos at his practice.

With the pain meds, I was able to feel almost normal again, to my great relief. I went into work on Tuesday as usual, but was a bit loopy from the pain killers. I greeted Ahriman just like always, to his surprise I think, and we exchanged some vague and pleasant-seeming conversation attempting to assess each other's condition without really saying anything that could be interpreted weirdly should someone overhear.

“No run today?” I asked.

“Nah, too sore,” he replied.

“Awww, that's too bad,” I commented evenly, although my expression held volumes.

“Indeed,” he replied, raising his eyebrow slightly as left to head into his office, a slight smirk spreading across his face.

Later in the day I got a call from Anne Meryls, saying she needed help taking care of Massimo, and asked if I could stop by his place after work tonite to discuss it. I told her that I could do that.

I then went into Ahriman's office and told him that I would probably have to take a few days off every week starting now, tomorrow, for about a month to help out a friend of mine named Massimo who is having health problems. I watched him nod his head, acknowledging the name, and I continued, explaining that I won't know the schedule until tonight, but that I would email it to him as soon as I knew. I also told him that if, perhaps, my friend has a computer at his home, then maybe I can still do a little bit of work from his place for the electronic things that he needed. I frowned, and looked at the floor, not knowing what else to say.

Ahriman watched me in silence for a moment, then told me it was fine, he could manage. He didn't really show any emotion that I could pick up on as he spoke to me, sitting behind that desk with the dual display partially obscuring my view of him. What is he thinking? I was so bad at reading him that I didn't know what to do, other than return to my desk to finish up the day's tasks.

As lighthearted as the day started, I ended up leaving work feeling isolated and lonely, all but rejected, and headed over to Massimo's place. Anne was there of course, and we discussed Massimo's situation for a while, and came to a few decisions about it. I would stay with Massimo Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Anne would stay with him the other days.

I went back to my place to get some stuff, having decided it would be easiest to just stay at Massimo's place for the duration. I filled Tim in when I arrived home, being somewhat annoyed at the Yet Another Lesbian Party going on as I walked in. Hopefully he'd be able to remember what I had told him after the high wore off later.

Once I got back to Massimo's place, I thanked Anne for doing all that she had for him so far, and sent her on her way. Massimo did in fact have a computer, so I got online and sent Ahri an email with the schedule Anne and I had worked out. I added in that I looked forward to seeing him on Friday. I felt nervous, wondering if it sounded too corny. But I sent it anyway.

It turned out that Massimo was pretty easy to take care of. Someone had obviously come by with some of those healing hedge fruits, and so he wasn't in life-threatening danger anymore. But he was still in pretty severe pain, and slept most of the time. Despite his condition, he was not at all a nag or whiny. He seemed quite lucid, actually. It really surprised me.

While he was awake, we talked a lot about random things, About the past, and even about what happened on Saturday. I got to know him pretty well even just those first few days. I was surprised at how insightful and calm and just overall “together” he was despite the bad situation. It was admirable, really. I found that I didn't mind taking care of him really, other than losing out on pay from my job at Ahriman's firm. I *did* get to drive the porsche, though, which was a small consolation. Ah who am I kidding? I took every excuse I could to drive the porsche.

On Friday it was back to work-work though. The day in the office proceeded as was typical from before the incident last Saturday, minus any subtle or blatant teasing however. Ahriman asked how things were going with Massimo, and I filled him in, and that seemed to be the end of the discussion on the subject.

At the end of the day, Ahriman and I ended up heading out into the parking lot together. He came with me over to my motorcycle since it was on the way to his car anyhow, but paused to talk to me as I sat down and packed up my stuff.

“What are you doing this weekend?” He asked, looking down at me.

“Oh, nothing much really,” I replied dismissively, seeing as how he asked me this all the time. “My weekend day with Massimo is Sunday, but I'll probably stick around and help Anne out on Saturday too.”

He didn't reply immediately, but didn't move to leave either. After a lengthy silence while I finished what I was doing, I finally looked up at him and regarded him curiously, holding my helmet in my lap, about ready to put it on.

“Do you want to go bowling with me? On Saturday?” he asked, finally.

I blinkblinked at him. Wait, what? WHAT? After a quick recovery, “That sounds like fun,” I replied, smiling up at him.

“You're staying at Massimo's for the time being, right?” he asked.

“Yep,” I replied, “I'll be at Massimo's.”

“I'll pick you up then, at 7pm, from Massimo's” He stated, his yellow eyes still on me.

“Okay, that sounds good,” I replied, putting my helmet on finally, but with the face shield still up, “I'll see you tomorrow then?” He nodded and I smiled at him one last time before locking my face-shield into place, starting my motorcycle, and then zooming away. He remained in that same spot, watching me leave, before finally heading over to his Lexus.

On Saturday, Massimo commented about my apparent good mood, which even I hadn't really noticed. It went about like this: “What're you in such a good mood about?” “Huh? Oh, I guess… I'm going out with someone I like a lot…” “Oh yeah? Who?” “Er… Um… Ahriman?” “Haha!” “What's so funny? *frown*” “*chuckles* Ahriman hasn't been on a date in YEARS!” “What… really? *skeptical look*” “Indeed. *sly look*”

And so, Massimo took the opportunity to tease me as much as possible before Ahri arrived to pick me up. And no, I didn't have a death grip on my cellphone for the whole 30min leading up to 7pm, nor did I begin checking my cellphone repeatedly as 7pm approached. I, of course, also did not start internally freaking out when 7:02pm arrived and the doorbell still hadn't rung. I also didn't nearly jump out of my skin when the doorbell DID finally ring at 7:06pm.

When I opened to door to reveal Ahri, I found myself staring at his shirt as I unconsciously reached out to touch it. I jerked my hand back after a minute with a horrified look on my face and apologized, offering him to come in and say hi to Massimo before we left. He did, the two exchanged some words, mostly just BS, and then we headed out. I thanked my lucky stars that Massimo had elected to keep the teasing in check while he and Ahri spoke.

So, getting back to the shirt. Ahri was wearing this purple shirt made of god knows what, but it was some kind of fabric that just compelled you to touch it. He must've done this on purpose – I found myself almost supernaturally compelled to touch his shirt several times that evening. I felt like an idiot.

Oh yeah, so we went bowling, and so we obviously played a few games. We were pretty evenly matched, actually; I won one game and he won two. After bowling, we went to Longhorn for dinner, and, since I wasn't driving, I had a few drinks, but not too many. We had a good time, at least I did. He seemed to as well. The conversation seemed to flow easily between us and things never seemed to get awkward.

Afterwards, he took me back to Massimo's place and we chatted in his car in the driveway for a few minutes. After that he came to open my car door for me and, in doing so, pulled me up into an embrace and kissed me there in Massimo's driveway for a couple of minutes.

Finally we broke apart, and I told him that I had had a really good time, and that I would see him at work on Monday. I waved to him as he pulled away and then headed back into Massimo's house.

Now, things get a little weird. While I was gone, the following events took place: Massimo requests his cellphone from Anne. Anne goes to get it and hands it over. Massimo calls Kevin up and tells him “come over and entertain me, I'm bored”. Kevin asks, “what happened to your nurse?” Massimo replies, “she's out on a date with Ahriman.” Silence over the line for a long moment, before Kevin excitedly replies, “Dude I'm so over there 10 minutes ago! *click*” Massimo looks at his phone like “wtf?” then shrugs and sets it on the nightstand next to him.

Because, as I closed the front door behind me, a second catboy, Kevin obviously, leapt out of nowhere to give me a suffocating hug while yelling “congratulations!!” I eventually shoved him away, yelling, “get off of me, you idiot!” How embarrassing.

“Details! I want details!” he tittered excitedly, following me as I headed back to check on Massimo.

“Details about what?” I asked, playing stupid (apparently I am really good at playing stupid because everyone seems to think I am). I gave Massimo the evil eye as Kevin bounced around behind me, picking me for information. Massimo smiled evilly and shrugged. I rolled my eyes and gave the annoying catboy some answers.

While trying to talk to him, Kevin kept obviously intentionally interpreting everything I said as a request for sex with him, and would begin to unzip his pants until I told him to stop it. It quickly became difficult to continue having this conversation. I swear this guy would do anything that moves that would let him.

Massimo suggested that since Kevin was now homeless, he was having to pay for rent with sexual favors. Kevin made a pouty face at me, and I tried to convince Anne to “entertain” him in that way for a few hours to get him off my back. Alas, luck was not with me and she abjectly refused.

After the fourth unzip attempt I got mad and ran at him. He freaked out and ran from me. I ended up chasing him around the house for a while, watching him knock all sorts of things over, picture frames, glasses, vases, etc with his tail as he skittered about. I heard Massimo yell at us annoyedly from his room, obviously able to hear the ruckus going on out here. Finally I was able to tackle the idiot and pin him to the floor in the kitchen. He then asked, grinning, “Oh, are you going to unzip my pants for me this time?” while shaking his hips around suggestively.

Instead of yelling at him this time, in practically the flash of an instant, my brain processed Kevin's happy-go-lucky smirk, his hands on his pants zipper, Massimo's words since he's homeless now…, Kevin's destroyed club, bodies, injured people, a flood, dead wolves, the huntsman, Sylvan's head bouncing across the room… Without warning, one tear fell, then two, then a river came forth.

“I'm sorry I wrecked your club Kevin!” I wailed at him, “I didn't mean to! And now you're homeless!” I started trying to wipe my tears away clumsily while still crying, but Kevin reached up and put his arms comfortingly around me and let me wail against his shoulder for a few minutes. “It's okay,” he said surprisingly calmly, “It wasn't your fault. No one can predict the actions of the Fey.”

I had been deeply disturbed by what had happened last Saturday, but I had locked it all up inside, refusing to allow myself a chance to grieve. This must be what is called “survivor's guilt”, I guess. And, well, I made the best of it, poor Kevin.

I regained control of myself a while later, when I noticed Kevin had begun licking the tears off of my cheek and neck with his sandpaper-tongue. Abruptly I shoved him back down onto the floor and out of the embrace, more freaked out by his bizarre behavior than the disturbing memories from last Saturday. “Okay, that's enough,” I stated, sitting up, wiping my face off with my shirt. He stuck a pouty lip out at me and I let out an exasperated sigh and helped him up off the floor. We headed back into Massimo's room in order to get chewed out for breaking stuff.

Later that night, in Massimo's room, I told Kevin that if he really is homeless, he could stay in my room - whereby he immediately began unzipping his pants again before I'd even finished speaking. “Kevin!” I snapped at him, “Stop that already! I meant at my rental… that I'm NOT USING!” Kevin pouted at me and zipped his pants back up. I shook my head in exasperation, as I sat on the bed next to Massimo. Kevin's behavior was vaguely disturbing, given my situation with a different catboy. I looked across the room at the wall, away from Kevin, my expression a worried one, and muttered quietly to myself, “Are ALL catboys this horny I wonder?”

Massimo, having heard that, stared at me for a second then exploded into laughter, pointing at me as a couple of tears streamed down his cheeks. He then clutched his abdomen in pain but continued laughing. Kevin had jumped in terror about 3 feet from the bed at the sudden noise, but was now yelling, “What? What?!” His tail stuck straight out and was foofed up to twice its normal size as he exclaimed excitedly.

I sighed, saying it was probably time for me to go to bed anyway. With that, I got up and left, but not without getting in one last jab at Kevin, by pulling his tail as I exited the room.

Luckily, Kevin was gone the next morning and things resumed to what passed for normal around here. I poked some fun back at Massimo today now that I had some semblance of composure back, and we laughed about Kevin's impish behavior. He sure knew what to do for people who needed his help, that sneaky Kevin. I am beginning to think his “crazy mode” is all just an act, but it's so hard to tell because he is almost never “out of character”.

And so, things returned to normal, and I was giddy with anticipation for Monday, when I would get to see Ahri again at work.

Things continued progressing forward steadily with Ahri on Monday, as we made plans that morning to go out after work. We only did the dinner thing this time though, it being a work night and all. As we headed back out to the car(s) from the restaurant, he made not much of a pretense as he leaned in to kiss me, this time for a lot longer, and with some tongue action. We parted ways in the parking lot, and I hopped on my bike and zoomed back off to Massimo's, while he headed home. Fortunately, no Kevin to greet me this time as I arrived “home”.

Massimo seemed to be steadily improving throughout the week; he was even able to get out of bed for short spells by the time I left him with Anne on Friday morning and headed in to work.

Ahri expressed the desire to go out again this night as we were standing outside after work, but wanted to know what I thought would be fun. I thought for a few minutes, then suggested The Cooler up in Alpharetta. After I explained what it was, he told me he'd never done ice skating before, but it sounded fun to him. And so, I left my motorcycle at work and hopped in his car, and off we headed up the Alpharetta Autobahn.

It had been a while since I had ice skated (stupid GA and its lack of winter), but I picked it back up really quickly. Ahri obviously wasn't great at it but had no problems going forward and around curves and such. Being a cat, he was dexterous enough to be able to handle the basics reasonably well. It took him a few minutes to get his legs under him, but once he did, things went a lot more smoothly.

For the next couple of hours we skated around the ice, usually next to or nearby each other, and sometimes together for couples' skates. A lot of the time we would hold hands while skating, sometimes I'd have my arm around him, and other times I'd skate backwards in front of him with my arms around him and his hands on my hips. Needless to say, there was a good bit of touching going on between the two of us that night on the ice.

Afterwards, we headed to a nearby Mexican restaurant for dinner and had some light and enjoyable conversation. From there, we headed back to work so that Ahri could drop me off at my motorcycle. This time, when he pulled me out of the car, he pressed me back against it bodily and we went into what would be most appropriately described as “full make-out mode”. His hands were all over me and we were kissing, licking, nibbling, moaning, rubbing our bodies against each others' while standing there in the middle of our work's parking lot in the dark of night. No other cars were around, it was off the main road anyway. I wondered absently (but not for too long) if they had surveillance cameras out here… ah well.

After a while, though, we called it quits and made plans to meet at his place on Saturday for an evening of movies and food and each other.

I was vaguely nervous as I headed over to Ahri's to have some dinner, watch some movies, and snuggle/make-out/whatever. I had already decided that in order to prevent any awkwardness (er, and/or to stave off my paranoia), I was not going to go home tonite, whether or not “anything” happened. I figured booze should be a sufficient excuse for that anyway. And after all, I had, apparently, already stayed the night there once before.

No doubt my arrival hadn't gone unnoticed, as I pulled my noisy motorcycle up into the driveway and parked it over to the side. I unfastened the stuff I had brought and headed up to the door. It didn't take long for Ahri to answer after I rang the doorbell, and he showed me in graciously, almost formally, after which I thanked him politely for having me over. So weird.

I hadn't really gotten much of a look at this place the last time I was here; but he was more than happy to give me the grand tour this time around after I dropped my stuff off in the living room. Ah, so the room I had been in after the big battle at Glamour Shots two weeks ago was the master bedroom. I guess it makes sense, given the private bath and all. I hope I hadn't displaced him from his own room, though; that seems kind of crappy even if he himself had chosen to do it.

After this, Ahri set to finishing up the food while I sat across the counter from him watching and chatting with him. I asked him if it was okay if I stayed the night so I didn't have to worry about how much I drank. He looked up at me momentarily and told me that would be fine before going back to food prep. Was it my imagination, or did the corner of his mouth twitch just now?

After he was finished with the food, we took some plates and glasses into the living room and parked ourselves on the couch in front of the TV and turned the DVD player on.

First up was some movie called “The Bourne Identity” that came out while I had been in Faerie. I guess it had a sequel that came out last year, too. This movie was pretty action-packed and riveting; my eyes were glued to the TV through the whole movie. After we finished eating mid-way through the movie, I leaned over and snuggled myself up against Ahri for the remainder of it.

We took a small break after we finished the movie, cleaning up the dishes and putting them in the dish washer, cleaning up the kitchen, re-boozing, and then sitting down for the second movie, some 007 flick I had also missed out on called “Die Another Day”.

Mid-way into the movie or so, when 007 started getting hot and heavy with the bond chick, Ahri made his move, turning toward me, reaching his pawhand up to my cheek, and leaning in to kiss me. As we made out, he slowly pushed me down and positioned himself on top of me on the couch. He slid his hand up my shirt and began pushing the situation far beyond where we had ever gone thusfar.

As his lips began migrating to places that, um, er, yeah, I was sufficiently distracted that he managed to whisk my shorts (and undies, uhm) right off of me in a single, quick motion, before I had realized what he was doing. I hadn't even realized he had unfastened them already. Things were moving a lot faster than my brain had time to process, which was probably a good thing.

He then pulled me up into a sitting position on his lap, still making out somehow, and pulled the rest of my clothes up and off of me and dropped them to the ground next to us. And there I was, sitting completely naked in his lap. Normally I'm not so embarrassed by being naked in front of others, but with him, I felt very self-conscious. Equalizing the situation was of course the only solution to this “problem”.

As we continued to kiss and touch and move our bodies against each other, I quickly unbuttoned his shirt and pushed it over his shoulders and off of him. The fuzzy kitty chest hair was as compelling, if not more so, than his purple touchy shirt he had on last week; I couldn't help but bowl him over backwards as I rubbed my face into his chest. He didn't seem to mind, fortunately, and in fact, did I hear him chuckle just now?

Now that I had him on *his* back, I took the opportunity to reach down to unfasten his pants and pull them off of him. And with that, we were now even. I sat on top of him and looked down at his panther-like features with interest. In that moment, I thought, it was a little strange to be so attracted to someone who essentially looks just like a cat. Is this bestiality? But even if it was…

I was ready, he was ready, and this was more than overdue for the both of us honestly. With that, I lifted myself up and he guided me down on him. I looked down into his intense yellow eyes, captivated, wanton, vaguely embarrassed, and maybe somewhat ashamed (am I really a slut? is it true?). He reached up and pulled me down against him, his fuzzy chest, as he began to move.

Like that we proceeded for a while, then he leaned up, holding me against him, and flipped us over into missionary. This was… not really my favorite position; it was the one I was always restrained into back in Faerie during my punishment stints in the Snow Fairy's harem. But, I resolved to not let it bother me by enjoying this as much as possible.

I ran my hands through the fuzzy hair of his head, rubbed his fuzzy shoulders, moved my hips against his as his speed increased. I kissed his face, his neck, I rubbed my face against the soft fur of his neck and shoulder, I pressed my body up against his, my breasts squishing up against his fuzzy chest.

With all the power and grace of his totem animal, Ahri drove us both forward to a climax, me moaning and him shuddering with a growl. After a moment he collapsed down on top of me, just laying there quietly and comfortably against me, purring steadily and kissing the side of my face on occasion. We watched the end of the movie that way, in sort of a dazed, dreamlike, but contented state.

(I have to say, his post-sex purring was funny, and I almost laughed about it, but I managed to contain myself, simply smiling instead)

The DVD had returned to the main menu and had been cycling the main menu music and animation for about 15 minutes before Ahri finally got off of me and switched the TV over to the cable. I leaned over and laid my head down in his lap, and like that, we watched some silly, late-night TV for about an hour.

After a while, I sort of re-initiated things (um, er, with my mouth), and after not too long, he sat up abruptly, kind of knocking me off of him and crawled at me with determined purpose, pushing me over the arm of the sofa and took me from behind (Kittystyle?). Man it felt so good to have his hands all over me. If that made me a slut, then so be it, because I wanted this again and again and again.

The rest of the evening, well, as one might expect, was filled with even more sex, except in the bedroom instead of on the couch. I think we finally ended up going to bed around 3am, and when we woke up around 10am, we had sex again before we even got out of bed. He made breakfast after that, and we ate, chatted, and then finally I had to leave to head back to Massimo's place.

I got back to Massimo's place and was amusedly informed by Massimo that Kevin had been over again last night, waiting for me to get back from my “date”. He had apparently stayed until this morning, but finally left when I had not returned. “I think he was even more excited that you didn't return,” Massimo commented, smiling evilly.

“You two are such gossips,” I commented, giving him a stern look.

“But you're so much fun to tease,” Massimo mock-whined at me. Then he switched to a slightly more serious tone, “you take things way to seriously,” and gave me a pointed look. He took a few bites of yogurt and then pointed his spoon at me, “The only reason he kept unzipping his pants at you was because he knew it would get a reaction out of you. He never expected to actually DO anything with you.” He paused, taking another bite, then added, “not that he would be adverse to it, it being Kevin and all.”

I sighed exasperatedly, and then my cellphone rang. It was Tim, who informed me that… my letter! My letter was here! I had him open it for me and tell me what it said. And it said… accepted! I was accepted to Georgia Tech as a transfer student! Oh, crap. The registration dates are soon, um… NOW.

I left Massimo in the lurch for a little bit after breakfast and ran home to get the letter. Tim said it had probably been here for a few days but since I hadn't been home much I probably hadn't noticed. Crap! He was probably right. I chatted with him for a few minutes about how Massimo was doing and some other innocuous stuff, all the while wondering if he could smell the sex on me; I mean, he was a dog after all. He didn't say anything about it though, and so I headed back to Massimo's with the letter and spent some time signing up for classes.

Even though I had had a lot of fun with Ahri last night, I started feeling a bit uncomfortable about it as the day wore on. Massimo noticed and commented about my subdued mood. I told him to think about how he would feel if he was seeing someone with whom he had to pay for everything: dinner, dates, etc. Further, he essentially had to drive me everywhere since my “vehicle” wasn't very pratical for much else besides transporting one person. And on top of all of that, what money I did have he was paying to me because I worked for him.

Massimo was silent for a minute, then finally said, “I'm sure he knows all that too, and yet doesn't seem to care. Why worry about it?”

I frowned. “It just… bothers me,” I replied finally, “I feel like I'm taking advantage. … I guess I just don't like being in such an inferior position.”

Massimo shrugged, “you only are financially, and even you know that it's only temporary. You've been out of the hedge for what, four months now? That's… not very long.”

I paused, thinking for a bit about how weird things would be in the office tomorrow, then finally asked, “Massimo, can you help me write a letter of resignation?”

Massimo's eyes widened at that. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” I replied easily, propping my head on my hand and kind of staring off into nothingness, “It's a bad position to be in for both of us, and I think it would help to clear up this anxiety I'm feeling, at least somewhat. I should easily be able to get a job on campus.”

“Well, if you're sure,” he replied, giving me a skeptical look.

He seemed a bit reluctant, but in the end he helped me look up some formatting online and formulate the content of the letter that sounded professional and conveyed my reasons for leaving as being me returning to school. I printed out the finished product, put it in an envelope with Ahri's name written on it, and then put it aside with my acceptance letter to take to work tomorrow, Monday, August 22nd.

I felt rather off-kilter the next day as I sat in my chair at work, working on usual stuff, and waiting for Ahri to arrive.