It was a day of surprises, the second day Lop and I were together. After the evening meal, and after we’d groomed ourselves and the kits, he wedged what was left of the monux in the fork of a tree. Then he came right up to me in his odd, lurching walk and embraced me. He didn’t say anything. I could feel him taking hold of my mane, pulling back on it, sort of forcing me to the ground. Slowly. Firmly. On my back. We lay like that for a little, heads together. He started to purr.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

He didn’t say anything. He opened his mouth incredibly wide and closed his jaws on my cheek. Gently. Firmly. He just gripped my face with his teeth for a momet, and shook slightly. It was terrifying and weirdly comforting. At exactly the same time.

Still not saying anything, he let me go and got up on hands and knees. With a couple of quick licks on my cheek, where he’d been biting me, he pushed my thighs wide apart with his knees. He wasn’t lying on me, just holding me there. He looked at my eyes for the longest time. There wasn’t a thing "green" about that gaze. Then, with his eyes always on mine, he slowly crouched and lowered his head between my thighs, and started to lick my purse. He was resting his forearms in my groin, wedging my thighs apart, but he could reach my top set of nipples, and he started squeezing them and rolling them in his fingers. My head fell back, my body arched up with the waves of beauty filling it. The scent of our hkshihh almost made me dizzy. When I raised my head to look at him, he raised his. And gave me such a look. It gave me a glimpse of his furry belly, soaked with hkshihh and something big, black, and wet between his legs. My mane was standing straight up. Something felt incredibly beautiful. Then I realized he was moving his elbows in my groin, a little, and they were sliding around in my hkshihh and rubbing against the nipples down there. On purpose. The man seemed to know so many ways to play with my body.

The guy wasn’t the only one who was black. I was so excited I could feel the tingling SkhtuS filling the tube in my wood. And then the delicious tingle at the tip of my black as it collected at the slit. It itches, or something, and it can drive you crazy. Until you either wash yourself with warm water and nizhhS root, or else (the better choice) sheathe your bone somewhere warm and wet. Because of the nut-licking, and the posture he was in, I assumed I’d be linking–well, all right, fucking him–and now that my black was tingling I was just about frantic to soothe it, whatever he wanted to call it.

I started to whimper something about my cock. He didn’t say anything, but shifted position a little so his weight was on my chest. I suddenly felt his SkhtuS-tipped wood prodding against my ass! As he sank into me I moaned. And purred. It was pretty startling, anything that big, but it felt so beautiful. Just being so full of a man. (And full is the word.) He hadn’t even started pegging, he was just inside me. Just inside me. Soaking. It felt wonderful. My mane was stiff. Between that huge thing pulling beauty through my aching ass-hole and my own tingling prick, I thought I was dying. I really did.

I didn’t know where I was or who I was.

Suddenly, I felt his tongue. Between my thighs! It caught me by surprise. I was lying with my head back and eyes closed. I didn’t notice him raising his chest from mine. My head jerked up and I looked down at him, and he was all curled up, his black was still in my ass–was it ever!–and he was bending down to lick the nipples in my groin next to my sheath. The feeling was nothing like I’d ever had. Drushka had never done anything like that. You learn different stuff at wlkatar. Trish insisted that those two handsome boys from Clan 2 managed to get both their cocks in her cunt at the same time. Not just once, either. Imagine that! Even snapped their nuts at the same time, somehow. (Now, what made me think of that? Maybe because linking to Lop felt like taking two pricks at once.) But–I’d never even heard of this business of licking between a guy’s thighs while giving him cock.

That’s not all. I was lying there–I guess my arms weren’t over my head any longer, I was grabbing his mane–with this intense beauty between my legs and in my ass just about killing me, not to mention my itching black, and then, then I felt something even more beautiful, something that was more than bliss. More than bliss. It was like my whole body had become black. I’d swear that my saliva had turned to hkshihh.

I probably made some kind of noise, among all the purring and heavy breathing. Noises. After a bit, while I was just about dying from the beauty, I finally pulled my head up to look down my front. I gasped. He had my black in his mouth. I’d never heard of such a thing. It felt wonderful. Warm and wet. Soothing. And I needed soothing. Or my black did. Oh, I admit it. I have to. It felt wonderful! Much more like pussy than a male’s hard asshole. But whatever Lop’s cock was doing to my asshole felt incredible, too. I thought I was on fire from the ribs down. There was this beautiful aching in my thighs again. I’d never felt anything like that. I could feel my cock filling with SkhtuS.

There was so much of it it overflowed into Lop’s mouth. His purring got really loud.

I could feel myself gripping Lop’s cock. Hard. It felt like a stomach-ache. He groaned with each pull. So did I. And each one was sending waves of beauty into my body. Hard, fast. I was flying.

I could feel Lop’s nuts snap. Even without the low, hollow-sounding roar. An amazing sound.

And his mouth was still full of my sex.

With blinding beauty, my own nuts snapped. It was an accident. The idea that my black was, well, where it was at all was pretty gross. Fooling around, doing bizarre stuff, was one thing, but I was horrified to feel my SkhtuS pouring into Lop’s mouth! I was practically in tears, whimpering, "No, no, don’t do that", and such. Tugging on his mane. Twisting his ears.

He paid no attention. Neither did my nuts, which continued to pour out their juice.

He stayed like that for a bit, his black under my tail and mine in his mouth. I was dizzy with bliss. But I couldn’t stop thinking, "My SkhtuS went into his mouth. He ate my custard!" and so on.

With a strangely tentative movement and another low, long groan he finally shifted position again. Lying down on top of me. Still inside me. I could tell he was looking at me. I had my eyes closed and my head to one side. I couldn’t bear to look at him.

I could hear him licking his whiskers.

"That was disgusting. Wasn’t it?"

I couldn’t answer.

"And you loved it, didn’t you?"

I turned my head further away when he tried to lick my cheek. His muzzle smelled strongly of my SkhtuS and hkshihh.

He laughed. Softly. But it was such a sexy laugh. Raunchy. Husky. Bubbling through his purr. "You’ll get used to it, red. I mean, you’ll admit to yourself that you like it. And those tits in your crotch are a kick. I thought you were going to juice on the spot. But I wanted to eat you."

I opened my eyes and looked at him. It was the same Lop. Green-Eyes. His weight on my chest. His big-muscled arms around my shoulders.

He was still toweling his muzzle with his tongue. He’d eaten my SkhtuS. Right out of my cock. I’d never heard of such a thing. Never conceived of it. It was so perverted I began to doubt it had even happened.

"What does it taste like?" (I couldn’t believe I was asking such a question! But I thought I had to say something, and it just popped out.)

"You’ll find out", he said, so offhandedly my blood went cold.

Of course, he was right. I did. I got curious. And by then he’d sucked the SkhtuS out of my dick more times than I could count. For one thing, he obviously liked it. A lot. And I guess I had to admit to myself that I’d wanted to take his black in my mouth almost from the moment I learned such a thing was possible. Worse–it came to me that I’d probably wanted to take Drushka’s black into my mouth, too. I think I did. If I’d ever been tempted just to go ahead no matter what the consequences, I probably still would have chickened out. I mean, I guess I was just, well, curious or something.

And I’d have died if he’d actually snapped–well, nuff said.

I sure didn’t die when Lop did. I got so carried away I bit him, I guess. Or maybe it was my tongue. Anyway, he kind of screeched.

But I’m getting ahead of the story. That afternoon, between naps, we talked and played with the short-whiskers. They were friskier than I’d ever seen them, the rascals.

It was a funny thing about Lop, when I hardly knew him. First, I thought I was afraid of him. And he’d do these things that shocked and horrified me. But then, five minutes later, all I could think of was how safe I felt with him there, and how glad I was. For all sorts of reasons.

I told Lop about my butchered family. He agreed it sounded like hunters. He thought hunters were setting the fires, too.

"But hunting is illegal" I protested.

"Oh, how right you are", he drawled, "and if I were you I’d take the matter straight to the Regional Council."

Not catching the sarcasm, I returned miserably, "I would, I have to–these guys–but–I don’t know how. These guys–hunters, morphologists, you name it–they just come. They just–show up. For a while, at least that’s what the stories I heard say, they killed us or took us away to, well, do things. Then that stopped, and different guys show up and tell us stuff, like about hunting anthropomorphs being illegal–I mean, we are ‘anthropomorphs’, aren’t we?"

Lop said we were. And added that the hunters didn’t seem to care. He’d heard, in fact, that there was some sort of trouble in the Galactic Government, but since he was as vague as I was on what that was all about in the first place, he couldn’t make much out of what he’d heard.

"What about you?" I asked. "What brings you over here? And alone. I mean, your family must be somewhere way west of here."

"Family", he said, with narrowed eyes, and then stopped. After a little bit, he took a deep breath, and said, yes, I was right. He’d been on the move for months, too. They’d set fires. He and his husbands and their co-wives and four pairs of young ones were driven into a sort of trap. Them and something like two other family groups, "from upwind". Chased by the fires.

He stopped. He wasn’t crying, but there was an emotion on his face that was new to me. Up to now I’d seen tough maleness and sarcasm and sexual ardor. And tenderness, toward the kittens anyhow. (He was like a different Lop with the kits. Sweet. Motherly, in fact. I was beginning to think that the stories we’re always told about rupellids aren’t very accurate.)

"Yeah", he said. "They trapped us. Quite the haul. They had these ropes, only they weren’t ropes, more like something rubber, I never saw anything like them. They snared us with these things, and tied us up. Tight. It hurt. They left us lying around, with our hands and legs tied, while they ate. Then they–"

He stopped again. His face had turned to stone.

"What happened, Lop?"

He closed his eyes. "They started to strangle us. One by one. Put a thing around their necks and twisted it. Until they died. The adults. And the oldest boys. Our two. And there was a set of twins about the same age from another family. They were ripe and open. Just about full-grown. Ready to marry.

"Our wives went first. They choked and begged. The kits were screaming and crying and begging. I don’t suppose the hunters understood a word. The second one was Lihlnosstt, from the next family up the bay. We knew them well. They were twisting that thing and she was struggling and gurgling and there was this pop and her head flopped over and she went limp. That set the hunters laughing. It was–sickening."

He stopped again. His voice sounded funny. I felt horrible myself. I had no idea if Drushka and Kanyaa and Ranee had been killed that way. It was too believable. His eyes were narrowed again, just a fractionnow, like he was looking into a glare.

"But, Lop, how did you escape?"

"Well, I was the last. Lucky me. Getting to watch the whole thing. I was the last alive. This hunter guy was just unwinding that loop thing from one of the kits’ necks when some other hunters came roaring up in one of their big metal wagons. They were in quite the hurry. They had this excited conversation that I couldn’t follow, and this hunter guy came over to me. I thought I was done for. But he just draped the loop-thing loosely around my neck. He said something to me, but I don’t know their language. Probably telling me they’d be back to finish me off, something pleasant like that. And then they tossed the kits, the ones still alive I mean, into the wagon. And the whole bunch of them climbed in and drove off with a big noise."

He stopped and just looked at me for a time. Intensely, but not like he looked at me when he wanted us to link. It was like he was trying to see through my eyes into my mind. I had the feeling he was trying to decide whether to tell me something.

"I wouldn’t be here except for one thing", he said, the closest to tears I’ve ever seen him in our years together. "The hunters, after they ate, didn’t start killing right away. They all had a fuck, first. Our daughters. Green eyes. There were two pairs of girls in the other families, but they were little blue-eyed things. Our daughters. It seemed to be very painful for them. They were crying and sort of screeching. Begging. Begging their mothers, begging Jess and Carl and me. Begging the hunters. Not that those brutes understood a word.

"Well, not all of the hunters. There was one. The youngest I think. He didn’t fuck. He didn’t do anything to interfere. But he didn’t join in. He seemed, well, uncomfortable. Kind of stood a distance off.

"Anyway, what I’m saying is that if they’d started the killing right away, I’d have been dead before that wagon thing rolled in.

"Well, there I was. All alone. Not a sound. Like when a site is deserted because everyone is at a wlkatar. Except everywhere you looked there was a dead friend or son or–well, you get the idea. I was numb. I had no idea anything so horrible was even possible.

"I don’t know when I noticed they’d left some gear behind. I could sort of roll around, and could get to their stuff. I kind of went through it. With my tail." He smiled. Wanly. "Tails aren’t just for sex, you know. Anyhow, there was something that looked sharp. I mean, not a knife exactly, but it had a little stubby blade."

I thought of the skinless carcasses of my family.

"I got it into my hands, and cut the rubber thongs, or whatever they were, that were around my wrists, and then the ankles. It wasn’t easy. Man, that stuff is tough."

"What did you do then?"

Another long pause. "I made tracks", he said. "I was terrified. It bothers me to think about, now, but I didn’t even dare stick around long enough say good-bye. I mean–whatever I would have said to my dear, sweet–" He shook his head.

Lop’s story was horrible. Well, so was mine. Maybe even more horrible than I knew, if it was anything like–

We sat silently together. Grieving I think. I was weeping and whimpering. He just looked like a statue. It was all backwards: I’m supposed to be the man in the family, according to him. And he’s the sexual deviate who thinks he’s a wlkwy who wound up with a cock where his cunt should be, by some sort of accident. "Green-Eyes"!

Given our horrible memories earlier, it was especially pleasant sitting around the fire that evening, feeling safe and secure, like a family. Eating fresh grilled monux.

Little Tim, between my legs, was chewing manfully away at his rib, when Lop piped up and said, "Hey, stud, give the short-whiskers a hand, hey?"

I’d been in a sort of trance, I guess. I looked over at Lop. Mickey was sitting on his haunches between Lop’s big thighs, his back against Lop’s belly. Lop was pulling little bits of meat off his own portion with his teeth and feeding them to Mickey. It made me a little uneasy. Rupellids had this reputation . And I had a genuine sex pervert on my hands, that much seemed clear. So I didn’t know–

He couldn’t. It wasn’t possible. His black, concealed in the sheath that the little boy was leaning back against, was thicker than the kit’s wrist. It would literally kill him if he–

Mickey seemed so contented. They were a pretty picture, all right. Feeling guilty for even thinking such things, I absently started tugging morsels off of my hunk of monux and feeding them to Tim. Made life a lot easier for the little creature.

They’d grow up with us, the boys. I guess I foresaw that. And by the time they ripened, Lop and I had equal claim to parenthood. Not that either one of us had any actual claim to that. They weren’t my kits in the first place, after all. They’d known me longer than they’d known Lop, true–for all of a couple of months. They claimed they didn’t even remember being afraid of him at first. He had a really sweet way with the kits. They responded to it, too.

Later that evening, as we were lying next to one another, one of the kits against my ribs and the other next to Lop, I thought again of something strange in Lop’s tale.

"Lop, did I hear you say your husbands?"

"Yeah." He sounded sleepy.

"Uh–does that have anything to do with why, uh, you have green eyes?" I finished lamely.

"I doubt it", he said. "I wasn’t raised by my family. I mean, when I was just little, my twin brother died. I was little little. I don’t remember anything about it. They told me. Jess and Carl were the only brothers I knew.

"A family in my mothers’ clan, Clan 44, had this pair of boys who were almost exactly my age. I think they were born one or two days earlier, something like that. They used to tease me, say they were my older brothers and I had to do what they told me. I guess my parents’ choice was between letting this other family adopt me, or wait around for an unpaired kit, for them to adopt. But Clan 44 is pretty small. They decided the best chance was for this other family group to adopt me. I know my real parents. I mean, the ones that got me by fucking. Well, my moms for sure–maybe I was a wlkatar gift. Anyway, I’ve met my real parents maybe ten times. The spent a lot of time apologizing. For the life of me I couldn’t figure out why–I was fine. But they felt bad about something. By chance, I guess, I was so similar to Carl and Jess that no one could tell which two were the twins. Even the folks used to joke they got us mixed up."

An exaggeration. Wlko parents never have any trouble telling their kits apart. But a cute story.

"So there were three of you?"

"Yeah. Well, we didn’t know we were different. We were a normal-enough family. Except, I suppose getting all three of us opened was kind of helter-skelter. But then–whoa!–then the three of us linked until we were cross-eyed. It was like a backyard wlkatar. Oh, man!"

He paused. His eyes had been closed, but his whiskers were twitching. He opened his eyes and looked at me. Sleepily. "You and your bro link yourselves sore?"

"Yes, I guess we did."

"Right away?"

"No. I don’t think so. Well, you know open boys are pretty busy. But it was actually worst just before we were married. We’d had our first taste of cunt at a wlkatar a year earlier. We knew what was waiting for us. We were pretty horny, and our third hands were real strong by then."

He turned his head and looked at me. It was hard to believe someone half-asleep could look so crudely powerful.