“Oh, come on,” Emily whined, pouting dramatically.

I rolled my eyes, the fuzzy red ears on top of my head twitching in amusement while my fox tail waved slowly behind me. “Emily, we literally had sex yesterday.”

“Yea, but that was work, and I’ve never been with your fiancee. I just don’t get why you two chose Mel over me.”

“Luna chose Melody because they’re more comfortable with each other. Now run along you cocky brat, I need to get to the bedroom.”

Emily let me escort her to the door of my apartment, but once there, she stopped again, doing a poor job of suppressing her amused grin. “Do I at least get a kiss goodbye?”

I rolled my eyes again, and leaned forwards to kiss her cheek. After, I leaned in further to her ear and whispered, “Luna really really liked the video we did with me as a succubus. I think it’ll be sooner rather than later that you’re with us.” I left out that it depended largely on how the rest of today went.

Em flushed slightly and smirked, giving me a wordless peace sign before heading out of the door.

A sigh escaped me as soon as she left. It was nice, being so close with three other women, but sometimes it was overwhelming to manage the sheer mass of the relationships surrounding me. My feet carried me into the kitchen, the rest of my body operating on autopilot as I refilled my glass of water and began gulping it down.

As I stared at the same flimsy table covered in board and card game boxes, the same yellowed walls, and the same cramped kitchen that I’d spent the last few years of my life in, I basked in the memories surrounding me – all of the dinners with Luna, the times we’d had Mel and Em over, the one time we’d convinced Maddy to bring her roommate turned girlfriend. Unfortunately, some memories were Luna’s in our split living arrangement, but regardless, I was more than happy with where I’d gotten to in my life, and today was yet another day of thanking every deity I could think of for giving me the opportunity to be here.

With confident steps, I set down my glass on the counter and headed in the direction of the bedroom. My shirt flew across the room, over Snuffles’ empty bed – she was at Luna’s apartment – followed quickly by my bra. I stopped in front of my bedroom door, hearing soft voices and even softer moans coming from inside as I bent over and pulled my sweatpants down.

Neither woman took notice of me when I swung the door open. Luna was on top, her bare chest pressed against Melody’s midriff while Luna kissed and licked her neck. Melody was squirming under her and I was sure her underwear was plenty soaked under her short shorts. 

Watching them, I felt the familiar sting of jealousy, dimmer now than ever before. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath in, and accepted how I was feeling, thinking through how much I loved and trusted Luna – just as she loved and trusted me.

When I opened my eyes they were both looking at me, Melody having dazed bliss on her face, while Luna was shyly smiling, still a bit embarrassed about the situation. 

“Where do you want me, love?” I asked, leaning over the bed to drop a kiss on Luna’s bare shoulder, but staying standing.

“Why don’t we ask my girlfriend?” she teased, looking down at Mel, who was entranced by my naked chest.

After a moment of silence I laughed, breaking her out of her stupor.

“Wha–” she let out, shaking her head. “Um, I’m not really sure of all the steps to get there, but I do have a fantasy in mind, if that’s okay…”

At our enthusiastic nods, she continued. “Well, I can’t take Luna inside me because I’m terrible at dilating,” she admitted with an embarrassed expression. “But it’d be really hot if Sarah laid on top of me while Luna, um, ‘did’ her from behind.” 

I turned to my fiancee with a sly grin. “Think we can do that?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

Luna didn’t respond, grabbing my arms and pulling me onto the bed so she could kiss me, her hips still on top of Melody. I stroked up and down her soft curves, not knowing how comfortable Mel was with me touching her, and never getting tired of Luna’s body.

It only took a couple of minutes of us passionately making out for Melody to find her courage, grabbing one of my wrists and pulling my hand over to her chest. I shifted towards her, taking a break from my fiancee to watch how Mel’s eyes bugged out at the sight of me groping her chest.

The egoist in me wondered how long she’d been thinking about this, or if she’d watched any of my videos. Luna refused to answer the second question for me, telling me to ask her myself. I never did, feeling weird about pushing her boundaries even as my initial missteps with Mel became a distant memory.

She was Luna’s girlfriend and not mine, and I was very conscious of that. As I climbed on top of Melody, inching towards the position she’d described, my lips came up to her ear, whispering, “How much do you want me to do? Can I kiss you? Lick you? Stick my fingers in your cunt?”

Each question was delivered a couple seconds after the last, taking time to turn and read the growing arousal on her face. If there was one thing I liked about my job, it was how far I’d come in my skill and comfort regarding sex. I’d never been a prude, per se, but now I had absolutely no shame, and that came in handy. 

I wasn’t satisfied with Mel’s excited nods.

Egged on by Luna’s palms on my back letting me know she was watching, I teased her further. “That’s not enough Me-lo-dy,” I sang with a breathy voice, “Use your words.”

“Yes,” she squeaked.

My smile deepened. “Yes what? Tell me what you want me to do to you, what you want us to do to you.”

Luna rocked her hips forwards and down, nudging all three of us forwards and driving home my teasing. 

Melody closed her eyes and let out a desperate whine. “Shorts,” she gasped.

I blinked, momentarily thinking she’d been using the word as some kind of dorky curse, but then I remembered that she wasn’t naked yet. “Shorts,” I relayed back to Luna, scooting to the side to rest my weight back on the bed.

In a tremendously awkward display, the three of us untangled from each other so Melody could undress without both of our weights on her – even at work I encountered similar bouts of awkwardness when more than two people were on the same bed, it was just the case that there, we had editors to cut those parts out. 

Thankfully my hard work wasn’t ruined; when I climbed back on her, lining up our hips for what was to come, her eyes were still dazed. I caught one of the soft breaths escaping from her slightly open mouth with my own, tilting my head and driving my lips into hers. 

Kissing was fun, one of the few things that never felt like work at work – sometimes I missed Luna or wasn’t all that into what we were filming – and it was my favourite way to get to know my coworkers. 

Melody and I were a bit past that, in terms of getting to know each other, but there was still a lot of physical distance to close between us, so to speak. 

My movements were sure – a nip on her lip here, a confident swipe of my tongue across her lips there – while hers were reactionary. She couldn’t move her body much, weighed down by me and pressed further down by Luna between my legs rocking her cock between my asscheeks from behind, so instead she focused on her head, gasping and chasing my lips in between kisses like a puppy trying to bite a treat.

Her hands were down, buried in the sheets with clenched fists. I didn’t think that was going to change any time soon.

Luna shifted behind me, pulling back, and even though I couldn’t see what she did, I could feel the way tension rolled up Melody’s body underneath me, her hips flexing into mine, her stomach pulling back, her lungs heaving up, and her head tilting back away from me.

She was right; there was something transcendent about feeling Luna’s touch through the body of someone else – secondhand reactions that only gave the outline of what she was doing. That I could feel Luna herself behind me, shifting her weight on the mattress and brushing her bare skin against the tip of my wagging tail, only made it more. 

I had every piece of information about what Melody was feeling as Luna’s fingers stirred around her insides except the actual sensations themselves, and I loved putting my imagination to work, resting my chin on Melody’s shoulder and panting in her ear as I imagined it was me that was getting fucked.

It soon would be.

I wiggled in place, hoping that if I hit just the right movements, Luna would move on to me. All it got me was a playful slap on my ass, a satisfactory consolation prize but a consolation prize nonetheless. I decided to go back to teasing Mel, not wanting to sit still and let the paradoxical feelings of jealousy set back in. I was tired of them.

“God, look at you getting fucked by your pretty girlfriend,” I whispered, throwing in the occasional nibble on her earlobe. I turned my head around as far as I could. “She really is so pretty isn’t she?”

“Yeah,” a dazed Melody breathed back.

Luna fixed us a suspicious stare. “What are you two whispering about?”

“Nothing,” I sang, turning back to the bed. “Is it my turn yet?”

Luna grunted and did something to make her girlfriend buck under me. “Almost.”

“Hmm.” I relaxed, closing my eyes and letting my tail wave slowly in the air. The atmosphere was so warm and comforting that I almost wanted to sleep, at least if it weren’t for the restless arousal zapping through my nerves. 

Finally, once Melody was moaning incoherently under me – although I couldn’t tell if she’d actually orgasmed or not – it was my turn.

I only got one swipe of Luna’s finger before she decided I was ready and slid inside me – we’d done this enough by now to know each other’s bodies well.

“Mmm,” I moaned in Melody’s ear, taking care to remember that this was her fantasy. “She's so fucking big…”

She whimpered under me as the two of us were rocked forward by Luna’s slowly accelerating strokes. Her hips jolted under mine as if she could just move them enough to steal some of my pleasure. 

Some part of me really liked that she didn’t get to have Luna inside her. I told that part to shut up, and snaked my hand between us, resting it between her legs. The next time Luna’s hips hit mine, my hand moved forward with me and rubbed against Melody just enough to earn a squeak. 

That was better.

From there, there wasn’t much I could do besides talk, being sandwiched like I was.

So talk I did.

“Yess,” I hissed, “Your girlfriend is so hot and she feels so fucking good inside me.”

Another whimper from below, followed by an amused chuckle above. Luna leaned forward and grabbed my waist with both hands, speeding up.

“Mmm, you feel that? Before long she’s going to cum inside me and give me a kid – at least one, I might want twins.” 

Melody was well aware that wasn’t possible, but she leaned forwards and bit my shoulder to keep herself from crying out again all the same. I’d never say no to some nibbles.

My next dozen breaths I let out without any words; my own dirty talk had gotten to me, and each delicious thrust from behind me scrambled my ability to form words. 

Unfortunately – or thankfully for my ability to speak – Luna was running out of stamina. It was time for a new position.

“How do you feel about letting your girlfriend rest for a minute?” I began, speaking softly. “I can ride her amazing cock, and you can look me in the eye from your perch on her face – sounds good?” 

I punctuated my request by slipping a finger inside of her and wiggling it around, preventing her from responding immediately.

She slammed her head back into the mattress and let out a few deep breaths, the hot air from her flush face puffing up towards me. “Yes,” she eventually managed in a high whine.

The shuffle of limbs went quicker this time; once Luna understood what we were doing, all she had to do was lie on her back and leave the rest up to us. 

I mounted her and began moving my hips up and down without much ceremony – I’d had plenty of practice in this part at work – but Melody was a bit shy about suffocating her girlfriend until she was plopped into place by a combined effort from four hands. She tried to keep her gaze down, either nervous about watching me or still worried about Luna, but I reached across and grabbed her by the chin, slowing my movements down to keep myself steady.

Her hazel eyes, adorned with sparkly gold makeup, fixed on mine with surprising focus, and for a moment we just stared at each other, reading the emotions deep behind our pupils. I wanted to check in on her and make sure she was still enjoying this, and she, at least to the best I could read, just wanted to watch me and drink in everything I was feeling.

We smiled at the same time, sharing our joy in this intimate moment. Even when I let go of her face, she remained watching me, her irises bouncing up and down in time my increasingly desperate movements. 

I’d come a long way since I’d started this whole journey, but that didn’t mean I could hold myself off from coming forever. And besides, from the way Luna’s stomach was clenching and rolling below me and the way Melody’s face was twitching, I wasn’t going to be alone.

I definitely wasn’t alone.

“I fucking–” I bounced, distorting my words but heaving them out nonetheless, “–love you Luna, and I–” 

I hunched forward, panting and using my arms to support me on Luna. “–love you too Melody–” I whined and clenched, feeling the start of my orgasm’s crest.

Melody gasped and jolted in front of me.

“–in a platonic way,” I finished, annoyed at being so out of breath.

She let out a sigh of relief before convulsing, finally giving in to her girlfriend’s tongue. 

Luna was somehow last to finish, not letting go until I was already riding out the last waves of my own climax. I kept going through my fatigue, wanting to satisfy her and not wanting her to finish anywhere but inside me – some things never changed.

Eventually, Melody and I collapsed onto either side of Luna, all three of us heaving humid breaths into the hot air. 

A hand reached across and slapped at my shoulder. “God, Sarah, you almost gave me a heart attack!”

“Sorry…” I took a moment to breathe and gather my thoughts. “It’s just... We’re not girlfriends, but we’re more than friends right?”

She gave a high laugh. “Yeah, I love you too you stupid dork.”

“Yay…” Luna let out a tired celebration between us, although when I turned to look at her, it was clear she was happier about this development than she wanted to let on.

I cuddled into her side, my usual position only slightly complicated by Melody’s presence across. It took a little bit of shuffling before our arms were in the right position, but we made it work.

They were worth the effort.

—

I alternated my focus between the pancakes slowly cooking on the stove and Luna staring at her phone on the couch. Part of me was hungry and part of me was – as it always was – craving more affection from Luna, but both would be satisfied if I could just be patient.

I flipped the first pancake, eyeing the cooked surface and slightly adjusting the knob on the stove to match. 

Luna’s voice startled me out of my focus from across the room. “Mel and I are planning a date – do you want to make it a double?”

I squinted, still staring at the stove while my mind tried to push through my lingering sleepiness to understand her question. “What?”

“Do you want to go on a double date with me and Melody?” she repeated.

I spun around, making sure my tail was pointed down to avoid lighting the tip on fire with the gas stove – even if I could shapeshift my fur back to health, the smell of burnt hair tended to linger. “I don’t think it counts as a double date with just three people. And I don’t want to intrude on your time together – do you really think you have the focus for both of us at once?”

She looked over her shoulder at me, scrunching her face up in a way that reminded me of when she’d tried to tutor me in college. “I’m talking about the four of us – Emily included.”

“Emily and Melody are dating?!” I gawped. Last I’d heard, they had absolutely no interest in one another.

“What? No, I’m talking about you with Emily.”

Why is she looking at me like I’m a moron…?

“Why would I bring my coworker on a date?” Or would it be bringing my ex-girlfriend on a date? Either way it was weird, even if we did have sex fairly often.

“You mean your girlfriend?” Luna set down her phone and stood, inching towards me like I was a scared animal she needed to corral. 

I laughed, turning back to the stove. “We’re not dating, we’re just coworkers. And friends, I guess.”

“And what about all the time you spend flirting when the four of us are together?” Her voice inched closer behind me.

“Well– I mean… That’s– She started it,” I protested.

“And how about when we’re all watching a movie or something together and while I cuddle Mel, you cuddle Em?”

“Well I don’t want to take you away from your girlfriend, so me and Emily are left as the odd ones out – and I can cuddle my friend, that’s not weird.” I flipped a pancake, cursing when it folded in on itself.

“Your friend that you have sex with and kiss goodbye on the cheek and greet with a hug…” Her voice was right behind me, and I felt my tail brushing over her legs as it waved anxiously.

“Aren’t you supposed to be the useless one…?” I protested in a small voice, not wanting to admit the conclusion she was cornering me into.

“Look, I’m not saying you have to change anything. Would it really be that weird to take her on a date?”

“Well, maybe not…” I conceded. “It’s just… it’s a disaster whenever it’s just the two of us. We either end up fighting, or…”

Luna chuckled behind me.

While I hadn’t had sex with Emily outside of work since Luna and I started dating, we still ended up making out about once a month – and not always in the most appropriate places. Luna assured me that she didn’t mind the making out part, even as she scolded us for our choice of location. 

It wasn’t my fault that movie was so boring… and the theatre was practically empty anyway.

My fiancee’s hands fell onto my shoulders, recentering me. “So?” she asked.

“Yeah, I’ll ask her,” I conceded, spinning around to meet Luna’s smile with a bratty one of my own. “But you and Melody aren’t allowed to call me and Emily hanging out a date. You two are on a date, and we’re just two friends awkwardly third and fourth-wheeling.”

She sighed, rolling her eyes and tilting her head up to stare at the ceiling as if asking what she did to deserve this.

I giggled – I knew she loved me.

—

Slow, easy breaths puffed out of my nose and down onto Luna’s bare chest. Her hand absentmindedly threaded through my hair, twisting strands around her fingers and massaging my scalp. Our bodies and minds were spent, and now, under the city lights leaking through the window and onto our messy bed, there was nothing left to do but slowly drift off.

“Hey, Sarah?”

Or not…

“Hm?”

“Do you want kids?”

I coughed, jolting upright before I’d internalised what she’d said. “What?!” I stared down at her expression as it shifted from lazy to confused. 

“We’re getting married, Sarah – it’s not that weird of a question, right?”

Isn’t this supposed to be a Conversation – something where she says ‘we need to talk’ and sits me down on the couch with a stern expression? Am I the weird one for wanting to feel prepared to have this conversation? 

Shit shit shit, why am I not prepared to have this conversation?

“Sarah?” Luna’s hand reached up to brush my cheek, centering my thoughts. 

I closed my eyes and took an exaggeratedly large breath, convincing myself that I felt calmer afterwards. “I thought you didn’t, given that you… y’know, de-balled yourself or whatever,” I stammered calmly.

My fiancee did not have the same level of composure that I did. “I want you to be happy,” she responded with a frighteningly straight face.

“I mean, if that’s your response to if you want kids, then that means that you don’t, right? Regardless of how I feel – and I don’t even know how I feel – I’m not going to make you raise kids if you aren’t up for it.”

I stared at the wall behind the headboard, my mouth running frantically past my thoughts. “Hell, if you were ‘up for it’, that still wouldn’t be enough, you’d have to want kids. And that’s not even thinking about logistics and stuff, like we still haven’t worked out moving in together again, and it’s not like we–”

Luna’s index finger tapped my open lips, stopping me in the middle of my rant.

“Two misconceptions: First, I didn’t ‘deball’ myself as a form of sterilization – the choice was about my body more than anything else. Secondly, I wasn’t asking if you wanted kids in the near future necessarily, I just meant in general. Besides, in our relationship, if I can’t give you something, then you can get that from someone else, right?”

I frowned, feeling my tail twitch angrily on the bed behind me. “I’m marrying you, not my coworkers or your girlfriend.”

“But in the future–”

“Am I not doing a good enough job of making you feel appreciated?”

I winced as Luna scrunched her eyes shut and tilted her head back to take a deep breath while facing the ceiling. I’d said something to irritate her.

After a moment of silence, she spoke, taking care to enunciate her words calmly and slowly. “That’s not what this is about, Sarah, I know you love me – we’re getting married.” Thankfully, she sounded more excited than exasperated saying that. “I was just thinking about long term stuff and the possibility of children in general popped into my mind. I haven’t made up my own mind on whether or not I want them – I still think I’d make a terrible parent – but I wanted to know your feelings on the matter.”

My face fell to stare at the mattress. “I’m sorry this topic has me so twitchy… I don’t know why, but you asking me kind of freaked me out…”

“Just promise me you’ll at least think about it.”

“Okay, I promise.” I gave her a peck on the lips and slipped back down to lay on top of her, listening as her heartbeat grew slower with her breaths.

Unfortunately for me, my brain was stuck on our conversation, and I wasn’t going to be sleeping anytime soon. 

Do I want kids?

My initial gut instinct was no, but I’d learned my lesson on relying on the boxes I’d placed myself in years ago. While I’d certainly not wanted to be a dad, what about being a mom? 

I pictured Luna, Maddy, my mom, and I all watching as my little toddlers chased each other around the park. Our son had reddish orange hair with white tips on his fur, just like me, and his tail was long and fluffy and cute – even if he kept getting it dirty. Our daughter, on the other hand, had black fur instead of red and her tail was thinner, but despite looking superficially like Luna, she kept up with her brother, not inheriting Luna’s lack of athletic ability.

That sounded… wonderful, right? If even considering the idea of having kids made me feel warm and sappy, then case was closed – I wanted them… right?

A nagging thought in the back of my mind was keeping me from drifting off into sappy romantic dreams, however. 

Something was off about my imagination.

I carefully rolled off of Luna, slipping out of bed to walk naked out into the kitchen where I would have more room to pace and think. I was forgetting something in my fantasy, a miscalculation that would throw all of my feelings out of whack – but I didn’t know what it was.

It wasn’t the fact that if I was pregnant, it wouldn’t be with Luna’s genes – I’d long gotten over that, and even if I still had inklings of plans where we tried to pick a donor that looked like her like a cis lesbian couple might, that wasn’t the important part of my fantasy.

I sat down on the couch, staring at the blank television while the scratchy fabric itched at my bare bottom. My tail curled around my side instinctually, a habit borne of a year of doing my best not to sit on the thing.

Oh.

I blinked as the realisation hit me: my kids wouldn’t be foxy like me, they’d be human.

If I was ever pregnant, I would have to abstain from shapeshifting – given that I would have no way of knowing the consequences – but even beyond that, I would have to conceive while in a human body, otherwise I’d risk messing with my children’s genetics in ways I didn’t understand.

Even if I could somehow be reasonably sure that my kids could safely inherit fox ears and a tail, would it be ethical to do that? Was there any way to justify putting my kids through being inherently different, inherently inhuman, just because I liked it?

Why do I like it?

I scrambled off the couch, through the bedroom door, and into the bathroom. In front of the mirror I shifted to a human body. 

When’s the last time I did this?

I didn’t have an answer. Once I’d gotten a hang of drying my fur with shapeshifting magic – don’t ask, I never figured out why it worked – I’d lost any reason to get rid of my ears and tail. I was used to the weird looks people gave me, and other than work, where I mostly used my powers to become more inhuman, I hardly ever shapeshifted anything significant.

A strange figure stared back at me from inside the mirror. It was kind of like me – in the way that my mother and sister were kind of like me – but it wasn’t me, not more than any of the forms I took for work. 

But I’m… human, right?

The figure in the mirror looked wary of me, cowering away from the mirror with fear and apprehension on her face. She didn’t want to see me, didn’t want to exist. 

My legs collapsed underneath me, hiding me from her as I plopped down onto the floor. 

I wheezed a breath in, only now aware that I was breathing, that I was here, in my bathroom, and not trapped in some mirror dimension. My tail flicked out to the wall–

My tail–

The door swung open and the light came on, harsh beams illuminating the imperfections of reality. The sounds were offset, twisted and displaced like an unfamiliar room with an echo.

“Sarah? Are you okay?”

I groaned, my forehead pressing against the cold tile. 

A hand grabbed my shoulder. “Are you okay? Do I need to call an ambulance?” 

I shook my head lightly, still having trouble getting my mind back in my body. Why was this so hard? I fucked with my body pretty much every week for work, and I had little difficulty pretending to be a new creature to satisfy an ever-growing audience.

Pretending. I’m pretending to be a human. This is temporary.

The thoughts calmed my breath and brought my heartbeat to a manageable pace. I sucked in air and blew it back out, fogging the tile.

I sat up and leaned against the wall.

Luna watched, still concerned, but panicking less. “Sarah?” she asked softly.

“Am I human?” My voice was tiny.

“You look human…” She flinched. “Oh, you probably didn’t mean… Uhhh…” She sat down next to me, the remnants of warmth from our bed bleeding into me by her proximity. “Maybe you should shift back before we talk? I’m worried about you…”

I let the magic flow through me without much hesitation. It’d already been bubbling up inside of me – the desire to return to my default form. I turned and let my face slump into her collarbone, my fuzzy ears twitching against her hair.

Her arms reached under my armpits and hauled me up so I was standing, then curled around me to keep me upright while she led us to our bed.

Laying behind me again with her arms around me, Luna finally spoke. “What’s going on little vixen? Is this about the conversation we had before bed?”

“I…” I curled in on myself, clutching at her arms. “I was thinking about kids, and for some reason I pictured them being like me, y’know with the ears and the tail and everything, and I realised they wouldn’t be like that, because that would be fucked up, but then… Am I fucked up?”

Luna was silent for a few moments, stroking one hand up and down my stomach. When she spoke, her voice was soft and methodical. “I don’t think so. If we assume that you’re correct about having kids like you being wrong – which I think at the very least is arguable – then you could just compare it to being trans: you wouldn’t decide your kids gender but you can your own. Same for… um, whatever the word is for what you are.”

“I guess…” I didn’t think she was wrong, but it did feel unsatisfying to just say ‘you are what you are’ and call it a day. 

“Maybe you could try to find some people online who feel like you do? I think I’ve heard about people feeling similarly, even if they don’t have the power to do anything about it like you do.”

I startled. “Really?” I’d never even considered that someone could be like me, that there was an established thing that I was. It made sense, however, that if everyone on earth was given the same abilities I did, surely at least some of them would decide to be fox-girls and fox-boys or other ‘inhuman’ species.

Hell, it might even be a majority of people around my age that would at least experiment if given the magic and widespread support to do so. And if there were people like me, people who would do more than just experiment for a bit and go back to their default, then there had to be a community somewhere on the internet – I just had to find them.

I definitely wasn’t alone.

“Thank you, love,” I murmured, my comfort turning into exhaustion.