© 1991,1998,2003 Watts Martin
This story deals with adult themes and sexual situations.
– Chapter 5 –
When Teisha came home that evening, she stopped at the door, motioning for Allin to come over, calling his name. When he did so, she enveloped his hand in hers, then led him outside.
He blinked in the late afternoon sun, taking a deep breath. This was the first time he had been out of her house since… when? Since he'd been here.
A slight breeze blew, the cool tendrils playing over his skin sparking an increasingly rare reminder of his own nudity.
Teisha led him along the street the same way he had been brought to her house, back to the little shelter the flying transport had dropped them off at. She sat down under the thatched roof; Allin took the seat next to her.
When they boarded the platform it was almost full. Teisha guided him to a single seat and sat him in her lap. He realized he was getting far more stares than she. All right, he might be exotic—but she was beautiful. Even in a typically unflattering outfit, she might have caught his eye. Was she that unremarkable to her fellow rabbits? Allin began to wonder if her society's standard of beauty was decidedly unlike his own.
The ride started, taking them back in the direction of the shopping arcade the pet shop was located. He hadn't recalled how vast the rabbits' kingdom had been; on this trip, he simply leaned against his mistress, watching the landscape unfold as the transport glided along its path, until it stopped at the city's edge and Teisha led him onto the sidewalk of a busy avenue.
The area around them looked like the heart of a downtown district. Giant rabbits crowded around him on the sidewalk, striding purposefully among the curving buildings, spilling into the street and forming a living obstacle course for bicyclists and lighter four-passenger platforms. Allin gripped Teisha's wrist tightly, feeling quite small.
She led him past shop after shop, none too different from what he had seen in Raneadhros; still, the atmosphere was less oppressive, somehow more—open. They came to a window filled with books, and Teisha led him through the shop's open doorway.
On his immediate right stood a wall, just a few inches shorter than Allin. When the clerk stared down at him disapprovingly from a frightening four feet over the top, he realized it was a counter.
The clerk looked at Teisha and spoke tersely in a booming bass. Allin realized the counter area was raised a half-foot from the floor level. Oh—in that case, the storekeeper only stood nine-and-a-half feet tall.
Teisha spoke quickly but calmly, gesturing toward the back of the store and placing a protective hand on Allin's shoulder. Before the clerk responded to her, she gently pushed the human on into the store.
In a moment they faced a low shelf of books, most of them tall and long but very thin. She scanned the titles, stopping at one and pulling it out. Then she handed it to Allin.
"What?" he said aloud, opening it.
The flowing script was extremely large, three or four times the size he had normally seen it written; on the first page was a nice colored drawing of two young rabbits, a boy and a girl, standing in a field of flowers. He flipped through it. Each page had a picture, one of the two characters holding something—a dress, perhaps, or a ball—or finding something, or looking for something.
Allin felt his eyes tear slightly, and he gave Teisha as tight a hug as he was able to. She caressed the back of his neck, then started to gather more books.
* * *
That evening, they sat together on the couch and read the first book.
It was named "Mira and Misha," after the two main characters. It had been many years since Allin had been exposed to stories like "Mira and Misha," and—like most adults without children—he had forgotten that books designed to teach a language to toddlers didn't have plots. If you had to teach the words for ball and tree and run, telling a story was impossible. Allin knew that.
And he hated every minute of it.
He hated having Teisha read things aloud slowly and carefully. He hated her waiting for him to repeat it. He hated her waiting for him to re-read a page. Half the time he remembered the sounds for a word, he wouldn't remember the writing for it. Symbols reappeared in different words, but he couldn't relate them to pronunciation.
The two hours they spent with the book seemed like an entire day. Teisha's response at the end of the "lesson" was a mix of happiness and awe, though, and Allin liked that.
As she was getting ready for bed, Allin stretched out on his mattress, staring at the ceiling. When she came in and pulled back her sheets, she started talking to him questioningly, lying across her bed sideways and looking down at him curiously.
He couldn't follow her speech, but he understood it well enough. "Teisha, I… even if we spoke the same language, I'm not sure I could explain why what happened last night makes me uncomfortable."
A sadness tinged with melancholy passed over her beautiful face, as if she could understand his words—or at least their meaning. She set out a pillow, making a show of leaving enough room for him if he chose to climb up with her, and extinguished the lights.
"Look sharp," a voice came from his left about an hour later.
He turned his head, not surprised to see Mott sitting there.
"How long you been here for?" Mott asked.
"About a month. No, two."
"About? You sure?"
"Maybe more. I don't know."
Mott nodded impassively. "Learnin' to speak her language, finally. How long you think that'll take?"
"I don't know."
"'Nuther month? Two? Four?"
"A lot. I know that."
The ghost looked down at his jacket, brushing away imaginary dust motes. "You don't got that much time, lap dog." He looked back at Allin, his eyes gleaming. "Why aren't you sleepin' up there?"
"You think I should?"
"Just asked the question, is all." He coughed, wiping his mouth with his sleeve.
Allin remained silent for a minute. "Part of me," he finally began, "wants to be up there. But part of me's afraid of what would happen."
Mott had lit his pipe as Allin talked, blowing his trademark smoke rings. "You're afraid you'll be a good dog."
"No," Allin said.
"Yeah, you are. You're already a good lap dog, aren't you? That's what you want, you just ain't gonna admit it."
"No!" Allin said more sharply. But it came out as a bark.
"That's right. Good boy," Mott said, reaching over to stroke Allin behind the ear. "Be good and mistress might jerk you off again."
Allin woofed, wagging his tail.
Then he sat bolt upright, snapping out of the dream.
After a moment, he lay back down on the mattress, rolled to one side, then rolled to another. In another minute he rolled back to the first position, then stood up and climbed into bed with Teisha, slipping against her side. It was much more comfortable, but he thought his nervousness about playing into the dream's apparent prophecy might keep him awake the rest of the night.
It didn't, though. For the second night in a row, Allin's sleep was untroubled.
* * *
They spent the next evening going over the same book. By the time Teisha put it away, Allin had almost doubled his basic vocabulary, and had formed a pathological hatred for Mira and Misha.
After putting the book back with the others, stacked on the lowest shelf of her library case, Teisha went into the kitchen to make coffee for both of them. As it brewed, she went into her bedroom for a moment, returning in her nightgown.
She set the mugs down on the coffee table and crossed to the library to get her own book to read, then stretched out on the couch, her legs folded up so Allin had enough room to sit on one end. He got his mug and took a sip. "You even make coffee better than I do," he chuckled.
A few quiet moments passed. He looked around, eyes finally settling on Teisha's svelte legs. One sleek, furred foot gently pressed against his left leg, the other resting on top of the first. He let his gaze travel up her legs; her position gave him an explicitly enticing view of her rump, thighs and the dark, thick fluff between them.
He sipped his coffee slowly, trying to hold his gaze away from her body. Finally he laid his left hand on her ankle and started to gently stroke her foreleg.
Teisha made a contented, almost purring noise and stretched slightly, the foot against his leg pressing harder and the one above it sliding across him. Allin paused and looked down, licking his lips, debating whether this was a good development. Then he downed the rest of his coffee and continued to stroke her leg, this time massaging her foot with his other hand.
She stretched the leg out completely across him, pushing the other one behind him to hold him between them. He turned and started to stroke both huge legs, knees up to thighs; she set down the book and closed her eyes, sinking down into the couch. All right, now what? Stopping—or going further—was entirely up to him this time. How far was he willing to go?
He turned to face her completely, pushing forward until his legs were between her forelegs, which she obligingly raised to let him move closer. He continued massaging her, stroking along her sides, pushing back the cloth of her nightgown until her breasts were fully exposed. Both nipples were erect. As he moved his hands along her torso, his fingers brushed the base of one breast; she opened her eyes, and he froze.
Teisha blinked, her expression calculating, as if trying to decide how far she was willing to let him go—or how much to encourage him.
Then she reached out with her right hand, clasping his left, and placed his palm firmly over her nipple.
"Oh, my," Allin said, staring down at her stupidly.
The giantess smiled, and wrapped her legs around his back, pushing him closer; his knees now touched the dark fur there.
Allin licked his lips a little, then moved his other hand up to gently massage both her breasts. She made another soft mrring noise, closing her eyes again and reaching out to stroke his chest. You're going to regret this in an hour, let alone the morning, a voice said in the back of his mind. But he didn't stop.
After another minute, she guided him to lie flat across her, his face against her neck and his legs scissored between hers. He wrapped his arms around her as far as he could, kissing her neck, then nuzzling at it.
She moved him up her body further, her mouth pressing against his neck, and started to return the kisses, with small licks and nibbles. Allin squirmed and gasped as her lips and nose played along his skin, moving toward his own mouth. Then she kissed him, hard. He could feel the power in all her movements, knew she might not let him pull away at this point if he tried. And, frighteningly, being completely at her mercy was as much an aphrodisiac as the sight of her unclothed form. He did not merely want Teisha—he wanted to give himself to her.
Allin slid back along her body, one of her legs between his, and stopped to take one of her breasts with both hands, licking and nipping at it. She slid her hands down him, wrapping one around his rump and inner thigh and squeezing, pressing him down against her leg and releasing him, pressing, scratching, releasing—he gasped, pressing against her harder as her other hand moved heavily across his back.
Then he realized that his foreleg was becoming wet, the fur between her inner thighs now damp.
He looked up, almost startled. Was he arousing to her, or was it simply what she was doing with him that turned her on? Somehow, the question didn't matter.
She pressed him against her harder, rotating his thighs against her foreleg and crushing his head to her breast.
Allin wanted to do something in return. He slid one of his hands between his own right leg and her thighs. Then he stopped, wondering what her reaction would be if he did what had come to mind.
He didn't have time to wonder; his own reactions to being worked against her were pushing away other considerations. It was hard enough not just letting go as it was.
He moved his hand gently inward. Teisha gasped loudly, stiffening.
"Choni, shifin?" he said softly.
"Sa," she whispered after a second.
They started again together. He felt as if he was sinking into her fur, her fingers playing over him as he tickled and caressed inside her, nuzzling whatever parts of her were near his head. All her muscles tensed as her breathing became a sharp, ragged panting, her arms and legs wrapping around him more tightly, each shudder in her body bouncing his. He was dimly aware that his entire hand, up to his wrist, was inside her when he climaxed.
The sharp, ecstatic shock that ran through his body was the trigger that made her climax a half-second after he did, squealing with pleasure and convulsing with overwhelming strength. Her soft fur crushed all around him as she bucked; he hung on as best he could, climaxing once more as her pleasure translated into his.
The rush subsided before Allin realized he hurt. Her arms had most certainly bruised his ribs and buttocks, if not his entire body; the hand that had been inside her felt sprained.
As they lay there, Allin against Teisha's side, he wondered if the pain was worth the pleasure. He had had friends who fantasized about giant lovers; he had never realized how little those friends understood what they would truly be getting into until now.
"Yes," he said after a moment, nestling against her as she caught her breath. "Yes, it was."
* * *
Weeks passed, measured by Allin's progress through the books Teisha had bought for him.
After several nights of sleeping with her, lying against satin fur, head nestled in the curve of her neck and her arm curled protectively around him, the mattress on the floor was all but forgotten. Most of the time the nights were chaste—she was often content to only cuddle.
Most other times, she was content to only nuzzle—but every so often she took a strange delight in finding ways to make him climax, as if just to watch his expressions. Allin both dreaded and looked forward to those moods—he felt the most helpless then, but the experience never failed to be intensely, if bizarrely, erotic. And Teisha took any attempt on his part to get away as part of the "game"—which, truthfully, it was.
One night he almost managed to crawl under the bed, but she sat on it and pinned him with one foot, rolling him onto his back and planting it heavily on his chest. Then she rubbed the ball of her other foot between his legs until she "won." Allin hadn't imagined a single experience would be enough to give him a foot fetish.
Words came to him, slowly at first, with greater speed as he picked up on the language's flow. He could talk to Teisha now, but he could not communicate with her much better than he could nonverbally. Asking for food, or answering simple yes or no questions ("Do you think that," pointing at an object, "is pretty?"), was a far cry from the discussions even a five year-old could carry on with his or her parents.
Days were spent either sleeping or going through Teisha's seemingly endless bookshelf. He could recognize some words now, but he had a long way to go before he would be able to glean meaning from all but the most simplistic picture books.
Late one afternoon, Allin made himself a cup of coffee (a ritual Teisha was now used to; she had started buying enough coffee and tea for two) and started to browse through a new section of the shelf. He had mentally marked the wall of books off in a grid, dividing each of the three vertical sections into halves again The shelf was nine racks high, giving him fifty-four sections to go through; he was starting on area nineteen.
One of the largest books he had seen was in this section; he pulled it down and brought it over to the couch. It weighed well over ten pounds, two feet wide by two-and-a-half feet high.
It was a book of maps.
The first map was an overview of the rabbits' kingdom. He had no idea of the scale, of course, but it looked big, with nine major cities marked with neat blue dots, their names inscribed next to them in flowing script, and dozens of minor cities marked in black, their names written at half the size of the blue ones. The next map was a repeat of the first one, evidently showing elevations, with just the major cities marked in black. The next few pages were again repeats, each one using a different color scheme and obviously depicting different information; he guessed two to be average rainfall and average temperature. The maps were all drawn in a sharply precise style, enough to make all but the finest cartographers in Raneadhros turn greener than the inks used to show forests.
The following pages were individual maps of the major and minor cities and the lands around them. The roadways were all marked out with lines of varying thickness and colors, to indicate importance, or perhaps whether they were exclusively for use by the flying platforms.
Toward the back of the book was a map in much smaller scale than the opening one, showing not only the rabbit's kingdom but much of the continent around it. The east of the map was bordered by a river that Allin knew to be a scant day's journey from the mountains the gate back to Ranea lay in.
"That's it." He studied the map, shaking his head, then laughed. "That's it." He touched a spot on the map. "If I could get there… I could find it again."
He wondered if the rabbits knew about gates. He suspected so. Had they discovered the one to Ranea yet? Did they know that—assuming Ranean magicians were right—all gates led through Ranea's dimension, even if they just passed through?
If his sense of distance on their maps was close to accurate, their lands were almost half again as large as the Empire of Ranea. If they did find the gate, and decided they wanted to have something the Empress wasn't willing to let them have, or they just didn't feel like asking….
Allin's dark thoughts were broken by Teisha sitting down next to him; he hadn't heard her come in.
"Hello," he said. He no longer had to pause a split-second to say yimano instead of speaking in Ranean.
"What do you have?" she asked. She still spoke a little too fast, even after slowing down for Allin's benefit. He tried not to ask her to repeat everything she said, even though he loved the sound of her voice. Every time he spoke he felt like he was committing unspeakable atrocities on her beautiful language.
Allin picked up the book and showed it to her. She smiled and flipped to the front, then pointed a finger at a small black dot not too far from one of the large blue ones. "Where we are," she said. "Home."
He looked up at her for a moment, then flipped the pages back to the map he had been on. He placed a finger on the river, then drew it in a line to the east-southeast.
"Home," he said.
Teisha sat down beside him slowly, looking at the book and then looking at his face. "No," she said, sounding doubtful.
He nodded, looking back intently. "Yes." He did not have the words to explain further, to describe the Empire, how he had been captured, to say anything he had to.
"I do not runimor," she said.
He pointed at the black dot she'd indicated. "Your home," he said carefully. "Not mine, Teisha."
She pointed at the forest where he had been captured. "This is your home?"
"No," he said. He drew the line from her finger to where the gate should be. "Door… to my home."
She leaned back against the couch, her hands folded in her lap, and bit her lower lip. "I do not understand," she repeated. "You are… not ponthala?"
"I…" He had never been sure whether the word was "human," or "pet," or something else. Finally he raised his hands in an "I don't know" gesture.
Teisha tilted her head, biting her lip. "You happy?"
Allin looked up at her. Yes—and no. Answering required far more than the one or two words he could give her.
She seemed to take his silence as a negative; her eyes clouded over and she looked down at her hands, drawing her legs up against her.
"Do you… want to go home?" she finally asked.
"Yes," he said, finding himself unable to meet her eyes.
She nodded, then stood up abruptly and walked into her room, closing the door behind her.
After five minutes or so he walked up to it and tried the knob. It was locked.
"J'arala vo, shifin," he said softly.
She opened the door a moment after he spoke, looking down at him. Tears ran down her muzzle as she picked him up. "I love you, too," she whispered.
* * *
She kept teaching him the language, at an even faster pace than before, faster than he was entirely comfortable with. They did not speak again of the maps, or of home; Allin was afraid to mention it again.
But he began to hate himself for that weakness. And surely, it was one. Getting home had been his goal from before she'd brought him to her house. Yes, she was pretty; yes, he liked her. But there was only so far one could extend friendship to someone who treated you as a pet.
Even if you told her that you loved her.
His freedom was worth more than her temporary peace of mind. Yes, she might cry, but so what? When a few tears were weighed against his entire life, for God's sake.
Yet, day after day, he didn't bring it up. He looked at the atlas each morning, when she left. And by each evening he put it back, and tried to put on a cheerful face for her. He suspected she was trying to put on a cheerful face for him, too. Another month passed.
Then, one morning, the atlas was gone.