A Beautiful Beast for Christmas

To her, Debbie was a stunning, though understated beauty, but in her experience, these Anubians never showed that they wanted to even speak to a human at all, if it could be avoided.

She looked back once and she saw them standing together just like any other couple who came to her shop to buy something. They were standing a little close to each other, feeling it, she guessed and the thing of it was that she saw hope there in them both.

Given that they were two very different creatures, she silently wished them both the best of luck. She didn't care much, but she thought that they were probably going to have to face all the same issues as anyone else -- only more of them, that was all.

She was in her third marriage now and she already knew that it was going to land on the skids at some point in the not too distant future if things went on as they were. Three different men, the same result every time. She was wondering what was wrong with her own selection process, if that was what it was.

She looked back again and they were standing with their arms around each other, talking quietly with smiles as they pointed to other articles now and then.

She turned away and pulled out the last of the two selection boxes that she was thinking of showing them and she shrugged to herself.

Maybe they had the right idea, who the hell could say?

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After the transaction had gone through, the clerk thought herself a little lucky that she had a pair of rings that they'd liked in both of their sizes, though it had been a little weird to see the human woman bring up a concern.

She'd watched as the Anubian got down on all fours to find out if the ring would cause her any discomfort in walking.

"I wish you all the best," she smiled sincerely as she handed Debbie the receipt, "and Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas to you as well," Khensa said as they turned to go.

As she watched them, the woman stood in a bit of shock. The Anubian had returned her sentiment and she wondered how much she knew of the custom.

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"It's much warmer in here now," Khensa smiled as they walked through the door of Debbie's craft.

"I keep the outer window covers closed to help retain the heat," Debbie smiled, "As I recall, that was a big selling point when you're out in space. You just keep them closed up and use the navigational cams that are built into the outside in a few places. Unless you're docking or something, you don't need to actually look out through the windscreens."

They took off their coats and started right in to put up the bits of tinsel and the other decorations and then Debbie pulled out the little Christmas tree to stand it up and plug it in. Khensa sighed as she looked at it and began to sink to her knees.

She was obviously in love with it and Debbie felt a rather strong desire right then to look for a real tree somewhere so that the Anubian could see the symbol in more of the splendor which something such as that was supposed to have.

It didn't matter much, she supposed. It was the thought that counted after all, and if this lovely creature could get the feeling from her poor little fake approximation of the real thing, well that was alright.

"Deborah," Khensa smiled after a while, looking a little nervous, "It is warm here and I think that it is warm enough to feel comfortable to you, I hope. I am a little too warm, being trapped in my fur coat. If you think that there is little chance that we would be disturbed now, I wonder if it would be alright for me to remove my clothes.

May I? Or would that make you uncomfortable?"

Debbie laughed, "I've been wanting to see something like that all day! Please do that and I'll go lock the door."

"You mean, to keep intruders out?" Khensa asked but Debbie laughed even more as she shook her head with a grin, "Nope, to keep you in!"

Khensa stared for a moment and then she just smiled, "As you have said it, we're married now."

She began to remove her clothing. Debbie got hold of herself before she found herself staring at Khensa's struggle to get her tight jeans off. It was at that point that she found that Khensa had a tail, though it wasn't thick or anything. It protruded through an opening at the back of Khensa's jeans and she helped to guide it through as the girl stood bent over a little, wiggling her hips to get the waist of the open jeans past her buns.

"Hold it. Hold on," Debbie grinned as they laughed together, "I never thought that it could be such a predicament. A good thing you have a wife to get you dressed - and undressed now.

Just uh, waddle backwards until you're against the foot of the bed."

Khensa complied, rather embarrassed now that it had proven to be so difficult just to get her pants off. She stood there, feeling the bed against the backs of her lower legs. "And? Now what?" she asked.

Debbie just grinned, "This part is easy."

She walked up and pushed Khensa over backwards so that she fell onto the bed. Then she grabbed the cuffs of the pants and began to tug until she had them off. She looked at the small, oddly-shaped lump in Khensa's thong for only long enough for it to register and then she looked away, smiling down at Khensa.

"What a beauty," she sighed and Khensa smiled her nervous thanks.

"Can I please unwrap my gift a little early?"

Khensa looked up for a moment in a little uncertainty and then she nodded. Debbie pulled Khensa's thong off and she helped by lifting her hips.

Debbie looked down and she saw that Khensa's cleft sure didn't resemble the classic camel toe. It was dark and looked something like a black plum sticking out of her with a bit of a pronounced upward point to the portion where her clitoris obviously hid under its hood there. Where the line would be on the plum, was the slit between her lips.

Khensa had been very nervous about this moment between them. She knew that she was rather different from human females and she wondered if it might put Debbie off.

But Debbie only smiled as she got onto the bed beside her, still fully dressed as she sat on one hip and looked down into Khensa's face.

"I'll never know how I could ever get this lucky," she smiled before she lowered her head to kiss Khensa very slowly.

While Khensa groaned softly, Debbie ran her hand over her breastbone and slid it over to cup one of Khensa'a breasts.

"I was afraid that you might not like me," the Anubian said.

"I was afraid to see you like this while I was standing up," the human smiled, "I know now that I was right and I'd have felt a little stupid when I fell to my knees.

She shook her head slowly, "You're different. So what? I think that we should celebrate things like that. That's one of the attractions that you must have to want an ape. It's also one of the attractions to me that draws me to you. It's not the whole thing, Khensa, but it's a very sweet thrill that we can enjoy with each other all the same."

She leaned down and kissed one black nipple, licking it to wet it before she squeezed it softly with her lips. Khensa's long sigh was a thrill for her to hear. She kept at it while her hand drifted over the soft dark fur on its way lower, over the rock hard and flat belly to where she began to trace around the plum with her fingers.

"This is very nice," she sighed into Khensa'a ear as her fingertips touched the sides of the dark protrusion gently. It was very firm, she noticed, and it was moist in the middle.

When she looked at it again, she was a little surprised to see that it had grown a little bit, but then she thought a little about the equivalency of the purpose of these things, both hers and Khensa's, so she knew almost at once after that that it had grown out of Khensa'a arousal, much the same way that her own lips there tended to get a little pouty when she was aroused -- like, ... well, like right then.

She guessed that somehow, there might not be the room for it and so on Khensa -- and she had to assume that it was the same for all Anubian females -- that when it went puffy, it also came out just a little. She thought it looked nice and it fit with the rest of things.

"I'll make you a bargain," she smiled as she pulled her head back to look into those eyes that she was already falling for, "We can either begin now -- and I warn you that I haven't really got a clue, or we can enjoy our first evening together at Christmastime and save the loving until later."

Khensa groaned so softly that it almost came out as a whine, "I want you right now, but I think it is better to wait until later. What do you think?"

Debbie just had to know, so she slid one fingertip over the line which parted the fruit and she brought it to her mouth in a rather rare moment of purposeful daring, now that they were on the bed and all.

"I think," she said before Khensa watched her tongue slip out of her mouth to lick the moisture from her finger, "that my husband is a very wise girl."

She leaned down to kiss Khensa for a moment and then she sat back again, "I also think," she smiled, "That I'm a very lucky one who's just discovered that I love the way that you taste, so I think, ..."

She leaned down and waggled her eyebrows a little comically, "that I've been an idiot for all of this time for not trying something like this. But I've got you now, and I'm going to keep you, Baby."

She looked up with a soft laugh at herself, "I'm so happy and it's even better that it's Christmas. I like to see the things that you see through your eyes because it makes me appreciate what I always took for granted."

When Khensa got up, Debbie removed her clothes and they gave in to just one long kissing embrace before continuing with the decorations, though it was incredibly difficult for them both to do.

"I'd probably get used to seeing you this way," Debbie smiled as she stood leaning against Khensa with her fingers toying at the Anubian's tail where it met her long flanks, "But I'm hoping that it takes a good long while for me to come to get used to this thrill, but if I had my way, as good as you look in any clothing, I'd prefer to keep you naked around here.

Khensa's lips pulled into a slow smile then, "I love to look at you as well, so, I will if you will."

With it settled, they got back to work, sneaking little peeks at each other and grinning when they knew they'd been caught at it.

-------------------

As the evening wore on, Debbie turned on her larger mapping display and she found the tiny memory drive that contained the carols and images of winter and roaring fireplaces and huge Christmas trees, winter scenes from Earth and all of the stuff which looked so cheesy at any other time of the year, but at Christmas, it looked just grand.

Debbie knew that she'd more than likely have to explain it all to Khensa and she really did, though she didn't mind it a bit as they sat together on the edge of the bed with Khensa's lovely face set in a look of absolute wonder at it all.

Debbie found that it gave her a very nice feeling to show these things to Khensa, and perhaps even more, she liked the way that her Anubian was beginning to feel comfortable enough with her to allow her aloofness to fall from her more and more.

The microwave ran over and over, cooking up the frozen hors d'œuvres that they'd found. The little oven ran as well to keep everything from cooling too much until everything was ready. Khensa stared at it all.

"Ok, the thing here is to try a little of everything," Debbie explained as she held out the large plate that they were to share from, "You might not like some of this. You might even hate it, but that's the way it goes. If you don't like something, then don't eat it. This is just something light to eat and it ought to be fun."

She pulled the bottle of wine out of the fridge and twisted off the cap. "The way that it used to be done on Earth is that the bottles were plugged with cork. You needed a tool called a corkscrew to pull it out. Now, you can't even get wine in a corked bottle out here to save your life."

They toasted each other and drank one glass with their meal together and after that, they sat on the floor, leaning back against the foot of the bed while they leaned against each other and stared at the tiny little blinking lights of the tree with the cabin lights out.

"I was thinking of your Christmas with Tesem," Debbie smiled, "and it reminded me of our Christmases while we were at college, Robby and me. We'd planned forever to go together, and we were poor as mice when we finally got there and paid our tuition. We had it set up so that we could draw enough to live on though we both worked as we could. There was more tuition money in the account, but we set it up to only be released at the times when we needed it to go on in our studies.

We didn't even have enough to buy a little tree like that one, but we knew that just one time, we wanted to have a real Christmas tree.

Well it just happened that there had been many Earth crops planted there and spruce trees were one species of them. On some worlds, it's big business growing Christmas trees.

So, very late one night, Robby and I went out to a vacant field not too far away from where we lived -- like it was right out back and all. The place was scheduled to be built over for more housing and we knew that all of the trees out there just growing wild would be bulldozed down one day."

She looked over to see Khensa there hanging on every word. "And?" she asked, "What then?"

Debbie shrugged, "We did something that neither of us had ever done before in our lives.

We stole one."

Khensa sat with her jaw in her lap. "How is that done?" she asked, "How do you steal a tree?"

"Put your arm around me and I'll tell you," Debbie smiled softly.

When they sat back again, Debbie smiled even more to feel Khensa's arm around her and her other very warm hand cupping one of her breasts very carefully with her thumb just grazing her nipple back and forth very slowly.

She slipped her hand down so that she could hold Khensa'a 'plum' with her hand.

It came to her then that every single time that she'd ever felt anything of the Anubian's body against hers, there had always been that warmth.

Being a human woman, she thought, she could get used to that quite easily. She wanted to grin, but she held it back when she realized that this wonderful person that she was coming to know wore a full-time fur coat.

She almost laughed.

She'd never feel cold in her bed again.

She went on, "We knew that whoever owned that land wouldn't care about the trees or anything else which grew there on it wild, but we also felt that it was wrong to do.

We tried to find out so that we might ask, but we couldn't get anywhere and Christmas was coming up in only a day. So while Robby was on his knees in the snow, sawing the poor thing down, I kept a lookout and wondered just how loud a handsaw could sound in the dark of the night.

When we finally had it down, we just carried it off, though he went back right away to sweep our tracks with an evergreen bough while I got out the very few cheap decorations that we'd managed to buy. After that, we set it up and decorated it as best we could for a couple of poor students far from home.

It was the best Christmas ever to us.

We didn't know a soul there that far from the school, since it was the only place that we could afford to rent, so we just stayed home and studied and I baked cookies and we fucked like bunnies in the living room over the Christmas break."

She laughed a little, "We didn't see our bed the whole time. We'd just turn out the lights after plugging in the tree lights and we made love and went to sleep when we couldn't do it anymore."

She had a thought then and she looked at Khensa. "I know that it's a little foreign to you in some ways, and I don't really know what you know about the meaning of it all, but having sex really isn't an official part of it at all. I guess that when you're young and on your own and if you're got somebody that you care for, it's just something that I'd guess happens a lot, that's all."

"I know that," Khensa said, "That was a wonderful story. I could imagine it easily.

Do you think that we will make love tonight?"

The question was a little odd to Debbie, but she didn't mind. She looked over into Khensa's eyes for a moment and she saw exactly what she'd had a hope to see there.

She kissed Khensa softly and smiled a little, "Other than kissing, I really don't know much about the way that it goes with another girl, Khensa, but to me, you're very beautiful and I know that I want to make love with you very much."

She sat up and half-turned a little more as she reached for the Anubian's far shoulder with her hand. "Through our little misadventure, we're married. I think that it was something that we did as a matter of convenience so that we could live here together as roommates.

But I think that I've had little thoughts of wondering about it even before that. That is what I seem to feel about it. I mean, I know that we're very different, but I don't care about that. I even like it.

Now, I'm sitting here with the girl that we needed to say would be my husband and the soft scent of her fur makes me want her even more."

She leaned in and kissed Khensa for a long time, both of them moaning a little as their tongues found each other and danced.

When they pulled apart, Debbie smiled again as she ran her fingers through Khensa's cornrow hair for a moment, loving the feel of the little beads there. "I know that we didn't exactly pick the day that we met for it, but this is our wedding night, so I'd really like to try if you'll be patient with me until I get the hang of it."

Khensa nodded, "This has been the most amazing day for me. In one day, I met someone who I had an immediate desire to know, just on sight. It has never happened to me before."

She looked up at the ceiling for a second, as though she just wanted to laugh and then she looked into Debbie's blue eyes again. "At the end of that magical day, I find that she is my wife and now wants to make it, ... what is the word?"

Debbie thought, wondering what it was that Khensa wanted to say and then it came to her.

"When two people get married in a human culture, I think they can say and do about anything that they want, but it doesn't count in a legal way until they mate together. We call that consummating the marriage."

"Ah, yes," Khensa grinned, "that is what I wished to say."

"In fact," Debbie went on, "if you wanted to erase all of this, we just have to do nothing and have our marriage annulled. It doesn't count if we don't have sex together within a reasonable period, like a couple of days, I think."

But Khensa shook her head at that, "No, Deborah, we must. I do not want to erase anything and I would not want to hurt the heart of the one that I care for so much in so little time. I saw you there on the bench waiting for me this morning. I didn't know that it was you who I was going to meet with, but, I really hoped that it was.

I do not believe in this old god of humans, this Anubis character. After my life this far, I did not believe in anything anymore, but when I watched you walk into the place and sit down, looking at your phone, I had such a hope, and though I have been with another female before, it was nothing special to me, since it was in that time when I had become so lax and jaded.

Today?"

She really did laugh then, "I sat there wondering which god or deity that I had to thank for my incredible luck to have even seen a beauty like you. And to learn that she likes me so much that she would do what we did -- all while telling ourselves and each other that we were only doing it to be able to share a place to live in."