Baser Instincts Ch. 03

The next day, Kost woke up determined to get the better of whatever it was that the strange linsang had done to him.

He grabbed the plastic bag off his dresser as he went into the bathroom to clean up. The employee working at the pharmacy yesterday had been male, so he hadn't had any problems getting ahold of what he needed to, even if his particular purchase had earned him a raised eyebrow.

From within the bag he withdrew a bottle of special fur shampoo intended for skunks and other mammals with rather potent odors who wished to mask them. Supposedly it worked just as well on canines. Not wanting to take any chances, Kost used about a quarter of the bottle in the shower as he cleaned up.

But that was far from the only precaution he'd taken. After he'd dried off with a fresh towel pulled from the linen closet, Kost grabbed the other supplies he'd picked up from the bag. First, anti-perspirant deodorant to make it so he didn't sweat a drop. Then, a scent spray thick with the smell of sandalwood to mask all hints of his natural musk that might come out. Lastly, a scented powder that he brushed into his skin that also smelled of wood.

Kost's nose recoiled of its own accord at the raucous assault of smells wafting around the small bathroom. He coughed several times, then opened the door to vent the room. It was a good sign - if he was overwhelmed by it, anyone he came into contact with would be as well. It was imperative that Penelope not get a single sniff of his natural musk. Seeing her driven into a frenzy by whatever was going on with him would be almost too much to bare.

Suitably prepared, Kost dressed and set out. Penelope attended the small Havart Community College across the bay, and normally Kost liked to drive across the bridge with the windows down to let the smell of sea swirl around him in his small car. Not today, though. The windows stayed up, leaving him to sit and stew in a cloud of chemical-based scents.

The logical thing he needed to do was go see a doctor. But what doctor would believe the truth? Yes, hello, Doctor So-and-so, I started dreaming about a linsang with unnatural eyes and now every woman I spend more than a minute talking to wants to sleep with me. He'd be laughed out of the clinic. Or worse, the doctor would question whether or not it was even a problem at all.

Kost was so wrapped up in anxious thinking he almost missed the turn to the campus, and quickly cut across two lanes to make it.

A short while later, he pulled into the parking lot of a Greek restaurant a stone's throw from the campus. Penelope was waiting outside, and she perked up at the sight of his car. Kost always felt guilty at the little pang he got whenever he saw her. She'd gotten so much of her mother's looks, with her light brown pelt with white patches, the little tufts of fur on the inside of her ears and her bright brown eyes. She looked like she'd just come from class, wearing a blouse and jeans.

He took a deep breath. First sign of anything out of the ordinary, you leave. You get in the car and don't look back. For a moment, he waited, expecting to hear the linsang's voice make a snide comment. But when it didn't happen, and Penelope tilted her head quizzically, Kost realized he must look the fool.

"Hey, Dad!" Penelope said, walking to meet him as he got out of the sedan. She paused, blinking at him. "Hey, what did you do to your fur?"

"I, uh, dyed it!" Kost said quickly, mentally chastising himself. Penelope was no fool, of course the first thing she'd notice would be his fur not being gray anymore. "Decided to try something new."

Her nostrils flared, and panic surged in Kost's gut. Her eyebrow shot up. "Is that why you smell like you took a bath in sawdust?"

Kost coughed, forcing a smile. "Y-yes! I liked the smell, so I decided to use a lot of it."

Penelope snickered, rolling her eyes. "Dad, next time, less is more. Got it?"

The panic vanished as quickly as it came. So far, so good. "Right..."

He held the door to the restaurant open for her before going inside himself. Good smells wafted around him - cooking meat, spices, freshly baked bread. But they only touched his nose for a brief moment before the cloud that Kost exuded brushed them aside. Several of the nearby patrons, particularly those with sensitive noses, were shooting him dirty looks. All Kost could do was mouth "sorry" sheepishly.

"Seriously Dad, did you go overboard on accident or on purpose?" Penelope asked as they stepped up to the counter.

"It was an accident, I swear," Kost said, as the nose of the badger taking their order wrinkled.

Kost ordered a gyro, Penelope some lamb skewers, and they sat down at a table in the back after Kost paid. He felt it was proper to give the other patrons some space owing to the smell. "So what's new with you?" he asked.

Penelope sighed and slumped over with an exaggerated motion. "Classes are kicking my butt, that's what. Seems every moment I'm not in class I'm in the lab with my psych professor. Lady doesn't know what 'free time' is seems like."

"That's college for you," Kost offered.

Penelope gave him a dry look. "Real reassuring there, Dad."

"Sorry."

She laughed and straightened up. "I'm just yanking your tail, calm down. How's the dealership?"

"It's been okay," Kost said, lifting his arms as a server brought them their food. "Already met my numbers for this month, so I can just coast this next week if I want to."

"Sounds awesome," Penelope said. "Taking the week off?"

Kost shook his head. "I'll still go, help out everyone else. Keeps me occupied."

Penelope chewed a bite of lamb for a long time before swallowing. "How long has it been since you took a vacation?"

"I honestly don't remember."

She frowned. "Dad, that's not good."

Kost sighed and took a bite of his gyro. "I know."

"Look, I know you don't want to talk about Mom. God knows we talked about her a lot after... after she died. But ever since the funeral, you keep mentioning her less and less." She reached out and put her paw atop his. "It's beginning to freak me out a little. As far as I can tell you just wake up, go to work, eat at Maggie's for lunch, then go home and sleep."

The mention of Maggie's brought back memories of the bovine humping back against him, her thick ass jiggling with every crack of his hips against hers. Kost quickly smothered the thoughts. "I mean, that's it, more or less."

Penelope's paw squeezed his. "And that's really not good."

"I know," he repeated.

She sighed and went back to her food, tugging bits of meat off the skewers with sharp motions of her teeth. "I mean," she said after a moment, "please don't get mad for me suggesting this, but have you thought about dating anyone? You're only fifty, you've still got plenty of time left."

Kost shook his head. "No. I'll always be in love with your mother."

"Dad, I'm not saying you have to just leave her behind, forget about her. It's possible for you to love more than one person romantically in your lifetime, you know? I don't want to just watch you live the rest of your life alone. Mom would want you to move on."

"I can't just move on," Kost said, his tone growing tense. Who was Penelope to suggest he just throw in with some other woman that wasn't her mother? Who gave her the right to suggest such a thing?

"Okay," Penelope said softly, her ears pinning back a little. "Sorry."

Kost realized he was snarling a little and clenched his jaw, biting back the sound. Though the scent masking seemed to be working, evidently there were still other parts of this condition that weren't reliant on scent. "It's okay," he said softly. "I just still miss her. Very much."

"I know." Penelope offered him a small smile.

Kost seized the opportunity to shift the focus. "What about you? Any handsome men in your life right now?"

Penelope coughed, her ears swiveling from side to side. "Ah, no. Too busy in the lab."

It seemed like a quick, hasty answer, meant to conceal something from him, but he couldn't fathom what it was. "Probably for the best if you're so busy," Kost said. "You can worry about that after your degree."

Penelope laughed. "That's true!"

They made small talk while they ate the rest of their food, Kost relaxing more and more as time passed. His overzealousness with the scents seemed to be doing the trick, as Penelope hadn't made even the slightest overtures of inappropriate attraction to him. So far, so good.

As they finished, Penelope's phone rang in her bag. "Oh, hang on," she said, pulling it out to answer it. "Hello? Hey, Cinth, what's up?"

Cinthia was Penelope's roommate and close friend, so there was no telling how long their chat might last. He gathered up their plates and silverware, taking the trash over to a nearby garbage can and setting the washable utensils in a small bin on a shelf next to it. As he turned, a flash of spotted gold caught his eye.

Sitting at one of the tables for two by the window was the linsang. He was wearing an Oxford shirt and slacks, looking directly at him. However, rather than the usual smug expression he wore, his face was now far more malicious. His eyes were black through and through, his fur ruffled by an unseen wind.

"I was really looking forward to this one," he said, loud enough to be heard over the chatter in the restaurant. "But she had to ruin it for me."

Kost's head snapped towards Penelope, still taking on the phone. When he looked back, the linsang was gone, vanished into thin air. He screwed his eyes shut and rubbed them before opening them up again. What in the world had that been about?

"Hey Dad, can you give me a lift back to the dorm?" Penelope asked, tapping him on the shoulder.

Kost suppressed a shriek of surprise. "Yes!" he said a little too loudly. "Yes I can!"

"O-kaaaaay," Penelope said, her face wary. "You okay?"

"Just fine!" Kost said, fishing his keys out of his pocket. "Ready when you are!"

The drive from the restaurant to the dorm was far more muted than their conversation in the restaurant. "You look like you saw a ghost," Penelope said.

"Just a weird feeling that came and went, that's all," Kost said. "Maybe some bad tzatziki."

"Yeah," Penelope said slowly. "Maybe."

Kost pulled up in front of the dorm building on the edge of the campus, forcing himself to relax. "How's Cinthia doing?" he asked.

"Overall great, but right now she needs a paw with getting something unstuck from under her bed." She inclined her head. "Mind helping?"

Kost slowly looked all around them for any other sign of the linsang. There was nobody around save for a human couple sitting under a tree eating lunch and an armadillo walking to class. "No, of course not," he said.

They ascended to the third floor of the dorm together, Kost letting Penelope lead the way. Her door was the first one to the right of the stairwell, secured with simple key lock. She unlocked the door and stuck her head in. "Hey Cinth, I brought my dad. You decent?"

"Oops, hi Mr. Nowak!" Cinthia's bubbly voice said from inside the dorm. "Gimme a minute!"

"Swear to God, pants are an abstraction to her as soon as she walks through the door," Penelope snickered. Kost forced a chuckle, feeling tension squeeze his throat.

A moment later, a webbed paw opened the door the rest of the way. Cinthia was a pretty otter, her brown fur clean and brushed until it was fluffy. She wore a shirt and sweats that didn't match, hastily tucking the top into the waistband of the sweats. "Hi there!" she chirped. "Sorry to rope you into this." Her nose recoiled, and Kost's gut knotted once more. "Did you uh... do something to your scent?" she asked.

"He put in too much scent this morning," Penelope said. "Don't worry about it."

"I'll say," Cinthia said, waving her paw in front of her nose.

"Yes, well," Kos said. "What is it that you needed help with?"

"This thing!" Cinthia led them across the small dorm room to her bed close to the window. Underneath the bed she'd crammed a multitude of plastic bins, packing them in tight to use the space as much as possible. One of them was a couple inches further out than the others, and Cinthia gave it another experimental tug with her paws. "It won't budge!"

"Dad, think you can muscle this out?" Penelope asked.

"Sure, give me a second." Kost knelt down on the floor by the bed and gave the bin an experimental tug. He heard the clack of plastic on plastic underneath the bed, about where the back end of the bin would be. "I think something's stuck down there, hang on." He balanced himself on both knees and got a good grip on the bin before heaving hard. It slid free another few inches. Kost hunched over, set his jaw, and pulled hard.

The bin popped free, and Kost almost rolled head over tail as he fell backwards. "You okay?" Penelope asked.

"Just fine," Kost said, picking himself up. He looked underneath the bed to see what could've been holding the bin in place. At first glance he didn't see anything, but then in the shadows he saw something long and circular... with a power cord attached to the end. Kost blushed furiously. "Well, here you are!" he said.

Cinthia clapped her paws. "Oh, thank you Mr. Nowak!" She took the bin from him and set it on her bed.

"It's no trouble," Kost said, reaching back to smooth down the fluffed up fur on his neck. Calm down, it was just a vibrator, he chided himself.

"What's in this thing anyway?" Penelope asked.

"Clothes!" Cinthia said. "Specifically clothes that adults wear when they do adult things."

Kost felt his neck fur spring back up, and for a brief awful moment he imagined the otter wearing filly black lingerie that pushed up her tits and ass and made them more perky than they already were. "Well, uh," he coughed, "glad I could help."

"I've got a hot date tonight," Cinthia said, tapping her claws on the lid. "Gotta figure out what I'm going to wear when he and I have a little fun." She moved next to Kost and gave him a quick hug. "Thanks very much again!"

He was eternally grateful that only his fur was perked up as the otter's slinky body pressed to his. "Not a problem!" he said.

Penelope's phone rang, and she took a few steps away to answer it. "Hello?" she said. "Oh, hey Professor. No, I'm not busy, just had lunch with my dad. Yeah, I can be there. Okay, bye." She sighed and turned back to them. "Well, duty calls. Teacher needs me to help put some lesson plans together."

"I'll walk you downstairs!" Kost said, quickly putting a paw on Penelope's shoulder and steering her out of the room.

"You're acting really weird today," Penelope said. "You sure you're okay?"

Kost forced himself to speak in a calm voice. "I'm okay, sweetie. Really."

"Alright." Her voice was hesitant as she pushed open the metal door at the bottom of the stairwell. Before Penelope could say anything else, her phone rang again. Annoyance flashed across her face as she answered. "Cinth? Wait, really?" She looked to Kost. "She says you left your phone up there."

"I don't think I did." Kost reached into his back pocket where his phone usually stayed, and blinked as he felt nothing there. "Oh. When did I...?"

"Must have set it on the table or something," Penelope said. "Wanna go back up and get it?"

"Sure," Kost said. "I'll see you later?"

"He'll be right up, Cinth." Penelope hung up. "Of course!" She gave him a chaste hug. "Just... feel better, alright? And take a bath, stinky."

Kost laughed and hugged his daughter close. "I will. Thanks for meeting me today."

"Love you, Dad." Penelope gave him pats on the shoulder, then turned and hurried off, headed towards where she was needed.

Kost watched her go, before turning and walking back up the staircase to the dorm room. He tried to figure out when he'd taken his phone out of his pocket, but couldn't remember any bit of him doing it. Hell, he'd felt it press against his rump as he yanked the bin out from under the bed. So how had it happened?

He was still trying to figure it out as he knocked on Penelope and Cinthia's door. "Cinthia?" he asked.

"Hey, Mister Nowak," the otter said. "Come in, the door's unlocked!"

Kost pressed down on the handle and pushed his way into the room. As he did, he didn't see the otter anywhere. "Cinthia?" he said.

The door clicked shut behind him, followed by the clack of the bolt lock being thrown. Kost spun around, and his eyes widened.

Cinthia was splayed across the door, her arms spread wide across the width of the wood. Her eyes held the flickering madness he'd come to know over the last few days, a lustful need born of factors out of her control. She'd changed from the t-shirt and sweatpants into a set of deep purple lingerie, complete with mesh thigh-high stockings. The bra was almost a size too small, her perky tits spilling out around the fabric. They were joined to the bottoms by fabric straps, and the panties hooked tight into the cleft of her legs.

She licked her lips. "Looking for this, Mister Nowak?" She held up one of her paws, waving his phone back and forth between her claws.

Kost's mouth opened and shut several times as his mind raced to catch up with what his eyes were seeing. "Y-yes," he said. "Where did I leave it?"

"You didn't leave it anywhere," Cinthia said, her voice soft and husky. "I stole it out of your pocket when I hugged you. I'm surprised you didn't feel it. But I had to get rid of Penelope somehow so that we could be alone." She sniffed deep, nostrils flaring wide. "I needed to be alone with that fucking scent."

Kost tried to play it cool, despite the magic the sight of her was working on his body. "Well, I know sandalwood is supposed to be a masculine scent, but I never expect you to like it so-"

"Not that one," Cinthia murmured, a shudder passing through her whole body as if she were shaking something loose from her fur. "The other one. The one underneath it. Your natural one."

He held out his paw. "Cinthia, just give me my phone, please. I don't-"

She moved with a speed that caught him off guard, pushing him back into the frame of her bed. Kost's heels bumped into the pile of plastic bins. Her finger pressed to his lips as she stuffed his phone down the back of her panties. "You'll get it back when I'm done with you," she growled. Then she was on him, kissing him on the muzzle with a fierce passion.

Kost felt his resistance crumble in record time, that alien strength surging in his limbs as his split personality took over. He crushed the nubile otter to him, claws trailing lines through her soft fur. She crooned into his muzzle, cupping him through his pants, her claws curling low and gentle around his balls. "Always wanted to fuck you," she panted against his mouth. "You've got to be be the hottest dad I've ever met."

Kost snarled and pushed back against her, spinning them around so he was kissing her against the bed frame. His paws wandered more boldly, sliding under the lingerie to cup and squeeze those supple, soft globes. "Got a thing for dads, eh?" his voice growled in her ear.

"Just you, Mister Nowak," she panted, grinding her hips into his pelvis.

"Call me Kost," he snarled. "Up on the bed."

Cinthia obeyed, scrambling up onto the bed quickly. Kost slapped her rump as it was presented to him, earning a giggle from the otter. She rolled over, her muzzle level with his groin. "Hello there."

Kost put a paw on the back of her head and mashed her nose into his crotch. "Don't keep me waiting."

He felt her tongue lathe along the outline of his shaft through his pants before her claws went to work on the fasteners and zipper. Then she licked him again through his underwear, before those were tugged down and his thick, red shaft was free. Cinthia crooned as she nuzzled and licked the hot, musky length, her whiskers tickling Kost's hips. Her lips were softer than both Gabrielle and Maggie's, but no less experienced as they kissed the tip of his member. "You're bigger than my boyfriend," she murmured.