Call of the Wildkin Ch. 01

Hearing the noise downstairs, Lex ignored his every instinct and went to go check.

He reached below the bed and withdrew the baseball bat that was kept there, but this was more a factor of his girlfriend's city habits than it was his own sense of safety. In the deep country you would never have a weapon in the bedroom because you would never venture out to see what was causing the thuds and crashes you heard in the night. If something moving downstairs woke you from sleep, upstairs you would stay, behind the heavy and bolted door on the landing, until morning came and, hopefully, whatever was down there had vacated.

And if it hadn't? You took your phone, climbed down the nearest tree from your window, and hoped the journey between yourself and proper cell coverage went by faster than the creature could move, assuming you were seen.

But Brie had been firm: closer to civilization that approach simply would not do. It was more likely to be a burglar than a bear here, and they were far less amenable to stopping at the first locked door. The idea that the threats would come to you, that they were actively seeking rather than disinterested scavengers had been to Lex a good argument for staying in the woods, but he was here now, and so was whatever was happening downstairs.

Slipping out into the hall, Lex took the stairs slowly, with gradual steps that avoided the creaking planks midway down. He held the bat behind him, kept his back to the wall, so that he could be afforded the best possible view of the living room and kitchen as he went. From here, lingering just a few steps from the ground floor, the strange sounds continued, cabinets in the kitchen squeaking open and then slapping shut again, the noise rushed but in no way furtive. Before taking the final step onto the landing, Lex gripped the bat in both hands, firm now in his belief that there was something there that needed to be hit.

There was a crinkle of plastic, a soft crunch. Someone giggled, and Lex stepped forward into the gloomy half-light of the kitchen.

'Oh, come on, are you serious?' He flipped on the light, and stared. Perched on the counter, the intruder stiffened, froze in place, but if there was any need to actually use the baseball bat on her, Lex's capacity to do so had flitted away the moment he got a good look at her.

A woman, largely naked, sat on his counter, eating his chips.

Her ears, fluffy and dark atop her head, flattened against her hair. Her tail, banded and furry, lowered. Large brown eyes stared at Lex in wide, solemn shock, set into a pair of dark markings that ringed them and a fair segment of her face. She wore a tattered pair of denim shorts, unbuttoned and unzipped, and a thin shirt that had been carelessly and unevenly pulled up, revealing a heavy bust.

'I'm sorry, I'm sorry!' She squeaked, but Lex was already beginning to relax: he was familiar with raccoons, after all.

'Y-your door was unlocked, ah, I could smell the stuff inside, and I was so hungry...' The animal girl had not moved an inch, her eyes shining with tears and never, not even for a moment, leaving the bat hanging by Lex's side. Her gaze flicked, just for a second, behind him, a hunted look in them that he had never seen on a human's face. Thoughtlessly, he turned to follow her eyeline; the front door, still a little ways ajar, with him and his bat blocking the only path to it.

When Lex turned back, the raccoon had moved from the counter, now on her feet but not moving to cover the distance between them. Her back was pressed to the marble rim, and Lex got the feeling that if she could, the creature would simply phase right through the wall and run away.

'Do you always just wander in if you find an unlocked door?' Relaxing his grip, Lex let the bat lean itself against the wall, forgotten. A raccoon was no threat, even a big one, so long as you didn't corner it. This one visibly relaxed the moment he was no longer holding a weapon... but not entirely.

'I could smell food inside,' she replied, as though that were enough. For her it probably was: beastkin of many stripes did not have much use for private property, particularly not when the alternative was not getting enough to live on. The door had been open; with the windows all along the street barred and the trash cans locked down, where else was a raccoon supposed to go for food?

Lex sighed, and set himself to walking a course through the kitchen that brought him closer to the woman, offering her as wide a berth as she needed in the process. The fridge cracked open under his touch, and he reached out wide to get there, keeping his distance even as he showed he was no threat here. The raccoon girl shied away nevertheless, and this close Lex saw for the first time the way her ribs protruded through her skin, the narrowness of her forearms.

Yeah, as he had suspected...

'Still hungry?' He asked, leaning into the fridge, his face disappearing below the rim of the door. 'Because I'll give you a pro tip: the good stuff's down here in the crisper. You'll never be satisfied with just chips.'

The lower drawer opened with a plastic squeak, revealing a surfeit of greens within, a gleaming trove of fresh vegetables the likes of which the raccoon girl had evidently never seen before. Pulling a selection of them out into the light, Lex showed off a plastic bag bulging with green beans to the wide-eyed woman.

'Want me to cook for you? I guess I could use a midnight snack too,' he shrugged, dropping his haul onto the counter, where the raccoon's eyes followed it close. The next step involved getting a little closer, something Lex accomplished with a slow shuffle to one side, hoping to look as non-threatening as possible. She twitched, but did not go any further. Her gaze remained fixed on the food, the rest of her expression locked on the knowledge that he had not chased her out yet.

Since she had not scurried away, Lex unhooked a frying pan hanging on the wall, turned on the gas stove, and let it heat. Looking at the animal girl sidelong from the corner of his eye, he started prepping vegetables beneath her still hungry gaze.

'Do you have a name?' He asked, piecing out beans. 'I know that's not a sure thing among you guys. What should I call you?'

There was a pause, the wild creature on his counter tearing her eyes away from the food long enough to search him, eventually finding in him an answer that prompted her to reply: 'Apricot.'

'Apricot?'

'I was born in an orchard.' She shrugged. 'I have a sister called Peach. Your name?'

'Alexander, but you can call me Lex. Thanks for not breaking anything, by the way.' He flashed her a smile. 'Particularly the windows.'

'Too loud,' Apricot shook her head. 'Getting caught isn't something I like. You're helping me... Lex?'

'You didn't mean any harm, obviously, and I hate to see a person starve when they don't have to,' he replied. 'Let's just say I'm happy you're not a bear, right? A raccoon, I can feed. A bear, I'm less likely to have what they want, you know, not on my body.'

'We aren't friends of the bears either. They come by, we stay away,' Apricot said with unexpected solemnity. Her nose worked constantly now, taking rapid, sharp breaths to scent the vegetables Lex added to the pan. As she leaned in, the blush on his cheeks became all the more apparent.

'Well, now that we're friends, do you think you could... like, pull your top down?' He asked, keeping his eyes on his cooking. 'I'm not trying to be the clothes cop here or anything, it's just very distracting.'

'Oh.'

Without hurrying, Apricot rolled the teal fabric of her shirt down over her generous bust. Her shorts remained open, the deep shadows cast by her body the only thing covering the suggestive things within, but one could not have everything. City beastkin tended to understand the utility of clothing, but it was a warm night and that utility was rather lowered. As though nothing had happened, Apricot rocked back and forth on the counter, watching the cooking going on before her as though it were something of a magic trick.

'Thanks. I know it's not a thing for you guys, really, but it is for us,' Lex smiled.

'You're a nice human,' Apricot cut in before he could say more, the words rushed, tense. Her tail twitched. 'I don't meet many of those. Most of them try to chase me off with a broom, and you haven't, so... um, I'll do my best. But I don't talk to many humans, really. Can I eat?'

'Not until it's done, trust me,' Lex said, blinking, after a pause. 'You can take a seat at the table, you know. I'll bring you a plate when I'm finished.'

The raccoon tilted her head to one side, her fluffy ears twitching, before she headed on over. She approached the simple wooden table slowly, perhaps convinced that something should leap out from the underside to get her. When she pulled a chair out from under it, Apricot did so with one foot, hesitantly toeing it out into the open, her nose twitching. But her head swiveled back to the cooking, the scent of butter and salt, the real smells on the table right now; swallowing, she sat down.

Her tail, bushy and banded, poked out through the spokes of the back rest.

'I didn't always used to live in the city,' Lex said, giving the contents of the pan a theatrical flip, watching the raccoon girl's eyes follow it. 'There were other raccoons out where I used to be, they weren't no thing. Pretty nice, actually, if you're nice to them in return. We used to feed them, too, in return for a little foraging help around the forest. Good times.'

'Good food makes us very helpful,' Apricot nodded, still watching the pan like a hawk. 'Were there many nice humans, where you used to be?'

'No,' Lex said, a distant smile on his lips. Reaching over without looking, he took a salt shaker and tossed some of its contents into the mix, stirring. 'Not many at all. It's why we liked it.'

And then he was done, doling spoonfuls of mushrooms and asparagus onto a pair of plates. Steam rose from the piled vegetables, drifting behind him as he swung them around and placed them, one in front of each chair. Apricot was upon her serving before Lex could even be finished sitting down. Her fork, ignored, clattered off the plate.

'Is it good?' Lex asked, but not with any real hope of an audible answer. The raccoon girl was absorbed in the eating, savoring what was, admittedly, a simple meal as though it were the finest thing she had ever touched. Any lingering distrust in her had evaporated before cooked food and the kind of ingredients one did not usually find in the wild. Handfuls of the stuff disappeared, her throat working near constantly as she ate with evident enjoyment. If he looked closely, Lex could see the beginnings of relieved tears shining in the corners of her eyes.

It was the last thing he needed to relent completely, and he had already been wavering.

'So, listen...' He began, haltingly, unable to let the moment pass any longer. 'There's a shower upstairs, and a guest room...'

***

This night, it seemed, would be characterized by steam.

After their midnight snack, billowing swathes of the stuff drifted out of the open bathroom door, backed by a soundtrack of running water turned to full stream. From the sounds coming from within, and the spattering of water on the tiles visible from the door, it appeared Apricot cared little for the trappings that humans had developed for privacy. That tracked, but Lex wasn't willing to transgress on them anyway; he lingered beyond the doorway, angled in such a way that he could not see inside.

'Hey, I brought you some fresh clothes,' he called inside. They were his girlfriend's, but she probably wouldn't mind; things didn't end up in the hall linen closet without them being effectively abandoned, after all. Steam drifted out through the doorway in a huge waft, the tip of a banded tail visible momentarily in the gray swirl. 'I'll just, uh, leave them here by the door...'

'Thank you!' Apricot's voice was bright and scintillating, transformed by a good meal and hot water, but the underlying disinterest in clothes as a concept could not be ignored.

He almost made it back to his room before she began to sing.

The sound of it was a formless, trilling thing, notes without a backbone or plan; a song that the singer was feeling out as she went, producing sound for the sheer joy of it. Play, in audible form, and to hear it transported Lex back through the years and miles, to when it was an occasional companion to him, passing through rustling autumn boughs on more voices than he could ever count. The woods had been imposing, yes, but they had sometimes been full of friends.

Humans called what Lex heard now Wildsong, an inaccurate umbrella term for what was, in actuality, a large swathe of different beastkin songs and calls. Not a word that Lex had ever really liked, but whenever he heard the songs themselves, he could certainly see where the name had come from.

It was a rarity in the city, though, caught only in snatches down otherwise deserted alleys, or on the night of a full moon when the streets were otherwise silent. Apricot's voice was... smaller than those others, restrained in a way that the voices outdoors were not, but that only made her singing more special.

He lingered in the hall to listen, and bade the raccoon girl goodnight when she finally emerged, freshened and literally bushy tailed. In his heart Lex half expected that she would be gone by the next morning, but that didn't matter: the way she had smiled at him that night was more than enough.

***

He awoke with a heavy, warm weight on his legs, and the conclusion that Apricot had not, in fact, left in the night.

Her tail coiled and brushed against his feet, his calves, moving in ways that felt leisurely and sinuous. Her body was curled around one of his legs, angled in such a way to keep him beneath her. Deft hands with pointed nails delved into his pants, the worn elastic waistband offering no impediment at all. It was this last thing, in Lex's mental inventory of Apricot's touch against him, that prompted him to open his eyes.

'What are you doing?' He slurred, the first word drawn out to comical extremes, as the raccoon girl found what she had been looking for inside his pants.

'Repaying you for last night!' Warm brown eyes stared up at him once Lex had cracked open his. Without waiting to talk further, she pulled him out into the open air, his length stiffening under her touch. Apricot licked her lips, drawing close enough that he could feel her breath on his thickening cock, coming out in hot puffs as she took in his scent. Dark hair a tousled curtain that could not hide the happy twitching of her ears, Apricot reached forward and pressed her lips to his underside before Lex could respond, the pressure of her intimate kiss soft and wet and indecently hot.

Lex felt himself begin to squirm.

'Apricot... I have a girlfriend...' He said, trying his best to avoid sounding too unsteady. The raccoon girl regarded Lex in turn with sparkling incomprehension, unable to determine why that would matter at all.

'I'm happy for you,' she replied, taking her tongue to his base and running it all the way up to the tip. The next moment he was in her mouth, her lips sealing tight on his shaft. With a happy little moan she went to work, slipping down lower before bobbing back up. She pressed into his body harder, soft curves pushing against his leg. Lex doubted he could dislodge her without considerable effort... if even he wanted to.

'We can't just-' He began, pushing himself up onto his elbows in the same second that Apricot dove down, sliding his length into the back of her throat. He gasped, her tongue trailing a wet line of pleasure up Lex's underside as she drew herself up, pressing it hard against him as she went. Fingers tipped with claws stroked his erection in leisurely circuits, keeping him hard so she could address him.

'Shh. You were so kind to me, let me be kind back.' Apricot said, her voice rough and lustful. 'I want you, Lex...'

He wanted to say more, to put up more of a resistance than he had, but Apricot's eager tongue silenced Lex as easily as a hand over his mouth. She rubbed against him as she sucked him off, the breasts that he had gotten an eyeful of the night before sliding the length of his thigh, leaving him painfully aware of the nubile little body next to him. Her tail twitched and curled, leading his eyes down toward its base, her ass, with an inexorable pull. Apricot's back was arched, offering him an intoxicating view of her cheeks, fur shading to achingly smooth skin just where he'd want it to.

Slurping freely as she went, Apricot's hand drifted down, palm caressing the supple curves of her body until it ended up between her legs, fingers working at her lips and clit so that she moaned into Lex's cock. Her backside wiggled in time with her probing fingertips, tail a curling question mark of delight above, as though her hindquarters were asking him how long he was going to let her have her fun alone.

Beastkin were never particularly subtle when they wanted something, but they surely could be persuasive...

A moment's more hesitation eroded quickly in the squeezing wetness of the racoon girl's throat, the whimper of lust she gave off as she took him deep once more. Still addled with sleep but knowing what he wanted, Lex rose from his sheets, twisting and drawing Apricot beneath him in one smooth motion. Her legs parted for him easily, wide eyes watching him with fascinated amusement as he took her in properly for the first time. Generous breasts heaved with big, panting breaths, a scarlet blush extending from her cheeks down her chest.

Grinning, her ears twitching, Apricot extended a hand, fingers sticky, and pressed them to Lex's lips. Her fingertips pushed inside without much resistance.

'I can make some pretty tasty stuff too, huh?' She whispered, sweet arousal dripping onto the man's tongue. Sunlight slanted through the window, warming Lex's body while the rest of him stirred; without thinking, he swept his tongue across Apricot's intruding fingers, tasting more deeply of her offering. His cock, still hard and dripping with precum and her saliva, rubbed against her inner thigh, the crux of leg and hip, so close to her pussy that Apricot would only have to press forward but an inch to have Lex inside her...

'Oh, fuck it...' He growled, taking hold of Apricot by the hips and driving forward, engulfed in her wetness in moments. She took him all the way to the base with ease, moaning long and languorously while her newfound human friend filled her. The tip of her tail coiled into the hollow of Lex's knee, gripping softly, drawing him as close in as possible.

'Mmm, that didn't take much convincing...' Apricot arched her back against the sheets, luxuriating in the feeling of them on her bare skin. It was not something that she had gotten to feel very often; the experience of sleeping in a bed at all, in fact, was a rare treat that Apricot had made sure to treasure. And being able to wake up like this?

Well, it wasn't that there weren't men in her general orbit for when she felt the urge, but...

'It's been a while, alright?' Lex replied, working himself in and out of the raccoon girl's twitching pussy. Her legs wrapped around his waist, holding him in her, ankles locked behind his back.

'You have a girlfriend? She won't mind?' Shivering, Apricot ran long fingers down Lex's chest, exploring the musculature beneath his shirt. She had never been with a human before, and found herself intensely curious about the differences between them and beastkin, now that one was inside her.

'Definitely not,' he shook his head, pushing into her touch. 'She works with beastkin, she gets it. It's more that I don't really get you.'