Sami

"Really? That's great!" he said, face lighting up brightly. Then, he composed himself, saying, "I mean, um, hey, that's fine by me."

"If you want to do anything else..."

"I won't force you," he said.

She paused. "No one would try to stop you, you know."

Robert gawked at her. "Look, I'm not going to—"

"I just want you to understand that," she said. "People might consider you disgusting for it, but no one would really care if a Demihuman got taken advantage of. So you can see why I would be cautious." Robert slowly nodded, frowning at the thought. "Either way, though, people are going to talk, seeing us together like this. You may find yourself getting more negative attention than you need. Idefinitelywill, and I don't need that kind of trouble."

Robert swallowed, but nodded. "I understand," he said. "So, how would you prefer to handle this?"

Sami looked at him with a new kind of appreciation. He was actually listening to her, taking her direction. Very unusual for a human to do. But then, he wasn't quite human, was he? "First, we shouldn't meet in public like this, but I'll give you my address. It's in a... well. It's not really a good neighborhood. But humans don't really pay attention to what goes on there."

"I don't suppose you could come to my place, huh?"

"Where do you live?"

"Apartment on the edge of campus."

"Yeah, no. Way too risky. You realize I could lose my job if the wrong people found out I was fraternizing with a human."

Robert frowned. "I'm sorry. I didn't know it was that complicated for you."

"It is what it is," she said. She pulled out a pen and paper, and wrote down a location. "Be there tomorrow at eight." She stood and gave him a bow.

"Thank you!" he said, grinning.

THREE

"So, how did it go with the boy?" said Mrs. Celmen. "Did you meet with him?"

"Yes," said Sami as she filed away some papers. "He was a nice boy."

"And? What did you do?"

"Got coffee and cake."

Mrs. Celmen blinked. "That's it? Coffee and cake?"

"We talked a bit," said Sami. She didn't want to divulge more than she had to.

"Fine, fine," said Mrs. Celmen, taking the hint. "I'm glad you at least gave it a shot."

"Actually, I'm, uh, meeting him again tonight," she said.

Mrs. Celmen beamed. "Really? That's wonderful!"

"Pleasedon't tell anyone. You know I could get into trouble."

Mrs. Celmen pursed her lips. "I know, I know. I'm sorry. It's just, you're such a serious young woman, and I think you could stand to have a little fun. I know it's tough for you Demihumans, but—"

Sami's normally calm voice betrayed a hint of exasperation. "No, Mrs. Celmen, you don't. I know you mean well, but you haven't the slightest clue." Mrs. Celmen blinked, a little stunned. Then her expression darkened. Sami quickly realized her error. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean that! It's been a frustrating week, and—"

Celmen held up her hand. "No," she said. "You're right. I don't get it. Obviously I wouldn't, right? God forbid a human have the ability to empathize with a mon-." She caught herself before she could complete the word, but they both knew what she had been about to say, and Sami winced. "Monster." It wasn't the worst insult Sami had heard, but coming from her friend...

Stupid,thought Sami,I should have watched my own language in the first place.Sami took a breath and said, "I'm sorry."

Mrs. Celmen waved her off. "No, no, it's my fault. I know I can be overly enthusiastic about things. But Sami, Idoknow it's tough for you. That's why I want you to try and find friends, so you don't think every human is a scumbag."

"I don't thinkyouare."

"I appreciate that, but aside from me." Mrs. Celmen looked at the clock. "Look, you've only got a couple hours left, and there's not much left to do. I can finish up here. How about you take the rest of the day off?"

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. It'll give you some extra time to prepare for your da—your meeting." She gave Sami a warm smile.

"Thank you," said Sami, bowing again. She grabbed her backpack and headed out. She sighed. Why had she snapped at Mrs. Celmen like that? She was usually a lot more tolerant of her unintended aggravations. The answer was obvious, though: Robert.

She'd been thinking all night and day about what she was going to do when Robert showed up at her apartment. It was clear Robert's interest in her was at least partially physical, but she herself still had no attraction to him. She wasn't repulsed by the idea of cross-species relations. Her first and so far only boyfriend had been a Rouccuan, one of the cat-like Demihumans, but she just didn't see humans that way. Robert's elemental power aside, he was still too human in appearance for her taste. The white hair was a nice touch, but he didn't even have any fur. But what the heck else were they going to do together? Talk some more?

It took her forty minutes to walk to her apartment complex. A bus would have been faster, but she preferred the walk to being trapped in a metal box with several dozen humans shooting her dirty looks. Of course, most humans getting off at her stop weren't the type one would want to associate with anyway.

Her apartment was a former motel that hadn't been properly maintained in years, aside from the barest basics necessary to not get the place condemned. It would be hard pressed to say this town had a full-sized slum, but if one were to label an area as such, this would be it. The apartment was a large complex of three long buildings, holding almost all of the city's Demihuman population, a whole fifty in total. A few humans even lived here, but they usually moved out quick once they were able to afford better accommodations. Of course, other humans came here now and then as well, but their interests were purely recreational in one way or another.

As Sami came up to her room, she sighed as she noticed the door had been kicked in again. She closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. A moment later, the door next to hers opened up. Her neighbor Zetta popped her head out and gave Sami a sympathetic smile. "Yeah," said the middle aged Worgen woman. "Happened around noon. Woke me up from a nap." The diminuitive, monkey-tailed Demihuman came out and gave Sami a pat on the lower back, which was as high as she could comfortably reach. "I chased him off, but, well, I think he grabbed a few things."

"Third time this month," said Sami, answering in High Zoan as well.

"I know," said Zetta. "I've contacted the land lords about maybe arranging for some guards or something to patrol the place, but you know they can't be arsed to spend a dime over anything less than just keeping the building from falling down."

Sami pushed open the door, and looked around. Zetta had prevented the man from rummaging through more than a couple drawers and her book shelf. She looked through them and sighed. The intruder had taken two books, which she'd already read, and an old portable cassette tape player, which didn't work anyway. Those she didn't care about. However, as if to add insult to injury, she noticed he'd also taken her vibrator. She could only imagine why. He probably just grabbed the first thing he saw that wasn't clothes when Zetta burst in. Well, great. There went her stress relief plan for the afternoon.

"We've got to figure out something," said Sami, sounding more exasperated than anything. "I can't keep coming home to this."

"Well, you could always ask one of your well-educated human friends to put you up," said Zetta, leaning against the broken doorframe. "Go be someone's nice little pet."

"Haha," said Sami. She frowned deeply as she poked at the splintered section where the door knob used to latch. "Great. And right when I'm having company, too."

Zetta cocked an eyebrow at her. "Company?"

Sami nodded. She'd planned on letting Zetta know anyway. "I'm having a... uh... a boy over. A human boy."

Zetta's other eyebrow joined its sibling in new heights. "You with ahuman? Why, Sami, I didn't know you had it in you!"

"It's not like that," she said, waving Zetta off. She paused. "I think."

"Youthink?"

"Yeah, I dunno, okay? I think he wants me, but I'm not into humans."

"Well, doesn't mean you can't make use of them," said Zetta, knowingly.

Make use of them,thought Sami.Right. More like let them make use of me, and hope they pay me afterwards.Her frown deepened. Humans. Such pains in the ass. And, really, was Robert going to be any different? Sure, he was a half-elemental, maybe he understood a little, but even he seemed shocked by how cautious she was, because he didn't get how cautious shehadto be just to keep her relatively lofty station in life. He didn't really get it any more than Mrs. Celmen, did he?

She clenched her teeth and her fists, and this time didn't force herself to hold back. Her fist shot out and struck the wall which sectioned off the bathroom, her fist putting a hole clean through it. Zetta smiled sympathetically, and pat her on the back again. Sami took a deep breath and forced herself to calm down before she tore the entire wall apart.

"The intruder did that," said Sami, in a dull tone.

"Of course, sweetie," said Zetta.

Sami forced a smile. "Alright, I'm good now."

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

"Let me know if your boy gives you trouble."

"Oh, trust me, I'll be sure to let him have it if he does."

Satisfied with that, Zetta left. Sami pulled out a tool box from her closet and set to the task of fixing the door. This was a problem the landlord would probably make sure to get fixed, but would be in no hurry to do so. She wasn't going to let her door just hang open for the next three days on account of his laziness. "Humans," she muttered to herself. "Who needs 'em?"

FIVE

When Robert arrived at her door a few hours later, he wore an apprehensive expression. "You weren't kidding about the bad neighborhood," he said. "Three people tried to sell me some drugs in the last block alone."

"Yeah, welcome to the slum," said Sami, unable to hide the bitterness in her voice. "Sorry, but its' not much better in the daytime, either. Come on in."

Robert blinked in surprise when he saw the makeshift door repair. A piece of wood from some discarded furniture had been nailed into the frame to brace the splintered section. The handle had been poorly hammered back into place, and was still a little loose. "Uh... did you... have a problem earlier?"

"Break in. They happen."

"Oh! I'm really sorry. Are you okay?"

"Fine. Happened while I was out. My neighbor chased them off."

Robert nervously tried to think of something comforting to say. He settled for, "Is there, uh, anything I can do?"

"Like what?" she said darkly.

Robert paused. "Um, well, I dunno. If you needed help with anything?" He noticed she was practically glaring at him. "Okay, um, I'm thinking this is a bad time. I can just come back another—"

"No," said Sami. She closed and locked the door, then grabbed Robert's hand and led him to the bed. "Let's get this over with." As they reached the bed, she started to pull her top off.

"Woah, what are you doing?" said Robert, grabbing her hands.

Sami gave him a flat look. "You just want to fuck me, right? Let's just get it over with."

Robert looked at her, a little hurt. "No! I mean, I'm attracted to you, yeah, I'd like to, uh, have sex with you, but not like this. I want to get to know you. I'm not interested in just a quick lay."

"Look, Robert, this isn't going to work out, okay? I'm in a precarious position as it is, I can't be caught fooling around with a student. We're pretty much stuck here in this shit hole if we want to hang out together, and it's not like there's anything else for us to do."

"We can't just talk?" said Robert.

"Oh, sure, we can stall the inevitable," said Sami. "But in the end, this is going to come down to you bedding me, and once you've done that, you'll get over you're little obsession and drop me like a bad habit. I've seen it happen with my neighbors, I've seen it happen with other Demihumans on campus. Let's not pretend this is anything other than it is: fulfillment of one of your sick jerk-off fantasies."

Robert looked at her, stunned for a moment. Then his expression darkened. He stood and Sami could see his own hands had balled into fists. She felt a sudden wave of cold emanate from him, and his breath fogged in the air. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "It seems I had the wrong idea about you. But before I go, let's set the record straight on whose pretending what. This is aboutyoubeing too afraid to take a chance even associating with me. I get that you're scared, and if you truly want nothing to do with me, I'll leave you alone. But the least you could do is have the common fucking decency to own up to your feelings. But no, instead you resort to those mental gymnastics women do to avoid feeling responsible, to convince themselves they're somehow the victims when they treat men like shit for no good reason." He strode towards the door, leaving Sami to be stunned. "Cya around."

As his hand touched the doorknob, instantly covering it with frost, Sami jumped up. "Wait!" she said. "I'm sorry!" Robert paused. He didn't turn around, but didn't open the door yet, either. Sami went up to him and touched his shoulder, ignoring the cold of him. "Really, I'm sorry."

Robert turned and held her gaze for a moment, then nodded. "Alright," he said. "Let's start over." This time, he led Sami to the bed, and they sat on the edge of it, facing one another. "So. Let's talk, huh?"

They spent the next few hours chatting, talking about school, their jobs, television, the music they liked. They made a point to try and avoid talking about the problems they faced as half-humans, but the topic kept sneaking its way into the conversation anyway. By the time they were done, it was the wee hours of the morning, and both were getting quite sleepy.

"Jeez, three o'clock already," sad Robert. "Didn't mean to keep you up."

"S'alright," said Sami, yawning. "Um, the bus isn't going to show up for another few hours, and you kind of don't want to be out on the street around here this time of night. So, if you want to just crash here..."

Robert glanced around the one bedroom apartment. "There's just one bed."

Sami looked a little shyly to the side. "Yeah. Um. I don't mind. If you don't."

"Heh. One date and we're already sleeping together."

Sami gave him a flat look. "I'd hardly call us talking a date."

"Well, look," he said. "How about we actually try to go on one sometime? We can go to the to the next town over if you're that paranoid about people seeing you."

"Alright," she said. "That might be nice." She got up and pulled the blanket back, sliding onto the bed. She patted the empty spot next to her. "Come on, then."

Robert blushed a little as he lay down next to her, and she pulled the blanket over them. He lay on his back, whilst she lay on her side, facing away from him. After a moment, though, she turned and faced him. "Thank you for staying," she said. "And I'm sorry again for taking out my frustrations on you."

"Sure, don't mention it. I understand."

"I suppose you do," she said. She noticed Robert fidget a little, the blush still on his cheeks. She glanced downwards and noticed an unmistakable bulge in his pants. She frowned in thought. He really was hot for her. Maybe inviting him to sleep with her in her bed wasn't such a good idea. She didn't mind it, but she imagined he was in a very frustrating predicament. She decided it wouldn't hurt to indulge him at least a little.

"You know, if you have something you need to take care of you can go ahead," she said.

Robert's blush deepened. "Uh, no, I uh—"

"You're going to tear a hole in your pants," she said with a slight smirk. "You'll never get to sleep at this rate. So, you can go ahead."

Robert swallowed hard. "I'll, um, go the bathroom." He started to sit up, but Sami pushed him back down.

"You can do it here," she said. She pulled away the covers. "Just try not to mess up my sheets."

Robert's eyes widened a bit, but she smiled at him in what she hoped was a sultry expression. It seemed to work. Robert reached down and unzipped his pants, pulling out his erect penis. The organ was very tense, and Robert let out a soft sigh as he wrapped his fingers around himself. Sami watched carefully as he stroked, noting his technique. Occasionally, she would glance up at him and smile. He was looking at her in a lustful daze. She sat up and pulled her top off, revealing the fine, smooth coat of fur that was so short it almost just looked like white skin. Her modest bust was held by a simple black bra.

This was more than enough to rev his motor, and Robert soon made a small gasp as his hand moved faster. Less than a minute later, he came, shooting little white arcs all over his front, staining his shirt.

Once he'd calmed down, that sudden moment of emotional vulnerability hit him, and he looked down at himself. "Shit," he said. He looked up at her, and his blush deepened even further. He carefully removed his shirt, balled it up, and dropped it onto the floor. "Um, sorry."

"For what?" Sami smiled.

"For being such a pervert," he said, as he zipped his pants back up.

Sami lay back down and snuggled against his now bare chest. He was a bit thin, but his muscles were well defined. He was still cool to the touch, but not uncomfortably so. "Don't be. We're all perverts in our own way."

"Thanks," he said. "Um, this may sound weird, but I, uh, I really enjoyed you watching."

"Oh?"

"Yeah," he said. "So, um, if you never want to have sex, I understand, but, if you don't mind, I'd like to do that again."

She reached down and pat his crotch, causing his semi-hard dick to flex. "Well. We'll see. Now, go to sleep."

It took Robert several minutes to finally doze off, basking in the afterglow of climax. Sami stayed up for a few minutes longer, mulling over this turn of events. She was surprised how much she'd enjoyed it as well. To have him gaze at her like that so lustfully, but restrain himself and follow her direction instead, there was a sense of power to that which she hadn't felt before. She couldn't help but wonder what other silly things she could convince him to do.

SIX

The next morning, Sami awoke to Robert trying to slip from her grasp. She snapped awake and jumped up, causing Robert to start as well. It took her a moment to remember she'd let Robert sleep over, as her mind recalibrated to wakefulness.

"Woah, it's okay, it's me!" said Robert, noticing the slight deer in headlights look Sami had.

Sami shook her head and rubbed her eyes. "Ugh, yeah, sorry. Not used to having overnight guests."

Robert pat her hand. "Sorry to wake you. I just needed to use the bathroom."

"Sure," she said with a yawn, waving him towards it.

After a few minutes doing their morning business, Robert came out and noticed his shirt wadded up on the floor. He blushed a little, remembering how it got there. "Um, I don't suppose you got a shirt I could wear?"

Sami went to the closet and riffled through it. Robert was a good three shirt sizes larger than her, so all she had to give him was a light pink oversized shirt she sometimes wore as a nightgown. She tossed it to him. "Funny, usually it's the girl wearing the boy's shirt the morning after."

Robert chuckled. "Well, not like we went all the way last night." Slipping the shirt on, he paused. "Speaking of which, shall I return the favor in some way?"

Sami shook her head. "Don't worry about it."

"You sure? I don't imagine it was much fun for you."

"Actually," said Sami, a little hesitantly. "I did kind of enjoy it."