CAUTION: This story contains implied sexual activity between minors, violence, and profanity. Reader discretion is advised.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Unless otherwise indicated, all the names, characters, events and incidents in this book are either the product of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Assam Chai
by IndigoNeko
Chapter 18
Monday, July 18th, 2016
“Hi Lizzy,” Alex said with a smile, still kneeling next to Elizabeth. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“You didn’t scare me,” the little stoat-hybrid replied. “I just wasn’t expecting to see you...” she added, looking around. “Why am I on the floor?”
“You fainted,” the tigress replied, reaching under the stoat before standing up and lifting Elizabeth upright as well. Shi straightened the front of the smaller girl’s dress, just under the collar. It had five very obvious divots where the tiger’s claws had punctured the fabric. “Oh no... I grabbed your dress to keep you from falling. This wasn’t one of your mom’s dresses, was it? I’m sorry,” shi apologized, looking somewhat distraught.
“No. It’s fine,” Elizabeth said, brushing the tiger’s paws away. “It’s just a nightgown from JCPenney.” The little stoat looked upwards, staring up at the tigress. “Uhhh... wow. I remember you being big, but... Did you get bigger?”
Alex snorted. “Literally everyone has said something about my height so far, including your mom and dad just before I came up here. I’m as tall as Charlotte now.”
“And you’re not even eleven yet...” Elizabeth muttered before realizing that she hadn’t given a hug yet. She lunged forward and wrapped the much bigger tigress in a tight hug.
“Not for three more weeks,” Alex confirmed, returning the hug, but with a great deal more caution, as Elizabeth was over a foot shorter than shi was now and probably weighed half what shi did. The tigress held the smaller girl against hir chest for several seconds. “Goddess, I missed you so much, silly stoat.”
“I missed you too, Lexi,” she replied, sniffling. The little stoat nuzzled Alex’s chest, a tear dripping down her muzzle.
The yapok standing to the side narrowed her eyes at the tigress. “So are you going to tell us what you’re doing here?” Chris asked, curiously.
“Just visiting,” Alex said with a rueful smile. “I got some bad news yesterday, and Dad figured it would do me some good to come visit for a while.”
“How long is ‘a while’?” Chris asked as Elizabeth pulled back from the hug.
“Until Friday morning,” the tigress replied. “Your parents said I could sleep on the trundle up here if you two are okay with it, or down in the basement lounge, since Alyssa’s got the guest bedroom now...”
Elizabeth’s expression lit up at that. “Oooh, we could have a sexy sleepover—” the stoat started.
An expression of shock passed across Chris’s face, but Alex spoke before she could.
“Nope,” Alex interrupted firmly, holding one paw up. “I’m going steady with Ravi and Aruna, remember? I love you to bits, sexy stoat, but I won’t cheat on them.”
“Awww,” Elizabeth pouted. She sighed, then nodded. “Okay. That’s fair.”
“Besides, Chris looked like she wasn’t sure about the idea of a sexy sleepover. Come here, you aquatic marsupial thing,” Alex said, reaching out and yanking the shorter yapok over, pulling her into a tight hug.
Chris stiffened again the bigger tigress, then relaxed just enough to return the hug.
“Thank you for taking care of Lizzy for me,” Alex whispered into the yapok’s ear. “I owe you. Anything and everything, forever.”
The yapok blinked at those words... They were a formal acknowledgment of a life debt. She sure as hell hadn’t done anything to deserve that; she’d just broken into someone’s back yard on a dare, found a soul as lonely as her own, and had shamelessly taken advantage of it. Chris pushed away from the tigress, shaking her head. “No. You don’t owe me anything. Why do you think you owe me a life debt?”
The tigress tilted hir head. “What’s that?”
“What you just said: ‘anything and everything, forever’. That’s a life debt. Eternal service and all that,” the yapok explained, wondering if the tigress was daft. Then again, shi was only ten, even if shi was a head taller than Chris. “You know... like in romance and fantasy stories?”
“Oh...” the tigress replied, thinking about it. “It just felt like the right thing to say.”
“Madre de Dios,” the yapok muttered, shaking her head in disbelief. “You colossal idiot. You’re offering yourself to me as a servant for life. You must read sooo many romances to let that roll off your tongue,” Chris muttered, turning and walking back over to her and Elizabeth’s bed to put away her electric guitar.
Alex blushed, hir ears going flat against hir skull. “Sorry. I guess I wasn’t thinking. And I don’t read romances. Ravi does.”
“Apparently he’s corrupted you thoroughly,” Chris muttered, setting the guitar against the wall before sitting down and bracing her webbed feet against the bedframe. She strained in vain to pull out the heavy trundle under their bed. “Go get your stuff. We need to be in bed in, like, fifteen minutes.”
“It’s outside in the hallway,” Alex said, bending over to grab one of the handles on the trundle’s wood frame. The extra mattress suddenly popped a foot out from under the bed with the tiger’s assistance, sending Chris tumbling across the floor.
“Sorry,” Alex apologized again. “Don’t worry, I’ve got this. You go get ready for bed,” the tigress added, pulling the trundle out with one paw.
Chris huffed. The trundle weighed more than she did, and the tigress was moving it around like an empty cardboard box. “Okay. Be right back,” she said, standing up and walking over to the closet to get her pajamas.
__________________________________________________
Tuesday, July 19th, 2016
A few minutes after they’d finished off the waffles that Charlotte had made for breakfast, Alex set the last of their dirty dishes into the dishwasher while the doberman filled the dispenser with powder detergent.
“Now to go start some laundry. Thanks Alex,” Charlotte said, pushing the bottom caddy in before shutting the dishwasher and twisting the dial to start the wash cycle.
“No problem,” the tigress said, stepping back and taking one last glance around the kitchen. It was spotless, as usual. Charlotte was a stickler for cleanliness, and did a lot of cleanup while she was cooking.
Chris and Elizabeth had already headed upstairs to take a shower and get dressed. Terrence and Alyssa had already left for work and Julia was in her office workshop, presumably making new fashion designs or something. But Alex had gotten up early and already taken a shower. Now shi had nothing to do. Shi sighed.
“What’s wrong?” Charlotte asked, pausing at the threshold between the kitchen and dining room, turning to look back at Alex.
“Nothing,” Alex quickly replied. “Is it okay if I go outside?” shi asked, pointing at the sliding glass door at the back of the kitchen.
“Of course,” the doberman said with a smile. “Just don’t get in the pool unless I’m there to keep watch.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the tigress said. No swimming without a lifeguard had been a strict rule at the Stouffer’s house for as long as shi could remember. As Charlotte turned to continue through the dining room towards the front foyer, Alex turned towards the door that led to the backyard patio.
The tigress unlocked the back door and slid the glass door to the side, then stepped outside. It was cool enough now, at eight in the morning, but by ten it would start to get hot and muggy. Shi slid the door shut behind hirself, then strode across the back deck, hir open-toed sports shoes clopping quietly on the wooden planks. The deck didn’t even creak under hir weight; the construction was surprisingly solid. The back yard was huge, with a half-sized olympic pool on one side and a full-sized tennis court on the other. There was a grassy area between the tennis court and the wooden deck.
Alex stared at the lawn for a moment. The grassy area wasn’t quite big enough for practicing kata, especially not Tekki Shodan, Bassai Dai, or Enpi. The tigress sighed, then looked a bit further, staring at the tennis court. That would do, provided shi didn’t fall and bust hir knees or something. Shi still needed a stick to practice the spear techniques though, and pursed hir lips while wondering where to find a long enough stick before spotting the supply shed at the far end of the back yard. It had plenty of cleaning supplies along with the pool filtration system, and just might have a skimmer pole that could work. Shi quickly jogged down the steps and across the yard towards it.
A minute later, Alex had unscrewed the long wooden handle from the wide broom that she’d found next to a leaf blower in the shed. It was almost the perfect length for a bo staff, but not quite long enough for a spear. Still, anything was better than nothing. Shi jogged back outside and over to the tennis court, testing the edge to make sure it wasn’t one of the softer clay tennis courts before she stepped out onto it, leaving the makeshift staff at the edge for the moment.
Unsure how much time shi’d have before Chris and Elizabeth finished their morning routines, Alex decided to start with Heian Godan, going through it at three-quarters speed as a warm up. She finished it in about forty-five seconds, then went through Tekki Shodan and Bassai Dai at full speed. Feeling much more limber, shi decided to do the much more advanced Jion and Empi kata as well. Shi took a brief breather before going through the much longer Kanku Dai kata to finish up hir karate practice.
By the time shi was finished, Alex was panting heavily, and after a few moments dropped into seiza near the middle of the far end of the tennis court while shi caught hir breath. Shi glanced to the side, spotting the broom handle shi had borrowed earlier. After shi’d gotten hir breath back, the tigress stood up and jogged over to retrieve the makeshift staff. Shi decided to go through the Heian Shodan and Heian Sandan kata bo-staff variants with it to get a feel for the length before starting the Kenjutsu yari drills.
As Alex finished the last of the spear drills, finishing up with a bow (despite there not being anyone or anything to bow to), shi heard several people clapping, and spun to face the house. Chris, Lizzy, and Charlotte were all standing on the deck staring at hir and clapping. Alex’s ears went flat with embarrassment, but shi bowed towards them anyway, then jogged off the tennis court and over towards them, holding the broom stick upright like shi would have carried a spear.
“Where’d you get that?” Elizabeth asked as Alex got within talking distance.
“It’s from a broom I found in the pool shed,” Alex said, turning and pointing.
“You know that’s not how you’re supposed to use a broom, right?” Chris pointed out.
“Hush, Chris,” Charlotte said. “That was very impressive. I’ve seen Hikari do some of the first few moves with a staff before, but about halfway through your practice, you started doing lots more poking moves.”
“Uh, yeah. I was doing some spear drills. They’re intended for a longer weapon, but I couldn’t find anything that would work as a spear...” Alex replied with a shrug.
“Ah,” Charlotte replied. “Well, you’re really good. Seriously. Like, that was clockwork precision.”
“Thanks,” Alex replied, feeling hir ears flush red. “I’ve been practicing for almost two months now.”
“Well, now that I’ve got the laundry started... What were you three planning on doing for today?” the doberman asked.
“Well, Chris and I normally go swimming after lunch, when it’s a bit warmer,” Elizabeth said.
“Oh! I’ve got an idea,” Chris said. “I could throw tennis balls at Alex to practice hir blocking skills.”
“You just want an excuse to throw stuff at someone,” Charlotte said, glaring down at the yapok.
“Well... Yeah,” Chris admitted. “But this would help hir out!”
The doberman sighed, then turned to head back inside the house.
__________________________________________________
Wednesday, July 20th, 2016
Wednesday went much the same as Tuesday had, spending the morning drawing, reading, and playing video games in the living room. After lunch Alex, Chris, and Elizabeth watched a movie and went swimming, then took showers to get the chlorine out of their fur. Unlike Tuesday, when Terrence got home that evening, he and Alyssa drove everyone, including Charlotte, out to dinner at a newly opened restaurant that he’d heard of, called the Industry Restaurant.
It was aptly named, with exposed ceiling conduit and ductwork. One side of the restaurant had a pair of huge garage doors made of glass panels, as if the place had been some kind of depot before being turned into a restaurant. They all piled into a pair of adjacent wooden booths, with the three adults in one and everyone else in the other. Alex actually enjoyed the decor, which gave the repurposed warehouse an air of unfinished potential.
Alex decided on a burger (always a safe bet), Charlotte ordered a grilled chicken platter, Chris got the cobb salad, and Elizabeth asked for the fried chicken sandwich. After the waitress left, Alex stared at Chris for a few seconds before saying “I wouldn’t have pictured you ordering a salad.”
The yapok stared back at the tigress across the table for a second before answering. “Salads are okay. Especially with jalapeños. But you’re right; salads aren’t my thing.”
The tigress tilted hir head. “So... why order a salad?”
“Because I can only eat fish and fowl. I’ve got alpha-gal syndrome,” the yapok replied.
“What’s that?” Alex asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Mammalian meat allergy. You can get it from tick bites, like I did,” Chris said. “I can’t have beef, pork, lamb, goat... anything like that will cause my throat to swell shut and give me diarrhea. I can’t even have something cooked on the same grill as it. It makes my throat itch.”
“Oh wow. That sucks,” the tigress muttered.
“You’re telling me,” the yapok muttered. “I’d kill for a good steak fajita. Sometimes I’m tempted to just say fuck it, stab myself with an epipen, and eat it anyway.”
“Language, Chris,” Charlotte warned, flashing the yapok a tired expression.
“Ooops. Sorry,” Chris muttered, waiting nervously, but it seemed the adults hadn’t overheard her.
__________________________________________________
Friday, July 22nd, 2016
Alex settled back into the airplane seat, feeling much better after several days of vacation with Elizabeth and Chris, not to mention enjoying Charlotte’s cooking. The only thing that shi regretted was not taking advantage of Elizabeth’s offer to have a sexy sleepover. But shi was going steady with Ravi and Aruna, and wasn’t willing to cheat on them, no matter how horny shi was. But damn if it hadn’t been tempting.
The tigress had nearly forgotten how strong Elizabeth’s libido was. The frequent intermissions that Chris and Elizabeth had taken multiple times a day had given Alex plenty of time to practice karate, kenjutsu, and yoga. Although spending Wednesday evening after dinner watching anime with Charlotte had been very awkward. The Stouffers, Alyssa, and Chris were polite enough not to say what they were doing, but Alex had absolutely no doubt that they’d all retired to the master bedroom for an orgy, despite their pretense of it being a ‘family conference’.
After buckling hir seatbelt, Alex lay hir paws in hir lap. An elderly roe deer in a fancy pantsuit sat down in the middle seat next to hir, then promptly pulled a pair of earbuds out of her purse, putting them into her long ears and closing her eyes. Alex sighed and turned to look out the window at the tarmac. Shi had a feeling it would be a very boring flight.
__________________________________________________
Five hours later, Alex hopped out of hir mom’s SUV, then grabbed hir backpack out of the footwell and slung it over hir shoulder while Mom got the suitcase out of the trunk. The house didn’t look very different, other than having a new coat of paint and new garage doors. Shi followed hir mom up the stairs from the side of the driveway to the second story covered porch, then waited as Raenne entered the door code and pushed the door open. It swung open much more slowly than shi would have expected.
The tigress tilted hir head, inspecting it. They’d replaced the wooden door frame with a metal one, and the door itself had a pneumatic hinge at the top, like the doors at school. The door itself looked just like the one from the dojo office, covered with a thin faux wood laminate. Shi rapped on it as shi followed hir mom inside, and it made a metallic thunk. “Did you install a steel door?” shi asked as the door slowly swung closed behind hir, the latch making a very solid thunk as it closed.
“Yep. The basement door is steel too. And the garage doors are reinforced storm doors. They won’t stop a moving vehicle, but they’ll deter any casual attempts to break in,” Raenne said. “Also, we got you a new bed and blankets, and replaced the bathtub, shower liner, and the fur dryer in your bathroom. All the other appliances and utilities have been installed too, except the washer and dryer. The delivery guys dropped the washer when they were taking it off the truck, so we had them take it back. The replacements should be here on Monday.”
Alex wasn’t paying much attention, looking around the great room. The furniture was the same, and in the same locations, but something was off, and the house smelled like latex. “Did you have them re-paint the walls?”
“Had to; they ripped out all the old drywall in order to install the ArmorCore panels. I thought I told you about those,” Raenne said, turning to stare at hir.
“Oh, right,” Alex muttered, blushing slightly. “It looks brighter.”
“Yep. We decided on pure white to replace the original eggshell. Good eye, kiddo.”
“What about the windows?” Alex asked, gesturing at the front wall with the enormous glass windows that ran from floor to ceiling. Shi glanced towards the downstairs hallway, hearing Dad’s footsteps as he walked out of it to join them in the great room.
“Just the mirrored film, for now, so nobody can see in. We’ll replace them with bullet-proof glass in a few months. That stuff is expensive, kiddo. Especially at these sizes.”
Alex nodded. That was understandable.
“Think that’s enough to feel safe for now, love?” David asked as he walked over to them.
“Yeah. Thank you,” shi said, giving each of hir parents a hug. Alex stared out the window across the north side of the Winter Creek valley, glad that hir parents had been willing to reinforce the house. After seeing how quickly Ivan had broken in, well, shi didn’t need to imagine what would have happened if Mom and Dad had been sitting on the sofa instead of in their bedroom. Now, at least, they’d have time to arm themselves if someone tried to break in again. And after they replaced the windows, they wouldn’t need to worry about a drive-by shooting, like the one that had killed Kalu’s aunt and uncle.
Alex frowned, realizing that shi hadn’t talked to the elephant in months. He’d be going to high school this year… unless they held him back. Shi had no idea if he was a good student or not. “Do you think I’ve got time to unpack before dinner?” shi asked, looking up at hir parents.
“Of course,” Raenne said, giving hir a smile.
“Okay. I wanted to make a call while I’m unpacking,” Alex said, pulling out hir phone.
“I thought you’d already called Elizabeth, Ravi, and Ginnie while we were driving home from the airport,” hir mom said.
“I did. I just remembered I haven’t talked to Kal in a while,” Alex said, pulling up hir phone contacts. Shi readjusted the backpack on hir shoulder and picked up the suitcase to carry it upstairs while pressing the call button. Shi heard hir parents whisper to each other as shi made hir way upstairs. The call connected after a few rings.
“Alex?” a voice asked. Hip-hop was playing in the background, but it went quiet after a second.
“Hey Kal,” shi replied, hauling hir suitcase up the second half of the stairs. “How’s your summer going?”
“Going okay so far,” the deep-voiced elephant replied. “I started taking boxing lessons. My dad seems to be pretty happy about that.”
“Good!” Alex replied as shi walked past the upstairs landing into hir room. The paint fumes were particularly thick up here; shi was going to have to open hir window and air it out. “How are you liking it?”
“Eh, I don’t know if it’s something I’ll stick with for very long, to be honest. I’m strong enough, but I’m not nearly fast enough,” the elephant replied with a sigh. “I’d rather be drawing or watching anime or something.”
“Anime?” Alex asked, tossing hir backpack on the bed before opening the window. “I thought you said you didn’t watch anime.”
“Yeah, well... Don’t tell anyone else, okay?”
“Okay. But, uh, don’t give up on boxing just ‘cause you’re not fast enough. That’s something that takes time to build. It took me six months of daily karate practice before I was fast enough to dodge a punch,” Alex said while pulling bundles of clothes out of hir backpack and tossing them on the bed. Shi hoped shi had enough clean clothes, since they didn’t have a washer and dryer. If not, shi might have to go to the laundromat with Mom tomorrow.
“I know,” Kalu replied. “It’s just frustrating, ya know? The only other guy in my weight class at the gym is a rhino who hits like a damn truck and he’s fast as lightning. He can punch twice for every one of mine.”
“Just keep working that speed bag and punching bag, and practice ducking and weaving on your own at home. You’ll get faster eventually,” the tigress said, re-folding the clean clothes from hir backpack and chucking the dirty ones in the laundry basket in the closet.
Kalu sighed. “Okay. I’ll stick with it. Anyway, how’s your summer been?”
This time Alex sighed, still folding laundry. “So, uh, last month Mom was afraid that my uncle had found out where we lived. So she was acting paranoid, putting up mirror film on the windows and all sorts of stuff,” shi said, wondering if that was the right phrase. “Is it still being paranoid when someone’s actually out to get you?”
“Uhhh, no. I’d think I’d call that ‘being proactive’,” Kalu said. “So... what happened?” the elephant asked suspiciously.
“Well, I was on vacation with some friends in California for the Fourth of July when my uncle broke into the house and shot everything to hell. The construction guys just finished the repairs yesterday, so we’re finally moving back in. I spent the last few days in Oregon with another friend, actually. I’m unpacking right now,” Alex said, zipping up hir backpack and tossing it aside before hefting the suitcase onto hir new bed.
“Your uncle broke in and shot your house up?” Kal asked incredulously. “What happened? Are you all okay?”
“Yeah, we’re all okay. He’s dead now,” Alex confirmed, spinning the dials on the combination lock to enter the code. “After he broke in, he went upstairs and shot up my bedroom, then he went downstairs towards the nursery and my parents’ bedroom. Mom ambushed him; shot him in the hallway,” the tigress explained, popping off the combination lock and tossing it aside before unzipping the suitcase. “Afterwards his finger clamped on the trigger, though. He emptied the entire magazine into the downstairs hallway—”
Alex flipped the suitcase open, then jumped backwards with a shriek of terror as a snake jumped out at hir, throwing hir phone at it. Shi hit the wall with a thud, then stumbled back to hir feet, hearing the thunder of footsteps as hir parents came running upstairs. Shi peered over the edge of the suitcase.
The snake wasn’t moving anymore. It looked dead... and was made of rubber. Fishing line had been taped to the top of the suitcase and tied to the snake’s head to make it move when shi’d opened it. “God damnit, Chris,” shi swore. “I hope I didn’t break my phone,” shi muttered, looking around for it.
“What happened?” Raenne asked from the door. David appeared in the doorway too a moment later.
Alex pointed at the rubber snake coiled atop the open suitcase. “That’s what happened,” shi said, heaving a sigh of irritation. “Can you help me find my phone? I threw it at the damn thing.”
David peered in, spotting the rubber snake, then promptly started laughing. He was still wheezing, huddled on the hallway floor a minute later when Alex threw the snake at him.
__________________________________________________
Saturday, July 23rd, 2016
Two hours after breakfast, Mom and Dad were still doing some light housework, doing minor repairs and paint touch-up that the construction crew had missed. Alex was sitting on the floor of the nursery, helping Nick build some kind of structure out of colorful plastic cubes while Kate was sitting in time-out.
After Kate’s third time knocking over Nick’s pile of blocks while trying to wrestle with hir, Alex had gotten fed up with the obnoxious kitten and moved her into the play pen in the corner. Now Kate was standing on her hind legs, staring at them over the top of the play pen. She’d finally given up trying to escape after the first three attempts had been foiled, thanks to well-timed pushes when she’d been about to make it over the top edge of the play pen.
Alex held out a pair of cubes, which weighed next to nothing, for hir brother to choose from. He continued to stack them, making a roughly pyramidal shape. Shi definitely preferred Nick’s quiet construction projects to Katherine’s anything-goes pro-wrestling mania.
“Mama!”
Alex spun to stare at hir baby sister. Shi was pretty sure this was the first time Kate had said anything in hir hearing, though according to Mom she’d already said more than a few words. Shi tilted hir head, staring back at Kate. “Mama’s busy.”
“Mama!” the little white-furred tigress said again, vigorously shaking the top of the play pen and jumping up and down. Alex wondered for a moment if that was normal for tiger cubs. Shi’d had the impression that toddlers were supposed to be slow and uncoordinated until they were around two years old. Kate apparently didn’t care what she should or shouldn’t be able to do.
“Alex,” shi countered, tapping at hir chest, wondering whether Kate actually wanted hir to go get Raenne or if Kate was just trying to get hir attention.
“Ba!” the kitten said, stomping.
Apparently she’d just wanted Alex’s attention... and the ball. Presumably the squash ball. Alex sighed and rolled over to get the small black squash ball and held it up. “Ball?”
“Ba! Ba!” Kate repeated excitedly, jumping up and down.
Alex sighed and tossed the ball into the pen for hir baby sister to play with. Kate’s head vanished from view as she pounced for it, making the plastic fabric rustle. Satisfied that Kate would be occupied for a bit, Alex turned back around to give Nick another cube to stack. The sound of furious scrabbling continued for several seconds from within the play pen. Then it went silent.
Had Alex been paying attention, shi’d have realized that Kate was up to something nefarious. But shi was currently watching hir baby brother work on his building, which was taller than he was at this point. The black squash ball came out of nowhere, smashing into the pyramid and sending plastic cubes flying, one of which smacked Nick in the face, on the bridge of his nose.
Alex spun around, spotting Kate peeking over the top of the play pen with one arm raised. “Kate!” shi shouted angrily, then turned back around as Nick began to scream, rocking back and forth. Shi let out a sigh and gently patted his shoulder while waiting for the screaming to end. After about ten seconds he went silent, staring up at hir with tears in his eyes. Shi rubbed the velvet fur above his nose, then picked up one of his beloved blocks and held it out. He picked it up, looked around, and started his pyramid all over again for the fifth time.
__________________________________________________
It was a little after four when Sevita dropped Ravi and Aruna off at the Andreyev house, for the first time in about a month. Both of the two Bengal tigers wrinkled their noses at the faint smell of latex paint that still lingered, despite the Andreyevs having left all the windows open for the past two days. Alex led them both upstairs to get settled in and drop off the backpacks full of sleepover supplies that they were carrying.
“Where’s your mom?” Aruna asked, following Alex and Ravi into the guest bedroom that doubled as a den.
“At the laundromat,” Alex said, flopping on the sofa.
“And your dad?” Ravi asked, walking over to the television and grabbing the remote and a set of console controllers. He turned and tossed one controller to Alex and the other to Aruna, who’d flopped onto a beanbag chair.
“In the nursery, watching the twins,” Alex said, picking up the controller and pressing the start button. “We can’t leave ‘em alone now. Kate’s an absolute terror. If we’re not watching ‘em, she’ll break out of the play pen and start climbing curtains, walls, or anything else she can get her claws into. Nick’s not so bad, but he’ll follow her around.”
“You don’t have curtains, though,” Aruna said, pointing at the window.
“We don’t, but the Owens do,” Alex said, scrolling through the game selection and settling on Rocket League. “Sarah watches over the twins for us when Mom and I are going shooting.”
Ravi turned to glance at Alex. “Owen-sensei has a wife?”
“And a three-year-old daughter named Anne,” Alex confirmed, going through the menus to start up a local multiplayer game and waiting in the lobby for Ravi and Aruna to join. “She’s really cute; she’s got the most adorable black ear tufts, and they quiver whenever she’s excited,” the tigress said, holding a finger up next to each ear and wiggling them, pretending shi had ear tufts. “Somehow Anne can put up with Kate’s constant roughhousing as well, which is a miracle. Anne just sits on Kate whenever she gets too rambunctious. It’s hilarious.”
“Awww, I wish I could see that,” Aruna said, getting set up for the Rocket League match.
“Mr. Owen’s got video cameras in the play room,” Alex said. “I’m sure he’s got some video clips that I could send you.”
“Sure!” Aruna agreed happily. “How does Anne get along with Nick?”
“I think Anne likes playing with Nick too, but he kinda does his own thing most of the time, playing with blocks and stuff. We think he’s slightly autistic, actually. We just don’t know how bad it is.”
Aruna looked apprehensive at that. “Is that when they scream all the time and throw poo?”
“No, sis,” Ravi shook his head. “Autism’s got a wide range of symptoms. They actually call it a ‘spectrum’. You know, like a rainbow,” he explained. “At one end of the spectrum, you’ve got low-functioning people that can’t really take care of themselves or communicate effectively with others. At the other end of the spectrum, there’s high-functioning people that are mostly normal, but with little quirks like being sensitive to certain tastes or textures.”
“Well... Nick does have screaming fits,” Alex corrected. “Usually it’s when he’s focused on something and there’s a ton of stuff going on that interrupts what he’s doing, like when he’s stacking blocks and Kate knocks ‘em down. If I take him someplace quiet and gently tap his head or shoulder in a steady rhythm, he quiets back down again. He’ll usually quiet down for me within a few seconds, but for Mom and Dad sometimes it’ll take a minute.”
As the match started up, the three of them dropped the conversation to focus on the video game. The Pro difficulty bots were actually decently challenging considering that none of them played Rocket League very often.
“So, did you have fun visiting your friend?” Aruna asked, about two minutes into the match.
“Elizabeth? Yeah,” Alex said. “She’s doing a lot better now than she was a few years ago. Her growth’s still a bit stunted, but at least now she’s got the energy to be physically active. We swam laps around the pool with Chris every day, while Charlotte played lifeguard.”
“What’s wrong with her?” Aruna asked.
“She’s got aplastic anemia from estrogen toxicity,” Alex explained. “She stays in heat, er, in estrus for, like, half the year. There’s nothing they can do to stop it.”
“You mean the jill jab doesn’t work on her?” Ravi asked.
“How’d you know about the jill jab?” Alex asked, glancing at him.
“Uh, the estrogen toxicity thing from staying in estrus is a common heritage trait in mustelids,” Ravi said, still focused on the game. “There was a mink in my sex-ed class in fifth grade. She asked about it and the teacher had to look it up,” he explained, then glanced over at Alex. “So what’s the treatment if the jill jab doesn’t work?”
“Sex,” Alex promptly answered, “with someone who’s sterile, so that she doesn’t actually get pregnant. Her dad used to take care of it before she got an IUD. He had a vasectomy when she was a baby, and had to mate with her every couple of days all summer long.”
Ravi turned to stare at her, the game more or less forgotten. “That’s crazy. So is that how you learned about sex? She introduced you to it?”
“Yeah,” Alex said, still focused on the game. “I thought I told you.”
The tiger boy shook his head. “Maybe. I might have forgotten. We’ve talked about a lot of things.” Alex glanced at him. He seemed strangely tense, but shi had no idea why.
Aruna finally piped up. “So, is that why you decided to have sex with your parents? Because your friend had sex with hers?”
Alex blushed at that. “Yeah, kinda. I knew sex was, like, something you do only with people you love, and Elizabeth really loves her parents and they love her just as much. I figured that maybe Mom and Dad would love me more if I had sex with them,” shi explained. “I didn’t have a lot of friends other than Lizzy, and I guess I just wanted the same thing she had with her parents...” The young tiger’s voice trailed off for a moment before shi added, “It worked, too, actually. Mom and Dad paid a lot more attention to me, and it felt like they loved me a lot more. I really miss it...”
“So why’d you stop?” Aruna asked.
“Cause I started dating you two. Duh,” Alex said. “If you’re dating someone, it’s cheating on them to have sex with someone else.”
“Oh. That’s bad?” Aruna asked.
“Very bad,” Alex confirmed.
“So you didn’t have sex with Elizabeth when you were visiting her?” Ravi asked, finally broaching the subject that must have been the reason for his apprehension.
“Of course not!” Alex said, glaring at him, affronted that he’d even think such a thing. “I’m going steady with you two and she’s going steady with Chris.”
“Ah.” Ravi’s shoulders visibly relaxed. “I’m sorry, Alex. It’s not that I don’t trust you, but... It was a thought that had crossed my mind.” Looking much more content, he leaned back against the sofa again, focusing on the match. They were two points behind and had only a minute left in the match. Alex frowned, but turned back to the television to focus on the game.
__________________________________________________
Raenne paused at the top of the stairs to pick up the shirt that had fallen off the top of the basket of laundry. From the sounds of it, the cubs were playing video games, as usual. She’d never played them as a kid, and so she didn’t see the appeal of sitting in front of a screen pressing buttons on a controller. Some video games were okay, like a few of the fantasy games that her husband used to play while Alex had still been a kitten. She missed sitting on the couch together in the evenings, reading a book while Alex slept, curled up on her lap, as only a kitten could. The tigress sighed and tossed the fallen shirt back atop the pile of clean laundry and hefted the basket once again.
As she headed towards Alex’s bedroom to drop hir laundry off, there was a pause in the noise from the video game, and she overheard Alex saying something about estrogen toxicity. She paused to listen, knowing shi was almost certainly talking about Elizabeth and wondering how the little stoat was doing. But the conversation took a completely different turn than Raenne had expected, with Alex explaining Elizabeth’s alternative treatment, followed by Aruna asking if that was why Alex had sex with hir parents.
Raenne froze, her heart pounding, as she realized the Bassi kids knew their deepest, darkest secret. Her flight or fight instincts kicked in hard, and she nearly dropped the basket she was holding. If either of the kids ever revealed their secret, she and David would wind up in prison and their children placed in foster care. For a split second, Raenne considered simply taking her family, getting into the car, and driving away. Except they had nowhere to go. It was almost impossible to live off the grid now. The only other solution was unthinkable.
The tigress was so focused on the problem that she almost missed her daughter’s response, talking about why shi had instigated everything. The follow up comment about how it had worked, that hir parents had loved hir more because of it and how shi missed it, struck Raenne like a bullet to the heart. She slumped against the wall, wishing she could cry. After a few seconds she turned and set the laundry basket down on the small coffee table in the upper landing and made her way downstairs. She needed to talk with David. About several things.
__________________________________________________
An hour later, Raenne yelled that dinner was ready. All three of the cubs upstairs perked up and tossed their controllers aside, making a quick stop in the upstairs restroom to wash their paws before heading downstairs.
Alex was sniffing the air as they made their way into the dining area of the great-room. “Spaghetti?” shi asked.
“Italian sausage lasagna,” Raenne corrected. “It’s been a while since we had it, so I figured ‘why not’.”
“It smells really good,” Alex said, sitting at the dining table next to Ravi and Aruna. Raenne passed out dishes and utensils while David brought out glasses of iced tea, setting them around the table and arranging the cutlery while Raenne brought out a casserole dish and set it on the trivet in the center of the table before she started cutting out squares of lasagna and distributing them around the table.
Alex had finished hir first slice and was using the spatula to get seconds when Raenne spoke up, saying, “So... I think you three have been dating for a bit over two months now, right?”
Ravi glanced at her, brow furrowed, then nodded. “Yeah. Since May fifteenth.”
The older tigress frowned and nodded. “I think that’s about right. Do you three remember before you started dating, when we had that, uh, kerfluffle about Ravi and Aruna not doing anything together because it’s incest, and it’s illegal?”
“Yeah,” Aruna said, nodding. Ravi nodded as well. Alex narrowed hir eyes, staring at hir mom and wondering what this was all about.
“Well, the reason we were so, uh, cautious about it was because we’ve got secrets,” Raenne stated, glancing at both Ravi and Aruna. “Secrets that Alex wasn’t supposed to share with you two. At least not for several more years.”
Alex felt hir fur stand on end. Mom’s tone of voice was perfectly calm, but given the context shi knew that shi’d fucked up. Big time. Shi hated secrets.
“Ravi... Aruna... You know that Alex has had sex with us?” Raenne asked. “Before shi started dating you two.”
Ravi glanced at Alex, then back at Raenne. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Does that... bother you?” the tigress asked.
The boy very slowly, deliberately shook his head. “No, ma’am.”
“Aruna?”
“Uh, no,” the younger sibling replied. “Shi told us shi started it. Also that shi misses it. I don’t understand why shi had to stop when we started dating, though. Why’s it cheating?”
“I’ll explain later, sis,” Ravi said, glancing at his sister, then back at Raenne.
The older tigress was staring at him with a slight frown. “You’re aware of the fact that what we did with Alex is considered sexual abuse, right Ravi?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he confirmed.
“So why doesn’t it bother you?”
“Well, uh,” Ravi started, then swallowed and picked up his tea to take a deliberate sip. After he set it down, he took a deep breath. “In addition to what Aruna just said, Alex obviously doesn’t think it was abuse. You’ve got secrets. So do we. Mom hasn’t given me leave to talk about it yet, so I can’t go into details, but...”
Alex had finally come to the conclusion with how the conversation was going that shi wasn’t going to get grounded for life over accidentally telling Ravi and Aruna about hir and hir parents. But the comment about secrets reminded hir about the previous weekend. “Speaking of secrets… Can I tell Mom and Dad about the Curse?”
Ravi turned to look at hir, tilting his head in confusion. David finally spoke up, asking, “What curse?”
“There’s an Indian legend that the Goddess Durga blessed the ancestor of all tigers with unbound fury and he killed millions of demons, staining his fur red. Apparently it’s kinda true, ‘cause orange fur is linked to some kind of gene that causes us to be more violent or something,” Alex said, pointing hir fork at Ravi and Aruna. “They don’t have it.”
“So... is that your secret? Are you two the result of deliberate inbreeding to get white fur?” David asked with a raised eyebrow. “Is that why Aruna has CIP?”
“No!” Ravi exclaimed, growing angry. “We’re not inbred! And the CIP is a fluke. Mom didn’t think to test Dad for it too or she’d never have married him.”
“But marrying him was deliberate... and she tested his DNA before she did?” David asked. “Presumably to see if he had this ‘Curse’, right?”
Ravi immediately clamped his mouth, staring down at the nearly empty plate in front of him.
David continued after a second. “It sounds so far like you’re the result of extremely careful breeding, rather than inbreeding. That doesn’t sound like something you’d need to keep secret, unless your parents wanted you two to continue the line...”
Ravi stayed silent, staring at his plate, but the slight twitch of his ears and the blush forming in them was a terrible tell.
“I see,” David muttered. “It sounds like we need to have a talk with your parents.”
“No!” Ravi shouted. “Please don’t tell them! Nobody was supposed to know about this. And we aren’t going to do it now, anyway.”
“Why not?” David asked. “I don’t know anything about this ‘Curse’, but assuming it’s true, then... it could save our species.”
Ravi glanced up, staring at the older white tiger. “Because of Alex,” he finally admitted. “Children shi has with us might not have the curse.”
David raised an eyebrow. “Why?”
“Because of you, sir,” Ravi explained. “You don’t have it... so there’s a fifty-fifty chance that Alex’s children won’t either.”
“Ah. I see,” David said, sitting back in his chair. “The alternative would be you and Aruna mating with each other, but that would raise the risk of genetic diseases... like CIP.”
Ravi nodded, relaxing somewhat. “I’m not a carrier of CIP, so I’m safe, but Aruna has it so all of her children will be carriers.”
“What’s a carrier?” Raenne asked.
“Someone who ‘carries’ a gene, but doesn’t actually manifest it,” Ravi explained. “They can pass it on to their children. Some genes are recessive, so you need to have two copies of it in order for it to manifest. White fur, for example. Alex is a carrier of the white fur gene, but doesn’t actually have white fur hirself. You need two copies of it in order to have white fur.”
“So how did Katherine get white fur if I have orange fur?” Raenne asked.
“You’re a carrier of the white fur gene as well, just like Alex is. So any kids you have with Mr. David have a fifty-fifty chance of having white fur.”
“Okay,” Raenne said, shaking her head. “Sounds like I have some research to do.”
The table was silent for a few moments before Aruna reached over and tugged on her brother’s shirt.
“Yes, sis?” Ravi asked, reaching for his fork once again.
“So... did Mom want you and me to have kittens?” she asked, still sounding confused.
Ravi sighed. “Yes. But that was before we met Alex. Please don’t tell Mom I told you, okay?”
Aruna frowned, but nodded. “Okay,” she said, turning back to her plate. She stabbed the last bit of lasagna on her plate and stuck it in her mouth. “Mmm... This is really good, Mrs. Andreyev.”
“Thank you,” the tigress said with a smile. “It’s not hard to make. I’ll get you the recipe.”
__________________________________________________
After dinner, Alex, Ravi, and Aruna headed back upstairs while Raenne and David watched the twins while sitting down in the living room. Aruna had been mostly silent after their conversation, and after the three children reached the upstairs den, she finally turned to her brother and poked him in the side. “Mom actually wanted us to have kittens?” she whispered incredulously.
Ravi sighed. “Yeah. She’s really worried about the survival of our species and she thinks that we’re going to save it,” the boy said, flopping down on the sofa.
“But... What about my CIP?” Aruna asked, standing there staring at him. “Wouldn’t our kids have it?”
“No,” Ravi explained as Alex sat down next to him. “They’d carry the potential for it, but they wouldn’t have it. Like Alex here has potential for white fur but doesn’t actually have white fur.”
“Can we please stop talking about the genetics stuff?” Alex whined, leaning against his side.
Ravi gave a half smile, draping his arm over the tigress. “Sure. Whatcha wanna do instead? TV? Movies? Games? Or we could do something physical...” he suggested, running his paw down hir side, squeezing hir butt.
Alex shifted closer to him. “I’d be up for that... Aruna?”
“What?” the younger tigress asked, sitting down next to her brother.
“Do you want to have sex?” Alex asked, leaning forward to see around Ravi.
“Can we have sex while we do something else?” Aruna countered.
“What, like while we’re watching a movie or playing video games?” Alex asked, turning to look at the youngest tigress with hir head tilted in confusion.
“Oooh, I like that idea,” Ravi said.
Alex blinked at that. “I don’t see why not... but wouldn’t it be kind of distracting?”
“Which is the one that would be distracting?” Ravi asked with a smirk. “The sex or the video games?”
“Raaavi,” Aruna complained, poking her brother in the sides.
“What?” he asked, feigning a stern expression. “It’s a serious question. If we were playing video games, you might be distracting us with sex. Or what if we were having sex and watching a movie? The movie might distract us from having sex.”
The youngest tigress smacked her brother’s arm. “Stop being silly!”
“Okay, okay,” Ravi muttered. “How about we get naked, put on a movie, and see what happens?”
“I dunno if Mom and Dad are okay with us doing naughty stuff in here...” Alex muttered. “Lemme go ask,” shi said, leaning forward and hopping off the sofa. “You two pick out a movie.”
“Okay,” Aruna said, hopping off the sofa and walking to the entertainment console.
Alex jogged out of the upstairs den and down the stairs, pausing at the landing halfway down and leaning over the railing. “Hey Mom?” shi asked... not that shi needed to, as both hir parents had looked up at hir from where they were sitting together on the living room sofa with the twins sleeping in their laps.
“Yeees?” Raenne asked.
“Can we do naughty stuff in the den?” Alex asked. “Aruna wants to watch a movie while we have sex.”
“Damn, that’s a great idea,” David muttered. “Why don’t we do that sometime? You know they make movies just for that—”
“Hush,” Raenne said to him, then looked back up at her daughter. “If you put down towels on anything you might get messy, yes. But don’t leave the room unless you have clothes on,” she said, pointing up at the camera hanging from the ceiling that overlooked the great room and had a clear line-of-sight across the upstairs landing, hallway, and reading nook. “Remember the internet is watching.”
“Oh? What happened to ‘we can’t have the guest bedroom smelling like sex’, huh?” David asked, throwing up air quotes.
“Zero Odor is what happened,” Raenne said. “Haven’t you seen it sitting in the nursery?”
“Uhhh...” David paused, unsure.
“Haven’t you noticed that the nursery smells a lot nicer lately?” Raenne continued.
“Well, now that you mention it...” the white tiger muttered.
“Exactly,” his wife said, turning and looking back up at their daughter. “Go right ahead. Just clean up after you’re done and bring down the towels so I can take ‘em to the laundromat.”
“Yay! Thank you!” Alex said, turning and darting back upstairs.
