A Fox's Tail (American Kitsune Book 2)

by Brandon Varnell

Her eyes widened as one possibility entered her mind, but that couldn't be it… could it? Surely not even they would… but no, she shook her head. Of course they wouldn’t. Not even that girl would be so shameless as to commit carnal acts with another at such a tender age. They were only teenagers.

  Maybe they were studying together? Yes, that sounded plausible. She had heard that young people sometimes got together after school in order to do their homework and, what was that term teenagers used these days? Hang out? Perhaps they were hanging out.

  Regardless, she now had a new dilemma. They were in that apartment and she could no longer see them. She needed to find some way to continue watching them without their knowledge.

  Fortunately, she had the means doing just that.

  She still wasn't stalking them, though.

  Going back to her car, Ms. Vis opened the back door and pulled out a very large, very impractical-looking telescope. It was two feet long, conical in shape, and widened until it was nearly four times as thick as her wrist at the end. It looked like a giant's version of a pirate telescope, only without all the grime and rum stains.

  Now she just needed to find an appropriate place to set up shop, where she could further observe the duo.

  Taking a quick look around, she found exactly what she needed: a ladder that she could use to climb onto the roof of the adjacent complex. Once on the roof of the building, she set up her ridiculously-sized telescope with her just as ridiculously-sized tripod, and aimed it at the window to the apartment.

  Ms. Vis frowned when she peeked through the telescope and noticed something bothersome. The blinds to the window were shut. She couldn't see in.

  Okay. That was fine. They had to open the blinds sometime. It was a beautiful evening. The sun was painting dark reds, oranges and pinks across the sky, setting the desert landscape ablaze. Surely they would open them to properly appreciate the sight? She had read in her romance novels that couples found that kind of thing, well, romantic.

  Not that she cared for romance. She didn't. The only reason she had not had a date in over ten years was because of her, uh, her, um… passion! Yes, she was simply too passionate about teaching children math to be concerned with romance. It had nothing to do with the fact that every man she had dated was turned off by her obsession for numbers, her love for long, hard equations, and her desire to talk about those equations for hours on end. Nothing at all.

  Reaffirming her belief that they would eventually open those blinds sometime soon, Ms. Vis settled into position and began the waiting game that all people who’ve ever played as a sniper in any first-person shooter game are familiar with.

  It was going to be a long wait.

  ***

  “Would you like me to start dinner before we do our homework?” Lilian asked as they entered the apartment.

  “Yeah, sure. Just make something simple though,” Kevin told her as they took off their shoes and set them by the doorway. “You don't need to make something extravagant like that rack of lamb with rosemary you made the other day.” He shook his head. “I still don't know how you made that so quickly. Isn't that supposed to take around half an hour just to set up?”

  “I can’t say.” Lilian winked at him. “A girl's got to keep some secrets.”

  “Right…”

  “So what should I make?”

  Kevin paused for a moment. “I bought some pasta the other day. It's in the pantry. Why don't we just have that?”

  “Okay.” Lilian nodded in agreement. “And in the meantime, you can dump those dirty clothes in the hamper.”

  “Yes, Mom.”

  Lilian swatted his arm playfully, and Kevin gave her a small grin. He took his dirty clothes, which smelled like twenty-year old socks that had been left out in the sun—at least to him—along with their book bags, to his room. Meanwhile, Lilian went into the kitchen to start dinner.

  This had become their usual routine these days. Kevin didn't know when he and Lilian had picked up a routine, but he wasn't complaining. It made living with her much easier.

  And, even though he would never admit it, he kind of liked having her around. Kevin had been living on his own for so long. He had forgotten just how nice it felt to have someone helping out around the house.

  He still wouldn't let her clean without his supervision, though. That was just asking for trouble.

  After he put his clothes in the dirty hamper (his hamper; there were two now), and grabbed the books and supplies they’d need for their homework, he adjourned to the small table in the kitchen, where Lilian had already set out the food―two steaming plates of pasta with marinara sauce―with a flourish.

  He still didn't know how the girl managed to cook everything so fast. That pasta should’ve taken at least ten to fifteen minutes to prepare—just boiling the water took at least three—but she had somehow finished cooking it in less than three minutes.

  It must be some kind of strange kitsune power.

  Dinner was always an interesting affair at the Swift apartment. It was mostly done in silence, though Lilian did enjoy talking quite a bit. However, because they both had the same classes, and spent over ninety percent of their day together, there wasn't a whole lot to talk about.

  Conversation wasn't what made dinner interesting anyway.

  “Gah! Lilian, would you stop that!”

  “Stop what?”

  “That! Stop rubbing your foot against my leg!”

  Dinner was made interesting because of Lilian’s constant attempts at playing footsie with him.

  “Do you not like it when I do this?” Lilian caressed his leg with her toes. Kevin shivered as all kinds of wonderfully strange sensations bombarded him. There must be something seriously wrong with him if he thought this was pleasant. “I was told that men like this.”

  “I do―I mean don't! I don't!” Kevin jerked his leg back when Lilian suddenly caught some of his skin between her toes. He glared at her, but she just smiled innocently. “Who told you that anyways?”

  “Kotohime,” Lilian answered. Kevin twitched at the reminder that her family was apparently rich enough to have a maid. If she was so rich, just what was she doing here? And where was her family anyway? “She told me all kinds of stories about how she and her mate used to play footsie a lot.”

  “Okay, first of all,” Kevin began, pinching the bridge of his nose to stave off his coming headache. This girl could be such a handful. “Those two were married, or mated or whatever, and we're not. Second, not all guys like that kind of stuff. And third, I think you need to be one of those feet people to like something like that.” And he was most definitely not one of those feet people. At least, he didn't think so. He hoped to God he wasn't a foot person. That would just be weird.

  “That's silly, Beloved,” Lilian chided her mate. “Neither Kotohime nor I are feet people, but I still enjoy doing this.” She gave him a smile that, even after having seen it for a little over two weeks, never failed to make his mouth go dry, and his heart try to beat its way out of his chest. “I enjoy it because it's with you. If anyone else did this with me, I wouldn't like it, but because it's you, I do.”

  Was it messed up that Kevin felt both pleased and guilty at the same time? Probably. This girl's words were undoubtedly touching, but he felt guilty because he wished they were coming from Lindsay instead of her.

  His love life was so screwed up. He felt like one of those Harem Protagonists in some kind of twisted Shōnen love comedy—only without the bevy of beautiful women chasing after him for reasons that only they could possibly understand.

  On a side note, he really, really hoped that didn’t happen. He didn’t think he could handle more than one girl—heck, he had trouble handling just Lilian! God knows how much trouble he’d have dealing with several women; just thinking about it made a shiver run down his spine.

  “Well, could you stop, please?”

  “Ha,” Lilian sighed. “Fine, but only because you asked me to.”

  “Thank you.”r />
  “Spoilsport.”

  “You say something?”

  “I asked if you liked the food.”

  “It's good.” As if to emphasis his words, Kevin twirled more pasta onto his fork and took a bite. As he stuck the food in his mouth and began to chew, some of the sauce dripped onto his chin.

  “You're making a mess, Beloved.” When Kevin just blinked at her, Lilian smiled sweetly and grabbed the napkin. “Let me get that for you.”

  And thus, Kevin's face took on enough color that it looked like a miniature red sun, as Lilian leaned over the table and dabbed his mouth with a napkin. It was such an intimate gesture―and so different from the way she usually tried getting close to him―that his entire body felt like it was being cooked in a furnace.

  “There,” she whispered, her tone sensual enough to cause temporary paralysis. He wondered if she knew what she was doing, but a glance at her face revealed nothing more than innocent intentions. She honestly had no idea what her actions were doing to him. “All clean.”

  She smiled at him, and Kevin's breath became hitched. She was so close; close enough that her warm breath washed over his face. Truth be told it wasn't all that pleasant. Her breath was normally reminiscent of a winter’s breeze, crisp and refreshing, but right then, it smelled like pasta sauce. Regardless, Kevin still felt himself becoming hot under the collar, which was strange because his shirt didn't have a collar.

  For a second, Kevin actually thought Lilian was going to kiss him. It certainly wouldn't be the first time. Likely wouldn't be the last, either.

  He knew that he shouldn’t want this, knew that it was wrong. He liked Lindsay, of that he was sure. And yet, as he stared at the girl’s face, at those big green eyes, at those lush pink lips, all thoughts of Lindsay fled. His body, his mind and his heart, it seemed, were eager for whatever this girl had to offer.

  Fortunately (or was it? The voice that he ignored whispered), Lilian did not kiss him. Sitting back down in her chair, the two-tailed kitsune went back to eating, seemingly satisfied that she’d wiped the sauce off his face.

  Kevin felt a strange sense of disappointment, but quickly shook it off. He should be happy that she hadn’t kissed him… shouldn't he?

  After dinner they took their dishes into the kitchen and cleaned them in tandem; one washing while the other dried. It was very efficient—if the Olympics had a competition like dish washing in them, they would have won hands down.

  When they finished washing the dishes, Kevin turned the TV on for some ambient background noise. As Kaidoku Funo—one of several opening theme songs to one of his favorite anime—began playing, he and Lilian sat down and worked on their homework.

  Kevin had discovered early on that Lilian was very good at English and anything involving literature. She was incredibly well-read, which surprised him, since he’d never seen her read anything, aside from his manga collection. He guessed that meant she used to read a lot at home.

  “Lilian?”

  “Hmm?”

  “I was wondering something.”

  Lilian looked up from their homework; they had to write a five-page report on the original Magna Carta. Large green eyes blinked several times. Were her eyelashes always so long?

  “Wondering what, Beloved?”

  “How come you're so good at English literature? Is it like that kitsune ability that you have to speak any language without an accent? Can your eyes translate any language you see or something?”

  “Good guess, but no.” Lilian smiled. “I just worked really hard to learn how to read and write in English. I actually had a lot of help with that. I’ve been staying at our manor in Tampa Bay for the past five years. I was never allowed to leave, but when I expressed an interest in learning how to read and write in English, Kotohime hired an independent kitsune to teach me.”

  Kevin stored the term “independent kitsune” for future inquiry. He also took note of her comment about staying at a manor in Tampa Bay. However, it was her other comment that really caught his attention.

  “So wait, your mom or matriarch or whatever never allowed you to go into the city? Ever? Why?”

  “Ah. Well... my mom is... she's...”

  Kevin became worried when he saw Lilian hesitating. Had he just stepped on some kind of land mine?

  “Lilian?”

  “Kotohime said it's because I didn't have enough training to interact with humans properly,” Lilian huffed, crossing her arms under her chest. “I don't know how she expects us to learn how to interact with humans when she won't even let us go into the bigger cities. The only place I've ever been allowed to visit was the beach right outside of the villa, and that’s only because it's privately owned by our family, so humans never go there.”

  So her maid told her that? What about her mom? Where did the woman who gave birth to her figure into all this? Either way, he felt pretty bad for Lilian. It must have been chafing to have such an overly protective family―uh, maid.

  “What about when you lived in Greece? You mentioned that humans would occasionally visit your village.”

  “Humans aren't allowed into the village proper, just the resort off the coast, and I never got to see them,” Lilian grumbled. “Even when I was walking through the village, I always had Kotohime with me, and she would never let me past the village border.”

  “So you never saw a human back then? Not even once?”

  Lilian smiled, and Kevin wondered if the bitterness he saw in it was his imagination.

  “I do remember one time when I met a human―a little boy who somehow managed to wander away from the resort. To this day, I don't know how he did it, but he managed to break through the barrier that kept both humans and other yōkai out. I ran into him when I was, well, when I was going through a rough period in my life.”

  She shook her head.

  “But that's all in the past. Aside from that boy, the only other humans I've met were the ones that I enchanted to get me all the way to Arizona.” She frowned. “And a lot of those people were jerks. The only reason I even enchanted them was because they kept acting like that Juan idiot.”

  “Hm,” Kevin hummed, “You know, I remember going to Greece once.”

  Lilian looked at him, her eyes more attentive than usual. “Really?”

  “Um.” Kevin nodded. “It was a really long time ago, so I don't remember much. I think I was five? Maybe six. Anyway, Mom was doing an article on a fashion show that was being held there.” He gave her a look, half-amused, half-disturbed. “I remember, the people watching over me were always getting run ragged. I kept leaving the resort we were staying at. I think I just wanted to find my mom, since she was always gone. I didn't learn until later that she was traveling to the mainland in order to conduct interviews.”

  “Hmm.”

  A pensive silence descended upon them. Lilian's brow furrowed, and her artistically crafted ruby lips turned downwards into a frown. She seemed disappointed by something.

  “Are you all right, Lilian?”

  Lilian blinked, her eyes sharpening as her mind snapped back to reality.

  “Yes, I’m fine.” She gave him an unconvincing smile. “I was just thinking about something.”

  Kevin was tempted to ask what she was thinking about when another thought occurred to him.

  “Is something wrong, Beloved?” Lilian asked when Kevin began looking around, his eyes blinking in confusion and his brow furrowed.

  “No.” Kevin shook his head. “Just had a strange thought, that's all.”

  Lilian looked at him for a second longer, worried. Her mate was acting a little weird. Still, if he didn't want to talk about it…

  “All right. Why don't I finish helping you with those notes, then you can help me with my math.”

  Lilian Pnevma was excellent at English. However, she absolutely sucked at math. She was so horrible at it that every time she tried solving an equation, thousands of math teachers felt a disturbance in the Equation and cried out in agony.

/>   “That's not a very nice thing to say.”

  Sorry.

  “Whatever, you're not sorry at all.”

  “Lilian, who are you talking to?”

  “No one! Come on, let's get back to work!”

  The duo of human and kitsune focused on their work after that. By the time they finished, it was nine pm.

  “Time for bed!” Lilian cheered. She even gave a little fist-pump to show her excitement. Even her two tails, which she had brought out the moment they entered their apartment, were wagging around like hyperactive children on a sugar high.

  Kevin looked askance at the girl, then shook his head. “Why are you so excited? We're just going to sleep.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Lilian pouted, her lips pursing. Kevin gulped and looked away. “But that's just because you refuse to do anything else to me. I would be more than willing to explore our relationship if you weren't such a prude.”

  “W-whatever. You didn't answer my question.”

  “Isn't it obvious? Even if we don't do anything, I still get to sleep with you.”

  “Auu,” Kevin moaned pathetically. “Can you please not say it like that? You make it sound so dirty.”

  “Ufufufu, you're so cute when you're embarrassed.”

  “And would you please, please, please stop laughing like that?”

  “Ufufufu, laughing like what?”

  “Like that!”

  “I don't know what you're talking about.”

  “Of course you don't,” Kevin sighed.

  He and Lilian entered the bathroom to brush and floss their teeth. There were now two automatic toothbrushes sitting on the marble counter top.

  After ensuring their breath was minty fresh, Kevin went into the small walk-in closet in his room, and changed into a pair of boxers and his fifth pair of pajama bottoms. He prayed to God, Allah and Kami that this pair wouldn't get ripped. He really didn't want to buy any more.

  When he came out, Lilian was already dressed.

  “Gah!” His face burned as if it had suddenly caught on fire. “What the heck are you wearing?!”

  Even though he had seen her sleepwear dozens of times over, he didn't think he would ever get used to it. She wore some kind of spaghetti strap shirt that stretched taught against her bust. It had a floral-patterned lace silhouette, and a pink bow at the bust line. The fabric flowed out the lower it went, stopping at her midriff, exposing an expansive amount of her flat tummy. On her hips, composed almost entirely of lace, partially translucent and scarcely covering the parts of her that should've been covered, were the laciest panties he had ever seen.