by Tempe O'Kun
Max leaned back and enjoyed her slick affections. He reached in and stroked his sheath up and down a few times before tugging it back behind his ample knot. The smooth bulge of canine flesh throbbed larger with her every lick and squeeze.
She figured choking on her partner might spoil the mood and decided against trying to take his full length in her muzzle the first time. Instead, she settled for working the tip and using her hands on the rest. Remembering how he’d stroked himself their first night together, she caressed his shaft, running webbed paws all over his length. His sheath felt so soft compared to the shaft or the swelling knot. Her hands gave it little strokes in time with her taking him deep in her muzzle, which resulted in some very satisfying noises from the canine. Pulling off for a breath, she gripped his knot to maneuver him. Her hand squeezed just a little too hard behind that swell of husky flesh…
A gasp.
He shuddered, his balls twitched, then a pulse of tension rushed up the underside of his cock. A shot of thick canine semen surged against her lips to drip down her chin. The dog bit back a wild howl, reining it back to a desperate moan.
By the second blast, she managed to get her lips back around his tip. A heavy, salty surge of flavor flooded her mouth. That shaft of naked flesh pulsed again, and this time she wiggled her tongue against the head of his member.
An ecstatic whine emanated from the dog. His eyes squeezed shut. His body trembled.
The remains of his first blast of semen oozed from her chin down over her hands. Softer pulses followed, tinged with salt, woven rich with musk. He leaned over her and gasped. His panted breath stirred her hair, hot with a hint of toothpaste. Even after he stopped spurting, she held him in her muzzle, enjoying the sounds she drew from him with every suckle.
When at last she pulled off, she worked the fluids around in her mouth with approval and ran her paws up the whites of his thighs. A thin strand of saliva and semen connected his cock tip to her lips. Chin propped against the base of his dick, she looked up at him and licked her lips. “Good?”
“Very.” He panted for breath. His chest rose and fell as his erection started to fade.
Curious otter paws drifted back to his crotch. She watched as his knot shrank, after a minute or so getting small enough to slip back into his sheath. After seeing how he reacted to her paws, she squeezed down on where it would be buried inside her. She’d been a little intimidated, but, having seen it up close, she found herself more eager than ever. “I thought knots stayed hard for like half an hour?”
“Depends on where you put them.” Shaky paws cupped her face and wiped a drip of cum from her chin. “You have no idea how good that felt.”
The otter eeled up onto the bed to snuggle at his side. “I may’ve picked up on your subtle signals.”
He smiled and breathed and held her close.
Kylie gave a soft, happy sigh and nuzzled into the plush fur on Max’s throat. Her hand played along her belly, her whole body still tingly and satisfied. “I’m starting to really like this bed.”
He rested his chin between her ears. “It does have a good track record.”
They lay back on the sheets, letting time drift by. Their scents hung thick in the air. She hoped the room would air out before her mom came home. On a whim, she reached up and coaxed the window open, just to be safe. She curled back up against Max, feeling one of his massive arms wrap around her shoulder, and let sleep creep up on her. She had barely closed her eyes when her stomach grumbled. With no small effort, she summoned the will to move once again and rolled to face him. “Wanna get some lunch in town?” She wiped the last traces of his semen from her paws to the sheets. “After we clean up, of course.”
He blinked, but squeezed her shoulders. “Uh, sure?”
Noon banished shadows and gleamed off the previous day’s rain. Restaurants had started to fill with lunch guests, including the patio of Pinchy’s, where several cubs sported paper lobster hats. Otter instincts roused at the scent of chowder, Kylie still refrained from scampering to the front of the line to demand the creamy delight du jour. They waited in line and bought two containers of soup, which they ate as they walked.
At the window of Windfall Hunting Co., Max stopped to look inside. “I’ve been thinking: if we’re going to cross paths with this thing, we should probably have some kind of plan.” His gaze met hers. “And by plan, I mean implements of destruction.”
Kylie cocked an eyebrow. “You’re a big strong farm type. Can’t you just punch it?” The lutrine made two tiny fists and socked the air in front of her.
He lowered her fists. “Kylie, how many horror movies have we seen?”
“I dunno.” She looked up to tally them in her mind, then gave up. “A lot.”
The dog nodded. “And in how many of them has punching the monster worked?”
“Hmm. Valid point.” She turned to survey the displayed sporting goods. Her ears twitched in consideration. “What would work?”
“I dunno.” A shrug rolled his thick shoulders. “Claymores?”
The otter cocked an eyebrow. “The swords or the land mines?”
He blinked, a bit nervous. “Which do we have?”
Her paws spread against the cool window glass. “Neither, probably.”
“Pity.” The husky crossed his arms. “We could strap claymores to claymores for double the destruction. It’d be straight out of Revenginator.”
With a smirk, she nodded at the window. “Or we could buy a gun.”
He gave her a wry look. “I know how to pose with a gun, not shoot one.”
She bumped his hip with hers. “What kind of farm dog are you?”
His deep blue eyes rolled. “The kind who spent his formative years doing shoulder-rolls around a Hollywood backlot instead of learning to hunt.”
“Hmmm.” Cupping her paws against the glass, her glance zipped further into the store. “Think monsters are vulnerable to pepper spray?”
“I guess? I mean, acid in the eyes is probably a bad day for anybody. Still, we should play it safe and buy the biggest can they sell.” He paused. “Wait.” A second ticked by, thoughts forming behind the husky’s furrowed brow. “Didn’t that bunny friend…?”
“Yeah.” Realization sprang through her. “You don’t think…”
The dog spread his paws. “We could ask her. Do you know where she works?”
“Remember the touristy cave TV ad? That’s where I’d seen her.” The otter snapped her fingers, then grimaced. “Do we really need to hang out with Cindy’s pal? We could just wait for dark and sneak into the caves.”
“Yes, because we’re cool with hunting monsters but not with paying admission.” He flicked through his phone’s map. “Crystal Caverns?”
“Yeah…” The otter gave a resigned sigh and a nod. “That’s the place.”
The Crystal Caverns had far more than just cave tours. The giant, enthusiastically-colored sign out front said so. Walking at Max’s side, Kylie passed troughs where a group of pups pawed through pebbles, yipping with joy to their parents when they found a chunk of dyed quartz. Before them, an old badger ignored everyone and lectured on strata at a geological pace.
The otter smirked. Max still showed some of that puppy enthusiasm now and again, extra amusing coming from someone twice her size. She liked a little cuteness in her hunky television stars.
The main building, composed of hewn rocks, sat half-buried in a hillside. The pair ducked inside, entering a gift shop stocked with suncatchers, stone wind chimes, and plastic miner’s helmets with LED lanterns. At the front desk sat the brown bunny and cream from earlier, now clad in a prismatic polo shirt emblazoned with the shop’s logo. She bounced upright. “Hi there!”
“Hello again.” Max gave a polite nod.
Kylie followed with the requisite smile.
A look of brief horror crossed the rabbit’s face as she recognized them. She froze except for her twitchy pink nose.
The otter waved her worries away with a webbe
d paw. “This isn’t about Cindy. Or me.”
Brushing her floppy ears from her face, she relaxed a little. “So why are you here?”
“We just had a couple questions.” Max sat on the stool next to the counter full of rock-candy. “If that’s okay.”
“It’s okay, really.” The bunny adjusted her whiskers, looking mostly at him. “Thanks for your help back in town.”
“Sure. Actually, that’s one thing we came to ask about.” He leaned on the countertop. “Is there some reason you need a can of wildlife pepper spray?”
Nerves swept the bunny once more. She gripped the counter. Her emerald eyes bounced from the window to the cave entrance and back to them. “Yes? Maybe? I don’t know?”
The lutrine groaned. “You should tell us so we can leave before Cindy finds out we’re here and drops the drama-bomb you’re so scared of.”
“Oh, that’s not the problem.” The bunny wrung her paws. “Cindy and I aren’t joined at the hip, and I don’t think she’s very funny anymore.” She fiddled with a novelty pen display. “We hung out in high school, and when she moved back I just sort of got pulled in. Sorry, am I babbling?”
“It’s okay. My name’s Max and you already know Kylie. She babbles, too.” Ignoring his friend’s sputter, the husky extended a hand. “What exactly is the problem?”
“Sarah Warren.” Her soft, fluffy paw shook his. “And, well…” A nervous simper. “This is gonna sound crazy.”
The otter leaned against the gift shop door. “Try me.”
A deep breath, then the bunny continued. “I’ve wanted to tell somebody about this, but everyone seems to think I’m just trying to drum up business for Haunted Cave Tuesday. People are supposed to stay on the walking paths, but I’ve been exploring since I started here. Something is totally living in the caves. I’ve heard…noises.”
“Don’t your caves have speakers in them to make creepy noises?” The lutrine lifted an eyebrow.
The bunny shook her head. “The speakers are rigged up to hidden doorbells in the passage so I can trigger them on the tour. And they all play bargain basement sound effects off an old CD. This is different.”
Kylie crossed her arms.
Max nodded. “So do you have some kind of evidence?”
“There’s a passage, deep in the caves. Just a little chimney connecting our tunnels to the old mines below. Something keeps leaving animal carcasses in it.” She paused, as though expecting them to stop her. When they only stared expectantly, she continued in a rush. “They’re always gone within a few days, sometimes within hours. Nobody has seen any kind of predator in the woods for decades; you can ask the local hunters. But every few years, they all get together and scour the woods for whatever keeps killing the wild deer and turkeys. Never turns up anything.”
The husky gave a slow nod. “You think it’s living in your cave?”
“Or unliving?” The lutrine wiggled her fingers, then regretted saying anything. She had an unfortunate habit of snarking at people whom she suspected might dislike her. The last thing she wanted was to confirm the bunny’s fears of being mocked.
“Oh.” Sarah pulled out her phone. “I took some pictures. See?” Offering the screen to them, she cycled through images of bloody trails along the cave floor, along with more distant shots of carcasses and one closeup of a rough rocky ledge crisscrossed by long, deep furrows. “I don’t know of anyone or anything with claws that big.”
The dog waggled his mobile. “Could I get those pics?”
“Sure.” The bunny swiped her paw across the screen, entering his phone number.
While they exchanged info, Kylie looked around. Among the crystal-growing kits, she found a placard telling the legend of a prospector who hid his silver cache in the caves, then one day vanished without a trace. “You must be the only place in town not banking on a monster myth.”
“That’s not the sort of story that gets people into caves.” She tittered a nervous laugh.
Kylie twitched her whiskers, but softened her tone. “But you’re willing to tell us.”
The lapine pocketed her phone. “Look, I’d like to know what kind of giant predator might be living in my workplace. If you two are willing to help, then, yeah, I’ll tell you what I know.” She led them to the back of the shop, then opened a door into a cave. She grabbed flashlights off a shelf on the other side and brandished them at Max and Kylie. “And if this is some kind of trick and you’re here to make fun of me, I’ll totally abandon you down there.”
Max and Kylie stood staring for a moment, at this apparent portal to another world. Stone flowed down the walls, ringed like inside-out trees. Occasional drips of water pattered the floor. A row of lights ran bolted to the ceiling, the only sign of civilization’s existence. They exchanged a glance of shared hesitation.
“C’mon.” The rabbit gestured for them to follow. “I’ve led this tour before, y’know.”
The pair padded after her, entering the cavern. Crystals glimmered, glued to the walls, scattering light from the lanterns overhead. The cave expanded in asymmetrical ways, natural furrows in the stone sweeping up and away, leaving plenty of places a deer-slaying monster could drop down from.
Max leaned down to the otter’s ear. “See, this is a place we could use claymore claymores.”
“Please stay with the group and don’t wander off the lighted path or we’ll have to use the buddy system.” Sarah led them without hesitation down the twists and turns, deeper and deeper, past waterlogged diagrams of the planet’s layers. “The town’s earliest records don’t make much mention of these caves, but somebody must have known, considering at least one mine hit them.”
Max perked his ears, then twitched as they scraped water off the low ceiling. He crouch-walked under the low ceiling. “At least one?”
“Even I’m still exploring this complex. There’s something weird about these caves.” Her soft chuckle got lost in the convoluted space. “I love tunnels as much as the next bunny, but I keep getting lost in these. That just doesn’t happen…” Her heavy ears swiveled up. “We offer full spelunking packages, but you’d have to go back and sign a waiver.”
Kylie twitched a drop of water off her nose. “No waivers for the monster lair?”
The husky stopped, let the otter pass, then put a paw on her shoulder to stay connected through the twisting passage. He looked ahead to Sarah. “Just the place you took the photos is fine.”
She nodded and took them further down, at last reaching a wall with a crack.
Surrounded by the echoing sound of dripping water, the three stood staring into the gap.
Max looked around in confusion.
Kylie watched their guide.
The bunny tossed back her ears, exhaled, then wriggled into the gap. A tight squeeze, but she vanished into the black. From nowhere, her anxious voice called. “You coming?”
Max whimpered. “Is there another way around?”
Sarah chuckled. “No, but it’s right here.”
The otter shrugged. Max was clearly struggling to clamp down on his worry, and she wasn’t about to make it worse for him by showing nervousness. She dove into the crack; a tight fit, but manageable for a scrawny otter. She emerged on the other side to find the rabbit leaning against a wall looking down a break in the floor, varying in diameter, but large enough to shimmy down.
The bunny pointed her flashlight down the chasm. “The floor’s too level in there. You can tell it’s a mine. You can even see some railway ties from where they were using carts.”
The lutrine peeked over the edge and saw a stone surface maybe ten meters down. Dark streaks marred the rock. “And that’s where you saw the remains?”
“Yeah.” The rabbit’s gaze never left the hole.
Kylie backed away from the edge, slipping on a wet patch and landing on her tail. In a frantic scramble back, she clutched the wall, heart racing. “Ow.” She clambered back to her feet and dusted the water off her pelt.
Max whined,
his nose poking into the gap behind them.
“I’m fine, ya big baby. Not my fault you can’t fit.” The lutrine cupped a paw over his muzzle and pushed him back. “Coming up here was your idea. I just wanted to have lunch.”
The bunny twitched a nervous foot at the ledge. “Aren’t you going down?”
“Fuck no. I’m even smaller than you.” Her arms crossed. “I’m thinking we jackhammer this gap until burly, monster-fighting types can get through.”
“Kylie.” The dog’s voice reverberated through the gap. “You know I’ve only fought monsters made of foam rubber, right?”
“The owners won’t let you jackhammer the cave walls. For a number of reasons.” She edged past Kylie and squeezed back through the gap. “But I felt a breeze when I was down there, so it has to connect somewhere. I’m guessing one of the old mine entrances is still exposed.”
Grumbling and contorting, the otter managed to slither back into the main chamber.
Once she emerged, Max padded a little closer.
She patted his chest. “You can stop freaking out.”
“I wasn’t freaking out.” He straightened with transparent bravado. “I was totally fine with you going into the death hole without me.”
Kylie turned to their guide. “You know a lot about this stuff.”
The bunny smiled with pride. “Yeah. My family dug a lot of the mines, back in the day. We’ve been in charge of them the whole time.” She gestured vaguely at the string of Yuletide lights leading back toward the entrance. “In, you know, one way or another.”
He gave her a makes-sense shrug. “We could check sat maps; look for other entrances.”
“No need. I already have them on here.” Sarah waggled her smartphone. “For emergencies and stuff. They’re probably all overgrown, but…” The lapine’s fingertips danced across her phone as she sent another file.
