Son of a bitch.

 

Allison stared at the screen of her phone, propped up against the cash register, completely flabbergasted. Surely she couldn’t have heard that correctly. She snatched the phone from the counter and slid back the scrubber.

 

“—a big round of applause for doing their best—“ No, that was about the Accord government getting trashed, good riddance. She’d gone too far back.

 

“—ensure your most adorable selves are—“ No, that was the bit about domesticating people. Too far forward.

 

“—hereby retiring your prison systems, any and all forms of currency—“ She stopped the video.

 

That! What the hell was THAT?! How the hell was she supposed to stock, run, and maintain upkeep on a convenience store if there wasn’t any stars-damned money?! She nearly threw her phone through the pyramid of cans near the entrance, held back only by the respect she had for the time and love that she’d put into its construction— respect that these arrogant weeds evidently did not have.

 

There were only fifteen minutes left until her store opened for the day, and then she’d be stuck with ten hours of exchanging her goods for a currency that was effectively worthless. She might as well just give everything away; stars knew she’d considered doing that more than once.

 

She was seconds away from giving up and closing the store for the day, when who should walk in but the devil themself.

 

The plant xeno was way too tall, tall enough that they had to crouch to fit through the door, and looked like a flower bed that had been bippity-boopity-boo’d into a person. They stood back up a little too early and knocked the entrance bell clear off the doorframe.

 

“Whoops,” they muttered, their strange warbling voice somehow sounding a lot closer than its source. “I’ll have to add that to the agenda somewhere.”

 

 

The xeno— an affini, Allison recalled— turned around to find Allison standing behind the register, arms angrily crossed. “Can I help you?” she asked, in a tone significantly more passive aggressive than she usually used for the same phrase.

 

“I was just about to ask you the same question,” the affini said, smiling amicably and crouching to shake her hand. “My name is Perenni Amplex, Second Bloom, she/her, and I’m here to ask if… you…?”

 

She trailed off as Allison marched out from behind the counter, phone thrust in front of her and facing in Perenni’s direction. “Yes, I believe you can help me; you can start by telling me what in the cold dark of space this is all about?!”

 

Perenni waited and watched patiently as Allison played back the video, starting just before the offending section. She had to stop it and start again when Perenni didn’t immediately grasp what she was referring to and kept watching without comment.

 

Allison snatched back her phone, glaring up at the affini accusingly. Her face heated somewhat when, at this proximity, she was forced to take direct notice of their height difference, but she stuffed that in the “bullshit absurdity” folder of her mind along with every other event of the past several hours.

 

Perenni took a moment to consider her response. “…we just abolished money, yes.”

 

“Don’t-!!” Allison flailed angrily. “Don’t just say that like it was a stroll through the park for you! Didn’t this literally just happen, and you’re already showing up at some random corner store? What, is this your victory lap?”

 

“Actually, I stopped at the park before I came here. It was quite cute.” Perenni’s brow furrowed. “Though I was concerned by the pollution, and the fact that it was smaller than the empty nearby parking lot—“

 

“Not the point,” Allison quickly interjected, quieting Perenni with a small terran hand on the affini’s arm. She checked the clock. “I have exactly two minutes to prepare before this place opens, and then I’m going to be fighting for my life and most likely fending off looters all day, so if you don’t mind I think I’ll start drafting my will.”

 

“That’s why I’m here, actually,” Perenni said, the smile having returned to her face. “To help. I figured you might be overwhelmed. And there’s no shame in opening late, you know.”

 

“Actually, Perenni, there’s plenty of shame in opening late,” Allison snarked moodily, “and that still only gives us four hands, so I’m not sure how much good it will do.”

 

“Four hands, yes,” Perenni smirked. Allison watched the affini’s body unravel somewhat, and her body was quickly flanked by dozens, if not hundreds, of eager green tendrils. “But many more vines.”

 

Allison gulped. A ten-foot alien near the entrance might help to curb the onslaught, now that she thought about it.

 

“Just don’t expect to get paid.”

 

 

The day went exceptionally well. Allison couldn’t tell whether or not Perenni had effectively dissuaded any looters, because nobody appeared very interested in looting. People came in and asked for things, and Allison had no reason not to give everything away, but the traffic wasn’t particularly intense. Everything else proceeded more or less as it normally did, save for the giant flowery xeno single-handedly redecorating the entire store.

 

“Our freezers are functional, the plumbing seems okay,” Perenni said, vines flying left and right across the room, “but the structural integrity of this building is unacceptable, and the electrical system is concerning. We’re going to have to fix that, then I have about a million and one renovations in mind over the course of the next year.”

 

Allison paled. “You can’t tear this place down, it’s important to me! It was inherited!”

 

“Oh, no no no, sweetheart, nothing’s getting torn down,” Perenni quickly corrected, giving the terran her fifteenth unexpected hug of the day. “We’re just buttressing it, and replacing things you won’t even see. Think of it like… like an implant for the building.” Allison didn’t find that comparison comforting. 

 

“Anyway, did you know that some corner stores like this one have live-in animals? Look!” She thrust a tablet in Allison’s face before sitting next to her; she’d been watching a video of a gray cat lounging in the middle of a store aisle. “Isn’t that adorable?! It’s imperative that they’re properly taken care of, true, but we need one, Allie!” 

 

Why the xeno kept referring to her store as if they co-owned it, or why she had started calling her “Allie”, Allison had no idea, but she was too emotionally exhausted to object to it. “I can’t take care of a cat, Perenni; I can barely take care of myself. This store has me and that’s all it’s going to get.”

 

Perenni sat upright. She gave Allison a strange look; started looking her up and down, like she’d just realized she’d been speaking with a celebrity for hours without recognizing them. Allison was moments away from breaking the awkward silence when Perenni said, “That should be enough.”

 

“Huh?”

 

“Nothing!!” Perenni grinned, swinging the trash bag full of all the price labels she’d removed from the shelves earlier over one shoulder, the entire cash register in her other hand. “Looks like it’s closing time, though. Can I walk you back to your place? Clean it up? You can come home with me if you’d like.”

 

“Um… I’m good, thank you,” Allison replied gingerly. “Thank you so much for your help, though, you really saved my ass.” She didn’t see any use in complaining about Perenni’s overreach if the affini wasn’t about to stop anytime soon.

 

“Of course! I’ll see you tomorrow, then! Have a good night’s sleep- and eat dinner- and take your medication!” Perenni walked backwards out the door, re-knocking the bell from its frame as she did, then popped her head back in to say, “I love you!” before promptly leaving again.

 

Allison stood in her perfectly organized corner store for a while, still processing the day’s events. She didn’t even notice that Perenni had never reattached the bell to the door; she’d left with it.

 

Over the next few days, Allison’s store went through some dramatic changes. Perenni had insisted on clearing everything out, before a small crew of affini swept in and revitalized the place from top to bottom. Everything looked more or less the same, but exquisitely clean, as if it had been built yesterday. Both the interior and exterior sported significantly more foliage than before (which had amounted to a single small succulent in a handmade clay pot, which Perenni had been extra careful to preserve), and Allison had to fight back her paranoia when she couldn’t easily distinguish any of it from Perenni’s vines.

 

In the end Allison found herself in a beautiful store, clean and modern without losing its humble charm and inviting warmth, and it was undeniably the same store she knew and loved. She got a little misty-eyed, taking it all in: she’d almost forgotten what had motivated her original decision to continue running the store in the first place.

 

Perenni snuck up behind her. “So? What do you think?”

 

“Perenni…” Allison struggled for words. “It's incredible. Seriously, I can’t thank you enough for this.”

 

“No thanks needed,” Perenni beamed, all six of her golden eyes sparkling. “Seeing you happy is enough for me.”

 

Allison immediately flushed scarlet, and was forced to avert eye contact for the sake of her dignity. The affini’s flirtatious nature had almost been enough to distract Allison from the fact that Perenni was a ten-foot galaxy-conquering plant woman.

 

Speaking of galaxy conquering… “Shit!” Allison exclaimed, “I forgot about money! Do we even have any stock left?”

 

“Shhh, don’t worry yourself, petal.” Perenni crouched down and petted her hair; for whatever reason Allison didn’t object to it, nor had she objected to the last several times it had happened. It… felt kinda good, to be honest.

 

“I have a list we can peruse containing our predicted demand over the next month,” Perenni explained. “Since most resources can be acquired elsewhere, sophonts are going to be looking for things they’d prefer to shop for. Anything you’d like to see on your shelves is probably a good start, along with whatever you think visitors will be interested in: new foods they might want to try, bath and self-care materials, things like that. I’ll show you our database of user-created resource recipes, and we can manufacture whatever we need using the industrial atomic compiler in the back.”

 

Right; Allison had forgotten they’d acquired a magic machine that could make anything. Hopefully visitors would stop asking if she had what they were looking for in the back, because the answer would now almost always be yes. “Can we check that list now?”

 

“So eager~,” Perenni giggled, giving Allison another head rub. “Maybe over dinner. You’ve worked hard today, and you need a bath; you’re getting stinky.”

 

Allison went bright red. “I don’t-?!” She reflexively checked her underarms before Perenni burst into bright, bubbly laughter and she realized what she was doing; after which she got even redder. “I don’t stink!!”

 

“I know, honey, I just love seeing you blush.” Perenni wiggled her golden antennae. “You never know, though, these things are surprisingly sensitive. Either way, you’re taking a break.”

 

Allison huffed, but didn’t argue. The pair climbed the steps to the terran’s recently renovated apartment; Perenni had already started inviting herself in days ago, anyway.

 

Allison hadn’t really meant it when she said she couldn’t take care of herself; she was a grown woman, and she’d already made it this far, even if it had been hard. She didn’t need to be coddled.

 

But if that was true, then why couldn’t she stop imagining herself kneeling in a tub, eyes closed, with Perenni’s huge hands massaging shampoo into her hair?

 

 

They spent the next morning stocking the shelves. It was a guilty pleasure Allison hadn’t known she’d wanted, getting to fill them with things she wanted to stock rather than what she thought would sell.

 

Looking around, at the revolving stuffed animal rack near the front and the pastry display next to the affini-sized help desk (what had formerly been the register, and half as large), it had all turned out a bit more… cutesy, than she’d expected. She had more or less gone with Perenni’s advice, but she had kept a number of novelty items she’d gotten attached to over the years.

 

She liked what she saw, though it was a change in tone she’d failed to anticipate and a little embarrassing. Perenni had comforted her significantly when by suggesting that visitors were going to be too preoccupied with the alien power shift to worry over anything less extreme.

 

Perenni must’ve advertised as well, because shortly after opening the store was quickly occupied with affini and their florets. Allison was very happy to see her old regulars showing up as well, and she’d made sure to keep a significant section of the store stocked with all of their favorites (though they were much healthier and more environmentally-friendly versions).

 

There was only one problem. In the past, she’d been so busy running everything in the store at once that it distracted her from all other manners of anxiety. In this idealized and optimized version of the store, there wasn’t really anything to do except talk to the customers. She liked them a lot, but that didn’t make her any less scared.

 

As always Perenni had picked up on this, and was more than capable of doing all the talking necessary; but her regulars kept telling the affini old stories, talking about how much of a hard worker Allison was, and she couldn’t fight the guilty compulsion that she was supposed to be the store runner, not just the store occupier.

 

Day one had ended with celebration and a pizza party for two, but by day five Allison had done enough fretting and micromanagement for Perenni to take notice. 

 

“Petal, is there something wrong?” she asked, flipping the sign on the front door from “Come On In!” to “Break Time!”. “You’ve been repositioning Nugget for the past ten minutes. If this isn’t enriching for you, the store can run itself.”

 

Nugget was the name of Allison’s succulent, and she had indeed been doing that. “It’s not that… I really do love being here. I feel like this place has finally become what it was meant to be.” She sighed. “I guess I just don’t know how I fit into it, anymore.”

 

Perenni knelt by her side and rubbed her back. “Did you enjoy the work you used to do? We can bring that back.”

 

“Not really, no. I just liked keeping the place alive, I suppose. It’s a cornerstone of the local community, and I could just lose myself in the upkeep; there was a certain bliss to that, sometimes, and I felt like… like I was a part of that, of this place.” She groaned. “Sorry, that sounds really weird, I’ve never put my feelings about it into words.”

 

“No, actually, I think I understand you completely,” Perenni said. “But the excessive work you were required to do and the stress of meeting bills and deadlines made that bliss difficult to find, I imagine.”

 

“Yeah, exactly,” Allison said. She felt warm; how lucky she was to have someone like Perenni around, who seemed to always understand her no matter how confusing she felt she was.

 

There was something curious about the affini’s body language though, and she was buzzing softly. Allison had learned to associate this with Perenni’s strong emotions, but she wasn’t sure which ones.

 

“Flower…” She paused. “I wasn’t going to show you this yet, but I think the time may be right. Can you follow me to the back?”

 

“Sure,” Allison said, and she hopped down from the stool behind the help desk. She couldn’t imagine what Perenni was referring to, but given that the compiler was in the back, she thought she’d prepared herself for anything.

 

She just didn’t expect to open the door and immediately walk into three pairs of glowing, golden eyes.

 

It was dark in the back room- or maybe the eyes were just bright. She knew they were Perenni’s, but the affini’s body, her own body, the entire presence of the room quickly faded into nonsense concepts, along with every other thought in her head. Her vision became her, and her vision was enclosed by Perenni’s. The eyes grew, or Allison became small within them, and they formed the new room inside her mind. It was small and warm, and she wasn’t going anywhere. The swirling Eyes ensured that, drawing the room ever closer around her.

 

“Oh, you’re just like I imagined,” Perenni whispered, awestruck as she wiped the drool from Allison’s slack jaw with her thumb. “Dropping so readily for me. You have no idea how hard it’s been to resist this since day one. I need to focus before I completely lose my restraint.”

 

“Sweetheart, we’re going to start with some simple calibration,” said the Voice. It was a resonating, intrinsic sound, and it seemed to come from everywhere; especially her bones, and her brain. She felt it resting in her throat, and understood that if the Voice requested it, it would become her voice, too. But her throat and brain and bones were concepts disconnected from their alternative meanings, and only served now as conduits for the Voice.

 

“I’m going to ask a series of questions, and you’re going to give me answers in response. Then I will change your answers, I will ask you the same questions and you will give your answers in response. Do you understand?”

 

“I understand.” The Voice resonated in the brain, and the throat opened itself to the Voice, but struggled to channel It. She could only hope that what emerged was at all intelligible.

 

“Good girl,” said the Voice, and in doing so summoned glimpses of the old body in waves of pleasurable sensation; the throat interfaced with the lungs in a peculiar way. All of this was at once understood to be proper function.

 

“What is your name?”

 

“My name is Allison.”

 

“What is my name?”

 

“Your name is Perenni Amplex, Second Bloom.”

 

“My name is Mistress.”

 

“Your name is Mistress.”

 

“What is my name?”

 

“Your name is Mistress.”

 

“Very good girl.”

 

Pleasure threw her body into disarray in a manner which must have been wrong, but which she knew was absolutely, wonderfully right. It was only in the wake of these waves that the body became hers, it was only in the performance and realization of obedience that the concept of Her existed at all. 

 

She was obedience, and her name was Allison. Allison was obedient; this was simple, immutable fact, and the fundamental truth of reality upon which all future developments must be built. Allison was obedient to the Voice and to the Eyes.

 

“I think we’re ready to begin some proper suggestions. I’m going to make a statement of fact; you are going to let it seed at the base of your decision-making, and understand it as truth where relevant. Do you understand?”

 

“I understand.”

 

“Good girl.” Pleasure. Allison is obedient. “You’re very fond of this store, and fond of the people who visit.” Response. “You want to be a part of the experience, but you want to be less… socially and cerebrally involved.” Response. “When I give you advice that involves relinquishing yourself of those responsibilities, you will listen and obey.” Response. “Good girl.” Pleasure. Allison is obedient.

 

This continued for a short while, and then Perenni said, “I think that about wraps it up. One more time, for assurance’s sake. Who are you?”

 

“My name is Allison, and I am very cute.”

 

“Good girl.” Pleasure. Allison is obedient and cute. “And let’s do one last thing: I’m about to play for you a trigger sound. Upon hearing this sound it will ingratiate itself into your brain. Upon hearing this sound afterward, you will feel particularly compelled to follow the instructions I just gave you, as well as a little… incentive.” The Voice smirked. “Just a little boost to keep you going.”

 

“Just a little boost to keep me going.”

 

“That’s my girl,” said the Voice. “Ears open, love.”

 

Perenni drew the door bell out from inside her chest, and let it ring.

 

 

Perenni blinked for the first time in twenty minutes, which meant that Allison did as well. She did not know this; for her it had only been an instant. “Uh… sorry, I spaced a little. You were going to show me something?”

 

“Just that I remembered the doorbell, darling, and I’m going to set it back up. I thought you may have missed the sound, since I knocked it from the frame twice and then stole it.” Perenni rang the bell, and Allison shivered. “There we go~; I thought you’d like it. I—“

 

The affini looked down and blinked. “…Whoops. Must’ve gotten you a little too relaxed. Don’t worry, I know where you keep your clothes.”

 

She stood and made for Allison’s bedroom, leaving the girl in the dark with strangely warm pants and an even stranger desire to play with a ball of yarn.

 

 

The following few weeks went in some unexpected directions. Allison had been mortified after the incident in the back, but by the time Mistress had finished reinstalling the doorbell she’d already gotten over it. Ever since then, her relationship with her anxiety and inhibitions kept changing in confusing ways. 

 

The other day, for example, Mistress had witnessed her struggling to help a visitor, and asked her to try dislodging a plush snake that had somehow gotten stuck in a ceiling tile instead; Mistress couldn’t manage it. Not about to turn down a rare opportunity to one-up Mistress, Allison had quickly gotten to work- but she ended up having a little too much fun swatting the snake around, and before she realized what was happening she’d been playing with the plush for over ten minutes. She felt humiliated at first, but when she heard another customer walk through the door she decided it was still preferable to socializing.

 

And a few days before that, their little cleaning robot had gone haywire, and Allison had chased it for an hour without getting bored. She’d finally caught it by waiting for it to roll near her, before pouncing on it from atop the pastry counter; she’d felt an inexplicable burst of pride at her success.

 

The visiting affini coddled her to increasingly unusual degrees. The first several head rubs had gotten under her skin, but as the store received more and more foot traffic she found herself bothered by such behavior less and less. Hearing sophonts enter and exit the store felt incredible, actually; borderline arousing, but the response felt so extreme that Allison had done her best to pretend it wasn’t happening. Eventually she didn’t notice it happening, and a state of constant mild arousal while running the store just felt normal.

 

Two days ago an affini had even started petting her back while talking to Mistress, and Allison had been too embarrassed to ask them to stop. She’d never admit to herself that she didn’t actually want them to; a few more customers entered and she’d already given into it.

 

Now she found herself standing in the entrance of a body mod clinic next to Mistress, willing her heart rate to calm itself. The waiting room was full of florets, and their owners. Allison watched an affini click a collar snugly into place around the neck of a beaming bunny boy, newly minted, and could almost feel the phantom sensation around her own neck. She hadn't realized she was staring until Perenni squeezed her hand.

 

What was she doing? What was she doing here? Sure, she couldn’t stop thinking about body modification, but did she really want it for herself? She couldn’t remember being so fixated on it in the past; why did everything have to be so confusing?

 

Her spiraling thoughts were cut off by the affini receptionist approaching. “Welcome to the clinic! Your little cutie is looking to make some changes, I take it?”

 

“Oh, I’m not her floret,” Allison quickly corrected her, “Mistress is just helping me pick out some body mods.” 

 

The receptionist responded with a nonplussed look for an uncomfortable amount of time, before smiling knowingly. “…Yes, of course. I’ll be waiting at the desk when you’re ready to begin your consultation.”

 

“Here, petal,” Mistress said, handing Allison a thick-paged binder full of photos. “This is their catalog- take a look, see if anything catches your eye.” Allison grabbed the book and was promptly distracted from all feelings of trepidation.

 

There was a lot in there, and it all looked good. Claws, fangs, paws, scales and fur; ears and eyes and tails in every flavor. Extra limbs were even an option, wings included. And that was only the half of the book dedicated to organic mods.

 

Her attention stuck to a photo of a terran with big, triangular ears; they’d bridged the middle distance between the sides and top of her head, making them both enormous, and enormously fluffy.

 

The more Allison thought about it, the more she realized she didn’t know what she wanted to change; only that she wanted to change, and to be changed. She also realized that, now that she understood this desire, it wasn’t going to leave her mind until she acted on it.

 

A normal, unaffected sophont would have spent days, if not weeks, ruminating over the decision she was about to make. For Allison, the decision didn’t even need questioning.

 

She squeezed Mistress’ hand. “I’ve been watching the whole time, petal,” the affini said, and Allison blushed without looking up. She placed her index finger on the photo of the cat-eared girl, then dragged it down the page until it was pointing at the collar around the girl’s neck.

 

Then she looked up. “Can you… help me?”

 

In hindsight, she should have known those would be her last words as an independent sophont.

 

“Darling,” her Mistress grinned, “I thought you’d never ask.”

 

 

Violet couldn’t risk another wellness check. She knew she’d been spiraling ever since the Compact had set up shop, but she wasn’t about to admit that to herself, and she certainly wasn’t about to admit that to anyone else. She’d been cooking obsessively to take her mind off of it, but she’d run out of exotic spices to wring from the compiler and was desperate for just about anything to give her some inspiration. 

 

So, she’d decided to take a walk, to the corner store at the end of the street she’d never bothered to visit.

 

The aesthetic of the exterior sat within the parameters of what her friends had begun calling “florety”. It looked pretty normal, save for the abundance of flowers and the big sign above the door that read “Kitty Corner”. Nothing particularly offensive, and Violet wasn’t about to stray further from her apartment when there was a perfectly good convenience store right here.

 

That had been a grave misjudgment on her part, but not an unwelcome one. The interior was relatively big for a corner store, and definitely lived up to its name. Platforms and soft tubes ran along the tops of the walls and over the aisles, and there was an absolutely massive cat tower near the display window full of pillows, which were covered in cat hair.

 

Shops like these didn’t have cash registers anymore, but there was an affini behind the help desk near the entrance, doing some bookkeeping. When she noticed Violet approaching she leaned back in her chair with a smile, a few of her roots dipped in a novelty coffee mug bearing the text “Don’t Nya’ck It ‘Til You’ve Tried It”. 

 

“Looking for the main attraction?”

 

“Ah, no,” Violet replied, “at least, I don’t think so. I was just wondering if you had a display for cooking ingredients from outside the System? I’ve nearly exhausted my options.”

 

“A bit of a completionist, are you?” the affini grinned. “Sure, I can help you with that. Most people are coming for my Allie-cat, nowadays.” She stuck out a giant green hand. “Perenni Amplex, by the way, but the kitten calls me Mistress. Second Bloom, she and her.”

 

“Just Violet’s fine,” Violet replied, accepting the handshake somewhat awkwardly. “She/her. Your Allie-cat?”

 

Perenni smiled and nodded toward the back of the store. Violet hasn’t noticed the crowd on her way in, because it was all concentrated around a single point. Through the crowd she could see a large russet cat-girl in a crop top and shorts sprawled on her back atop a pillow, her paws balled up near her collar. One of the visitors was rubbing her exposed tummy, while another rubbed her head and large ears, and she had a big, satisfied smile on her face. There were a couple affini back there, but Violet recognized a few terrans among the crowd as neighbors from before the Compact’s arrival, at least one of which was actively involved in the petting.

 

Perenni made a musical whistling noise without moving her mouth, and the cat-girl immediately leapt up from the crowd and along the wall, jingling as she went. Once she reached the help desk she leapt down onto the fluffy mat that covered half of its surface, kneeling upright with a happy, expectant expression.

 

“Good girl, Allie~,” Perenni giggled as she scratched underneath the cat-girl’s chin. She purred loudly as she leaned into her owner’s touch, only taking notice of her audience when her waving tail accidentally curled around Violet’s arm. “Who’s this?”

 

“You can call me Violet,” Violet said before Perenni could answer for her, “she/her. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” She took a moment to shamelessly ogle the cat. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen such extensive body-modding.”

 

The girl looked mostly human, but she bore striped reddish-brown fur from her knees and elbows downward. She had icy blue slitted eyes, paws instead of hands and feet, and her legs were partially digitrade. There was a wide patch of fur running beneath her clothes from her shoulders to the small of her back, where it narrowed into her tail; and there were of course the big triangular ears that didn’t quite sit on the top of her head.

 

“Quite the beautiful specimen, I agree, but she’s a well-behaved thing,” Perenni said. As if to illustrate her point, she reached over and flicked the small bell hanging from the kitty’s collar; upon hearing it ring her big ears flicked and her lidded eyes dilated slightly, going just a little glassy. She mewled weakly, before quickly shaking it off and blinking. Then she leaned downward and deposited her face into Violet’s upturned hand.

 

The Terran eep’d, but kept her composure. Hesitantly she ran her thumb up along her cheek, past her relaxed closed eyes to rub along the bottom of her ear. Allie’s mouth fell slightly open in happy ecstasy, and Violet became more comfortable rubbing her ears and petting her hair. Perenni even let Violet brush Allie’s fur.

 

“Wait,” the cat said, before spinning around on the mat so her back was facing Violet. Then, without prior warning, she pulled her top over her head and her shorts below her tail, leaving only her shoulders, chest and most of her butt covered. She hadn’t been wearing a bra. “There.”

 

She flicked an ear and looked over her shoulder curiously when Violet didn’t immediately begin brushing, apparently surprised to find that the girl had nearly gone as red as her fur. She didn’t say anything; only waited with clear blue eyes and perfect patience.

 

As soon as Violet began brushing, Allie melted into the strokes, barely disguising her moans as they melted into purring. She fell forward onto the mat, head laid on her arms; Violet had to lean over the desk a little to reach Allie’s shoulders, and her fur smelled like strawberries. Violet did her very best to remain diligent and ignore the building queue line of impure thoughts.

 

Four hours later, and Violet still hadn’t left the store. Instead she found herself in a comfy recliner, a snoozing cat-girl sprawled across her lap with her head on Violet’s chest. Perenni had brought her a strawberry turnover from the pastry counter, which she was almost positive had been a flirtatious gesture.

 

The affini looked at the cat-girl sleeping on Violet’s chest; then she looked at Violet, then the walkways running above them, and then the door. Then she said, “You know… there’s enough room for one more.”

 

Allie blinked awake, and looked up at Violet with round, innocent eyes.

Yep, Violet internally groaned; I’m fucked.