Chapter 1: Screw the Pooch

The problem with QP, Jaune had decided, was that she smelled delicious.

Well, actually, there were quite a few problems with QP. The first was that, although she had one of the brightest smiles in the city, she herself was not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree. To be entirely fair, this was less of a problem to her and more of a problem to everybody around her, because she lived in a world where almost every problem could be solved by shooting at it. A more intelligent mind might be tempted to apply some lateral thinking or alternative solutions, just for the sheer novelty of it, but QP really was more of a ‘shoot it until it goes away’ kind of girl, an attitude that Jaune admired in spirit but found troublesome in practice – not least because he was often on QP’s list of shootable problems.

The second was that she was a dog girl. Dog girls, in Jaune’s experience, were annoying because they were almost invariably pretty attached to the idea of right and wrong. After all, what kind of dog didn’t know the difference between being a good girl and a bad girl? Pack structure played a part, too; if there was one thing a dog loved, it was having a defined place in the pecking order. They liked rules and authority, regardless of where they in particular stood on the totem pole. It was all very civic minded. As a wolf and a soldier, he understood it very well, but it also meant she couldn’t really be bargained with, and was very yappy about it if you tried.

The third, of course, was that she was the sworn enemy of the organisation he was a part of, which meant his opportunities for diplomacy were rather… truncated. Waruda, in QP’s world, were Bad Guys. If you were in Waruda, you were probably doing something wrong. It stood to reason. And sometimes he was, but other times he was trying to buy groceries. It was very annoying to run into her, have her shout two lines of dialogue and then obliterate the produce aisle with her bullet-vomit. Problem 3a was that, despite her tendency to react to him with heavy artillery, his mission for the day was to distract her while Yuki negotiated a large loan at the nearby bank. One that had no interest and no due date for repayment but which included a few magnum rounds as a deposit.

But, if you ignored the laundry list of other problems, the main problem with QP was that she smelled good. Not, unfortunately, in the way that a bakery smells good, although he was fairly sure that if you could squash down the smell of a good bakery into a perfume, no other perfumes would exist. They wouldn’t need to. Nor was it a coffee kind of smell, or even one of those acquired taste smells like motor oil or charcoal. No, QP had that law of the jungle, pheromone laden, husky Amazonian kind of smell – an olfactory holdover from the half of her makeup that had six nipples, chased mailmen and went into heat every half a year. It wasn’t unusual for kemonomimi; even Yuki had that kind of smell about her sometimes, although she took every effort to mask it with tobacco and fine whisky. But Yuki was a cat, and her scent missed a giant genetic bullseye in him that QP’s very much didn’t. There was a difference between a dog and a wolf, but if you put them in a closed room together it very quickly became academic.

It did make her very easy to track, though.

“Wah! Y-you!” she gasped as he sidled out of Green’s Alley with his hands in his pockets. Normally, he would keep them where she could see them to established he wasn’t armed, but he had learned it didn’t really make a difference. Green’s Alley was a lovely shortcut through the heart of town that no-one ever took; it looked peaceful and inviting during the day, but at night became a haven for men and women of… negotiable affection. That didn’t necessarily make it less peaceful or inviting, but made those words apply in a somewhat different sense. “…What was your name again?”

If he was honest, he had never actually told her. Announcing your identity to a girl who routinely shaves months off your life expectancy seemed like one of those Bad Ideas that happened to other people. But, he’d been thinking, maybe he should. Maybe a name would help her think about him like a living thing rather than a moving target. It was worth a shot, anyway.

He took a deep breath to steady his nerves, and immediately wished he hadn’t. When QP stopped walking, her aroma had begun to pool around her like a cloak; the smell hit him like a very aromatic tonne of bricks. Unlike Yuki, she didn’t drink or smoke. Unlike Yuki, she didn’t wear high class perfume because she was The Boss and that was what bosses did. Unlike Yuki, her scent was pure and undiluted musk, the kind designed to steal through his nostrils, waft up into his brain and yank at various bits of his limbic system until his lower body got the message. Unfortunately, his body’s internal telegraph didn’t take very long to relay it. Muscles were being tightened, goosepimples were being raised, and blood he could really have used in the head that did the thinking was rerouted to the head that didn’t. It was an abrupt change in his personal chemistry that left him quite breathless, and probably much more susceptible to whatever chemistry was going on in the girl opposite to him. Reactive, that was the word. Certainly, there were parts of him that were no longer inert.

“Jaune. It’s Jaune,” he said, through gritted teeth.

“Oh. Sorry. I’ll try to remember it for next time,” she said, knowing full well that she wouldn’t. She wasn’t the best at names and faces. Mostly her brain was keyed towards very quickly moving objects, and sadly for him, Jaune just wasn’t that quick. “Don’t get mad about it, alright? Anyway, why’d you jump out of that alley at me, huh?”

For a moment – a long, dangerous moment – he was silent. The cloud of pheromones was messing with his head. He’d spent all morning coming up with a script to hopefully avoid a trip to hospital, and completely forgotten it. He wished he’d written it on his hand. Just as QP began to puff up her chest to declare her first attack, he remembered. “I heard you were an expert. On pudding.”

“An expert?” she scoffed, a dangerous little edge to her voice. “I’m the expert on pudding and pudding related phenomena! I’ve had more puddings than you’ve had hot dinners!” She pointed a thumb at her own modest bust. Terrifyingly, she was probably right about the hot dinners part. “But why does that justify skulking around in back alleys and spooking me when I’m out for a walk?”

Inwardly, he breathed a sigh of relief. He had gotten past the second line of dialogue. It was a new era. “Well, I was hoping for some advice on where to start. I, uh, want to get into pudding – you know, as a hobby – but I’ve never had one before, so I thought–”

A dog can make many sounds. The sound that QP chose to make was not ‘woof’. It was not ‘growl’. It wasn’t even ‘wan’. It was positively thermonuclear. One second she was half a street away and the next she had teleported to basically the end of his nose, standing on her tiptoes and reaching up to shake him by the lapels. She was close enough for him to count her individual eyelashes, which were surprisingly well-kept, and oh God, the smell of her–

“You’ve NEVER had pudding? Aren’t you one of Yuki’s goons, though? They don’t give you any?” she asked. Asking was perhaps not quite the right word; it was more like she was holding him by the ankles and shaking him in case the answers fell out of his pockets. “No wonder you’re evil! That’s inhumane! It’s unacceptable! It’s… it’s… It’s cruelty to animals!”

“Don’t call me an animal.”

“You are, though. Unless you’re a vegetable.”

“Or a mineral,” he muttered. He was definitely as hard as a rock, that was for sure.

“Whatever! Anyway, we have to sort this out. Nobody can be truly evil once they’ve awakened to the true power of pudding! It’s the cosmic egg white that binds the souls of man into the delicious hamburger patty of society!” QP declared, rocketing her to the #1 spot on the ‘Sentences I didn’t expect to hear today’ leaderboard. “Come with me. We’re going to fix you, June!”

The hand at his lapel became a manacle, and he knew he was trapped. He remembered, a little too late, one of the first pieces of advice that Yuki had given him when he arrived in their country, delivered over a glass of scotch: If you see anything you don’t understand, don’t touch it, and don’t piss it off. QP, as it turned out, was a difficult girl to understand.

* * *

He could walk away at any time.

The thought had less to do with his willpower and more to do with his legs, both of which (to his surprise) had remained attached and showed every sign of continuing to do so. His knees, however, had been surreptitiously replaced with jell-o cubes without him noticing. Luckily, the sofa he was sitting on was very soft and comfortable – so much so, in fact, that when he sat down he had had to fight to avoid slithering into the depths of its cushions and being consumed.

Okay, so the thought had a little bit to do with his willpower. Mostly, he was trying to avoid thinking about it, casting his eyes around her tiny living room. There was a coffee table with no coffee spills, piled high with college textbooks – mostly about biology, it seemed. Was that what she was studying? No, no, it was sports sciences – he dimly recalled Aru telling him about it. According to her, QP was better on the track than in the lab, but wanted to explore the ramifications of the unique kemonomimi biology, since few studies had been done on it. Currently, Jaune was more concerned about his own biology.

To his great surprise, QP had dragged him right past the convenience store, where they might have picked up a cup of discount pudding. She had dragged him right past the supermarket, where the more high-class puddings could be found. She had dragged him all the way to her own house, hurled him through the front door, and planted him in her man-eating sofa so she could make – herself, by hand – a home-made, top class specimen of the breed for his first pudding experience. He couldn’t say no to such dedication, and not just because she apparently had the gripping strength of a bear trap. He was genuinely touched by the lengths she was going for him, and for her pudding ideals.

It might, also, have had something to do with the fact that QP’s house – in a cruel and unusual twist of fate – smelled like QP. It wasn’t her fault, he was sure. She seemed like quite a cleanly dog, whose hair smelled of strawberry shampoo with hints of flea powder, but houses just collected smells like that. Particularly soft textiles, like the sofa he was ensconced in. When the time came to leave, it was going to be pretty hard to walk out into a world of fresh, clean air that didn’t trickle into his synapses and play them like a harp, and not just because because his junk would be hitting his thigh with every step.

Still, even if he could walk away at any time – and he definitely could, no doubts about that whatsoever, not even the tiniest inkling of hesitation – there was no reason to do so right now. For one, he was being given an enlightening lecture on pudding preparation, enthusiastically delivered by the queen of pudding herself. She had folded him into the sofa, thrown on an apron that was far too cute to be wearing around any red-blooded male, and immediately set to work evangelising. The puddings she was making now, she explained, wouldn’t be the ones she’d give him, since they needed to set overnight. But she wanted to show him the bit where she made the caramel, which was her favourite bit, and then she wanted to show him the bit where she made the custard, which was her other favourite bit, and then they could do the bit where they ate some puddings she made yesterday, which was her most favourite bit. Her tail wagged happily as she stirred away. (QP’s tail, Jaune couldn’t help but notice, was much shorter and stockier than Yuki’s, and a little shorter than even his own. He couldn’t help noticing it because, when such a small tail was wagging, the rest of the posterior ended up wagging a little too.)

“The caramel’s coming together really nicely. Hey, come and look!” she said, hovering over the stove.

With legs that were threatening to unionise and go on strike, he reluctantly extracted himself from the sofa and strode boldly into the kitchen, where he almost immediately hit his head on an open cupboard door. QP’s kitchen, he realised, was tiny: a small corridor of tiles between two rows of work surfaces, with pots, pans, trays and cannisters of dry ingredients dominating the space. There was just enough space leftover to accommodate one dog and her elbows, although it was a tight fit. He breathed deeply, felt the sweet smell of caramel fill his lungs. After spending so long immersed in QP’s scent – which, now that he thought about it, might have had a caramel undertone to it – it was as bracing as a gasp of crisp autumnal air. He felt clearer, smarter. More in control.

“Look at that colour,” she said, stirring in long, slow strokes with a wooden spoon. “Doesn’t it just look super rich and inviting?”

He half-smiled, doubtful that his appreciation of the base constituents of pudding would be anywhere near as rapturous, and put a hand on her arm so he could tiptoe and peek over her shoulder.

They gasped at once, and he pulled his hand back as if it had been struck. QP whipped her head around to look at him wordlessly, sudden confusion in her brown eyes; she’d felt what he had, a jolt of electricity that had seem to crackle from her skin, up his arm and through his entire body. His hair seemed to be standing on end. She made a strange, strangled noise as the comprehension hit her. For a moment, the world seemed to stop.

Then he laughed nervously, and the caramel bubbled ominously, and something like normal motion returned to them. Soldiers didn’t flee, so he retreated tactically to the sofa, his heart hammering in his chest. She kept on with her preparations, occasionally dropping her utensils and throwing sharp glances at him when she thought he wouldn’t notice. Neither spoke, for fear of breaking some silent rule, some unknown spell.

The minutes chased each other away as he tried to gather his thoughts. They weren’t very helpful, even when he’d gathered them; mostly, they consisted of ‘shit’, with the occasional ‘double-shit’ thrown in for good measure. Not here, he thought to himself. Not with a girl who shot him on sight, a girl his boss both loved and hated, a girl who was so naive and yet dripping with the scent of unrealised physicality, of sex in potentia. But in his heart of hearts, he knew it was almost inescapable. That was the thing about lo– he shook his head even as he thought it – about mutual attraction; people always said it was chemistry between two people. And they were so close and yet so far when they said that. It wasn’t chemistry at all. It was physics; it was a spark, electricity running through you. It was a force that pushed you and pulled you, quickly or slowly, without any regard. It was being drawn to somebody, living in their orbit. Love, he had realised, was gravity, and once you were caught by it, you were doomed to fall.

“The… the pudding’s ready.” QP’s voice was so quiet, so hesitant, when she walked into the room carrying a tray with two plates on it, both adorned by wobbling puddings. There was a softness to it that he had never heard before, that quickened his heart when he heard it. “Um. It’s not the puddings I was just making, so it might not be the same, but… they’re still my handmade puddings.”

She somehow sat down on the sofa without sinking into it, like a bird perching on marshland, and handed him his plate and spoon before setting about her own pudding. To his surprise, she ate it slowly, savouring each mouthful, letting it sit on her tongue before she swallowed it – like a gourmet enjoying a fine wine. Her eyes flicked toward him, met his. Her cheeks flushed. “Jaune? Is something wrong?”

“N-nah,” he shrugged, suddenly feeling his gaze drawn, as if by incredible magnetism, to his feet. “It just seemed like you were really enjoying it. It was cute.”

Studiously looking away from her, he took a spoonful of pudding and ate it, letting it sit on his tongue just as she did. It was… good. Better than good, actually. Delicious. The warm, rich taste of caramel was lifted by the coldness of the dessert and the undertones of fine vanilla, and the texture was intriguing yet enjoyable. He didn’t think he would devote himself to it as religiously as QP did, but he certainly saw the appeal. Spoonful by spoonful, he continued eating, slowly reaching the conclusion that he was going to have to learn how to make this stuff himself with leftovers from the Waruda communal refrigerator.

“How is it?” she asked.

“Really good. I’ve been missing out,” he said, honestly.

“Heh heh. Well, of course! I’m the world’s foremost expert in pudding, after all. If I make you a pudding, you know it’s gonna be super awesome.” She puffed out her chest. The sweet smell that pervaded the house seemed to roll off her in waves.

“A-ah. Yeah, that’s right,” he agreed. Now seemed about the time to extract himself, before he did something, or someone, he might regret. His head was getting fuzzy. Pleasantries, first, and then he could make an escape. “Thanks for the meal. I feel bad, since you went to all this trouble for me and there’s nothing I can do to pay you back.”

The air was ominously still, and he realised he’d made a mistake. “We-ell,” QP said, hesitantly, “there is something you could do for me.”

Oh boy, he thought. Here it comes. This is the part where she asks me to bone her. I’ve pissed her off, I’ve touched her, and now I’m going to fuck her. Three for three.

“Could you… um… scratch my ears?”

He couldn’t stop the half-laugh, half-sigh that escaped him. “Is that all?”

“Hey, don’t make fun. You’re a wolf, right? You know how good it is to have your ears scratched,” she said conspiratorially.

“But I can scratch them myself.”

“That’s like trying to tickle yourself, though. It always feels better when somebody else does it.” She began to pout at him. “Come oooon. Just for a little bit.”

He hesitated, remembering the jolt that had gone through him the last time he touched her. But it was only scratching her ears. Just for a little while. He took a deep breath. Bad idea. His head felt fuzzier. “Alright. Just… just a little.”

There must, he knew, have been a moment where the put their plates down, where he swivelled sideways on the sofa to accommodate her, when she awkwardly sat closer to him. But his mind skipped over them, like missing frames on an animation reel; they were unimportant, unnecessary. She faced away from him and pressed her head into his hands. His fingertips tingled. His everything tingled. With soft, delicate motions, he started to rub the back of her ears with his thumbs, feeling the soft, velvety fur against his skin.

“Mmm…” she sighed, a long, soft breath that almost became a moan. Her eyes were half-lidded, staring off into space. “A little lower.”

Her breathing became slower and deeper as he worked; gently, gently, she began to side lower on the sofa, still pressing her ears into his hands as she did, until she was lying down. He brought his hands lower as she fell, so she could lie comfortably, until her head was in his lap. He kept scratching and stroking, just as softly as he was able. The beginnings of a snore crept into her breaths; her tongue hung out of her mouth, like a real dog’s. This was how he got out of here without getting attached, he realised. Well, any more attached. He just had to comfort her until she fell asleep, and then quietly make his way home. The rise and fall of her chest slowed, and just when her eyes were about to close–

She turned sideways, and came face to face with the bulge in his pants.

“Ah… Jaune?” Her voice was thick. Unusual.

“D… don’t worry about it. It’s just guy stuff. Happens to everybody,” he said, uncomfortably. “Just relax and go t–” He gasped as she gingerly pressed her palm against the bulge, cupping it in her hand. “QP, what are you… what are you doing?”

“I don’t… really know,” she said, sitting up. Her hand trailed upwards, lingering at the tip of his cock, before sliding up to his belt. He felt the release of tension of she undid the buckle and began to unfasten the buttons of his pants. “It just… feels right.”

He was still searching for words when the last button came undone. Electricity seemed to crackle where she grazed his skin with her fingertips. Almost shyly, she slid her hands under the waistband of his underwear. He groaned as he felt her palm brush against the underside of his shaft. She was right. This was right. He couldn’t resist. His head was too full of the smell of her, the softness of her, the feeling of her skin against his. The electricity, the gravity. He was falling. He closed his eyes and groaned, felt the cool air against his dick as she brought it into the open. Opened his eyes again to look at her face. Her cheeks were flushed, her mouth hanging open. Glistening lips. She was breathing deeply, her chest shifting as she did, looking down at his manhood as if it was the only thing in the world. She raised herself up on her knees.

“Itchy,” she gasped. “For this whole month I’ve been feeling itchy. Down here.” She slid her hand under her skirt, slowly rolled down her panties. They came away sodden. Blushing, she lifted the hem to let him see her pussy, the glistening lips, the softly swollen vulva. As slowly as he could, he brought his fingers up to touch her, and gasped when she pressed herself against his hand.

“You’re in heat,” he said, almost dazed. He didn’t think kemonomimi went into heat. Not real heat, anyway. He didn’t, and Yuki denied it. His fingers came away wet where he had touched her; he pressed them to his lips, and let the smell and taste of her fill up his senses.

She said nothing. She said nothing, and began to lower her hips again until the tip of his cock was pressed against her pussy. The grown-up, responsible part of his mind – the part that knew he was experienced in the bedroom, that he should be taking charge – started thinking about foreplay, protection. As he felt her grind against his shaft, sliding against it, he realised she didn’t need any. Nature would handle it. Chemistry would handle it. Physics would handle it. He felt her take him in her fingers again, stroke his slickened shaft once, twice, and then hold him steady. Her hips raised. As she pressed the tip of his cock right up to her entrance, poised for penetration, he stopped thinking. His body could do the thinking for him.

He heard her take a long, deep breath. And then his entire world was heat, and pressure.

Distantly, he heard her sigh – not in pain, but in relief. As if she was stepping into a cool breeze on a summer’s day, the first glass of water after trudging through the desert. He fought to keep his hips and his hands still, to not buck up into her, to not pull her hips down and plunge into her warmth. She was so tight, and yet she was taking him so easily, so hungrily, one inch and then the next, without wincing or hesitating. She didn’t have any rhythm, any skill, but she felt as though she’d been made for him, or he’d been made for her, the perfect size, the perfect shape, a pleasure that intense and yet effortless. Slowly she began to lean forwards, her walls tightening as the angle changed, her hands slithering up his chest and towards his face, his cheeks, his lips. Unbidden, his hands gripped around her ass, so soft and yet so muscular, gently helping her move against him and pull him deeper inside her.

He knew, in the very fibres of him, that he couldn’t go back from this. As she pressed her lips against him in an artless, desperate kiss, he knew that he couldn’t go back to seeing her as an enemy, or even a friend. Just as he was filling up a space inside her body, she was filling a space inside his heart, one that had been set aside for her without him ever realising it. It was right. It was natural. Almost idly he realised that his hand had drifted and slipped under her clothes, and he could feel her bare breast under his palm, her heart beating, her nipple so stiff as he rolled it under his thumb. The kiss deepened as she took more and more of him inside her, moaning and gasping against his lips as she did.

As if in a dream, he felt her hips finally press flush against his as she took him all the way to the base. He felt his tip pressing against the mouth of her womb, felt her clamp down on him happily as he began the long withdrawing stroke. She gasped when he thrust again, and he realised that he was filling her, completely and utterly; there was no part of her that wasn’t being stimulated, no part of her that wasn’t squeezing desperately at his dick. Made for him. He could get addicted to this, to her. He was probably going to. As it dawned on him that she could take him, all of him, his movements became less gentle, more intense. She matched them, quickly finding his rhythm, slamming her hips down to try and force him even deeper, into the deepest parts of her–

His eyes widened as he came. The orgasm took him by surprise with its suddenness, its intensity; he had known he wouldn’t last long, but the moment came so much quicker than he thought. As the first waves of his seed began to flow into her, he heard her gasp, felt the tremor hit her, the sudden convulsion as her own orgasm followed. She kissed him desperately as she clenched down on him, rocking her hips, wringing out every last drop of his cum in a long, steady ejaculation that felt as if it might never end. Finally, when he had nothing left to give, she let her hips drop and lay on top of him, gently pressing her lips against his neck, his chin.

“Don’t,” she said, between feathery kisses, “take it out. It feels so soothing. Just… lie here with me for a while.”

He smiled, his heart fluttering, and kissed the very tip of her nose. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m not going anywhere just yet.”

* * *

“Jaune? Can I ask you a question?”

She was still curled against him, a soft, happy lump. Her voice was honey-sweet, even after a full hour of afterglow. At some point she had disappeared into her bedroom to put on a fresh pair of panties, but when exactly she did it, he didn’t know. He still felt fuzzy and content, even as he realised what she was going to ask.

“Why are you in Waruda? They’re the bad guys. You don’t seem like a bad guy, so I wondered. I can’t figure it out,” she said, trailing a finger down his chest. The implication was clear. You don’t have to be a Bad Guy. You could be a Good Guy. With me.

“I like to think I’m not a bad guy. Not really. And they’re not as bad as you think. They just… do bad things from time to time. Like everybody else. But the truth is, I’m indebted to them… in a lot of ways,” he replied, trying his best to explain the complicated knot of emotions in his chest. “A good man pays his debts.”

She blinked at him blearily, before her face softened and she accepted it. When she looked at him again, she had a slight frown. “If I see you doing bad stuff, I’ll have to fight you. That’s just how it is. When a good person loses their way, you have to correct them, right?”

“I guess so,” he said, and sighed. “But this was nice. Really nice. Not just the sex, but the pudding too. And being invited to your house. And the kissing.”

Her tail gave a tiny, hopeful wag. “We could do it again, maybe. From time to time. If you’re good.”

“I’ll be on my best behaviour.”

She kissed him again, softly, sweetly, the taste of caramel on his tongue, melting against his lips. He wrapped her up in his arms, felt her relax against his chest, bare skin on bare skin. God, he thought. She just fit. It was so intense, but so effortless in the same breath.

Eventually, the moment had to end. His boss, he explained, would be wondering what happened to him. He was going to catch hell for coming back so late. (Actually, he thought to himself, coming back late wasn’t a problem. The hell would come when he came back and Yuki caught him smelling of sex and QP). She came to the front door to see him off.

“If you want some pudding and they won’t let you have any, you can come and see me anytime,” she said, leaning up to give him a shy kiss on the nose.

“Thanks.” He looked at his feet, almost guiltily, knowing that he would come for pudding and probably want far more. With his eyes cast down, he saw something dripping slowly down her thigh. Well, he had come a lot. Probably better not to mention it.

It took a lot of willpower for him to walk away. But, after only a few false starts, he did – one foot boldly in front of the other, falling into the habitual soldier’s march that he knew so well. When he was far enough away that he didn’t feel like he’d come running back, he waved to her, and was pleased to see her waving back. It put a spring in his step as he started his way home.

In the distance, he thought he saw her touch her index finger to her leg and then press it to her lips before she closed her door. But there was no way to be sure.

The only thing he knew was that, between that memory and Yuki’s punishment, he probably wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight.