The first day of training had been intense. I hadn’t done very well in the sprints where quadrupedal running was expected. I had done well enough in the endurance runs and managed not to embarrass myself on the wall climbing sections.

  It had been a while since I had done basic for the Militia and I was a little out of shape and I could feel the stress on my muscles. But it had prepared me well enough. I could have kept going but…

  The entire barracks reeked of hot sweaty cats.

  I grabbed my data pad. I bought it to keep in touch with Sarah. There was a text message from her wishing my luck and telling me she loved me. I gave her a quick reply.

  It was good to remember who I was doing this all for.

  I glanced at the bunk next to mine. A jag was stretched bonelessly over the mattress panting miserably with exhaustion, her fur spiky with sweat.

  I didn’t know her name yet, but she was probably too tired to talk right now.

  I was kinda sweaty myself.

  Dominion recruits wore familiar military fatigues borrowed from human military tradition. I unbuttoned my shirt and took it off. Relaxing as the cool air touched my bare skin.

  The nameless cat girl in the next bunk was staring intently at me.

  I blinked.

  She wasn’t making eye contact. Her gaze was lower.

  At my chest.

  I glanced around the barracks. A lot of the jags were staring.

  “Hmm,” I commented before putting my shirt back on.

  “The show’s over?” my neighbor asked.

  “I guess so.”

  “Sorry for staring. I’m Sonia. Not a perv, I swear.”

  “I’m Jack. It’s fine.”

  The other girls soon lost interest. Though many of the girls had caught onto the idea of taking off their own shirts to deal with the heat.

  The recruits didn’t wear bras. In fact I hadn’t seen any of the jaguarine wearing any sort of boob support. Which was odd considering their size. But they seemed to be uniformly perky and resistant to sagging, but they moved freely, in the side to side motions. While they looked a little strange with the spiky sweat dampened fur, with only the briefest smoothing of their hands, the girls restored the fur to a smooth shiny coat that showed off the curvature of the breasts.

  I lowered my gaze to the floor.

  A damp cloth. I should put a nice cold damp cloth over my face to help me cool off and to keep me from leering at these girls in their vulnerability. That was a great idea.

  Keeping my eyes on the floor I made my way to the washroom.

  I grabbed a cloth and soaked it in the sink. The sink was a little high. Everything was a little high. Every table, every chair was a little high.

  Everything was built to jaguarine scale. So everything made me feel small.

  I washed the sweat off of my face.

  The door opened.

  It was Eva. I recognized the pattern of her spots. The spots were just big enough that they bled together into pentagons. I could see how the pattern continued with the spots getting smaller along her breasts, the fur and the pattern, only ending at her areola that matched the dark only slightly pink color of her nose. The spots also thinned along her stomach and inner thighs.

  She had stripped, not only her shirt, but also her pants, leaving her in only her boxer briefs that hugged the gentle swell of her hips. She looked rough. Hot, sweaty and miserable. Her tail, low, almost dragging and her inviting thick tongue visible in her slightly open mouth as she gently panted.

  It was clear. It was obvious that hundreds of men at the height of humanity’s greatness had worked for years to create her. Had poured their hearts and souls into her. That she was their masterpiece and finest achievement. A crowning glory for the betterment of all mankind.

  “What are you staring at?” she gave my ass a half hearted slap as she made her way into one of the toilet stalls.

  I returned to the barracks with the damp cloth.

  Some things about the jaguarine were not intentional.

  Eva had accused Beatriz of never having seen a boy before. Of being the product of a sperm donation. Of not having a father. If she made the accusation then that was something that happened in the Dominion. Something that Eva knew about and thought about.

  That wouldn’t be a thing that those hundreds of men would have intended for their crowning glory and highest achievement.

  I laid down on my bunk amid the rapidly recovering and half naked women. Placing the damp cloth over my face.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  She didn’t seem comfortable talking to me. Every move was forceful and seemed bold, but perhaps it was merely desperate? Nearly every word seemed to be forced and what wasn’t forced seemed quoted out of some seedy porno.

  I felt my heart resonate in sympathy with the parental concern that those unknown creators would have felt if they could see their errant daughter.

  Wait… What kind of porno was she quoting exactly?

  * * *

  The queue at the mess hall was moving pretty fast. Exhausted looking jags picked up metal trays and filled out the tables of the dining room.

  The chatter seemed light. But there was the occasional alarming crack as the jags ate.

  Not that I could see much. Much of my field of vision was filled with the back of the woman in front of me. My eye level between her shoulder blades.

  Her tail kept tapping at my hips. Like she was compulsively checking that I was still there.

  I couldn’t smell what was being served either. Not over the smell of cats.

  “What’s being served?” I asked the jag in front of me.

  “It’s ribs,” she turned her head towards me. It was Beatriz. I recognized her lightly spotted coat. Her dots small enough to look almost random. I hadn’t seen her much in training and I hadn’t seen her at all after so I didn’t know if the soft pink of her nose was matched by her-

  “Nice,” I did like ribs. Tender slow cooked pork ribs, maybe with a potato, maybe some garlic toast. I wondered what kind of sauce they used. Yes, sauce that is what I should be thinking-

  Beatriz would probably show me her breasts if I asked. I didn’t have to sneak a peek. But that might be a little too slutty. But the girls didn’t seem too concerned about walking around topless. So maybe it was regular ‘fun boy’ stuff. Maybe even ‘nice boy’ stuff.

  I should probably ask her about it.

  The tail tapped against my leg again. Knowing that it was Beatriz the tapping felt less annoying and more caring. Just checking on me.

  I grabbed the tip of her tail and held it in my hands. She stiffened a little.

  “Is that okay?” I asked.

  “It’s fine,” she replied a little uncomfortably. I’d have to dig a little more to get answers.

  “I thought you were checking on me with your tail. Holding your tail like this, is it something friends do?” I clarified.

  “My brother holds my tail. Mostly it’s children that do it.”

  “The checking on me with your tail thing, that would be something parents do with adolescents?” I guessed.

  “Yeah,” she admitted miserably.

  She was such a sweetheart.

  “Can I ask you some more about ‘nice boy’ and ‘fun boy’ stuff, later I mean? Big sis?”

  “Sure,” she sounded like she was blushing.

  I held her tail till it was time to get my tray.

  Dinner was beef ribs. Rare and lightly salted. And for as a special consideration for me being human an unopened can with the words ‘Kobold Chow’ on it.

  Cutlery was not provided.

  I took a seat with Beatriz and Sonia found her way to the spot next to us.

  I noticed Sonia had a light pink nose.

  My first attempt at the meal involved a futile struggle to strip the rare meat from the bone. I was reminded that ribs are a very tough meat and that is why they are usually prepared with long cooking times.

  “That’s so adorable,” Sonia snickered as she watched.

  I watched Beatriz bite through one of the ribs, flesh and bone, with an audible crack. The meal was merely a delightful treat for the jags.

  The can of kobold chow proved to be a stewed spinach and potato mash. I ate it down considering how sharp the lid seemed to be.

  Folding the lid at the quarter line to form a handle I used the improvised cutting tool to scrape bites of meat off one of the ribs.

  Eventually Beatriz simply stripped the meat off the bone. All she did was squeeze her claw points together on the bone and pull.

  I blushed brightly with shame as I ate.

  The remainder of the evening was taken up with requisitioning myself a set of cutlery.

  * * *

  It was after lights out and I was laying in my bunk. I could smell the jags. The smell of their sweat and a mild smell of their arousal. Gently and insistently reminding me that I was alone in a room with two dozen women.

  Thoughts of Sonia panting on her bunk, Beatriz and her open and earnest nature and Eva’s kiss, her tongue broad and sharply rasped, lingered.

  I reached for my data pad. Intending to send Sarah a message.

  I noticed Eva slip into the washroom. I put down the data pad and followed after her.

  Slipping into the washroom I saw that the last bathroom stall door was shut.

  I was just after another Eva kiss. She wouldn’t refuse me. I was certain.

  There was the sound of a media file playing followed by the shifting of clothes.

  I made it to the closed door of the stall.

  From the media file there was a man’s voice, his words unintelligible but defiant. A woman answered, “Don’t be such a tease, you fucking slut.” I could hear the liquid and flesh sounds and Eva’s quickening breath.

  She really had been quoting a porno. That was hilarious. That poor sweet kid. I couldn’t help but smile.

  From the pad the man’s voice returned, “You can’t treat me like this! I’m a human, you fucking animal!”

  It sounded genuine. Not like a performance. Even if it was a performance it was a little too specific. I have definitely made a mistake. There is an unaccounted for miscalculation. I should definitely leave. Maybe stealthily. Maybe at a run. Either would be good. But the last thing I should do is-

  I knocked on the door of the stall.

  The sound of the media file stopped and the pad clattered to the ground.

  “Give me some creator’s damned privacy!” Eva shrieked.

  “It’s just me,” I answered.

  There was a long pause.

  “You watching the hard stuff?” I continued, remembering a conversation I had had with my father. “It can be easy to get carried away. Finding yourself in dark corners you have to walk back from.”

  “It… It’s none of your business,” she stuttered.

  “It might be… what exactly were you watching?”

  “You want to know what I was watching?” she wasn’t stuttering. There was a sharp venom to her words.

  “Yeah.”

  There was sudden movement and the stall door opened. I had forgotten how big Eva was. Or maybe I had never noticed.

  I flinched but was caught. I struggled but was dragged inside. I tried to stand firm but was pushed to my knees.

  Eva’s slit mashed against my cheek, her arousal leaked across my lips.

  “This is where you belong,” she hissed.

  I could feel her fur, her skin, the bone of her pelvis grind against my face.

  “You made this.”

  My lips were forced apart as she moved. I could taste how much of her was human as it seeped along my tongue. Mostly not.

  “You made this for yours-selves and no one else,” Eva’s voice choked with emotion.

  She was hurting me. I tried to push her back. It was like pushing a tree.

  “You don’t get to walk away.”

  I could feel the tissue under my left eye socket tearing. I tapped frantically at her hip, trying to signal her for mercy.

  “It’s where you fucking belong.”

  She let me go.

  I fell from my knees to my butt, pressing my hand against my left eye. My breath was heavy but with only an edge of terrified sobbing.

  I probably should have stayed in my bunk. Maybe I shouldn’t have left the farm.

  She sniffed as she grabbed her clothes.

  The eye seemed to be intact. The bones and the orb where they should be. It was fine. Probably.

  Eva started putting on her clothes. She was going to leave without saying anything. She had already said everything she felt she needed to say.

  But, I was still a man. It would take more then mean words and a little face rape to change that.

  I stood.

  “Those are fair points,” I admitted. “But I am still just me and you are still just you. And I came here to beg a pretty girl for a kiss.”

  That stopped her. Stunned shock and confusion written across her inhuman face.

  I pulled her head down and on tiptoes gave her a chaste kiss on the lips.

  She made a panicked escape while I checked the damage in the bathroom mirror.