酷视

Chapter 40: She\'s the embodiment of your desires, so why...?

She failed to utter even the short curse as she sluggishly dragged herself towards the edge of the bed. The girl gathered her strength for some time before finally attempting to climb down and reach for the glass of water standing by her bed.

This was, sadly, the only consideration that she gave to her future self while drinking herself unconscious the last night.

\'My head...\' Cassie thought while a long, whiny moan escaped from her lips.

Cassie reached out and managed to grab the glass, quickly pouring it down her parched throat. Yet, hydrating herself only reminded the poor girl of how her bladder still held all the liquids from the last night.

Having no other choice, Cassie dragged herself to the bathroom. There, after releasing the pressure from yesterday, she made sure to wash her face in the sink, letting the cold water calm some of her headaches down.

\'Just why did I drink so fucking much?!\'

Full of self-loathing, Cassie raised her eyes to the mirror above the sink, only to be presented with a really unbecoming look.

Her make-up that she meticulously prepared for the party last night was now all gone, turned into blurred areas that made her look even worse than she felt. Her eyes were hazy, surrounded by the violet bags indicating severe exhaustion. And to top it all off, the excessive drinking of the last night made her already thin body look even more frail, as if she was anemic.

\'It\'s all because of those damn bitches...\'

Cassie gritted her teeth, pulling her eyes away from the mirror before turning around and leaving the bath.

The girl had no problems recalling the events of the last evening and night. The gaps in her memory only started from when she decided to drown her sorrows back at home, long after returning from the cultured meet-up.

Ring, ring, ring!

The noise of a call coming through drilled into Cassie\'s already sensitive ears, causing another spear of pain to skewer her brain through. Yet, when she braced the pain of the hungover and looked at the phone nearby, Cassie\'s face only tensed up even further.

\'And she even dares to call me now!\'

Irene.

The name showing on the phone belonged to the same girl who was the loudest when claiming she would find Cassie a stud during the party, even going as far as to repeat herself right as they were about to enter the building. And in all honesty, after thinking things through, Cassie ended up growing fonder and fonder of the idea of paying Peter back for how he dared to break up with her!

At least, that\'s how Cassie felt before they actually entered the building. Because upon doing so, she was forced to swallow the obvious reality.

\'There are several missed calls already,\' Cassie thought, staring down at the phone for a few more moments, patiently waiting for Irene to give up and stop calling.

Right now, Cassie had no mental power to bicker with that questionable friend of hers.

That questionable friend of hers fully convinced Cassie she could drown her sorrow of the breakup in the arms of some stud she would find for her during the party.

The party... was just a reunion of their class to celebrate the end of their school days and casually discuss their plans and hopes for the future. A casual meet-up without a single person present that Cassie would classify as a stud. Just her, her friends... and literally every other classmate of theirs, with the exception of obviously missing Peter.

"What, did you really think a stud would magically appear out of nowhere in our class?" Irene laughed back then, rubbing the joke right in Cassie\'s face as she stood stunned by how she missed something THAT obvious.

It felt unreal. Forced and foreign.

But those were just excuses, something Cassie was fully aware of... and the direct reason for her irresponsibility that started when she returned home from the party and laid her eyes on the collection of wines she hobbystically grew in the back of her wardrobe.

\'That damned bitch...\' Cassie cursed in her thoughts again, before reaching out for the glass again and drinking the rest of what was in the cup. Yet, right as she put the glass down, Irene\'s call ended...

Only to start anew.

"Fucking bitch..." Cassie muttered, still holding the grudge for yesterday. And that was not because of how Irene made Cassie into a laughing stock.

Upon returning home and before drowning her sorrows in the bottle, Cassie found some time to think. To think about how Peter had to feel about their relationship, especially after listening in on Irene\'s rambling... and then learning Cassie, his alleged girlfriend, was attending a party with a clearly mentioned goal in mind.

\'If he was under the same misconception as me...\' Cassie thought back then, finally realizing the full scale of the wound she inflicted on her former boyfriend.

\'Not only he learned I was dating him because of a dare, he even learned I was happily moving our date to later so I could get screwed on a class party he wasn\'t even invited to...\'

This was the one realization that pushed Cassie towards the bottle.

It didn\'t matter that nothing happened during that party. It didn\'t matter she initially had no intention of screwing around and even when Irene convinced her... she still wasn\'t fully sure whether or not she could actually cross the point of no return.

The harm was done. And seeing no way to fix it, Cassie, in her already vulnerable state, turned to the bottle. And this morning was when she had no other choice but to pay for it.

Irene\'s call ended, granting Cassie a moment of respite from the annoying sound of the sharply-sounding song of the call. Yet, as soon as she reached for her phone to mute its sounds... The call came through again.

\'Fuck this damned, relentless bitch!\'

Still holding a grudge for what happened yesterday and how Irene\'s words were what started the rift between her and Peter, Cassie picked up the phone.

She had no wish to talk with her alleged friend. But the thought of suffering the torture of the call sound for even one more second was simply too much.

"Cassie!" Irene\'s voice exploded in the phone and instantly assaulted Cassie\'s sensitive ears. "You won\'t believe what a lovely couple I just saw!"

*****

The preparations were going smoothly, even in spite of the tense, awkward atmosphere in my shed.

Unwilling to face the issue, I simply threw myself into the chaos of sorting out what would be useful or a good gift for the parent fox and what would be nothing more but useless baggage to carry around.

Over time, Fay moved on from her silent mode, using off-handed remarks to help me with my selection. And before long, she started to work along my side, greatly hastening the progress of our preparations.

\'I wonder what will happen once we go through the gate,\' I thought, gulping down at the mere thought of the parent fox exacting revenge on anything that it could potentially deem inappropriate.

Did I hold my desires back well enough? Or maybe it would be furious that I refused his child\'s charms?

I had no way of knowing what would happen on the other side in advance. And the only way to find out... was to cross the gate and let the situation play out.

"That should be all," I muttered, taking a step back once we finally settled on what we were going to bring to the other side and what would be left behind. "But I guess one more quick check won\'t hu..."

I cut my words short when I saw Fay suddenly tense up and raise her head, locking her eyes... on the wall.

Furrowing my brows, I looked in the same direction, thinking I was missing something...

But no. What Fay was staring at so intently... was just a wall!

"What\'s wrong?" I asked, breaking the unspoken path of silence that started when I escaped Fay\'s seduction.

"There\'s something..." Fay hesitated for a second... Only to turn her head and look me straight in the eyes. "There\'s something bad coming. We need to hurry up and leave."

Fay\'s voice... was weird. It was filled with a sense of intense urgency, while at the same time lacking any sort of pressure or vibe of the two of us being threatened by something.

Unable to curb my curiosity, I approached one of the few windows of my shed and looked outside...

And there she was.

The damn bitch I had no plans of seeing now, or, in fact, anytime in the future. One of Cassie\'s whore friends who I believed to be responsible for how she changed from a lovable girlfriend to a cheating hoe that was only good for the streets.

"I guess you are right. There\'s something bad coming, and I have no desire to meet it," I muttered in a cold voice, pulling away from the window before waving my hand and opening the gate in the area that wasn\'t visible from the window. "Let\'s hurry up and leave."

Under the pressure of this strange threat, we managed to grab all of the supplies and move through the gate in what had to be less than a minute. And while we completed the task insanely fast... this minute was enough to put a strain on my endurance. Both physically from all the bags I had to carry while moving through the gate and mentally, when the immense pressure of the celestial fox proper dawned on my mind the second I stepped out of the barrier and back into another world.

\'There it is,\' I thought, looking at the massive fox resting in the very same place and position I saw it when we left.

This time, however, this damn massive fox decided to take me off guard... and it stood up.

Before I could react, it was already standing mere inches away from me and Fay, pushing its massive mouth between us.

"Sniff, sniff..."

The fox pulled in some air before raising its mouth and taking a moment to think about something.

\'This is the moment that will decide everything,\' I thought, gulping saliva down while my body tensed all over.

The fox took some time to think before lowering its eyes and throwing its powerful gaze right at my face, only to alternate its eyes between my expression... and the intense blush on Fay\'s face as she averted her eyes in some sort of shame.

"I\'ve sent you away with the literal embodiment of your desires. And even though she is obviously in heat..." the fox spoke, its voice reaching tones and vibes I couldn\'t quite read into due to how many emotions I could detect in it.

But one feeling stood above all the others. A feeling of just how baffled this huge fox was.

"So how come you two have yet to mate?"