Pleasant Moo Farms Ch. 03

Chapter 3 - Realities

Nick stuck his key in the apartment door lock with purpose and rushed into the apartment

"I have to get in and get out. I've got a hot date tonight with a girl from the AR department." Alex, entranced, mumbled an acknowledgement.

"Always with the video games. Must be nice to sit around all day killing digital terrorists."

Alex blew away a masked mercenary with an RPG. "Someone has to keep the world safe."

"Yeah, the World of Warcraft," Nick said, loosening his tie.

"I would like to think that in some alternate universe the choices I make during gameplay truly matter."

"That's the saddest thing I have ever heard."

"Get off it. I'll have you know I got a job today!" Alex said triumphantly, before deflating at the reality of it all. He shot a terrorist in the face.

"WHAT?! YOU? Nice work!" Nick slapped Alex on the back. Nick had never thought he would see his rent money again and had been quietly looking for new roommate in the event he had to boot Alex out, thus his recent frustration and silence. His feelings of annoyance and guilt immediately lifted.

"What's the job?"

"Um. I'll be...Marketing Consultant. At a...medium-sized organic foods distributer."

"That's great! And the pay?"

"Competitive."

Nick stood up and walked back to his room. "If I didn't have a hot date tonight I'd take you out to celebrate. Congrats, man! We'll go get beers tomorrow." 



Two masked men in a Yugo packed with explosives careened through the lobby window of a building he was looting. Everyone inside was killed instantly. Game Over.

"Yeah."



Nick left on his date.

Alex killed more terrorists, saving the world in an alternate reality, and ordered pizza, in actual reality. 


Alex had a beer. 


Alex waited for the pizza. 


Alex had to piss.


Alex walked by his bedroom on his way to the bathroom. 


Alex looked in his room to see the suit. And the sign. Illuminated by the light of his bedside lamp. 


Alex sighed and went to pee. 


Alex walked back from the bathroom. 


Alex stopped at his bedroom door and leaned on the frame, looking at the suit.



Try it on.
 Get used to it.
 Get into character.

"I should do this tomorrow. " He looked down the hall at the front door. The pizza guy was taking his sweet time getting there. He looked back at the suit. "How did my life come to this?"

He walked over to the box and took the suit by the scruff, lifting it up in front of him. It looked homemade, oddly ancient, but in pristine condition. The fur was soft to the touch. He pushed his fingers through the inside lining. Soft, too, and the fabric appeared breathable. He was surprised, it was almost inviting and a nice consolation that at least he would be comfortable instead of hot and itching all day.

Alex considered the suit and then instinctually looked both ways, as if someone would see him in his bedroom putting on the costume. He took off his clothes and stood with the suit in his hands. He saw a reflection of himself in the mirror. Naked, defeated, shoulders hunched, holding the suit. He looked himself in the eyes.

"This is silly. If you are going to do something, you have to do it. You can't bellyache over a minor setback in your life. Yes, you will be standing on a corner with a suit and a sign. But this isn't forever. All the great people in history have risen above situations like this and you will too. Hell, Winston Churchill probably had to wear a possum suit at some point. Ha."

Alex straightened and stood proudly with the suit.

"Let's do this shit."

Alex dipped one foot in, then the next, then pulled the suit over him. The softness of the inner lining enveloped him snuggly. The suit latched with a string around the neck—he pulled the pieces together and turned to face the mirror.

From neck to toe, Alex was covered in white and brown fur, except for three gaping holes. How odd. The suit had three sections cut out of its front-two at the chest about five inches in diameter around each nipple and one at his crotch. He could see his pecs and dick clearly in these windows.

"That's odd. Maybe I'm supposed to wear overalls. Definitely need underwear..." He turned around. A soft tail hung limply from behind him.

The doorbell rang.

"Fuck." The pizza guy. Great timing.

Alex grabbed his bathrobe from his bed, wrapped it around him, and rushed to the door.

"One large deluxe pizza fourteen dollars thank you," the pimple faced pizza guy said unceremoniously as he held the pizza in one hand and checked his text messages with the other.
Alex leaned over to grab his wallet from the small stand next to the door. He pulled out a twenty. 
Then, agony. 
A sharp stab at the base of his spine. It felt like a knife, digging into his skin. And it kept digging. He yelled out in pain. In a matter of seconds the sharp digging reached his spinal cord. Alex went limp, momentarily paralyzed, and fell to the floor taking the stand and keys with him in a crash.

The pizza guy looked up from his cellphone, perplexed. "Uh, are you okay, sir." He then noticed the brown and white tail peaking out from under Alex's bathrobe. He took a small step back.

Alex had blacked out for a moment but he was back. Dazed. His vision went from blurry to clear. He saw the twenty on the ground in front of him. Shit! The pizza guy.

"I'm okay." He pulled himself up, holding his sore lower back with one hand, and turned. 

"Sorry about that. I'm not sure..."

"Fourteen dollars." The pizza guy shoved the pizza at him. He wanted to get out of there.

Alex was blushing and embarrassed. He was sweating. A fever was coming over him. He grabbed the pizza desperately and shoved the twenty at the pizza guy.

"Just keep the change." At that moment Alex felt another shooting pain dig through the wrist of his outstretched hand. "OWWW!" He dropped the pizza box in the entryway the apartment.

As Alex pulled his hand towards his chest with his other hand the pizza guy, snatched the money and ran. He looked behind him. Alex was doubled over in the door. The tail of the suit arched up suddenly at its base pushing a dent in the middle of his bathrobe.

"Crazy-ass furries," the pizza guy said under his breath.

Alex pushed the door closed and brought his wrist slowly to his eyes. He peaked under the cuff. What looked to be a small, white thread from the lining was connected to the base of his wrist. It appeared to be organic, almost like a tendon. He touched it with his other hand. "Ow." It hurt. It was definitely attached to him tightly. He fingered the odd thread delicately. Then he felt a similar shooting pain in his other wrist. He looked under that cuff. Three white threads pushed from the suit into his flesh, criss-crossed like a web. He felt them pulling the suit taut against him. His shifted his tail in curiosity.

Tail? He turned to look over his right shoulder, instinctively arching his tail to his right side from under his bathrobe.

Wait...not his tail, the suit's tail!

He looked on mesmerized, as it shifted in concert with the muscles he flexed in his pelvis. 
Back and forth. Back and forth. Swish swish. He lifted his tail higher and the bathrobe cascaded around each side of it, sending a draft between his legs and over his balls. He swung the tail around and grabbed it with his hands. The pressure of his hands around his tail and the fur between his fingers snapped him out of his trance. 
He could feel it, as if he were grasping his arm or leg or any other part of him. He tightened his grip in confused frustration and gave a quick tug, which reverberated smartly at the base of his spine.

He let go in shock. "No...this doesn't make sense..."

He flexed his new muscles, twisting his tail to his other side. The fur was a soft cream color, dotted with a few spots, leading to a tuft of dark brown hair at its end. It was all too surreal. Unfathomable. Ridiculous. No, this wasn't what it seemed at all. "I've obviously had way too much to drink tonight." He laughed to himself. "Silly fucking suit."

He reached for the tuft of hair, grabbing a few hairs, and yanked them out forcefully. "Ow!"

Curiosity instantly dissolved into panic. Alex lost it. He had to cut the suit off. He started for the kitchen to get a knife, tripping over the pizza box on the floor. His heart raced. Adrenaline coursed through his body, down his newly formed nerve endings of his tail and into the suit itself. His run to the kitchen was interrupted in just a few steps. Primed with the raw energy of fight-or-flight, the suit came to life. A million painful pinpricks electrified his entire body as the suit shot out assault of microscopic tendrils into his skin. He fell to the floor. The tendrils did their work quickly and efficiently, penetrating his flesh, fusing suit to nerves, pulling it tightly against him and meshing skin to hide until there was no suit, no division or separation, only Alex's soft, furry body writhing on the cool wooden floor of his apartment.

Long underutilized from TV and video games, the cells of his body kicked into overdrive. His tail swept back and forth defiantly.