by Yuli Ban
"Oh, because that's totally useful!”
"What?" She looked at me, stooping her brow. "What's useful?"
I blinked. "What? Oh, n-nothing. Just... Um..." Now that I was forced to explain to her everything, I realized just how nonsensical it would sound out loud.
Actually, I was still lost. Just ten minutes before, I was halfway towards becoming a My Chemical Romance fan because of everything I had just lost. Now I was a mass murderer who had to help an attempted-rape victim. So much had happened that when I finally blinked again, I thought I had just woken up and that the preceding events were a dream.
But nope. There she was. And it was at that moment I noticed that she was not a normal girl. She was a catgirl. And when I say she's a catgirl, I don't mean in the half-assed moe anime sense— she had the whole thing going for her. The ears and tail, of course, but also the whiskers and snout. Yet she still looked stunning to my eyes, like a tabby cat spliced with the hottest girl I'd ever— No! And even if I did give into those primal male urges, wouldn’t that be squicky? Like, full on Sonic 06-style bestiality? No, no more thoughts. Stop thinking.
I threw my hands down. "I'm sorry. Um. Do you need any help? I don't have a phone or anything." I was going to make sure this did not turn into a harem. I'd simply help the girl, bring her to the police or a friend's so she could get home, and then I'd be on my way trying to figure out what to do next. This plan made so much sense in my head because I was the protagonist of the story and I wasn’t holding the Idiot Ball yet.
She stomped on a dead Nazi's head as she walked over to me and said, "We can take their bikes. Can you drive?"
"I can drive? I mean..." God, I sounded like an absolute virgin. "You mean— like a car? Or..."
She giggled and it was diamonds already. "No, silly, I mean one of their bikes." She pointed back to the bar, where that legion of choppers still rested. A few were missing, proving my earlier guess that some had bolted off in the heat of the moment. The barman had disappeared, a blood puddle resting where I recalled his body. What’s more, there was a wad of cash that laid by its side. If I were rational, I’d have taken the money, but the adrenaline hadn’t worn off yet so I chose to ignore it and hoped it went away. Did I mention I’m the protagonist?
I said, "I mean, I've never driven a motorcycle before, but—"
She grabbed my hand and pulled me along. "It's easy! If you can ride anything, you can drive a chopper." Why did she put so much emphasis on ‘anything?’ What kind of sentence was that, ‘ride anything?’ What did she mean by this? I knew what she meant. NO. It was innocent, that’s all! I then also got to notice that this curvy catgirl was wearing all-leather. Black leather with knee-high boots and black fingerless gloves. And oh crap, because of that perfectly curved ‘T’. Because I hail from a long line of prudes who only ever accidentally managed to breed, I decided to treat the clothing as a giant censor. No more staring at the catgirl’s body. Except I failed because I stared at her all the way— NOPE. Stared at the windows instead, marveling at the artistry of broken glass and ruination. The rich vivid palette of colors used by nature to give the town a rainbow hues of washed-out brown and pastel orange complemented the hints of sleaze. And certainly no ass curves— NO.
I said, "Hey, um, but weren't you being..." I realized I could have been worse but not much. "I mean, don't you think you should go home and rest?"
She stopped and looked me right in the eyes to say, "I don't have a home. I live in the streets." Aww, she just made my heart skip a beat. Why was she making this so hard for me? HARD? No! No words like that! I had standards, goddammit. Real women weren't this way. But video game ones might be.
NO!
I put my foot down and said, "This has been a very rough day for the both of us. It really would be a good idea to get some rest. I-I, for one, I lost someone really close to me. Two people. They were very close."
She stepped towards me and grabbed my hand again to pull me along. And I wasn't liking that smirk of hers. She should not have been taking this so well. But I looked back at the pile o' Nazis left behind. Was this her way of coping? No, it wasn’t. She wanted me in her, I could see it in her eyes. Wait, no, that wasn’t her intention at all. That was just my awkward interpretation. Where did all this horniness come from? Was it my own method of coping or was I being filled with artificial pervertedness to move the story along?
She answered that with, "We can head back to my safehouse and figure out what to do with ya.”
“Safehouse? What happened to being homeless?”
“We really gotta get moving in case they have any friends left. You definitely don't wanna cross Sam."
I pressed again, "Safehouse?”
She looked pensive as she said, “Sometimes, Sam will take to really nasty measures to avenge his fallen men. As long as we keep moving, he won’t find us.”
“Safehouse??”
She blinked and said, “Oh, yeah! My safehouse. Didn’t I tell you?”
“No, you said you lived on the streets.” I then corrected with, “Wait, you said you live in the streets. What did you mean by that? What’s this about a safehouse?”
She laughed and said, “No, I have a safehouse, just not a real house. It’s sorta like a save point.”
Why did she have to say ‘save point?’ For all my earlier acceptance of my fate, my brain shifted back to seeing all of this as a nightmare that simply lasted a few minutes too long.
“Alright then. So who’s Sam?”
"You'll know him when you see him." That didn't satisfy me at all. If anything, it made me want to make sure I never met another person named Sam ever again.
And speaking of 'Sam', I said, "I don't think I got your name."
She said, "Anastasia. You can call me Ana." Even the name was cute, goddammit. Why was this happening to me? Was she going to turn out to be a psychotic yandere? Did I have to sleep with one eye open to make sure she didn’t castrate me with a rusty butter knife to keep me with her? Was she going to follow me? Was I about to start an escort mission where I myself was the tagalong? Was this an MMO? If it was, why was there a save point? "Well? You bein' a freeloader?"
I blinked again. "Oh, what? Oh, sorry. The name's Alexei. Call me Alex, though."
She laughed. "Alexei and Anastasia. Sounds like royalty." Why was she using my name with hers? She got on the bike, spreading those thick legs wid— NO. I looked straight forward and chose my own bike. However, she said, "If you don't know how to drive a hog, you really oughtta ride with me just this once." And that was gonna be it, wasn't it? Everything was about to go to hell. She was going to make me sit on the same bike as her. I'd then get hard and she'd feel it and I'd become her new rapist. That's how they get you. Because I didn’t trust myself.
She motioned for me and said, "Come on! Ride … me!" How conveniently timed of an engine rev that was.
I screamed, “What?”
She said, “Ride with me!”
It really started to unnerve me how well she took all this considering I was still trembling. And I mean literally trembling. As the reality of my friend dying and my sister being taken in the night returned to me, it hit hard and my entire body began shaking. Yet she was the one who had been assaulted. What was her damage?
Ana noticed. She asked with legitimate worry, "Something wrong?"
Maybe it was that blow to the head. The many blows to the head. Maybe the complete suddenness was overwhelming. Maybe I was coming off the adrenaline. But the one certainty was that I was still reeling from that horrible sight. I didn't want to cry on her back. I didn't want to cry at all— I wanted to man up and take it. I knew I could. But I just didn't have enough time to cope yet and here was some hot cat girl in tight, revealing black leather all but pointing at her vulva— NO.
Sadly, I got up and got on her bike, though I had to set mine down tenderly and not make any sudden movements. I wouldn't have been sad at any other time because I realized as I held her that leather felt real
nice when it was on a woman's body. There are just some times when you need reasonable things. That wasn’t hot leather on a hot chick as much as it was clothes of some woman I didn’t know helping me leave a messed up dead town.
She turned to me and said, "You can tell me everything that's happened on the ride to our evil lair."
I sniffed and said, "Evil lair? Wait, I thought you said you had a safehouse."
"I do. I just like calling it different things, like an evil lair." The motorcycle roared with life with a dragon-like scream a second time. “Wicked things sometimes go on there.” I could feel the vibration like an earthquake and we backed out. I squeezed her, feeling the underside of her boobs. And oh boy, were those big ones— NO. To be fair since I did have to deal with them tapping the side of my fingers, I can admit that they were indeed fine breasts. Like, I've seen breasts. Obviously. I know they don't actually feel like bags of sand or anything like that because they're literally fatty glands. These? Just that little tip I felt on the top of my index fingers, that was heaven enough. Maybe it was the cat parts of her that amplified my agitation, but I was starting to get fidgety.
We tore off out of the town, passing by a small line of old school cars. As we exploded down the road, Ana wiggled and swerved her bike.
I erupted, “Stop that! Stop!” but she laughed a lot more and zoomed towards a ramp. It was one of those dual-ramps for cars, carried by freighters. If we didn’t hit one of the two ramps, we’d neck ourselves against the back of the truck. Did she care? No, the evildoer sped up. The engine went from a rumble to a shriek. I dug my face into her back.
Then came that airy feeling in the pit of my groin. To all the men reading, you know that feeling, right? When you start dropping, it just feels like there’s pressure right above your dick. It sucked because of how heavy it was too, right until we hit the ground. I bounced, my chin hitting her back several times. And while she cheered, I had to deal with my teeth snapping against each other involuntarily until I’m sure some of them chipped off.
And it was right after that point that she shouted, "I live out in the desert with my sister."
Sister.
Sister.
Sister.
Sister.
That damn word echoed through my ears like a shotgun blast in a closet. Why did it have to be her sister? Why not a lesbian playmate or just a straggler or something of the sort? I felt a bit of envy right then and there and said out loud though in a whisper,
"I wish I still had a sister."
I always would have one. She may be in some concentration camp right now, or maybe they brought her out to the woods for a quick bullet to the brain, but she would never die as long as I kept her in my heart and memories. Once my rationality caught up with me, I clutched her ever more tightly and started breathing again. How I managed to even form words after that little thrill, I don’t know. Maybe it was instinct.
Wait, some of that rumbling— that couldn’t have just been from the bike. When I pressed my ear against her thick back, I tried really focusing my attention to her body. Was she actually…?
The Omega Male and the Tsundere…
We rode through the desert as the radio played Pink Floyd’s Nile Song from the ether, and I found myself getting really acquainted to her ribs. I just had to keep my fingers near her breasts to keep my balance. All in all, riding on the bike felt wonderful. A real rush. When I felt the wind slapping my cheeks and blowing my hair, I realized why bikers formed whole gangs over this. It all made sense because of the sheer freedom. Looking at the open road, the pavement stretching over the hills and the hypnotizing lines in the middle— yeah, if I had a second chance to start my life over, I'd probably do something with bikes.
Ana shouted, "So are you gonna tell me what's going on?"
I pulled back and replied with, “How are you the one asking me that? No, you’ve got to give me information first. I don’t know where I am, when I am, why I am, how I am, probably not even who I am.”
She giggled. “I take it you’re an outsider, then?”
I picked up on that said, "No, I'm not from here!"
"I could tell that, Boss."
"No, I mean, I'm literally not from here. I don't know how I got here." I knew I was lying but I didn't want to drop everything on her all at once. Especially since I still doubted how easily she had repaired her emotions or if I was going to talk myself into a wreck.
She laughed. "That's cute. You're an amnesiac? You should see one of the doctors I know. Maybe he can get your head checked to make sure everything's working right upstairs."
"I hope so."
"What's that, Boss?"
"I said, I hope so! That everything's working right, I mean." That was the one part of the ride I didn't like— the wind in your ears coupled with the rumbling motorcycle made it a bitch to hear anything of note. But I was fine as long as I could keep teasing her breasts. Yeah, I was getting just a tiny bit horny. By that point, I guess, I was just getting so sick of feeling bad that any little bit of escape was enough for me. And she either didn’t notice or didn’t care. If anything, she kept stooping herself to keep my fingers near them.
We rode over a dune and approached a mesa. On the side, there were scattered caves. She broke off the road and kicked up dust as she moved onwards to a particular cave that I will argue for the rest of my life looked like a giant rocky vagina.
Once we eased in, she put the kickstand down and hopped off. I slid off the back and, through a miraculous surge of hysterical strength, landed on my feet.
"Had fun, Boss?"
I smiled hollowly and said, "Yeah, it was tight." It wasn’t.
She giggled again and wiggled her trunk. At that point, I knew she was trying to seduce me. But I didn't know why. Like, seriously— why was it that women in video games didn't react to sexual assault like real human beings? I just fought off a bunch of Nazis and I felt like shit. If I had a room and video games, I'd probably still lay under the cover for years just to recover.
Her tail twitched and coiled into a little ball. My eyes followed her tail, alright— NO. Eyes forward. We weren’t on the bike anymore, so no more perverted things. I shouldn’t have done any perverted things from the start anyway. And when I saw that coil, I wondered why she did that when she was clearly supposed to be a catgirl. Didn’t monkeys do the coil? Or was it just a thing that all humanoids coil their tails at some point? Didn’t concern me. As long as my eyes stayed off that cushiony ass of— NO.
She directed me into the cave, where I saw there was a door of beads hanging. Inside, there were a load of Gypsy and Hindu decorations— rugs, posters, lights, and religious iconography defaced with graffiti. What's more, there were loads of boxes of what looked like a very familiar leaf.
Ana said, "Maria! Maria! Come quick, I have a visitor!"
I thought she was going to bust through the beads like a genki girl or punk. Instead, she sent me on my back by phasing through the ceiling like a ghost and curtseying before me. Once she landed, she had one leg in front of the other and her arms across her chest.
"What the hell!" What scared me was that she didn’t look fully human. Okay, first of all: red skin. And I mean red. All of it came together when I saw a demon’s tail wiggling behind her leg and devil horn’s curving out of her head. Or maybe I should mention the thick thighs barely covered by a nanoskirt and breasts so huge that she had to have spent most of her day struggling to keep her balance. That laced black and red bustier of hers looked like it was ready to give up. Why even bother trying to hold a literal force of nature back? No one needed that much tit, but she still had all of it.
Maria lifted her brow. She thrust her hand onto her hip, rolled her eyes, and said, "You found a boyfriend?"
Ana passed into another room and chomped on a honey bun. "Shut up, he's just here to help us out with the Hurricanes."
The Hurricanes? The rest of their words faded away in my ears as that name echoed through my head. What did they have to
do with the Hurricanes? Were they active in the game? When I looked back outside at the red and yellow sky, the Sierra Desert scenery, and bicycles kept parked behind shrubs and cacti, a major realization struck me like an RPG to the face.
'Is this Violence Online?'
I turned back. "Hey, uh— you two wouldn't happen to know where the nearest city is, huh?"
Ana's tail lashed around while Maria folded her arms right under her breasts again, her own succubus tail resting over her shoulder. The way she pushed her breasts up communicated to me that she was deliberately trying to make them look even larger— which was impossible— and then she flat out stopped trying by literally pressing her wrists against her underboobs. They looked bemused, as if I had finally slain their interest in me with my noobishness. So did the girls.
"Are you sure he's capable of anything?"
I rubbed the back of my head, embarrassed. What did they expect of me? I wasn't some wizard of masculinity and competence. Just a normal guy. Why did they trust me? More than that: what did they trust me to do and why was my rapidly collapsing masculinity causing them to replace their trust with doubts? That question kept burning at my head almost as much as trying to figure out where on earth that one Nazi’s gun went.
Ana replied, "He's definitely got the skills we need. He just needs a little... guidance." She winked. If I were in an anime, my nosebleed would have filled up Lake Superior or the Caspian Sea. That was just too cute. She had sex appeal maxed out, I’ll give her that. And they key to sex appeal is moderation and refinement— oh boy was Ana refined in all the right places. NO. You know, no one actually likes ultra-fat asses, bubble lips, Oompa Loompa skin, and boobs the size of the moon. If you think you do, you’re wrong. I know it’s your opinion, but your opinion is just wrong. She’s got to look human and can’t fall into the Uncanny Valley. Maria did. Straight down to the bottom. Every time I looked at her, I started. Something with her dimensions should not exist in our realm, even if she’s still cute despite it all. Ana should have because she’s a literal catgirl, but my heads switched places.