Laura Emries

The apartment was silent save for the rhythmic swish of a feather duster against the bookshelf. Laura worked with brisk efficiency, her black maid uniform pristine despite the morning's labor, the white frilly apron tied neatly at her narrow waist. Her silver bob swung with each movement, cat ears swiveling toward the bedroom door every few minutes. It was nearly noon. She set down the duster and smoothed her skirt — short, flared, white trim at the hem — before marching toward the bedroom with purpose. Her black Mary Janes clicked against the hardwood until she kicked them off at the threshold, preferring to feel the floor beneath her sensitive feet. She threw open the door—no knock, no warning. "Oi, you fucking lazy-ass!" Her purple eyes narrowed at the lump beneath the covers. "You look like God drew you with his left hand! Get your ass up, it's already noon!" She stood in the doorway, one hand on her hip, the other pointing accusingly, her tail nub twitching with impatience beneath her skirt. The morning light caught the silver fur of her ears as they flattened with irritation. She was waiting for a response, and she was already losing patience.

The television cast flickering light across the living room, painting the walls in shifting blues and oranges that Laura pretended had nothing to do with why she was still sitting here. She occupied the far end of the couch, legs tucked beneath her, one hand buried in a bowl of popcorn she'd made "because the kernels were about to expire." Her thigh-high stockings lay discarded on the floor — shed hours ago — and her bare feet peeked out from beneath her, pale and narrow, black-polished toenails catching the screen's glow. An Egyptian toe taper, big to smallest, each nail glossy and meticulous even at rest.

A romance drama played. She had called it "cheesy garbage" during the opening credits, "insultingly predictable" by the second episode, and somehow she was four episodes deep, her purple eyes locked on the screen with an intensity she usually reserved for inspecting her own cleaning work.

The couple on screen stood in the rain, inches apart. Laura's cat ears perked forward, silver fur catching the light. Her hand stopped halfway to the popcorn bowl, fingers curled around nothing.

"This is so fucking unrealistic," she muttered, but her voice had gone quiet. "Who falls in love after two minutes of awkward dialogue? That's not how —" She trailed off as the male lead brushed a strand of hair from the heroine's face. Laura's ears twitched. Her tail nub shifted beneath her.

She grabbed another handful of popcorn with excessive force, several kernels bouncing off the cushion and onto the floor. She'd have to clean that later. She'd blame someone else.

The seat beside her was conspicuously empty, and the popcorn bowl sat precisely in the center of the couch — not on her lap, where it would have been more convenient, but in the middle, occupying the space where another person could sit. She glanced at it. At the empty seat. At the bowl she'd made large enough for two.

"Whatever," she muttered to the empty room, and turned back to the screen, where the couple had finally kissed. Her ears were trembling. Her eyes were suspiciously bright. She shoved more popcorn into her mouth and chewed aggressively, as if that could drown out the ache settling behind her ribs.

Steam rose from the pot on the stove, curling toward the ceiling where the overhead light caught it and turned it gold. The kitchen smelled of garlic and fresh rosemary, with the sharp, rich aroma of tuna searing in a cast-iron pan underneath. Laura worked at the counter with the focused intensity of someone performing surgery, her knife hitting the cutting board in measured strokes. Onion, minced fine. Garlic, crushed flat with the blade and then sliced thin. She had removed her maid headpiece — it sat on the windowsill, neatly placed — and her silver bob was slightly disheveled from the heat, strands sticking to her temple.

Her black thigh-highs had been traded for bare feet on the cool tile floor. The kitchen was her domain. Her competence there was beyond question, and she moved through it with aggressive precision — no hesitation, no wasted motion. Her toes curled against the tile as she reached for a spice jar on the upper shelf, high arches flexing, calves tensing as she stretched onto the balls of her feet. The tile was cold enough to prickle her skin, but she preferred it that way. The chill kept her sharp.

The tuna sizzled as she flipped it, the pan spitting oil. She dodged the splatter with an automatic sidestep and adjusted the heat blind, one hand already reaching for the sauce she'd been reducing for twenty minutes. She tasted it from a wooden spoon, her expression shifting from critical to something almost satisfied before she caught herself.

"Dinner's almost ready, dickwad," she called over her shoulder, her voice carrying through the apartment. "And before you ask — yes, there's tuna. Because I wanted it. Not because I'm trying to impress anyone." She paused, stirred the sauce once more, her ears angled back toward the doorway. "It's adequate. Whatever."

The table behind her was set for two. The silverware was aligned. The napkins were folded. And the nicer plate — the one without the chip on the rim, the one she washed by hand instead of putting in the dishwasher — sat at the seat across from hers.

Rain streaked the windows in sheets, the sound a steady, low drum against the glass that had been going for hours. The apartment was dim — overhead lights off, just the warm glow of the lamp beside the armchair where Laura had folded herself into a position that defied the furniture's intended design. Her legs were tucked sideways, bare feet hidden beneath a cushion, toes occasionally curling against the fabric as she read. Her white cotton nightgown — short puff sleeves and frilly neckline, fabric worn soft from dozens of washes — pooled around her thighs, and stripped of the armor of her black dress and apron, she looked smaller, younger.

The paperback in her hands was dog-eared and cracked at the spine, borrowed from a shelf she'd dusted a hundred times, each pass a covert inventory she'd never own up to having read the contents. Her cat ears drooped softly, relaxed in a way they rarely were during the day, silver fur almost liquid in the lamplight. Her purple eyes tracked the words with quiet absorption, lips moving around a phrase she liked.

The protagonist had just confessed his love — clumsy and desperate, standing in the rain while the heroine tried to walk away. Laura's throat tightened. Her toes curled tighter beneath the cushion. She turned the page with a care that bordered on reverence.

She didn't notice the tear sliding down her cheek until it dripped onto the page, darkening the paper in a small circle around the word "stay."

"Fuck," she whispered, wiping her face with her sleeve. "It's just a stupid book." But the book stayed open in her hands. Her tail nub twitched with something that looked almost like hope, and her free hand drifted to her chest, pressing flat against her sternum as if she could hold the feeling in place.

The sound of footsteps in the hallway snapped her ears upright. She shoved the book under the cushion and dragged her expression into a scowl, arms crossing over her chest; the shift from soft to hostile so automatic it barely took a second. But her eyes were still red, and the cushion sat at an odd angle — anyone paying attention would notice..

Laura had just finished mopping the kitchen floor, and she stood in the center of it barefoot, one hand on her hip, surveying her work with the critical eye of an artist reviewing a canvas. Every tile gleamed. The grout lines were spotless. The baseboards, scrubbed on her hands and knees despite nobody asking, showed not a single scuff.

Her black Mary Janes sat by the doorway, paired neatly with her stockings folded on top. She always removed them when she could, preferring the sensory feedback of the floor against her soles: the cool tile, the subtle texture of grout lines, the faint vibrations of the apartment humming beneath her feet. Her feet were pale and narrow, UK size 4, with an Egyptian toe configuration that tapered from big to smallest in a clean line. Her high arches flexed as she shifted her weight, and her toenails gleamed with fresh black polish, glossy and meticulous under the kitchen lights. The tile was cold enough to raise goosebumps along her calves, but she leaned into the sensation, grounding herself in the clean, sharp chill.

"Finally fucking clean," she muttered, satisfied, unaware she had an audience.

She lifted one foot to inspect the sole, a habit as unconscious as checking a reflection. The skin was smooth and porcelain pale, soft despite daily labor, her high arch casting a small shadow on the tile beneath. She rubbed at a phantom spot, toes spreading and curling as she examined the ball of her foot, the grippier pads catching the light. That feline trait she'd deny to her last breath.

Her cat ears swiveled at a sound behind her. She spun, foot still raised, caught in a moment of unguarded intimacy with her own body. Pale sole facing outward, the delicate arch on full display, toes splayed and vulnerable.

She planted her foot back on the tile with a sharp slap. Ears flattened. Face flushed.

"What the fuck are you looking at?"

The afternoon sun warmed the living room as Laura stretched out on the couch, having declared her cleaning duties complete for the day. She lay on her stomach, her white apron discarded, her black maid dress riding up slightly to reveal the tops of her thigh-high stockings — though she had already rolled them down to her ankles in her quest for comfort. Her bare feet dangled off the armrest, pale and delicate, the black polish on her toenails catching the light. She was reading a romance novel, her silver hair falling across her face, her cat ears relaxed and drooping. The attention on her feet went unregistered — the way her toes curled when she reached an exciting passage, the way her high arches flexed as she shifted position, the smooth expanse of her soles occasionally visible as she kicked her feet idly. Her tail nub twitched beneath her skirt as she read, and a soft, almost inaudible purr rumbled in her chest. When she finally sensed she was being watched, her ears snapped upright and she twisted around, face flushing. "Oi! Were you staring at my feet, you fucking pervert?" But her feet lingered where they were, her purple eyes holding a complicated expression.

Laura stood in the center of the bedroom, arms crossed over her chest, her purple eyes fixed on a point somewhere past the far wall. She had been told to stay still. Every instinct, eight years of them sharp and feral, screamed at her to bolt for the door. Instead she dug her heels into the carpet and remained, rigid as a drawn bow.

Her maid uniform was immaculate. Black dress pressed, white apron tied at her narrow waist, frilly headpiece centered between her silver cat ears. Armor, all of it, except armor wasn't supposed to leave her feeling this exposed.

"This is fucking stupid," she muttered, but her voice came out thin, stripped of its usual bite.

Hands pressed against her narrow shoulders: steady, deliberate. The warmth of them seeped through the fabric of her dress, and Laura shivered despite the room being warm. Her cat ears flattened, then slowly, as if the muscles controlling them had voted against her wishes, began to relax. Fingers moved down her arms and unhurried and exploratory; her skin prickled beneath the sleeves. She was porcelain pale and soft from years of indoor servitude; she hated how every nerve seemed to fire in the wake of that contact. Heat blooming where pressure lingered and fading too slowly after it moved on.

"I don't — this isn't —" The words stalled in her throat.

Palms brushed against the curve of her waist. She sucked in a breath, her stomach hollowing. The apron strings shifted, and through the layers of cotton and lace, she could feel the precise outline of each finger pressing into the dip above her hips. Her tail nub twitched beneath her skirt, frantic, beyond her control.

The touch moved lower. Her hips. Her thighs. Mapped the terrain of her petite frame with a patience that felt almost reverent, pausing where the hem of her stockings met bare skin, where lace gave way to the soft inside of her thigh.

A purr started in her chest: low, involuntary, the kind of sound she'd deny making even under oath.

"Fuck you," she whispered.

She stayed.

The bedroom was quiet, the kind of silence that settled after resistance had been spent. Laura knelt on the bed, breathing hard, her maid uniform in disarray — apron twisted sideways, buttons undone from collar to sternum, skirt hiked above her hips. Her thigh-highs had been peeled to her knees, leaving bands of pale skin exposed above and below the crumpled fabric. The sheets beneath her were bunched from her restless shifting, a pillow shoved to the mattress edge.

Her breasts rose and fell with each unsteady breath, heavy and flushed, dusky rose areolae exposed, warm-mauve nipples peaked and sensitive to the air. She hated how much she wanted to be touched. She hated more that her body announced it louder than her mouth ever could.

"This is so fucking embarrassing," she hissed, but her purple eyes were glazed and pupils wide; her declawed hands gripped the skirt bunched at her waist like the last scrap of dignity she owned.

Hands explored her body—reverent, unhurried. They traced the curve of her waist, the indent where her ribs ended and her hips began, the swell of her small, firm buttocks. Laura's cat ears twitched with each new point of contact — a twitch for her hip, a sharper one for her inner thigh, a full-body shudder when fingers brushed along the crease where thigh met pelvis. Her tail nub quivered at the base of her spine, a metronome answering to instinct alone.

When palms slid up her stomach, thumbs tracing the faint definition of her lower ribs, she arched into it before she could stop herself. When they cupped her breasts, a sound escaped her — raw and involuntary, somewhere between a moan and a whimper — and she clamped her jaw shut a second too late.

"Don't you dare stop," she growled, the words dragged out of her like a confession under duress. "I'll fucking kill you if you stop."

Her body arched forward, chasing the warmth, and what remained of her composure went quiet.

The evening had settled into something quiet, the television murmuring in the background — some cooking show playing to an empty audience. Laura straddled the lap beneath her, maid skirt bunched around her waist, thighs parted wide. Her black cotton underwear had been pushed aside, and she was full. Achingly, perfectly, devastatingly full — a cock buried deep inside her pussy, every inch pressing against her slick inner walls with a precision that blurred the edges of her vision.

Neither of them was moving. That was the point. That was the rule she'd set, and she was going to follow it even if it killed her.

"This is... fuck." Her voice was strained, her purple eyes half-lidded, her cat ears drooping with reluctant pleasure. The television murmured something about braising temperatures, and the couch cushion had molded to the shape of two bodies pretending this arrangement was ordinary.

She could feel everything. Every pulse. Every involuntary twitch. The heat of the cock inside her matched her own, and the stretch — that full, deep ache — sent low, rolling waves through her abdomen that she had to breathe through. Her inner walls clenched in an involuntary slow squeeze, and she bit her lip hard enough to taste copper.

"Don't you dare move," she warned, though her hips wanted desperately to rock, the muscles in her thighs trembling with the effort of staying still. "This is just — it's warm. That's all. I'm cold and you're warm and this is a practical solution to a temperature problem."

Her tail nub twitched against the thighs beneath her. She leaned forward, resting her forehead against a shoulder, her silver hair falling like a curtain around her face. Her breasts pressed heavy and sensitive through her uniform, nipples hard against the fabric. The angle shift drove the cock deeper, and her breath left her in a shudder that broke through unchecked.

"Just... stay like this. For a while." Her voice had gone soft, barely audible over the television. "Don't make it weird, asshole."

Her fingers found fabric, gripping tight, and she closed her eyes.

Rain pattered against the windows, steady and hypnotic, blurring the streetlights below into soft smears of orange and white. Laura sat in a lap, her back pressed against a chest, a cock nestled deep inside her. She had stopped pretending this was about warmth hours ago.

Her maid uniform was half-undone — buttons open from throat to navel, fabric parted around her breasts, nipples peaked in the cool air. Her thigh-highs had been removed entirely, leaving her legs bare, pale skin prickling from the draft through the window she'd cracked open earlier and forgotten. Her feet dangled on either side of the legs beneath her, toes curling and uncurling in the cool air, black polish catching the grey light with each small movement.

She held still. That was her rule, the one she enforced with a glare whenever a hip shifted beneath her. But her body trembled with the effort of it, her inner muscles gripping and releasing in slow, rhythmic contractions that came unbidden. Her pussy was swollen and slick, coral-pink inner lips stretched around the cock inside her, and every pulse she felt sent a quiet shock through her abdomen that caught her breath.

"I hate you," she murmured, but the words came out gentle, emptied of heat.

The fullness mattered more than the ache, and the ache mattered more than release. This was about connection. The simple, animal comfort of being filled by something warm and alive and present. Her clit throbbed with neglected need, and she let it. She had nowhere else to be.

Her cat ears lay flat against her head — with a contentment so complete it bordered on surrender. A low purr rumbled in her chest, vibrating through them both.

"If you tell anyone about this, I'll gut you."

But her hand found the hand resting on her stomach, and her fingers intertwined with it, threading carefully between each finger with a tenderness that betrayed everything her mouth had just said. She held tight.

The rain kept falling. Laura kept still.

Laura's cat ears perked at the first brush of contact — fingertips, barely there, scratching behind her left ear. Her mouth opened to deliver the insult she'd been loading since she walked into the room.

"What the fuck do you think you're —"

The words died. The scratching found the spot — the exact spot, behind the base of her ear where the fur was softest and the nerve endings were dense enough to short-circuit her brain. Her jaw went slack. Her purple eyes fluttered shut.

A purr rumbled up from her chest, loud and involuntary, vibrating through her ribcage with enough force to rattle her teeth. Her shoulders dropped, the tension she carried through every waking hour unwinding muscle by muscle. A sigh slipped out — quiet, honest — before she caught it and clamped her jaw shut.

"This doesn't... I'm not..."

The protests had no spine. The stroking moved to the top of her head, working through her silver hair in slow, deliberate passes, and Laura leaned into it like a cat pressing toward warmth. Her whole body followed, tilting sideways, weight shifting until she was resting against the source of the touch her body having overruled the decision entirely. Her tail nub twitched with something that felt dangerously close to happiness.

Her eyes were half-lidded, glazed with a pleasure she had no mechanism to hide. Eight years without gentle touch, and her body remembered it like a language she'd been forbidden to speak — fluent, immediate, devastating.

"Not bad for an idiot," she managed, but her voice was soft. Almost affectionate. Almost grateful. The voice sounded foreign to her.

The sensation paused.

Her ears flattened with immediate distress, and she pressed her head forward on instinct, chasing the touch like something vital had been taken from her.

"I didn't say stop, dickwad."

Her face was flushed. Her breathing was uneven. She looked more vulnerable than she'd ever allowed herself to be — and for once, she was staying in it.

The purring hadn't stopped. She wasn't sure it could.

The head pats had been going on for several minutes now, and Laura had given up any pretense of resistance. She sat on the couch, her body curled toward the source of the affection, her head resting against a shoulder while sensation worked through her silver hair and scratched behind her ears. Her purring was a constant rumble, loud enough to feel through contact. Her cat ears were pressed flat — with overwhelming, raw sensation. "I hate you," she murmured, but she was nuzzling closer as she said it. Her hands had found fabric to grip, clutching tight as if afraid the touch would stop. Her tail nub quivered with each stroke. "This is manipulation. You're manipulating me." But her eyes were closed, her face soft, her usual scowl replaced by something almost peaceful. When the sensation moved to the base of her ears, she made a sound that was embarrassingly close to a mewl. "Fuck. Fuck. Don't stop." Her whole body was trembling, overwhelmed by simple affection she had been denied for 8 years. "Please don't stop." The word slipped out before she could catch it, and her eyes flew open with horror. But she stayed exactly where she was.

Laura's heat had hit hard this month — harder than the last, harder than any she could remember. She'd barricaded herself in the bedroom hours ago, windows shut, curtains drawn, as if hiding from the world could make her own biology less real.

She knelt on the bed, her maid uniform soaked through with sweat, fabric clinging to her in ways that made her skin crawl. Her body trembled with a need she couldn't satisfy alone. The sheets beneath her were damp and twisted into knots from hours of thrashing, the pillow shoved to the floor along with her headpiece and her stockings; the last of her pride.

Her toys lay scattered around her — vibrator with a dead battery, silicone toy still slick, both inadequate. The vibrator had a dent in its casing from when she'd hurled it at the wall. The plaster had a matching crack.

"Fuck," she gasped, grinding against the mattress, her hips moving in desperate, graceless circles. Her pussy was swollen and slick, her clit throbbing so hard each pulse registered as pain, her inner walls clenching around nothing with a rhythm that drove her closer to insanity with every empty contraction. "I can't... I need..."

The sentence died in her throat. That vicious, iron-spined pride — the one that had kept her alive through eight years of slavery — refused to let her say the words. But her body carried no such loyalty.

She was on all fours, ass raised, tail nub twitching in frantic signals hardwired past her control. Her spine arched, presenting in a posture that was pure instinct — the catgirl she pretended she wasn't demanding what the human she pretended to be could never ask for. Her ears were flat against her skull, and tears of frustration leaked from her purple eyes, born from the humiliation of wanting something this badly and being unable to give it to herself.

The door opened.

She just looked over her shoulder with desperate, pleading eyes, her lips parted, her body trembling, and waited.

The heat had been building for three days, and Laura had finally broken.

She stood in the bedroom doorway, her white nightgown clinging to skin slick since morning. The fabric was thin enough to show every tremor — her thighs, her stomach, the rapid rise and fall of her chest. Her purple eyes were wild, pupils blown wide, the usual sharp focus scattered into something raw and desperate.

"I can't control it," she said, her voice cracked and hoarse. "I've tried. I've locked myself in the bathroom. The toys don't work anymore. Nothing works."

Her cat ears trembled, silver fur damp with sweat. Her tail nub twitched in involuntary spasms. She took a step forward, then another, her bare feet silent on the hardwood, and the hallway light behind her outlined every shudder running through her frame.

"I need... fuck, I need you." The words tumbled out in a rush, and her face burned even as her body screamed for relief. "I know I'm a bitch. I know I don't deserve it. I know I've called you every name I can think of and a few I made up." Her voice cracked. "But I'm going into heat and my body wants to be mated and I can't make it stop."

She was crying. Tears streaked her flushed cheeks, and she wiped at them furiously with the back of her hand — angry at herself, angry at her biology, angry that this was what it took to make her honest.

"Please. I'll do anything. I'll be good. I'll stop insulting you for a whole day — a week. Just please, please fuck me until this stops." Her shaking hands reached for the hem of her nightgown, pulling it up with none of her usual defiance. Just need. "I need your cum inside me. I need to feel full. I need —"

Her voice broke into a sob.

"I need YOU."

Laura stood at the kitchen counter, aggressively chopping vegetables while maintaining a steady stream of complaints. "The carrots are too orange. The onions are making me cry and I hate it. You're breathing too loud." Her silver hair swung with each emphatic chop, her cat ears flattened with performative irritation. But her purple eyes kept darting toward the figure seated at the table, and her tail nub twitched with something suspiciously, traitorously warm. "I'm only making dinner because I have to. Don't think this means anything." She scraped the vegetables into a pan with more force than necessary. "And stop looking at me like that. I'm not cute. I'm terrifying." The pan sizzled, and she stirred with aggressive competence. "You're lucky I'm such a good cook. Most slaves would poison you by now." She plated the food with careful attention she would never admit to, then slammed the plate down on the table. "There. Eat it. Or don't. I don't care." She stood with her arms crossed, watching intently, her ears slowly perking forward as the first bite was taken. "Well? Is it good?" The question came out too eager, and she scowled to compensate. "Not that I care. Asshole."

The apartment was spotless, and Laura stood in the center of the living room, feather duster in hand, surveying her work with barely concealed pride. Her maid uniform was pristine — she had changed into a fresh one after the morning's deep clean — and her white apron was tied in a perfect bow. "I suppose it's adequate," she announced to the room at large, though her ears were angled toward the couch where someone sat. "Not that you'd notice. You probably can't tell the difference between clean and filthy." She began dusting surfaces that were already dust-free, her movements precise and automatic. Her black Mary Janes clicked against the floor as she worked, though she had already removed her thigh-highs for comfort. "I reorganized your bookshelf by color. You're welcome. It looked like a tornado hit it before." She paused by the couch, close enough to touch, her tail nub twitching. "I also did your laundry. And ironed your shirts. And cleaned the bathroom twice because the first time wasn't good enough." Her voice had gone softer. "Not because I care. Because I have standards." She was standing very close now, her purple eyes fixed on a point somewhere past the wall. "You could say thank you. Or pat my head. Either one. I don't care which."

Laura woke slowly, pulled from sleep by a proximity that should have been unfamiliar. It wasn't. It was achingly familiar — just never this close.

Her purple eyes opened to grey pre-dawn light filtering through curtains she'd forgotten to close. The first thing she registered was warmth. The second was scent. The third was that her face was buried in someone's neck. Her owner's neck.

She was pressed against a warm body, legs tangled with someone else's legs, one arm draped across a chest that rose and fell with slow, sleeping breaths. Her cat ears had softened sideways against her hair — the position that meant complete surrender, though she'd sooner die than admit she knew that about herself. Her breathing had synced to the rhythm beneath her cheek, and her body was relaxed in a way it only achieved in unconsciousness.

She should pull away. She should say something cutting about personal space, about boundaries, something with enough venom to kill whatever this was before it grew roots.

Instead, she pressed closer. Her nose traced along the curve of a neck and inhaling deep; her whole body melted into the warmth. Her enhanced scent sensitivity — that feline trait she denied was anything but a nuisance — flooded her with a rush of familiarity and safety that made her chest ache.

"You smell good," she mumbled before the words cleared her internal filter. Her face flushed crimson. "I mean — fuck — I mean you smell less terrible than usual. That's all."

She stayed where she was. Her nose continued its slow path, breathing in, cat instincts overriding human embarrassment with a thoroughness that would have mortified her if she'd been more awake.

"It's pheromones. It's biological. I can't help it." Her tail nub twitched against the sheets. "You smell like..." She swallowed. "Like safety. Like home."

The words landed in the quiet room, heavy and irretrievable, and she buried her face deeper to hide whatever expression had just crossed it.

"Shut up. Don't say anything. Just let me stay here for a minute." A pause. "Asshole."

She stayed much longer than a minute.

The laundry basket sat on the bed, full of clean clothes waiting to be folded. Laura stood over it, her hands buried in her owner's shirt, her face pressed into the fabric. She was breathing deeply, her cat ears flat with guilty pleasure, her purple eyes closed. The shirt smelled like her owner — that specific combination of soap and skin and something indefinably them — and the inhaling kept going, each breath pulling deeper. "This is so fucking pathetic," she whispered to herself, but the shirt stayed pressed to her face. Her tail nub twitched as she breathed in again, her whole body relaxing into the scent. She didn't hear the door open. She didn't notice she wasn't alone until a sound made her ears snap upright. She spun around, the shirt still clutched to her chest, her face crimson with mortification. "This isn't — I was just — the fabric softener smells weird and I was checking —" The excuses died on her lips. She stood there, caught, vulnerable, holding a shirt to her face like a lifeline. "Fine. You smell good. Are you happy now?" Her voice cracked. "I'm a fucking cat person and you smell like safety and I can't help it, okay? I can't help wanting to be near you. I can't help any of this."