Ancient MemoriesNSFW

Anju is having the time of her life with her new kitten. "Ohhh, so wild and hungry, my cute little treat... Should I release you to go feral?"

"Hold- hold on. January junipers. Can I be real with you for a minute?" Nicole looks distant suddenly, shaken out of subspace.

Recognizing the safe word, Anju releases the leash. "Please, kitten."

Nicole picks up the end of the leash and presses it back into her hand. "Um... can you hold onto this while we talk?"

"Of course." Anju opens her arms, beckoning Nicole to sit on her lap before pulling her into a horizontal spooning cuddle.

Nicole tucks herself back against Anju, feeling Anju's warm body envelop her. "I, uh, how do I... I've been wondering. About whether you really intend to... to stay with me."

"I would never allow you to go free," Anju teases, the fingers of her leash hand going through Nicole's hair lazily. "You are my kitten, after all. A cat is a life-long commitment... her life, that is."

"I'm being serious!" Nicole pouts over her shoulder.

Anju lifts her head to look Nicole in the eye. "So am I. You did ask to be real, didn't you?"

"That's..." Nicole shivers. "I always feel like something's going to happen and you're going to lose interest in me and wander off. And normally when that feeling happens I just. Eat the problem, but... with you I don't know if I, uh, can."

"Lose interest in you? Impossible." Her ... mistress? girlfriend? owner? lets her voice drop to an affectionate murmur, her lower hand caressing Nicole's bare stomach. "Nicole, for as quickly as it came on, the strength of my feeling about you cannot be overstated. I will not let you go. You have my word on that. Whether this relationship ends when I need you so badly I want to claim you permanently or when we die as old women side by side, it will not be because I let you go. No daughter of my family would ever be such a fool."

Sounds nice... but... Nicole chews her lip. "I know. It's not you. It's just, I've always felt like this, I guess."

"Kitten, it's not abnormal," Anju coos, her warm breath washing lightly over Nicole's ear. "You lost your father at a young age. I did too, and look at how I am. It happens."

"Are you accusing me of having daddy issues?" It's an attempt at a joke, but Nicole is so embarrassed her voice squeaks on the last word.

Anju's warm chuckle fills the room anyway, and her embrace around Nicole tightens. She wraps the leash around her hand so Nicole can feel its pull. "When you are afraid, just remember you will always be my kitten, no matter what."

Nicole presses her head against Anju's chest, tucking her head under the taller demi-dragon's chin. "Mm... kay."

"That's mmkay mistress," Anju teases lightly. "Did you forget that you're mine already?"

This gets a giggle out of Nicole, at least, and she flips around to bury her face in Anju's chest. "Yes, mistress."

"Mm... How old were you when it happened?" Anju asks, idly caressing Nicole's back with her leash hand.

"I don't know. I was really young," Nicole mumbles, muffled by soft warm flesh. "I don't really remember much, but. My mom told me I was always clingy with my friends when I was little..."

8-year-old Reya pats her space wife on the back. "It's time to go to work, dear! Don't forget your laser gun!"

Nicole takes the water pistol from Reya. She wears a thin plastic play helmet along with her frilly one-piece swimsuit. "Aren't you coming with me?"

"No!" Reya puts her hands on her hips. "I gotta get the gas for the ship!"

"But there's so many aliens I can't shoot them all myself!"

"Fiiiine. I'll get the laser bat." Reya picks up a lightweight plastic bat, putting it over her shoulder and closing the door to the treehouse with a decisive bang. "Let's go beat up the aliens."

"Yeah!" Nicole looks toward the ground, hesitantly lowering herself down the ladder. Her knuckles are white as she grips the ladder with both hands, her foot timidly groping for the next rung. Beside her, Reya jumps down from where the climbing rope is, tumbling forward a few steps.

Karen sets down her translation work and leans over to Felicity, chuckling. "Look at the two of them."

"Like peas in a pod," Felicity agrees. She sips her iced tea, raising her voice. "Reya, don't jump off that!"

"I'm okay!" Reya yells back, hoisting herself upright and getting her bat ready. Her swimsuit and her wet skin are covered in grass now, but she doesn't seem bothered. "Oh no, it's an ambush!" She immediately starts swinging at the invisible attackers. "Unh! Unh! Hurry up!! I'm getting beat up!"

"Oh no!" Nicole is torn between trying to descend the ladder safely and not wanting to let her friend down, and finally summons the courage to jump the last few rungs. "I'm coming, dear! Take that!" She fires a few streams of water into the empty air. "There, I got them!"

"Thanks." Reya dusts herself off. "But we gotta be careful. There could be more anywhere... And they like to eat Earthlings, so you gotta watch out!"

"Okay, then we gotta stick together!" Nicole insists. She points at the play sprinkler, shaped like a patch of flowers. "Look, I think that's their base!"

Picking up her own drink and swirling it around with the straw, Karen smiles at Felicity. "You and your husband did a great job on that treehouse."

"He's been such a help since Reya was born," Felicity agrees, sipping some more iced tea. "Mm, and he's been so sweet with Chloe. She's a darling, but I admit she can be a lot sometimes. But with two of us, it's no trouble at all."

"Sounds lovely."

Felicity nods. "Where's yours, by the way? I don't think I've ever seen him."

"Ah... about that." Karen sheepishly pats her backside by way of answer. "A night of drunken fun where I got a little bit too drunk and a little bit too fun..."

"Oh, sure. I'm not much of a predator myself, but my sisters have told me all about that kind of thing. I don't blame you for that. How's Nicole holding up with it?" Felicity asks.

"I don't know if she even remembers him, to be honest," Karen says. "But, well..." She gestures to her daughter.

"No, we don't both get mind controlled!" Reya complains. She's unhooked the hose from the sprinkler and is letting its cold contents pour over her - and trying to keep it out of Nicole's reach. "You gotta stop me! I'm evil now!"

"But we can be evil together!" Nicole insists, making another attempt to grab for the hose. "I can't beat up my space wife!"

Reya grumbles, then reluctantly hands over the hose. "Fine. You can be mind controlled too."

Nicole pours the water over herself, her body reflexively clenching up at the cold before shaking it off. "Let's eat all the Earthlings! Muhuhuhuhuhahahahahahaha!"

"A little clingy," Karen finishes. "Honestly, I'm surprised the two of them bonded as well as they have. Most of the time she's been glued to my skirt."

Felicity hides a laugh behind her hand, nearly spitting up her drink. "Ah. Reya... let's say she likes a challenge, I think. Do you know Rose Watts, the demi-fox girl?"

"Watts... Hmm, yes, I think so. She was in the other first grade class, right?" Karen sips her lemonade. "I think she's got the same teacher as my Nicole for second grade."

"That's right, yeah." Felicity puts her drink back on the glass table with a soft clonk. "Reya kept me updated for an entire month about how she was trying to get Rose to talk to her and how Rose was so pretty and she always sits by herself at lunch and all the foods she tried to get Rose to share with her. I think Rose finally started talking to her just so Reya would stop trying to feed her like a mama bird. And now Reya is always asking me if Rose can come over. So if Nicole was keeping to herself, I think Reya would have probably gone straight for her."

"Ha! That explains it, then. The day Nicole told me that she had a friend and they'd gone on the jungle gym together, I was shocked. Nicole hasn't exactly been the most outgoing child. She's usually happiest when she's reading a book by herself. But, well..." Karen glances over at Nicole, now shoveling invisible Earthlings into her mouth while Reya melodramatically wails about her eating them all. "I think she's starting to open up some. It's a relief."

The sound of the doorbell ringing summons Felicity from her chair. "I think that's the pizza. Can you call them in?"

"Girls!" Karen calls. Felicity returns with two pizza boxes a moment later, prompting Karen to add, "Pizza's here!"

"I don't want pizza unless it's topped with Earthlings!" Reya yells back.

"I'm too stuffed for pizza!" Nicole agrees at the top of her lungs. "I ate too many Earthlings!"

Karen gives the children a wry grin. "It's space pizza with extra Earthlings!"

This summons the duo at top speed, their feet slapping across the deck.

"No pepperoni though, right?" Reya asks, deadly serious. "Pepperoni is my weakness. It makes my mind control go crazy."

"Yes... and also no." Felicity solemnly opens the boxes. "One pizza has only cheese and Earthlings... and the other has cheese and Earthlings and pepperoni. Choose wisely, brave space-warrior."

"Mom, I'm not a space warrior! I'm an evil Earthling that got brainwashed by aliens!"

Felicity laughs. "Yes. Of course."

"Can I have some pepperoni?" Nicole asks, shivering slightly now that she's sitting still.

"You can have some pepperoni and a towel." Karen reaches out, wrapping her daughter in a tight hug and a warm towel that had been baking in the sun. "Go sit down and dry off, I'll get you a plate."

The two girls sit next to each other, contentedly chewing their pizza in relative silence broken only by the occasional joke about Earthlings that sets both of them giggling.

"I don't know why we don't do this more often," Karen says, picking up her lemonade again. "We work in the same field, our kids go to the same school... we'd make good friends, I think."

"Let's plan to do it again soon!" Felicity says, serving herself a slice of pizza and plating another for Karen.

...

By the time the two women have finished discussing their work, the sun has set and the two girls have moved inside and fallen asleep watching cartoons on the couch. Reya is sprawled across two cushions, with Nicole using her pizza-stuffed gut as a pillow and sleeping soundly.

"Figured this is the only way they'd be quiet," Karen murmurs. "Well, I'm in no rush. Drinks?"

Felicity shakes her head vigorously, and Karen laughs. "Don't worry, you'll be fine. Let's leave them a bit longer..."