When they first started dating, it was as though they pretended the subject just didn’t exist. This was, in general, perfectly fine with Whisper; she did not know how to breach the ice and she was not in a hurry. There was a blessed relief to cuddles being just that - honest, innocent, true through-and-through closeness. Tangle sometimes pecked a kiss and Whisper would, on rarer occasion, shyly (if not bashfully) return them. It was quaint. It meant something without meaning something, even as they’d long since come to see one another’s love, even as they settled into one another as officially-for-real girlfriends.
But Whisper was never blind. She understood everything from the start. She knew that most girlfriends do more than just cuddle, and that falling in love meant being honest with your partner, and that you’ll never tell her the truth if you don’t even tell it to yourself. She understood all this. She just didn’t like thinking about it, and was relieved that Tangle never asked any of it from her.
Only, in the absence of communication, her mind began to fill the silence.
Thoughts of — what if she doesn’t want me like that? Very well, she tries to tell herself - but as she hears it, her heart feels some yawning, bottomless pain that she can’t begin to make sense of and is afraid of trying to fill.
Thoughts of — what if she doesn’t understand like I do? She doesn’t know if there’s something wrong with her for knowing what isn’t in her life right now. There are images that she can see so vividly, but - not quite - fit herself and Tangle into. Her mind draws a blank. But it gets so, so close. Is that wrong? She doesn’t think it’s normal, but she doesn’t have a point of reference. She just assumes any part of her that doesn’t immediately connect, that doesn’t quite line up with whoever matters to her, is a little bit broken. If she wants something that Tangle’s never even thought about… then… it makes her feel like she’s only just realizing an insidious snake coiled about her neck. There’s only a year’s difference between them, but it makes her feel like it’s so, so much more.
And thoughts of — what if she has herself figured out, and it’s just not for her? She doesn’t want it to hurt. That would be okay. If Whisper is honest with herself, she can’t say for sure that it’s for her, either. She wants to find out. She just wants to find out. If she can’t find out with Tangle, then… that’s okay. It would never be an obstacle. It would never get between them. That’s - that’s what makes it the least scary, in a sense, because she is terrified of having something broken about her be the thing which drives them apart… and if it’s just not on the table, then it’ll never have the chance.
But… against it all, she hopes any of this isn’t how it has to be. It’s selfish, and it’s not going to make her do anything she doesn’t want to, but she’s not going to lie to herself. She hopes she’ll get to figure herself out with the one who already means everything to her.
These thoughts went in circles - hollowness, despair, stillness and hope - round and round - unendingly in stasis, swirling ever more violently behind an opaque, corked bottle.
Until, one otherwise typical night, something silently slipped past the seal.
“Heyyyyyyy, Whisp?”
“Mm?” They’re in bed together. On break, for once - neither has any obligations for the week ahead. It’s mysteriously freeing. Whisper intends to drink this time with Tangle slowly, savoring each moment, even as she inevitably gets roped into some delirious misadventure. She wouldn’t trade that part of the experience for anything. But… right now, they’re just together, minutes away from sleep; she needs and cherishes this slowness, too.
“I was juuust wonderin’… have you… ever done it with anyone, before…?”
Whisper fails to parse the question within one and one half seconds, which is precisely how long it takes for Tangle to postscript an addendum with impressive urgency.
“Um! Um, I mean, haha, probably not? ‘Cause I sorta doubt you would’ve with anyone while we’ve been together, and that’s, um, most’a your life since… since… since, um, you know, since you weren’t just- um- a kid.” She pauses for breath, then proceeds: “I mean, not that that’d be any kind of issue, if you DID, it really wouldn’t be. I promise! But! I kind of… want to… know? You know! If you want to share. Um. If you ever have. Hooouh, sorry, that’s sort of a whole lot, isn’t it.”
The wolf just looks at Tangle’s gorgeous, overworked, ever-caring face; Whisper’s deep-blue eyes crack open only a peek, and even so, it’s expressly intentional. She has a suspicion, but…
“Ever… done it…?” So, she’s a little drowsy, admittedly.
Tangle flushes. “Yeah. Y’know, had… sex?”
The conversation is suddenly quite real. A hundred dormant things begin to rile in a cavern submersed just deeply enough that Whisper doesn’t realize it. If she’s going to go into crisis, it will have to wait a little longer.
Instead, she takes the question head on. No, not with anyone but Tangle, and - well, certainly not with Tangle. When she was with the old Diamond Cutters… well. No, she hadn’t. Certain experiences may demand some unpacking - it’s not as though she was born with textbook knowledge - but no, she was young, and at least that boundary went understood without ever going stated.
Whisper just shakes her head.
“Wow. Huh. I guess that’s not too surprising, yeah, just… funny.”
Whisper would like to ask why it’s funny, but puts it off, playing cards instead.
“N’you?”
“Me? Oh! Oh yeah, totally fair! Ummmmmmmmmm.”
Whisper watches her. It’s okay. At the moment, she isn’t of a high enough brain to impart any judgment on the answer - not that her heart would compel her to, anyway. She’s just interested, and getting her share of the same knowledge she’s given. Tangle, meanwhile, is umming, looking away, and blushing.
“Um. No.”
“No.”
“Nope! Never. Not even once. Oh my god, I don’t SOUND believable, please, I just have really donno how to turn this into words AND I’M HONEST I’ve. I’ve. I have never had sex even onciest once, ever.”
Whisper smiles. “Wasn’t doubt’n you. But you’re cute.”
Tangle shuffles a little, sheepish. Lemurish. Point-blank compliments like that are… not exceedingly common, from Whisper. That’s never been a point of contention - her words are all the more effective for it.
“Why do you ask?” (Close enough to “why’s it funny,” sure.)
“Honestly, Whisp, I was just thinkin’ about… y’know. How great you look, like, all of the time? I think you’ve got some kinda superpower, even though I know you’ll toootally swear that off.”
“Mhm. No magic. Also, you’re biased.”
“I’m biased but it doesn’t mean I’m not RIGHT! You DO look fantastic, always!”
Whisper tucks her head in, nudging Tangle’s chest. “Thanks.”
“It’s just, um, I’m kind of all over you, and… I figured probably someone’s at least proposed some, um, some offering unto you, you know?” Tangle rubs circles in the back of Whisper’s head. Her hair is down while she sleeps, of course. Tangle’s informed her previously, to the wolf’s mute-yet-shining satisfaction, that her golden-beige locks are possibly the ultimate stim texture.
“Mm. S’never happened.” She flits her tongue out and licks a tuft of chest fur. “Don’t go out too much, though…”
Tangle laughs gently, reserved moreso to the benefit of her drowsy partner rather than for any uncertainty regarding their relationship. “Y’a got a point.”
There’s a question Whisper would like to ask, if they’re being open on this note, however spontaneously though it’s being voiced. It’s not a complicated question. But she can’t quite find the words, and it turns out that’s alright, because Tangle’s wondering the same thing.
“Mmm, okay, well… have you… ever… gotten yourself off, then?”
“Orgasmed.”
Tangle flushes again, if she ever stopped. “I know the words!”
“Know you know the words.” Whisper smiles. “S’just funny. Feelin’ you blush.”
Tangle finds herself, once again, at a blissful loss for words.
“You first.” With a little assistance, Whisper gets her way.
Tangle scritches the top of Whisper’s neck. (Yes, she gets her way…)
“Y-yeah. Uh, not much. It’s… kinda tricky, and I’m…” She sighs. “Not really my bits’ biggest fan, if you know what I mean?”
Unfortunately, Whisper does. “Mm. S’okay. Same here, some.” She thinks for a moment. Maybe this is too much to ask, but… “Find it nice, anyway…?”
Tangle clicks her tongue. “Actually, yeah, I did. Weird, right?”
Whisper finds Tangle’s eyes. “Feels that way.”
“So… have you, then?”
She nods. “Mm. More than… a couple times. Not a stranger.”
Tangle humms, readjusting the blankets over both of them.
“Is it, um, nice for you, too?”
“D’nno. As a young one - figuring out a body that’s - hers and not, at once…” Whisper murrs. “S’impossible to say. Not good. Not bad. Just new.” She pauses, and Tangle, sensing there’s more to the story, doesn’t interject. “Never figured out if… I liked it. Just part of… being… alive. Got meds. Mostly stopped. Didn’t miss it much.”
“That makes sense. Uh, I don’t know a lot about it, but… was that… good? I mean, I get that you didn’t miss it, buuut…” She trails off. The nerves beneath Whisper’s fur find the question somewhat electrical.
“Mmmm.” Whisper already knows her feelings on this, but takes a moment to word them. “Was… good… to not… get erections. Just. Don’t like them. Never liked them.”
Tangle rubs Whisper’s back.
“But… don’t feel - negatively, to… mm. Getting off. S’natural. It’s…”
She doesn’t finish this sentence. Her mind wanders astray on the hunt for the right word, and sooner or later it forgets what exactly it was trying to express at all. Well. Guess that’s all she was saying, then.
Tangle, on both counts, gets it.
“It’s okay if you don’t really know how to feel about it, y’know. Me neither! I’m definitely not all the way sure, and, uh. I’ve thought about it kind of a lot.”
Whisper nods.
“I just go…” She slides a palm from Whisper’s shoulderblade down, slowly, stopping where her girlfriend’s tail starts. “…With the flooow.” And she stuffs her paw into that perfect bundle of fur, silkily pristine and barely kempt. Whisper’s tail is wagging, and she never seems to hide it, and it’s so, so adorable. Tangle has informed her (on multiple occasions) that this tail is also, quite possibly, the ultimate stim texture.
Whisper lays in silence. Tangle’s pretty feely tonight, which isn’t unusual, necessarily, but… contextualizing it with this specific conversation is sort of surreal. In a good way. This has been illuminating, and everything has not gone wrong, and she is… having… an incredibly soothing cuddle. Her volatile feelings almost settle, for once, and it leaves her at something similar to peace, though the underlying emotional shift is altogether subconscious.
After some time sharing themselves together, Tangle clears her throat. Quietly. But very dramatically, all else equal.
“Weeeell, um, y’know, I was kind of thinking… that I’d like… to propose… an offering unto youuuu…?” She sort of trails, but soon enough devolves into a giggle. “Oh gosh, that’s so ridiculous.”
In just a second, all the nerves across Whisper’s body curve and prickle and - sparkle?
She enunces some expressively nonverbal utterance into Tangle’s fur, then unburies her face and meets her girlfriend’s gaze. “Clarify…?”
“Oh, oh, um, nothing much. Sorry! I don’t want to give the wrong picture. Um. The right picture is, meeeeee, um… feelin’ you up down there… and… helping you get off?”
Tangle won’t admit it aloud, but the right picture isn’t exactly far off from the wrong picture.
Whisper humms. She really does ponder, for a moment - but not for more than a moment. It’s more or less what she’s had on her mind for… a long time… and she’s in a headspace where that seems pretty much just fine, actually.
Her dick begins to firm against the skirt-shorts that are all she wears to sleep.
In one sense, the physical sensation isn’t far off from those ordinary erections that haunted her for years - the ones she was so, so glad to finally be rid of.
In another, though, it’s completely different.
“Mhm. Would… accept… that offer.” She pauses - finds what went missing from the sentiment - and adds, “Graciously.”
And Tangle’s tail zips around her and squeezes the both of them together and Tangle beams and, no, ouch… there go Whisper’s ribs, what else is new…
Except on second thought, this is new, and she’s excited.
Tangle lets her go (a teensy bit sooner than usual), and then sits herself more or less upright. “Okay, okay, so. I don’t wanna futz up these blankets, so I’m reeeeally sorry if this is cold for a second, but!”
She peels the blankets off of Whisper, still laying horizontal, but gazing up at her girlfriend quite contently. It is cold, but the chill passes as soon as it comes on, because Tangle runs her tail along Whisper’s spine and lifts the wolf’s head up and winds that tail into the comfiest, most dubiously sentient pillow ever.
Tangle herself is in her standard nightdress, which is a set of boxers. She’s sitting at Whisper’s side, staring down at her, adorned with the greatest grin this planet might ever have seen - one that, in this moment (or as Tangle would insist - in all moments) - one that she’s perfected just for Whisper. Something or other beautiful stirs inside the wolf’s heart.
Tangle sets a hand on Whisper’s hip, resting just above the band of her skirt. “Is it okay if I, um, pull this down? I don’t really have to, but…”
Whisper nods. “Mm. Please.”
So she does. Just enough to free the wolf’s groin, at first, but Whisper makes a wordless sound and she peels the skirt all the way off, setting it aside (with her hand, boo hoo) on the nightdresser nearby.
Whisper’s completely free, and while she makes for a sight that Tangle absolutely cannot wait to witness and internalize and mentally photograph forever, the lemur’s aim is to do so with touch, too.
Whisper has seen (and felt) her own region more than often enough to develop a budding relationship with it, go through heartbreak, come to terms, and now coexists with it more or less comfortably. It’s as natural as the rest of her, and she’s come to realize it isn’t necessarily her most mortal enemy. No, it’s a friend. And it’s part of her.
“Tangle?” The lemur, enthralled, has… sort of stalled.
“Yeah?” She flushes. “Um. What’s up, Whisp?”
“Please - sit between m’legs. S’… it’ll be warm, around you.”
“Oh! Oh, totally!”
Whisper sprawls her legs out. Tangle climbs over and settles between them. Whisper cups her knees around the lemur’s sides and - it is warm around her, for both of them.
Tangle squeaks at the pressure, and smiles. She looks down and into Whisper’s eyes, open, open, just a crack, but open. For the one who’s closest to her, who means everything to her - but for herself, too.
Whisper smiles back, and nods.
Tangle cups a hand around one of Whisper’s balls. She’s still mostly sheathed, though the tip pokes out and it’s extremely cute and some feisty part of Tangle is a little upset she’s not starting there. Hush! She’ll feel it all soon enough.
She just rubs that surface, rolling her palm around it, pressing a little (this fur is so short and soft!) and feeling the shape of the firmer orbs inside. She tugs a couple times, which is something Whisper hasn’t tried before and immediately realizes she likes, and then slides down some, pawing just along the top of her perineum.
These are - these senses aren’t entirely dissimilar from Whisper’s own working with herself, but - but, it’s Tangle. It’s Tangle, and she’s right there, and it’s really her - no trick of the light, no fantasy locked in the back of her mind. Tangle is imparting a kind of attention Whisper wasn’t sure she even deserved - but the thought slips from her mind just as it lets itself in. Her living pillow rubs the back of her head (through that let-loose hair…) and she breathes in, and out, and she smiles.
With her other hand, Tangle sets two fingers just before the peak of Whisper’s digit, pressing ever, ever so lightly, following as it rouses itself up and out of her sheath.
Then she slides those fingers down… down… down, so slowly down, finally resting at the base, fingertips just meeting fur.
“Is this nice for y’a, Whisp?” She’s smiling. She knows the answer, but it’s a genuine question.
“Mmmmmmmnnh.” Warm, secret-betraying blood rushes into the wolf’s cheeks. “Yes.”
Tangle grins with her tongue halfway stuck out. Her tail pats Whisper gently and rubs, oh, it rubs right around the bottom of one of her ears, and then the rest of her face is set ablaze, too.
Tangle giggles. “Thaaat’s what I want!”
She sets down a third finger, draws up only a little quicker than the first time, and catches a miniscule droplet of pre.
She lifts it to her snout. Takes a breath in, nice and slow. Turns out lemurs have an incredible sense of smell.
“Y’know, Whisp, I’ve, um.” She brings her hand back to Whisper’s member, curls around its length, presses the back of its head with her thumb. “I’ve never gotten to… feel, or really see, or, ah, get to… give one of these care, before.”
Whisper’s capacity for speech isn’t great on a normal day. She listens, intently, but is also processing an entire world of sensation and joy and love - one that she’s only tonight realizing has a wordless language of lyric to it. Tangle’s dialogue mostly flows into her like honey, like morning dew.
“And, I gotta say, it’s. It’s. Hol’ on, I’m gettin’ emotional here.” She retrieves her other hand, which doesn’t knock her out with the saccharine aroma of wolf-fondling, and wipes her forehead. “It is pretty frickin’ awesome.”
She pulls down, bringing Whisper’s whole dick with her. Squeezes. Pulls back up.
More pre leaks, and Tangle gets it in her fingers, and she doesn’t pull away - she rubs, rubs, rubs around the tip and head, and her paw is more or less soaked and it’s kind of the hottest thing ever, and she slides down her girlfriend’s length, then up again, and down, and a couple more times, and-
And heat washes from Whisper’s scalp down and from her toes up, and her heart beats the song of a hundred howling wolves, and her stomach tightens and her legs squeeze joy and Tangle squeals and-
And one solitary strand of white bursts free, catching in the air for just a moment, then falling, falling, falling into Whisper’s fur, pasting her belly and tickling all about and marking her Tangle’s.
And Tangle smiles. She smiles as she watches Whisper melt into a blissful mess of love and peace and post-orgasm ease. She smiles as warm wolf-seed pools in her fingers, slips loose, trickles down, and forms a little puddle beneath Whisper’s navel.
She smiles as Whisper smiles, and she smiles as she catches Whisper’s eyes and they share something quiet and indescribable and true.