Heavy Petting

“She’s late.” You noted to yourself as your read up on your current client.

That wasn’t uncommon. Even your regular clients would get cold feet occasionally. A person hiring your services for the first time? Sometimes it would take up to seven appointments before  they finally worked up the courage to show. It was nothing new.

You sighed as you pulled out one of your few vices from a pocket. A pack of unopened cigarettes, fresh from the corner store. Discounted. Perks of knowing the owner as a customer...and perfect for setting the scene the customers had come to expect. Smoky and dim. Somewhat sleazy.

The customers almost demanded it. You’d have preferred a well-lit room and the lack of a need to smoke half a pack in order to set the atmosphere...but the taboos involved in this business were too strong to ignore.

You didn’t mind if she showed or not, honestly. She’d already paid the deposit. The only issue you had with that is that you didn’t carry your Scroll around while on the job. Security concerns. While you might not care about what you did coming to light, or even the implications of such a thing even happening, your clients did.

Faunus were weird like that.

You light the end of your cigarette and wait. Lucky Rabbit brand. You savored the irony almost as much as the flavor, as you wished that you had thought to bring a book or something to this little rendezvous.

It was only when you’d smoked your way through a third of the pack did the intercom buzzer ring. You cocked an eyebrow. She was cutting it close, but she was still within the grace period. You extinguished the cigarette and buzzed her in. The remote panel you installed on your armchair next to the ashtray was worth every Lien.

You could almost count how long it would take her to get to your apartment to the second. It would be a while. She’d waffle. She’d wait. She’d think of running away... You weren’t an amateur. You knew her type… which is why you had picked the most out of the way apartment, in one of the least populated areas in the Kingdom of Vale. While a very populated building and area would have been more convenient, your clients tended to disagree.

The shame involved was too much for them to even consider the thought that someone might see them.

The ring of the doorbell was off by only half a second. You’d never even met the girl, so it could be forgiven... Another button press from you, and the door swung open, revealing a very conspicuous girl in a trenchcoat.

They always did that. It was always the trench coat. Ignoring the fact that trenchcoats were very uncommon and associated with shady activities...and that it was the middle of summer. They always did that.

The sweat pouring off of her brow told you that she had figured out that the coat hadn’t been the best idea. It was up to her whether the lesson stuck.

“Water?” You offered with your right hand.

If she had taken that bottle any faster you’d have been missing that hand.

“Towel?”

Only experience kept you from flinching when she pressed her face into your hand and began rubbing up against it with a low, barely noticeable purr. Cat Faunus. Not one of the more obscure or greater breeds. That made things simple.

You knew one housecat, you knew almost all of them.

The girl stiffened, then backed off, a blush on her face when she realized what she had just done. “T-thank you.”

“All part of the service.” You stood up, and ambled your way over to the loveseat. “Now please. Take off that coat before you pass out.” Once. Once and never again. “Get comfortable.” You smile at her, and point to an unassuming door. “The bathroom is over there if you need to freshen up.”

Giving you a shaky nod, she walked to the door on even shakier feet while skittishly looking back at you. Her bow twitched. 

Ear traits. Ashamed or just cautious. That must have been uncomfortable.

“Give me five minutes?” She said as she took a peek through the doorway, her amber eyes wide and nervous as they shone in the low light of the room. “To wash my face?”

“Take as long as you need.” You watched them close the bathroom door, and turned away to set things up. You had a certain level of atmosphere to live up to...you couldn’t help but laugh at that thought. It was funny. The services you provided were perfectly legal, but were still considered taboo, wrong, morally degrading, racist, etc, etc. It was always the wrong sort of people who said that as well. The ones who didn’t require your services, or the painfully repressed.

The latter were the best. They paid good tips.

It took some time for you client to come out of the bathroom. Judging from her expression she hadn’t found what she’d thought she would. While you couldn’t say the same of your home’s bathroom… You did try to keep your workspace sanitary. An extra 30 minutes at the end of your day didn’t hurt anyone.

“So,” You start, which is enough to cause your client to jump upright. If she had possessed a tail, you’re sure it would have been puffed out and stiff. You wait for her to bring her heart rate back under control before you continue.

“As I was saying... How do you want to do this?” You swung your arm around the room as you started listing off her options. “The bed? Massage table? Floor? Couch?”

“The couch!” She blurted out with a blush. First time jitters. Something that wasn’t even worth raising an eyebrow at. 

You nodded and walked over to the lighting panel. A quick few switches and the couch was tastefully and dimly lit while the rest of the room was darkened.

Mood lighting. Worth more than you’d think.

“After you,” you say while gesturing at the couch you’d just stood up from.

Your client’s amber eyes stayed locked onto you the entire way there at you, waiting for you to sit down before she nodded and took a seat. More surprise. Understandable.

It was a well used couch, but didn’t look it. A quick once over with a lint brush and a quick fluff after every session kept it that way. 

You sat down and looked at your client. Still hesitant despite everything. Thankfully you were an old hat at reassuring your customers, giving them that final push.

No refunds helped more than you’d think.

“It’s perfectly natural to want such services.” You say reassuringly, making no sudden movements as she wriggled around in her seat. “You have needs and there is nothing wrong with that.”

“I know…” Your client bit her lip, her hands in her lap as she looked at you out of the corner of her eye. “It’s just…” The two of you sat in an awkward silence for some time before you scooted a little closer to her. She tensed, but did little else. That was good. Less liable to get scratched that way.

“Would you like a video of today’s session?”

She blinks at you, confused for a moment before her eyes widen and she almost jumps out of her skin from pure shock. “What!?” She screamed.

You didn’t mind. You’ve heard worse.

“Would you like a video of today’s session?” you repeated, “It’s a free and optional service that I also provide, set up to care for your privacy as much as is possible,” you start explaining. “For one, the camera literally can not turn on or record until I flip the switch to it’s power supply.” you point at the mini generator in the corner. “For another, the memory stick inside of it is one use only, and will never have another copy.”

Setting up that system had taken far longer than you had liked. Thankfully you had decided to go with a memory stick option. They were cheap these days. Damn scrolls had almost made them obsolete.

“Ummm…” Your client dithered as she debated the pros and cons of having a video in her head. You gave it a 70/30 split that she’d take it. They normally came around to it, cat faunus more so.

That curiosity was a killer.

“Okay,” She said, looking a bit deflated. “But if I hear anything about this…”

“No one heard it from me.” You nod as you flipped the switches for the generator on the panel next to where you were seated. Your client blinked as she saw the red light turn on from across the room, pointed directly at the two of you. “And it would help if you removed your ribbon.” You lazily commented. She looked at you a bit like she had been punched in the gut. Apparently that was supposed to be a secret…and it might have been.

People could be rather unobservant at the best of times.

“How did you…?” She flinches. Stops herself. “Never mind, She sighs as she starts unwrapping the ribbon over her head. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

“That you are.”

The ribbon pools in her lap. Another silence falls as she stares at you, ears laid flat against her head in nervous fear.

You sighed, then smiled. Tried to put her at ease before she considered bolting. They always had to make it so awkward. “Just put your head in my lap, and we can get started. Is that okay?”

“I…” She trailed off before, without a word, she turned herself onto her side and fell bonelessly, headfirst, into your lap. “Whatever. Just get it over with.” The unspoken ‘slave’ was as loud as any bell.

Cats.

“Okay then.” You say as you roll your eyes and slowly lower your hand. Hovered it over her as she trembled. “Here it comes...” A moment of hesitation from you as you touched an ear, causing it to flick against your fingers—

“Ooooohhhhhh,” She moaned, her lips curling upwards into a genuinely happy smile as your fingernails expertly found their mark. “Yisssss.”

—And you proved that you were magic as you ran your nails behind that ear to give it a gentle scratch. Stroked it. Massaged it. Made sweet, sweet platonically non-sexual love to that spot with the pads of your fingers that had her eating out of the palm of your hand.

“The other ear,” She whispered throatily, an almost sensual hint of a purr in her voice as she pressed her head up against your hand. “Between them too…”

Just like the consummate professional that you were you obliged, removed your hand from behind the first ear to receive a sigh of disappointment before you started in on the other ear. The other hand’s arrival on her scalp, digging deeply into her near perfectly groomed black hair turned the hint of a purr that you had heard into a full on rumble.

“You’re pretty—” Her arms and legs stretched out. Bones crackled and popped as what sounded like years of tension melted away. “Good...”

You had to hold back a snort of derision at that. Good, she says. Good meant not getting mauled in your first year of work. Good meant the Fang didn’t lynch you for making money off their ‘plight’ or ask for their cut more than twice a month. You were beyond good. You had transcended, moved past those problems.

An unasked for scratch under the chin had her burying her head into your gut, setting your bones to rattling with the force of her purring.

When the Belladonna’s had you on speed-dial, problems like that came around a lot less often...fucking Adam. Guy had traded that baseball bat in his ass for a log over the years. Spiked it and covered it in glass too. Guy set back Faunus-Human relations back by years every time he opened his mouth.

And he was a lousy tipper. You were glad you hadn’t seen him in almost a year.

“My backkkkk...” Your current client’s demands snapped you out of your thoughts about past, asshole customers. You had a job to do, and it wasn’t staring off into empty space and thinking about the good ol’ times.

Your fingers work their way down her spine, hitting the sweet spots that you knew by heart while carefully avoid your client’s bra strap. You are a legitimate masseuse. Not the other type. Everything is aboveboard and above clothes...and you were pretty sure she was underage. Nothing quicker than a sexual harassment charge leveled at you by a minor if you wanted to close up shop.

The sound of her spine cracking at your touch causes your lips to turn up into a self-satisfied smirk.

Your client quietly meowls and arches her back, trying to get closer to your touch. You switch to legitimate, general purpose massage techniques as you feel the knots in her back. As your palm presses and massages them, working out what might as well have been rocks under her skin, you notice some of the faded scars. Barely noticeable bullet wounds and claw marks, hidden under practical, eye-catching flamboyance.

Tight clothing and belly-baring shirts. The marks of a huntress.

You make a note to be careful with those. Scars can be fully healed or still tender, with aura only being able to do so much. You’d rather not risk asking about them either, not with a new client. Huntresses can get more than a little tetchy about that sort of thing at her age. 

You client then rolls over unexpectedly and presents her belly while her hands wave at the air. You sigh. Cats. With some trepidation you, slowly, reach out to rub her belly, thankful for the fact that you’d gotten someone to unlock your aura for quality of life purposes—like keeping it—and, almost like clockwork, she nips at your forearm as her hands lock around your forearm.

She then awkwardly blinks up at you, your arm in her mouth and feet frozen just before she started to kick at said arm in her mouth. Slowly pulling your arm away while using your other hand to pull at the nails she’s put into your shirt takes a minute, but it happens.

She then rolls onto her side again, face pressed into your stomach and ears flat as you continue, and try not to laugh.

You have a professional reputation to uphold. Laughing didn’t help with that.

“You’re not the first customer to give me a nip.” A drag of your nails down her back causes any tension she might have had to just melt away, leaving her boneless once more. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I’m not!” She denied into your stomach as her feet began to pad at the couch. “Shut up!”

“Trust me,” You continued as if you hadn’t heard anything, knowing that she needed to hear it anyway. “If I had a lien for every client that bit me, I would be somewhat better off.” If she had been a wolverine Faunus though, you’d have most likely been saying something a lot different. Those guys bit hard. “Don’t worry about it.”

“...Whatever.” She settles back down flipping onto her other side with her back towards you. She can’t even bear to look you in the face...how adorable. In an almost exact retreading of old ground, your fingers went back to her ears. A knuckle on the inside of said ear was the ticket to help all of her worries go away. “Blargh...” Vocally.

And this is why you were one of the best and most recommended petters in your field. There weren’t too many people who could do this without hurting the client. After spending a couple of years training to be a vet before switching careers, you could instinctively feel the right amount of pressure and speed to make it ‘the most relaxing thing ever, oh my god’ as one client had said.

You then give one of the ears a light twist in between thumb and forefinger.

“Oooohhhh Gooooddddd.” Your client only has the barest similarity with a cat Faunus at this point, her body now so loose and free that she more resembles your average puddle of amber-eyed goo. Anymore than that, and one might worry she’d fall into a mini-coma. Thankfully, that was something had only happened once. It had scared the living daylights out of you at the time, until you’d learned that said client hadn’t slept in days. “Don’t stoooooop...”

The tip after that mess had been enormous.

Taking both sides of her face in your hands to gently rub the expanse of skin under her eyes, you ready the coup de grace with a sip from a nearby cup of water. Her time was almost up, and she had paid for the extra. “Who’s a pretty kitty?”

She makes a soft chirping noise from low down in her throat and starts nuzzling the hell out of your hand.

“Who’s my sweet little girl?”

“I am!”

All part of the service.

==========

“So uh… Here?” Your client fidgeted awkwardly and rubbed her arm as she handed you a wad of lein. You gently take them out of her hand before she starts shuffling towards the door.

You sigh. All that work to relax her and it’s already starting to go to waste. “You’re forgetting your trenchcoat,” You hold up the coat as a distraction. It seems to work for a moment as she gives you a languid blink.

She’d be coming back again. 

“Oh...just keep it,” She says before opening the door, “too hot for that sort of thing anyway.”

You nod and wave goodbye to her as she leaves the apartment. You wait a few seconds after the door shuts behind her. Sometimes they change their minds on that. Trenchcoats cost money.

After listening to her footsteps fade into the distance, you head to a nearby closet, open it, and throw the trench coat onto the pile. It’s up to your waist now. You honestly have no idea what to do with all of these things. Which is the only reason as to why you’d kept the lot of them.

Maybe you should donate them for a tax write off or something? Sure it might sound weird to the VRS, but you don’t really give a damn.

Anymore musing on what to do with your cache of conspicuous leather coats is interrupted by the impatient buzzing of your apartment’s buzzer. You check your watch even though you know exactly who it is. Just force of habit and how early they are for their weekly appointment really.

You roll your eyes and quickly, almost hastily march over to the main control panel. Flipping a few switches the doors open. The proper lights turn on, and the blackout blinds raise up, turning them into nothing more than two-way bomb-proof glass. She preferred proper and natural lighting with her security and personal space. 

You barely get seated on the couch before the knocking on your door makes the dust-steel door quake in its frame. The door opens when she finally, sheepishly realizes the door had been open the entire time. Just like always.

“You would not believe the week I’ve had!” She said as she saunters into the room, kicking the door closed behind her, adding a crack to the surrounding wall. “I seriously sometimes wonder why I don’t just kill them all.”

She said that every week. From what you’ve heard about the people she’s talking about, you sort of agree with her.

“It wouldn’t even be that hard!” She flounced her way onto your couch and placed her head in your lap without even an ounce of decorum, showing off quite a bit of her healthy, pale legs. “I know for a fact that one of them would literally kill themselves if I said I wanted it done!”

“Uh-huh,” You agreed with her, having met the man she was talking about in an alley once in the middle of the night. Calling him ‘completely batshit’ would have been kind. You then started to unbraid her hair, the work of a normal man’s lifetime undone in seconds. You still had no idea how she put those crystals in there.

“But what can you do?” She asked as she threw her hands up in the air. “It’s not like I have a very large hiring pool to begin with... And it’s hard to get people willing to relocate as far out as I need them to… Maybe if I can get A Simple Wok to open a franchise nearby...” She drifts off. You just nod along as you let your fingers work their magic on her hair feathers. She always smacks you when you call them that.

You still call them that. You’d worked with feathers before, and these were feathers...and she was cute when she was angry.

“I still can’t convince you to come live with me?” She moans out as you run your hands through her hair. “I can make it worth your while~”

You smile at the all too familiar play.

“Sorry, love. But I have too many customers that need my services.” You respond professionally. At least as professionally as you can with her. She was the one that had made you break your rule about not mixing your professional and personal life… You can’t choose who you fall in love with, now can you? “And I like to pretend I’m the independent sort.”

She’d joked about putting you in her dungeon once, when you first met. You weren’t sure it was just a joke, and you weren’t willing to test it.

“Stupid people and needing things.” She pouts like an upset child, folding her arms. “And you wonder why I want to rule the world.”

You laugh. If only her underlings could see her now. You calmly brush her hair out of the way of her face. A thick, white curtain that grabbed your hand and didn’t let go. 

“We can’t all have what we want.” You say as you gently stroke her cheek. 

She rolls her eyes good naturedly before she cups your face, “Such a tease,” She murmurs before pulling your head down to steal a kiss. “Such a romantic…”

You let her. You wouldn’t stop her even if you could...and then the fingers at the sides of your head turn into claws, making your eyes snap open in worry as she forces you to look into hers.

“Now who was that hussy I passed on the way in?”

“She’s underage, Salem!”

“You told me I was the perfect age, you bastard!” The smirk on her face belied her words, just like the smile on your face did for you. “Like a fine wine, you said!”

“And I meant it,” You said before you took her lips again, and didn’t let go.

Her hands curled up in your hair as she made a small pleased sound in the back of her throat.

Grimm Faunus or not, you didn’t regret this a bit.