Giving Notice - Chapter 9 (a Corey side story)

Hey gang! I've got the next chapter of Giving Notice ready, and things are really starting to get tense. This chapter is a bit different because it's ENTIRELY from Corey's point of view. Since Corey is Team Max's "stealth infiltration expert" and he's the one breaking into Marcus's bedroom, I thought it would be fun to follow along with that side of the story and leave Max on hold for a bit. The next chapter will go back to being from Max's perspective, but while Corey is having his adventures Max is just a big ball of nerves and not a lot is happening to him (I think Stephen is trying to get him to eat breakfast, and Max is currently arguing that he's too nervous to eat, haha).

Now, I've mentioned this on Discord for those of you guys who are part of the StartAgain server, but for those of you who aren't on Discord, I wanted to give you a little bit of a life update. I've started my own "New Job" at a CPA firm here in Seattle, and I'm SO INCREDIBLY HAPPY to be part of that team. Seriously, I fucking love my job in a way I haven't been able to say before, possibly ever.

That said, the downside is that we're now in tax season and I'm working a LOT of overtime between now and the filing deadline in April. The good thing is, I'm making a lot of money which is going to be SO helpful in getting my debt paid down and getting me into a great spot financially. The bad thing is, it's not leaving me with a lot of time to write (or do anything except bathe, eat and sleep haha). So, I'm going to suspend Patreon billing for February and possibly even March, until I can get through our busy season.

As always, any writing I do while billing is suspended I will share with you for free. And I really REALLY want to write more because the story is getting to the action part! But since I can't promise that I'll be able to write for the next little bit, I don't want to charge you guys.

In other news, I feel so grateful you guys. I really love my new life here in Seattle, and I've made some wonderful crinkly friends here. I'm living with my oldest and closest friend, I'm digging myself out of debt and giving myself a financial future, and I've done all of this in just a few short months. In fact, after my husband told me he wanted a divorce at the end of July, I left Florida on my birthday (September 8) and arrived in Seattle on September 15. Here we are barely 4 months later and I'm happy to report that I'm doing better than I have in... years. Possibly ever.

So, that's what's going on with me. I'm so happy, and so thankful. Here's hoping that Max gets a happy ending as good as the one I seem to be getting. <3

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COREY’S TALE: A SIDE STORY

“I’m a cat on a mission,” the cheetah said to himself. “I need something that won’t call attention to me, something dark in case I need to hide in the shadows.” He was standing in front of a massive, disheveled pile of clothes that he’d been building for over an hour, each article in the mound having been carefully considered and promptly rejected.

Corey frowned, becoming more frustrated by the moment. Every item of clothing in his wardrobe was brightly colored and meant to be noticed, far more suited for getting dressed for daycare than for a stealth operation like this one. Corey bit his lower lip in irritation.

“Great. Our whole plan is ruined and Max is going to end up having to quit his job, just because I don’t own a single grown up outfit. Fan-fucking-tastic. Oh!” Corey suddenly recalled the outfit he’d arrived at StartAgain in, and his anger instantly turned to jubilation. He dropped to the floor and crawled under his crib. After some grunting and wriggling, he emerged with a beat-up cardboard box.

Corey grinned and ran a sharp claw along the packing tape sealing the box, opening the container to reveal its contents. Here was every part of his life in the outside world that Corey had chosen to bring with him to StartAgain Manor. He pulled out an old, weathered baseball glove he’d worn as a kid, and he smiled at the memory of all the times he’d tossed a ball around with his dad in their backyard. A shoebox held too many collectible Minimon cards to count, each carefully nestled into a clear protective sleeve. “Someday I should get those valued,” he thought. “Probably got a couple hundred in cards, easy.” Corey smiled at the many shiny plastic trophies he’d won at track competitions in middle school. “Gotta go fast,” he whispered aloud, almost reverently.

At last, underneath a well-worn photo album full of pictures of his extended family, Corey spied his prize: a loosely folded pair of old, faded denim jeans with shreds in the knees, a balled up dark gray hoodie he’d gotten at the first rock concert he’d ever attended, and a beat up pair of ash gray track shoes. The perfect outfit for an inconspicuous infiltration into enemy territory.

Corey dressed quickly and quietly, struggling a bit to fit the jeans over his puffy diaper. He hadn’t originally bought them with thick padding in mind, but after some effort he was able to zip and button them. “There,” he thought with satisfaction as he checked his reflection in his mirror. “Just a normal, inconspicuous guy out for a stroll.” He smiled and pocketed his keys, then he exited his room and locked the door behind himself. He quietly walked the halls and made his way to the elevator. Marcus’s room was one level down, and thankfully most of the manor’s residents were in the dining hall enjoying breakfast, so Corey passed relatively few people on his journey.

At last he came to Marcus’s door at the end of a long hallway virtually identical to the nursery cul-de-sac upstairs. Marcus’s bedroom was in the same position as Mr. Merchant’s, second door from the end on the left side. “Marcus Young”, read the shiny nameplate. “Epic Douchebag, it should read,” Corey thought. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and rapidly wrote a text to the group chat.

Outside the door. Nobody around. Good to go?

He waited for a moment before his phone chimed a reply. “Eep!” Corey squeaked, quickly setting his phone to vibrate. He checked the reply; it was Zane.

At breakfast, he eats a lot so we’ll be a while. Soon as we’re done, we’re heading down to the auditorium so you should be in the clear, but BE CAREFUL!!!!

Corey nodded, then typed out another quick message:

Will message soon as I’ve got Douchey McDoucheface’s phone. Everyone else act normal. Don’t worry Max buddy, you’ll be safe soon!

His phone almost immediately buzzed several times. First came Seventeen’s reply:

I’m at the elevator down the hall from you, I’ll let you know if anyone starts heading toward you. Good luck, Corey!

Mr. Andrews replied next:

I’m SURE I don’t know what you guys are talking about, so I’ll TRUST you aren’t doing anything naughty. But… be very careful anyway, and I’ll drag out my speech as long as I can. Everyone will be paying attention to me and hopefully that’ll buy you the time you need to get the thing that I as a member of management CLEARLY KNOW NOTHING ABOUT hahaha. Good luck, everyone!

Max was the last to reply, and his response came in the form of a short series of emojis:

❤️😬😭☠️

“Poor Max, he’s so nervous,” Corey thought. “Gotta do this for him.” Corey tried the handle to Marcus’s bedroom door. It was locked, of course. “No harm trying,” he thought. He carefully inserted a claw into the keyhole and began working the lock. “There really is a video tutorial online for anything,” he thought as he began picking the tumblers, just as he’d practiced a hundred times on his own door.

“Hey!” a voice called, startling Corey nearly out of his fur. His head snapped around. One of the doors behind him, the one that mirrored his own bedroom door in the nursery cul-de-sac, was open, and an unfamiliar man was standing in the doorway watching him. “What are you doing?” the tall, handsome young wolf asked.

“Oh! Uh… just a routine security check, sir,” Corey said with a wide, false grin. “Nothing at all to worry about. We’re just testing everyone’s locks so we can replace any that don’t work.” He gave the wolf his most charming look.

“Hmm,” the wolf said, clearly unconvinced. “I don’t buy it. You wanna tell me what you’re really up to?”

Corey’s pulse began beating rapidly in his throat, and he took a pleading step toward the wolf. “Okay… but not out here where anyone could come along. Can I come in? I promise I’ll explain.”

The wolf looked Corey up and down appraisingly. Because he was at least a full foot taller than Corey, the cheetah suddenly felt a little intimidated by being sized up like this. After a moment, the wolf nodded and held his door open, stepping aside so Corey could enter. Corey noted the name on the door’s nameplate: Nate Nakamura.

“I expect this will be interesting,” the wolf said as he closed the door behind the much shorter cheetah. He folded his arms and waited for Corey to explain.

Corey looked around. It was almost bizarre, standing in a room functionally identical to his own but so wildly different in decor. The wolf’s bedroom was warmly lit, and the wolf was clearly into music because his walls were covered in posters of famous bands and singers. The TV mounted on the wall was much bigger than Corey’s, and beneath it was a low shelf with multiple video game consoles and an enviable collection of games. “Oh hey! Bloody Conquerors! That’s my favorite! I main Katali, who do you play?” Corey smiled.

The wolf did not smile back. “Okay guy, fess up. What were you doing breaking into Marcus’s room? Because that’s obviously what you were doing.” He gazed down at Corey expectantly.

Corey swallowed. “Okay, but please, please don’t say anything. Marcus took some… compromising pictures of my best friend Max without his consent, and he’s threatening to send them to Max’s family unless he leaves StartAgain, all just to be a bully. So I was trying to sneak in to swipe his phone so we could delete the pics and save Max. I swear I’m telling the truth, dude. Please don’t turn me in, Max is counting on me!” Corey’s voice went higher and higher as he spoke, and tears welled up in his eyes as he stared up at the wolf.

The other man nodded slowly. “Well, that tracks. Marcus is a complete pig, worst neighbor ever. He blasts the most terrible country music at all hours, to the point that I have to wear earplugs just to get any rest. And the one time I tried to complain to him and ask him to turn it down, he called me a ‘sissy fagboy’ and slammed the door in my face. Doesn’t surprise me a bit that he’d resort to blackmail.” The wolf smiled a little. “I won’t tell anyone what’s going on. But you really should be more careful if you’re trying to be sneaky. I’m Nate, by the way.” The wolf extended a paw.

“Corey,” the cheetah said as they shook hands. “I live upstairs. Directly above you, I think. I work in laundry services.”

“Directly above me?” Nate asked, looking up at the ceiling. “Wow, I’ve never even heard a peep through your floor. Thanks for that, o wonderfully quiet upstairs neighbor! Wait, does that mean you have one of those adult nurseries?” The wolf lowered his eyes to meet Corey’s gaze.

“Uh, yeah. I do,” Corey said. His voice cracked a little, and Corey was suddenly bashful about his chosen lifestyle for the first time in a long time. He was surprised by his response; why would he feel awkward talking about it with this new person, when he usually didn’t care who knew about that side of him? Was it the clothes? This was the first time he’d worn normal adult clothes since arriving at StartAgain.

“That’s cool,” Nate said. “I’ve never done the diaper thing but it kinda seems interesting. I keep meaning to try it out. After all, why even be here if I’m not going to try new things? Are they comfortable, though? Because it seems like they would get really hot after a while.”

“Oh no, they’re super comfortable!” Corey said. “It’s really fun… oh, but I can’t go getting distracted, I really do need to get that phone back. I’m sorry.” He shook his head.

“Don’t be,” Nate said with a winning smile. “It’s not everyday that a cute little kitty boy drops into my life.” He stepped past Corey and opened the door. “Go do your thing, and I’ll stand at the end of the hall and keep lookout for you. I’ll whistle if anyone is approaching.”

“Dude, how can I ever repay you?” Corey asked, amazed at Nate’s kindness.

“That’s easy,” Nate said. “When all this is over, have dinner with me some night so I can get to know you better.” He smiled down at Corey before striding to the end of the hall. He leaned against the wall at the corner casually, then nodded to Corey that the coast was clear.

Corey’s eyes grew wide for a moment. “Did… did the hot wolf just ask me out on a date?” he wondered, nearly stunned. He shook his head. “FOCUS, Corey. You’ve got a mission to do. You can swoon over the very fuckable wolf later.” The cheetah turned back to Marcus’s door and resumed working on the lock.

After a few minutes of trying, he was able to turn the lock with a satisfying click as the bolt released. He flashed a thumbs-up to Nate, who nodded in return but made no move to leave his post. Corey creaked open the door to the darkened room and slipped inside.

The first thing that Corey noticed about his environs was the strong scent of marijuana. The pungent smell seemed to permeate the space, and Corey wrinkled his nose with a groan. “Jeez, Marcus, you’d think you’d have more chill smoking this much weed,” he thought. His feline eyes rapidly grew accustomed to the darkness, and other details about Marcus’s room began to fade into view.

The walls were mostly bare, aside from the set of thick curtains that were serving to darken the room against the bright morning sun. Marcus’s desk was covered in clutter; loose piles of papers, empty soda cans and half-eaten bags of potato chips, and at least two moldering slices of what Corey could only speculate had once been a pepperoni pizza.

Marcus’s bedclothes were jumbled in a big ball, and one of the corners of the fitted sheet had come undone, exposing the mattress beneath. “God, I hope I don’t have to touch his sheets,” Corey thought with a shudder. “I don’t think we have enough antibiotics in the medical wing for that.”

Across the floor, dirty clothes had been tossed carelessly into a growing mound. “Ugh, I bet I’m going to end up having to wash all that. Sick.” Corey shook his head. Marcus’s nightstand was buried in more mess, though a tall glass bong was prominently featured. Next to it, Corey could spy the loosely coiled leather straps of a ballgag. “Who in this house, literally who, would let this creep tie them up? Maybe he uses it on himself. Eww, that’s a gross thought.”

Corey crept over to the nightstand, his diaper crinkling quietly as he stepped around piles of clutter and filth. According to Zane, the backup phone would likely be found in the nightstand’s drawer. Corey approached the nightstand and braced himself, then he gingerly grabbed the drawer’s knob between two fingers and pulled. “Wish I’d brought gloves,” he thought.

The drawer was so full that at first Corey struggled to make sense of everything. There were several cheap disposable lighters, several more loose condoms in their wrappers, and a half-used bottle of lube. He saw many small vials, some knocked over on their sides. “Poppers, I’m guessing? I’ve heard of them but never used them.”

Corey began digging through the clutter. Pocket knives, a few stray keys, a completely empty bottle of headache tablets that Marcus had, for some reason, chosen not to throw away. Beneath a small pile of unopened junk mail envelopes, Corey found a long, snaking rubber dildo. Shaking his head, the cheetah knelt down and picked up one of Marcus’s sleeveless tees from the floor. He wrapped the shirt around his paw like a glove before carefully lifting the dildo like a snake that might strike at any moment. He tossed both the dildo and shirt into a far corner of the room, letting out a ragged sigh of relief once the offending object was no longer nearby.

Corey continued to search the drawer for several minutes, growing increasingly frustrated. The phone wasn’t here. Maybe Marcus had hidden it somewhere in the room? But with this amount of filth and piled trash to sort, the task ahead of him seemed overwhelming. Still, he had to try, for Max’s sake.

Corey moved swiftly but searched thoroughly. “If I were some prick’s phone, where would I be hiding?” he thought. He lifted the mattress up to search between it and the box spring, then he carefully dropped to his knees and looked under the bed, feeling along the bottom of the frame in case Marcus had hidden the phone there. Aside from a disturbing amount of dust and grime and several more sex toys, his search was fruitless.

“Fucking Marcus, having to make this difficult,” Corey thought. His phone buzzed silently in his pocket. It was a text from Stephen.

Showtime, the assembly is starting. Since we haven’t heard from you yet, I’m assuming you haven’t found it. I’ll drag out the assembly as long as I can but you’ve got at best 20 more minutes before I have to bring Max to the stage, so please hurry. That fucker Marcus made sure to sit in the front row, and it’s so hard not to glare at him. Find that phone so I can fire this bastard already. Please, Corey.

“Trying as hard as I can, sir,” Corey whispered. He turned his phone off and shoved it back in his pocket. “What if Marcus took both his phones with him today?” Corey wondered. “Can they have someone from security strip search him?”

Corey redoubled his efforts, searching the filthy room as quickly as he could. “Nobody is faster than a cheetah,” he thought glumly. “Where is this damn phone?” He sighed and began tackling the massive pile of trash on Marcus’s desk. He had to succeed in his search, he couldn’t let Max down. He refused to let Max down. “Because baby bros are for life,” he thought nervously.