With the arrival of December, gentle snowstorms became more and more frequent, a calm and beautiful precursor to the blustery winter approaching. The final days of the girls’ nudity puttered out like the last coughs of a car out of gas. They had obstinately clung to their animal instincts as long as they could, but even with a fire burning in the woodstove, the slightest draft made them shiver. Chloe was handling the cold better than Momo and Sonja, even though it was her first winter. The dog and cat were used to having thick fur to keep the cold at bay. It was especially bad for Momo, since as a woman and a cat, she was practically cold-blooded. That’s right, I said it and I’m standing by it.
Whenever the snow started to fall, Sonja would go outside and frolic, her face always directed upwards, tongue extended, as if trying to catch Jack Frost’s money shot. In the bedroom would be Chloe, watching the snow as if hypnotized. In the living room was Momo, who had set up bedding for herself right in front of the woodstove.
“I’m home!” I called, stepping through the front door.
There wasn’t really any need to announce my arrival, since the girls always flocked to the door when they saw my headlights and heard the shutting of my car door. Sonja was first, jumping up and down and cheering with her tail shaking even more than her boobs. She came at me and covered me with kisses, telling me how much she had missed me.
Then came Momo, standing behind Sonja, looking kind of out of it with her bedhead telling me she had just woken up from a nap. “Hi, Master,” she said with a yawn. She walked over and rubbed her head against my shoulder, repeating her words in the form of a purr.
In the far back was Chloe, nervous as always, afraid to do anything without an invitation. “Welcome back, Master!” she chirped while wringing her tail. I smiled and waved her over, and she happily rushed and hugged me.
The girls followed me to the couch and we all plopped down. I groaned in happiness, glad that I was finally home. It felt nice to decompress after a long day and just watch the news. The girls all snuggled up, Momo curling into a ball with her head on my lap, Sonja clutching my arm and resting her head on my shoulder, and Chloe sitting on the floor, crossing my legs across her like a seatbelt.
“How was your day, Master?” Sonja asked during the commercial break. I had taught them all to only talk during the commercial break.
“Long, tiring. Everything seems to go wrong in the winter.”
“Can I help? I wanna help!”
I smiled and rubbed her head. “I rely on you to do stuff here. You do help.”
“Momo misses cuddling with Master during the day,” the feline said, purring as I played with her ears.
“And Master misses cuddling with Momo.”
Chloe looked back at me. “Want us to make dinner?”
“Thank you, Chloe, I’d really appreciate that. And I have good news for the three of you: we have another holiday coming. In a couple weeks, it’ll be Christmas.”
They all perked up.
“Christmas?” Momo asked.
“It’s a day where we all give each other presents. I want each of you to make things to give as gifts. It could be drawings, pictures, or something else, but you have to keep them secret so it’s a surprise when we exchange them on Christmas. So, Momo, you’re going to have to come up with gifts more Sonja, Chloe, and me. Sonja and Chloe, you’ll have to do the same. You all get the idea?”
Momo sat up and leaned over, her face very close to mine, as if she was about to kiss me. “Will Master get us cake?”
I laughed and gave her a peck. “Yes, of course I’ll get you cake.”
The girls spent the rest of December working on their presents. I had to hope that they actually did understand the purpose of giving gifts to each other. Naturally, I was taking advantage of eBay. A quiet weekday found Momo lying on her stomach in front of the couch, legs kicking and tail curling as she worked on a picture. Peeling crayons and stubby colored pencils littered the floor around her. She heard the door open and close and Sonja strolled in. Seeing Momo, her tail began to wag.
“Wat’cha doin’?” she hummed.
“Drawing.”
“Can I see?”
“They’re for Christmas.”
“I wanna see!”
Sonja came over and Momo used her body to cover the picture. “No! Master said it’s supposed to be a surprise!”
“But I can’t wait that long!”
Sonja got down on the floor and tried to worm her way under Momo, to which Momo replied with a hiss and a swipe. Sonja backed off but her tail was wagging even more than before. She was on all fours and started bouncing on her hands, the way a normal dog might try and wake up its owner. Sonja pounced, not even aiming for the picture anymore. She and Momo collided and rolled across the floor, grabbing and slapping each other. Sonja had a big goofy smile but Momo was scowling and hissing. They continued to wrestle like this, with Sonja pouncing on Momo whenever she tried to get away.
Drawn by the noise, Chloe came downstairs, and, of course, broke out the waterworks. “You two shouldn’t fight!” she cried.
They finally stopped, Momo on top of Sonja. “Tell her that!” she replied.
“But I want to wrestle and play!” Sonja said as she wrapped her arms around Momo’s waist and rolled the two of them over to the side. “I want someone to play with!”
Neither Momo nor Chloe envisioned sex after hearing that word, as the three of them naturally knew that “play” was a vague term. To them, “playing” included cunnilingus and throwing frisbees.
“We could play hide-and-seek,” suggested Chloe, the small creature instinctively pulling her ears down over her face as if expecting to get yelled at.
“Yeah! Let’s play hide-and-seek! Come play with us, Momo!”
Momo groaned. “Momo doesn’t like the cold.”
“Just one round? Please?”
“Fine,” she huffed.
While Momo and Chloe ran through the woods, Sonja stood in the kitchen, watching the ticking egg timer. Well, technically, she was jumping, bouncing back and forth like a rabbit. She couldn’t contain her excitement, wanting to run out there and chase them down. One minute went by. It had just snowed the night before, so there would be fresh prints for her to follow. Two minutes went by. Momo would probably just run without realizing it, or at the very least look for areas where her footprints would be harder to see. Three minutes passed by. Chloe, having the instincts of prey, might prove cleverer, perhaps even backtracking to throw her off. Four minutes passed by. They would be smart enough not to actually run through the woods, at least not in smooth areas. They would probably try to stay in areas with underbrush, where ice couldn’t form on the ground.
The egg timer ringed and Sonja rocketed out of the house, the door closing behind her only because of how hard she had opened it. She ran around the house, searching for prints that weren’t her own. Who should she go after first? She found a set, smelling like Momo and too large to be Chloe. She took a moment to jump up and down and cheer in happiness, and then followed the tracks into the woods.
As a fellow meat-lover, Sonja could read the intention of Momo’s prints. She didn’t know how to run away from things since she was always the predator. She could only try to apply those instincts to what she was doing. Whether consciously or subconsciously, she always walked along ridges and raised spots, instinctively wanting to get the highest view she could, even if she wasn’t looking for anything in particular. She had also avoided almost all manner of visible twigs, focusing on silence, even though it wasn’t needed.
The tracks stopped at the base of a tree and Sonja looked up. Crouching on a branch and trying to hide behind the trunk was Momo.
“I found you!” said Sonja.
“Momo doesn’t like being followed,” she pouted.
“Let’s go find Chloe!”
Momo jumped down and they made their way back to the house. They searched the area, at last finding Chloe’s prints leading in the opposite direction from Momo’s trail. They dove into the woods, keeping their eyes peeled. Chloe had taken a different strategy, dragging her feet along to make one big messy trench through the snow. Sonja realized why when Momo called out to her. Sonja was ahead of Momo but was turned around, seeing what Momo was pointing at. Sonja had missed a footprint going off the trail and into an uneven thicket where snow hadn’t completely covered the ground. The messy footprints she left had made it that much easier to simply turn around and backtrack.
They followed the new path, keeping a closer eye on the snow. Chloe used that trick another two times. They soon spotted her standing in a clearing, not bothering to hide or anything. She was crying. When Momo and Sonja came up behind her, they saw why she was crying and both their tails dropped. A girl lay dead in the snow, frozen solid, her skin a frightful cerulean. She had pointed ears on the top of her head, like Momo’s, but longer and skinnier. They were brown, matching the color of her hair. She also had a furry, leaf-shaped tail, about twice as large as a human hand, the back of it brown but the underside white.
Momo and Sonja leaned against each other and pulled Chloe in. It took their breath away to see another girl exactly like them, who simply hadn’t been found in time. This deer, had she simply been closer to the house, they maybe could have saved her from the cold. She would have lived with them, played with them, exchanged gifts at Christmas. She would be a huge part of their lives. Now they would never know. When Chloe was found, she had already been suffering from frostbite. To think that she could have so easily ended up like this, it was no wonder she was crying.
“We should tell Master about his,” said Chloe.
“I don’t want to tell Master. I don’t want Master to be sad,” said Sonja with a tearful sniff.
“Let’s wait until after Christmas.”
The three of them nodded and proceeded to bury the girl in snow and underbrush, if only to make sure no one else could find her.
——————-
Leave a Reply