Chapter 5, Part 2: Giving the Gift

        When they arrived for their next Training Room session, Scott was waiting for them. Frank Austin started giving instructions as soon as they closed the door. “Miss Duval? Today, you’re to start practicing with Tigresse. Scott and Tracker will be working with you. You have to control Tigresse and pay attention to them. There will be no conflict. All we’re working on today is navigating and following instructions. They give you instructions and you follow them.
        ”Scott, Tracker, you need to focus on very short, simple sentences, no more than two or three words. In tiger form, she’ll have an effective intelligence of about half human normal and won’t understand any of your normal expositions, Scott.”
        Antoinette stripped and hung up her clothes. Her figure blurred and the tigress dropped to all fours, looking around. The tip of her tail twitched gently.
        ”Tigresse, come,” Scott said.
        For the next two hours, they practiced understanding each other. Tigresse was easily confused and readily distracted, frequently wandering off to examine something that caught her eye.
        Scott had trouble remembering to use short instructions and got frustrated easily, forgetting that her mentality as the tiger was like that of a four-year-old child.
        Tracker, on the other hand, ordinarily very much in the background, did better. He stayed near her side and simplified Scott’s orders whenever she failed to respond, touching her to get her attention. At first she shied away from his touch, startled, but by the end of the session, she was starting to look to him for guidance. In the control room, Frank watched Tracker working with Tigresse, jotting another note on his notepad.
        Five o’clock came, and the lights in the Training Room flashed twice, the signal that the session was over.
        ”Okay, Tigresse, that’s it. You can change back now,” Scott told the big cat. Tigresse looked at him, then over at a mechanoid standing by the wall.
        Tracker took her by the ruff and crouched in front of her to stare into her eyes. “Antoinette. Change back.”
        Tigresse looked at him, then sat down. She fidgeted and looked around, tail twitching. Tracker stayed where he was as he tried to hold her attention. “Focus, Antoinette. Tigresse has done good.”
        She closed her eyes and lay down, head on her paws. After almost a minute, the tigress blurred and Antoinette lay on the floor. “Sacre, that was hard,” she said as she stood, pushing her hair back from her eyes. “Tigresse did not want to go back to sleep.”
        Tracker and Red escorted her to her room to shower before swimming. As Red headed back to pick himself out a lounge, Tracker darted across the Plaza to his own room. He picked up a large, trapezoidal box, hurried back to her door and knocked.
        ”Entrez,” she called as she turned off the shower. She emerged from the bathroom, toweling off, as he stepped inside, closing the door softly behind him. Inexplicably, he held the box behind his back, trying to keep her from seeing its shape. She smiled. “‘allo, Tracker. What have you?”
        ”Something for you,” he said.
        ”Qu’est-ce que c’est?” she asked. Her face lit with a childlike eagerness.
        ”Come and see.”
        She came up and started to step around him to look, but he turned with her. “You’ll have to reach around me,” he teased in a childlike manner.
        She tilted her head and looked up into his eyes for a moment, lips parted. You surprise me, M’sieur Fox-man, she thought, but oui, I will play with you. Then she smiled. “Okay,” she said, and pressed against the fur of his chest as she reached behind him. Her fingers encountered a hard, cardboard surface.
        ”Take it.”
        Tearing open the box, she beheld a new guitar case. Her eyes widened. “This is yours?”
        ”No, Antoinette, it’s for you. I, ah…,” he began to stutter, “…don’t know anything about guitars and, … uh, I know it … uh, probably isn’t as good as the one you had. I know it … ah, can never replace the guitar you lost, but I thought it … uh, it might, umm … help. It …” His voice faltered into silence as he watched her with worried eyes. Anxiety flooded him. His ears drooped limply to the sides of his head as his tail curled up between his legs.
        She held her breath as she sank to the floor, ignoring his stammering self-deprecation and aroma of his anxiety. She opened the case and gasped. Inside, a new guitar gleamed. She lifted it out and ran her fingers over the deeply polished dark wood. With a shiver of anticipation, she bent her head and tuned it. Then she played a short melody. She looked up, her face streaked with tears. “Ah, Tracker, merci beaucoup! Thank you. Thank you for caring. It is so beautiful, and its voice is so rich and true! Je l’aime.”
        ”I’m glad you like it,” he said with relief, his ears returning to their erect pose though his tail remained plastered down behind him. “Uh, play it?”
        ”With pleasure.” She sat cross-legged on the floor and played as she sang in her soft contralto voice. Tracker slowly relaxed and stepped back to lie on his stomach to watch and listen to her, bent over the guitar; absorbed in her music.
        At last, she sighed and carefully placed the guitar back in its case. Tracker stretched. “It’s getting late. Red’s waiting at the pool for you.”
        She slid the guitar under the bed, then palm-locked the door and sat down beside him. “I have a better idea, Tracker,” she whispered as she stroked the fur under his cape. “It is more fun even than swimming.” She ran her fingers through the fur on his back, pushing the short cape high on his shoulders. “The cape. Take it off?” He nodded with an uncertain smile and unfastened the collar holding it.
        She stroked and caressed his upper body. He turned to his side and his eyes slowly closed, her touch relaxing him even more. It felt wonderful! Nobody had touched him like this since his father, so long ago. And no touch had felt like this before. It was hypnotic.
        ”Ah, Tracker, you feel so good,” she sighed. “Do you like it?”
        His eyes snapped open. “I … yes!” he yelped.
        She fingered the heavy gold serpentine band above his biceps. “It is very pretty. You wear it always. Is it special?”
        ”I like it. It was a reward for my first successful mission when I belonged to Castile, before I defected. It’s the only reward they ever gave me.”
        She continued to caress him as she explored his side and chest, his neck, his head and face, his arms.
        He sat up and gestured for her to lie down. She stretched out on her back, legs parted, one hand on her chest and the other up in Tracker’s chest fur. He reached across, placed his hand on her hip and pulled. Puzzled, she rolled over to her stomach. Gently, careful of her soft skin and his thick, blunt, claw-like fingernails, he started caressing her, running his fingers down from her neck to the small of her back and up again. Her form, her texture, her scent. So much nicer than his one previous encounter with a woman. He’d never been this close, this… intimate with someone before; at least, not with both partners willing. He’d never even wanted to be this close to someone before, to touch someone so much. It was all so new and fascinating. He didn’t know how to describe it or even name it. All he knew was he liked it, more than he’d ever liked anything else. He massaged her back with both hands.
        She sighed, shivering with pleasure as he caressed her. She rolled over, placed her hands behind his neck and pulled. He froze. She smiled in invitation, ducking her chin and tilting her head as she gazed deep into his eyes, full of puzzlement and confusion.
        What am I doing!
        She slid her hands down his arms. She squeezed his hands, then raised them to her lips and kissed his short, thick fingers. When she went to place his hands on her breasts he pulled back in fear.
        “I…,” he stammered. “I have to go!”
        ”Is something wrong?” she murred dreamily. “Cannot you stay?”
        ”No, uh, I don’t think I should,” he said, confusion and alarm in his eyes, his ears limp. “This is new for me. I’m, uh, It’s not right! Me with you.. together… like this. I –”
        ”Non, Tracker,” she cooed, her fingers caressing his face, his muzzle. “What we are doing is good.”
        He stood. “No!” he whimpered. “You… Me… I need to go!” He darted to the door, pulling on it to escape. But the door remained closed. Locked.
        ”Okay, Tracker.” She rose and put her arms around him, a small pout on her lips. “You have no reason to fear me.” She laid her palm against the lock plate, releasing the door. “I will be waiting. But don’t take too long. I get impatient.”
        He wrapped his arms around her for a moment, as much to grab his cape as to luxuriate in her feel, her scent, then slipped out the door like a child caught breaking the rules.