The New Neighbors

Author's Note: Everyone in this story is eighteen or older!

Stephanie and Arthur Miller watched through the second story window of their posh uptown home as the neighborhood burned down around them. Not literally, but figuratively. The arsonists were burly looking moving men. Their torches and firebombs were the crates and boxes that weighed down the back of their truck. And the rubble that would be left afterward came in the form of a broad shouldered, scaled lizardman in a Hawaiian T-shirt pitching in to help one of the moving men drag a pool table off the loading van's elevator.

"Well," Stephanie said, dryly. "At least they're not

zebras

."

Arthur sniffed loudly.

Meanwhile, downstairs, their teenage daughter Fiona was busily texting away on her phone. She was bent over the central island that dominated the kitchen, her elbows resting on the mahogany surface, and was hitting her touchscreen so hard with her thumbs that she would be shocked if she wasn't bruised tomorrow morning.

"No," she muttered under her breath. "Basic income

doesn't promote

laziness, you hack..."

"Honey!"

Fiona looked up to see her mother coming down the stairs, a E-cigarette still dangling lazily from one finger. Mother -- and it was always mother, never Mom or Ma or Mommy -- looked as if someone had eaten her favorite flower arrangements and dinged one of her cars. Fiona quickly hit the sleep button on her phone and put her phone face down on the island's surface. Her hands automatically went down to brush her skirt down and into place as she smiled at Mother.

"What's up?" she asked.

"I wanted to warn you," Mother said, sticking the E-cig between her lips. She breathed in, then let the smoke trail out of her nose. "There are new neighbors arriving."

"Oh, I noticed the moving van," Fiona said.

"And under

no

circumstances are you to bother them," Mother said, nodding. "They look like they're, ah, not the kind of people we are going to associate with much."

"What?" Fiona's brow furrowed slightly. Before she could ask for some elaboration, though, the front door buzzed and a jovial voice that sounded like it belonged in the gravely narration of a movie trailer called through the door.

"Hello neighbors!"

Fiona stepped past her appalled looking mother and came to the front door. When she opened the door, she found herself face to face with the most amazingly garish Hawaiian T-shirt that she had ever seen in her life. The owner of the T-shirt was a seven foot tall, green scaled lizardman with a trio of bright red frills that went up over his forehead and then vanished into the collar of his shirt. He had a tail that twitched from side to side and he wore a pair of short shorts that were just as brightly colored as the rest of him. He also held a basket in his hands and had slung his arm around the shoulders of a much shorter, much skinnier looking lizardman -- well, lizardboy, really -- who looked like he'd rather be anywhere else.

"Hello!" the lizardman boomed. "I'm Frank! Frank Springtail -- and this is my son, Trevor."

Trevor grunted.

"And this is my other son, Marvin!"

Marvin -- who was standing just a little bit behind his father and looked exactly like Trevor -- didn't even grunt. He was busy tapping away at a handheld computer that sounded like it was playing Skyrim from the loud sounds of Alduin's booming voice -- rendered somewhat comical by the tinny speakers.

"Marvin, at least provide a monosyllabic grunt," Frank muttered.

"Wait, you're Frank

Springtail

?" Fiona asked, her eyes widening.

Behind her, Mother's masklike polite smile was becoming more and more forced.

"Well, I was last time I checked! Hah!" Frank said, laughing.

"Here it comes," Marvin muttered.

"But in case you need confirmation, yes, I am Senator Frank Springtail. And yes, that was me who handled that little Russian thing," Frank said, nodding slightly. "I figured that living up in Sacramento was all well and good for my retirement, but why be happy with just five terms in the Senate when you can set your sights just a little

higher

." He winked at Fiona -- using that odd double-blink that some lizards used, when their eyelid came down a moment after their nictitating membrane.

"I-" Fiona put her hands over her mouth. "You're running for President!?"

"Well, I don't want to brag. And the big two oh two oh is a little way off, and I have great confidence in the President," Frank said, nodding slightly. "She'll be fine without me bustling in on the ring."

"Well, so glad to meet you," Mother finally forced out the words past the mask. "But, ah, Fiona's piano lessons are very soon, and we need to get her ready for that, have a good day."

And, quite rudely, she pushed the door shut in the Springtail family's face.

Frank stood there, frowning as he looked down at the welcome basket. Trevor sighed and rolled his eyes in the sullen way that only an eighteen year old could.

"God, Dad," he said. "Don't you know that

they

are the ones who are supposed to give

us

welcome baskets?"

"Well, I didn't think it'd be that offensive," Frank said, shaking his head slightly. "And you could have stood to be less rude, Marvin."

Marvin grunted monosyllabically.

###

There were two very different dinners going on that day on Dragon Lane.

At 1323 Dragon Lane, the boxes were still mostly packed. The Springtail family had dragged out their dining table, ordered some local Five Guys, and sat down to munch on hamburgers and french fries while watching the latest episode of

I Can't Believe Marley Wore That.

As the canned laughter filled the house from the barely set up television, Frank paused between eating his hamburger to kiss and nuzzle his wife's neck. Shelia Springtail was little better -- her tail was wrapped so tightly around her husband's that they might as well have had one butt.

Marvin spent his time leveling his alchemy skill on his Switch.

Trevor, though, absconded with his meal and headed upstairs to fling himself flat on the bedroom that would be his once the boxes were unpacked. There, he glared out of the window as he lef this hamburger uneaten.

His cellphone buzzed.

Hey, honey,

it said. A text from Kelly.

He turned it off, not wanting to read it as he dragged himself to the window, to glare out at the sky. The lights of the city blazed out the stars -- leaving nothing but a vast blackness for him to look at. But what drew his eye was the large pool that dominated the back yard of their neighbors. He looked across...

And at 1324 Dragon Lane, the table was perfectly set for the family of three. Mother and Father were at their traditional spots -- at the head and the tail of the table, separated as far from one another as they could be without sitting in different rooms. The meal was soup and some finely diced chicken with a little bit of rice and lentils and some kind of thick creamy stuff that Fiona was pretty sure had started life as inedible and had only been made an actual food because it was expensive. She poked at her meal, seated in the near direct middle of the table, and tried to strike up some conversation.

"Soooo," she said. "How was, uh, your day, Father?"

Father grunted. He was looking at his handheld kindle reader -- he had begrudgingly switched to it once the newspaper stopped actually printing.

Fiona sighed. "So, uh, I need to finish some homework before Monday tomorrow. I'm going to go and do that, is that okay?"

Mother nodded, primly. "Of course. It's important you get good grades, Fiona. We'd hate to have you miss Yale -- think of how disappointed we'd be."

Fiona -- who had already started standing -- looked at her mother, probing the words. It felt like they had definitely been some kind of insult, but she wasn't quite sure for what or for what reason. So, instead, she just smiled nervously, then turned and practically ran up the stairs. She came to her room, closing the door behind her, then flung herself flat on her recently pressed and folded bed. Looking out the window, she saw that -- for the first time since the Muntz's had sold -- the house next door was bright and alive. She could faintly hear laughter coming from within, then a duo of loud voices crying out.

"What are you

wearing

Marley!?"

She blinked.

Frank Springtail and his family liked cheesy sitcoms?

Then she noticed that there were a pair of bright gold eyes looking at her from across the way. It was one of the two Springtail kids. She couldn't see much -- his room wasn't lit -- but his eyes caught the light that diffused from the streetlamps and reflected back at her. She gulped, then drew her legs up under her, sitting up and then waving at him from her bedroom. Those eyes turned away from her, leaving her feel weirdly alone.

Fiona frowned, then stole from her room. She headed to the computer lab on the second story of the house, stole a piece of paper from her family's immense, highly advanced, double sided, full color printer-fax machine that they had used a grand total of five times in the past year, then used a thick sharpie to scrawl out a letter. Finding some tape was easy enough. She went back to her room, taping up the page, then drawing the curtain down so it would be easy to see and easier to read. Then, she laid back, got out her phone, and started debating with idiots on Facebook again.

It was a way to kill time.

###

Monday morning dawned bright and early. Trevor squirmed out of the sleeping bag he had used -- his parents were going to spend the whole day unpacking, and he didn't think that his bed would be ready by the time he got back from school -- and then shook himself. He, like most eighteen year old boys, had a

serious

case of morning wood. He hissed quietly, his hand going down to the bright red, ridged cock that swung between his thighs, his tail lifting up as his balls tingled. He half closed his eyes, thinking of Kelly for a moment -- but then his eyes darted to the side and he realized two things.

The first was that horrible realization that came

every

time he let himself think about Kelly: She was a three hour plane ride away, and basically in a different country, for all that they were in the same state.

The second was that he was standing right before his window, and right across the way was that human girl's window.

However, she wasn't at the window. Instead, she had taped up a piece of paper. He had to squint to read it, mouthing the words slowly and carefully to make sure he didn't miss them.

"Sorry for my Mom, she's a total D-bag," he muttered. He blinked -- not entirely sure what to think of that.

Then the blinders on the far window opened and the very human girl whose handwriting he had been reading leaned into view, grabbing onto the white paper she had taped up. She turned to look at him. Stopped.

Gaped.

Trevor stood there stupidly, his nares turning bright red as his cock betrayed him by becoming even harder at the idea of someone seeing him naked. His tail froze. He froze -- ancient lizardy instincts for avoiding birds that tracked by motion kicking into gear. The girl stood there, just as frozen as he was, her eyes wide and readable even from this distance. She blinked slowly.

Then Marvin slammed his knuckles on the door.

"Dude!" he said. "School's in twenty minutes!"

And the spell was broken. Trevor grabbed onto a pillow, jamming it over his junk, and then scrambled forward and yanked the blinds down.

And across the street, Fiona turned around, her back pressing to the wall, her hands pressing the note she had left up for Trevor against her breasts. Her heart raced. Her breath came in short gasps. And feelings she had never felt before buzzed through her -- her nipples ached. Her sex was

hot

. She felt her skin tingle all over, everywhere. She bit her lip, then glanced at the window -- and saw those closed blinds. She closed her eyes.

"Great, Fi," Fiona whispered. "Now he thinks you're a total pervmo."

###

"Great, Trev," Trevor muttered. "Now she thinks you're a total pervmo."

"Dude, I think it's fine," Marvin said, his nose pressed against the screen of his Switch as the two brothers walked along the sidewalk, heading towards Jackalope High School. "She couldn't have seen anything -- your room was dark and stuff."

"No, she

saw

, I know that for sure," Trevor said, shaking his head. "My fucking luck. First day in a new town, and I'm going to get sued for Statutory Eye Rape."

"I don't think she's underage," Martin said.

"Well, it'd just be my luck that she's a fourteen year old freshman and I'm going straight to Federal Pound you in the Ass Prison for going bareback in a sleeping back!" Trevor threw out his hands, his tail lashing from side to side with agitation. Martin paused his game, then looked over at his brother. He narrowed his eyes.

"Dude," he said. "You're the son of the only guy who ever earned both the Congressional Medal of Valor

and

Presidential Medal of Freedom. I don't think they're going to send you to Federal Pound You in the Ass Prison for

accidentally

flashing your next door neighbor."

They came around the corner and both brothers paused for a few moments. Their new high school.

"Well, at the very least," Marvin said. "It doesn't look like complete shit."

"Yeah. It's only mostly shit." Trevor shook his head and tried to look at Jackalope High without immediately comparing it to his high school back in Sacramento. Yeah, it was smaller. But there weren't metal detectors everywhere. That was nice. Though the black fence with almost spiked tips looked a bit gothic for his tastes. But the students were the thing that threw him. His old high school had been pretty diverse -- furs, humans of all the major phenotypes, even a few of the really weird and obscure half-breeds and cryptids. But this place?

"Lotta white people," Marvin said, dryly.

"Wow, you noticed?" Trevor asked. "It's kinda hard to

tell

."

They walked together towards the front building.

Meanwhile, at the back of the school, Fiona was trying to extricate herself from her mother's car. Mother was reaching across the separation between the driver's seat and the passenger's seat to try and brush Fiona's hair back into state. Fiona squirmed and batted at her mother's wrist. "I don't get why I can't walk to school."

"Well, they say that it is better for you to alternate walking days with driving days," Mother said.

"Who says this exactly?" Fiona asked -- her voice holding just a bit of an edge to it as she side-eyed her mother.

"People!" Mother snapped. "Now, I expect you to be

here

at the end of school. No exceptions." She affixed her daughter with her most stern, focused glare. Fiona rolled her eyes as she looked away from her mother, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Fine," she said.

"All right," Mother said, nodding and hitting the unlock button. Fiona pushed the door open and was out of the car so fast that she almost left a pale white afterimage in the air. Mother frowned, then started up her car and started driving away.

Fiona walked through the school as quickly as she could, pulling out her phone to check the time. She would be on time -- if she hurried. She rounded the corner of the Science building at the same time that Marvin and Trevor rounded the corner from exactly the opposite direction -- both of them holding up papers that held their maps and directions for their first classes. Martin slammed into Fiona's side, which caused her to rebound and press, breast to chest, face to snout, against Trevor. Then she rebounded and hit the ground, her rump skidding along the smooth stones that made up the walkway between buildings. A few other students snickered -- but most of them were hurrying to their classes and soon, the trio were essentially alone.

Trevor looked down at Fiona.

Fiona looked up at Trevor.

"Okay," Marvin said, grinning as he slid his arm underneath Fiona's arm, helping her to her feet. "

Now

you're going to Federal Pound you in the Ass Prison."

"Marvin!" Trevor snapped.

"I-" Fiona blushed, realizing that she was standing between the two of them. For a moment, she felt dizzy. Next to their father, Trevor and Marvin weren't as

built

. Their bodies weren't slabbed with muscles so thick that they'd cause small arms fire to veer off in ill disguised terror. They didn't look as if they could tear metal phone books in half with their bare hands and claws. But that didn't mean they were skinny. Or anything of the sort.

They were

lean

. Underneath their tee-shirts and their jeans, Fiona had felt the tightness of their muscles. Their arms were exposed, and her eyes traced the lines of their biceps, the smoothness of their shoulders. They were both astoundingly athletic, and just being near them made her whole body buzz with electrical energy. She gulped had to resist the lunatic urge to push herself against Trevor again and just

rub

against him like a cat.

"I..." Fiona started again when she realized she had been oggling them for a good thirty, forty seconds. "It's okay!"

Trevor blushed. "Uh, sorry about-"

"I didn't see anything!" Fiona squeaked.

"-knocking...you...over..." Trevor trailed off.

Fiona closed her eyes.

Smooth, Fi. Smooth.

A bell rang -- a low, droning buzz that made Fiona leap almost a foot into the air. When she landed, her skirt flared around her thighs for a moment and she grabbed onto the hem, forcing it back down before she added 'flashing them' to the list of her awkward things.

"I take it that is a

bad

sound?" Marvin asked.

"We're late," Fiona groaned.

"Fuck," Trevor muttered. "We need to get to, uh, room 431."

"You're taking AP Bio?" She asked, her eyes widening. "I'm doing that too! Come on!"

She grabbed their hands -- and for a moment was startled by how

warm

they were. How soft. She hadn't expected their scales to be quite so smooth, so well joined, so gentle. They didn't pinch or scrape -- and then she was running, dragging the two lizardboys after her. They sprinted through the school and came to room 431 with exactly negative ninety two seconds to spare. The three of them stumbled in and for a moment, Fiona squeezed their hands. Then she let go, puffing, as she looked at Mr. Brightwater.

The tall, lean bioteacher had already been scribbling down names as being present or absent on his big binder of truancy. He looked at the three of them witheringly.

"They're new students, I was giving them a tour, I lost track of time, sorry Mr. Brightwater!" Fiona gasped out.

Mr. Brightwater nodded. "Well, you're not that late. Sit down Miss Miller, Mr Springtails. We're going to be doing group projects today, I hope you recall."

"Right!" Fiona nodded, then walked hurriedly to one of the tables that were free. Like most science rooms, there weren't individual desks. Instead, the tables were broad, flat, black rectangles with tall tools where anyone could sit. Fiona took one of the stools, and Marvin and Trevor took stools. To either side of her. Sitting beside her. On her left and right. She couldn't look left or right without looking at one of them.

Trevor sat there, his hand resting on his chin, his whole body slouched. Even his frill looked flattened against his head.

Marvin was sliding his Switch into his backpack with a muttered grumbling sound.

Fiona looked straight forward and tried to put what had happened that morning out of her mind.

###

"Today," Mr. Brightwater said, scrawling on the whiteboard. "We're going to be discussing reproduction of species." He nodded as he turned back to the rest of the class. "It's a simple fact that sexual-" he paused, holding up his hands as a few students giggled. "Yes, yes, lets get all of the giggling out of the way." He frowned. "It's a simple fact that sexual reproduction is the most common way for any species to reproduce once it gets above a certain level of complexity. Can anyone tell me

why

that is?"