Precious Cargo



All characters appearing in this story are mine of my own design.
This story is a work of fiction based upon nothing in particular.

Precious Cargo is copyright © The Silver Coyote
2003



Girl's Night Out

Minks are well known for the quality of their fur. Luxuriously soft to the touch, rich in natural highlights under almost any kind of light, mink fur is as pleasing to the eye as it is to the touch. Virtually any mink will turn heads as it moves through it's daily routine, given even the most rudimentary of fur care and personal hygiene. Take that scintillating finish and wrap it around a tall, thin, endowed female physique and you've got a body designed to stop conversations in mid-sentence. And so it had been with Gina for years and years.

Gina's coloring was typical of a North American Mink. Her fur was dark brown, lighter on her throat, chest, and stomach, and she had a small patch of white fur around her bottom lip and on her chin. She wore her dark brown hair long, to the bottom of her shoulder blades, but normally kept it wrapped during the business day in such a way that it just touched the shoulders of the tailored business suits she wore. Now square in the middle of her forties, Gina was still a stunner at five foot eight and 125 pounds, her shape still "marketable" at a respectable 37C-26-35. Her green eyes were expressive, which could be a good or bad thing, depending on her mood.

Gina Vison, known as Gia Vee in her own modeling days, had been dealing with half sentences and slack jaws most of her life. Born on a cool summer morning in 1963 on Digby Island west of Saint Rupert, British Columbia, she emigrated to the United States with her parents as a young kit, living with her family in Seattle, Washington for a few years. She was a happy youngster, outgoing when the situation required, but tending to keep to herself given a choice. Even at a young age friends of her parents and members of her family commented on her beauty.

Her father, a machinist, eventually brought the family to the Los Angeles basin in 1975, settling in the city of Glendale as he went to work at the Jet Propulsion Labs in Pasadena. As she grew and developed Gina evolved into an energetic, outgoing teenager, full of life and life's promise. It was there in Glendale, while attending Holy Family High School just a few short blocks from the Galleria, that she was "discovered" by a talent scout while practicing cheer routines on campus one afternoon.

One thing led to another, and by the time Gina was 19 she was gracing various magazine covers (including Elle, Vogue, and Seventeen), hawking everything from makeup to lingerie. Adopting the runway persona of Gia, she was by the age of 25 a well established model and was becoming an emerging force as a talent scout in her own right. She was smart enough to channel most of her earnings into first a degree in business administration from the University of California at Irvine, and then into her own modeling agency. Graduating UCI at the age of 27, she purchased a modestly sized but richly appointed home in the city of Villa Park in eastern Orange County. By 30 she was becoming a "has been" on the runways and covers, but had built a respectable agency of her own based in the Irvine Spectrum, and the talent she was managing was in their own right finding their way onto the covers and runways themselves.

Throwing herself completely into her career and then into her own business, Gina had never found or made the time to look for love. Oh, to be sure, in her younger days she had seen her share of suitors of both genders, and had moved through a steady stream of short term relationships. The physical intimacy was good, but never lasted because she had never found any fur, male or female, that she could connect with on an emotional, spiritual level. Hence she was almost always in the company of a friend or lover, but was and always had been alone.

By the time Gina had achieved her late thirties she had tired of the hunt. The constant sequencing of fizzling, hollow relationships with barren furs devoid of love or compassion had jaded her, and she assumed that a visceral, all encompassing love was not in the cards for her. She still wondered if someday she might find that soul mate her heart longed for, but the active pursuit of that fur had been given over to job duties and a light social life with her clients and employees. She was comfortable, yet strangely incomplete.

Gina didn't have any biological clock ticking away in her head like a time bomb. She had no desire to bear children of her own and raise a family. The future she envisioned for herself had her finding someone with whom she could connect, share her total self with, and spend the rest of her life with. To that extent she had decided over a year ago to get herself to church and at least get squared away with God. One of her clients, a young male wolverine who was currently strolling the runway for a high-end designer from Beverly Hills, told her about the All Furs Christian Church of Sunny Hills. She'd been there for over a year now, and had become involved in the children's ministry there.

Gina had become a sort of youth group leader at AFCC, working for Jaclyn Manx. Jaclyn was a Canadian Lynx, a beautiful creature in her own right. Gina and Jaclyn had hit it off immediately. Gina's contribution at AFCC was not strictly theological. She spent a lot of time talking with the young girls from the junior high and high school groups, discussing social skills and graces, and providing them with some basic awareness about how to handle themselves and the attentions of their male friends as they grew older. She discussed with them her own career, emphasizing self-reliance and intelligent financial and educational responsibility. They shared dinner together every Wednesday evening, and took in a movie or an outing to a museum or art exhibit now and then. Once they had even gone to Knotts Berry Farm as a group. That had been a day...!

While it had never occurred to Gina that new talent might cross her field of view at church, and her personal code of business ethics would normally have prevented her from entertaining business ventures while at church, when Gina made the acquaintance of Debbie Latrans there at AFCC, something clicked. She saw in Debbie the same youthful vitality, energy, and beauty that she remembered from her own teens, and the gears started to turn. There were other females there too, but none approached that right combination of visible traits and that "special something" that Debbie seemed to possess. Along with two or three other girls in the high school group, Gina had ventured the idea to Debbie that she should consider modeling. To that end Gina had offered her services to these girls as an educator, mentor, and possible agent.

Oddly enough, Debbie was the only fur that took her seriously. Gina assumed that the parents of the other girls had thought it was a joke, or wishful thinking on the part of their children, or perhaps had issues with the situation and just ended the idea in their child's life with a firm, irrevocable "no". A pity. While Debbie exhibited by far the best combination of visual beauty, presence, energy, vitality, and persona, the others had been close behind her and with the right training would have gone places quickly. Perhaps this was for the best, now she could devote her full attentions to one student and make a good job of it.

She was not interested in monetary compensation. Between the royalties she still collected on products bearing her name, uses of her image, and client generated income through her agency, she had more money than she knew what to do with. In fact, she had quietly and discreetly become one of the primary financial benefactors of AFCC, making sizable contributions to the church in the form of bank checks that were not easily traceable to her. Her motivation was simple if subtle, she wasn't doing it for the attention. The way she had it figured, God had been wonderfully gracious and giving to her in her life, and she wanted to give some of that back to Him.

Perhaps, in a corner of her mind, she hoped that He might steer that someone who had eluded her all these years in her direction. Little did she know...

###

"Mom," Debbie whined, "come on! I need your help with my hair!" Debbie looked up the staircase of her home, waiting for her mother to come down and help her.

"What's the problem?" Annie called down to her from her own vanity. "When did you forget how to do your own hair?" Annie smiled to herself. Ever since she had been a wee pup, Debbie had always asked for her assistance with hair and clothes. As a tiny coyfox she had needed the hands on help. Now that she was almost full grown Debbie did the work herself, but still insisted on seeking her mother's opinion and approval of her hair style and choice of dress before heading out to start her day or night.

"Mom..."

"OK, OK, I'll be down in a minute." Annie slowly removed the curling iron from her own hair and placed it carefully on the counter. She sat back in her chair, evaluating her efforts as she looked into the mirror in front of her. The blue eyes that stared back at her belonged to a 54 year old red fox who could easily pass herself off as 40 in any setting, maybe even 35 on a darkened dance floor. She worked hard at maintaining her figure, and was rewarded with the vision that gazed at her. There were only two opinions on the planet that mattered to her, her own and Joe's. She took care of herself for the two of them and couldn't care less what anyone else thought of her physical appearance. Her payback was in the way her husband looked at her, sometimes actually becoming something like enchanted, in a trance.

Mojave barked downstairs. Her reverie broken, Annie stood up and turned towards the stairs.

###

Gina locked the front door of her agency reception area. It had been a profitable day. Mark Lothian had accepted two of her models on six month contracts with options to renew, and a scout from Elle had called twice about Lissa Lizanne, one of Gina's latest creations. She had scheduled for twelve other models at various design studios as well, and had entertained discussion with an exec from Universal about models for a music video.

Entering a small dressing room in the back of her group of offices, she retrieved a small overnight bag from a cabinet. From it she removed a hair brush, a fur brush, and a small makeup kit. Placing these items on a small vanity, she moved to an adjacent closet. Opening this, she removed a black velvet evening dress from within, hung in plastic on a hangar. She removed a second hangar and placed that on the vanity. Gina removed her coat and placed it over the back of the chair at the vanity. She next removed her blouse and hung it on the hangar, then her skirt came off and was and hung on the hangar also. She hung the coat over the blouse and returned the ensemble to the closet.

Standing in front of the vanity clad only in her brief undergarments, Gina ran the fur brush over her body fur quickly. She then removed the evening dress from it's plastic protective cover and slipped it over her head. After smoothing the material against her body, she paused to briefly appraise herself. The dress had been tailored to fit her perfectly, and revealed enough fur to be interesting without being flashy or un-business like. The skirt was of appropriate length, but just so. Gina smiled, a brief flash of fangs greeting her glance into the mirror.

Satisfied with the dress, she loosened the clip holding her hair up on the back of her head. She picked up the hair brush and ran it through her long brown hair, working out the slight wave from the business style of earlier. She spent time brushing gently and carefully around her small ears, and after a few minutes had brought out the lustrous highlights in her hair. After a minute or two more of brushing, her hair met her approval.

After quickly brushing her teeth, she applied a very small amount of eyeliner and a hint of lipstick from the makeup case. A final glance at the mirror, just long enough to catch a twinkle in her own green eyes, and she was ready. "Let's go meet Mrs. Latrans," she said aloud to herself.

###

"You two look fabulous!" Joe said as Debbie and Annie came outside onto the front porch. He was below the level of the porch but only slightly, seated as he was on top of the diesel engine of their AC300AT. The truck's composite hood lay on the lawn nearby. Joe wore a work shirt and Levi 501s, his feet encased in work boots. Grease and grime covered his lower arms and paws, and part of the FADEC interface for the engine was perched haphazardly atop the intake manifold, balanced on it's own wiring harness.

Joe stared at his wife. Her fur almost glowed in the evening light, the glittering auburn competing with the hues of evening sunlight. She wore a royal blue evening jacket over a cream colored blouse that, while not particularly low cut, revealed enough to grab Joe's attention. The hem of the matching blue skirt was well above her knees, but not daringly so. She had the best legs Joe had ever seen, and was in three inch spikes to accentuate those legs. Her blond hair hung straight from between her ears, her bangs flipped forward over the top of her forehead, almost touching her eyebrows. At the base of her neck was a gold herringbone chain with inlaid diamonds, a Christmas gift from him to her many years ago. She looked awesome.

Annie grinned, recognizing the look on Joe's face. She knew he'd be half gone in minutes if she didn't keep him talking. "Where's Mike?" she asked, looking around for her eldest son. "I thought you guys were going to work on his Jeep?"

Joe had shifted his gaze to his seventeen year old daughter. She wore a mahogany colored silk button-down blouse over a pair of Lee Rider jeans that fit... well, perfectly. Over this was a latte colored suede jacket. Debbie's blond hair also hung straight, but unlike her mother she wore no bangs. Debbie wore no jewelry, and with her face didn't need any. She was smiling, flashing a bit of her white teeth at her father. A little taller and a little more leggy than her mother, their figures were otherwise very similar. Joe suddenly realized that his daughter was just as beautiful as his wife. A jolt of electric pride coursed through his nervous system, and his smile broadened.

"Soooo…" Annie prodded him verbally.

"What?" he asked, his gaze shifting from his daughter to his adorable wife.

"Where's Mike?"

"Oh." Joe paused momentarily while mentally shifting gears. "He and Jaclyn were getting together this evening." He laughed briefly. "I guess we'll have to break his Jeep some other time."

"You're losing your light," Annie observed, looking at the sky.

Joe snagged the interface module off the intakes and began bolting it into place. "Don't worry about me," he said as he worked a ratchet. "I'm almost done." He looked up as Annie and Debbie descended the wooden steps from the porch to the walkway leading to the driveway.

"Have you got time for a quick goodbye kiss?" Annie asked as they approached the truck.

Joe dropped his ratchet and almost leaped off the engine to the ground. "I always have time for kisses," he pronounced grandly, bowing slightly. As he stepped towards them he snagged a rag from a back pocket in his jeans and quickly wiped his paws.

Debbie giggled as she stopped in front of her father. Leaning forward, she kissed his nose gently. At his questioning look she giggled again. "It's the only clean spot on your face, daddy."

"She's right," said Annie as she leaned up to kiss him gently on the cheek. "You need a bath." She gave his muzzle a small, playful lick. "For later," she whispered, winking at him.

"I'll be clean by the time you get home," Joe said happily. His ladies walked purposefully toward the Cadillac STS parked at the foot of the driveway. The sports sedan was one of Annie's few vices, she loved fast, luxurious cars. Joe had a selfish reason for indulging her in this vice, he thought she looked incredibly sexy in that particular car. It seemed a perfect match to her appearance and personality. Annie pressed a button on her remote, and she and Debbie settled into the leather interior of the car.

As Joe watched, the 400 horsepower engine cranked over and purred into life. As the car began to turn away towards the street in the approaching darkness Joe caught sight of Annie and Debbie both blowing him kisses. He waved as he began to climb back up on the engine of his truck.

###

Gina had been in the bar at Raphael's only a couple of minutes, and in fact the lynx bar fur was just walking away from taking her drink order when she saw Debbie enter the bar. Debbie saw her from across the room, and turned to wave at her. Gina then saw Debbie motion behind her towards someone still in the entryway.

"Come on, mom! Gina's already here," Debbie motioned with her paw. Her mom had spoken briefly with the valet about her car as she left him the valet key and was just now coming up the steps to the open air entrance.

Gina saw the red fox move towards her student. She knew Debbie to be seventeen, knew that Jaclyn's boyfriend, Debbie's older brother, was twenty three or twenty four. Her mom didn't look much older than thirty eight or so. Gina turned this over in her mind briefly as the two approached. The closer they got, the more Gina concentrated on the fox.

Debbie stepped forward as Gina stood up. "Hi Gina! Debbie exclaimed, holding her arms out to the mink. The two hugged as Debbie greeted her mentor excitedly. "Have you been waiting long?" Debbie asked.

"I just got here," Gina replied, backing away slightly from Debbie. Turning to the red fox, Gina held out a paw. "You must be Mrs. Latrans. I'm Gina Vison. I'm very pleased to meet you."

A silky smooth voice greeted her warmly. "Please," the fox replied, "call me Annie." Her blue eyes held the gaze of the mink's green eyes. "It's a pleasure to meet you finally, as well. Debbie's told me so much about you and your work." The red fox's paw took hers in a warm shake.

Something flashed in Gina's head at the touch of the fox's paw, something she'd not expected. Gina blinked once as she stared at Annie, smiling. Annie smiled back, and as Gina blinked a second time she suddenly regained her thoughts. "Please, sit down Annie," she said, indicating a chair at the table. "Can I order you something to drink?"

As Annie and Debbie seated themselves Gina caught the attention of the lynx and motioned to her. As the lynx made her way to the table Annie reached for the wine list.

"May I get you something, ladies?" The lynx smiled politely at Debbie.

"A club soda with a lime twist, please," Debbie replied. "Thank you."

Turning to Annie the lynx said "Miss?"

Annie smiled slightly in spite of herself. "I'd like a glass of the Foxen Pinot Noir, please"

Gina felt something akin to a warm glow as she watched Annie smile. This is going to be an interesting evening, she thought happily.





To Chapter Thirty One: Smoke On The Horizon.

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