We crossed the empty hotel lobby and soon found ourselves in my hotel room.
I paced at the end of the bed while Jessica sat patiently. I was in a sense of panic.
"So, what's the secret?" I stopped and stared at her. "How do people turn into animals? Did you used to be a person, too? Is that how anthros are made?"
"Heavens, no!" She shook her head. "You've jumped too far. Hold on."
"All right." I sighed. "But then tell me this: is it science or magic?"
"Magic." She leaned forward, putting her large hand on my shoulder. "Come here and sit with me. You're wearing through the carpet."
I took a calming sigh and sat on the edge of the bed with Jessica, her presense managing to sooth my anxiety.
"Here's how it works." She took a deep breath and gently caressed my back. "There are the people who run the island. They have a very powerful and ancient magic at their disposal. It keeps the island alive and grants the natives immortality."
My eyes widened. "You're... immortal?"
"Ageless." She nodded slowly. "But there's more. The same magic feeds on the worst in men and women. It changes people, punishes them, and changes them."
"Can this... magic... be controlled?" I asked.
"It's wielded by one person in the end, the one who controls the island. It always guessed that the magic feeding off the changes was equivalent to feeding the controller as well." Jessica sighed and I saw her eyes dim in exhaustion. "But, creatures like me must serve the one who controls the magic and bring unwitting tourists - subjects - to horrible fates."
"Then..." I trailed off, realizing she had said she was protecting me. "You could change me too?"
"With not but a whim." She smiled. "But I wouldn't. You don't deserve that fate, and I wouldn't want harm to come to you."
I blushed. "What about... you? And your people?"
"Believe it or not!" Jess held up a finger. "I was once a four legged nonmorphic giraffe native to Africa."
"You were?"
"Indeed. The staff of Pleasure Island enslave animals as their... servants. I was abducted from my natural habitat, drugged, put in a large wooden crate, and shipped here. Once here, they changed me to what you see now." She paused. "That was many years ago."
"That's... horrible." I commented, squeezing her other hand in mine. "You're a slave."
"Yes." Her face fell. "If I set even one of my hooves off the island, the magic would wear off. I'd swiftly change back to an unintelligent animal and be stripped of my immortality. I'd retroactively age and die in a matter of minutes." Once again, tears began to fall from her eyes.
"So here you are." I felt my own eyes moistening. "And surely others like you, trapped."
"Indeed." She hung her head. "Slaves to please others for a master we've never seen."
"How are you protecting me?" I realized. "Can you control even a little of the magic?"
"Ah!" She raised her head. "Not as such. But I do hold on my person a special item of power. As do my brothers and sisters." She reached beneath the front of her blue gown and produced a sapphire embedded to a silver necklace. "The island itself can change some, but only to limited extents. This, however, allows the wearer to change and warp others as she or he desires. I asked it to keep you from transforming, is all."
"Why?" I asked softly. "Why do I deserve that?"
"Not once have you demanded sex of me." She smiled, and I was suddenly swept up in the giraffe woman's arms, pulled off the bed and raised into the air. I realized she was now cradling me in her arms against her chest. Once again I felt pathetically tiny. Her face drew downwards on her long neck and she looked me in the eyes. "Not once did you degrade me, call me a freak, touch me inappropriately, treat me like your plaything, hurt me, or look down on me."
I felt myself trembling, her warm sweet breath so soft on my face. I said nothing.
"You don't deserve to suffer the fate of others, to have your human flesh and mind taken from you." Her lips brushed my nose and trailed down to kiss me once more. It was longer this time, much more drawn out. Her nimble giraffe lips smacked and sucked on mine, and she drew away at last to look me in the eyes. "You've treated me like an equal and made this a night I'll remember for a long time to come. I want to repay you."
"You don't have to!" I insisted, a bead of sweat falling from my brow.
"Would you deny me the first real excitement I've felt in forever?" She grinned mischievously, eyes wandering downward to regard my body. "And would you deny that you want this?"
"No, wait." I pleaded. "I wasn't nice to you just so you'd fuck me. I really lov-"
Again, she ssshed me, but with a passionate kiss. By now, I was starting to grow aroused, and things were stirring. She stared at me intently and her smile became more desiring, more lustful. "I know you aren't using me, silly boy. Have you listened to nothing I've said? I want you! This is *my* choice."
I reached my arms up gently, wrapped them around Jessica's neck, and brushed my fingers through the soft plush of her long brunette mane. She cooed in response, and closed her eyes. Again, we shared a long intimate kiss, sweeter and more loving than before.
"Yessss." She smiled, opening her eyes, the long dark lashes slowly parting. "I promise I'll make this special, Mark. As special as you've made me feel tonight."
"I'd like that." I whispered, trembling and sweating, hopelessly horny, held cradled against Jessica's bosom like an infant, safe.
She raised her neck up slightly and looked down to my groin, her blush returning as she saw my state of arousal, clear and flagged. "Let me set you down. I want to show you something."
"Of course." I whispered back, smiling like a fool, and felt myself gently being set down on the bed. Jessica put me against the headboard, propped up by the pillows, and straddled the bed before me. She gave me a delightfully naughty smirk as she reached behind herself and I heard a slow maddening zip as she undid her gown.
Still staring at me, she licked her lips. Over a foot of long blue tongue flexed from her mouth and slurped her maw. She giggled at the shocked expression on my face. "Just think of what I can use that for."
I turned beat red as Jessica slowly lowered the shoulders of her dress, revealing more brown and gold fur, and she lowered the top of her dress down to her waist.
I was now staring at her mostly naked torso, save for a large black brassiere. I could make out the slim lines of her upper body, the contour of her unexpectedly large breasts. Her cleavage was even more visible, and I stared.
"Now..." She leaned forward, her hands resting palm down beside my thighs. "Why don't you unzip your pants, loverboy?"