The other night dear, as I lay sleeping, I dreamt I held you in my arms

June 8th, 2015

Carly felt all the energy drain from her body. She leaned back in bed, feeling an itch in her chest.

We were a little early… but it should be fine. Only a few weeks. Fuck, I’m so sore, though.

A weak smile spread across her lips. Who would have thought, a year ago, that she’d be here right now? It was a new chapter in her life, one she couldn’t wait to start. She raised her hand to her chest, feeling the warmth in her heart. Her boobs might have been a little sore, especially her nipples, but that was just evidence of how great a thing she’d accomplished.

Where is she?

“Doctor?” She asked. She wanted to hold her Emmy so badly. But the doctors had taken her away almost instantly, saying something about “immediate treatment”.

She hoped everything would be alright. Someone would tell her if there was something wrong, right?

“It’s going to be fine, sweetheart.” Her father’s hand squeezed hers tightly. “They’re checking up on her.”

“I-I want to hold her,” Carly pleaded. “When can I hold her?”

“Soon, soon,” her mother consoled her, rubbing her shoulder. “For now, just rest. You did something amazing today.”

Carly smiled a little, not sure what to say. She leaned back in her cot and stared up at the ceiling. She just wanted to see her Emmy.

The doctor came to see her a few minutes later. She sprung up in bed, her eyes wide. “Doctor Harlow!” She cried. “Can I see her? Is she doing alright?”

The doctor **** a comforting smile over his solemn expression.

“Carly, I need to tell you…”

She didn’t hear much more of what he said after that.

Present Day

“And… that was it…” Carly murmured. Her voice was a thousand miles away. “There was nothing they could do. She only lived 17 minutes.”

“Oh my God…” Dani was struck numb from her buddy’s words. “Carly…”

“We took her home…” Carly sniffled, wiping the tears from her eyes. “She looked… *hic* so peaceful… like she was just sleeping, and could… hng… like she could wake up at any time…”

She stared to shake. Dani hugged her tightly and let Carly cry into her chest.

“It’s not fair!” She sobbed. “Why did she have to be the one? Why did it have to be my little girl? Emmy…”

Dani didn’t know how to answer that. She didn’t know how to process anything Carly had told her about her premature pregnancy. From how she found out she got pregnant in her first semester of college, to having no idea who the father was, to her decision to drop out of school and get a job so she could raise her daughter right… those were things Dani had never had to experience in her sheltered life.

“She was only 8 weeks premature…” Carly mumbled, clutching her arms. “That’s serious, but… the doctors said… everybody said that it wouldn’t be a problem. They told me she’d be fine, that she’d be my little girl…”

She started to shake. Dani recognized the signs of a panic attack beginning to set in. Before she could do anything about it, though, Carly threw up all over the bed. Dani held her own stomach and kept her grip on her friend, even as Carly spewed bile and waste all over her. She couldn’t leave her alone, not in this condition.

“Ugh… oh…” Carly finally stopped throwing up, and turned pale as she realized how much of a mess she’d made of everything. “I… I-!”

“It’s fine,” Dani said, wiping the foul fluid off of her face. “I’m fine, Carly. I’m not upset.” She didn’t know if she could ever be upset at the poor girl again, after what she’d gone through.

“…My little girl…” Carly whimpered, breaking down again. She collapsed into her own sick and started to sob. “I didn’t even get to hold her… or nurse her… she didn’t even have a chance…”

Dani couldn’t help her. She couldn’t soothe her wounded heart. No one could. Carly had lost something she could never get back. All she could do was sit next to her and console her through her breakdown.

They spent the whole day like that. What else could they do?

Nick and Dawn awoke in the Master’s Suite. They had been in Dream Alley all day, but Dawn’s 24 hours had just expired. So Sylvia returned them to where they were supposed to be.

Neither was in a particularly chatty mood. Dawn couldn’t even look Nick in the eye. She felt ashamed of herself. She’d tried so hard, set things up perfectly, and in the end…

In the end, it hadn’t mattered in the least. They’d tried to have sex, but her body refused to let her. No matter what they did, no matter how many times she came, she hadn’t been able to satisfy him with her pussy. She’d been **** to shamefully give him another blowjob.

What an awful way to lose her virginity.

“Dawn…” Nick didn’t know what to say. He didn’t hold anything against her. What happened was just a natural thing, she wasn’t to blame for her body not being able to properly have sex. He’d actually enjoyed his night with her.

But she was too busy beating herself up to see it.

“I’m sorry…” Dawn muttered. Her tail lay limp behind her. “I couldn’t even have sex right. I’m just a failure…”

“Hey, it’s not like that.” Nick scooched over closer to her, but she tried to pull away. He didn’t let her. He pulled her into a tight hug, clutching her tightly to his chest. She started to shake.

“I-I… I’m…” She wouldn’t cry. She never cried. But she felt like crying. Why did she feel so sick to her stomach, not being able to please him?

“It was just a bad night,” Nick said. “You had your first time, and it didn’t go well. That’s okay. Just because it hurt too much this time, that doesn’t mean it will be that way next time, right? Next time, you won’t be a virgin anymore, and… I don’t know… maybe you’ll have gotten used to it.”

Dawn bit her lip. She knew an empty platitude when she heard one. The way Nick’s voice lilted when he lied was distinct, and she’d heard it enough times to know he didn’t fully believe himself.

But she could choose to believe it.

“What if… what if I never get used to it?” She whispered, tilted her head back to look up at him. She fought back the tears in her eyes. “What if I’m never able to… you know?”

“…Then that’s fine too.” Nick kissed the top of her head, causing her ears to wiggle and tickle his cheeks. “I’m not going to care about you any less just because we can’t have sex. I promise.”

Dawn felt a blush spread through her body. Yesterday had been about preparing herself for sex; she’d lived the life she could have lived if she’d been willing to act on her feelings for Nick all those years ago, but she’d thought that it was just that- acting. A roleplay.

Do I really have feelings for him again? Dawn shook her head to try and clear her thoughts. It didn’t make any sense. It was just sex! And really bad, crummy sex at that! Even though that was her fault…

…Still, there was no way she could be falling for him all over again! She wasn’t a schoolgirl anymore, she was a woman with a flourishing career as a veterinarian! Getting all flustered over a guy just wasn’t rational!

But the pounding of her heart told a different story.

“W-We should go!” Dawn used her flexibility to slip out from Nick’s grip and she crawled out of bed. “I need some breakfast and- ow…”

She winced, feeling an ache through her lower body. Immediately she called back all the medical textbooks she’d read in school. Soreness after having sex for the first time was expected. Just like she’d been worried about being able to adequately perform due to the different sizes of their respective anatomies.

…But the books had never described the pain as being this… visceral.

“Are you okay?” Nick asked. “You’re limping.”

“Um… yeah, I’m fine!” Dawn mumbled, tugging her skirt down slightly. One of the benefits of the alley was that she hadn’t had to mess up any of her normal clothes. “Just… you know. Female troubles. Ahahaha…”

She may have been a genius, but that didn’t make her a good liar.

“Let me, um, go freshen up! And then we can go downstairs to get breakfast.”

Dawn turned and rushed to the bathroom. While she was taking care of herself in there, Nick approached Holly, who was waiting obediently in her cage.

“Holly…”

“Yes, master? Is everything okay?” That was her, always happy to help.

A shameful blush crossed Nick’s face. “I was thinking about something, last night with Dawn. I know it’s rude, but I couldn’t help myself.”

Holly tilted her head to the side curiously.

“Thinking about what?” She asked.

“Remember when I asked you out? How that whole mess between the two of us started?” Nick asked.

“Of course I do!” Her face lit up with glee. “That was such a wonderful moment of my life! …Although it didn’t go well…”

“Well… what if it did?”

It took her a second to process that.

“Huh?”

“What I mean is… last night, Dawn and I, we relived our lives a little. Imagining what we would have been like, if she’d accepted my confession and we’d been dating since elementary school.” A dopey smile spread across his face. “It was wonderful. But it made me wonder… what if that had been us? What if you hadn’t rejected my confession, and we started going out?”

Do you think you would have been happier than you are now? That was the question he wanted to ask. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it, because he was afraid of the answer.

Holly considered that for a moment.

“Hmm… I think… I think it might not have been so good,” she admitted. “Even if we did start going out, the me back then would have been too ashamed of her desires to show you her true self. I think we might have broken up anyway… only then, it would have been so much worse.”

A rare sad look crossed her face for a moment, before she brightened again. “This is so much better, master! I don’t have anything to worry about now! I can just be happy at your side!”

Nick smiled. That eased the guilt in his heart slightly. “Okay then. I’m happy you’re happy,” he said, nodding. Just then, Dawn stepped out of the bathroom, still looking a little exhausted, but not in as crummy of a mood.

She actually smiled. “Shall we go?” She offered, and the two of them headed to the banquet hall.

They arrived pretty late. The other women were already eating. Most of them, anyway. Nick noticed that Dani, Carly, and Mimi were all missing.

But a certain blonde was there, and she was overjoyed to see the both of them.

“Dawn!” Rose rushed over to the cat girl and pulled her into a boob-smothering hug. “How did your night go? Did you have fun? Was it everything we hoped for?”

“I should have known you had something to do with that,” Nick said, rolling his eyes.

Rose winked at him. “Of course! With such brilliant cinematography, of course a star like myself was involved in picking out all the best moments!”

Dawn stared blankly at her.

“Can we, um… not talk about this in public, please?” She asked, looking at the sea of awkward faces around her.

Rose cleared her throat and nodded, leading Dawn away from the table so they could chat.

“So? How was it? For real,” Rose urged, keeping her voice low so the others wouldn’t overhear. But when she saw Dawn’s expression, the smile slipped from her face. “…Dawn?”

“I couldn’t do it,” Dawn said, feeling smaller than ever before in that moment. “I tried, really, I did. But… I couldn’t. I mean, I could, there was certainly intercourse, but…”

“But what?” Rose started to worry over her buddy.

“He was too big for me,” Dawn mumbled, her face reddening with shame. “It felt like I was getting split in two. After he broke my hymen, it was supposed to start feeling better… but it didn’t. It only felt worse.”

“Oh, Dawn…” Rose hugged her tightly, patting her on the back.

“I’m fine,” Dawn assured her. But she was still willing to take advantage of the hug. “Really, I am. It’s just… I’m afraid I won’t be able to have sex with him without it hurting.”

“…I see…” Rose lowered her head. “Well… look, maybe… maybe you can still be with him somehow? Thanks to your transformation, your hands and mouth are really something, so…”

Her voice trailed off because she recognized how absurd that sounded. Handjobs and blowjobs weren’t exactly comparable with actual sex. But if that was the best she could do…

“I just hope you’ll be okay,” Dawn continued. “You know. When you have sex with him.”

“…Hah?” Rose stared blankly at her.

Dawn narrowed her eyes. “I mean, sex really hurts. It’s a pain unlike any I’ve ever experienced before, and I’ve fallen off a lot of balance beams. You better be careful. You’re having sex with him next, right?”

“Um… oh, yeah! Absolutely!” Rose **** a smile to her lips, but her face was pale with fright. Hearing the way Dawn described her experience was already making her hurt down there, and Nick hadn’t even penetrated her yet.

Internally, Dawn smiled a little, enjoying watching Rose squirm. As much as she liked her buddy, teasing her like this was enjoyable.

While the two of them talked, Nick was still searching the banquet hall for the other girls. What was keeping them? After the girls’ conversation finished he went to Rose to check in with her and see what was going on.

“Rose, Mimi was with you last night, wasn’t she?” He asked. “Did she not want breakfast?” That didn’t sound like her.

Rose shook her head. “Um… no, actually, she didn’t. I waited for her for a while, actually, but she never came to our room.”

Nick frowned. That was unusual. Due to the rules, Mimi was supposed to spend the night with Rose. If she didn’t, then something else had to be going down.

While all this was happening, Dani and Carly awoke after a very restless night. Carly frowned. She’d hoped that confiding her deepest, darkest secret to Dani would make the weight on her chest lighten, but it didn’t. She still felt sick and miserable.

Maybe she always would.

“Are you feeling better?” Dani asked, placing a comforting hand on her friend’s shoulder.

Carly shook her head. A bitter smile touched her lips. “Just glad you changed the sheets.”

She’d been completely useless yesterday, and hadn’t looked forward to the idea of sleeping in throw-up. Dani had diligently cleaned up all the messes in her stead.

“Carly… I don’t know what to say,” Dani admitted. “Something like that… what you described… I stayed up all night thinking about it, and I just don’t know. But I know I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.” Carly wasn’t even trying to make her lie difficult to see through. She just said that because it’s what people said. “Look, Dani… I didn’t tell you that story to earn sympathy points. I did it because I wanted you to know… what I’ve been living with all these years. The pain I’ve had to carry. Do you get how hard it is? To spend every day knowing that your little girl…”

Her voice cracked and she started to shake again.

“I don’t,” Dani admitted, tightening her grip on Carly’s shoulder just enough to reassure the other woman that there was someone supporting her. “I don’t think I’d ever be able to handle that. Which is why I respect you so much for being able to.”

Carly bit her lip and shook her head. “But I’m not handling it. You saw my breakdown last night. And that thing with Mimi?”

“Is it because she looks so much like you?” Dani knew she was wading into dangerous waters with that question, but she wanted to understand her friend better.

Carly was silent for a while.

“…After Emmy… I couldn’t do anything with my life. Forget going back to school, I didn’t even have the strength to get out of bed. It was my friend Stacy who finally got through to me, you know. She needed my help with something, a photo shoot, and I guess… I guess I was having a good day that day, so I said yes. I was just an extra for a group shot, a big set of boobs to squeeze into the costume for some more views. But you know… when I did that…”

She looked up at Dani with a smile on her face. “For the first time, I forgot about Emmy. And after that, well… I tried it myself. It gave me something to look forward to. Something to try and fill that hole in my heart she left.”

Carly touched her chest and sighed. Dani wasn’t sure why Carly was telling her this part of the story. But she listened anyway. Whatever Carly felt comfortable sharing, she would hear. That was her duty as a friend.

“I did it for about a year without any issues,” Carly murmured. “It was like life was normal again. And then, I was driving to the grocery store, and I hear this song on the radio. ‘You Are My Sunshine’.” She started to shake. “And I used… I used to… I used to sing it to her, while she was in my belly, and I… it all came flooding back…!”

She started to cry again. She clung onto Dani for support, and Dani held her tight.

“It doesn’t go away… it never goes away-!” Carly sobbed. “No matter how much time passes, no matter how well I think I’m doing…! All it takes is one little thing, a diaper commercial on TV, or the sound of a baby feeding on its bottle… and it’s like I’m right back in that moment again!”

“Like you’re flashing back…” Dani mumbled. It reminded her of what she’d heard about PTSD. She couldn’t begin to categorize Carly’s emotions, but it sounded like she needed some real help.

“Once, I was going shopping for some fabrics for my next costume, and I saw these little baby booties in the kid’s section,” Carly sniffled, wiping her eyes. “I couldn’t get out of bed for a month after that. It’s too much, Dani, I feel her all the time!”

Dani finally put the pieces together. “And that’s what your issue with Mimi is, isn’t it? Because she looks like you. You keep getting triggered back to that time-!”

She nodded.

“I can feel it… it’s like… Mimi and I, we have a bond…” Carly felt sick acknowledging it but she couldn’t deny it. “But whenever I see her, she’s not Mimi… she’s not me… she’s Emmy! My Emmy…”

“Carly… Mimi isn’t your daughter.” Dani separated from Carly so she could look the other girl in the eye. “She isn’t. You know that, right?”

“Of course I do…” Carly sobbed, smearing her tears across her wrist. “But I can feel it. Even if she’s not my daughter… a part of her is still a part of me.”

She looked up into Dani’s eyes and the tears kept rolling down her cheeks.

“What am I supposed to do?” She pleaded.

Sylvia watched Carly cry from her bedroom. She started to tear up herself. She held Mimi tight in her arms, ignoring the sticky feeling of her slime.

“Mom…?” Mimi looked up at her, not sure what to say.

“It’s alright my girl,” Sylvia assured her with a smile, fighting back the tears. She gave Mimi a peck on the forehead. “You’ll be alright. Just stay here with mommy and everything will be fine.”

Mimi nodded and hugged Sylvia tighter.

“I’m sorry…” Sylvia whispered, her heart going out to her fellow mother.

“You are my sunshine… my only sunshine...” She hummed, rocking Mimi gently.