Pet x Play

When @Jasper said that I was male, it was actually a partial lie.

My virtual avatar on Vetita isn't fully "male".

My master described my gender in that way to protect me, but my human appearance is also relatively feminine. If I transformed in front of all of the mercenaries, a majority of them would probably still think I was female. I look fairly androgynous, and likewise many players assume that I am female based on my superficial looks.

I'm not transgender or anything, but I do like crossdressing.

Virtual reality makes it convenient to express myself the way I want, and there are a plethora of customization options during character creation. It's not exactly uncommon for men to play as women in video games, so it's hardly a rare phenomenon. If anything, an overwhelming majority of "girls" on this server are probably guys in real life, and cisgender¹Cisgender is a term for people whose gender identity matches their sex assigned at birth. (see Wikipedia) women are almost nonexistent on Vetita.

For me personally, I didn't choose a female avatar when I created my account.

I'm not really that fond of huge tits or the whole menstruation package.

The best way to describe the biology of my avatar is that I'm intersex²Intersex people are individuals born with any of several variations in sex characteristics including chromosomes, gonads, sex hormones or genitals that, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit the typical definitions for male or female bodies". (see Wikipedia).

It's commonly referred to as hermaphrodism³In reproductive biology, a hermaphrodite is an organism that has complete or partial reproductive organs and produces gametes normally associated with both male and female sexes. (see Wikipedia) or futanari⁴Futanari is the Japanese word for hermaphroditism, which is also used in a broader sense for androgyny. (see Wikipedia), although I do not have ovaries or breasts. Generally speaking, the overall structure of my body is male, but I have an additional frontal slit in the area of my perineum. Since my sexual preference is for men, and I find it more convenient to have a sexual organ that is better designed for receptive sex. While I don't have any issues with anal, personally I think it feels better doing it with a vagina.

Yeah... please don't judge me for my fetishes...

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Later in the morning, I examined my naked body while washing myself.

I had spent the previous night running around subterranean tunnels and setting things on fire, so my fur was covered with soot, ash, and other forms of grime. I'm a little bit a clean freak, and I hate the feeling of being dirty. In some ways, Vetita has the technology level of the Middle Ages, and you wouldn't believe how rarely some of the mercenaries wash themselves. Some men are just filthy, and I don't understand how people can bath just once a year and wear the same set of sweaty clothes every day of the week.

Master's cabin has a small lavatory, so I locked myself in the tiny bathroom and transformed into my human form.

There isn't enough space for a bathtub or shower stall, so I mostly just scrubbed myself with a wet towel.

My owner picked up a small bar of lavender scented soap the last time we were in Andeluscia, but that's pretty much the extent of the vanities that I use on a regular basis. The nice thing about guys is that we're low maintenance, and it doesn't take a lot for @Jasper to keep me happy. For the most part, he leaves me alone, and I manage to keep everything else fairly tidy.

Since we share a bedroom, I have a certain amount of freedom to decorate the room and make things comfortable. There's nowhere else on the airship that I can go without being heckled by mercenaries, so the cabin is my private space as much as it is my owner's. I'm fortunate that my master seems to tolerate my sensibilities, and he's never complained about any of my behavior in our shared space.

I think you can probably tell that I like @Jasper a lot.

He's really gentle and he's one of the best owners that I've ever had.

I'm aware of my limits though.

There are certain boundaries in our relationship that I know I can't cross.

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When the door to @Jasper's bedroom opened without warning, I dropped everything I was doing and immediately shifted back into my cat form.

I transformed so quickly that there wasn't even any time to think.

The hair brush that I was holding clattered to the wooden floor.

However, I was too late, and my master seemed to have glimpsed a flash of my naked humanoid body. He immediately froze at the entrance.

There was a certain amount of awkwardness in the air when my owner realized that I was cleaning myself in the bedroom, and the unspoken tension was blatantly obvious. He clearly wasn't expecting to see me exposed like that, and I could tell from our mental link that he was uncomfortable.

Although he's never explicitly instructed me to permanently stay in my animal form, I picked up the hints early on that @Jasper preferred to see me as an animal. Our relationship is purely platonic, and I think sometimes my Master tries convince himself that I'm just a regular cat. It probably takes an incredible amount of mental gymnastics to sustain that kind of wishful thinking, but living in this world is extremely stressful for most people. Sometimes, having an ordinary unremarkable pet is all that a tired burnt-out guy wants.

@Jasper stared intently at my small feline form, and then he sighed.

"Fiie." He muttered my name.

The stone-cold merchant went quiet again.

He sat down on the edge of the bed and looked at me with a complicated expression on his face.

I usually slept curled up against him  during the night. My fluffy body is warm like a radiator, and the gentle physical contact is luxurious, especially since so many of us have spent all these years (and even decades) alone on this hellhole of a server. There basically aren't any cis women here, so a lot of men end up in dry spells stuck inside in this loveless prison world with too much angry testosterone.

Since I'm in my cat form, it's probably not gay.

I'm pretty sure my master is 98% straight.

Can't you see how we have a little bit of a problem?

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