Page 1 of Felix

Prologue

Three Months Ago

Emil

Change sucks. I know I’m not the only one who feels this way. Most creatures in the animal kingdom operate on schedule. Routine. Humans are no different.

This human especially.

“Goddamn it,” I mutter, stubbing my toe for the third time as I navigate my new kitchen. Who the hell thought putting an island in such a small space was a good idea? “Hate this. Hate moving. Hate unpacking. You’ve got it easy, Arthur.”

My hermit crab doesn’t respond.

“No, really. You didn’t have to give up any of your cushy rocks, whereas my entire world got upended. And now I have a giant boulder where I don’t want one.”

I glare at the island as I stick some mixing bowls inside a cabinet next to the fridge.

“And before you say it, I know we didn’t have a choice. We had to move,” I grumble. “Asbestos is no joke. Doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it.”

Arthur still doesn’t respond.

“And look at that. I’m having a one-sided conversation with a hermit crab. Again.”

I sigh, wondering how it came to this. Actually, scratch that. I know exactly who’s to blame for the fact that I now converse with a crustacean on the regular.

“This is all Alex’s fault,” I moan. I never would have brought Sir Arthurpod home if it weren’t for my coworker, who took one look at the hermit crab and declared him my perfect companion.

I don’t know what that says about Alex’s opinion of me.

I don’t know what it says about me that he was maybe right.

“Probably that I’m a lonely soon-to-be grad student who craves even the smallest sliver of attention and companionship despite my fear of abandonment and, subsequently, true intimacy?”

I let out another sigh. Psych major for the win.

Folding the last of my moving boxes, I head out into the living room, stopping to set the cardboard on the pile to be recycled. Arthur is burrowed into the coarse sand at one end of his terrarium, only the top of his spiral shell exposed. Probably wasn’t even listening to me. I check his water, adding a bit to top it off, and then head for my new bedroom. I try not to cringe as I step inside the unfamiliar space. Unlike Arthur, I couldn’t carry my home with me on my back. The walls in here are white and undecorated, there’s a single window on one side of the room that looks onto the neighboring building across the alley, and the bookshelves are unorganized and half bare.

This time, I do cringe, unable to leave my textbooks piled on the floor as they are. I stack them on the shelves, ordered alphabetically by subject matter and then author, and only once they’re resting in their proper place do I let myself fall into bed.

It’s late, it’s been a long day of moving, my coworkers who helped me are gone, and I should get some rest. Or…

My eyes catch on my open nightstand drawer, and I roll that way, peering inside. Snatching the lube, I roll back and make quick work of unbuttoning and pushing down my pants.

Perks of living alone, aside from my hermit crab, of course: no need for closed doors.

My head hits the pillow as I wrap a wet hand around my dick. It doesn’t take long before I’m fully hard. Rucking up my shirt, I squeeze and roll my nipple while I brace my legs wide, giving myself leverage to fuck up into my fist. Unlike at the studio, I don’t bother making a production out of it, but a groan still escapes my throat as heat pools low in my stomach with each pass of my cock through the tight ring of my hand. I lick my thumb before rolling it over my nipple again, the wet warmth sending a zing down my spine. In no time at all, I’m coming apart, ropes of cum painting my bare abdomen and chest.

Spent—and sticky—I pull in a breath. And then another. My body rolls in an aftershock.

“Well,” I mutter, glasses sitting askew on my nose. “Suppose that’s one way to christen the place.”

The letter comes the next day.

“What are you?” I ask, staring at the innocuous white envelope taped to the outside of my apartment door as if it will magically explain itself. Probably a flyer from a local business.

I snag it off the surface and continue inside, my arms laden down with grocery bags from my early-morning shopping run. With my curiosity getting the better of me, I leave the food on the counter and open the envelope.

I pull in a sharp breath as I read the handwritten scrawl on the carefully folded paper. Not a solicitation. Not a professional one, at least.

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