When I lost my job and joined the army, I didn't think I'd ever see any real combat. With the Islamic State already bombed to hell and everything gone quiet in the Ukraine, I expected to be pushing papers around an office somewhere with an occasional visit to a firing range.



Well, I saw combat alright, but can you really call it combat when your side gets its ass resoundingly kicked? In our defence we were up against an army we hadn't been trained to fight: an army of monsters from another dimension. Not tentacled monstrosities (although there were a few kooky looking things like that among them) - real monsters, like in the storybooks: centaurs and harpies and fox people and wolf people and lizard people. Our war was against a bunch of fairytales, and like in the fairytales they had magic.



Oh yeah, and dragons. It turned out tanks and helicopter gunships were no match against dragons. Nothing's really a match for dragons.



Don't ask me for any details of this first battle against the Therians: you probably know more about it than I do, especially if you've ever watched more than five minutes of the History Channel. No, I didn't really see much combat since I ended up on the receiving end of the swing of a dragon's tail about five minutes into our initial engagement. I was knocked off my feet into the air and when I landed everything went black.



----------



Being dead didn't seem so bad. I was aching all over but I was also warm and everything was peaceful, except for a rather annoying beeping sound.



Beep. Beep. Beep.



I opened my eyes and realised I wasn't dead. I was in a hospital, lying in a bed with the sheets pulled up to my neck.



I grabbed the sheet and pulled it off. I wanted to check if I had everything. Apart from the bandage around my torso everything was where it should be. I made doubly sure my dick was still there.



A leg I could do without, damn, even a leg and an arm. But I was very attached to my dick.



I lay back. My ribs ached. So that explained the bandage. I lifted a hand to my head. Yeah, another bandage there, too. I must have landed on my head after taking that spill thanks to the dragon.



I lay there wondering what had happened to everyone else. There was a curtain around my bed so I couldn't see how full the ward was. From what I'd seen there had to be more casualties, though.



The curtain was swept aside while I was looking at it and a woman dressed in white walked in, her face buried in a clipboard. Ah, the doctor. She'd have some answers.



"How are you feeling?" she asked, not bothering to look up.



"Okay I guess," I said. "My ribs are aching like hell, though. Say, doc, how did the battle end up? We won, right?"



Soft laughter from the doctor. "I'm afraid not."



She looked up from her clipboard and I saw then that she wasn't human. Her skin was green, shimmering with the soft glistening of scales. Her eyes were large and turqoise, the pupils slitted like a reptile's. I scrambled back away from her and she smiled with a mouth full of needle-sharp teeth.



"Don't be alarmed," she said. "You're safe here. Your government has surrendered to us unconditionally so you're no longer an enemy."



I slumped back against the head of the bed. "We... we lost?"



She nodded. "Badly."



I relaxed, then. So the war was over. I'd survived. We'd lost, but I'd survived.



"So when are you sending me back home?" I asked.



The doctor chuckled. "Oh, you're not going home. The surrender was unconditional. As soon as you're well enough to work, you'll be found a job suited to your abilities."



"You're enslaving us?"



The lizard woman sighed. "'Enslavement' is such an unpleasant word. Think of it as more of a 'hostile takeover'. The Therian Empire has a labour shortage, so you'll be working for us, now."



"As a soldier?"



She gave my arm a squeeze and laughed. "Not likely with those puny muscles! Now get some rest and heal up quickly."



She turned and pulled the curtain closed with her long, scaly green tail.



----



The hospital filled up with wounded soldiers quickly and I soon learned that what the scaly doctor had said was true: we'd lost the war only a short while after it had begun. Most of the guys, like me, were resigned to their fate, but some caused trouble. That only happened a few times, since an alarm would spread through the ward and orderlies would appear - oni, I learned later - and the troublemakers would be manhandled and swiftly sedated.



I wasn't in the ward for long. Their medicine was better than ours and there was some magic involved, too, although it seemed my wounds weren't serious enough to need magic beyond some cursory scans. The doctor gave me a clean bill of health and I was escorted out of the hospital.



My first view of the world outside as I was bundled onto their equivalent of a bus and driven away was a shock to the system. I was in a big city, with tall buildings all around, but unlike our blocky skyscrapers the buildings here in the Therian Capital were whimsical masses of minarets and spires. The streets were filled with monster people of every variety, the air, too, with flying monsters such as harpies and tiny fairies. Occasionally, a huge dragon would pass overhead.



I sat at the window gawking with my fellow passengers. But our awe and amazement at the sights was tempered by the anxiety of the fate awaiting us.



The bus arrived at a large building and we were escorted off. Although we felt like prisoners, we weren't shackled: I guess we had nowhere to go even if we did escape.



We were taken into a room and told to sit down in front of a huge screen. We watched a movie which told us all about the world we'd found ourselves in.



The guy beside me jogged me with an elbow. "Hey, buddy. You noticed how almost all the important jobs here are done by women?"



I had noticed. The officer who was in charge of us here was a woman as well, a wolf person - a lupine, I knew now. The movie told us all about the different species that inhabited this world. There were dozens of different therians, as they were called: minotaurs and vampires and medusas and slime-people and so on. I'm sure you'd probably meet all of the different species just by visiting a major city these days, but back then they were all new to us.



The doctor, who I now knew was of the dragonnewt species, hadn't been lying when she said that this world needed manpower. That, at least according to the movie, was their justification for conquering our world, although like the doctor the movie referred to it as a 'takeover'.



There was a lot of information to take in. After a break we were taken to a room and interviewed individually about ourselves, our skills and experience, and given personality tests. The whole process reminded me of a job interview. Some of the questions were pretty personal and bizarre.



We were then marched into a hall and divided into different groups. I was left standing with a bunch of guys who must have tested out as being similar to me.



I looked about me. Damn, this was humiliating.



"So what do you have for me?"



The voice was low but feminine, and I turned to see a female therian approach our group escorted by the dragonnewt in charge of us. Unlike some of the monsters I'd seen she wasn't all that different from a human. The first thing you noticed, though, were those two pointy ears poking up from the red-gold hair on her head and the light brown fur on her body. Her eyes were slanted, a deep gold, and she had a little snout which crinkled up as she looked us over. But by far her most unmistakeable and striking feature was her tail. It was long and tufted, ending in that thick brush that foxes have.



So this was a vulpine. I remembered from the video we'd watched that the fox people were called vulpines. She was clearly a civilian professional: dressed in a white blouse and a dark grey pencil skirt she was likely a business woman of some kind. I guess it makes sense that all humanoid creatures would end up wearing similar clothes. She was really quite shapely, with a nice pair of hips on her that balanced her not unsubstantial bust.



The vulpine looked us over in turn. When she came to me her lip curled and she turned to the dragonnewt beside her.



"Is this really all you've got?"



The dragonnewt glanced on her clipboard. "I'm afraid so. The human soldier-types are not really well-suited for domestic work, so there's only these until we start bringing in civilian prisoners."



The vulpine sighed. "Well, I guess this one will have to do." She grabbed me by the upper arm and I flinched, which elicited a chuckle from her.



"Ha! Don't worry, I'm not going to eat you or anything." She grinned at me, her gold eyes gleamed with mockery



"I know that," I said. But did I really know that? Her smiling mouth was filled with canine teeth. Maybe this whole job-interview thing had been a trick and we'd just been examined and weighed to see what dish we'd be best suited to be cooked into.



She took my chin in her hand and looked me over. "You humans really are funny looking. Like a diminutive oni without horns." She ran her finger through my hair ungently. "No, no horns."



"Humans don't have horns," I said.



"Humans don't have horns, mistress."



"Excuse me?"



She chuckled. "Don't play dumb. You're to refer to me as 'mistress' from now on. You understand, don't you?"



Humiliated, but sensible enough to realise that arguing would not do me any good, I replied, "Yes, mistress."



"Come on then," she said. She glanced at the dragonnewt. "I'll be taking this one, then. He seems to have some good upper body strength." She squeezed my arm tightly and then dropped it with a chuckle when I gasped in pain.



She was stronger than she looked, and those long nails of hers were sharp as claws.



She strode from the room and I followed her. As I walked behind her, I had the opportunity to appreciate her tail as it wagged back and forth. It was poking through a hole in her pencil skirt and I guessed there had to be a similar hole in her underwear for it to fit through as well.



I felt a familiar stirring. Ha. Even in this dire situation, being enslaved, I was thinking with my dick. I'd read there was some evolutionary advantage thing where humans get hornier in times of stress. I had no idea what was going to happen to me, but slavery, I figured, was better than being dead or maimed.



Now, you might think less of me for saying that: I mean, what happened to "death before dishonour"? Well, put yourself in my situation. Sometimes you just need to survive. Was I really going to wrest a weapon from one of these monster people, fight my way out, go underground and somehow work out a way to get back to Earth?



Anyway, Earth was already conquered. Hadn't the dragonnewt said they were waiting for their first consignment of civilian prisoners?



I figured I'd keep my head down and wait it all out. A chance to escape might present itself at any moment.



She led me out of the building to her waiting car. Their cars were pretty similar to our own and this one was a luxury model. So the 'mistress' was rich. I was standing at the door wondering just how to open it when she clicked her teeth in annoyance and grabbed my hand. She placed it on the door and thin lines appeared in the finish and a handle popped out.



"Uh, okay," I said.



"I don't usually open doors for servants," said my mistress with a sniff to a question I hadn't really asked. "Remember how to do it next time."



I watched the city fly past the window from the back seat and rubbed at my arm, which was still sore from her earlier grabbing. She was strong. And yet her hand, when she'd placed it on mine, had been gentle. I'd also noticed a strong scent when she'd come close to me - not an unpleasant musky one like foxes back on Earth have, but a warm, spicy smell, her natural fragrance rather than a perfume.



We drove in silence for a while. When we stopped at an intersection she glanced back at me and said, "I guess all of this is a bit of a shock."



"A bit," I said.



Her pretty golden eyes narrowed. "You don't talk much, do you?"



"Not really, mistress," I said, which was true.



"Well, you'll have to learn to," she said. "I don't want you walking around doing your work in total silence like some kind of golem." She sighed. "Golems are terrible company." The sign visible through the windscreen remained an X as the opposing traffic continued to flow by and she looked back at me again. "You humans have names, right?"



"We do, mistress," I said, and I told her mine.



"Strange name," she said. "And a bit too long. I don't think I'll be able to remember it. I suppose I'll just have to call you human."



No names, just human and mistress. I frowned at the first taste of what slavery was like.



The X became an O and we drove on.



-------------



She lived in an apartment, a nice one on the upper floor with a view over the city. As I said before, the city was full of whimsical buildings, and so the skyline visible through the window was like an illustration out of a child's picture book. If you've ever visited a Therian city, you'll know what I mean. The sort of thing no human had seen outside of their imagination until then.



My amazement amused my 'mistress', who watched me in silence from where she'd thrown herself on the couch.



After a while she got up and took me on a tour of the apartment, explaining my duties to me: as a domestic servant, I was to keep the apartment clean and tidy and organised at all times.



She showed me the kitchen. "Can you prepare food?" she asked.



"Not well, mistress," I said.



She laughed. "You can't be worse than me," she said. "That will be your job, too."



I glanced about the room. There was a workbench and a pantry and a refrigerator and some machines I couldn't identify, but something was missing. Then I realised: there was no oven.



I commented on the fact and the vulpine laughed. "Oh, of course. Humans prefer their food cooked, don't you?" She grabbed my chin and peeled back my lips. "Such blunt, helpless teeth, like a kit's milk teeth. No wonder you put up such a poor fight. You've devolved." She let go. "No, vulpines, like all civilised creatures, eat flesh. You will learn how to prepare it."



She opened up the refrigerator - it was actually more a freezer and filled with different cuts of meat. I figured I was expected to cut it much like a sushi chef cuts sashimi. I could probably do that. I was happy, though, when she shut the freezer. I wasn't sure which animal the meat had come from and my imagination had started to run wild.



The 'mistress' then took me down some stairs to a lower level of the apartment. This floor seemed to be used for storing things, like a basement. She opened a door and with a click of her fingers activated the light.



"This is your room."



The room was simple, with only a bed and a small desk. There was no window. It was intentionally sparse in comparison to the rest of the apartment. You couldn't call it a dungeon exactly, but it was no gilded cage.



She looked me up and down then took hold of the hem of my shirt. I was still wearing the clothes I'd been given in the hospital. "I'll have a uniform made for you," she said. She went to leave but stopped and grabbed my hand.



"No fur or scales.," she muttered, running her fingers across my skin. "You must feel the cold. I'll have the material of the uniform cut thick."



She dropped my hand, her golden eyes glittering in amusement at my surprise. "Get some sleep, human. I will train you in the rest of your duties later."



I didn't need to be told twice. I was exhausted and as soon as she left I crashed onto the bed and was asleep when my head hit the pillow.



----



I wasn't allowed to sleep very long. The 'mistress' was one of those workaholic types who demand the same of everyone around them. She took me through my duties, showing me how she liked things done. The tasks seemed pretty straightforward, although there were a lot of them. The apartment was not small and there were many places that needed to be kept clean and orderly.



A particular problem was the mistress' fur. I noticed little red hairs everywhere and when I stared too long at a patch on the arm of the sofa, she grew embarrassed. For a moment I saw something like vulnerability in those wide gold eyes, but they quickly grew hard again.



"It's moulting season," she said. "So some hair loss is unavoidable. Be sure to get all of it."



I told her I would. Although I felt humiliated, I had to maintain my servile façade if I was going to orchestrate an escape. I was laughing inside, though, at this embarrassing problem unique to fox-people.



She left me to my work. As she walked away I found my eyes drawn to her tail again. It really was thick and fluffy. I wondered if she wagged it like a dog when she was happy. No doubt it'd be nice to touch. Those pointy ears of hers, too.



Heh. I wondered if I could incapacitate her by scratching behind them.



An image sprang into my mind of the 'mistress' splayed out, her head in my lap, her leg shivering in pleasure as I ran my nails over an itchy spot behind one of her long, pointed ears.



Rather than funny, the idea was extremely arousing. Sure, she was a fox person, but despite the alien differences she was very beautiful. Actually, I'd decided the alien parts of her were what made her beautiful: they were a touch of the exotic, like when a woman has a beauty spot or a wonky tooth or some other feature that makes her all the more intriguing.



Yeah, she was good looking. Shame she was such a bitch, though.



Wait, no. A bitch was a female dog. She was a... what do they call a female fox?



Oh yeah. A vixen.



After she left the apartment I got to work cleaning the place. It was good to have something to do, since it distracted me from thoughts of my future. The vixen's apartment was not too different from one of our own, and I noted the lack of feminine knick-knacks and the overall Spartan orderliness of it. It was a high-powered business woman's apartment, with appliances in the kitchen that had barely been used, a wardrobe filled with expensive clothes, business attire and slinky dresses and the rest, and of course a cupboard dedicated to her shoes. She had piles of shoes.



I did a lot of snooping around: I was lucky my job was to make sure everything was in the right place and just as she liked it, since it gave me a great opportunity to find some means of escape. I wasn't looking for a secret tunnel or anything like that, but some information I could use in the future.



No luck. I moved from her bedroom to the bathroom. Here that sterile neatness was abandoned, as you often find in a woman's living space: there was a miniature cityscape of shower gel, shampoo, conditioner and so on in the shower caddy and a similar, smaller one made up of creams and moisturisers and the like beside the sink. I couldn't read the labels, but I've lived with women before and a cautionary sniff and examination revealed what everything was. The 'mistress' was not at all different to a human woman in that regard. In fact, one of the few things I found that was in any way unusual was an electric razor such as a guy would have. But then, she was covered in that soft velvety fur. She probably had to shave herself regularly.



I felt a rush of excitement at the image that sprung to mind of the mistress with her leg up on the bath, shaving herself neatly between the legs. Based on what I'd already seen, her anatomy was similar to a human's. I mean, she had boobs and hips and everything, so she probably had a neat little pussy as well.



I shook my head. What the hell was I thinking? I returned to my work and did a good job cleaning the bathroom. I didn't want to arouse any suspicion by doing a half-assed job, and I've always been someone that does things properly out of principle.

