"I'm sorry Tom. I just don't think there's a market for your material."
Tom sat in his study, a bottle of beer in one hand and a pencil in the other, and relived the words the guy at Golden Gate Books had told him.
"Bastard."
He'd taken his portfolio to all the comic publishing houses in the area without success, why should the book houses pay him any more interest? He was a fool for trying. He stared at the artwork infront of him. He'd started drawing Bliss again, without even realising. He had many characters, but Bliss was special. Just by drawing her, he felt more relaxed. His finger touched the paper and traced the exaggerated - no, he would have said voluptuous, perfect - curve of her naked figure. She reclined across the page, not a drawing, but a living, healing creature. Her personality flowed into his conciousness; honest, kind and submissive, fun-loving but not immature or selfish, not like that bitch Pamela. Bliss understood him, looked after him. Not that he'd admit it to anyone - they'd lock him up, or stop him from seeing Kelly anymore - but he found himself talking to Bliss on more than one occasion. He'd come home from working in that stupid office, full of jerks and pigs and sluts, and spill his guts to her, complain about every part of his miserable insignificant day at work. And she'd give him that heart-melting sympathetic look, and tell him that everything would be okay, and she'd always be there for him, never leave. She was the only girl in the world who cared about him anymore. Everyone else had stopped more than ten years ago.
He sipped his beer and began to draw another picture of Bliss.
Tom Parker had always wanted to make comics for a living. He'd even moved to America from London on the advice of a friend that it would be easier to market his work there. But all he got was rejection from every publishing house he sent his portfolio to. He moved to the west to California and kept trying. He took up a job in a telesales office to pay his way. Just until he could realise his dream, he'd told himself.
He began with the shape of her head, a perfect almond, tilted to the right in empathy. He added Bliss' beautiful, large eyes. They were light, and shone like a crystal hit by a beam of light, and were always full of emotion. He drew them looking out of the paper, sympathetic and loving.
It never occured to him that his dream may never happen. The frustration of rejection mounted up, and his rage took over him. He scared off every one of his friends, bar one. Pamela stood by him, no matter what he said or did. They grew close, soon she was his only friend and his sole confidant.
Bliss had plump, moist lips. He pursed them, and suddenly she was pensive and concerned with his well-being. He smiled, and gave her her delicate nose.
That all changed the night they got horrendously drunk and slept together. The confusion that followed almost drove them apart, until Pamela found out she was pregnant. Whatever his faults were, Tom at least knew to do the right thing. Three months later they were married, nine months later Pamela gave birth to Kelly, their daughter.
She had long hair that reached the middle of her back, pale and soft. Light that shone on it made it shimmer and shine with a subtle glow, almost of its own. Tom drew her ears, long and drooping, but well shaped and covered in downy fur. He laid one so it fell in front of her left eye, heightening the emotion of her face.
It was about that time that Tom realised he realy did love Pam, and for the first time in a long time he was happy. Unfortunately, it wasn't going to last. A month after his 30th birthday, Tom came home from work one day to find Pamela standing in the hallway with her suitcases packed. Kelly was just 7 years old at the time, so Pamela asked Tom to step outside and talk with her, out of earshot of the child. There she told him she'd fallen in love with someone else. She was leaving him. She was taking Kelly with her, but he could see her at the weekends if he liked. And she wanted a divorce.
Her placed her slender shoulders facing front and sketched the sides of her slender torso, before her hips tapered to become twice as wide as her trunk at their widest point. Although it wasn't visible from this perspective, he lightly extended the curve of her hips to outline the shape of her round, firm butt. He also added a hint of her puffy ball of a tail, which sat snuggly on top of her buttocks, because she wouldn't be complete without it.
Numb and in shock, Tom agreed to all her terms. The first weekend he went to pick Kelly up, he met Pam's new interest. Graham. A bleach-blond muscle-god, barely 20 if a day, all about weights and gym shoes and healthy eating. Pamela proudly stated she was now a vegetarian. Tom smiled politely and quietly insisted that Pam drop Kelly off at his house in the future.
Each of Bliss' thighs were almost as wide as her torso each, and her calf muscles were also pronounced. She approached slightly, right foot ahead of left, enhancing the concerned expression of her face. Her feet were small and very human.
That was nine years ago, and Graham is married to Pamela now. Probably jumps her bones every chance he gets, that perverted little runt.
The massive orbs of flesh that stood on Bliss' chest were larger than her beautiful head, if just a little. They were fur-covered and proud, unafraid of gravity and resistant to its lure, like two perfect spheres until cushioned and distorted by something, or someone. The soft fur that covered her entire body was absent from her small, discreet nipples. Her left arm rose above her ample bosom and lay over her heart, while her other rested on the inside of her right thigh, near her tidily-groomed snatch.
Tom looked at the finished portrait of his companion, loving and caring and hoping and fearing and loyal, and he sighed. "I'm almost 40," Tom said to himself, "and I've spent the past twenty years chasing my dream. And it's no closer now than it ever has been. It looks like the world's not ready for you and your friends, Bliss."
He glanced at the clock. The digital display read 22:08, Saturday the 20th. Just five minutes and a whole day fast, he thought, just how I like it. Wait, saturday! That means I can see Kelly and Pam tomorrow! I'd best get some sleep, wake up nice and early.
"Goodnight, Bliss," he said to the picture in front of him, before kissing the bunnygirl's face. He switched the light off on his way out and locked the study behind him.
Naryanne smiled to herself. Jealousy, bitterness, rage, loneliness, regret, he was perfect...
