Beyond the Backstage - Nekondom LTD

March 2068. After a scathing TV report about his progeny, Reno Gattonero organizes a meeting with the mother of one of his children - one that could help him turn the tables on a massive corporation and expose a backrooms deal that threatens the well-being of all nekos.

“I’m glad you had time for this meeting, Re-I mean, Mr. Gattonero.”

“Reno’s fine. Don’t force it.”

Gattonero squinted his eyes, his ears twitched a couple more times. His face turned once again into what could be described as an enigmatic grimace suspended between tiredness and ‘sick of it all’. He wagged his tail on the dusty sofa, avoiding the patches and the rips left by a daughter too eager to train her claws on something soft years ago. Said daughter was now playing snooker with her two younger sisters, keeping a billiard stick in her hands while side-eyeing him. The fur of her tail and ears was swollen, as if nervousness ran through all of her body. Gattonero sighed. Corinne had all the rights in the world to be mad at him. And so had Claire. And Bea too. All three of them were gathered around the pool table, hitting white balls alternately while never letting their gaze off him and his unexpected guests. Among the three, Bea was the one that stood out the most. The tallest, fittest sister, with neck-length black hair and a darker skin hue inherited from her Persian mother. She was rarely in Euterpe and, when she was, she usually slept at her mother’s place. Pamil and Reno were still in good standings and had a solid working relationship, so that wasn’t a problem per se. The problem was that Bea didn’t like children. And – lo and behold – Claire’s critters were visiting their grandpa way too often for her comfort. Even now, they were tucked inside their stroller, peeking out of it at irregular intervals to play with their mother’s tail. Something akin to a smile escaped Reno’s lips. That would have been a good family picture, all things considered. Shame that his almost son-in-law wasn’t there too and was – instead – spending his time looking for intel on Mr. Magnifico’s whereabouts. Though, maybe it was for the best. If anything, having one more person in that cramped office would have been a problem. Between him, his three adult daughters, his guest and her two bodyguards, there was barely room to breath.

Gattonero gazed at the woman sitting in front of him on an armchair with more years than glory. Of course, she was staring at him in turn. Her hazel irises were sparkling, shining even, while long hair of the same color fell on her pink, frilly dress and her dark skin, almost the same tone as Bea’s middle eastern complexion. And, of course, her belly was swollen. Seven months pregnant.

Of a neko child.

His child.

Gattonero shrugged, chewed his catnip cigar, put it out in the ashtray.

“‘sides, I’m the one happy you had time to come and visit me here, Vivi. Especially with – you know – you being…”

“…we don’t talk about my title.”

“Well, maybe we should.”

Or you should have told me before I knocked you up, his mind chimed in. Yet, the woman called Vivi didn’t seem angered by that remark. If anything, she giggled even louder, surrounded by two hulking brutes that were standing at her sides. Gattonero’s eyes moved between them, trying to figure them out. On her right, a tall, imposing blue shoiga with feathers around her neck and arms the size of a sequoia, wearing a black tuxedo on a white shirt. On her left, a bald guy with sunglasses and twirled mustache, almost as tall as the shoiga but not quite as much, rocking the same fit. Both with arms crossed. Both with an earpiece. Gattonero idly gazed outside of the broken window. Of course, there had to be a sniper or two in place. Maybe, even unbeknownst to Vivi. She was surprisingly naive and good natured, for the position she occupied. That part of her didn’t change, and the proof was that visit she paid him, just because he sent her a message as soon as she landed in Euterpe for an official visit. The Italian prime minister would have had to wait a while longer, but that was a Vivi problem – not a Gattonero one.

Vivi’s hand danced on her belly, while she wore her best smile, looking around the office as if she were in an amusement park. Her eyes sparked with energy at every little detail, be it the Bible that kept the billiard table from falling off, the raunchy calendars Gattonero had plastered everywhere, the burn marks on the kitchenette or even Corinne’s ‘fuck the police’ t-shirt. Gattonero had to give it to her: her smile was as radiant as seven months ago. He slumped on the sofa, taking care of flashing his abs and pecs – not wearing any shirt as usual. That alone caused Vivi’s bodyguard to look at him menacingly, but the fact that Vivi enjoyed that sight and proudly said that forced them to relent. Gattonero couldn’t contain a grin. Not even from that side had Vivi changed. Yet, she was different now. There was an abyss between him and that twenty-four year old woman who was bearing his child in her womb. An abyss as large as the distance between Earth and Pluto, no less.

“This place hasn’t changed at all. It feels strange to be here again.”

“Renovation works cost a lot. And, well, it’s not that I swim in money. The agency is barely breaking even, with all the goddamn expenses. Plus, you know, competition.”

“You mean the Igarashi Supernatural…”

“Stop right there.”

“But their internet promos are so cool!”

“Don’t say that ever again.”

Gattonero aimed his finger at the three nekos pretending to play snooker, while instead trying to catch any and every scraps of information their ears could snatch.

“See, my almost-son-in-law and those three disasters there help me a lot with everything… when they don’t get pregnant too, I mean.”

A cracking noise echoed among the walls. Claire’s stick was broken in half, her hands pulling the two parts away with what looked like a feral yet tranquil fury. Her eyes burned with fiery rage, as she pointed her index in the direction of her dad.

“Oh, s’il te plaît! You are la dernière person who can talk, papa!”

Corinne nodded, crossed her arms, stood behind her little sister.

“Yeah! At least Claire got rawdogged just once! Not, you know, forty-nine – pardon, fifty times!”

Gattonero squinted his eyes, growled. His fingers caressed the heavy, turtle-shaped ashtray laying on the desk in front of the sofa. For a long instant, he considered throwing it at them. Then, he took a deep breath. Very deep. They couldn’t know it, of course, but that was the reason Vivi was there. Because something didn’t add up. Instead of throwing a heavy object at his daughters and risking a family trip to the closest hospital, Gattonero browsed the pocket of his black cargo pants and pulled out a small, discolored carton box. A picture of two mating lions towered on top of it, orange silhouettes on black, featureless background. The word ‘PRIDE’ written in capital letters of the same orange hue peeked over the lions. A pinkish, dried-up smudge sullied one of the sides of the small container. Gattonero stared at it for a couple seconds, glancing at the black and orange envelope, letting out a huff. Then, he threw it at Vivi, making it land on her pink dress, between her belly and her breasts. She grabbed the small box, stared at it with a puzzled expression. All while her two bodyguards gasped in unison, almost screaming, overshadowing each other’s utterance, shouting, pointing fingers at Gattonero.

“Goodness gracious, you filthy savage commoner! How do you dare throwing a box of… of…”

“Oh god, they are… condoms?!”

“…of condoms! Yes, of condoms…”

“…to… to Her Highness, Queen Vivian of England?!”

The atmosphere froze. Claire. Corinne. Bea. The two bodyguards. Absolute silence. Gattonero kept his eyes trained on Vivi. Vivi frowned a little, before meeting his eyes again.

“Reno, I’m seven months pregnant. Even—even if I’d like to, I’m not sure…”

“Vivi, please…”

He groaned, hid his head between his arms, his voice fading to a whisper.

“…tell them. Tell them that we used protections.”

Vivi gazed at him again, then at the box. She gasped audibly, her eyes opened wide.

“Oh, wait! This—this is the box we opened together! There’s still the lipstick mark I left here!”

“…it is.”

Silence.

Silence fell again.

Everything still.

Reno Gattonero. Vivi. The guy with the mustache. The shoiga. Bea. Claire. Even the turtle-shaped ashtray.

Corinne was the first to unfreeze. Her eyes shifted from her father to the self-proclaimed Queen Vivian, back to her father, back to the box of condoms. She blinked. Once. Twice. Before laser focusing on Vivi’s belly, then back to the box, then back to her belly, then back to her father again. Then, a inhuman yell escaped her lips, pulling out all the air left in her lungs in a long, protracted bellowing shriek.

“…what the nyaaaaa?!”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“Yes.”

“But this makes no…”

“Yes.”

That was all Gattonero had to say.

Yes.

A word that told a story longer and more complex than it should have. A story that was slowly coming out of his throat, word by word.

“Kittens, you never believed me, right? All excuses blah, décevant blah, you’re an idiot dad blah, vasectomy blah. No matter how many times I tried. So I guess having the fuckin’ Queen of England vouch for me is enough? Now you believe me, goddamnya?”

Vivi stood still, keeping the box in her hands, meeting the tired gaze of the black-haired neko.

“…Reno…?”

“…all of this makes no sense. Nothing. Zilch. Nada. You, heck, even that freakish Frida Freakarashi––I used protections with both of you! And now, I’m a father again? Twice? Maybe more? The world must be playing a prank on me. I hoped you were joking when rumors said you were pregnant. But no, unless there’s a pillow under your dress, I’ve fucked something up again.”

He crossed his fingers in front of his eyes, slapped his tail on the desk.

“That’s why I need your help, Vivi. Because I think I know what happened, where the fault lies. And, fuck it, I’m not gonna leave things as they are.”

His voice turned into a growl, its pitch lowered, the words almost chewed between his fangs.

“Not when we could even not be the only victims.”

**

It had to be a month ago, at most two. That thought never graced Gattonero’s brain before, despite all the circumstantial evidence. Yet, one fortunate coincidence changed his mind, made him dig deeper. And, as all of Gattonero’s eureka moments, it all started with a one night stand – the ninth of that year—or was it the tenth? Still, the first after that damning TV special about his progeny.

He was sitting on the bed with just a latex condom on, smoking a catnip cigar right after the act, trying to replace the smell of sweat with a sweeter scent. The blinders were half down, with just a little sunlight peeking into the cramped, fourth-rate, dusty motel room, together with the intermittent glow of the neon sign right close to it. A nondescript shape moved in the shadows, in the corner of his eye. Cockroaches. It had to be cockroaches. He was sure he even spotted a headless one, the night before, chased by two bigger specimens. The toilet was clogged too – which wasn’t a surprise, seen how cheap a room was. The smoke detectors bolted to the walls hadn’t been working since the late fifties and were never replaced. That was why he always went there, when he needed a mating place. Casual sex and a smoke right after, surrounded by the noise of cars sprinting through the southern beltline, all while the fan spun lazily above him, be it fall, summer or spring. At least, the floor heating worked decently well, which was a boon in the dead of winter. Gattonero liked that place. Dirty, sure, but quiet, inexpensive and far from peeping eyes. His office was a no go, lest he stumbled upon his daughter using it as a mating place too – something that happened embarrassingly often, especially when it came to Corinne and her partner. Gattonero drew a puff of catnip, exhaled a thick cloud of smoke. That Alexiel his daughter was dating… she had gone through some tough stuff. He read her profile once or twice, while looking into her whereabouts – as every cautious father would have done. Her life story was bleak, enough to make a grown man shiver. Sometimes, he wondered how she could still function, living in a shared flat in the most crime-ridden block of Esperia, with a crippled flatmate that lost both of her arms when she was a child – not unlike that Cyphr girl Renzo told him about. That sounded like a personal hell to deal with.

He drew another puff.

That was what he liked of the post-coital clarity: his mind wandered off in directions he couldn’t predict, in a vivid sequence of images he had little to no control on. He basked in that feeling whenever he could, knowing how shortly it lasted and how useless it was to lose himself into it. Still, he cherished those moments with an open heart, as he had always done in his almost fifty years of life. A rustle behind him caught his attention. His partner for the night was still breathing heavily, her cheeks still red. Her fingers rested on Gattonero’s thigh, lazily pinching his skin. Gattonero caressed the back of that hand, tapped its polished nails one by one. Those slender limbs belonged to a thirty-something years old journalist with short blond hair, brow irises and a somewhat tanned complexion – the exact same journalist who interviewed him about his alleged forty-nine children. Now, that woman willingly risked becoming the mother of the fiftieth just because she had the hots for him.

Another thick cloud of smoke escaped his lips. Nekos aged differently, that much was evident. His body looked like he was barely thirty, without a smidge of extra fat, chiseled abs, fit pecs and perfect muscles. That made sense, since nekos were engineered as pleasure slaves: have them look fuckable for most of their life was a selling point, a feature. Thus, despite being a grandpa of two, he was still surrounded by women who craved to bed him – much to his daughters’ chagrin.

“So, this is the cat who bewitched a queen…”

Gattonero groaned, rolled his eyes.

“Rumors – that’s all there is to it. The last Brit I’ve bedded was a klutz of a tourist that begged me to guide her throughout the city last summer.”

And ended up getting a new wardrobe, nipple piercings, a blooming rose tattoo from her navel down, plus a healthy dose of neko pounding. Gattonero exhaled, lost in those weird, charming summer memories from an August long gone, let the burnt catnip do the talk for him. He hoped that her bed companion could read the room, let him enjoy his deserved quiet. Yet, her voice didn’t stop, as didn’t her hand motions.

“Mr. Gattonero…”

His ears twitched as her fingertips moved closer to his pelvis.

“…what about a second round?”

Gattonero groaned, pushed the hand away, back to his thigh.

“Nope.”

“But…”

“I had just one rubber with me. Not gonna tempt fate.”

“…could we do it raw, then? I took the pill…”

“Nope.”

Gattonero grabbed a small black box from the bed, turned it upside down. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Empty.

“See? That was the last one.”

The woman sat on the bed behind him, fighting her soft state of dizziness, seized the box out of his hand, looked inside it, then outside, staring at the picture of two mating lions.

“‘Pride’? I’ve never seen this brand before.”

Gattonero didn’t pay attention to that remark. He bit his cigar, held it among his teeth while checking the latex dangling on the bed after doing its job. A small picture of two lions was printed on its base too, overshadowed by droplets spread all over its milky surface.

“It’s a sub-brand of HungOn. They sell it only to nekos and mutants. It’s the only one made just for us and the only one I can legally buy. They ain’t selling human ‘doms to us.”

“Oh?”

Gattonero smirked, his fingers moved between his legs, following the profile of his genitals.

“Our skin down here? It’s rougher. Or so I was told. Like, I dunno how it works exactly – it’s not sharp, but it rips through normal rubbers more often than not. So, ‘Pride’ ‘doms are the only ones guaranteed not to break. They… huh, cost a lot too. Way too much, if you ask me.”

Especially if you use as many as me.

“Shoiga rubbers cost an eye and a kidney too – but, hey, keeping their scales at bay must be a chore.”

At that point, the journalist had fallen silent, simply rubbing her head against Gattonero’s back, while her fingers joined his among his legs. He went to move her hand away again, only to stop at the last second. Her touch felt good, even through the wet latex surface. He let her continue, chewing his cigar in silence, accompanied only by the noise of the ever-spinning fan. Suddenly, her fingers retreated, as if an electric shock ran through them.

“…it’s broken.”

Gattonero squinted his eyes, cursed, turned around to face her.

“Huh?”

“Mr. Gattonero, the surface… it’s full of microscopic cuts. This…”

His fingers immediately ran over the condom’s surface, following its profile from top to bottom and back. It felt smooth to his touch. Normal, even, nothing wrong at all. His eyes couldn’t discern any difference either. That had to be a prank. He growled, gritted his fangs.

“Sure, let’s joke about it again, right? I already got, what, forty-nine children, after all. Let’s scare the neko again, shall we?”

Her hand moved again, started removing the latex, exposing the skin underneath, until they freed it altogether. Then, she unrolled the condom again, pulled it up, stretched it against the light filtering from the window. Reno gasped.

“No way?! They—they should be guaranteed…”

It was hard to notice because of his pale complexion, but once took away, he couldn’t unsee them. Several thin cuts, all around the surface of what was supposed to be his layer of protection. Making it moot. Tanking its effectiveness. Causing… maybe causing….

The woman caressed his shoulder, massaged it, tuned her voice down to a whisper.

“That’s just low-quality thin latex. On the cheaper side, even.”

“How… how did you…?”

The woman smirked, rubbed her hair against his cheek, let her fingers dance on his pecs.

“PhD in material science. Had my fingertips enhanced with nano probes to inspect surfaces better… but, well, I went into burnout during my studies, had a breakdown after getting my degree and changed field completely. I work as a gossip reporter, now. Not as exciting, but definitely less toxic.”

Gattonero blinked in disbelief, then stared at her, then at the latex again.

“…does this mean…”

His voice broke down, as the implications dawned on him, seeping deep into his soul.

“…does this mean… that it’s not—that it’s not my fault?”

He couldn’t stop it. He couldn’t stop the tears. He cried like a baby. Cried like a baby in her arms, as the light lazily filtered through the motel windows, as the fan kept spinning. Reno Gattonero bawled his eyes out, that morning.

All while a fire started burning in his heart.

A fire that was going to burn everything down to the ground.

**

Gattonero’s gaze lingered on Vivi, on the small box that stood among her fingers.

“Long story short, HungOn’s ‘Pride’ condoms are a fucking scam – they are just more expensive, repackaged low quality human rubbers. They switched them around fifteen, maybe sixteen years ago, after the Morelli laws were repealed and the neko population started to shrink. That’s what a friend of mine thinks, and I’m kinda sure she’s right after gathering intel for the past month. So, yeah, massive profits at the cost of nekos getting STDs and unwanted children. Because, sure, who was gonna notice they swapped their ‘doms with cheaper ones? Like, even normal rubbers aren’t perfect and nekos are a minority. Who would ever care about us?”

Claire, Corinne, Bea, all stared in silence at the growling figure of their father, chewing words under his breath, crunching his fists.

“That’s when I remembered, Vivi. We used protections, right? You still got pregnant, though! And Frida too! And Pamil! And god knows how many more! I mean, fifty children in, what, thirty years? Every other neko could have been in my place, if they went around half as much as me! And you know what? For HungOn everything’s fine! Nobody of them cares a damn about nekos…”

His enraged expression tuned into a grin, his eyes peacefully staring back at the small crowd assembled around him.

“…but they’ll have to care about the bloody Queen of England.”

Vivi fell silent, kept caressing her belly with her slender fingers. Before a grin, an equally deranged grin opened on her face, as an impish expression took over her delicate features.

“…I like it. Pure, unadulterated destruction. Media chaos. Scandals. And for a good cause too.”

She licked her lips, smirked with satisfaction, under the flabbergasted gazes of her two bodyguards, of the cohort of three neko girls stuck close to the billiard table.

“Count me in, Reno! This sounds like a lot of fun! But… may I ask for something in return?”

Gattonero braced for impact. That smile was a harbinger of misfortune. He felt it into his bones. Chilling. Freezing. The faustian catch. The monkey paw. Maybe, Vivi just wanted to bed him one more time. That would have been fine, he’d never say no to that. Yet, somehow, he knew it couldn’tt be that simple. So, he went for a neutral response, a cautious one.

“What do you want from me?”

“Become my prince consort.”

Gattonero blinked. Twice. His ears twitched. His tail too. He wasn’t sure he had got that right. Prince. Consort. Prince consort? Really, now? He staggered, blinked at Vivi again, without saying a word, just observing her reactions.

Only for an excited yell to break his focus.

“Pardon, prince consort? As in… as in le roi? Le roi d’Angleterre?!”

Claire. Claire’s were shimmering. She was wagging her tail up and down like a pendulum, all while hopping in place, bouncing over and over.

“But that means Renren and I would get a noble title too! And a chateau! Oh la la la! A true chateau! This is so jolie!”

Claire grabbed Gattonero’s hand, started shaking it, rubbing her cheek against his. And purring. Like a house cat.

“Papa, papa, say yes, s’il te plaît! Please, please!”

A primal yell broke in, shuttering Gattonero’s ability to reply.

“Hell no!”

He felt his other hand being pulled by an opposing force, as those words echoed in the small office. Corinne. Corinne was pulling him away from Claire.

“Prince consort? Are you kidding me?! To hell with the rotten royals! Ain’t it what you taught me? You can’t join the system, dad! You can’t betray your ideals!”

She turned around to face Vivi and her cronies, bared her fangs, flipped the bird to them. Her tail swell up, her pupils shrank.

“Anarchy reigns! Fuck the monarchy, now and forever!”

“But that’s exactly what papa did!”

“Not like that!”

“Stop! Gimme a break, you two.”

Gattonero pushed their heads away from his, cursed under his breath, almost bit his lips. He couldn’t afford a literal French revolution to take place in his office. All while Bea was helplessly staring, clicking her tongue as if to say and that’s why I live with mom. Vivi chuckled at that scene, failed to contain her laughter.

“My, my! You have such a lively family, Reno. I’m… jealous, really.”

She let out a sigh, rubbed her belly once again.

“I’m aware mine is a tall ask. Your answer can wait – we have all the time in the world for that. No way anyone proposes to a queen born from an illicit relationship, that posed naked for a magazine and that got a neko kid from an clandestine, premarital one-night-stand, right? The press has already killed my reputation, which means I’m not gonna marry anytime soon.”

A smile, this time genuine, compassionate, starry-eyed. As if she was back being that naive tourist lost in Euterpe. As if she was back in August, before the world learned about her existence.

“…but know I’d be very happy if you decided to spend your life by my side.”

Gattonero leaned on the sofa, rested his nape on his palms. Settling wasn’t really a Gattonero thing. If anything, his life mantra had been to keep things flowing in motion. A ring to the finger felt more like a trap than anything else – and he knew that. She had to know that as well. Still, before he could say anything, before he could begin to answer, she chuckled again, softly.

“I’ll help you with the case anyway. For our kid, of course. He’ll be a healthy neko and I don’t want him to get STDs left and right because of those HungOn bastards.”

She crunched her fists, grinned from ear to ear.

“Time to stir the pot and cause a little bankruptcy or two.”

Gattonero grinned too, hunching forward on his desk, resting his elbows on it, staring into Vivi’s eyes. Different shades of unhinged. Still, unhinged by any definition. A match made in hell, with a choir of wailing demons.

“Now we’re speaking the same language.”

The pieces of the puzzle were starting to fall in place, one by one. Among the forty or so women that had children from protected sex with him, there were at least two lawyers, three journalists, a judge, and two social media influencers. And, now, the queen of England herself. A class action of epic proportions, one to shake the world and make those company stocks crumble faster than a house of cards.

His eyes shone with a mix of excitement and expectations, for the first time in ages. As a nice side effect, his agency would get a hefty popularity boost too. Enough to make Frida fumigate and get mad, maybe even yell at the TV while kicking it down, under the sullen gaze of her pal Steinberger and of her baby neko daughter.

Gattonero smirked at that thought, a cruel joy took over his body.

Yes, among everything, one-upping that freaky wannabe samurai freak and outshine her agency to the point of irrelevancy with the help of none other than a monarch was definitely the sweetest side perk of that messed up situation.

One that couldn’t come soon enough.