My shits are worth more than the average black

  My walk home from work was the same as it had been for some time now, miserable. The early March weather meant the evening walks home from work were still cold and the week itself had been nothing but gray skies holding back rain that had trouble deciding if it wanted to be snow or just half sleet half heavy rain. The city skyline didn't add to the atmosphere either, having grown up in the country side as a kid and having a general disdain for the cramped city life. The cramped streets flanked by multi story buildings on each side were a far cry from the spacious yards and at most 2 floor houses that made up the town I grew up from. Even a half a year into living here I hadn't gotten used to it, nor did I want to. I continued to run through my list of gripes against city living till I managed to get back my apartment. A small three story building in a neighborhood that wasn't too bad, but not exactly a place where you can leave the front door unlocked overnight.  Fishing my keys out I unlocked the foyer door and headed upstairs to my single bedroom apartment on the second floor.

  "How was work Anon?" Asked a woman's voice as I got through the door.

"Fine." I said, closing the door behind me and pushing it shut with the heel of my foot "kinda slow till summer kicks in."

  "I'm getting an early start on dinner"  The voice said, now getting closer.

  From somewhere behind me a woman not that much shorter than me came out of the kitchen.

"We're having rice with some of that steak you bought, just cut up into strips."

Tsubaki ducked backed into the kitchen, the sound of meat sizzling in a frying pan coming from it before the sound of the vent fan kicked in and its own humming drowned out the sizzle. I had "met" Tsubaki a little over a month ago and at that time had been worse for wear. Her rust colored hair that sat a bit above shoulder length had been past that point and matted with dirt and grime. Even with that soft fluff on her head she was still a good three or so inches shorter than me, and I barely broke the six foot barrier myself.  She was overall, in a bit better of a condition than when I found her sifting through a dumpster on the edge of an alleyway.

"AHH"

  Tsubaki's startled voice came from the kitchen.

"Something wrong?" I asked poking my head in.

"I almost knocked the measuring cup off the counter" She said over her shoulder. "My tail almost knocked it over."

  The small cramped kitchen had never posed an issue for me, but for a mamono with a massive fluffy tail like Tsubaki's it was a nightmare to navigate.  Normally she would secure her tail with maybe a sweater tied around her wasit or magic it away with her illusion magic. Something like this wasn't out of the ordinary, at least in this world. For the longest time humans had existed alongside mamono, or what others would call monster girls. A varied race of demi humans that were essentially humans with animal traits be it a cat-like tail or in the case of a centaur, their lower halves were that of a horse while the upper half was human. The only outlying oddity with their kind was that barring the dwarf, every species of mamono was wholly comprised of women. Despite the varied differences amongst the various demi-human