The invitation was gold leaf and parchment, addressed to me by name, Miss Veronique Pavageau, and quite unexpected.

"But what is it?" I asked. "A party? Some sort of debutante ball?" I indulged that possibility with a soft laugh.

My friend Heather merely smiled, which suggested to me that she didn't properly know herself who had sent me the note or why.

"The Sable Society." I sighed at that bit of useless information. I'd never heard of such a thing, but being in my first year at the Buchanan Finishing School I knew very little about anything.

Heather was in her second year. She would graduate the following spring and be presented formally to high society in June, and so I expected a little more help from my friend than she was giving me.

"Follow the instructions," she said with a smile. "And you mustn't tell anyone."

"I know. It says that in the note." But I'd told Heather and she'd seemed to have expected it, acting hardly surprised when I'd shown the invitation to her.

I was eighteen, a few months out of a private girl's school in France, at Neuilly-sur-Seine. It had been very much like a prison to me and this place seemed little better. Learning the niceties of social function was hardly suited to my tastes, especially in light of the seemingly draconian standards of discipline imposed by my teachers.

"Come here now. Don't frown that way." Heather pulled me close, so that I would sit with her at the vanity. "You're so beautiful, Veronique. You must never frown. It makes me sad."

I rolled my eyes.

I knew Heather liked me, perhaps even loved me, but her affections went unrewarded. I had no interest in her, or in any woman. I reserved such thoughts for boys, young men who were handsome and strong. That I didn't actually know of any personally hardly mattered. I would soon enough and I was trying to be patient. So many of the other girls here, and in the other schools I'd attended, had given up on patience and agreed to Sapphic expression of their adolescent yearnings.

Such liaisons weren't looked down upon, so long as such affairs were discrete and private. We were all attractive and elite in the sense that our families were wealthy and prominent. A school such as Buchanan did not accept applications; it issued invitations to young women who were noted carefully for their beauty, charm, and potential. To be chosen for the privilege of attending such a place was a very real honor in our social circles.

An honor I might have done without if it had meant one date with a real gentleman. One kiss ... One touch, just there between my wide spread...

"I'll die a virgin," I thought aloud, bringing a soft and rather unladylike giggle from Heather's pouting lips.

She brushed my long blonde hair gently, pressing her hands to my head and singing softly from an Italian Opera, Mozart's Idomoneo, I think.

"I hardly think so," Heather said softly. "You're so very beautiful."

"And so will you!" I laughed, teasing her because Heather was very much my equal in every way.

"I'm not a virgin," she whispered, bringing her lips close to my ear.

"Another girl hardly counts, Heather," I sighed.

"Not only a girl." She lifted her face away, turning her head to look at me in the mirror. "I've been with many men."

"Liar." I giggled nervously, feeling a thrill a her words, but unable to trust them.

Heather shrugged and kissed me on the cheek. "You'll see."

Sometime later, after we'd sat for a time in silence, as we often did in comfort and without complaint, Heather asked me, "Would you like me to sleep with you tonight, Veronique?"

"No, thank you," I said, smiling back at her.

It was a question she'd asked me every night since my arrival at the school, and my answer was ever the same.

I'd had thoughts of asking Heather what she meant about being with men, but I grew easily tired of Heather and her games. She couldn't have slept with any man, except perhaps during those brief vacations we were allowed to return to our families. I'd had little enough opportunities during my own visits home, and so I liked to imagine that all of us must be equally frustrated in our sexual ambitions.

I looked at myself, noting my tall and lithe form, my firm upturned breasts and rounded hips. I was beautiful in my body and face. My cobalt eyes were intelligent and bright, even demure if I smiled just so, turning them downward slightly. I could be coquettish or statuesque, or haughty upon my whim. And I practiced every night before my mirror, anticipating the situations and circumstances to come, anticipating my future, for there was nothing else for me to do.

Life was utterly boring.

The lodge was old and very large, constructed of quarried stone and ancient timber, and resting on the steep bank of the Hudson River. I crept towards it in the darkness, as my note had instructed, finding myself alone and cold in the autumn air. There were no sounds and no lights; the building was shuttered and silent, but it seemed as if there was a presence within. Some low sense filled me that it was not empty and I felt the instinctual fear that comes with confronting the unknown.

It was a good feeling and welcome to a woman who had spent eighteen years following every instruction, every rule. And now I was breaking one rule to follow another. I should have been safely ensconced in my room, of course, and if I were found out I'd be harshly disciplined. The note was compelling in its mystery, however, and I yearned for something of that character. Unknown, Dark, and Forbidden.

Near the lodge stood the boathouse and inside were lockers, a great many of them of all sizes and for for all manner of equipment. Sails and ropes and life jackets and such. I was to find locker number sixteen and as I approached I saw dim shapes, shadows of inhuman creatures moving against the moonlit river behind them. I shivered slightly and took a breath. Fear was an alien sensation and I quite enjoyed the newness of it, the struggle to refrain from running back to my dormitory.

The shadows disappeared and I found my locker. I was to undress completely, everything including my shoes and socks and even my underwear, and I would dress in whatever I found there.

It was dark, of course, but the moon was full and it cast a silvery light through the windows. My eyes were wide and dilated, and I was able to do as I'd been instructed. I undressed quickly after a bare moment's hesitation, being nervous and wishing to minimize my exposure. The thought of being caught, of being observed so vulnerable in such a place and late at night distressed me greatly.

The clothes I found were hardly clothes at all, but something far more luxurious, and disconcerting as well. There was a suit, a bodysuit I should say, but like nothing I'd ever heard of. The color was impossible to discern in the shadows, perhaps merely black as it appeared, I thought, but the texture ... It was mink possibly, or sable. I'd enjoyed such comforts before, but this was superfluity beyond compare.

My proposed attire had a fine closure, a delicate seeming zipper along the side, from the hip to the armpit. I pulled the fur with my fingers, working my feet and legs inside one at a time, so that the suit covered me from the waist down. The soles were padded, but softly, so that it was very much like walking on thin rubber. The crotch, I discovered, had a clever opening, the fur parting to expose my sex and anus, but only secretly, only if one knew how to pierce the layered fur. And just beyond that, near the small of my back, an elaborate tail fell low. It was thick and soft and just rigid enough so that it would sway back and forth in concert with the motion of my hips.

It required no small amount of dexterity to fully enter the suit, and it was tight on me, like a second skin. I discovered with some pleasure that my breasts were fitted into gentle enclosures, forms only slightly stiff, and when I wore them properly, my nipples were exposed through small openings. The sensation was new and served to excite me further and my pink nipples grew swollen quickly, so that I pinched and pulled my tender flesh free. The smallish openings only served to constrict them further and I must admit the sensation was a delightful tease and I admired the dim form of my nipples as they stood out eager and obscene. I worked my head inside and up and finally my arms, finding the garment to fit as if it had been tailored for only me. The suit covered every part of me now, except my head and hands. It was thick and supple and an extravagance beyond anything I'd ever dreamt of.

I stroked my body, my firm full breasts pressed outward and covered with warm thick fur but for my throbbing nipples. The inner skin, that part of the furry suit against my flesh, was a joy as well. It was soft and buttery, giving me the sensation of being bathed with some exotic oil which was neither dry nor wet, but something else altogether. My heart beat rapidly beneath it and my taut belly quivered with excitement. I played my hands along my flanks, exploring the curvature of my ass and the deftly rounded shape of my hips and long thighs.

And everywhere I touched myself I was greeted with the sensations of feeling that beautiful fur beneath my fingers, and likewise the soft and exotic synesthesia of pleasure in my flesh. The fur was a part of me now and I felt myself warming inside, as if intoxicated by the experience. I felt very much like a female Narcissus caught upon her reflection and I might have stayed like that forever, but for the instructions in my note.

There were gloves as well, made of the same fine fur and wonderfully constructed so that they were seamless to my eyes and fingers. The palms and a small portion at the bottom of each finger and thumb were the only parts not furred, but instead covered with a dark gauze of some unknown material that hindered my tactile senses not at all. I put on the gloves, which rose above and fitted seamlessly to the sleeves of my suit, and with the notable exception of my ruddy nipples, no part of my skin was to be seen below my neck.

My reluctance was complete and I caressed myself for several minutes more. I could feel my fur still, through those magical gloves, and I giggled softly with delight. Whatever the gauzy material was, it was perfectly suited to bringing my senses pleasure. I held my hands to my face, blowing gently against my palms and I felt the air move, the humidity of my warm breath.

The mask was the final item and I examined it carefully, for it seemed very much to be that of an animal. A weasel was my first impression, or a mouse perhaps, but finally I realized I must have been looking at a sable. It was hardly frightening in any event, and utterly beautiful, with the same black fur across the head and neck. It had soft ears, not so long, but tapering and upright and speckled with white. The face itself was of leather, I thought, soft and thin and carefully worked by a master craftsman. It was the finest leather imaginable and decorated with long whiskers and jeweled, topaz eyes. There was a nose, a sable's snout with carefully sculpted lips and teeth, immaculate in every detail to the best of my limited understanding. It was comfortable and through it fresh air traveled easily.

I found the mask to be warm, but eminently agreeable and the night took on a slightly golden hue as I looked around through those animal eyes. I was no longer a girl, not a young woman of social wealth and prestige. I was something else, a creature primal and base, natural and beautiful, and it was a visceral, instinctive knowledge that resided in my blood. Veronique was gone, her flesh turned to fur and her desires loosed for the first time in her life. I was changed somehow, and free, that was my understanding then. Inside that costume, that new skin I wore, I was free of my human restraints, of my morals and virtues and obligations.

Such was my glorious confusion and I knew what to do next; my final task of the evening was to enter the lodge.

There was a great room in the center of the building, marked by huge windows on one wall that would have overlooked the river but for the heavy drapes that covered them, so that it resembled a single marvelous curtain of burgundy velvet. At opposite ends were giant and ornate fireplaces, unused and dark, their cast iron grates and shutters closed. The remaining wall was plain but for the doorway through which I entered, and to either side of my entrance hung photos and trophies of regattas long past, pennants and flags and other meaningless mementos.

My eyes were drawn to none of this, but rather to the scene before me, lit by crystal chandeliers hanging from the high ceiling above. Dozens of figures, accoutered in much the manner as I, writhing in a mass upon the elaborate druggets which covered the hardwood floor. They were animals, creatures wild and tame, and engaged in such debauchery as I'd never imagined. Snowy furred rabbits and long grey wolves; a silver fox caught my eye, and its twin, but garbed in scarlet. Lithesome ferrets and tawny kittens, and I myself a jet black sable gleaming and awestruck, watching with my nipples burning and my sex clasping angrily upon the emptiness within my womb.

It was a menagerie to excite the most jaded observer, an adoration of nature, I thought. A sexual feast to worship of our animistic origins and primitive desires. My heart was beating hard and rushing blood through my veins. My stomach was taut and vague, cramp-like sensations drew my flesh tightly to my bones. I was drunk it seemed, or dreaming perhaps, the sounds of their rutting filled my ears. No human voices, not a one, but only the low grunts and urgent moans of their desperate, instinctual passions.