Nice Knowing You
#4 of Double Solitaire
The diner's pretty much the exact opposite of the bar, and so far it's the only other public place we've met and hung out. Today is bright, sunny, cold as stone, and a Saturday. Here at the table right by the window, I can catch every detail of you, as opposed to the dark, shadowy, flashing bar where we'd first met. The tips of your furs almost sparkle in the streaming sunlight, especially the cream-white ones on your face and arms. I inwardly chuckle and keep that particular musing to myself. Of course you don't sparkle; even as "flamey" as you look, you're not that gay. You're as masculine as you feel like, because you're so confident and strong and sexy...
Did I just think "flamey"? Maybe your youth did wear off on me for a little bit there.
Anyway, sitting there opposite you in the booth at the diner, watching you consume your scrambled eggs and biscuits, I smile. You're beautiful, my lanky little tiger. I think right there in that long moment when you look flecked by gold and there's nothing to say and there's all the time in the world to not say it...I think that's how I wanna remember you, if I even get to when this is over with. The last perfect time.
I hadn't had a logging job in weeks, so I had my Saturday free until an afternoon meeting with the on-site foreman. I'm glad I'd called you up and asked if you wanted some lunch. And hell, I don't know a college student in the country who'd turn down a lunch on someone else's dollar, even if that someone is a boring but besotted 50-year-old moose. It's nice to refill my coffee and wash down my beef Manhattan...and sit. And watch.
You're usually not this quiet though. You look distracted...and I try to distract you.
"You got finals coming up soon, yeah?"
"Yeah, they're next week." Your ears flatten backwards and your head droops. I don't blame you for feeling the pressure, though I wouldn't know what college finals are like myself.
"Doin alright in your classes?"
Well, I guess that was the $20,000 question, or however much it is that tuition costs here nowadays. You don't even sigh, you just stare at the table and stop moving, still holding your fork to your plate.
"...Seth?" I reach across the table with a paw, but you don't look up.
"I gotta tell you about that," you almost whisper, putting your fork down and withdrawing your hands to beneath the table.
"Somethin goin wrong?"
"Yeah. All of it."
"Well, what do you mean?"
"I'm on academic probation. And my parents won't let me come back to school next semester because they won't support me since I'm failing."
I blink a few times without really thinking about any of it. "Seth, I...didn't know that. Why didn't you tell me, I could have tried to help you!" A pang of guilty fear rings through my chest. "Is it because we've been seeing each other so much?"
"No! No, I just...I really slacked off, with me turning 21 this semester, and I wasn't really taking it that seriously beforehand either. I just...I thought it'd work out." You half-choke on the next part. "And it didn't. It's all over."
I'm speechless for a minute while you try not to cry any more. "So...what will you have to do?"
"I talked to my parents yesterday. They said I have to move back home after finals and go to community college there until I start making better grades. Or find a job. I don't think I'll be able to come back here."
I'll admit that I don't know all that much about your home life. We never really did get the chance to get to the phase where we'd talk more about that kind of stuff, when everything else fresh and exciting and new to talk about ran out. But it does hit me then, because I know your folks live in South Dakota.
It's all over, you said.
I wish I'd rushed over right then and held you, and never wasted another second that we had. But no, there I sit and stare dumbly as my hope and happiness funnels out of me just like the proverbial sands through the hourglass.
It's fucked up that the first one of us I feel sorry for is myself.
I'm skipping the rest of this part, I don't like it very much.
* * *
Time's running out, my tiger. I wanna get to something that has at least some sweet with the bitter.
The last, first time with you fully. Whichever one you wanna call it depends on whether you're a glass-half-full or -empty type. I'm afraid I'll personally have to go with "last". Been feeling a lot of empty 'round here lately anyway.
Even now I can almost literally feel the weight between us when you enter my home and shut the door in the dead air. My eyes and ears shoot up nervously from the TV, my mouth still mid-swig from a pint of our favorite stout. There's already another one on the endtable by the couch, just waiting for you to pour it.
It hurts so terribly that there's now this awkward wall of silence and unsaid insecurities between us that was never there before. It's hard to quaff my beer around the lump in my throat as you shrink down onto the couch, the opposite end from where my chair sits. Your tail curls around your knees and you sit forward on the couch, only halfway back. Tentative. Like your heart's halfway gone already.
"How were your finals?"
A small sigh from you, coupled with an uncomfortable shift. "I don't think I did too terrible. It won't be enough to make up for anything."
Last vague hopes are the biggest bitch. I take another swallow of thick beer.
"Talk to your parents?"
You've noticed the beer and glass ready for you, as per ritual. You pick them up and pour the beer with practiced technique, but a tired and listless air. Straight up and down into the glass. You stare into the murky, pillowy head. "They have my room ready. I'm leaving Thursday morning after I pack up and check out of my dorm."
It's Tuesday night.
I creak to my feet and join you on the couch. You don't look up at me, just down into your beer. I don't sit as close to you as I usually do. I try to see your face over your still-jacketed shoulder, but I get the eerie feeling that the spots on the backs of your ears are watching me, guilty that their counterparts in the front of your head are too afraid.
I lean forward a little bit, just wanting one look from you. "I'll miss you." I try to think of something to add, some qualifier that would do justice to the extent of my statement, but nothing works that doesn't sound like a clip from a Lifetime movie. I shut my sentimental-ass mouth.
You finally take a deep swig of your beer, and then silently lean your head into my arm. Nothing else is said. My arm goes around your back.
I can't tell how long it actually takes. Back then it felt like forever, but now it seems like the tiniest moment possible. Me limply holding you, you finishing your beer, both of us knowing. Knowing this is it, yes, but also knowing what you came here for. It's been this unspoken moose-in-the-room ever since you walked in. We're both too lost and too separated to do anything about it for this protracted, miserable waiting session. Damn all of this. What should have been such a beautiful sharing, shot through with the desperation, hurriedness, and brokenness of knowing.
I can tell you're even too broken up for me to feel any resentment towards you. Maybe this is your fault. Maybe you should have tried harder. But maybe I tried too hard. Hoped too much.
You clink your glass on mine and drink again. We're both almost done with our glasses. I sigh, not unhappily. "I'm too much of a cranky old crone to change my ways much, eh?"
"Well I'm too young to know better about anything. Good match, we are."
The remark seems innocent, but I do remember where we both are. I decide to sidestep the whole messy issue. "Two dopes of the deep woods, aright."
Still two dopes, three months later.
Our beers are gone. I set my glass on the floor.
Come here, you slinky little cat. It's time.
My paw takes up most of your back as it rests gently there, turning you to meet me. I don't wanna sound like a certain badger, but I know this is inevitable and I'd bet you anything it's what's on your mind too. I try to be soft about kissing your muzzle for the first time, but you let out a strangled moan and press your face into mine needily, the first time I've ever seen you not in control. It's a clumsy-ass kiss, I'll tell you that, and I immediately realize that it might be your first real one. Here I am yet again taking advantage of your youth and inexperience. Uncertainty, even here at the end. Is this kiss really for me, or is it some sort of consolation apology?
I'll take what I can get.
I slowly rub your back and apply some tongue to our kiss. Your glass is on the floor now too, both your hands going up to my chest. It really sucks even more that it feels so comfortable and so right.
I pull away and breathe, "Let's go." I'm pretty sure you immediately know what I mean. You stand up, and my hand follows you, gently guiding you at your back. Guiding you to my large bed, in my small bedroom.
It seemed like a blur then, but I'm trying to coax every detail out of it now. How conflicted you look this time, how nervous. We shouldn't do this. But there I am settling over your small frame, your eyes following me self-consciously in the dull lighting. My big paw now taking up most of your thin chest. Your inconsistent rattle of a purr hesitating as I roll your shirt up and rub your white belly furs that look so gray now. The awkwardness of removing the shirt over your head, and then the fumbling of my fingers with your jeans button. You eventually help me and unzip yourself, ceremoniously squirming out of your pants while I unbutton my flannel shirt. Damn old antlers made it almost impossible to wear anything else...
You must be feeling more reserved now, because you're wearing boxers this time. My shirt comes off and now it's my turn to be self-conscious. I don't see any signs of backing out from you, so I stand up beside the bed and wriggle out of my own jeans, revealing loose black boxers and the guiltiest boner I've ever had. I settle back into my previous position, propped up on my hands over you, and give you another kiss, this one slow and sorrowful, before I lean up and gently grind my fly against yours. I'm not sure how much it surprises me that you seem to already be as erect as I am.
One of my hands reaches down into your underwear, closing around that warm, springy tiger-piece again. A little grunt interrupts your purr. You reach down and help shuck down your boxers, and then you just lay back and breathe deeply, a little roughly, and let me play. Soon that play passes over your tightened scrotum and to the warm place nestled just under your tail, accompanied by a throaty moan. Maybe I shoulda asked if you wanted to bottom, but I guess I'm a stereotyper and just assumed. You didn't complain. You didn't say anything.
I scramble for the little bottle I still keep on the bedside table. Yeah, I still keep the stuff around, even after all these years of it just bein' for me. There's a couple rubbers lying there too, and I ain't dumb enough to think we're that familiar that I can forego it. I hastily roll one on myself, then squeeze some lube onto the length. I warm some more of the slippery stuff up on my fingers before applying it to you, pressing firmly but not insistently. I wanna make sure to relax you before I task you with opening up enough for me. Even with whatever your college experimentations have brought, I doubt that you'd been with many older moose. And I haven't been with someone as small as you since before I was your age. I rub you down there in soft circles, wondering how the hell I'm gonna fit in...
Turns out that after a good warmup with some thick fingers, you take it like a champ. Of course, before that I have to bear your gaze as I slide my boxers down and bare myself to someone I care about for the first time in ten years. I don't ask for approval. I know I'm almost fifty and I've seen better days and I'm kinda paunchy and my nuts are starting to sag. Your dick has gone soft while I play with your asshole, but I'm strangely almost pained to see it stiffen up again when you look down at my naked body and grin a little bit. It still makes me all the more grateful to you when I tug your hindquarters up onto my knees and use a hand to rub the tip of myself up and down and around until I find the right point of your loosened ring. Your legs tense in the air on either side of me, and your eyes screw shut, but then you breathe and I start to press forward.
The entire slide into you brings a long, low moan from me. You still feel so new and warm and just stretchy enough. Even Daniel never felt this good just upon entry. Guess the college experimenting must be training you kids better nowadays too, because I'm making more noise than you as I wiggle around inside of you. Might be the least trouble someone's ever had taking me for the first time. I wrap a couple fingers around your pierced ear and give it just a few strokes and tugs until your purr returns, and then I gaze into your lidded eyes that still manage to glimmer green in the dusk until you smile and give me a nod.
With that heart-rending of a go-ahead, anyone who tried to deny you would have to be out of their mind.
You throw your head back to the slow, easy rhythm I start up, whimpering wordlessly each time I sink back in. I don't know how long it goes on, but it seems like time is over and just for this act on this night we have all the time we need. At least, it did in the moment. Now though? I gotta move on and get to the ending of this like I so desperately need to, the cracks are really starting to show at this point...
It's so easy to feel good with you. Your tail writhes and tenses in-between my bent legs, more and more often swatting up against my lower back as I speed up and start jabbing a little deeper into you. I hold on to your upper arm, your hip, the top of your head, your sleek side...anywhere I can touch and get my fill of. It'll have to last at least a great while.
I'll admit I was a little quick. Been so long since it felt so good. I heave into you one last time, straining in all the way, making you groan and arch your back. My vision and mind go blank for several seconds. Damn if it ain't the most satisfying unloading I've had in a decade, but it's also the guiltiest of my whole life.
Once the clouds clear and I'm left with a heaving chest and a dry, panting mouth, I look down to see you still writhing against my lap, your cock so needfully hard and just a little leaky, making a matted spot in your bellyfur at the tip. I remember my manners and take it in my hand lovingly, stroking it and restarting the roll of my hips into you.
"Guh...ohhhhhhmmmmgonna...ohhhhh..." Your eyes screw shut, my mostly-hard dick stirring around in you and pressing right on where I know your prostate is. For the second time I feel you tensely tremble at my hand, the other paw reaching around your leg to hold half of your furry ass.
A tiny whimper breaks into a mighty groan from your chest, and I move my hand just in time to funnel the stream of your release into my palm. Your nuts are pulled up so tightly that it looks like it hurts. Thankfully they're getting some relief though, my cock still holding against your prostate and milking it out of you. Your body goes completely limp but still slightly shaking, one leg flopping to the bed beside my own.
Your eyes stay shut for a few minutes while I look you over and admire how perfect and imperfect you look after being taken. Even a little sweaty and mussed, your whole torso expanding and contracting with your gulping breaths, and even after getting fucked up the ass by a guy probably not that much younger than your grandpa, you look like the same tiger I had to protect, the same naïve kitten I had to nurse for a day, the same irresponsible boy who basically flunked out of college because you were too busy to use those proverbial eyespots of yours and look behind you at the consequences of your partying too much. But then you're also the same beautiful young man who never seemed to care that a mopey old moose thought you were awfully sweet and sexy, the same brave thing who took trauma in stride that would have reduced most to an unstable, untrusting shell...and definitely the same real, breathing, funny, fuck-up person who made me feel relevant for a few more months.
Your eyes open and immediately lock onto mine. The look between us is "that's it." We both know that that's all we get for now. I guess we'll make it be enough. We'll have our own lives for at least a while and we'll try to keep in touch and we'll wish each other the best and we'll look back on this time and we'll hope that's enough, to sit and watch the memories.
Because I've got eyes in the back of my head now too, tiger. And I don't want 'em blinded. But that's not up to me.
* * *
They say your whole life flashes before you. I guess most people had longer than I did.
Shit, this tree is heavy. I've stopped thrashin and yellin so I save my energy and get as much time watching you as I can. I guess that's really all of it, all I really had time to replay. No time for fifty years of flashin. Seems like I just barely fit in three months, but I wouldn't have it any other way. That's all I really wanted to see anyway. The really good part of it all.
I can't even hear what's goin on around me anymore. Did someone call for an ambulance? Was that bear still kneeling over me? I know they'd given up trying to move the big thick tree, and they pretty quickly decided to cut it down so they could move the part on top of me, but it was gonna be way too late. A few minutes tops was all it had been, but then that flashin started and I knew it.
I wanted to spend it with you.
I hope maybe Ed or Marty are smart enough to dig up your contact info back where you live now and let you know what happened. I wish I could be there to hold you when you hear about it. I wish I could tell you that it doesn't really matter, we had our shot. It was enough. I needed you then to make me feel like I mattered for a bit, but you don't need me now because an old moose would just be draggin you down. You got at least the length of my entire life still ahead of you. You gave me what love you could during that time about half a year ago, and it did wonders for me then. Sure, I gave it back to you too, but I'm afraid I ran out. Since you left on a Thursday morning, I'd had five empty months of going back to bein a barfly and feeling old again. I bet it was hell saying goodbye to your friends around here, and I bet it was hell restarting everything back with your folks. But there were a few moments in the months before that that it was heaven, at least for me.
I bet you got lots of love left in you yet, and lots of time left to give it. Don't waste either one of those on me, I got what I needed and it was the best. That's why my mind jumped right to it as the last thing I'm takin with me, ain't it? Go and give it to someone else who needs it, who needs YOU. You got a healthy dose of sobering experience now. Learn from it, hold on to those good things until they stop being good. Sometimes you gotta work harder for that than you did.
But if they fall apart, move on. Don't get stuck, especially not on me. In a way, it's good that I can really set you free now. You'll cry for a while and the worst part is I won't be there to hold you. But don't you feel guilty bout anything. You did nothing but right for me in the time you had, and then there didn't end up really being a "long run" for it to play out in. I'm in your past now. Look backward, and look out...that's what those spots are supposed to be for, right? But there's a reason those are in the wrong place and they don't work very well. Look forward most of all. You're free, you big little tiger. Go on.
And hopefully there's somethin after this for me where I can look down and observe you grow and become. Thanks for lettin me sit and watch.
Shit, this tree is heavy