Lunar New Year with My Lover
Happy Lunar New Year! To celebrate it, I decided to write a flash fiction about a gay couple celebrating the holiday. I hope you enjoy it!
Could you tell I originally wrote it to be themed for the Year of the Tiger, only to realize too late that 2025 is the Year of the Snake?
Lunar New Year celebrations were in full-swing in Chinatown. Shops started selling delicacies, hung decor from their windows and in doorways, and a few street vendors sold themed merchandise. Anybody wandering into the neighborhood would be quick to spot the festivities, smell the spices in the air, and drool at the sight of various foods being sold by the handful.
I’d just bought myself and Lee each a helping of sesame seed balls and an impulse purchase of bak kwa, when I decided to thank the vendor with more than just my signature on the receipt. I pulled out my favorite ballpoint pen and scribbled my signature, plus a tiny chibi drawing of a happy tiger smiling back at the cashier.
I handed it to her; she giggled and wished us a Happy Lunar Year.
“Did you need to do that, Danny?” Lee asked when we made it several feet away. “We stood in line for five minutes, sweetie.”
“There wasn’t anybody behind us,” I pointed out. “I doubted it bothered her.”
“Why did you draw a tiger anyway?” he asked. “It’s supposed to be the year of the snake, not the year of the tiger.”
“I think tigers are cute,” I said, “and they’re easier to draw too.”
“Sure,” he laughed.
Lee and I went to a few other vendors, sometimes to admire the craftsmanship of what was being sold and sometimes to purchase something. But most of the time we loved to get into conversation with some of the vendor staff we already knew on a first name basis. Every once in a while, Lee and I would make small talk with unfamiliar faces, and they would inevitably catch on that we were a married gay couple. An interracial gay couple too. This sometimes carried over into either an uncomfortable silence, or a curious smile that led to them asking: “So, which one of you is the top and which one of you is the bottom?”
Lee would react first. He laughed uncomfortably while I stood mortified and speechless. Thankfully, instances like this were starting to become rare, and it wouldn’t ruin the rest of our time enjoying the celebrations. It would still be funny conversations to talk about years later with other people. Embarrassing, but still funny.
Later that afternoon, we returned home feeling tired but vibrant and festive. Lee especially looked like he wanted to decompress, so I volunteered to carry all of the bags as we made the several flights of stairs up our building. That brightened up my husband quite a bit, and winking at me, he promised to ‘reward me’ the moment I made sure our blinds were closed.
“Yessir!” I said.
After closing the door behind us, I set the bags down on the kitchen countertop and went to close the blinds. With my back turned, I didn’t get to see Lee return to his true form. I heard it though, once the window blinds shut and our studio apartment was in partial darkness. I heard the soft crackling of electricity in the air, followed by an unknown soft breeze and what smelled like flowers filling the air until eventually, I heard a rumbling sigh of relief.
“Mmm,” a deeper voice purred into my ear, and I felt two solid, mighty arms wrap around my torso. “This feels much, much better, little kitten.”
I laughed, already beginning to blush as I felt his muscular, furry body envelop me. His whiskers tickled my shoulders, followed by a coarse tongue that tasted the most vulnerable left side of my neck. One of his paws went to my belt and unbuckled it, pulling it and my jeans down to the floor. I could feel his purring rise right behind me as he reached around to grope my thigh, and I popped a boner through my tenting boxers.
“Isn’t that what I call you, Lee?” I asked.
As a reply, I was suddenly lifted off of the carpet and carried me to the corner bed, then ceremoniously placed in our king-sized bed like it was our honeymoon all over again. And much like that magical night in the wilderness, my husband was in his true form; a tall, naked weretiger with luxurious white and black fur all over his powerful body, a tail that swished wildly in the air behind his muscular back, and a barbed, beautiful erection that wasn’t human. The pure devotion in his brilliant yellow eyes, however, it was not only human, but familiar after years of us together. They locked on me as I lay on my back, then hovered above my nose as his whiskered lips descended to kiss me.
Christ! I almost wanted to cum. That feline tongue entering my mouth was super rough and dominant but also unbelievably arousing. Both of my fingers grasped Lee’s animal hips, my palms caressing those obsidian stripes all over his glutes like fine silk, and I let out my own purring noise as he started grinding into my torso. His claws roamed my bare chest, making me shiver. Neither of us could stop smiling, even after my teeth nicked his fangs once or twice. If anything, it felt like tradition every time we started to make love.
Lee pulled away and panted with me as we gathered our breaths. A wet trail of weretiger and human drool connected our tongues, then disappeared as we smiled lovingly at each other. My heart rate still like it always did whenever we were intimate or romantic, be it outdoors when Lee stood amongst everybody in his human form, or privately when my husband could shed everything to be himself and I wouldn’t judge him in the slightest. If anything, I found his true weretiger form incredibly more appealing, handsome and arousing.
“Happy Lunar New Year, Danny,” he spoke in that deep, natural voice of his.
I smiled. “Happy Lunar New Year to you too, Lee. Little Kitten.”
The white tiger smirked with a defiant trill, beginning to peel down my boxers. “I’ll show you who’s little…”