Cherry: Chapter 31 - Epilogue
A male hooker and a contract killer walk up to a bus stop...and then, they begin a brand-new life across the sea.
“It’s been a turbulent month since Lakertown’s 2018 Mayoral Election. And it continues to rock the city following the surprising landslide victory of independent candidate Elaine Shaw, who is to be sworn in early January of next year. However, the primary focus of news coverage has been on the unexpected reveal of Richard Walker III and Mitchell Corbin’s involvement with organized crime and contracting hitmen. All of this unexpectedly began after audio was publicly leaked, revealing Mitchell Corbin allegedly admitting to the murders of Lakertown residents Becky Mullin, Danny Mckenna, Harry Solomon, and the attempted murder of a currently-missing ocelot named Charlie Rochford.
“According to Lakertown’s district attorney, further evidence of corruption, premeditated murder, election interference, and wire fraud was found after police searched the homes of Mr. Walker and Mr. Corbin. The Lakertown Police Department and its representatives have neither confirmed nor denied that the discovered evidence includes a mysterious briefcase belonging to an unidentified Canadian lynx found deceased last month, who is suspected to be one of these hired contract killers. L.P.D. representatives have confirmed, however, that further investigations are being carried out in a joint operation with Interpol.
“It’s also been just confirmed by hospital staff that Mitchell Corbin passed away late last night after being in a weeks-long comatose state. The autopsy report says the dingo’s fatal injuries were caused by a mysterious bullet wound fired by an unknown assailant. After the sudden audio leak on Halloween Night, Corbin disappeared from police officers responding to an on-scene disturbance. Corbin then proceeded to go on a sudden shooting spree on the Rosemont Interstate before crashing his car into a barrier. Authorities suggest the incident might have been fueled by a psychotic breakdown, but this hasn’t been verified. Since then, Corbin has been watched over by officers at St. Mary Hospital while stuck in a medically induced coma, with no signs of recovery. Prosecutors have previously stated that if woken up and found mentally competent to stand trial, they had intended to question him on the identity of his shooter. Sadly, with the death of Mitchell Corbin, it seems like this will continue to remain a mystery for the time being.
“Following Election Day, Walker was denied bail by a judge after over a dozen mammals came forward with claims of past sexual harassment, sexual coercion, and the possible statutory rape of multiple students during his tenure as the principals of various high schools. The Lakertown School Board has stated that they are actively investigating further claims made by past and present students as well as faculty.
“Two active witnesses in this debacle include Dennis and Alan Rochford, the older brothers of Charlie Rochford. Their lawyer claims that not only did Richard Walker prey on their youngest brother when he was underage, but that the grizzly bear allegedly tasked Mitchell Corbin to hire a hitman to kill the Rochford family, which ultimately led to the suspected murder of their late father. Lakertown’s district attorney has confirmed that the Rochford brothers are staying in protective custody, and that their testimony will be used for an upcoming federal trial. When asked questions about whether or not they know the whereabouts of Charlie Rochford, their lawyer told reporters that the brothers requested no further comments.”
***
Bangkok, Thailand. It had been close to a decade since I last lived there.
What helped was having Cherry with me to enjoy it. In the years since I travelled back to the West, plenty had changed in the Southeast Asian country; a couple of coups, more social reform, and an ongoing junta that severely punished anyone for breaking their lèse-majesté laws (I made absolutely sure to tell Cherry to avoid criticizing the Thai monarchy at all costs, even in private). What didn’t change was the landscape of the Thai criminal underworld, as well as the banking information for a savings account holding ?550,000. There it sat, just in case of emergencies like the one we were in.
I spent one-fourth of the Thai Baht in one night, purchasing a modest studio condominium within walking distance of downtown Bangkok. The studio condo barely had a wall separating the bed from the living room and likely existed just to hold up an old plasma screen television. By the time that Cherry and I entered the apartment around four in the afternoon, it was downpouring, and torrential rain caused the massive neon sign advertising a laundromat to shimmer like diamonds on the windows. True to the realtor’s word, from what I managed to gather in my rusty understanding of the Thai language, everything but the wall-mounted TV was new.
“Finally!” Cherry leapt backwards onto the bed with stretching limbs. “A real bed!”
I rolled my eyes while locking the door behind me. “Don’t be dramatic.”
“Do you know how long it’s been since I slept in a bed?” he laughed. “Not a damn truck seat, a cramped abbey cot, airplane seat, or weeks on a cold blanket below deck, but a real, physical mattress with springs and bedsheets.”
“I know,” I replied deadpan, placing our luggage against the dividing wall. “I lived it with you. Admit it. The sea wasn’t all that bad once we got used to the motion sickness.”
“Says you!” Cherry nuzzled into the white bed sheets. His tail twitched while using his toes to kick away the worn American sneakers. We’d need to get some new ones for him. “I’m never gonna eat instant ramen as long as I live...”
“Sad for you, that might be the case,” I said. “We’ll need to be cheap for the time being.”
“Are you saying I’m expensive?” He made an amused trilling noise in his throat.
“Do you remember how much you used to charge me back home?” I asked, then chuckled when my ocelot lover replied with a middle finger. “I’m just saying…”
“I’ll have you know I charged fairly!” He gave me the finger without looking at me, and a smirk formed across my muzzle. “Honestly though…this is a nice place.”
“Yeah.”
Sitting beside him on the bed, Cherry shifted himself vertically to glance up at the window standing to the left of the bed. The same one with fluorescent signage and diamond droplets of rain making his orange, white, and black fur glow with colors. I kicked my tired feet up, shimmied away my footwear and shifted to lay next to the feline who became part of my world.
I stared out that same window with him, feeling my ocelot turn to wram his arms around my frame. “So, what do we do now?” he asked.
Exhaling through my nostrils, I replied, “Now? We stay away from social media and electronics that can be traced. We lay low, keep out of trouble from law enforcement, and find a way to make some money.”
Cherry folded an ear. “Will I need to use fur dye again? Pretend I’m a snow leopard?”
I shook my muzzle. “Probably not.”
“Thank Christ.” He breathed out a sigh of relief, then pondered aloud, “You gonna start contract killing again?”
Somewhere outside, a police siren blared like a trumpet from Heaven. I imagined Mitchell Corbin somehow having told hospital nurses my identity on his dying breath, and soon, the Thai equivalent of a SWAT team would barge into our fourth-story condominium. Shards of wood and broken glass would rain everywhere. Cherry and I would be placed in handcuffs, then tossed straight in a dark hole where nobody would hear our screams. That, or Cherry would be returned home for his own crimes whilst I got extradited to Geneva or The Hague for my various assassinations over the years.
None of it happened. We won, after all.
“Yeah.” I nodded moments later. “Probably. Not anything soon though. I no longer trust Reaper’s Row though. If I’m gonna start doing hits again, I’ll have to start over from the ground up. Last thing we need is people suspecting the ‘Feral Phantom’ is operating out here…There’s also the possibility of doing work as a merc.” My nose turned to Cherry, and I eyed him still gazing out the darkening window. “You?”
Cherry shrugged after careful thought. I felt his tail curl for comfort around my left leg.
“I dunno,” he answered. “I just…don’t know. If pimping myself out to men led us to this shitshow, better I find a different line of work, yeah?”
I snorted.
“I’m serious,” he scoffed. “What else can I do? My resume isn’t exactly filled to the brim with skills other than fucking.”
“Do you still like showing off your body?” I asked, then recommended, “Maybe you can work at a gentleman’s club, or a strip club, or escort service? There’s plenty of those in Bangkok. Worst case scenario, you can do part-time work at a grocer or that laundromat. We got plenty of options for us over here.” A chuckle escaped my muzzle. “Take it from me, it’ll be easier for you to find work than it’ll be for me.”
“Yeah, but as long as someone in this fucked up world of ours wants someone dead, you’ll get paid more than I will,” he said. “At least, until you think I’m ready to keep being your…wait. Am I still your apprentice or protégé, Markus?”
“Once things calm down and we have a steady income, we’ll get to work on that,” I reminded my ocelot. “Until then, we’re gonna resume the workouts and training we did together back at the cabin.”
“Ugh, dammit!” Cherry groaned, shifting onto his back to bristle his whiskers. “Here I was, thinking that we were done with that bullshit. It was sooooooo exhausting!” He attempted to offer the most seductive, demure grin he could give, showing off his pearly feline whites and purring, “You sure that sex can’t count as a workout?”
“Do you want to keep those muscles you’ve developed?” I asked. He blinked at my blunt question, then meekly nodded. In return, I slyly rested a palm on his warm thigh, “Although, now that you mention it, we do need to christen our new home…”
Cherry brightened up quickly at what I said. We stared into each other’s blackening souls, then leaned forward into a soft kiss. It made him shudder, his rough tongue curling inside his maw as I entered. I grabbed his ears, stroking them between my fingers until Cherry shuddered again. His purring vibrated through my grip, soon enough, and he straddled my stomach.
I pulled away from a gasp of air, and my ocelot, murmured, “Oh, Daddy…”
My ears fell over. I frowned at the giggling feline. “I told you once, if you call me ‘Daddy’ anytime during our relationship, I’d reconsider the sex.”
Cherry cocked a skeptical eyebrow, still giggling. “Oh, that’s a shame,” he teased. “Guess I’ll have to go out and roam the streets for pervy Western businessmen looking for discreet gay sex. How many of ‘em do you think there are in Bangkok?”
I rolled my eyes, my frown turning into a smirk. “You’re incorrigible…”
My ocelot lover laughed. “Coming from the hired killer.”
“As stated by the hooker,” I reminded him.
“That you fell in love with and risked everything for.” Suddenly, Cherry tightly curled his tail around my ankle, leaning forward to plant a kiss on my muzzle. “Seriously though, thank you…for all of this. I know you gave us so much for me, and—”
I grasped one of his wrists, gazing sharply at the silenced ocelot.
“They were just things. You’re not. You’re much, much more. Remember that.”
His lips quivered into a grateful smile. It infected me like an idiot.
“Can we still keep an eye on things at home?” he asked. “That cafe is safe, right?”
“If used sparingly,” I said.
Not too long after making landfall in Bangkok, I took us to a random Internet café near the edge of downtown. It was one of many in the city limits, A coffee house where people could also watch cat videos, international news, or emails between job shifts. While Cherry and I took the time to use it for cleaning ourselves up, I also used the semi-free service to find out what had been happening back in America. Mitchell Corbin died; Richard Walker III lost the election, and ultimately needed to disprove mountains upon mountains of evidence stacked against him. His reputation lay in tattered ruins while Dennis and Alan remained safe. We won.
“I love you, Markus.”
Once more, I smiled like an idiot, but that was okay. “I love you too, Cher.”
Cherry rocked his grinding hips back against my rigid tent, tail raised, and lower lip bitten down as he stared down at me. I groaned at feeling that beautiful ass curve press against my clothed cock, his legs straddling my waist and his paws grasping my shirt as he leaned down to plant a kiss. My smile melted into a lusting grin while my tongue slithered past ocelot fangs to fight for oral dominance. So did Cherry.
Our journeying fingers brushed against each other’s nipples through our clothes. The nubs on my pecs flared with sensation. Together, we shivered. Pulling a paw away, I grabbed the window blind’s cord and yanked hard, letting the plastic shutters descend and conceal us from most light. Using my other paw, I reached over to grope his right cheek through the boxer briefs. My thumb lowered it down until his tail thrashed free from the clothing’s button-up tail strap.
“This ass is fucking mine!” I snarled into his parting, whiskered lips. My middle digit pressed at his tailhole. It felt wet but smelt of cheap lubrication. Like a dutiful, anticipating sub, someone did more than just put on deodorant while in the internet café’s bathroom. “You’re fucking mine. No one else’s! Do you hear me, kitten?”
Cherry moaned and bucked himself back against my possessive fingers. “Yes…!” he whimpered. “Yes, get rough with me! B-Be rough…oh, I’m…I’m just a slutty little kitty…”
A dominant growl formed in my voice as I said, “If you wish.”
Grinning at his request, I bit down on Cherry’s neck, right below his Adam’s apple and just enough to draw tiny droplets of blood. “Umfh, yes!” A cry of pain and pleasure rumbled from his purring, vibrating throat. “M-Markus…ngh, l-like that!”
My tongue lathered at the ‘wound’, tasting his blood and sweat and musky fur, my wet nose vibrating against his purring. I couldn’t resist leaving more bite marks. It felt futile in the midst of our lust, feeling my canines scraping lightly against his sensitive skin, wet lips and drooling tongue making every mark feel better. It caused my ocelot—my mate, I realized deep down—to melt into squirming jelly. Squeezing his ass once more and feeling my wolfcock pulse into a fully hardened organ, I didn’t waste any time.
After everything we’d been through, I had one simple goal: to fuck him.
Roughly shifting Cherry onto his back, standing over him against the foot of the bed, I almost tore off the rest of my ocelot’s clothes. I yanked down his jeans, stretched off his shirt and jacket, then legitimately tore his underwear hard enough to leave a tear. Cherry objected at first, only for his protests at ruined clothing to become delighted babble when I stripped down to nothing. My shirts and belt buckle turned into garbage on the floor. I kicked away my wet socks and pants. An obscene erection throbbed at attention the instant I peeled the boxers down into the pile gathering around my feet. Cherry’s own toes wiggled, beckoning me to come forward, and I chuckled with deep lust at feeling his heels wrap around my waist to pull me in.
Sweat trickled down my forehead. Heartbeats filled my chest. A dollop of pre-cum streaked down the curving shaft at his attention. I did not stop admiring those beautiful golden eyes staring wantonly at mine. They stayed locked even as I drenched my fingers in spit and spread him open even further than he’d done earlier. He gulped, gasped, panting in unison with me until I left him vacant and mewling.
“Please…please…please…M-Markus, p-please…”
Next, I aligned my leaking tip at his familiar hole and pushed inside.
“Grrrr, fuck! Fuck, you’re—mmmfh, still so t-tight!”
“Ahhhh! Ffffuck me—ngh! M-Markus!” His needy, pleading tone pleased my ears and tickled the deepest recesses of my perverted old brain. “F-Fuck me!”
Oh yeah. Oh fuck. My ocelot’s voice rose to a crescendo as my shaft spread him wide, the velvet feline clenching harder around my member as I hilted inside him. Neither of us looked away. Not until I pulled out, only to plunge back in, and Cherry let out a tearful moan while arching his back. My tongue lathered and lapped at his esophagus, licking up his sweat and drying blood from the earliest bite mark.
The minutes felt like seconds. Are you for a building inside of us didn’t last long enough, not when we hadn’t been able to catch each other in weeks. My ball sack felt so heavy. It began to hurt, how it slammed back and forth against his spread ass cheeks, my length lodged inside. As I repeatedly shoved my cock in and out of him, each bucking motion causing Cherry to grip my shoulders tighter and my teeth to wrap around his vulnerable throat, it became too much. Hammering inside that tight hole with gritted, drooling teeth pushed me over the edge faster than expected. I’d been breeding him fast and hard after all.
Surprisingly, Cherry was the first to cum, followed by me a few seconds later.
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!”
Between harsh grunts and a final inhalation of his potent feline musk, I released my fangs from his neck, grinding them together as my balls emptied inside my ocelot. My ocelot. My lover. My mate. The man I loved. The man I wanted to keep making love to forever. Good fucking god, I really did go insane back in America. Oh well.
“Hhhhnnnnnnghhh!”
Musky cum filled the air and him, his tail wiggling as I spurted inside my lover.
I filled him up to the brim, the intrusive thought of impregnating him triggering a small image. It filled my vision while my body collapsed atop him, and then, I fell to my side. It stayed in the forefront of my mind as I lay spent and flaccid on the bed, lying beside Cherry. The climax washed over my relaxed body as much as the thought did.
I imagined the two of us living in the suburbs. American, Asian, European—it didn’t matter. We owned a house in a sea of houses. We experienced normal lives out there without bloodshed or crime. We no longer had to be dead men walking amongst the living.
Maybe one day, I concluded, panting heavily as I started feeling the dopamine and bliss filling my veins. It was much tastier than Colombian heroin.
I affectionately kissed my lover’s sweaty cheek, then the bite mark by his Adam’s apple, and the others. Every kiss led to an approving squeak and mewl from Cherry’s purring lips.
But it won’t be anytime soon. Not for us or the life we’ve chosen.
***
Markus and I stayed in bed for what felt like hours. Hot, musky air filled the condo as we lay panting and sore together, my wolf lover caring for me, pulling me back to Earth.
His wet muzzle nursed the sore bite marks along my neck and shoulders. His calloused fingers gently rubbed my elbows and knees, knuckles kneading my filled ass before massaging between my molten ears. He encouraged me to relax. He congratulated me. He whispered sweet nothings as I answered each sentence in another delirious language. Wherever he learned to be this considerate, it was twenty times better than any of my most BDSM-oriented clients (“What the fuck’s subspace? What’s a drop?”)
At some point, we stopped whispering to each other and simply enjoyed the rest of the afterglow. It left me quiet as I hugged Markus’ bare stomach as we gathered our breaths. Eventually, we drifted in and out of consciousness. I awoke sometime around midnight, with Markus still asleep with an arm around my neck. My eyes traveled from him, a large wolf so dangerous and yet peacefully asleep, right to the window beside our new bed. I pulled up the blinds to marvel at the neon-lit skyline, even if the view was only a small fraction of it.
It still felt surreal to be in another country on another continent. Ever since the night we escaped Lakertown, Markus and I had spent a few days in a tiny Canadian town, then nearly a whole month out on the open Pacific Ocean on a Russian cargo ship. Even though we were back on dry land and half-asleep from sweaty sex, I could still taste sea breeze on my salty tongue. Heh, I also still felt a different salty taste in my maw.
Careful not to wake Markus, I got out of bed. Cum dripped down a trembling leg and the base of my tail was stained and crusting. It didn’t stop me from approaching the balcony though.
Thailand wasn’t entirely what I expected, particularly Bangkok. All I knew about this part of the world were the stereotypes. Both were the negatives and positives. Getting off the boat that brought us here, I saw plenty of mopeds, pollution, poverty, insects, tiny shops and urban sprawl. A few residences held Christmas decorations, surprisingly. I noticed plenty of other things about Bangkok that reminded me of life back in the States. There was always an underground, plenty of shifty people in dark corners, fenced alleyways, lines leading into shifty nightclubs, and enough colorful graffiti to blend in with a dirty rainbow.
The view reminded me of Markus’ old apartment, in a sense. Besides the difference in height, there were different smells, many more neon signs in a language I didn’t understand, and a deeply unfamiliar skyline. Peering out of the small balcony though, ignorant of my nudity and uncaring thanks to the humid December winds, I could almost pretend the condo was back in Lakertown. I could almost pretend the previous six months, maybe nine months, never happened.
I still dreamed about my family, from my dad to my brothers. From what little American news me and Markus were able to gleam while staying off the grid, Dennis and Alan went into protective custody not long after we disappeared. I felt certain they heard my voicemail, and the lack of updates on my location told me they were keeping it secret.
More for my sake than theirs, honestly. With my former principal behind bars and my attempted murderer buried, I suddenly felt…freer. I stared up at the twilit sky and marveled at seeing stars beyond the light pollution. Past a factory smokestack, I could even make out the shape of a crescent moon. It was beautiful. Besides the return to sex, it felt good to once again have a roof over our heads, a new faraway life, and new opportunities. Whatever they were.
Yet when I stepped back inside, seeing a half-drowsy Markus stretching his arms and standing up from the bed, I felt my cock stir again. He was beautiful too. So handsome, so kind and caring. It didn’t matter if he killed dozens of people. That dark-furred Irish wolf was mine.
“We should take a shower,” he suggested, “then go out for some real Thai food. There’s bound to be at least one decent restaurant that’s still open. You up for it?”
My tail wagged behind me. His did too.
“Of course, I’m up for it!” I beamed. “But you’re paying.”
“For tonight,” he chimed, leading me to the bathroom. “Tomorrow, we’re shopping.”
This wasn’t Lakertown. This wasn’t the States. I’d be damned though if it wasn’t starting to feel like home. Feeling Markus wrapping his arms around me and kissing my shoulder as hot, steamy water descended around us, I came to one important conclusion: no matter what happened to us in the future, wherever he went, I would go, because he was home. My home.