FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Summer was halfway done and the heat scorched like Hell itself. In less than two months, I’d be starting my first semester of college up north in Utah, and I suddenly decided to spend my remaining time having fun. With nothing but a few paranormal investigative tools, tons of snacks, some hard cash, and dozens of emergency water bottles in the back of my parents’ red Fjord truck, I decided to drive a bit eastward along historic Route 66. It came down to two reasons: one, I’d never seen the eastern portion of the iconic old highway; and two, I was chasing a few regional fables. I wanted to try my hand at paranormal investigation. It had intrigued me since I first watched Stanley Kubrick’s "The Shining" as a young jackrabbit, despite my parents warning me it’d give me nightmares. Ever since, I imagined myself going to famous haunted locales, trying to find elusive spirits. I never did though, but after my eighteenth birthday, I resolved to change that. What better opportunity than this to hunt for ghosts? So, I did. Eager on the gas pedal, feeling free for another two months, I drove the red Fjord truck east along the crumbling Route 66, stopping every so often either for gas or to scan an area with my equipment. My only company at the moment were the patches of cacti and rolling tumbleweeds. The world felt endless and the future incredibly bright, like the overhead sun. The cloudless sky and lack of discernable landmarks made me feel like a traveler on an alien world. At the same time, the blue expanse above and the arid landscape were more beautiful than words could describe. The historic highway didn’t cut through the land like a hot butterknife but ebbed and flowed like a babbling brook. One could spend hours, if not days, simply sauntering their car up and down the road. Speaking of which, afternoon was turning into the early hours of evening. Beside the golden sun and vibrant blue sky, I distinctly remembered the effortless way that the truck’s tires glided over decades’-old pavement. I reached into the passenger seat to grab another water bottle with one paw, slowing down the truck and grasping the wheel with the other. The windows were down, providing a breeze that combated the arid heat, but it didn’t stop me from feeling thirsty. My paw blindly searched for the bottle but couldn’t find it. I turned quickly to see it had fallen onto the bottom of the seat, so I leaned down to grab it, and sat up in time to spot a lone shadow on the right side of the road. Another mammal with their arm raised high in the air, waving at me. I placed the bottle in my cupholder and slowed the truck down as I approached, peering through the windshield to see if it was a mirage. “Hey!” The mammal’s shout echoed over the dry wind. “Yoo-hoo! Over here!” I gripped on the wheel. Nope, not a mirage, but a male Jack Russell terrier. He’d been walking away from a 1950s gas station that no longer sold gas, food, or anything worthwhile. Somewhere between my age and college graduation, the terrier wore a faded blue denim jacket one size too big for his slender form. He wore church pants with the bottoms rolled up to turn them into shorts, had utterly dirty and worn sneakers, and a white t-shirt whose design I couldn’t see due to the battering heat and how he held the jacket close to his chest. Our gaze soon met, and his smile cracked wide open into a grin. “Thank God, you’re here!” he laughed in relief, stepping over to the passenger seat and clasping on the open window sill. “Thought I’d be walking the rest of the way!” “You okay?” I asked, somewhat distracted by a glint that shone behind his sunglasses. “I’m good, but can y’all please do me a huge, huge favor?” he pleaded. “I need a ride. I’m going home and need to get as far as you’re going. Please?” I surveyed the strange terrier. My parents taught me and my siblings many important lessons growing up, one of which was to distrust strangers until they became friends. It wouldn’t be until college that I’d ignore some of those lessons, and I broke the lesson of trust by hesitantly letting the terrier climb into the cushioned passenger seat. Mainly, I did it to ease my own conscience. More than that, I found him quite handsome. What if a serial killer in a van picked him up later? What if he died of dehydration before reaching the destination further down the road? “Thank you so much for this,” he said. He looked incredibly relieved and happy, but his grin held something sad I couldn’t describe. Bittersweet. “I promise I won’t be a bother, and you only need to get me as far as you’re going. I’ll go the rest of the way…” I awkwardly shifted in the driver’s seat. “You’re not going to turn out to be a serial killer, are you?” I asked as he settled into his spot. He stopped marveling at the cushion beneath his rump and stared at me quizzically. “I mean…At least tell me you’re not doing or have done anything shady?” The Jack Russell terrier grinned, pulling something from his denim jacket’s pocket. “That depends,” he replied. “Does having a smoke count as shady?” I snorted. “Not really…my mom smokes.” “Oh yah. So did mine,” the canine hitchhiker quipped. “Only thing that kept her sane while raising me…but that’s a whole ’nother story, friend.” He pulled out an item and I nearly flinched, then relaxed when I saw him bump a stick from a colorful pack of cigarettes. The brand didn’t appear familiar, mainly covered by his calloused fingers. His muzzle’s soft lips touched the end of the cigarette sticking out, pulling it from the box with his teeth and pausing midway to look at me. “Can I?” he asked for permission. I sighed, relieved. “Only if you don’t leave ashes on the floor,” I compromised, lowering all the windows in the truck from my side panel. “And only if you buckle your seatbelt. Safety first and all that.” “You got yourself a deal.” He extended his free paw, pocketing the cigarette pack in his jacket. “By the way, call me Jack. Everyone does.” “Jack?” I shook his paw. It felt warm, strong yet soft against my palm. Raising an eyebrow, I asked, “Let me guess: Russell is your last name?” Jack let out a chuckle, his grin unwavering as he let go of me and pulled a lighter from his pocket. The item’s silvery surface looked incredibly worn down and faded from use. Whatever old logo was painted on its side had chipped away a long time ago. Jack flicked it once, twice, thrice. “How ’bout you, long-ears?” he asked languidly, side-stepping my question. “Is your name Jack too?” “Yep, my full name is Jack R. Abbit,” I attempted to joke, but he didn’t laugh. I waved it off. “Nah, my name’s really Bram. Short for Abraham.” That caught Jack’s attention for a bit. “Like Bram Stoker? The Dracula guy?” “Like Bram Stoker,” I chortled while driving again. “The Dracula guy.” He smirked at my smartass comment, didn’t say anything, then flicked the lighter a fourth time. A miniature flame pecked the filter’s end with a burning kiss. Smoke lightly wafted from the cigarette as the strange terrier snapped his lighter closed. For a moment, I thought I’d spotted something behind those dark sunglasses, but it disappeared just as easily as the lighter’s tiny flame. My eyes remained on the road, only for me to occasionally glance back at my guest. I watched Jack inhale his stick whilst buckling himself with one paw. He switched it to his right digits, then hung his arm and the cigarette out the open passenger side window while slowly exhaling smoke from the dog’s faint mustache on his cream-colored muzzle. He offered his cigarette, one floppy ear tilting adorably. “Want a quick drag?” I gulped, recalling an uncle of mine and his history of hacking and coughing. “Nah,” I answered, “I’m good.” That confident smile outshone mine. “If you say so…” A blush hid underneath my whiskers and mocha-furred cheeks as I continued driving. ‘Jack Russell’ and I didn’t talk much for a while. I kept watch on the road despite its notorious abandonment. Meanwhile, Jack was too mesmerized by the passing sights on either side of the truck. The eyes behind his sunglasses stayed wide as his attention switched between the road ahead, the road behind us, and the deserted ruins of Pax Americana. So many hollowed out roadside diners, gas stations neglected and gouged out over time, and too many family homes left standing empty. “So,” I tentatively asked, “have you been on the Mother Road before?” “Oh yah,” Jack replied nonchalantly. “I’m from the Midwest, but you could say I’ve been born and raised on this here road…” He inhaled another hit of nicotine, blowing the seductive smoke out the side of his muzzle as he stared through the windshield. “Passed through plenty of cities and such. Once, I saw Las Vegas from a distance, but that was a while back. Never seen much of California though. You?” I chuckled. “Same here. I’m from Nueva Fe. But my folks have taken me to California and other parts of the country.” Despite my worries dripping away, and Jack seemingly being laidback, I didn’t bring up all those trips being opulent family vacations. I wasn’t stupid enough to reveal my parents’ wealth to a total stranger. “So…are you parched or anything? You must be after walking down the Route for hours…I have some water bottles in the back seat if you need anything to—” “Nah, I’m good, but thanks for the offer, Bram,” Jack said with a shrug. He eyed the rearview window to see my plastic pack of water bottles. Curiosity made his brow arch. “Say, what’re those doohickeys next to the water? That some sorta handheld radio and…am I crazy, or is that a Geiger counter or something?” Gripping the wheel, one of my eyes followed his gaze to the equipment nestling in the truck’s backseat, right beside the water bottles. “Oh, no. That’s not a Geiger counter. Neither is that a radio. Not the regular kind anyway. That first item’s called a spirit box. The other item’s an EMF detector I bought online. And that camera there is no ordinary camera.” Jack whistled. “No ordinary camera, eh?” he mused, sucking in another huff of his cigarette before exhaling out the window. “And what do you mean by ‘spirit box’? It doesn’t look like any kinda box I’ve ever seen…” “That’s just what everyone calls it,” I explained. “It’s also called a ‘ghost box’. It’s supposed to scan radio frequencies and let ghosts leave messages in the white noise. The EMF detector searches for manipulations in surrounding electromagnetic fields. And the small camera back there is supposed to detect hot or cold spots, to tell if a spot is haunted or not.” “You’re a ghost hunter, I take it?” the terrier queried with an amused smirk. I grinned back at him. “Last I heard, the nearest haunted houses are back in civilization. All that’s out here are dusty buildings and feral skeletons surrounded by desert.” “Not all of ’em,” I said. “You’d be surprised how many paranormal hotspots are remote. The Bermuda Triangle, Chernobyl, Area Fifty-One, the town of Goodbye, New Mexico.” “Isn’t that last one just west of where you live?” Jack queried. “Right next to the Arizona border, but yeah, it’s west of Nueva Fe,” I said with a nod. “That one’s drowning in the supernatural. UFO sightings, wild hunts, poltergeists, hellhound sightings, and don’t even get me started on the Lost Weekend of 1969. I’m starting college this fall in Utah but wanted to go on a ghost-hunting trip to Goodbye before I left.” Jack listened attentively as he asked, “What stopped you from doing it earlier?” I shrugged. “Life got in the way.” Not to mention that my best friend (with benefits) and a few of my old classmates backed out one by one until I remained. Most of it had to do with poor scheduling, but it didn’t bother me as much as it did anymore. “I can always go on that trip at another time,” I changed the subject. “I’ve still got the rest of summer to myself, so I decided to go on this trip on my own. Do my own ghost-hunting adventure.” “And what specter or spooky phantom are you looking for, pray tell?” Jack asked. I smiled at the terrier as he leaned back in the passenger seat. “I’m looking for plenty of ghosts. There’s been a few sightings at certain locations, but I’ve also been keeping an eye out for a ghostly hitchhiker.” He slightly lowered his sunglasses. “Ghostly hitchhiker?” “Yeah,” I confirmed, then jokingly asked. “You’re not a ghostly hitchhiker, are you?” “What if I am?” Jack retorted. “Maybe I’m not really here, Bram. Maybe I’m a figment of your imagination, a mirage you’ve been talking to for the past hour.” His serious expression cracked into a playful smile. The scent of his burning cigarette filled the truck’s cabin, only to waft out the passenger window. I pictured it traveling behind us like a trailing, ghostly tail. As I laughed, Jack sucked in another hit, frowned at how short his drag had gotten, then tossed it outside the window. The deathly but addictive stick sparked and disappeared into the sand to our right as I sped us away. “Maybe,” I answered, rolling my eyes at the strange dog. “But you’re likely not the ghostly hitchhiker I’m looking for. The one that’s been rumored to walk up and down the Route is said to be a female dog. Purebred. No exact species, but some say she’s a Great Dane, a cocker spaniel, Brittany spaniel. They all say she’s got bright green eyes like emeralds.” “I think I’ve heard that legend before,” he mused aloud. “It’s one of many on the Mother Road,” I explained. “Too many truckers over the years have said they’d gotten lucky with this lady, only to have her vanish from their cabin the next morning.” Jack let out a derisive snort. “’Course they did,” he said. “Huh?” I cocked an eyebrow. “What do you mean?” “Truckers, am I right?” He crossed his arms, laying his head back and letting those adorably floppy ears fall back against the headrest. “If they’re not bragging about nailing some hot broad they picked up on the side of the road, they’re spicing it up by saying she’s a ghost. Oh yah, that way, it can’t be proven wrong. How they convince a girl to come back in their stinky cabins is a mystery you ought to solve too, Bram…” “And why do you say that?” I steered the truck around a winding bend, keeping focused on the road without breaking our conversation. “I take it you’ve got an opinion about truckers?” “Can’t tell ya how many I’ve meet who wanted to trade gas for ass,” he stated. “You’re against…?” I awkwardly hung onto the unfinished question. “Not really,” he chuckled. “Why? Is what we’re doing here—” “No, no, no, no,” I assured him. “I’m not expecting…anything from you. No gas money, certainly not pot, or even…” “Good old-fashioned sodomy?” he quipped. “I’m all for it. I’m just not fond of truckers.” As soon as the road straightened out, I loosened my grip on the wheel and rested a casual elbow out the open window, glancing at Jack. Feeling more relaxed in his presence, I softly smiled. “Eh, they’re not all bad. At least, the few I’ve met have all been sweethearts.” The Jack Russell terrier turned his head without lifting it from the headrest. In spite of the sunglasses shielding his eyes, I knew they connected with mine in the rearview mirror. He pulled out another cigarette, but didn’t light it. Rather, he put it to his muzzle again, wrapping his lips around the end in a slow and suggestive manner. “All been sweethearts?” he echoed my words. “How so?” Jack opened his denim jacket enough to reveal a slim stomach underneath his white t-shirt. I gulped at his exposed midriff, at how he reminded me of a sexy all-American farmer boy from old sitcoms. The logo across his chest displayed retro-colored stripes, like a faded rainbow. My wandering eye was temporarily distracted by the patch of slender torso and groomed fur between the hem of his shirt and those pants he wore. I refocused on the road. My throat suddenly felt dry, and I sipped on my water bottle nestled between the seats. Setting it aside, I placed both paws back on the wheel. “Well…” I stalled on my words, then rediscovered my confidence again. “Well, one of them was…Okay, I’ve only been with one trucker. He was actually my very first hookup on Howlr after I turned eighteen. He was a big black bear. Called himself Brett.” Jack snickered. “Brett the Black Bear, eh?” “Yeah,” I said, smiling. “It wasn’t my first time, but you could say that I wasn’t…prepared enough down there. He took things slow though, really eased me into it, and treated me like a real prince.” “How was his tongue?” I coughed in disbelief at the sudden topic change. Suppressing a laugh, I awkwardly asked, “What?” “How was his tongue?” he asked again, lighting up his next cigarette. “I heard bear tongues are the best.” A snicker escaped the back of my throat. “Oh, his certainly was!” The strange terrier let out a huff. “Oh? Do tell, Dracula guy.” I smirked, recalling the hookup in further detail. “It…It was so flexible and strong. When he wanted to be a bit dominant, and I told him to, he jammed his whole tongue down my mouth. I think he tickled my gag reflex. And like I said, a total sweetheart. By the time we were both finished, he went out of his way to offer me dinner at a nearby café. On his dime.” “Heh, I’m jealous.” Jack sucked on his stick, breathing out a large huff of smoke without slowing his harsh words. “From what I’ve seen, most truckers can range from romantic dolts to total bastards. The last trucker I fucked didn’t give me a hot meal. He didn’t ease himself in like a ‘total sweetheart’. He didn’t even take me all the way to my destination after I sucked his dick and swallowed his load.” “He was that bad, huh?” I spoke apologetically. “Oh yah.” The terrier nodded. “A good lay, but shitty personality.” One of my ears folded. “May I ask his species?” “You can,” he simply replied, taking another huff of his cigarette. His answer didn’t come until I asked, “What was his species?” “Alligator,” he answered. “I think he was from Louisiana or Georgia, based on the Southern accent. I dunno what he was doing all the way out here though. Did your sweetheart bear have an accent?” “I think he was Canadian,” I said without being sure. The two of us shifted in our seats multiple times during the conversation, and more than once, I cleared my parched throat before taking another quick swig of my water bottle. It emptied at some point. Without a word, Jack noticed my sudden thirst, reaching behind him to grab another bottle while avoiding touching the equipment. The sky was turning darker. The sun began setting in this gorgeous tapestry of orange, yellow, and purple lights. Jack’s obsidian sunglasses reflected them in awe, his burning cigarette a firefly emitting faint gray clouds. “In your opinion, how does a bear tongue compare to a dog’s tongue?” he asked out of nowhere and seemed to chuckle at my suddenly stiff posture in the driver’s seat. “Relax, I’m only kidding…” “Are you?” I nervously replied. “That all depends,” he replied nonchalantly after a while. The end of his cigarette flickered. “Have you ever made out, fooled around with a dog, let’s say…like me?” Our eyes met again. Our smiles inviting smiles matched. “I’ve fooled around with lions, tigresses, bears…” I drew out a breath. “Once slept with a classmate and his older sister in one day. But never a terrier before. I bet their mustaches tickle.” Jack sucked his stick hard, emphasizing it until he tossed it out the window, then leaned forward to kiss my bunny whiskers with seductive smoke. “Mm. Wanna find out?” he murmured. Slowly on the horizon, a roadside motel came up on our left. It came into view as I pondered his unanswered question. Long abandoned and jutting out of the darkening desert like a two-storied plaster box from the 1940s, I reluctantly refocused on the windshield. I guided the truck off the road and turned it into the cracked parking lot. The pavement was bumpier than even the road, but that didn’t prevent me from parking the Fjord behind the motel. I shifted my seat position a little backwards, providing more space between the wheel and my body. A tent stood erect in my shorts. Grinning down at the sight, Jack unbuckled his seatbelt and leaned down, helping me pull down my shorts. He discarded those black sunglasses and placed them on the truck’s dashboard. My leaky jackrabbit member stood tall when I met the cool open air of the truck’s interior, then madly throbbed when a pair of warm lips wrapped around it. I hissed in pleasure and bucked my partially naked hips, thrusting up into that mustachioed muzzle, Jack’s wayward paw grasping my rabbit tail and another reaching further inside my shorts, fondling both sensitive balls. The area was unbelievably quiet. An old brick wall layered in ancient graffiti stood to the truck’s left, and an overturned, ransacked dumpster preceded sand that stretched across the northern horizon. Not another soul could be found for miles and possibly decades. A shadow partially covered the vehicle in shade as the sky grew dim. A beautiful place and beautiful sight, admittedly, but not as much as witnessing the mysterious Jack Russell terrier effortlessly inhale my dick. All ten toes practically curled inside my shoes as I stretched both trembling legs. I clutched the back of Jack’s bobbing head, sometimes gently gripping or fondling one of his floppy ears. They were so warm to hold, so heated, like they had been baking under sunlight all day. Almost as hot as the canine’s smoky breath on my shaft, that tongue curling along the underside like a hot dog bun, then slurping up and down with little effort. Who was Jack and where did he learn to— “Ahhhhh!” I gasped, feeling his dexterous appendage brush my taint and balls at once. “Oh, my f—Nnnnngh!” Jack momentarily withdrew to tease me and say, “You are quite the squirter.” I squeezed one of his ears, its heartbeat caressing my palm. My other paw roamed the denim jacket covering his back, occasionally gripping onto the fabric whenever that canine tongue lapped at a sensitive inch or two. Sometimes it was a little too rough, though I didn’t object other than squeak and let out humming grunts. The wet embrace around my shaft grew tighter, more slobbery, and eager. I expected to ejaculate inside his mouth. Huffing as my climax approached, I roughly grasped his skull as it rose faster and descended quicker, until eventually it slowed. Jack withdrew his muzzle yet again, licking his drooling chin and staring up at me with anticipation. His eyes…they were bright green, entrancingly green, like— Mustachioed lips pecked mine. They felt so warm and musky, strongly smelling like my crotch. Not that I minded it in the slightest, but the sudden affection did leave me speechless. “Wanna fill me, Dracula guy?” Jack teased me. “Tell me you’ve got lube.” “G…glovebox,” I replied after a moment. “C-condom, too.” My parents taught me and my siblings many important lessons growing up, one of which was to distrust strangers until they became friends. The other was to use condoms. I soon went about following Jack outside after he snagged the plastic bottle and a condom, partially keeping my shorts on as I stepped out of the truck. The purple and oranges above had turned darker shades of blue, a few stars peeking out to watch us have sex on the tailgate. The air was turning cool and a humid, yet comfortable breeze washed over our ears. I’d pulled a blanket from the backseat and just climbed up into the tailgate when I let out a lustful whistle. Jack had neatly placed his large denim jacket over the truck bed’s railing, already stepping out of his shoes and pants. His fluffy white tail swished hypnotically over toned buttocks. Unkempt leg fur did little to hide his masculine glutes, and I gripped the side of the bed admiring the patches of brown and black that speckled his creamy-furred back. Much to my amusement, Jack held for lube in one paw and the unopened condom between his grinning teeth, like a cigarette. “If you’re not a ghost, then maybe you’re an angel?” I jested. Jack chuckled while posing his rear at an angle. “Oh, come all ye faithful…” I let out a couple of fits of laughter while placing down the blanket. The metal remained warm to the touch, thanks to the hours spent traveling. Yet it didn’t distract us from discarding the rest of our clothes. Standing unabashedly on the tailgate, I helped Jack tug off his shirt, and he excitedly peeled down my shorts and boxers by the waistbands. One paw of his held the lube and condom. His greedy and calloused fingers in the other grasped my flexing ass as I groped his muscular thighs, kissing him deeply as we rubbed ourselves together. His saliva and tongue dripped with masculinity and nicotine, with the subtlest hint of lavender in his scent. He tasted so different from everyone I’d ever met before. Our noses touched. We exchanged eager smiles. Placing the condom back in his teeth, Jack ripped the plastic open, and I grabbed the lube to pour some on my right fingers. We knelt on the blanket, focused on each other instead of the ambient wildlife and black sea of diamonds glimmering in the moonlit sky. Jack squirmed under me as I spread his ass wide with my slick fingers. He panted and whined in canine heat as I leaned down to lap at one of his nipples. I kissed the hard nub. My arm rubbed against his erection as my fingers kept moving in and out of that tight tailhole, prodding and preparing him. Meanwhile, I’d placed my other palm on his chest to keep him in position as my whiskers, rabbit nose, and moist lips trailed down his stomach. It shivered for me, then convulsed when I started brushing my snout up and down that pink and creamy shaft. Especially as it leaked out salty yet sweet cream from the pulsing tip. “Hnnnngh!” Jack whimpered delightedly. “Oh, God!” “Lemme guess: never had a jackrabbit or bunny suck your dick before?” I kiss to the underside of the erect shaft. “Mm. You could say I’m an expert in avoiding biting down with my buck teeth…” “I noticed—Ahhh!” he suddenly gasped. “What the…?” I chuckled nervously. “Sorry, just brushed against your love button—the prostate.” I glanced back up from his rubbing, leaky terrier cock to his glowing and teary-eyed emeralds. I was too lost in the lust. We both were. “So, you ready, Jack, or…?” Jack panted between deep breaths, nodding like a ferocious rocker. I beamed, slowly pulling out my fingers and wiping them on my thigh while repositioning between his spread knees. I put the condom on after a bit of fumbling. His fingers soothed my elbows as I lined myself up. His clenching hole was warm molasses around the head of my dick, his tail tickling the underside of my balls as they swung closer to his taint. We both flinched even as our noses kissed, and our wet lips connected. So tight, so soft, incredibly accommodating as I inched deeper. I took deep breaths, waiting for him to voice approval to keep going. His rump pushed back down on my shaft and squeeze around the base before repeating the same action. Jack laughed at my expression, licking and slobbering all over my nose until I jammed my tongue back down his muzzle. In return, that canine tongue of his kept licking and suckling on either my molars or the buck tooth I struggled not to scrape on his lips. My hips collided with Jack’s in a gradual pace. The Fjord truck rocked back and forth in tandem with my steady thrusts and Jack’s reciprocal hips. It had already turned dark, and the only sources of light were the stars and the moon overhead. I could see just enough to know where to brush my thumbs against his nipples and roam my fingers along his excited sides, drinking him in as we made out and fucked. I hoped it would go on forever. Between the excitement of a random hookup and the passionate kissing, my mind became a fog of desire. I could barely recall further actions as much as I could feelings and delicious sensations. On my dick, my lips, my whiskers, ears as he grabbed them, and how he eventually grasped my flexing ass. His fingers dug harder into my posterior. Our tongues swirled together. One of his paws squeezed around the base of my tail as I picked up speed, mildly biting into his lower lip, then breaking away to inhale sweet New Mexican air. I recalled Jack whispering stuff against my lips. All I knew was that he wanted me, that he needed me. I happily provided the dog with the scratch to his carnal itch, kissing, licking, and bucking inside him again and again. Half an hour later, Jack and I lay sweaty and panting on the blanketed truck bed. I’d just tied up the used condom and placed it aside. Our echoes still probably carried all the way back to Nueva Fe by then, probably already into Texas. We each had an arm wrapped around each other’s bare shoulders, trying to catch our breath as the ambience of the open desert filled whatever silence filled the air. Distant animal noises, howling wind, shifting sands; my heartbeat practically kept me from hearing it all. “Do ya think…” Jack spoke gutturally, laughing like he’d just run a marathon, “They heard us?” “The animals?” I released an amused huff. “I think…they’re also…rutting, like we did.” “Good point.” He reached for his denim jacket, snatching the lighter and his cigarettes. He offered one. “Eh, what the hell…” I shrugged, accepting it between my fingers. “Thanks.” The two of us sat up straighter on the blanket. A cloud slowly covered the moon, bathing us in pitch black for a time. The canine’s faint outline transformed into a rugged, naked Jack Russell terrier the minute his lighter flicked on. The small flame illuminated his cream-furred muzzle and revealed the mahogany in his cheeks, around his eyes, and all over those perked ears. His green pupils dilated, then fell on me as I placed my cigarette between my buck tooth and lower lip. He tried flicking the lighter back on. Once, twice, thrice, it didn’t work. “C’mon, you worthless fucker,” Jack muttered to himself. “All these—Nngh! Piece of shit…” “Wait,” I offered, then shifted my nude form closer and placed the end of my stick to his lit one. We held our breaths in this parody of a kiss. “…there, there we go!” The end of my cigarette burned. The raw rush of nicotine filled my lungs and heart. It felt almost as satisfying as what Jack and I just performed beneath voyeuristic vultures flying from a distance. Perhaps an alien UFO. Maybe even God and His angels. “You’re turning green,” Jack commented with a wry smirk. My lungs failed to keep me from hacking out the smoke. I coughed and huffed in the fresh open air as Jack crossed his legs, laughing at me. Concern traversed his expression when I didn’t stop. He smacked my back a few times while taking my stick for himself, huffing on the two cigarettes at the same time. He calmed down when my lungs did. “There, there. Oh yah, it’s definitely not for you, Dracula guy!” he cackled between deep huffs. “I can’t believe you can suck cock, but not one of these things.” “One tastes better than the other,” I tried saying, only to have it come out as incoherent hacking. Finally, I formed words. “H-How…can you ch-chain s-smoke…after…” Jack released a crispy mist of smoke above our heads. “I dunno about yah, but I don’t need lungs,” he said inanely. “I spent way too much of my life staying safe, following rules, ignoring all of life’s pleasures…” He tossed one of the cigarettes over the truck bed’s railing, sucking on the remainder while in deep thought, staring up at the desert sky. He leaned against the truck’s rearview window. “Say, Bram, do yah ever…y’know…think about the future? For boys like us? Men like us?” Inhaling through my nostrils, I gently sat beside him. Our bare shoulders touched, our thighs, and even his relaxed tail touched my lower legs. The summer night wind felt so good on my dark fur. Somehow, I didn’t feel that chilly sitting next to the mysterious terrier. “Sometimes, I do worry,” I admitted. “Sure, gay marriage is legal all around, but there’s always plenty of homophobes and asshole truckers out there. I’ve just been fortunate enough not to meet that many of ’em…” Watching the dog discard his finished cigarette over the side of the truck, I followed his returning gaze to the bright stars, and mine fell on the Big Dipper as I spoke. “I assume you’ve not been as lucky?” “You can say that,” Jack simply answered. “Most of the guys I’ve known either wanted to beat me up or discard me after they got off. That’s kinda why I’ve been heading East.” “For a fresh start?” I asked, and he made a grunt of affirmation. “I know you’ll find it.” He sighed, sounding a little wistful, then leaned his floppy ear against the left crook of my neck as we continued sitting naked on the bed of my family’s truck. “Thank yah, Bram,” he said. “And not just for the ride. And the good time.” We shortly chuckled, relaxing for a while longer. “So, what do we do now?” he eventually asked, emitting a deep yawn. “I dunno about yah, but I could use some sleep…” “Same,” I agreed, then stood up to stretch my unapologetically naked body and limbs. Jack let out an amused chortle, no doubt soaking in the sight of my behind. “But first, I wanna test out this motel we’re next to. See if it’s got any spirits at least.” “You think this place is haunted?” he asked. “It’s definitely filled with history, and sometimes that can be enough to invite spirits to make it their home. All that negative energy can pool together,” I said. “You gonna join me?” “Nah, I’m good,” he hummed. “Mind if I…lay here for a bit while ya do that…?” “Go on ahead,” I replied while getting clothed. “I’ll be quick about—ah!” Jack had pinched my right butt cheek, and I sharply glared at him while the dog stared innocently at the barren horizon stretching behind the abandoned motel. I rolled my eyes when he broke down snickering. Meanwhile, Jack lingered naked and laying over the blanket without a care in the world, his arms relaxed behind his head. “What? I couldn’t resist.” I snorted, “Can’t get enough of me?” “Maybe,” he cheekily replied, then grew silent. I assumed he was contemplating again. Once I got dressed and drank down an entire water bottle, I snatched the EMF detector, then turned it on. As a whim, out of sight from the terrier, I sneakily pointed it in the direction of the truck bed. No noise from the handheld device. No signs of manipulated fields. Slightly disappointed, I walked away from the truck and surveyed the vintage motel, the detector in one paw and a flashlight in the other. Overall, I didn’t find anything as I circled around the structure. Like most abandoned places along the Mother Road of America, it had been left neglected to sand and time. The rooms were boarded up, bricked up, every inch covered in graffiti or vandalism. The lobby itself had been stripped of all valuable metal wiring. The asphalt would soon become gravel. Not once did my detector ever go off, even by a small margin. I almost worried it was broken, or if the batteries were drained, had I not tested it before driving earlier that morning. By the time I returned to the Fjord truck, an odd feeling crept up my back. Then— The EMF detector shrieked at a strong frequency. It grew louder as I approached the vehicle. The sweat that had been staining my back an hour prior returned. My steps became heavier as I drew closer and closer to the truck’s bed. My eyes narrowed, then widened as I jumped in front of the tailgate. I expected to still find a naked terrier dog, lounging on my blanket in post-sexual bliss and contemplation. Maybe even as an apparition. However, no. Jack was gone. His clothes, his oversized denim jacket, and his cigarette butts on the ground were all gone. Not even his scent stayed. The only sign of what we’d did were the rustled blanket and the used condom nestled atop it. I didn’t move from my spot for a good hour. I couldn’t speak. Honestly, what could I say or do? By the time I did pull myself together, forcing my stiff limbs to move as I put everything back in the truck, I simply drove all the way back to Nueva Fe. No stops, no Samaritanism, no reactions other than recalling every second of what happened. By the time I returned home, I didn’t even bother changing out of my clothes before collapsing into bed. I never saw Jack again. Every once in a while, if I had the annual leave, I’d drive up and down that iconic road, expecting to see a canine silhouette signaling for a ride. Maybe he did end up making it out East. Mayhe he never did. Maybe he was continuing to try to go East over and over again. Either way, he stayed a figment in both memory and story whenever I told anyone about my first paranormal encounter. Most didn’t believe me, but those who did agree with me on one thing: wherever Jack now was, we hoped he’d ultimately made it to his destination.