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NIGHTHAWKS

On a warm spring night, fresh and fragrant with the scent of cherry blossoms, which intermingled with the more artificial scents of car exhaust and cigarette smoke, Diego Redfield was going into a restaurant, to dine alone.

He had been required by business to go up to a town in southern Oregon, at which a court case was proceeding in which he, as the arresting officer, was a witness. The case had not been in the jurisdiction of the San Fernando Metropolitan Police Department, for whom Diego was employed as a Homicide Detective, but the defendant in this case had fled from Oregon down to San Fernando, where Diego had the fortune, or the misfortune, as it were, to be the one charged with apprehending him. Now, the case settled, he had spent the earlier part of the evening driving home, along a winding coastal road which, while slower, was less plagued by traffic, and offered a splendid view of an effervescent, sparkling sun disappearing into the comforting depths of the ocean. Diego had rolled down the windows of his Mercedes, and let the scent of the sea, and of the coastal forests which rose along the road, drift to his raised muzzle, breathing the clear air, and letting it clear his thoughts.

Now he was back on the outskirts of San Fernando, close enough to see the city's lights sparkling in the night, all the way from the hills down to the sea. From a long way off, a city's lights, growing brighter in the darkness as one grows closer, may inspire in the homebound traveller that same sentiment of gratitude once felt by inbound seafarers as they espied the guiding beam of a lighthouse. But for Diego the inspiration was lacking, for he did not feel he had a home to come back to.

The establishment he was now entering was called "Nighthawks." It was a low, unassuming structure, with a faded shingle roof turned grey by too many years of northern California rain, and equally faded pine walls, bordered by a veranda hung with hanging baskets of overgrown red geraniums. Neighbouring it on one side was a garden-supply store, much more modern in construction, and on the other side, merely forest, although of a low, new-growth variety, through which the twinkling multitude of San Fernando lights were visible. A few blooming cherry trees stood just beyond the veranda. At the entrance of a gravel parking-lot a tall wooden sign labelled, in large red and green letters, the diner's name.

Diego was not particular about food. Having found that the increased income from his extracurricular activities had not inspired any desire to begin frequenting 5-star restaurants, he remained committed to a simple diet of hamburgers, spaghetti, fish & chips, chicken fried steak, and other typical diner fare, whatever happened to be most readily available. He had grown hungry on the drive back, so when he saw the sign and realised he was passing an eatery, he had whipped the Mercedes back, swung into the parking lot, and parked next to an aged Chevrolet pickup. As he got out, locking the car, the strains of a familiar song reached his large Wolfdog ears: Billy Joel's "The Pianoman." Two shadowy figures, bear and a badger, he thought, stood smoking on the veranda, but ignored him as he went up the steps, and into the restaurant.

Unlike some of the people for whom he worked, Diego was not incapable of showing surprise, and in this moment his ears pricked in interest. Suffice to say the restaurant's interior did not match its exterior. The majority of it was taken up by a long, high bar of polished mahogany, before which, rather than bar-stools, a series of leather arm-chairs on poles offered seating. There were perhaps half a dozen tables provided for those who did not wish to sit at the bar, but as Diego liked bars, he slid into one of the leather chairs. As he did so he saw that it was the kind of diner at which the food is prepared in front of the customer. There were grills, stainless steel sinks, two large ovens, cabinets full of saucepans and trays, while directly in the middle of the back wall was hung a very large framed print depicting a street-corner diner at night, in which a few canines were drinking. The print stirred a memory within Diego of his 8th grade art class, back in San Diego: it was Edward Hopper's masterpiece, Nighthawks. It must have been after this painting that the restaurant was so-named.

Below the painting were the customary shelves of bottles of alcohol, and it was this which now drew Diego's attention. A female dingo was now approaching him, having been pouring a drink for another of the customers. "Hullo! Can I get you anything, sir?"

"Scotch on the rocks, please" said Diego. The dingo was not unattractive, and while she was probably a few years older than he, he knew that a year ago, he would have been trying to get her to come home with him. But his mood on this particular night was not one inclined to flirting. "Thanks," he acknowledged as she slide a glass in front of him.

"I've not seen you before," the dingo observed cheerily. "Are you local, or just passing through?" She pulled out a menu from behind the bar, sliding it towards Diego, then turned to flip a steak that was sizzling on the grill.

Being gregarious by nature, Diego had always preferred friendly barkeeps to the silent variety, and his tail swished faintly against the back of his chair. "Oh, a local I suppose. Diego Redfield ma'am. I'm a defective for SF Metro."

The dingo left the steak to fry and thrust out a paw, introducing herself as Tessa, then started to comment on Diego's profession, but was called away by one of the other customers. Well, that was just as well, Diego thought. He studied the menu without much enthusiasm. It was, as predicted, mostly standard diner fare, although with more seafood than usual, not surprising given the proximity of the ocean. He made a quick decision, closed the menu, and sipped his scotch.

Was it unwise to indulge in intoxication again, so soon? Probably yes, but Diego had never been one to shy from danger. Leaking police information to criminals, bungee-jumping while high, stealing cars, or racing them in drag races, sometimes while drunk, or high, or tripping out, or combinations of these - he had had his share of flirting with danger, and it had never once made him seriously reconsider; or at least not until recently, anyway.

"Sorry about that, one of our regulars needed a refill," Tessa had returned, tail-wagging. "Can I get you anything to eat?"

Diego ordered the chicken fried steak. "Oh, that's one of my own favourites," the dingo continued with unashamed enthusiasm. The Wolfdog watched as she took a steak from the freezer to her side, chuckling as she did so, "I shouldn't say that, I'm not sure if cooks are supposed to praise their own cooking."

"I always took it as a good sign if a cook would eat their own food," Diego shrugged. "I know I sure as hell wouldn't eat mine."

Tessa laughed. "Lots of men say that. Have you ever had anyone teach you, though?"

"No," Diego admitted, wondering if the dingo was trying to flirt with him. He knew, without trying to be arrogant, that his good looks had a habit of drawing interest. "No one ever did." A few more self-deprecating remarks came to mind, but he suppressed them.

"You'd probably be a decent cook if you were taught properly." Tessa had thrown the steak into a bowl and was tossing bits of herbs and breadcrumbs on top of it without, so far as Diego could tell, any coherent sense of measurement. "My husband couldn't cook work a damn when I met him, but after a few months he was turning out lasagnes and venison pies so divine even Gordon Ramsey would be proud."

"It was probably your good influence," Diego said, grinning, though Tessa was already moving away from him again, so perhaps she did not hear. The scent of the seasonings, along with the food already cooking when he walked in, was awakening his hunger to a degree stronger than before. He had mostly tuned out the music, but now recognised the next song playing, although he could not recall its name. Something from the soundtrack of Full Metal Jacket.....

His eyes drifted up again to the painting, and when Tessa had returned, this time from serving a steak and fries to an elderly polecat, he asked her: "Any reason why you picked that painting and name to build your restaurant around? It seems more fitting for New York than the outskirts of a small northern Californian city."

Tessa's ears perked, and her dark brown eyes met his as his steak, now completed breaded, was lifted testingly from the bowl. "It was my husband's idea," she replied simply. "He thought it was appropriate." Dropping the steak into a sizzling skillet of oil, she glanced over her shoulder, then smiled softly. "A bar is a like a beach, I think you can say. People wash into to one, like driftwood, and then wash out again. Most of them come only once; they wash out again, and off into obscurity. People speak of bartending as being a simple occupation, but really you see all the debris of civilisation, in its various forms, and like a beachcomber you pick among it, and see in that fragments what your own part in civilisation is."

The dingo's words were oddly stirring within Diego, as he tried, in that uneasy state of mind from which the effects of drugs have not entirely lifted, to reason out his own place in this analogy, and to wonder whether, in her beachcombing, Tessa saw much in what today's tide had swept up. Well, best just to ask, he thought, but the cook must have interpreted his silence as need for her to continue. "So, when my husband and I decided to start a restaurant and bar, we figured we needed a name that would be more unique than just "Riley & Tessa's," so he thought of the Nighthawks painting, which kind of captures that idea of a bar being a beach - or so we thought, anyway. At least it suggests an image of lost souls meeting in the night."

"Your husband sounds more like a philosopher than a bar owner," Diego observed, sipping his scotch, and wondering where on the spectrum of casual vs interesting conversation this particular tête-à-tête fell. "Does he cook for the restaurant too?"

Tessa had her back to him now; having left his steak to sizzle, she was mashing some potatoes. "No, he died," she replied, as simply as if she had merely said he was out for the evening.

Diego bit his tongue, cursing at himself inwardly. Serves him right for asking a bartender personal questions. He felt ridiculously stupid for having previously thought she was flirting with him. "Oh, I'm sorry to hear that, ma'am," he hurriedly responded, knowing how meaningless the words sounded, but unable not to say something.

"No worries." Her answer, if anything, did sound genuinely unoffended.

"So then," Diego remarked, as she started dolloping the potatoes onto a large plate. "What kind of driftwood am I?"

The dingo was quiet for a moment, concentrating on arranging his now-fried steak on the plate, along with the potatoes, a big lake of gravy, a roll, and a pile of fresh green beans. "You're the lonely variety, and the kind who doesn't know what he's doing with his life."

Without much humour Diego chuckled, moving his scotch glass as she lifted up the plate to set it before him. "Is it that obvious? You got me spot on."

He had meant it as a joke, but Tessa only smiled rather sadly as she handed him a green cloth napkin with silverware rolled into it. "No, but's yours is the same curse of every other poor bastard who drifts in here with the tide, and washes out again. Loneliness and lack of purpose...they are," she reflected, "the twin curses of our world."

Diego had spent most of the previous weekend tripping out on Ketamine.

His best friend, or partner in crime (depending on who you asked), Melody Simms, had brought over the Ketamine on Friday evening, after she had finished her shift as a detective with SF Metro's narcotics department (no, the irony was not lost on Diego). The cheetah was a single mother, but on this particular weekend, her young daughter was visiting the parents of Melody's deceased boyfriend, leaving Melody herself with no better idea of what to do than spend it drugged up with Diego. And the latter, not having any other plans - well-laid plays often went awry, so why bother making them - had sprawled out on his raggedy sofa, and waited for the world to melt away.

It had not always been like this. Yes, Diego had had problems with drugs since high school; he had no illusions about that. Of course, in his teenage years such indulgences were merely a way of enjoying the company of friends, a social activity, no different than bowling, volleyball, or bing-watching Alien or Indian Jones movies. Then, when at the academy he had met Tulio Montoya, the jovial jaguar who was now his partner detective at SF Metro, Diego had largely left drugs behind for good, aside from the occasional joint or bowl of hash. He and Montoya had lived the fun life, yes, from the time of their meeting until long into their stint at SF Metro; attending wild parties, picking up women - or in Diego's case, both men and women, getting ragingly drunk, attending rock concerts, racing each other in their cars, swimming in cold water of the harbour, playing Mass Effect in Montoya's living room, bantering good-naturedly over politics, attending baseball games, discussing what books of history they were reading (Diego preferred World War II, while Montoya was fascinated with the wild west)...they'd been two happy bachelors, so content in their social life that the solitary nature of their home existence - if one they even possessed - did not occur to them. Diego did not often dwell on the lack of a lasting significant other in his life, nor did the distance of what little family he had concern him; on any holiday he could always depend on Montoya's family to invite him over, and treat him as a son.

That sense of brotherly companionship had ended two years prior. Three reasons brought about this downfall: first, Diego had realised a long-supressed attraction to another officer at SF Metro, a male wolf called Ned Parker. Before he had acted upon this attraction, however, Ned had acquired a boyfriend. Diego did not bear Ned any ill will for this; rather he was very happy for the couple, but watching their happiness he began to wonder if after all, he was missing something. At much the same time, Montoya also settled with a girlfriend, and the wild nights of picking up one-night-stands ended, at least so far as a joint-effort was concerned. Now Diego watched, not so much in envy as in curiosity, as not one but two friends surrendered to happy monogamy, and for the first time in his life, he noticed the empty spot in the bed beside him, the fact that only one person's clothing hung in his closet, the fact that no one sat across from him at his dining table.

That same year Diego had, along with another detective, which he soon learned to be Melody - the same cheetah with whom he had enjoyed a few nights of strictly-casual sex - been contacted by a very wealthy and very powerful individual, who wished to secure a private mole within SF Metro. He had accepted the offer without much thought as to the moral consequences of the act, reasoning that many of his superior officers were themselves in the pay of various crime organisations, and even less for the risk entailed, for he had no fear of the costs: it is very easy to dismiss the possible outcomes of one's sins when you yourself are the only one who will be punished for them. For two years now he had quietly provided information, or conducted investigations of various individuals in whom his employer had interest. Somewhere in the midst of this Melody Simms had replaced Tulio Montoya as his closest friend, and the allure of brotherly adventures was replaced by that of the drugs Melody provided.

Melody herself had even less reserves over their lifestyle than he did. An orphan from the ghetto, her one great love in life was for her daughter Alyson, in whose name she justified all her crimes: that nine of every ten dollars she made went into a fund upon which her daughter could depend to ensure her fate would be one entirely different from that of her mother. This dedication in the cheetah to preservation of her daughter was coupled with an apparently equal dedication to her own self-destruction, through drugs, cigarettes, alcohol, and a host of moral wrongs, as if Melody had concluded, somewhere within her soul, that Alyson's salvation was possible only by the sacrifice of her mother's complete demolition. Consciously or otherwise, Melody had enlisted Diego as her compatriot in this effort, and he, who was too much an addict of living - in the sense of never turning down an opportunity to experience something - had reliably and predictably acquiesced to join her in becoming a ruin.

Diego had never in his life been given to depression, and he did not slump into it now, as he dined on his steak, but as he did he reflected on the last two years of his life, he dared to wonder where it was going. For the host of experiences he'd had in those years - the purchase of a finer car, finer clothes; a stronger body due to working out more; winning drag races in the more disreputable districts of the city; new friendships, the daring deliciousness of being part of a bigger cause - as his employer was not the typical criminal - front row seats at rock concerts, introductions to celebrities, whatever he wanted, really - he felt no guilt, guilt being one of the few emotions he, easygoing as he was, despised, as it implied that an experience ought not to have been had - a cardinal sin in the mind of someone like he, who valued experience above all else.

Just the same: he had to wonder what it all meant. The previous weekend's trip had not been a bad one, but nonetheless he'd come out of it feeling let down, as if even the ecstasy of tripping out was lacking somehow; the same sentiment had lingered in him in the aftermath of his last dosage of cocaine, the month prior. Again, nothing was necessarily wrong, in many ways he felt himself lucky, but for the first time in his life Diego had began to question whether if in his zeal for experience he had perhaps missed out on some other, equally important component of the equation of a life well lived, and as the temptation of the apple's presence had hammered away in Eve's conscience, so did the question of doubt within Diego's. He had come to realise, as he had drove along the coast road that evening, that in his life he was now approaching an impasse from which only two possible paths split; either he make a change - what exactly, he did not know - or that he continue along the present trajectory of his life, and consent to allowing the fires of experience to consume him beyond return.

For someone who has seldom ever in his life allowed himself to consider what might lie at the end of his life's journey, to suddenly ponder the possibility of an end-goal is an intimately foreign sensation. Moreover, it is a venture into uncharted territory. Sitting as he was at the Nighthawks bar, polishing off his steak - Tessa was a good cook, but under the influence of an uneasy mind the taste of the food slipped away unnoticed - Diego found his thoughts spinning round in his brain, trying to reorganise themselves, like a concussion victim slowing coming back into confused consciousness. Vaguely a vision appeared to him of a day long off, in which Montoya, grey-furred and old and deaf, but blessed with the sanctity of respectable aging, would come along with his equally ancient wife and a swarm of grandchildren, to visit a decrepit and lonely care-home at which the shaking, deteriorated wreck that had been Diego Redfield was waiting to die. In this way, he reasoned, in a reunion fifty years yet-to-come, the differences between their respective life paths would be reconciled.

"Officer Redfield?"

Vaguely the Wolfdog blinked, then glanced up, realising Tessa had been talking to him. The dingo was staring at him with a curious, peculiar express, ears askew. "Sorry to disturb you; I was just going to ask if your food was alright, but you looked kinda zoned out there."

Diego swung his own ears into alert, confident position. "I'm fine, just got a bit lost in my thoughts," he explained. "The food's delicious, thanks."

Tessa's easy smile and wagging tail returned. "Awesome!" She was making what appeared to be a mushroom burger, tossing mushrooms in a skillet. "Let me know if you need anything else."

Diego thanked her again, and turned to finishing his steak, reflecting that whatever was off with him, he'd better get over it before he got back to work the following day. Detective by day, criminal by night; whatever the job, there was little room for moodiness or excessive introspection.

Behind him the door clicked, admitting a new whiff of the cherry blossom scent, along with that of Alsatian. Diego quirked an ear carelessly in the direction of the new customer, but did not look up. He wondered if he should ask Montoya about going out for a guy's night; maybe they could go bowling like they used to. Or he could bring Montoya to this very bar. Had it been his own fault that their old brand of fun had waned; had Montoya interpreted Diego's new friendship with Melody as replacement?

Fuck it, these kind of thoughts were not at all typical of him, and they irritated his typically easygoing nature. Several feet to his side, the Alsatian had walked up to the bar, and was now addressing Tessa. Their conversation was unavoidably audible:

"Good evening, Mrs Calloway." The Alsatian's voice was calm and authoritative, in a west-coast accent.

Tessa was returning from apparently giving another drink to a couple at one of the side-tables, and now she rushed up with wagging tail. "Representative Van Holling! You're out late tonight."

Her manner in addressing the dog was cool and casual, in that tone people use when speaking to friends with whom they feel comfortable, and this, coupled with the title she had given him, representative, drew Diego's attention. The Alsatian was dressed in a navy-coloured blazer, a pale grey shirt, and dress trousers, worn well on the body in a way Diego's experienced eyes knew indicated tailoring. He was tall and broad-shouldered, evidently a man who exercised often, with the traditional squarish Alsatian muzzle, the perked ears, and rather large green eyes. His fur was honey-coloured and black, the favoured fur pattern of Alsatians, such as got those blessed with it jobs as actors or models, which rarely ever happened to sable-furred individuals like Diego's mother. He was striking handsome, if in a manly, leading-actor kind of way, and when his eyes, sensing Diego's attention, swung in the latter's direction, Diego realised he knew who the dog was.

"I was just coming back from a town-hall meeting about the Humboldt Nuclear Scheme," the Alsatian had been saying as Diego surveyed him. "At this rate it's going to be one of the defining issues of this campaign, I think." It was then he had glanced at Diego.

In the same moment Tessa remembered Diego's presence too. "This," she remarked to the Wolfdog, "is one bit of driftwood that does come back. Mr Friedrich Van Holling, our local congressional representative."

Diego generally thought of politicians as a category of individuals who by nature avoided association what anyone remotely definable as "common people," but Van Holling did not hesitate for a moment, turning to hold out a large, steady hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Sir. Are you also a local?" When Diego shook his hand the grim was firm.

"That's right Sir; Detective Diego Redfield, of SF Metro. I've seen you before, once, but we didn't talk."

Van Holling's ears perked. "Oh? Did you come to one of my town-halls?"

"No, you were giving a speech at the university down in San Fernando..." the moment the words left his mouth he fought to recover them, and again, as earlier when he had suspected Tessa of flirting with him, he thought himself an idiot. His tail, typically confident, twitched, but did not go between his legs.

"You and your fellow officers did good work that day," the congressman said calmly, without any change of expression.

The day in question had been that on which Van Holling's boyfriend was assassinated, right under SF Metro's nose. It had certainly not been a good day for the department, and yet the congressman, who of all people had most reason to criticise them, had declined to do so. "Well - thanks" Diego swallowed his surprise, allowing his tail to wag at the compliment.

Van Holling took the seat next to him. "Men and women putting themselves at risk to keep our people safe deserve my thanks, not the reverse," he remarked, "but I'll take that in gratitude nonetheless."

"Did you want a whisky like usual?" Tessa, who seemed to appear and disappear at random intervals, asked.

"That would be fine, thank you. And I'll have the halibut." This matter settled, the big Alsatian turned back to Diego. "While I'm here, is there any issues in this community - or the country, for that matter - you'd like to address?"

The down-to-earth character of Van Holling's interactions, both with Diego and Tessa, sparked the Wolfdog's curiosity, and provided a pleasant distraction from his earlier mental wanderings. "Well - sure, I could name several," he replied, "although I'm not an expert on political matters by any means. My talent is at solving murder cases, not at running states, or countries."

"Of course," continued his the other man, "but your views still hold relevance." He took a glass, apparently a whisky sour, from Tessa, and sipped it.

"Know what, I'll have one of those too," Diego told Tessa. He found his tail was wagging. "Is it typical of you to question customers about politics?"

Van Holling nodded, gazing at him over the glass. "Of course, it's how I interact with my constituents. You can never really gain a clear idea of what the people think by reading the polls, or listening to some fool in Washington or San Francisco jabber on TV. If I want to know what concerns the people I represent, or what their particular positions on crucial issues are, I expect I can learn that best by going out and talking to them...showing them they are more than a number on a list to me."

It sounded vaguely like something a politician might say in a television advertisement, along with images of the benevolent candidate standing at the front door of two perfectly smiling, middle-aged voters. "Is that a campaign line?" Diego asked, sliding his whisky glass between his fingers.

The Alsatian grinned. "You're suspicious, and that's a good thing. An uneasy public keeps those of us in the capital in check; or at least it's supposed to. But no, that's not meant to be. I don't go out and talk to people in order to make myself look good, although if that's accomplished as a side-result, I won't complain. But it's like this: when I was in Iraq, you seldom ever learned much about how a particular mission was going, or what the local people thought about our presence, by listening to the brass. The upper-ranks, that is. If you want to know the real nitty-gritty, or what the troops are thinking, what their experience is, you talk not to a general but to an ordinary soldier. It's one aspect of a good officer; the ability to convey to your troops that their welfare, their feelings, their experiences, mean more to you than the opinions of whoever is giving you your own orders." The calm clear voice, the firm, rigid ears, and the erect carriage of his body gave Van Holling, Diego observed, the physicality of a well-trained unit performing to perfection. "My experiences taught me that given the choice it's better to be loved by your troops than by the brass. You'll win fewer metals, but your reassured sense of self-respect is a worthy consolation."

Diego's experience interviewing witnesses, or suspects, as it sometimes was, had taught him to let speakers finish before interrupting; interrupt someone too early and they may decide against saying something valuable which otherwise would have been spoken. Van Holling's careful, measured words were broken only by a pause to sip his drink. "The way I've reasoned it, you can approach politics the same way. I go into bars, or businesses, or visit people's homes, or I set up town-hall meetings where people can come and voice their concerns. It's not a perfect system, and undoubtedly some people get missed, but on the whole I try to provide enough opportunity that those who want to, can be heard. They talk to me, we converse like equals, and I tell them what my vision is for this district, and for California and America. That way, they feel, or at least I hope they do, that I'm on their side, not Congress's'. As with the army, it doesn't bring you many friends in Washington, but I can rest well at night believing I have served my constituents, my country, and my own conscience to the best of my ability." He grinned, showing perfect white fangs. "That a decent campaign speech for you?"

Diego laughed. "Oh yeah, pretty swell; you've got my vote. Rehearsed, right?"

Van Holling nodded again. His tail was thumping the back of the chair, inspiring Diego's to join in. "I have been asked the same question you asked many times. I just tell them the truth."

"Seems to have worked for you," Diego observed.

"For my first term, indeed," agreed the Alsatian. "As for the second, we'll see. Not everyone likes my vision, I don't deny that, and if the people see fit to try someone else, I'll step aside and go back to what I was doing beforehand."

Diego had never seen a politician so entirely unconcerned with whether or not he was re-elected. It was, he reflected, a odd twist of fate, this; that he had come into this bar in the first place, that he had picked here, under the eye of Tessa, who had characterised him as a piece of driftwood, to eat, and now that he should be listening to a congressman voice his political philosophy. He wondered what Melody, who characterised all politicians right, left, or independent as being selfish tyrants, would think of this. But now it was pleasant to surrender to the flow of conversation, without over-analysing it. "Oh? And what was that?"

The Alsatian laughed. "Well, before the Marines I mean. You might not believe if I told you." He was grinning, relaxed, as if Diego were a long-time friend.

"Try me," Diego encouraged. Suddenly realising he liked Van Holling, he added, "and I do mean what I said. You might be adjusting my perspectives on politicians."

"I believe you," replied his companion. "Actually what I'm about to tell you is something even many of my constituents don't know; at least I have never talked about it in a speech. I was originally a gay massage therapist."

It was far from the kind of answer one would expect from so traditionally masculine a figure as Van Holling, and yet at the same time, given his attentive gaze and big, firm hands, oddly fitting. Nonetheless, Diego gave the expected laugh. "Not exactly what I would have guessed, no."

Van Holling shared the laugh. He had a pleasant laugh, deep without being roaring, and his tail -and Diego's - was still wagging. "No, I thought not, but it's true." He sipped his drink, the carefully-trimmed claws clinking against the glass.

"Now you're going to have to tell me how a gay massage therapist ends up in the Marines." It was intensely rewarding, the Wolfdog thought, to be talking about someone else's life, not his own, but someone else who was neither a fellow cop nor a witness or suspect in a homicide case.

Tessa was now preparing Van Holling's halibut, with her pointy dingo ears quirked in their direction. "My story is really not so different as many young people of my generation," the congressman told him, "or at least the defining incident wasn't. I come from a military family - dad is a colonel in the Air Force, and mom is the president of a national military wives organisation. Of course like most military brats, my siblings and I were expected to follow in the family profession, but while my sister Freya immediately did so - she's an officer on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln- I was the rebel who disappointed dad by going off to a massage therapy school, announcing I was going to specialise in gay male massage. Getting your paws all over a multitude of male bodies; it's every gay teenager's wet dream."

This last bit was even farther from Diego's idea of stereotypical politician's conversation than anything the Alsatian had previously said, leading the Wolfdog to smirk. "No doubt," he agreed, sipping his drink. "I'm bi myself, but I remember having thoughts somewhat like that."

"I thought so," nodded Van Holling, with an expression that told Diego he had already guessed the Wolfdog's sexuality without needing to be told. "Anyway, I had been doing that for about a year when 9/11 happened. And while beforehand I'd had no interest in following in dad's footsteps....that day, when I watched the towers fall on TV, my apathy towards service suddenly evaporated. I went down to the local Marine Corps recruiting station the very next day to enlist."

"And did your dad forgive you then?"

"Of course. His issue had never been with my sexuality, just with the career I'd chosen. That was all forgiven the moment I enlisted. I'm still close to all my family. My younger brother Roger followed dad into the Air Force, so between him there, myself in the Marines, and Freya in the navy, we Van Hollings are evenly spread among the armed forces. We try to do our part."

And we Redfields, Diego thought, what have we done in comparison to that? His father was a drunken failure who, following the early collapse of his marriage, had returned to the Cheyenne reservation in Montana, where, living mostly off the generosity of tribal relatives, he languished in pathetic existence as a defeated native American wolf who spent his days outside the reservation casino, serving invariably as source of amusement for tourists, or, in the eyes of more enlightened travellers, as proof of Manifest Destiny's triumph over the Indians. Diego's German-born Alsatian mother, rather, lived lonely and friendless as a professor at the University of New Mexico, where she buried herself in thoughts of class lectures, student dissertations, and the history of the Aztecs, her only real passion, through which immersion she could avoid having to face the realities of her failed marriage, thoughts of the son she never spoke to, and her role as the unfortunate immigrant for whom the American Dream had failed to materialise. And their son? The product of these two largely wasted lives, the one prize treasured by both, whose jealous battles over his affection had destroyed his trust in either....that son was a pleasure-chaser, a drug addict, a dashing rouge confident in his ability to live well, and never pay a price for it.

No, upon examination, it was clear that the Van Hollings were beyond doubt the better family, the admirable one, who, unlike his own, had left worthy reason to be remembered by those who came after.

Nonetheless, he suspected Van Holling would not be interested in hearing Diego negatively compare their families, merely consenting "Sounds like you do. No regrets on passing up a career as a masseuse?" He willed his facial muscles to contort into a smile, releasing the brief pondering of his family's plight as the inevitable reality it was.

The Alsatian smiled. "No, it was fun but serving in the Marines was ultimately more rewarding. When I finally got out, it did not take me long to conclude my desire for 'service' hadn't really ended, and the local congressman was aged, indecisive, and ineffective, so I decided to challenge him for his seat." He thanked Tessa as she slid a plate of halibut and chips in front of him. "Anyway, that's my story, or that of my career, at least. What lead you to becoming a detective?"

Damn. While listening to Van Holling discuss his own path was interesting, Diego had not intended to allow the conversation to become about him, yet the other canine was so friendly he felt unable to say no. "Nothing in particular," he admitted, with a dismissive flick of his ears. "I had been out of high school for a few months, and I had no coherent idea of where I was going in life. Still don't," he muttered. "I needed an occupation, though, so I brainstormed a list of potential candidates I might pursue, wrote those on bits of paper, and drew one out of a hat." That was him, he thought, that was Diego Redfield; entirely content to let chance, or fate, depending on what you believed, decide the course of his life.

Van Holling's smile had not waned. "Well, I trust it was the right path for you, then."

"I think so," Diego agreed. "I don't have any regrets so far as that goes; it's brought me many good friends, and experiences I otherwise wouldn't have had. I suppose besides, surveying the aftermath of horrific murders, seeing the victims' family suffer, or seeing how horrid the perpetrators are, it does make you grateful for your own lot." That was true; whatever issues he had, at least he was not a psychopath, nor had any of his family or friends fallen victims to one. "At any rate, I enjoy my job, or part of it, anyway, and it pays the bills. Just today I was up in Oregon testifying at a case being settled there."

The congressman nodded knowingly. "I hear you, I was out on business today too. I had a town-hall to discuss people's thoughts on the Humboldt Nuclear Scheme, although I was fairly certain I already knew what they'd say about it."

The Humboldt Nuclear Scheme was a divisive issue talked of in San Fernando newspapers at present. "And how did that go?" Diego asked. Actually he did not know that much about the scheme; he had been so busy between work and his other life that he had gradually paid less and less attention to political matters.

"As I suspected, most people are against it." Van Holling was eating his halibut, but his eyes remained on Diego. "Which is no surprise to me. The Democrat who's probably going to be my challenger in the main election, the one I think will win their primary, he supports it because he claims it will create jobs in the area and boost the economy, but I'm not convinced."

"The area doesn't have excessive unemployment though," Diego remarked. His occasional waverings into self-questioning aside, he was finding he increasingly enjoyed this conversation, and moreover increasingly liked Van Holling. On the peripheries of his conscious a subtle acknowledgement of the Alsatian's unusual good looks hinted at future possibilities.

"Exactly!" Van Holling nodded. "There's that, and besides, if our district is going to be investing in new forms of energy, I'd rather it be in something renewable, that doesn't entail creating dangerous waste we're going to have to dispose of. Not to mention the fact that the nuclear plant will be unsightly, and will require destruction of a significant plot of forest."

"Wasn't the plant being proposed by a private company, but funded by the government?" Diego asked. Energy schemes were not something he knew much about, although Van Holling certainly seemed passionate about the subject.

The congressman finished off his halibut and pushed the chair around so he and Diego were facing each other. "It is, and for all I know the corporation could be paying off Strickland - my probable opponent, that is. I wouldn't rule it out of the question. But there's no point in even breathing a word about the matter unless in the unlikely scenario physical evidence arose supporting it."

"Would he grant you the same clemency if your roles were reversed?"

"Maybe, maybe not." The Alsatian shrugged. "It doesn't matter. I promised myself if I entered politics I wouldn't compromise myself by becoming dishonest, and god willing, I intend to remain so."

Diego found his tail wagging again. Maybe Van Holling really was just stringing him along with a polished act designed to impress, but somehow he thought not; the dog's behaviour had the unassuming relief of undisguised decency. It was beginning to spark - perhaps already had - attraction within the Wolfdog. "Always stay that way," he observed quietly. "You already stand out from the crowd." As he said this he met Van Holling's eyes, and for a moment neither of them spoke. The big Alsatian's gaze never wavered, nor did either of his ears drop from their erect position, but somewhere within those large green eyes Diego thought he sensed movement; a spark of attraction perhaps, or a fanning of the flames.

"Dishonest or no," he continued after a moment, to break the silence, "can you beat him?"

Van Holling's words were as calm and precise as if the pause had never happened. "I think so, so long as my ratings don't dip in the meantime. There are certainly plenty of people who want me gone. I was the first Republican to win this seat in over 40 years, so the Democrats are eager to regain it. They'll attack me over the Nuclear Scheme, and over taxes, and over my efforts to legalise weed. Honestly the sucker punch could come from my own party, though. They have never forgiven me for being such an environmentalist, or for my foreign policy criticisms, so I suppose the party stalwarts will be glad to be rid of me as well. I must be doing something right if both parties are hungry for my blood, right?"

Diego laughed. "Certainly, I guess you're not going to get anything meaningful done while in office without ruffling a few feathers."

"That's very true. Is there much of a political element to being a detective in a homicide division?" I'm afraid law enforcement specialities is not one of my strong areas of expertise."

There he went, steering the conversation back to Diego again, but this time the Wolfdog did not mind. He rather liked, in fact, that Van Holling was curious about him. "Probably not to the extent you're familiar with, no. There is certainly a competitive factor, in so much as who gets promoted to Detective, and who remains only an officer...and even more so whenever a position, Sergeant or Lieutenant, opens up."

"Would you like to move up in rank?" Van Holling asked.

"I don't think so," Diego explained. "I'm not afraid of competition, but leadership doesn't really appeal to me; I like being out on the job, with my partner, rather than in an office pulling strings or making executive decisions."

"You'd rather be the guy who actually gets something done," observed the Alsatian, and they both laughed.

"Eh, enough about me though," Diego grinned. "You were saying you think you can get reelected?"

Van Holling flicked his ears. "Again, I think so. The issues I mentioned aside, the electorate here seem to think I do a good job. I didn't get heckled at today's town hall, so that's good news. The opposition I get from both parties doesn't seem to be changing many voters' convictions, and in any case with partisan politics what they are now, I was thinking of defecting to a third party after the election anyway, providing I win that is."

"Keep running your own race," Diego encouraged him, suddenly feeling like they were old friends, reuniting to catch up after years apart, "and you'll keep people's respect. I can say honestly you've won mine."

"Thank you." The smile was honestly modest. "That's enough reward for me, after a long day's campaigning." The dog tiredly rubbed the side of his face, ears twitching. "Sorry, the hours do get to me after awhile though."

"No worries," Diego flicked his own ears again. "Is this your typical post-campaign dinner stop? You seemed to be recognised as a regular."

Van Holling jerked a thumb at Tessa, who had taken a seat at the far end of the bar and seemed to be reading a magazine. "Oh, by Mrs Calloway? Yeah, I stop in here every so often, but not specifically after town-halls. Usually I eat at home, but my daughter is at a slumber-party tonight, so I decided to stop in here on the way back."

His daughter! Only now did Diego remember that yes, Congressman Van Holling had a young daughter; he was a single parent, or at least had been after his previous boyfriend's death. "Oh, I forgot you were a parent," he said. "Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course."

The Alsatian gave a half smile, ears, sinking slightly to the sides. "Yeah, I'm a lucky father. I don't imagine you have a family?"

That did get a reaction out of Diego. "Heh; I, Diego Redfield, marry or have children? Of course not...and so much the better. I'd make a terrible father."

The green eyes, the tall ears, the perfectly controlled facial muscles; none of them changed, but somehow nonetheless Diego thought he saw a sense of disappointment flash across Van Holling's handsome face. "Why would you say that, if I may ask?"

"Because...." Diego sighed. How honest about himself did he want to be with this stranger..."Because I would be a terrible influence on a child, and I'm no where near responsible enough to provide for one, nor to be a good mate for a significant other."

"I wonder," remarked Van Holling, "if you have ever stooped to letting someone else be the judge of that."

They were meeting each other's eyes again, though the rest of their bodies were entirely frozen, no flicking ears or wagging tails, and this time Diego saw it unavoidably clear, the sad reflection in the Alsatian's eyes, that same kind of resigned sense of regret common to soldiers who have been to hell and returned. "I have never in my life even been in a relationship," Diego muttered.

Why he even said it he didn't know, it wasn't like him to dwell on such things; his perpetual romantic solitude was an accepted fact he'd seen no need to contemplate. Yet now here he had just admitted that to a distinguished, handsome, honourable man who probably had extremely little in common with him...

"Perhaps you've never been willing to give anyone else a chance to love you," countered Van Holling, although not in argumentative tone of voice.

Fuck it to hell, in all likelihood he'd never even speak to Van Holling again after this night, what did it matter if he was honest? "The only love I've ever experienced was a hateful, jealous, emotion," Diego replied, smiling, but in a bitter, unpleasant way. "I don't necessarily come from an admirable background like you do. My parents met at Columbia, both on a sponsorship.... Mom had come here from Germany on a student visa to get her PhD, while dad had got in on a scholarship program specifically for Native Americans. He was a freshman; she was in her second year of post-grad. You can probably guess what happened. They met, they fucked, mom got pregnant, so they married. When mom finished she got offered a position at UC-San Diego, an offer she couldn't refuse, so they left New York, before dad could finish his degree, and moved out to Cali." During this story Van Holling's calm, commanding eyes did not leave him, which had the odd effect of making Diego, usually so disinclined to reminiscing, all the more inspired to, for some reason, prove the other man of his deficiency.

"My parents never really got along well. Dad resented mom for having uprooted him from Columbia before he could finish his degree - although she had offered to pay for him to stay there and join us later. He never could find much quality work in San Diego. And mom wasn't happy either, because the department downgraded her to an adjunct position within a year, so she didn't benefit from the move anyway. In the end they divorced, and dad went back to the Cheyenne reservation in Montana, and hasn't left it since then, so far as I know."

The next part was the aspect of the story Diego most hated remembering. "They fought terribly over custody of me. Both of them screamed and yelled at each other, raining down obscenities and insults in their native languages, right there in front of the judge and jury when the matter was being settled. I remember the judge looked at me during one of their tirades, and while I was only a six-year-old, even a six-year-old can gather the meaning when an adult looks at you in a way that can't be interpreted any other meaning than 'you're fucked kid.' Mom got main custody over me, while dad was granted the ability to have me with him during summers, but by the time I was 10 I'd realised my parents' love for me had been so corrupted by jealousy and hatred that they cared more about my role as a weapon against each other than about me as their kid. It got so warped in my mind that I concluded it must have been my fault they split up, since their arguments were always over me.

"Anyway. That's the only experience of family I have, or at least in the sense of blood family. I don't come from a long line of love, and I'd say my parents are sufficient example my genes don't need to be replicated." Thus finished, he slumped back in the chair, suddenly exhausted by the exertion of telling his childhood woes to someone who he hardly knew.

"Do you want to go outside?" Van Holling asked, after a moment. "I'm getting a bit stiff in this chair." He slide out of it, stretching in such a way that Diego thought he saw muscles straining against the fabric of his shirt, from behind the blazer. "We can come back in in a few; Mrs Calloway trusts me not to stif her on the bill."

He had mercifully avoided commenting on Diego's tirade, and perhaps that was for the best. "Sure thing dude," Diego agreed, pushing himself out of the chair. His tail swung uneasily in a few short wags. Van Holling reached the door in a few quick strides, giving Diego just enough time to see that he had a very attractive ass, neatly defined and rounded within his dress trousers. He followed the pert rump and wagging tail out the door, onto the veranda, and around the corner, to where Van Holling paused, near the closest cherry tree, to lean against the rail, staring off into the night.

"Beautiful night out, isn't it?" Van Holling said. "Fresh air, lovely scents, stirring conversation in the darkness -like a F Scott Fitzgerald novel, except neither of us dies, or ends up in a mental asylum, at the end."

Diego chuckled. "That latter outcome is more likely in my case."

The Alsatian laughed too, but shook his head as Diego leaned against the rail beside him. "No, you put on a show of not caring, but you're gripping life too firmly by the tail to let it condemn you to that kind of fate." He folded his hands, lifting his handsome muzzle to breath in the scent of the cherry blossoms. "Anyway, I thought you might appreciate the privacy given the direction this conversation has taken. I was going remark that it's often people like you who make the best parents, or the best lovers."

Diego raised his eyebrows. "Me?" he repeated incredulously. "I'm no saint or role-model."

"If we learn by example," continued Van Holling, "then we can learn just as much by the example of what not to be, as by the example of what to be - and perhaps much more. In the case of those like myself blessed with good parents, it's easy to become complacent. Someone like you would never take worth for granted."

As the dog spoke Diego suddenly felt rising within him a tremendous sense of understanding, but moreover of gratitude, for Van Holling had blessed him by not responding in one of the two ways people usually responded to stories of this kind: he had not judged Diego, not condemned him, but neither had he pitied him; he had not, as a high school teacher had once done, put his arm about Diego's shoulders and told him it was all okay, that coming from such a family was just fine. He had merely listened, and drawn from what he heard a response, an inspiring one, that implied Diego could have a future, while not telling him that his past, or the way he interpreted it, was wrong.

This sense of gratitude, of allowing him to be himself, was so unexpected that he glanced up at Van Holling, and then, as they stood side-by-side there leaning against the veranda, he leaned in and kissed him.

Diego had shared dozens of kisses during his lifetime, but usually kisses classified more as "making-out," frenzied and sexual without being romantic. This one though was long and tender, a meeting of the lips, tasting of whisky and lemon, his muzzle brushing against the Alsatian's, and abruptly Diego felt awake, awake in a sense he had not been since he came out of the trip the previous day. He hear the odd call of a nightbird, and the sounds of cars on the highway; he felt the damp wood of the veranda under his paw, and the soft muzzle of the man he was kissing; he smelt the cherry blossoms, and became aware of the subtle, masculine scent of Van Holling's musk. The Alsatian had not hesitated, nor acted surprised, when Diego kissed him, and as they shared the moment, Diego felt his cock stiffen within his jeans.

When after a few seconds of contact they pulled away, they both stared at each other for a moment, and then tails began to wag, and faces broke into a grin. "That," said Diego, "was one of the best kisses I've ever had."

"That," responded the other canine, "was my first kiss since....my last lover died."

"Oh, well I hope then it was adequate."

"It was more than adequate," grinned Van Holling, tail still wagging.

Diego was still conscious of the weight of his cock within his underwear, but his thoughts were spinning. I'm going to end up going home with him tonight, he thought. It was growing clearer and clearer to him, the more he pondered it, that some underlying current of attraction had been passing between the two of them all evening, whether or not they had been consciously aware of it. "You should know," he said after a moment, as they both stood there in the darkness, "I'm a drug addict."

Van Holling was silent for a moment. His tail had ceased to wag. "We all have our own ways of fighting our demons," he eventually replied. "I must say though, you don't look like one."

Diego couldn't help but wag at that. "Well, maybe not an addict. I don't use every day, it's just that it's become my go-to means of killing time...my friend Melody keeps asking me if I want to trip out with her, and I rarely refuse."

"If you're admitting you have a problem," Van Holling said, "I certainly can't tell you anything you don't already know." At least, Diego thought, he didn't seem scared off.

"I just thought I should let you know....what you're getting in to." The Wolfdog paused, considering, then threw heed to the wind. "Assuming you're feeling..."

"Yes, I am." Diego's tail began to wag again as the Alsatian continued. "I'm not a saint either, Mr Redfield."

Diego scoffed. "I can't believe your sins rank very highly compared to mine, unless you were lying about being an honest politician." Or, he though, unless you committed some war crime or other in Iraq, but even then I'd have no grounds to criticise you on, given my past....

Van Holling laughed. "No, I think I've described myself as honestly as possible in that respect. I merely meant that just because I may look more polished to you doesn't mean I don't have my own fears and weaknesses too."

"Okay, touché," relented the Wolfdog. "Truth is, I spent all last weekend high on ketamine, and I'm still coming out of the hangover. I'm not usually this self-critical." He paused, taking a deep breath of the sweet cherry scent, and finding, to his delight, the now-sexy Alsatian scent as well. "Before you came in tonight I was reflecting on whether I would always be happy remaining single forever, and figured, on the surface level anyway, my drug history would be the first thing to chase people away."

"Oh, I had my eye on you from the moment I walked into the bar," said Van Holling. "Call it intuition, or my sixth sense, or recognition....but could you guess when it was that I realised you were something entirely different?"

Diego turned to face him again, not for a kiss this time. "No, try me?"

"Being a single father in the gay world is a very different thing than being merely single. Most men, as soon as they find out I have a child, want nothing to do with me, or at least not as anything beyond a one-night-stand." Van Holling was smiling now, the green eyes glinting in the darkness. In a tree nearby, an owl had started to hoot mournfully. "And yet when I told you I was a father, your immediate reaction was not to find fault not in me, but in yourself, for - in your mind anyway - failing to live up to what you saw me as."

And how strange it was, Diego thought, that here instead of he feeling grateful to Van Holling for not judging him, it was the Alsatian who spoke with the gratitude of the accepted. "My father was never a good role model," he said simply. "I'm in no place to criticise someone who is. If anything I'd just think that would make you all the more likely to avoid someone with a drug history."

"After Conner - my last lover - died, there was an emotional I suppressed for a long time," remarked Van Holling. He was staring off into the darkness again, as if half-speaking to himself. "I refused to face it for a long time, but there was a part of me that was glad he died." Diego's ears perked, and he glanced at the Alsatian questioningly. "Not so much glad he died, that is, as glad to be free. Conner didn't want to move in with me, because he was never really comfortable around Melanie - my daughter - he had not wanted children, but he thought he was in love with me - and I guess he was." He was looking back at Diego now, checking for a horrified response, and finding none, continued. "I had been planning to break up with him for a few weeks prior to that talk at the university, but I kept postponing, because I didn't want to hurt him, and because I did love him...and then he was killed, and I felt like I'd done the deed myself, by signalling to the universe I no longer wanted him."

"I take it you've realised by now that it wasn't your fault," Diego said. Cold though it was, Van Holling's sentiments made perfect sense to him; practically speaking, if you were a parent who wanted a longterm relationship, but your lover wasn't comfortable being around your child, there was no future to the affair...it would have ended even if Conner hadn't died.

The Alsatian nodded. "Yes, but I haven't dated anyone since then."

Hardly knowing what he was saying, Diego ventured, "I doubt a Wolfdog detective with drug problems is what you were searching for, but..." He straightened up, mirroring Van Holling's own action, for a moment dog and Wolfdog studied each other. Then, with soft smiles crossing their faces, as one they bent together to press their muzzles against each other.

It was just as fine a kiss as the first, except this time Van Holling put his hand on the side of Diego's face, caressing it, teasing claws around the base of Diego's ear. Their muzzles seemed to fit together perfectly, such that Diego, feeling more himself, let his tongue slip between his teeth and into Van Holling's mouth, where it met the latter's own tongue. They French-kissed silently, as their bodies slowly migrated closer together, arms going about each other's shoulders. Diego's cock had long since again grown hard in his jeans, but he did not bother disguising this; they were both masculine men who could be honest about themselves, and indeed he was rewarded by feeling his bulge grind against an equal swelling in Van Holling's groin. He closed his eyes as they kissed, allowing the sensations to be enough, surrendering to the moment.

The kiss ended, but Diego felt as though he had been a long time underwater and was now coming up for air. The uncharacteristic depression he had lingered in earlier that evening had been swept aside, dismissed and forgotten, replaced by a childlike, grateful sense of jubilant hope. They stood there in the darkness for a few more moments, their arms still about one another. "I never believed this could happen," Diego remarked, to break the silence.

"No one ever does until it happens to he himself," responded Van Holling, nuzzling him. "That is why there are scenes like this in so many novels. The writers don't believe in it either, since most of them are virgins where love is concerned, but they want to."

And yet it was happening, Diego thought; neither of them had specifically said I'm attracted to you, and yet here they were in each other's arms, opening up their life's secrets, admitting their greatest fears.

The evening's earlier mental wanderings, fears, and doubts fell away from him, like a shell peeling away, and abruptly the world seemed vast and bountiful with potential.

"It's past midnight now," Van Holling observed. "Do you want to come home with me?"

They ended up going together in Van Holling's car.

By compromise of this, Diego had insisted on paying Tessa for Van Holling's dinner, thanking the friendly dingo for her hospitality, before he and the Alsatian had left together. The latter's car was a blue Dodge Challenger, shiny and new, with a delightful engine roar that brought up memories of Diego's drag racing days. The car's interior had been upholstered in pale blue leather, and smelt pleasantly of its driver, a lingering scent of subtle Alsatian maleness, although the Wolfdog could also detect scents of a young female Alsatian, and the acrid tang of a vixen. Van Holling drove with the same calm attentiveness he'd displayed when talking with Diego in the bar, eyes on the road, and both hands on the wheel. He'd rolled down the window, allowing the warm spring air with its cocktail of scents natural and artificial to seep inward. The Challenger's stereo was playing a Bob Marley song.

"I have always liked nights," Van Holling remarked, as the lights of greater San Fernando swelled larger before them. "In the darkness you can feel like the entire world's all yours, and the taste and smell of things seems heightened somehow....it makes me feel more alive."

"I certainly can agree with liking driving at night," Diego said. Actually what it made him think of was drag races, which were nearly always held at night, but he would hold back that piece of information. "This is a pretty swell ride you have here."

The Alsatian grinned at him from across the cab. "Thank you. I take it that green Mercedes in the Nighthawks parking lot was yours?" When Diego nodded, he continued, "We share a fondness for fancy cars, then."

"If by fancy cars you mean sporty ones with sexy engines, then yes," Diego agreed. His tail was wagging again, rustling against the back of his seat. "I've had a thing for sweet rides since I was a teenager. My dream car is an old 1970 Nova, but the Mercedes has been fun in the meantime."

They were now in the outer ranges of the city, driving past strip malls and car dealerships. Van Holling's big ears had perked again, and his tail was wagging too. "A '70 Nova? I do approve."

"I guess I can add good taste in cars to the list I'm compiling of your virtues, then," joked the Wolfdog. He slipped one arm out the open window, feeling the warm air running through his fur. Given the day's events, and the late hour, he ought to have been feeling exceedingly tired, yet instead he found himself feeling all the more awake, more alive...

Van Holling was laughing again. "So you're compiling a list of my virtues, are you?"

Diego smirked. "You bet. You're honest, you have good morals, good taste in cars, and in music....you have a pretty swell ass...."

The Alsatian glanced over at him with raised eyebrow. "Oh, you like my ass, do you?" The rustling sound of his tail wagging grew all the more audible.

"I got a good look when we left the bar," Diego told him. "I liked what I saw."

"Well, later you'll get better acquainted with it," the other male replied confidently. He hadn't said "perhaps," or "maybe," just taken it for granted that the two of them would be ending up naked in bed together, and Diego found this confident assurance attractive. "I gather from what I felt pressing against my leg, you have something to show me too."

The Wolfdog smirked again. "Hybrid vigour does have its benefits," he acknowledged, not unaware he was semi-hard again. His dick had never really settled down after their second kiss.

Van Holling had turned the car off the main highway and was driving through the outskirts of a residential district. "No doubt." He glanced over at his companion again, as if sizing him up. "It's fortunate I met you on a night Melanie is at a sleepover, so we'll have the house to ourselves."

"I must ask," Diego remarked, "how did a man so homo your first job was as a gay massage therapist end up with a biological child?" He knew, from having seen the Van Holling family from a distance, that Melanie Van Holling was also an Alsatian.

The car slowed to a stop behind a red light. "As a result of a careless mistake on my part," answered the Alsatian, "although now I'd say it was meant to be. Do you want the whole story?"

"If I'm going to date someone with a child, it's fair to know the history of how he became a father," Diego responded seriously.

That got him another eyebrow raise. "Right to the point -" Van Holling nodded. "I approve. In any case it'll pass the rest of the time till we get home." The light changed, the Challenger rolled forth, and its driver continued: "This was four years after I'd enlisted in the Marines. I was 23 years old, already a lieutenant, and had recently come back from Iraq, during which time I was stationed at a base in El Paso, Texas. One night I went out drinking with some friends, and in the course of the evening, I started talking to a local girl of my own species. We were both drunk, and I thought, hell, maybe I'll see what it is straight guys get so excited about."

Now they had left behind the commercial districts, driving southward towards the outlying city of San Amador, a smaller town south of San Fernando, in which Van Holling resided. "It was uncharacteristically idiotic of me, as even I, naïve as I was about women, could tell she was in season. But she told me she was on birth control, so we fucked, said our goodbyes, and I concluded bedding women wasn't for me. Nine months later, once I'd gone back to Iraq, I called my parents on skype one day, intending merely to let them know I was doing well, when instead I heard my dad saying 'there's something we need to discuss.'"

"Uh oh," Diego grinned.

"Indeed. He and my mother were sitting there, mom holding something close to her, though the image being pixelated, I couldn't tell what it was."

"I'll bet that conversation was awkward."

Van Holling nodded. They were alone with the night now, driving through trees and past small farms. "As it turned out, that girl didn't use birth control, and she did get pregnant, but initially it seems she was planning to keep the pup for herself. When the time came around though, she panicked, and by some twist of fate she'd remembered my name, so she looked up my parents. Mom answered the doorbell one day to find the girl standing there with a baby. When she insisted that the pup was the product of mom's son, mom thought she meant Roger...they couldn't believe it would have been me, the gay one."

"Despite being accepting of me as a gay man, my family is still very conservative, and always have been - dad's family can trace our history all the way to 17thcentury Dutch aristocracy - so they were a bit disappointed in me for having been so careless as to get someone with child unintentionally, but dad made it clear, that first day, that all would be forgiven if I did my duty, which was to assume responsibility for my pup."

"I take it the mother didn't want her," Diego said.

"No, she didn't," continued Van Holling. "She signed over custody to me without a fight. In the end, my parents took care of Melanie - mom named her after the character in Gone With the Wind; I didn't have a say in that - until I finished my tour, after which I took over." He was smiling again, a soft innocent smile, as he glanced over at Diego. "When this first happened I was scared, I didn't know what to do with a pup, but then when I got home, and held her for the first time; seeing my own face in her features, feeling her finger curl around mine...it does something to you. Now she's my partner in crime."

In the past Diego had never thought to consider a parent's honest affection for their child as being attractive, but here as expressed in Van Holling, he thought it only made the Alsatian seem all the more honourable and appealing. "From all I've learned this evening, she's lucky to have you," he said at last.

Now the lights of San Amador were approaching in the distance; soon, he thought, they would be arriving at Van Holling's house. "The position of my mate, and Melanie's other parent, is currently open," the other canine continued, smiling over at Diego, in a way that made the Wolfdog's heart feel a twang of hope.

Diego suspected it was much too early to say "Well, I'd like to apply for that position," or anything of the sort, but he couldn't deny a powerful sense of attraction to the Alsatian had come over him, and at least he could very well imagine himself saying something like that in the future. As he'd said to Van Holling at the bar, it wasn't supposed to go like this; people didn't just meet someone and conclude after only one day's conversation that they wanted to pursue a relationship with that person. And yet.... "I can't believe I'm saying this," he finally admitted, "but I find myself wanting to apply for that position."

He half regretted saying it, but Van Holling didn't seem to mind. "I find myself strongly inclined towards accepting that application," he said, tail still wagging." He'd turned off the highway and was driving up into the hills of San Amador's trendier residential area. "You make me glad my momentary dalliance with women didn't prove lasting."

"That would have been a waste," Diego agreed. He couldn't help noticing that the scent of Van Holling's musk had grown more obvious in the past ten minutes, and wondered if there was a bulge in the Alsatian's trousers, although in the darkness he couldn't tell. The scent made his own cock stiffen yet again. His libido, temporarily disengaged by his discouragement earlier in the day, was now awakening from its slumber, and it only continued to rise as he breathed in the manly dog's scent.

Van Holling's ears flicked in Diego's direction, and his eyes followed, noticing the Wolfdog's raised muzzle. "You smell nice," Diego muttered honestly.

The Alsatian chuckled. "You don't smell bad yourself, Wolfdog."

"That outfit you're wearing is swell," Diego continued, "but I find myself wondering what you look like without it on."

The car swung around another corner, still climbing into the hills, passing rows of old Victorian-era houses. "Well, you might get your wish, as our house is just around the corner." He turned again, this time to the right, slowing the Challenger down as houses and yards passed by, until he finally pulled into a short gravel drive to pause in front of a garage painted dark green, as was evident by the nightlights mounted above the door. Diego watched as Van Holling used a remote to raise the garage's door, then pulled the car inside, closing the door behind them. Then he switched the Challenger's engine off, and turned to meet Diego's eyes.

No words were necessary; both of them could tell what the other wanted. Two handsome muzzles broke into hungry grins, and instantly they leaned into the middle of the car and pressed their muzzles together again.

Perhaps because they were now in a private setting, this kiss was much more passionate than the first two, mouthing at each other in a hungered, sexual motion filled with desire. From the beginning of the kiss their mouths quickly opened to allow their tongues to touch and dance, and Diego found himself putting a hand on Van Holling's chest, where through the blazer and shirt he could feel the firmness of the Alsatian's muscles. His cock strained inside his underwear, seeming to throb with excitement in the frenzy of their kiss. This time they had not closed their eyes, watching each other's expressions as their tongues wound about each other, seeing the arousal and interest flickering in their gazes. By this point it was obvious to Diego that Van Holling certainly wanted sex with him, and he knew without doubt he wanted that too; the sexual chemistry between the two of them had been developing all evening, and it was now impossible for the night to have any other outcome than them naked in bed together. Van Holling had slid one of his hands down Diego's chest to his groin, pressing fingers against the obvious bulge he found there, making the Wolfdog moan lightly into their kiss. The feel of his own hand still pressing against the other canine's muscles was making him all the more curious to see what Van Holling looked like without clothes on. The rising scent of two horny males was becoming all the more arousing, a pleasant tang in his nostrils.

When they finally broke away, each panting softly, Diego growled, "You're smelling better every minute, and I think my cock approves."

"Come along then, stud," Van Holling replied, sounding so perfectly seductive and authoritative that even Diego, who really preferred being the dominant partner in a coupling, felt himself turned on by it. They got out of the car, and he followed the dark shadow of the Alsatian out a side door, around an aged white picket fence, and through a creaky gate. The night air was damp on the nose; the stones of the walk up to Van Holling's door were still wet from the evening rain. Diego paused at the foot of a front porch surveying the house: a well-sized old Victorian, apparently painted green, with a bay window to either side of the front door, and gables in the second storey. An iron weathervane in the shape of a dolphin was at its top, and on the steps of the porch were several potted marigolds. Below one of the bay windows a climbing rosebush had began to make its way up the front of the house. From the outside it looked homey and comforting, very different, Diego reflected, from the modern but sterile apartment complex in which he currently resided.

The house and the scents about it - of damp pavement, and flowers - offered momentary distraction, but now the Wolfdog's attention turned back to his host. The house had a nightlight above the front door, which lit up Van Holling's backside as he inserted the front door key, allowing Diego to again observe that the man he'd just been kissing had a delightfully fine posterior. He was just beginning to picture what it would be like to get his muzzle in that perfectly shaped ass when the door creaked open, and Van Holling stepped inside, waving a hand for Diego to follow, which he did.

Having stepped inside, Diego found himself in a small entry room, hung with coatracks, and decorated with posters advertising several popular movies or television shows: Gladiator, Carmen Barbosa, Game of Thrones, Blade Runner, The Great Gatsby, and Fight Club. When Van Holling had switched the light on, he motioned towards one of the racks, saying, "You can leave your jacket there, if you like."

Diego did so. "I gotta admit," he remarked as he followed the Alsatian into what seemed to be a hall, " when I woke up this morning I never expected being given a tour of Representative Friedrich Van Holling's house as the way the day would end."

Ahead of him, Van Holling was switching on more lights. "You should call me Freddy," the dog was saying. "My mother, my siblings, and my close friends all do." He gestured to their left, leading Diego into a kitchen. "If you need a drink, or get hungry, help yourself."

Freddy. The intimacy of being on first name basis suddenly made Diego break out into a grin again, feeling gloriously happy. "As you wish, Freddy," he grinned, glancing around the kitchen, which smelt, like the entryway had, of the Alsatian himself, with the scent of an Alsatian pup, Melanie presumably, mixed in, taking in the grey cabinets, granite countertops, green and white checked wallpaper, and a refrigerator on which several drawings of sharks had been stuck with magnets. Unlike Diego's kitchen, there were no piles of dirty dishes, the counters were neatly organised, and on a small round table near the bay window, which was cluttered with a scattering of crayons and colouring books, a fruit bowl offered bananas, oranges, and pomegranates.

There is a world of different between a _home_and a place where people simply sleep or eat, and this house, Diego thought, as he sniffed about, was certainly the former - an oddly comforting realisation to acknowledge. While his cock had lost some of its hardness in the distraction of checking out the house, his tail had not ceased to wag, and he remarked to Van Holling - Freddy - "You might want to be careful, this place is so rad I might not want to leave."

The Alsatian laughed. "Don't assume I'd complain if you chose not to." He switched off the kitchen light and went back into the hall, as Diego followed behind. "In the event you want a shower there's a bathroom downstairs, but first I'll show you around the rest of this storey."

Diego had not thought about a shower, but once Freddy had mentioned it, he realised one did sound quite appealing. "I'll take you up on that shower, I think," he replied, as Freddy pointed out the dining room, a squarish room mostly empty save for a dining table and a few small bookcases, which like the kitchen was wallpapered, although in a far older print, and hung with artwork. The living room was next, a much larger and older room with a mantled fireplace on which stood framed photographs of various Alsatians Diego assumed must have been other members of the Van Holling clan. There were Persian rugs on the hardwood floor, probably brought back from Iraq, and a stylish leather sofa with matching footrest and armchair. In front of this was a glass-topped coffee table spread with half a dozen large books, while on one the side of the bay window stood an old piano; on the other, a drum set (Melanie's, Freddy said). The walls were covered in an old Victorian wallpaper, and hung with a large canvas print of Van Gogh's Starry Night over the Rhone on one side, and one of equal size featuring a full-rigged sailing ship under sail on the other. Diego again remembered his own sparsely decorated apartment, which was untidy with unwashed clothing and clutter, and felt he could do better.

"I bought this particular house not because of the interior, pleasant though it is, but because of the backyard," Van Holling was saying. He motioned for Diego to look, and when the Wolfdog had followed him to the back door, which had a screen on it, he saw that the house had a large tiled patio at back, in the middle of which was a hot tub sunk into the tile. Beyond this the yard, when Freddy switched on a light, was lit up to reveal several large trees, a child's swing-set, and rows of flowerbeds along the sides of the fence. "The hottub is quite pleasant to get intimate in," Freddy remarked, "or just to relax in, if that is your fancy. But all things in good time." He closed the door. "I'll show you where the bathroom is, so you can shower."

Diego felt a little bit overwhelmed from the tour, but somehow seeing the way Freddy had set up house - possibly with input from Melanie - made him like the Alsatian all the more; the way it was well-thought out without being pretentious, and the way it made him feel at home. "I really like your house," he commented as the Alsatian pointed out another door in the hall as that of the downstairs bathroom, handing Diego a towel. "I mean...I don't know it is exactly, but it feels like a home...maybe in a way I've not felt in awhile."

The words came out sounding wrong, but his host only smiled. "Maybe it'll be your home someday too."

That was how he'd left Diego, who'd closed the door to the bathroom, a more up to date room painted pale blue and hung with small prints of sharks, dolphins, and other sea life in what seemed to be a Hawaiian style. It felt pleasant to strip off his shirt, jeans, and briefs, musky after hours of wear, and to look in the mirror and see an attractive 29-year-old Wolfdog looking back at him, none the worse for wear considering it was probably past 1am in the morning - and yet he didn't feel tired at all; he only felt excited, both by the possibilities the evening itself contained - of hot sex with Freddy - and of the more long-term connotations, that elated sense of excitement in feeling, inexplicably, that this was the beginning of something much more significant than a mere hookup. It was not, he knew, just hormones and libido talking.

He surveyed himself in the mirror a moment longer, eyeing the blend of grey, brown, and sable fur his mixed ancestry had blessed him with, and the thick tufts of mane sticking out at odd angles on his head. Perhaps it was best this way, that he get cleaned up before Freddy saw him naked for the first time. The Alsatian himself was not showering, having said he'd done so just before leaving for the town-hall meeting that afternoon, which made Diego all the more eager to hurry through washing. So he pushed the shower curtain aside, played with the taps until the water was an appealing degree of hot, and stepped under the warm flow, feeling his fur lay flat against his body as the water cascaded over it.

Brief distraction by house tour nonewithstanding, he was still feeling highly aroused, and as result an inch or two of his cock was still sticking out of his sheath. As he had hinted at Freddy earlier, the mixture of lupine and Alsatian blood had blessed him with larger-than average equipment, a fact he wouldn't deny he was proud of. Now, as water ran down his back and across his chest, he teased the protruding tip of his thick rod, eager to show it to the male he'd soon be getting frisky with, imagining grinding it against Freddy's hot, muscled ass.

These delightful thoughts brought another two inches of fat Wolfdog cock out, but Diego now ignored it, taking some soap from a side shelf and rubbing it into his fur, with special attention to under his arms and to his large sheath. He rubbed shampoo into his mane, wet tail thwapping against the wall of the shower as the joy of having met a potential love interest continued to thrill him. Most of all though he thought of how attractive the Alsatian was, for his libido, now aroused, would not relent until he and Freddy had fucked; he knew he could not sleep until he'd cum.

A little more time under the downpour and he felt clean enough. Switching the tap off, he took the towel from where he'd left it next to the sink, rubbing it over his mane and down his back, then around his front and over his groin. His cock, all the more sensitive now after having been aroused so many times already that night, throbbed under the touch. He decided to put his underwear - a pair of dark blue Diesel briefs - back on, but only those; his half-erect cock made a pleasantly visible swelling in the front of the briefs. Leaving his other clothes on the floor, he opened the door, and padded back to the living room.

Freddy was sitting on the couch, and he had removed his dress trousers.

He looked up as Diego approached, the movement of his body revealing that his blazer was unbuttoned. The big ears perked, tail thwapping the back of the sofa. "Damn...." His eyes were roaming all over Diego's body, taking in the muscled chest, the Diesel briefs, and the sizable bulge featured in those briefs. He stood as Diego stepped up to the sofa. "I've never dated, or fucked, a Wolfdog before, but now I'm starting to think that was a mistake."

Diego laughed. "Well, here I am to change that," he said, and then predictably they grinned at each other and moved effortlessly into a kiss, their fourth that evening. One of Freddy's hands immediately slid up the side of Diego's face, gripping the Wolfdog to pull him deeper into the kiss, while his other hand steadied itself on Diego's hip. For his part, Diego threw his arms around the other male, running both hands down the incline of Freddy's back to settle on his ass. The Alsatian was wearing briefs made from a very thin, silky material, making it very easy to feel the firmness of his rump within them. It was obvious to Diego that his new love interest worked out often; if the muscles he'd noticed feeling up Freddy's chest earlier that evening wasn't already enough evidence, the quality of the other canine's ass was enough to confirm it. He flexed his hips as their tongues danced in each other's muzzles, driving his bulge against Freddy's - it being clear now that the Alsatian had one to rival his own - in a move that was quickly matched by Freddy. Their entire bodies seemed to be moving in tandem with each other, hips grinding together, muzzles locked in a passionate kiss, hands groping over firm masculine bodies. Diego was actively squeezing Freddy's ass, finding the feel of the firm but pliable rump under his fingers encouraged groping. Within his briefs, several inches of cock had emerged from his sheath, and as the motion of their grinding created friction against the fabric, he couldn't help groaning into the kiss.

Soon enough they were both panting heavily, and Freddy's hands had found their way to Diego's own rear, gripping the twin mounds tightly. By this point the Wolfdog was so turned on he could feel the tip of his cock beginning to poke free from his underwear, and again, as his fingers gripped Freddy's hot ass, he imagined his big erection grinding against that same rump, and wondered if the Alsatian would consent to be being bred. This thought in mind, he traced claw down the incline of the centre of the other male's ass, teasing around the location of his hole...

In response, Freddy abruptly shoved Diego to the side, so that the Wolfdog sprawled on his back along the sofa. Instantly Freddy dropped on top of him, pushing Diego deeper into the cushions, his head against one of the pillows. Now Freddy was laying over him, chest to chest; bulge to bulge, although both still wore underwear, and Freddy had not yet removed his blazer or shirt. Quickly adjusting - finding he liked the take-charge, dominant attitude Freddy displayed regarding sexual matters - Diego went on making out with the Alsatian as if nothing had happened, but after giving him another few rump-squeezes, he slid his hands up Freddy's back, gripping the fabric of his blazer, trying to tug it free.

Freddy had gone back to grinding against him, in a delightful stroke of his bulge against Diego's that made the Wolfdog half-fear he'd get off too early, but in response to Diego's effort he lifted first one arm, then the other, helping Diego jerk off the blazer. Discarding the unnecessary garment carelessly to the side, Diego now pushed up against Freddy's hard, muscular body - heavy, though certainly not from fat, and set his paws to undoing the buttons on Freddy's shirt. He could feel the dog's hot breath in his face, as they were both still panting, but the deliciously sexy grin on the Alsatian's muzzle turned him on like nothing else. He found he was looking forward to ridding himself of his own underwear, sexy though they were. When Freddy sat up, to better allow Diego access to the buttons, his big ass ground against Diego's imprisoned erection, making the Wolfdog mutter an unsteady "fuck." Could he be so lucky as that Freddy was considering riding him? Usually when Diego fucked other males the individuals taking his dick were smaller and less dominant than he was, as while he was not opposed to taking it, his dominant personality rather inclined itself towards being on the giving end of things. He'd fucked his share of foxes, coyotes, jackals, huskies...even an Alsatian or two, but Alsatians could be tricky; some gave, some took, although all seemed fond of having their asses played with. Freddy had not necessarily come across as the kind of male prone to lifting his tail for a breeding, though Diego had entertained a growing hope, across most of the evening, that he might have misjudged his new lover in this respect.

Thoughts of this kind ran through his mind as he finished unbuttoning Freddy's shirt. Revealed was a chest just as muscled as he'd expected: Freddy was not a bodybuilder, but the combination of splendidly maintained six-pack, pectorals, and biceps gave him the body of a porn star or the kind of actor who played leading roles in thriller movies. He was a walking advertisement for gym membership, exuding a natural, effortless homoeroticism that would, Diego thought, have given away his sexuality in any circumstance without Freddy having made any conscious effort to do so. Diego couldn't help letting out a rush of breath as he admired the other male's physique, concluding yet again that men who avoided intimacy with their own sex had no idea what they were missing. It was now obvious to him why Freddy had easily gotten an job as a gay massage therapist, although then he would have been much more boyish than he was now, in his prime, and also probably why he'd done so well politically, as, superficial though it was, good looks could work to one's benefit in elections as well.

"No doubt no one has ever told you you have the body of a god," he told the Alsatian, who was staring down at him with an intent, hungry sort of gaze Diego found deliciously sexy.

Freddy's tail swung smoothly back and forth, causing his rump to grate against Diego's bulge again, which made the Wolfdog huff. "While I can't deny having been told that before," he grinned, showing all his fangs in a way that made the tips of the canine teeth hang over his lips, "I'm not sure I've ever heard it from the lips of such a manly individual as yourself."

Diego ran a hand confidently across Freddy's chest, feeling the hard abs under his fingers. The dog didn't flinch when Diego squeezed one of his nipples, although his tongue did loll out for a moment. "With you running around the city it's a miracle every male in northern California hasn't gone homo," Diego remarked. Releasing the nipple, he returned to the task of undressing his lover, pulling the shirt, now damp with sweat, free as Freddy twisted his arms to help. This done, he tossed the shirt aside, pleased that now Freddy was as undressed as he, each down to only their underwear. Before him, still sitting back against his throbbing dick, Freddy's body seemed polished and sculpted to perfection, the black fur of his shoulders glossy in the lamplight. He was still wearing his Marine dog-tags around his neck, which with the dominant, controlled carriage of his body, and his masterfully trained physique, only seemed to complete the image of a masculine military canine Diego found fantastically attractive.

In front of him the thin fabric of Freddy's briefs - pale white Armani ones - was stretched tight by the obvious outline of a very thick cock and apparently equally large balls. The sight was too tempting to ignore, so Diego traced a finger up the contour of the Alsatian's dick, which throbbed at his touch. He could smell it too; Freddy had been leaking, as was evident by the significant damp spot in the front of the briefs.

That tentative investigation done, Diego moved to grip his lover's outlined cock with more fingers, but Freddy had other ideas. With a thin grin on his muzzle, he turned, lifting one leg over Diego's body as he swivelled around, until he was now facing away from the Wolfdog, though still sitting on Diego's chest. The latter now had the close-up view of Freddy's ass he'd been waiting for, made all the more accessible when the Alsatian leaned forward, scooting his rump backwards towards Diego's face. His hands and feet balanced on the sofa as he semi-squatted with his perfect ass just inches from Diego's muzzle. For his part, Diego watched the ass inch closer to his face with widening eyes and a growing grin. Freddy's underwear were so transparent that Diego could clearly see the black and brown fur through them, and even more appealing, the darker incline where the two cheeks met, leading down to a somewhat wider, shadowy area within which he knew was the Alsatian's asshole. Farther below, he could see the bulging pouch of Freddy's balls, low-hanging even within the underwear.

Freddy had lifted his tail and swung it to the side, and a musky scent, thicker than before, was wafting towards Diego's nose. "Here's your chance to get acquainted with my ass," the Alsatian growled, but Diego was dominant enough to know when to take what he wanted; he didn't need a command or a go-ahead. Instead, he shoved his muzzle into Freddy's ass without bothering to pull down his briefs. His nose pushed up against the material, pressing it inward, as he nosed his snoot right up against the other male's hole, sniffing deeply.

Not surprisingly, Freddy smelled divine. He didn't smell dirty, just naturally male in a way Diego found highly arousing, which made him nuzzle his nose in closer, nuzzling at the underwear-clad rump as his nose breathed in the appealing scent. Above him, Freddy huffed appreciatively. It wasn't enough though; while his rump looked sexy in underwear, Diego wanted to see it without. So he hooked a finger over the band of his lover's briefs and tugged them down, an act made easier as Freddy helpfully lifted first one leg, then the other, to assist Diego in shedding him in that last article of clothing. He was still sort of on all fours, with his ass right in Diego's face, and now nothing was obstructing the latter's view.

Diego took a moment to study Freddy's butt, gripping the base of his tail in one hand to hold it up, massaging his rump with the other. Freddy was bent forward at the right angle that his rump cheeks were pulled apart naturally, revealing the dark brown oval of his asshole, which Diego sized up hungrily. The sight of his lover's exposed hole just made him feel all the more horny than ever, so he visually examined that appealing spot for only a moment before shoving his muzzle in once more. This time the scent was all the stronger, unimpeded by fabric, but just as pleasant on his nose. Perhaps because he naturally checked out a man's ass first over other parts of the body, Diego had always also liked sniffing male's butts best over any other area, even over their balls or cock. And Freddy, who smelled so classically male and masculine, was better than most. He took a few long sniffs with his nose directly pressed against Freddy's hole, but with such a delightful ass in front of him there was only one proper thing to do, so he pressed his lips to the Alsatian's asshole and kissed it.

The big dog groaned, the pliant flesh twitched under Diego's kiss, and the Wolfdog grinned to himself. He had always been as fond of eating ass as he was of having his own ass eaten, and it pleased him that Freddy had no qualms about getting a tongue up his butt. That first kiss was followed by another, and another, as Diego made out with his lover's rump with much the same enthusiasm as which he had so recently made out with the same dog's muzzle. Somehow it pleased him to hear the Alsatian groan occasionally, not a sharp whine but a deeper manly moan of appreciation for the affection Diego's tongue was presently providing. He was still holding Freddy's tail up, but now with the other hand he reached around and found his fingers folding around a very thick cock. He still had not seen Freddy's erection outside of his underwear, but it was very evident, now that his fingers were wrapped around the thing, that the Alsatian's cock was unusually girthy, perhaps more so than his own, although seemingly not quite as long as Diego's own shaft. Well, Diego thought, this dog being attractive as he was, it only made sense for him to be packing around something quite hefty in his underwear. He'd check it out closer later, but for now he settled for stroking his fingers along the thing, though he found it was so thick near the base he could barely make his fingertips meet; feeling the damp sticky flesh - Freddy had been leaking profusely, it seemed - throb under his grasp. As he did this he switched from kisses to enthused slurps, painting Freddy's asshole with licks, hearing the Alsatian's panting grow heavier, as evidence of his appreciation.

A small part of Diego wanted to tell Freddy just how awesome his ass was, but that was pointless; a far better way to demonstrate his approval was just to keep doing what he was doing, dining on the Alsatian's butt as if it were the chef's special at a 5-star restaurant. Freddy's hole was getting a little looser now, all slobbery from an onslaught of kisses and licks. Diego mouthed at it, eating at it, feeling entirely happy. He could still smell Freddy's fine scent, all the stronger now from how worked up he was, tempting him on as his tongue slurped over the soft welcoming opening. Perhaps, Diego thought, this was his opportunity to loosen Freddy up a bit before fucking him; if the Alsatian was comfortable with getting rimmed and having a tongue up his butt, he'd likely feel the same way about a cock. He continued to run his hand along Freddy's thick bone, from the head to the semi-swollen knot. The weighty shaft leaked infrequently, much more so than some of the other males Diego had been with. He enjoyed sucking dick as much as any gay guy, so in another circumstance he might have considered licking away that pre, but at the moment he'd decided to take his snacking on Freddy's ass to the next step, which was to place the tip of his tongue on the centre of Freddy's cute asshole, and press inward, firmly.

He could hear a sharp exhale of breath from the Alsatian, and another low muttered "fuck" as his tongue pushed into the dog's ass. Diego had never had much patience for guys who claimed to like rimming but then never did anything but barely touch his hole, so lightly he could hardly feel it. When he dined on a man's ass, he felt he owned them, and himself, the full experience, so he didn't hesitate to press his tongue into the hole, and give the recipient a decent tongue-fucking. Which was what Freddy was receiving now. To Diego's excitement, he'd managed to slide several inches of his tongue into the Alsatian, which he then thrust in and out. Freddy was not bothering much to censure himself of the groaning which came often from his muzzle, just allowing himself to enjoy the affections of Diego's tongue as it came. This was all the more inspiring for the Wolfdog, who was thoroughly enjoying himself, liking the smell and taste of Freddy's ass, and liking having his tongue in it just as much. He continued to tongue-fuck his lover, reflecting he could do this for some time without mentally getting tired, although he imagined at some point his jaw might require a break. For now though, he was content to tease the other canine with his agile tongue's darting in and out. Occasionally the stimulation must have been too much, as twice Freddy's muscles clamped down on Diego's tongue, momentarily hindering its movement. In his hand, Freddy's cock continued to throb as the circled fingers stroked it, teasing around the knot, which had swollen a little larger. Freddy's ass rocked back slightly, pressing closer into Diego's face, as its owner muttered "fuck" again, panting all the harder.

Diego had become so deeply engrossed in licking Freddy's asshole he was not expecting the Alsatian to move, but eventually, after perhaps 15 minutes of steady ass-eating, he did, pulling his legs forward, and then swinging one around to step off the sofa. Licking his lips, Diego sat up slightly, so he was no longer laying on his back, and watched the Alsatian quickly spin around. As he did he finally got a good look at his new lover's equipment, which was indeed just as impression as he'd expected. While he'd guessed correctly that the Alsatian's dick wasn't as lengthy as his own, it was definitely thicker, a fat meaty bone very wet and red and throbbing. If that wasn't enough, Freddy also sported what were perhaps the largest pair of balls Diego had ever seen on a male, easily the size of lemons. They swung heavily between his legs, so obvious and unavoidable that Diego wondered how Freddy managed to fit such an impressive pair of balls into his tight underwear and trousers without being uncomfortable.

Freddy was still panting from the delightful rimming he'd just received. "I like the way you eat ass," he muttered as Diego stood up, reaching out to test the weight of those hefty balls under a hand.

"Thanks, needless to say you have an amazing ass," Diego grinned, licking his lips. "I'll eat it anytime." His tail wagged as the Alsatian huffed again, this time from the caressing touch of Diego's fingers on his balls. "Are you sure you didn't take any supplements?" he teased.

The Alsatian chuckled, reaching out to grope Diego's own bulge, still belatedly imprisoned in his blue Diesel briefs. "No, I'm afraid not. I was just blessed with apparently larger-than-average junk."

"Don't look to me to complain," Diego told him.

"You might in a minute," Freddy said, seemingly as a joke, "but then again maybe not." He was reaching for something on the coffee table, and just then Diego realised what the other male had meant.

"Hey, hey, now," he protested, holding up a paw. "I'm the pitcher this evening. I thought from the way you arched your butt in my face, you were open to taking it up the ass."

Freddy just raised his eyebrows again, in a sort of 'really?' expression. "Nope, I like fucking males," countered, "and you're next." Diego realised the item in his paw was a bottle of lube. He must have got it out while he'd been in the shower.

This was not going necessarily the way Diego had intended, although the sexually-charged atmosphere, made all the more affecting by the dominance struggle currently raging between them, still had his cock leaky and throbbing in his underwear. "Here and I came in planning to fuck you."

"It seems that's where you erred," replied the Alsatian authoritatively, "since I came expecting to fuck you." He grinned. "But fine, I'll be fair. We're not that different in weight or height, and judging by your body, I'd guess we have a fairly similar muscle structure. Let's wrestle."

Diego picked up on the intention quickly. "Whoever wins gets to top?"

"Indeed."

"You're on," he growled.

A moment later, both males had dropped to the floor. Diego had finally stripped off his by now highly damp and musky briefs, so that for the first time that night, both of them were equally naked. They were facing each other now, on hands, and knees, preparing to spring. The living room by this point smelled very strongly of horny male canines, and Diego's perceptive eyes did not miss the appealing sight of Freddy's big cock and balls swinging heavily beneath him. The pleasant surprise of seeing just how generously endowed the Alsatian was had not yet quite faded, although his impression of this was now altered by the knowledge that if he lost the wrestling match now only moments away, that fat cock would be making its way up _his_ass, whether he then still approved of its size would remain to be seen.

They counted down together; three, two one, go. Both males moved as one, and they collided at the same moment, hands grappling for a hold on firm, muscled bodies. Diego was doing his best to try to flip Freddy, thinking he'd pin the Alsatian on his back, holding his hands against the floor by the wrist, and growl into his face, making sure the dog knew that he was the one getting bred this evening. But an easy victory was not to be his, for evenly matched as they were, both instead ended up grappling on the floor, rolling over and over, scrunching up the Persian rug. Each was trying to outmanoeuvre the other, flipping or pinning, and but it was also a sexual act in itself, for as they wrestled their hard cocks ground against each other's bodies, making their manliness and high state of arousal all the obvious, and making each of them more desperate for the upcoming coupling, regardless of who came out on top.

Diego lost because he almost won: he succeeded in knocking Freddy onto his back, but when he moved to pin the Alsatian to the floor, Freddy squirmed away with just the right degree of agility that Diego, for just an instant, fell forward, and in that moment Freddy sprang on him, throwing the full weight of his body onto Diego, holding him against the floor. Struggling, the Wolfdog strained to free himself, but instead found Freddy's hands closing around his wrists. It was in the next moment he knew he'd lost, for then he felt the thick, heavy shaft that was Freddy's pride grind against his ass, leaving a smear of pre against between his cheeks. "Fuck, you win," Diego muttered, though in reality he wanted to keep fighting, and intended to. There was a part of him that liked having Freddy's hard body resting heavily on him, but his desire to be the one fucking the Alsatian had not abated.

Just the same, when he writhed under the big dog's firm grip, he was kept pinned, being rewarded only with another grind of Freddy's hips that ground the big cock against his rump. "I knew two things the moment I saw you in that bar," Freddy growled, leaning low near Diego's ear. "The first, which I just knew, don't ask me how, was that you were the man I've been waiting for. The second," and as he said this he ground his cock against Diego's rump a third time, "was that I had to have you, by which I mean fuck you."

"Fuck you," Diego muttered.

"Nope," countered Freddy, "I'm fucking you."

Diego continued to grumble to himself and squirm half-heartedly as Freddy released one wrist, reaching over to grab the bottle of lube off the coffee table. Still pinned to the floor, the Wolfdog's laid-back ears picked up the sound of the bottle's cap being popped up, then a whooshing sound as a thick gob of liquid was presumably squeezed out. He tried one more time to squirm free as Freddy was slickening up his big cock, but this failed, leaving him still pinned to the floor, but now feeling a wet finger probing between his cheeks. At least Freddy was having the courtesy to lube him up too; some males wouldn't have done that. He was thankful for this touch, but still growled when he felt the Alsatian's searching finger touch his hole, smearing lube over the soft surface of Diego's opening. This finger was joined by another, and for a moment Diego panted expectantly as the exterior of his hole was well painted with a sloppy excess of liquid - Freddy was generous with it, at least. He'd had a feeling that there was a final aspect of this preparation to come, and soon enough, he was proven right: when Freddy pressed one of those probing fingers inward, pushing a little lube in with it, testing the waters. "Fuck, you feel nice and warm, just right for my cock," the Alsatian growled approvingly. He shifted, his weight settling over Diego again, with the thick shaft once more gliding wetly against Diego's ass.

"Common stud," Freddy was saying, still gripping Diego tightly, but allowing him to get up onto hands and knees. The next feeling Diego felt was that of his tail being grabbed and pulled out of the way just before Freddy mounted him, followed by that of the head of Freddy's cock pressing between his cheeks, then poking against his hole...

Diego had been fucked before, more than once, so he was not in any way a virgin to taking cock, nor did he necessarily hate being on the receiving end - in the right circumstance he could even enjoy it. It was just that on this particular evening he had decided he wanted to play the dominant role, so getting overpowered and mounted by another big male wasn't necessarily what he wanted....nonetheless, Freddy had indeed won the right to fuck him, and whether Diego would admit it to him or not, he'd probably enjoy it....if the Alsatian's big cock didn't rip him up, anyway.

No more deliberating. Freddy was gripping Diego's shoulders now, his hips thrusting forward as that fat cock began to spear the Wolfdog open. Diego could feel the other male's body resting heavily on his, which honestly he did not really mind; he liked being up close and personal with another male, feeling their strong masculine bodies pressed close together. He now swept his tail to the side, more to keep it from getting squished than as a movement intended to help Freddy, although a small part of him did enjoy the sensation of the thick bone spreading his cheeks. The Alsatian was flexing his hips at just the right speed to softly prod the head of his cock against Diego's hole, making the Wolfdog breathe a little heavier, knowing any instant now Freddy would be entering him. He braced his hands against the floor, feeling his cock lose a little bit of its hardness, as the tip entered him.

Diego had once heard being penetrated described as like sticking a needle in one's arm, uncomfortable from the moment of contact, but this had not been his experience. Even with Freddy's cock thick as it was, the moment of entry, while certainly very noticeable, was not unpleasant. Diego did not have a particularly tight ass by nature, although given it had been a few months since he'd last bottomed, he knew it would certainly take a little adjusting to get used to the feeling of a thick rod up his butt again. Accordingly he gritted his teeth, eyes clenching shut as he felt inch after inch of Freddy's fat meat sink into his rear. The other canine had kept his pressure steady from the moment he'd spread Diego open, but he didn't just shove it in in one quick motion; rather he gripped Diego's shoulders tightly and drove his hips forward in a steady push that made his well-lubed shaft sink in fast, but not abruptly. Soon all of it save the knot was enclosed within Diego's ass, which must have felt incredible for Freddy as he seemed to be panting heavily as he prepared to switch into steady fucking.

Unavoidably, Diego was feeling the effects of not having bottomed recently, with the unusual girth of Freddy's cock being just as noticeable as he'd suspected it would be. That was not to say either that he was in terrible pain, the discomfort was not extreme by any means, just present, though now that Freddy's pride was thrust up his ass, Diego found himself wanting the Alsatian to get on with it and start humping him, imagining what that thick bone would feel like grating against his prostate. He got his wish, for Freddy paused only a few odd seconds following having buried his dick before he began pulling it out again, faster this time, not all the way before he thrust in again. "Oh, fuck," Diego gasped, all his mental steadying still not quite preparing him for the actual experience of getting fucked by his lover. Freddy wasted no time in working himself into a steady pace, apparently so worked up by the rising state of their arousal across the evening that once he actually got his cock in the male he wanted to fuck, he wasn't going to beat around with gradually moving up to hard thrusts. It was obvious Freddy had plenty of experience fucking males, as everything from the way he gripped Diego's body to the precise angle of his thrusts spoke of a male who knew very well how best to fuck a man in the way that would maximise his own pleasure while also providing some for the catcher.

This was made very obvious to Diego shortly after Freddy began his thrusts, when the big dick jabbed him in just the place he'd hoped it would, inspiring another gasp from the Wolfdog. Had he been able to devote much time to processing coherent thoughts, he might have been annoyed with himself for the vocalisations, not wanting Freddy to think his new lover sounded like a bitch when he was getting fucked, but nearly right from the beginning Freddy was doing things with his cock that made Diego squirm and pant and want to beg for more, so thoughts of how best to act while being bred were forgotten in the haze of pleasure radiating throughout him. It was not so much that the discomfort from having an unusually well-endowed male's cock buried in his butt immediately disappeared, so much as that it was joined and eclipsed by the sensations inspired every time that same shaft made contact with his prostate. Diego found himself hanging his head, eyes still closed, muzzle now openly panting as he allowed Freddy to have his way with him, no longer caring to protest or resist. He wanted this, he wanted to be fucked by Freddy, and though he would not have admitted it had the Alsatian questioned him, he found after a short while he was subtly pushing back into the big dog's thrusts.

Though he couldn't entirely focus on anything but reaping the benefits of being fucked by a hot stud, he was nonetheless still learning new things about Freddy, albeit in the sense of how Freddy behaved during sex. Unlike some noisy and vocal men who talked constantly while humping, either to dominate or encourage the bottom, or just as expression of their pleasure, Freddy was silent save for the odd grunt or huff, wasting no energy or attention on jabber. His intention seemed to be centred on only one thing, fucking Diego, which absorbed his entire focus. Arms still around the Wolfdog, hips thrusting hard into him, half-swollen knot pounding against Diego's hole...it was incredibly intense. The size and weight of the Alsatian's balls were not lost on Diego either, as he could feel them slapping against his own balls and rump. He remembered the sight of that oversized sac hanging between Freddy's legs, unbelievably impressive...an emblem of his manliness. And now soon they'd be helping to fill him up...

Thoughts of orgasm reminded Diego that while he was loving every moment of getting hammered by Freddy, feeling the Alsatian's thick erection teasing his prostate, he did also want to get off, so now using only one hand to hold himself up from the floor, he reached up with the other to grab his own dick, which had lost some, though not all, of its arousal, and began jerking himself. He was already turned on enough by the delightful sensations Freddy's cock was bringing about from within his ass, and how the grating of his fingers along his swelling cock brought about an even higher state of arousal. Head still hung low, breath ragged from the intensity of feeling his body was experiencing, he pawed at himself, feeling Freddy speed up the velocity of his thrusts a little, as if he were getting more desperate to finish. Perhaps because they had been so worked up from a whole evening of flirting and from the foreplay of rimming, Freddy seemed disinterested in a long leisurely breeding, desiring rather to fuck Diego hard and fast, probably wanting to ultimate in a tie. While Diego knew the Alsatian's knot would be quite large, he found he himself wanted that too.

As if on cue, Freddy seemed to begin adjusting his thrusts to specifically drive his swelling knot against Diego's hole, a mounting pressure the Wolfdog couldn't ignore. Freddy's every move was precise and planned as a machine, repeating the same motion over and over, hitting Diego in the same spot repeatedly, making him pant and groan again and again. He was bracing himself for the knotting he knew was not far off, while still gripping his own throbbing dick, jerking it hard, ready now for release. The sensations Freddy was bringing about within him were so extraordinary in their lusciousness that he didn't necessarily want that to end; he could contentedly go on with the Alsatian fucking him for hours, but on the other hand he was so worked up by now, his balls swollen and tender, that he just needed that climax. And besides, the fact that it was with Freddy, with whom something new and unexpected and wonderful was blossoming, just made the moment all the more desired. The intermingled scents of aroused male Alsatian and Wolfdog; the occasional grunt or groan from Freddy, and more frequent moaning from Diego; the sound and feel of Freddy's big balls slapping against Diego's rump; Freddy's weight and grip unignorable on Diego's back...and most of all the fantastic feeling of being stroked in just the right place, made the Wolfdog certain he would not long forget this evening.

He was feeling his orgasm hovering in the distance, not quite there yet, but in sight, in a gloriously long, pleasureful incline towards the finish. Freddy, still not one to talk during sex, didn't give him any warning or ask Diego if he wanted to be knotted, merely reading it out of his body language, perhaps having sensed the subtle way Diego was pushing back into his thrusts. Thrust in, pull back, in again....so had the repetition continued, even now as Diego pawed himself desperately, not caring how absurd he must have looked, with his eyes glazed, tongue lolling out, perfectly content to be on the receiving end. And then the pattern changed, for the next time Freddy thrust in he didn't pull out, just kept pushing, the pressure on Diego's asshole impossible to ignore, aware Freddy's knot was partially swollen, but glad it was not completely so...

Being knotted by a male with the calibre of cock Freddy possessed was just as intense as Diego had envisioned: one moment he was pushing back into the pressure against his rump, and the next he felt the knot enter him as Freddy's weight pushed hard against his entire backside, and as he did so Diego felt himself once again jabbed in the prostate, yet this time the contact didn't end, just went on and on, such as that he yelped and gripped his dick and felt himself cumming, though he felt so on fire he half didn't know whether it was from being knotted or from getting off. Freddy's knot had not entered without a little discomfort, but Diego hardly noticed it, so overwhelmed was he by the enchanting ecstasy of having his prostate stimulated and reaching orgasm at the same time. His cock was shooting out thick ropes of Wolfdog spunk onto the floor, fortunately missing the Persian rug, and no doubt within him Freddy was doing the same. The Alsatian had gripped him all the harder as his knot was locked inside his lover, but he'd made hardly a sound, the evidence of his deep feeling being expressed merely by a raggedness in his breath, a steadying of motion, as he slowly rocked forward against Diego. However, Diego found, as he gradually felt his climax tapering off, the subtle but comforting sensation of Freddy's fingers softly caressing his shoulder, a familiar touch of awareness that he was not alone, that this moment was not one experienced solely for the personal, separated benefit of either, but one shared; this evening's journey was one taken together.

Diego's long delightful release had gradually drained off, and now, as his afterglow set in, he savoured the togetherness of the moment, and Freddy's quiet affection. The Alsatian remained panting on his back for another few moments before he slid off, lifting one leg over and twisting around so that they were left in the traditional ass-to-ass tie. The rotation of his cock within Diego once again provided such stimulation that it made another small spot of spunk spurt from the Wolfdog's shaft, before leaving him to continue enjoying his afterglow. Diego had heard some people say that rump-to-rump ties were a barbaric, primitive remnant of less-civilised ages, performed only by the vulgar and crude, saying that more advanced couples should remain in the breeding position until the top's knot loosened. Diego personally thought such notions were absurd, something generated up by religious fundamentalists, probably, and in any case he enjoyed the intimacy of being tied in this way, each panting, regaining their breath, cooling down from the heights of ecstasy they experienced, sharing the moment.

It was as he was thus relaxing that it occurred to him the unavoidable difference between this and nearly every other sexual experience of his life: he did not have to leave. Typically after sex Diego would put on his clothes, bit farewell to the man or woman he'd just fucked, and depart forever from their lives, or, if the coupling had taken place in his apartment, they would be the one leaving. He was not the kind of man who kept his one-night-stands overnight. They each knew what their role was to the other, and flirting with fate by trying to pretend it was anything otherwise was pointless. Yet now on this evening, which had started out so low only to climb to heights Diego could not possibly have foreseen, he would not be leaving; somehow he sensed that when Freddy's knot had gone down they would be going up to the bedroom and would go to bed together, and he would wake in the morning to find himself not alone, but beside someone. The thought was so surprising and so comforting that involuntarily his tail began to wag, rustling against Freddy's, and he smiled to himself, sex momentarily forgotten. He had sensed earlier that night, as he pondered his life, that he was at an impasse, though a beginning in either way: a beginning of something new, of a new life trajectory, or the beginning of the end, if he continued along his current path. And it was now, he thought with growing lucidity, clear that it was the former beginning he was now entering on.

"I hope," said Freddy after awhile, "that was all good for you?" He was looking around, glancing back at Diego, as they remained tied.

Diego grinned. "That was the best sex I've had in years. No doubt about it."

Freddy's tail wagged too. "Good. I thought you were, if I read your body language correctly, but it seemed polite to ask just in case."

God, Diego thought, wasn't this dog different. He'd clearly taken charge when they were fucking, seemingly reading out of Diego's body just what the Wolfdog needed, without needing encouragement or permission, yet nonetheless he checked in at the end, to assure himself the pleasure had been mutual. "Are you always this gentlemanly?" he asked, "or are you just trying to charm me?"

Freddy smiled softly back at him, a pleasant sort of smile with his ears tilted to the side. "Both, I suppose, although especially the latter....I wanted you to have a pleasant time so you'd want to come back again.

"Dude," Diego told him, "I don't even want to leave."

After Freddy's knot had come loose, they went up to the bedroom.

The upstairs of the house was smaller than the lower storey, consisting of the master bedroom and bathroom, another bathroom, Melanie's bedroom, and a third bedroom Freddy used as a study and library. The two males had walked naked through the house, Diego conscious of his very wet, messy rump, as he made his way up the stairs, past framed photographs of Freddy's relatives, and, on the landing, a painting of an owl in a snowy forest. He followed Freddy into the dark bedroom, and from there into the master bath, which had heated floors and a mosaic of tiles on the walls, in the images of fish. There was both a large oval bath, with the mosaic above it, and a walk-in shower, also tiled from floor to ceiling. Above the bathroom's tile the wall was painted a pale green. "I'll get you a toothbrush," Freddy was saying as he rummaged through in a drawer to the side of the sink, without asking whether Diego wanted to brush his teeth, just assuming it was his duty to make the Wolfdog feel at home. He handed over an ordinary packaged toothbrush of the kind dentists send you home with after a cleaning, then turned to putting toothpaste on his own brush, which was an eclectic one, and handed the paste to Diego. It was only then that Diego realised he had the lingering aftertaste of alcohol in his mouth, and was thankful for the opportunity to cleanse it. As he scrubbed away at his fangs his eyes wandered over the room, savouring the feeling of the heat under his paws, examining Freddy's naked body more in an sense of aesthetic appreciation than sexual attraction, noting again how the Alsatian was an example of the ideal male form. There was a small painting of a beach with sandpipers hanging next to the medicine cabinet mirror, and next to that a clock. He blinked at noticing it was almost 3am in the morning, although really that ought not have been surprising, and for the first time he realised how tired he really was, ready to slip beneath warm covers and sink into a mattress and pillow, and perhaps, the arms of a handsome, affectionate, kind Alsatian.

"We can rinse off quickly before bed," Freddy said, when they had finished brushing their teeth.

Diego agreed that this was a good idea, given how messy his butt was, and he watched as the other male turned on the tap, waiting for the water to come on. His ears immediately flew up, realising that the water, like rain, fell from the ceiling of the shower; an overhead spout, under which one could stand and let all the comforting drops fall on one's head like the blessings of a god's tears. Following Freddy into the shower, he walked under the warm downpour, letting it again wash away the messiness, but then Freddy turned to him with such a look of gratitude and affection and hope that Diego could not help but lean into kiss him, which he did. This time the kiss was not as sensual; there were no meeting of tongues, nor did they mouth at each other, just a touching of muzzles, a subtle nuzzling at each other; an act of affection in which both acknowledged an unspoken understanding: we realise something has passed between us here which neither could have foretold, and that this night has represented a new beginning. They held each other, arms about themselves, with their muzzles resting on each other's shoulders, and each without saying a word, felt as if the other had said magnitudes. And then they turned off the tap, and dried themselves, and Freddy led Diego to a big king-sized bed, pulled the covers back, and watched as the Wolfdog slide under them.

As Diego adjusted himself under the blankets he felt the Alsatian crawl in behind him, and he rolled over, head on the pillow, so they were facing each other. In the darkness Freddy's green eyes seemed to glow, small pools of light from within the beyond. Their muzzles were very close to one another. "Freddy," Diego began, using the Alsatian's name rather than the terms "dude" or "man" with which he typically addressed other men, "thank you for this. For tonight. I...needed it."

"So did I," the other male replied softly, nuzzling Diego. What "it" was, sex or affection or understanding, he did not need to ask. Both of them reached out their arms together, under the blankets, and together they almost immediately collapsed into a deep and dreamless sleep.

When Diego woke warm sunlight was gleaming in from a window, casting dancing shadows upon the surface of the duvet.

He had slept incredibly deeply, not stirring at all when Freddy had rose and left the bed, which he must have done as the Wolfdog was now alone in the bedroom. As slumber fell away from him he pushed himself up in the bed a little, taking in his surroundings...the green and gold wallpaper, a carved bureau, a chair by the window, outside which the branches of a maple tree tapped the windowpane, as the light filtered through these leaves created the pattern of shadows Diego had noticed on the bed. He laid a paw on the part of the bed where Freddy had slept, feeling for warmth - there was none, so the Alsatian must have been gone for some time. Diego's perked ears could hear, from somewhere else in the house, the distant strains of REM's "Losing My Religion," perhaps evidence of Freddy's whereabouts. A glance at his watch told him it was already midmorning.

The sense of peace Diego had felt the night before had not waned, which he realised as he pondered the state of things, relaxing against the pillows. It was a mild annoyance that his car was still parked at the Nighthawks restaurant, but no matter; Freddy had said that he would drive Diego back to retrieve it. Instead he found that he did not look forward to that moment; while a small part of him was thankful for a moment alone, to think over the past twelve hours in detail, he was also finding that the thought of parting from the Alsatian brought a pang of apprehension from somewhere within him, a sensation Diego was not familiar with experiencing, especially with someone he had recently fucked. It was, he realised, an aspect of this new self, either a new development of himself, or some part thereof he had not before uncovered: the desire for continuity. His tail thumped the bed, and a happy, almost innocent smile broke out across his muzzle, the surprised, relieved, grateful sense of joy one experiences when one has just began loving someone, or feeling something like love, at least.

His thoughts lingered on themes of this kind as he went into the bathroom, to relieve himself and rinse out his mouth, but when he came out of it, wondering what he was to wear, as his dirty and sweaty clothing had been left downstairs, he found himself facing Freddy, who had just come in the door, carrying a tray crowded with dishes. "Get back in bed," the Alsatian said, grinning, tail wagging; neither a command nor a request - a suggestion. His eyes were smiling in a way Diego found charming and rather cute.

"If you say so, stud," Diego quipped, teasingly. Freddy was wearing a long dark green dressing gown, and seemingly nothing else, notice of which made Diego feel a stirring in his sheath, but he sat on the bed and swung his legs back under the covers, grinning up at the handsome male standing in the doorway.

When Diego had propped himself up with pillows, Freddy walked over, and set the tray on his lap. "I made you breakfast," he said - and then his mouth closed, and in his quiet way his eyes met Diego's, and a small smile spread across his muzzle. "I'll go and get my own and come sit on the bed with you."

It was yet again the kind of small, affectionate gesture Diego had so rarely experienced in his own life, not from lovers since he had none, nor from his parents, who had been too busy fighting or feeling sorry for themselves to remember him, and accordingly within him some remaining barrier broke. A small part of him wanted to hug Freddy. But he just said "Thanks, man," as Freddy went out to the door to get his own meal.

The centre dish on the tray was a plate loaded with three fried eggs, three strips of bacon, a half dozen buttered mushrooms, a pile of hashbrowns, and two slices of buttered toast. In a smaller dish was a fresh peach sliced with blueberries on top, and there was also a glass of orange juice. It was the nicest meal anyone had made for Diego in years, and the scents coming up from it made his stomach rumble, but beyond that he felt in the Alsatian's kindness a sense of being at home, a feeling he had not felt in a great many years. He had never talked to Freddy prior to the previous day, nor had he ever stepped within this house, yet he felt as though he had come home to a place he'd never been before. Increasingly he did not want to leave.

When Freddy returned a moment later, carrying a second tray, Diego said: "I want to pursue a relationship with you."

It was perhaps the most out of character thing someone as non-committal as he had ever said, and yet perhaps never had he so meant something as he did then.

Freddy sat on the bed next to him, like they were a married couple who'd been eating breakfast in bed for years. "I know," he told the Wolfdog, "and I do too."

Diego ate a bite of bacon. "If I didn't know better I'd think you were still trying to bribe me into staying," he teased the handsome male beside him.

"I'm glad to see it's working," Freddy returned, grinning.

When they had finished eating Freddy took away the trays and then went to the bureau and started dressing himself. Diego watched in mild state of arousal as the Alsatian's fine rump disappeared into another pair of black Armani briefs, followed by jeans, as he was apparently not doing anything that required being formal today. "I can loan you a shirt and jeans if need be," Freddy told him, "we seem to be of similar size." Then he must have finally read in the rising sense of reluctance within the Wolfdog, for he came and sat on the bed.

Diego spoke first. "If I haven't already expressed it enough....thank you. For everything." His eyes were locked in Freddy's, trying to convey in expression all his tongue failed to say, the overwhelming gratitude to the man who, he somehow knew, had in one night changed the course of his destiny.

"No," replied Freddy, "thank you, Diego." He leaned in, and they kissed, Diego's arms pulling the Alsatian in to him, nuzzling together as their eyes closed and their hearts joyfully rose in openness, the room as filled with emotion as the living room had been with arousal the night before. They both lay together with arms about each other, hearts beating softly, each knowing what was happening but not needing to formulate it into words. Somewhere within this Diego remembered the vision he'd had the night before, of his aged and deteriorated self being visited by a respectfully ancient version of Montoya, and he knew now that the image he'd seen of the future then was wrong, or at very least, he had now been diverted onto a different path. Thoughts of drugs were now, in this moment, unappealing beyond comprehension.

"I don't really want this to end," he said after awhile, remembering work, and his yet-abandoned car.

"Oh Diego," smiled Freddy, "this isn't an ending. It's a beginning."