In The Closet
The maple trees around the field behind Carter High blazed with red and gold, but the only red and gold Raz saw was the tight gold shirt and high red shorts on Dean Croft, the muscular wolverine who played first base for the Carter High baseball team. His biceps threatened to tear the shirt sleeves as he hefted the bat, grinning at the raccoon on the mound. "Come on, Shakes," he said. "Throw me a real one."
"Yeah, Shakes," Raz echoed.
"You want it, you got it," the raccoon said back to Dean, and smoked a fastball down the middle.
Dean uncoiled his shoulders and let fly, the motion as smooth and professional as anything Raz had seen on TV. With a sharp crack, the ball flew up and out, way over the head of Bobby Karsay, the grey fox who stood wiping his nose in center field.
"That's a sweet swing," Coach Delford said before yelling, "Bobby!"
"Sweet swing," Raz said. The white rat watched scornfully as Bobby's head jerked up, noticing the ball and sprinting backwards towards it. "Man, he needs to pay attention or he's gonna cost us some games, huh, Coach?"
A slender red fox in the next field abandoned his soccer ball and loped to pick up the ball. "Hey!" Coach yelled. "Let Bobby get it!"
The red fox paused as though uncertain, then lobbed the ball to Bobby, who bobbled it before getting a handle on it. "Christ," Coach said. Raz watched the stocky badger shake his head as Bobby turned and threw the ball back in. "All right, team," Coach yelled. "Good work. Hit the showers."
"Good work," Raz said as all the players jogged past him. "Gotta keep your eye on the ball," he said to Bobby.
"Shut up," the fox said, and threw his glove at Raz's chest.
The rat caught it and tossed it in the bag, then scurried around the field collecting the bats and stray balls, keeping an eye on the joking and backslapping as the players filed into the locker room. Dean's muscular frame stood out among the fluff of all the others, his handsome head towering above his teammates.
"Careful!" an unfamiliar, accented voice called. Raz turned but didn't see anything, and the next moment the world spun into a blur of red-gold and bright blue, and he found himself lying on his back in the dirt of the third base path, the rattle of the bats echoing in his ears. He lay there, letting the world settle, until the red fox leaned over him."Sorry," he said. "My soccer ball...is getting away from me."
He'd stepped on the soccer ball, like an idiot. Raz got up gingerly and looked at the gym. The players were all inside, already changing. Any chance of seeing Dean Croft naked was gone for this week. "You should be more careful," he snapped, and punted the soccer ball out into center field.
The fox's ears slid downward. "I say sorry," he said, turning to trot after his ball.
Raz picked up his bag. He tossed the rest of the stray balls and gloves into it, slung the bats over his shoulder, and trudged in to the locker room. Sure enough, by the time he got in, Dean already had on his much less revealing shirt and was hanging by the door, chatting with Bobby about something or another while the last of the team filed out past them. His left arm hung at his side, a wad of white cloth in that paw.
As Raz dragged his load to the equipment closet, trying not to be too obvious about his staring, Dean called, "Hey! Rat!"
Raz blinked, and slowly looked around. "Me?" he squeaked.
"Yeah, you. Here." Dean threw the cloth in his direction.
Raz grabbed it automatically out of the air. The scents sorted themselves out quickly: Dean's and Bobby's jockstraps. Dean's musky scent made his head swim. "Thanks," he said, disoriented, and only when Bobby giggled did he realize how stupid that sounded.
"Told you," he heard Dean say as they turned and left the locker room. "He'll do anything I..."
The rest of his words were lost in the echoes of the empty hallway. Raz dropped Bobby's jockstrap on the pile of laundry he'd have to take to the washer, but kept Dean's in his paw as he opened the equipment closet and stepped inside.
The small area, lit by a single overhead bulb, smelled of wood and rubber, dirt and sweat. The bats had to be hung up on a side rack, one by one; the balls got dumped into a drawer; but the coach insisted that the gloves had to be oiled after every practice. Normally, Raz enjoyed the mildly fragrant oils, but today he was more interested in the thick, musky wolverine scent clutched in one paw.
He held the wad of fabric up, and had to close his eyes to stop the feeling of disgust. Holding another guy's used jock? But this was Dean Croft, the only wolverine interested more in sports than in gangsta rap, the only kid on the baseball team who could bench two seventy-five, the only kid who figured in Raz's dreams.
Eyes closed, he inhaled the scent, picturing the large wolverine standing in the equipment closet with him. He would be shirtless, his bulging pecs hanging over the tight, white-furred stomach, wearing only the red shorts. Raz could see it clear as day, the big bulge in the red cotton. Want to touch it? Dean would say. The white rat's own shorts bulged out as the fantasy took hold, his sheath hot and hard, shaft rubbing against the rough cotton as it slid out. He dropped the jock and reached out his paw, no longer needing to smell the actual item to feel his fantasy. Dean's scent was everywhere. Raz moaned softly, aching for a touch.
He'd just reached his left paw down to his shorts when his ears caught a scraping noise, claws on wood. Usually he had the locker room all to himself. The coach was gone, all the players were gone; nobody should be here now! His eyes snapped open, but they didn't need to. He'd already caught the spicy musk of fox.
For a moment, he and the fox stared at each other, the other student holding his soccer ball close to his gold shirt. "What are you doing here?" Raz snarled, panic and shame fueling his anger.
"I come put ball away," the fox said. His ears had flattened, and he kept glancing down at either Raz's crotch or the wadded jock on the floor. His nose wrinkled.
Raz knew what he was smelling. His ears burned, and he coiled his tail around one of his legs. "It goes over there." He pointed and then folded his arms.
The fox nodded, placed the ball on the shelf, and then hesitated. "I do not want to intrude," he said carefully.
"Then get out," Raz said.
The fox shook his head. "I am not speaking well. I am apologizing for intruding."
"It's okay." He was so earnest that Raz was finding it hard to stay mad. The kid obviously wasn't going to say anything about the jock, and Raz couldn't imagine him joking with anyone else in the school about it. He'd seen the fox around for the first month or so, had a few classes with him, but had never seen him with any friends consistently. "Just get going already."
Again, the fox shook his head. His big ears flopped a little when he did. Silly things, Raz thought, flicking his own small ones. "I am apologizing for intruding that has not yet happened." He gave an impatient "tchah" and went on before Raz could react. "I see you in school, and I see him, big rosomacha. You like him, is true?"
Even though there was not supposed to be anyone else in the locker room, Raz kicked the closet door shut, making the fox jump. His amber eyes widened as Raz advanced on him. "Everybody likes him. He's Dean freakin' Croft. What are you trying to say?" The rat's heart was pounding. Even this kid could let something like that slip, and get him in a world of trouble.
"I say..." The fox held his black paws out in front of him. "I say that you like him, but he is not liking you."
"Well, what the hell business is it of yours?" Raz stood up as tall as he could, his muzzle still a full three inches below the fox's. He felt precarious, as though his anger were a balance beam and he were one misstep from falling painfully to the ground.
"Is no business," the fox said. "Only I am thinking is very sad."
"Are you calling me sad?" Raz walked deliberately into the fox's outstretched paws, making the other boy back into the shelf where the soccer balls bounced around with low, soft thumps. "Maybe I should show you what sad is. You're sad, you know that?" He was standing up to a larger boy, trembling as he did, balanced on his perch.
"I am sad," the fox said hurriedly. "I see nice boy, nice boy likes other boy, but not say anything. Other boy is not nice, but if he know rat likes, would be worse, yes? I know." His head bumped against a soccer ball, ears flat. Raz didn't say anything, his nose barely two inches from the fox's downward-tilted muzzle. "Nice boy should like boy who likes him."
"Dean does like me," Raz said defiantly, but he felt his anger begin to waver at the lie.
Slowly, the fox shook his head. "Dean say things to friends about rat."
Raz wanted to yell at him, slap his muzzle and tell him he was lying, but the soft amber eyes held no malice or joy at the news he delivered. He stepped back and scuffled the floor. "Well, who is gonna like me, anyway?"
The only sound was the hum of the fan in the ceiling vent, until the fox said, softly, "Vartik is like rat."
Raz looked up. "You're like me? You have a crush on someone too?"
Vartik shook his head. He pointed to his chest. "Vartik...like..." He reached out and touched Raz's gold shirt, just below the collar. "Rat."
It took Raz a second to realize that the wolverine's thick odor had been almost entirely obscured by the fox's musk in this small, enclosed space. He breathed it in. "You like...me?" Now that he looked at the fox again, he noticed the flattened ears, the wide eyes. He'd thought the fox was afraid of him, but no, he'd been nervous. Nervous around Raz. "You don't really know me."
Vartik's tail twitched. "No," he agreed. "But rat is white. Very pretty. And always is nice."
"You think this white fur is pretty?" Raz took another step back and looked down his arms.
"Yes! Is having white rat in St. Petersburg, but is not so pretty. Is, um...is pink eyes, is always angry rat."
Remembering his temper, his self-righteous anger from a few minutes ago, Raz looked at the floor again and scuffed his paws across it. "Oh, an albino. Yeah, I have an albino cousin. He's a jerk."
"Jerk!" Vartik pointed and nodded. "Yes, is jerk."
Raz lifted his head. The fox looked back with a tentative smile, and Raz got an idea. So this fox liked him, thought his fur was pretty? Flush with a different power than anger now, he reached out and took the black paw nearest him. Now he could feel the fox's shivers under his warm fur and skin.
The echoes of his need still burned between his legs, not forgotten even with the surprise visitor. There had been a story, a few weeks ago, of Suzy Chambers and Rod Muscan caught in the janitor's closet. A closet, just like this one. He guided the paw to his crotch, where his shaft was still rubbing against his cotton shorts. "You like this, too?"
Vartik's eyes widened. He glanced over Raz's shoulder at the door, leaving his paw where it was.
"Don't worry about that." Raz slid backwards, bracing his weight against the door and pressing the paw more insistently against his shaft.
The fox cupped Raz's bulge in his paw without any more encouragement, pressing the heel against the shaft while his fingers worked their way under the rat's sac, hanging below. His paw rubbed like that and then drew slowly up the rat's length, fingers pressing cotton against the skin on either side.
Raz sucked in his breath. He hadn't been sure of himself, doing that, but he needed the touch. Pressed back against the wall, he closed his eyes and let his tail coil and uncoil on the floor between his legs. The fox had nice fingers, no denying that, and Raz hadn't had anyone touch him in a long time. Not since...ah, hell, he couldn't remember. That party, maybe. It had not been as nice as this, he was pretty sure of that. His legs trembled until he braced himself, and if he thought he'd been hard before, he was wrong. Under the soft strokes of Vartik's fingerpads, he felt so hard he ached.
The fox rumbled softly in his throat. "Is nice," he said softly, and closed his paw around the stiff length, rubbing up and down through the red cotton. Raz whimpered and reached out for the fox's bicep, closing his fingers around the solid muscle. When Vartik stopped, Raz opened his mouth to protest, but before he could, he felt paws pulling the waistband of his shorts and jockstrap down, letting his erection bob free in the cool air. And when the fox's paw curled around his hot flesh again, he drew his breath in so hard that he made a squeaking noise, unintentionally.
Vartik slid his paw up and down, brushing Raz's tip with every stroke, his paws cool and confident on the rat's length. Raz gasped and squeezed the thick upper arm through its red fur, bracing himself against the door for his own sake now, not to keep the door closed but to keep himself standing upright. He heard, dimly, the thwap of his tail against the wooden door, feeling the jolts and shivers that he knew very well building up in his loins. Vartik's rich musk filled his nose, thick and male. He exulted in how easily he'd gotten the fox to touch him. "Uhhh..." he moaned, panting, thrusting his hips back into the black paw now. His shaft was damp from his own pre, and he knew he wouldn't last much longer.
Vartik seemed to know, too. He angled himself to one side as though sheltering Raz from the shelf of soccer balls and playground kickballs, re-situated his paw, and quickened his strokes. Raz leaned against the solid vulpine form, shuddered, and bucked into the fox's paw, panting as he spurted over it, his climax bright and hot and strong. He moaned, louder than he meant to.
"Nice," Vartik repeated. As Raz felt the last few spasms dribble sticky fluid onto the fox's paw, he pressed his muzzle against the gold shirt and fought the first creepings of guilt. The fox would do anything for him. He'll do anything. He heard Dean Croft's voice again, and then, for a moment, he saw with crystal clarity the scene: his white paws dripping with the wolverine's come, in the shadows under the bleachers of the stadium, in between innings. Dean would straighten up, give him a kiss on the nose and say, "Thanks." Raz had played that scene out in his dreams enough times that he recognized it, but now that ending didn't ring true. Now he saw Dean put his uniform on without a word, just that sneer he always had. This vision felt clearer and more true. He was in Dean's place, and he didn't know how to act now that he'd gotten what he wanted.
His eyes met Vartik's, and he realized that that wasn't true. He knew how Dean would act, and that had been his first instinct: to approximate the sneer and pull his pants up, walk out of the closet leaving the fox with a dripping paw. But he heard Vartik's words again: nice boy. He felt the long, soft tail curling around behind him. Damn it.
"Is nice?"
His muzzle curved into a smile, as he watched the amber eyes do the same. "Very nice," he said, and slid his paw down the fox's side, to the nice firm rear under the red shorts. "And what do you have back here, hm?"
The tail's tip flicked against his bare hip. "Is tail. You like?"
His other paw came around the front, felt a hard ridge in the red cotton shorts. "I like this better."
Vartik's breath hissed out of him. He leaned forward to touch his nose to Raz's.
Taking that as a good sign, Raz brushed his fingertips up and down, getting to know the shape of the fox's sheath--and shaft, for he was a good ways out of his sheath already. As he stroked, he expected the amber eyes to close, but they stayed open, and the slender red muzzle slid forward, nuzzling him with surprising affection as his paw teased up and down the hard length. He was an impressive one, this fox, a little bigger than Raz himself, and Raz fancied himself pretty well hung for a rat. Without much experience of foxes, all he could guess was that Vartik was on the good side of average. He'd be a good pawful for Raz.
The bad part of that was that just thinking that was getting Raz all hard again, when he'd barely started to come down from his climax, and that ached. He didn't mind so much. The red cotton bunched in his fingers as he drew it down the fox's shaft and back up, like another sheath over the thick length. Vartik moaned and pressed a little closer. Raz felt the fox's bristly whiskers trace his snout, just as his own trailed through the fox's short red muzzle fur. Impatient, he hooked the red cotton waistband under his thumb and tugged it down, surprised to find bare fur underneath.
"No jockstrap?" When Vartik tilted his muzzle, he reached down to mid-thigh and indicated his own. "One of these?"
"Ah." The fox shook his head. "No. Is too tight. I just stay out of way of ball."
Raz grinned back at him, cupping the white dangling sac in his paw. "Mm, I can see where it would be too tight," he said, and then let his fingertips feel the warm sheath, sliding further up along the hot skin to the tip, glistening with pre. Vartik moaned again in a deeper tone as Raz curled his fingers around the fox's erection, letting his slender digits explore it as they stroked. The musky scent was even stronger now, overwhelming even the oil and wood that dominated the small closet.
It was enjoyable, intoxicating, not overpowering like Dean's was. Smooth as the rum his father kept in the liquor cabinet, not the harsh bourbon the kids brought to parties because it was the cheapest they could get. But he hadn't known how bad the bourbon was until he'd tasted the rum. Without thinking, he licked the thick orange cheek ruff in front of him while his paw worked overtime.
Vartik nuzzled him again, bracing himself on one of Raz's shoulders. Raz felt the trembling all through the wiry vulpine body now. Must've been just as eager as I was, he thought, and put aside the tiredness in his arm to keep up the strokes. The fox moaned into his ear, shuddering more violently against him and curling the soft tail tightly around his hips. Raz thought that was it, but his paw was still dry, so he kept going.
He couldn't help grinning at the fox's throaty moans and little squeaks of his muzzle, and the jerks his body made as he drew closer and closer to his release. Raz spread the moist pre over the fox's tip as he pumped the thick length, his other paw squeezing the fox's behind and helping him thrust.
When it finally happened, Vartik pitched forward and almost knocked Raz to the floor. Thick white spurts shot across the closet and missed the bats by two inches. Vartik's loud yelps echoed in the small space, so that Raz had to put his ears down. Warmth coursed over his paw, the fox's next few spurts lacking the distance of the first. Even when he wasn't yelping, Vartik's breaths came in long, hoarse gasps.
"Is nice?" Raz said. This, he thought, was a much better ending than his fantasy of Dean, and although the fox didn't have the wolverine's bulging biceps, he was pretty athletic and, Raz had to admit, pretty sexy draped over him, his shaft dripping on the floor like he was.
Vartik leaned back against the shelf of soccer balls and said something in his own language, then nodded, smiling. "Is very nice."
Raz grinned, and then his ears and the fox's both shot up at the sound of someone outside, in the locker room. "Someone there?"
"Coach!" Raz hissed. He looked down at Vartik's dripping shaft, and his own just-flagging erection, and from there to the mess on the floor. Even if they could make themselves presentable, the old badger wouldn't miss the smell.
Vartik's expression became resolute. He pushed Raz back against the shelf. "You stay," he said, and put a finger to his lips. "I go. I tell him, I here alone." He pulled up his shorts.
Raz watched a dark spot spread where the fox was leaking against the cotton fabric. He giggled softly. Imagine Dean Croft preparing to get in trouble just to spare him? Vartik was something special, all right. "No, hang on. The door locks." He reached across and twisted the lock on the door handle, then put a finger to the fox's lips. "Shhh."
Outside, Coach called again, "Anyone here?" Footsteps came closer, and then the door handle rattled. Vartik's ears folded back. Raz held up a paw again. They kept dead silent until Coach's footsteps walked away from the door.
Quietly, Raz pulled his own shorts up, his sheath only now soft enough that fitting the tight jockstrap over it wasn't painful. He surveyed the mess on the floor, then took Dean's wadded jock and wiped it clean. "It'll get washed anyway," he said, holding the dripping undergarment, but Vartik's grin told him that the fox appreciated the significance of the act.
"We go now?" Vartik gestured toward the door.
"Let's wait." Raz pulled down the oil from its shelf. "I need to oil the gloves, and that should cover the, uh, smell. You want to help?"
Together, they sat cross-legged on the floor, applying oil to the gloves. Once Raz had shown him what to do, the fox worked nearly as fast as he did. The smell of the oil built up in the small closet until they could barely smell their own lust anymore, but it was not forgotten. Raz's thick pink tail lay across Vartik's fluffy russet one as they worked, and every so often the two would look up together and share a smile.
Raz tossed the last glove into the bag and stood up, beckoning with a finger to Vartik. He unlocked the door and opened it a crack, lifting his nose to the air. The locker room was empty now, save for the pile of laundry in the middle of it. Raz jabbed a finger at the jocks and shirts, towels and shorts. "I need to take care of that," he said. "So you can change and head home if you want."
Vartik shook his head. "I stay," he said, and fingered Raz's shirt. "You wash this too?" When Raz nodded, he tugged on the gold fabric, pulling it up over the rat's head as Raz lifted his arms obligingly. The fox lowered a paw to the rat's stomach as he tossed the shirt on the pile, brushing black-furred fingers through the soft white fur there. His fingers ventured down to Raz's shorts. "You wash this?"
Raz grinned and nodded. The fox's fingers tugged downward and slid around the curve of his rear until the red cotton fabric dropped to the ground. Raz kicked the shorts to the pile. Vartik trailed his blunt claws through the soft fur on the rat's thighs, up the inside to the bulge of his jockstrap. "You wash...jock strap?"
"Of course." Raz found that his heart was pounding again. He smiled as the fox carefully pulled the thick elastic away from the hardening sheath below it, slid the fabric down his legs, and held onto it as Raz stepped out of it, standing naked in the middle of the locker room. Vartik's paw cupped his sac and trailed up his sheath, teasing the pink tip that was already peeking out of it.
"I need to wash that too," Raz said, pointing at Vartik's shirt.
The fox grinned. Obediently, he lifted the shirt over his head and dropped it onto the pile.
"And those." Raz lowered his finger.
He admired the shimmy in the fox's hips as he scooted the shorts down his legs and tossed them to the side as well. A good couple inches of pink were still showing at the fox's sheath, plump and firm over the white sac that dangled enticingly below. "Mmm. Very nice," Raz said.
Vartik stepped forward and pulled the rat against him, bare fur to bare fur, and when Raz tilted his muzzle upwards, he found the fox's pointed down at his, and it seemed the most natural thing in the world when their lips met. His white arms circled the fox's hips as the fox hugged him around the shoulders, and the warm musk on the fox's tongue against his made him shiver. He wrapped his tail around Vartik's legs.
"We shouldn't stay like this," he murmured as their muzzles broke apart. Already he could feel the fox getting hard against him.
"No. If we stay like this," Vartik said, "we soon go back to that." He gestured to the closet.
Raz laughed. "I'm halfway there already." He let his paw cup the fox's shaft, squeezing it as he stepped back. "Let's get dressed."
They piled the laundry into the washer together, and then walked out in front of the school, passing the single late bus. "I'm a walker," Raz said, and pointed. "Just six blocks that way."
"I am staying with Grundersons," Vartik said. "Is this way, one kilometer."
"Oh, I know them. At least, I know Ginny Grunderson. She's the, uh," he put his arms out to his sides to try to approximate Ginny Grunderson's ample weight.
Vartik nodded. "I think Grundersons want me to like Ginny."
Raz giggled. "They should've had a son, then."
The fox's ears tilted, his eyes looking intently at Raz as he parsed the sentence, then his muzzle relaxed into a grin and he nodded. Raz thought that was pretty cute, almost as cute as the way his long tail swished behind him. "Is strange," he said thoughtfully.
"Ginny Grunderson? She's kinda weird, yeah."
Vartik shook his head. "Is strange, this country. I am liking boys, like you. In this country, is okay for other boys to like boys."
Now Raz was the one tilting his head. "What?"
"Boys on television like boys," Vartik said. "Is okay. But Vartik like boys, or..."
"Raz."
The fox nodded. "Or Raz like boys...is not okay. People on television is different."
"It's not that," Raz said. "It's just like you said. It's okay for other people. But it's getting better here. My parents are okay with me."
"Your parents know?"
"Yeah." He smiled. "You should come meet them."
"Vartik like that." The fox chuckled. "I like that. Is habit, say 'Vartik.' In English, is funny, no?"
"A little." Raz grinned. "Do your parents know?"
The fox's ears drooped. He shook his head. "In my country, is not even okay for boys on TV to like boys. Not okay at all. My father hit me many times if he find out."
"Okay, I promise I won't tell him, then," Raz said. "I gotta get home now, though. It was...really nice to meet you."
"See you tomorrow?" Vartik said, raising a paw.
"Oh, absolutely." Raz waved back, grinning and bouncing on his paws as he turned to walk home. At that moment, if Dean Croft had been naked on his knees in front of him with a rose clutched in his powerful jaws, the white rat wouldn't even have seen him.