Paradox
(I consider it lucky that this story has nothing to do with personal experience. It merely came to me when I first read about groups like [Exodus International](%5C) -- who, by the way, have softened their positions a lot recently.)
Paradox/Pair O' Docs
Roger was awakened from an otherwise perfect nap by a calm voice. "Excuse me, may I sit here?"
It took a moment to permiate the hyena's consciousness. Long enough, in fact, that the voice repeated with rising tone, "excuse me!?"
But Roger was half way awake by then, so promptly sat up on the park bench he had been laying across. He yawned and opened his eyes to watch a fox with a grey coat and a white chest sit next to him.
He appeared reasonably young, but his eyes showed his mind was heavily burdened. His body was further indiation of this: this individual was carrying around a rather large belly.
Roger rolled off the philosophy book he was reading, and retuned to its pages. However, he found it difficult to concentrate on subjective realism. Instead, Roger watched the fox's eyse scan the document, periodically closing to allow his mouth to silently repeat what he had read. It was clear that, though the body had deteriorated the mind of this fox was in very good shape.
As Roger himself had demonstrated, with his rather sizable bulk built originally on self-consciousness, the body can be transformed with effort. As a result, he desired only to know what was in the fox's mind -- and wondered if it was the same thing as was on his.
The fox, however, noticed the intense stare Roger watched him with. "Do you want something?" he asked, eyes becoming as sharp as the voice.
"No," Roger replied calmly, noticing his mistake, "my apologies."
The fox returned to his book with a flick of his eyes, and hastily turned two pages in a row -- a rather odd thing to do for someone apparently in the act of memorization.
Unable to return to his reading, Roger just sat and let his eyes wander -- in every other direction than to the soft gray fur across the bench from him. He tried to focus on his surroundings. He smelled the spring air, the reason he came around here to study; he felt a tiny breeze brush his mottled fur, just cool enough to notice on an otherwise warm day; he got up and stretched, drawing energy from his own muscles.
To avoid more preoccuptation, or doing something else with that energy, he decided to jog a loop around the park. As he left, turned back to see the fox watching him for a moment before returning to his reading.
It took him a little more than 10 minutes to jog the mile-long loop. It was for the same reason he always exercised: self-consciousness. In this case, however, it wasn't because he wanted a better body; it was because he found himself latched onto that poor fox, who he was positive wanted to do nothing but read. And it worked; his focus on the path before him and metering out his energy made him forget about the gray fur and eyes which hid an even better mind.
Unfortunately, when he returned to the bench, the fox was still there; but he had quit reading, and had started writing. The large document in front of him was an unbound book of its own. Since it was more interesting than his book, and it was in Roger's nature to be unable to deny affection very long, he risked the fox's further ire and asked him about it.
"Writing a paper?" he asked.
"Thesis," answered the fox without looking up. His manner reflected less irritation than before, which the hyena thought was odd.
"Ah," answered Roger, thinking back to his masters thesis, "what's the masters in?"
"It's a Doctorate," replied the fox.
Getting a doctorate at his age -- Roger guessed only 25 -- seemed rather impressive. This made the fox a mental body builder, and only made Roger's infatuation worse as a result.
"I'm impressed," he remarked to express these feelings, "getting a doctorate at your age is quite an achievement."
The fox didn't answer, instead mouthing more words before writing them down.
The awkward silence that followed was difficult for Roger to deal with. Pleasantries seemed inappropriate, and just ending a conversation in the middle made him uncomfortable.
Fortunately, his comfort was restored, or at least his sense of center was. The fox did look up from his paper for a moment when he saw a sight fairly common, but not unnoticed: a tall tiger and a buff husky, both male, wandering down the path, but paying more attention to each other than their surroundings.
Roger sighed, and was about to make a comment about the beauty of love when the fox spoke first.
"Ja'meh han koshko Shak geh'mihn," he mumbled.
The sound of the gutteral language he had not heard since he last went to Temple made Roger flinch.
"Doctorate in divinity?" he asked guardedly.
"Yes," answered the fox, just as before, "the only thing left now that I have my robes."
So, he was even a priest. Probably of the fanatical sect, Roger guessed, with a temple ten blocks from the park.
Roger never understood them, having been raised to believe in the love of the great creator; they seemed far more concerned about the law, the natural order of things. Despite it not being written down to Roger's knowledge, that order was interpreted to mean that tiger and dog would have their hearts broken, followed by their knees -- or possibly their skulls.
His anger made him contemplate getting into an argument, using his knowledge of psychology and broader philosophy. He wasn't sure he could win, but was motivated to try.
"What is your thesis about?" asked Roger next.
"That very subject," answered the fox, voice lowering dramatically, but just as sharp.
"I assume you don't approve," suggested Roger.
"The statements in the law are clear with regard to such people," volunteered the fox, "but the question which has never been explored is why. Why do they do this? Shakallah does not create merely to destroy, so they cannot be so created. This is the question that, if answered, could solve this problem."
Roger grit his teeth to avoid one of his hyena laughs. The way the entire question was written ruled out what he believed was the correct answer: through some psychological cause, perhaps an event in childhood too deep to remove, some males preferred males, and some females preferred females.
"I don't know if there is a why," carefully argued Roger. "I think it's just an instinct; what used to attract tigers to tigers now attracts some tigers to -- huskies."
He smirked and shrugged, but the fox found no humor in his words. He just glowered at Roger for a moment before continuing his argument.
"Shakallah created those instincts; the one that attracts tigers to tigers, and the one that attracts males to females. The purpose was to create life that would create itself."
"But many cannot reproduce naturally, you know," Roger pointed out. It was a common fact that Maxwell Schmidts designs were far from perfect and often needed technological aid.
"But they are design to. Those two have no chance to reproduce, meaning the only purpose to their affection is an aimless indulgence."
Psychology taught Roger that, whatever beliefs this fox might hold, the cause of such feelings was deep. That was what Roger became interested in, and decided to risk trying to tease out of the fox -- instead of pointing out that genetic imprinting had recently been defeated.
"It sounds to me like you want them to be punished as much as Shakallah," Roger remarked.
The fox gave him that glower again before returning to a more netural attitude. "I merely wish Shakal jih'lahgn," he replied, -- "the great harmony", Roger remembered -- "My personal feelings are secondary."
The way he said the statement, however, convinced Roger the opposite was true.
"Tell me," Roger asked socratically, trying to understand more about the fox's beliefs, "why is it that Shakallah is making you do all the work? Why not just make those two disappear? Or never have been born?"
"Clearly," snapped the fox, becoming now visibly irate, "they have a reason to be here. Such a mistake is, apparently, not worth their entire existence. I have a thesis to write, if you don't mind."
He abruptly got up and left in a huff. As far as Roger could tell, that was the least innocuous question he asked. He didn't expect such a response. What nerve had he struck, he wondered.
With the fox out of sight, and now out of mind, Roger returned to his continued work in philosophy, never expecting to see that fox again. He did decide, however, to read the chapter about religion again, out of order in his studies, to see if humans had an explaination of the fox. They too believed such things once, and he hoped they would also explain how the more tolerant won out.
***
"Hello there," purred a cat into Roger's ear. Roger looked up from his steak to see a sharp looking bobcat with a gold, bushy coat and sharp green eyes.
"Hello," Roger replied, examinig his dinner guest, "please sit down."
The table at the back of this restauarant -- known to be inhabited by those like Roger, the tiger, and the husky -- was in a carefully concealed corner of the otherwise open room. It was one of six along the wall, designed so that two -- and no more -- could sit down and have a quiet conversation about whatever entered their minds.
"You seem lonely," was the way the cat phrased the usual inquiry.
"I do?" asked Roger playfully.
"The way you stare at your food like that. You looked like you might need someone to talk to. Oh, sorry," he added as he rearrangeed himself and "accidentally" brushed Roger's leg. His face was gentle, with a lingering hint of mischief at the corner of his mouth.
Roger looked at that face, and couldn't help but smile himself. "Actually, I'm studying psychology, and I talked to someone on a park bench who would make an interesting case."
"I bet you must be smart," purred the cat fawningly, "I'm just stuck in publishing, all I have to know is grammar."
He had the body, but not the brain for Roger. The hyena was willing to entertain the fur for a while, but didn't expect to leave with him.
"I see," Roger said with more politeness than anything. "What do you publish?"
"Textbooks," answered the wildcat, "terrible idea, isn't it, me being editor in chief of mathematics and checking for grammar."
Roger let him have the compliment he was clearly fishing for. "Not too bad, I suppose. You look like you can check their addition."
The wildcat chuckled coyly, as Roger barely prevented himself from rolling his eyes; not what Roger had in mind if Roger were asked to describe "his type".
He was trying to figure out how to kindly get rid of this bobcat, when from the corner of his eye, he saw a faimiliar fox walk in. Roger watched him immediately walk over to the bar and say something to Sam, the wise old lion who tended it. Sam sighed, and poured the fox two shots of something.
It looked like genuine alcohol -- which was forbidden to a priest, as well as being generally dangerous -- and this fox didn't appear to like it. He swallowed them both in quick succession, and nearly doubled over from the taste in recoil. After several pants, a deep breath, and an unclenching of his teeth and eyes, the fox steadied himself, and began wandering the table as if nothing had happened.
"Um, what's your name?" asked the bobcat across from Roger.
Roger realized that he had missed an entire paragraph out of the mouth of his new acquaintence. Since he saw no other exit, he apologized, ate two more bites of his half-eaten steak, and got up. He did, upon seeing the cat's mildly submissive bafflement, add, "it's not about you, don't worry."
He left the poor fur at the table, and instead moved toward the fox, planning to point out his hypocrasy to him as he settled down next to a much younger looking lion in the middle of the room. Based on the lion's expression, the fox was in fact using the code properly, suggesting he knew what he was getting into.
He walked up behind the fox quietly, and put both his hands on the gray shoulders gently and simultaneously. At first, the fox jumped in nervous pleasure, but instantly flashed from pleased to frightened when he looked up to see the hyena's face.
"Would you happen to have a recommendation on a textbook for learning Shakallah's words?" asked Roger wryly.
The fox looked up in utter terror for a moment, lips quiverring for an instant as if trying to say something. And then, without any warning, the fox then jumped up in a burst of rage, and shoved Roger backwards.
Being unprepared for such a move, Roger tumbled back, clattering into a table behind him. He broke dishes, splattered food, and ruined dinner for two other innocent bystanders. He was fortunate that his jacket took most of it. After slowly getting up, all eyes upon him, he merely apologized to the bruin and wolf whose dinner he had destroyed, told Sam behind the bar he would pay for it, and hustled to the restroom to clean up -- going in after the fox did.
He found the fox praying over the sink, quietly mumbling a long string of syllables in the gutteral language. Roger guessed he was either asking for forgiveness, lenency, or perhaps even self-destruction. Now realizing that perhaps the fox did indeed have far more entangled feeings of someone trapped between their desires and their beliefs, a great pang of empathy ran through him. He felt horrible about what he had done. He suspected he had made a bad suitation worse; the fox could even attempt to take his life in his own hands.
Trying to back the fox away from whatever invisible ledge he was standing before, Roger just quietly said, "I'm sorry."
The fox seemed to ignore him, but after what seemed like the end of a mumble, talked to the top edge of the mirror he was staring at. "I knew this was coming," he whispered, clearly not to Roger, "you warned me. And now, you have sent him here to continue your work."
Roger tried once again to engage him. "The only thing I am here to do," he stated categorically, "is to wash my jacket and apologize."
The fox still didn't speak to him. "How much longer will he last?" he asked the mirror, "what must I do to stop him?" Roger silently took off his jacket, revealing nothing but a tank top was under it, and turned on the faucet hung a foot above the sink bowl.
"You really want me to go through with it, don't you?" ranted the fox to his own reflection, "just so you can complete your punishment. You will not leave me in peace, will you!?"
Roger managed to get most of the grease off the back of his jacket, washing the last spot of ketchup when he realized what the fox had said: he was more tortured by Roger taking his jacket off. That meant the fox was attracted to him!
After everything he said, everything he did, all of those words, all of the anger he used to shove him down, that fox was attracted to him! He, like many in his predicament, just had trouble expressing it in any constructive way. Fortunately, Roger didn't have that problem.
He turned off the water in the sink, hung his jacket over the tall faucet's neck, and just grabbed the fox into a hug, pushing the back of the fox's head into his chest.
"Hey!" he snapped, as the thin pair of arms struggled against Roger's muscles.
"Just let go," instructed Roger in a sympathetic but level voice, near the fox's ear.
"You let go!" yelled the fox again, trying with all his might to escape Roger's grip.
"Let go," repeated Roger, easily holding firm.
"Shakallah to'heme jamar!" whined the fox, trembling as Roger continued to hold him.
"Let go," repeated Roger a third time, rubbing the fox's back through his shirt.
The fox trembled, but said nothing. Tears appeared in his eyes.
"Let go," whispered Roger.
The fox finally broke down at last, tears coming quietly, with only an occasional sob and stammering inhales of breath.
"It's okay," whispered Roger, as he felt the fox finally return his grasp. He continued to repeat those words, "it's okay," and wished he knew exactly what it was the fox was trying to work through.
Anger, shame, resentment, and all of it so deep and complex he couldn't imagine it. Roger believed he had the good fortune to figure out who he would fall for early in life. His first relationship had been as an undergrad, but his first crush was much younger. He also never had the weight of a large set of rules to govern his behavior.
"Now what," sobbed the fox, "I seem to be -- stuck with you."
Roger smiled gently, petting the grey head. "Do you really think of it as 'stuck,' or would you rather try and enjoy yourself?"
The fox took a deep breath, and released a trembling sigh as he stood tall, and put his arms on Roger's shoulders. His eyes were the softest Roger had ever seen them, their tenderness and happiness accented by the cheeks still engraved with tears.
"I guess ..." he started to say, a shy smile creeping over his face, but never finished.
He let Roger wipe away a tear or two still trying to escape his cheek, and didn't move when Roger slowly moved his muzzle down. When their muzzles connected into a kiss, Roger could still taste the alcohol; but he endured it, rubbing the fox's shoulders, back, and arms with his hands instead.
But after enjoyably touching of muzzles for a few seconds, the fox backed off, breathing visibly accelerated. "Can -- let's go somewhere else," he suggested quietly.
Roger concurred. "But first," he added, "I have a large bill to pay. Will you follow me to the counter?"
The fox nodded. "Since I was responsible, I should pay it."
"Don't bother," reassured Roger, thinking of the fox's state, "fault is not important. It's what you do next that's important."
"Shakallah won't like this," insisted the fox one more time as Roger picked up his jacket.
"I don't think Shakallah liked it when you came here, either. But you made a choice to come here, and seem willing to live with the consequences. And," added Roger with a smile, "I think I'm a pretty handsome consequence."
The young fox gave a hint of a smile when Roger brushed his chin, but no more.
In the end, it was Roger who paid the bill. And it was Roger who led the fox, nearly by the nose, to a Hotel six blocks away.
When they walked into the room, and he found the fox blushing, Roger asked gently, "were you this nervous before?"
"Well, yes, at first, but usually I -- get better." The fox was so emabrassed that he couldn't even look at Roger while he was speaking.
"Get better?" asked Roger, a smile of amusement creeping over his face, "what do you mean?"
The fox suddenly took a deep breath, blinked, and locked eyes with him. Immediately, they were sharp, and filled with passion, just like when he was giving Roger the irate lecture on the bench.
"Do you really want to find out?" he growled, returning to the stern self he was out there -- except he added a hint of a smile in the corner of his mouth, showing off his teeth a little.
Roger added teeth to his own smile, and replied, "show me."
As if posessed, the fox grabbed Roger, and started shuffling him toward the bed-couch, already unfolded. Roger was surprsied, but let himself be pushed by the fox, whom he was now convinced was stronger than his body gave away.
Once pushed onto the bed on his back, the fox started pulling off Roger's jacket, the passion in his eyes complemented by a look best described as diabolical.
"How can you be like this?" he growled, any lack of insincerity undetectable from his voice, "you need to be punished!"
Roger chose to treat it as a joke. "We both know that," he replied with a mischevious smile. "The question is, what do I deserve?"
The fox then slid off his pants, and sat down backwards on the hyena's chest, giving Roger a good view of his tail and boxers.
Roger was about to remark on the fox's tail when the fox unzipped Roger's pants and started gently playing with Roger's very hard cock. Just the touch was electric, getting Roger to suppress a groan.
"You do know what you're doing, don't you?" he teased, but it was clear the fox did.
Before long, his hands were first supplemented, and then replaced, by his long canine tongue. The fox's oral dexterity had the hyena writhing in pleasure momentarily, orgasm just around the corner from the feelings and view of the bushy, grey tail before him. But at the brink, he suddenly stopped.
"Don't stop," panted Roger, wanting to finish what had been so well started.
"If you want this," growled the fox, "you'll have to pay for it, sicko."
Roger, while no longer interested in the fox's mind, was driven to fight it by his most basic instincts.
"What do I have to do?" panted the hyena.
"Forgiveness," barked the fox, "forgive everyone whoever wronged you."
Roger found that surprising, as well as rather complicit with his current state. "I forgive," he whined.
"And you will submit your will to me," continued the fox, tone turning from righteous to mischevious.
"I will," insisted Roger playfully.
The fox got off of him, rearranged himself at Roger's feet, and began sucking on Roger in ernest. It only took a few seconds of the fox's muzzle for the hyena to whimper, moan, and explode. Filled in the invisible ecstacy that was orgasm, Roger didn't pay attention to the fox's cleanup of his mess. He just went limp, eyes resting on the fox as he got up.
"Now," growled the fox, "you will do as I say."
Roger didn't feel like it, but the sight of the fox in such an excited state seemed to give him some energy back. In fact, the first instruction Roger generally enjoyed. The fox stripped off his boxers in a single, swift motion and wordlessly dangled his cock and balls over Roger's mouth.
Before he could even bark the instruction, Roger took up the fox's modest cock in his muzzle, squeezing the fox's balls as Roger wrapped his lips around the dick.
Roger was too busy looking at the piece of meat he was dexteriously working on with his mouth to notice the fox's facial expressions, but from the noises he made, the fox didn't have the voice to call him a sicko if he was still thinking it.
Getting several moans out of him with careful use of his tongue, Roger felt the fox shudder and thrust a few times, signaling his orgasm. Roger was ready, and carefully slid the fox's member in and out of his lips as he slowly squeezed the seed out, enabling him to swallow it in globs.
When he finally looked up, the fox's eyes indiated he was somewhere else entirely, as his breathing was starting to slow back to normal. Roger, however, was as hard as he had been yet, and that was not a state he wanted to be in for too long.
The fox withdrew himself from Roger's mouth when he rolled off of the hyena, and laid down next to him. He looked into Roger's eyes, passion swept away in his orgasmic tide, and said nothing. Roger looked back, and decided there was nothing to say, so he just started petting the fox again. He seemed to enjoy it. It was a long time before they drifted off to sleep, or so it seemed, and Roger was quite content to sleep.
They had gone to bed in the afternoon, so it was still dark when Roger awoke. He saw the fox next to him, looking so peaceful for someone so passionate, and decided the fox would rather awaken alone.
He was about to sneak off, getting all of his clothes on, when he heard a familiar voice from the bed.
"That was the first time I wasn't drunk," the voice mumbled.
Roger wasn't sure what to make of that, so asked the obvious question. "Did you enjoy it?" he asked.
The voice seemed to indicate the fox was defeated. "I always enjoy it," he replied morosely. "The question you really mean is do I regret it. I will for the rest of the day, if not the rest of my life. This is how Shakallah is choosing to punish me, and it's quite effective."
Roger knew this fox would need help if he was going to deal with this one way or another. Such guilt couldn't build up forever without something dramatic happening.
"I don't know if you could tell by now," Roger suggested, "but I am a good listener. I also happen to have a masters degree in psychology, and want to help people who can't live with themselves."
He waited for the fox to say something, but he was silent. His eyes, however, revealed surprise and skepticism.
"If you would like to talk to me," Roger continued, "I'm often in that restaraunt."
The fox silently nodded. "I'll think about it," he mumbled.
Roger, with his clothes back on, left the room to the sounds of more chanting and gibberish. He hoped the fox would let himself off the hook, and Shakallah off of the biggest hook of them all.
The End.
(version 1.0)