Forest For the Trees
Forest For the Trees
Jonah didn't like the idea of going camping, but Kevin had talked him into it. He didn't see what the rabbit wanted to get out of it, despite a rather exuberant explaination about "getting back to nature." Being an accountant, he had never been there as far as he knew, and saw little point in going somewhere without the comforts of life. However, he loved Kevin too much to turn him down forever, and so when he managed to get a week off, they made all the arrangements for three days of it; that was the most the tabby cat felt he could stand.
"This is going to cost a fortune," he grumbled as he hefted the six-foot box onto his shoulder that was their folding tent.
"Nonsense," reassured Kevin as they hefted it out of the store, his shorter height making it slope rather oddly since he went first, "it's not that bad. We want to keep things like mosquitoes out, don't we?"
"So you don't want to get that close to nature?" taunted the tabbby cat.
Kevin humphed, but didn't otherwise answer, as his long ears flopped in time to his footsteps.
To his surprise, Kevin did do a good job of preparing them. With nervous energy, he had packed both of their knapsacks before Jonah even awoke that morning. The cat was rather pleased to find that everything he wanted -- canned food, bottled water, matches, and other miscellaneous supplies -- fit in it. Everything except the tent seemed to be in there, which reduced his qualms dramatically.
Additionally, to make it easier on him it seemed, Kevin had selected a moderately sized natural park, only 15 miles outside the city. It was small enough that a bike trail ran through it, but large enough one could walk for miles without seeing buildings.
But as Kevin, who naturally led their entry into the woody area, took a sharp turn off the trail, Jonah began to wonder about getting lost. Jonah did his best to pay attention to where they were going, but his accounts kept getting in the way. All the books he had left undone, all those he had tried to balance too fast, and his arcane system of doing math in his head all worried him. Would Dudley, whom he had given all his work to for this few weeks to even up a similar arrangement, be able to figure out his odd order of recording the transactions?
"C'mon, keep up!" interrupted Kevin ahead of him, "we're almost there!"
"Where is 'there', anyway?" he asked, looking at the thickening trees as the sky seemed to darken from their foliage.
"Right here," replied Kevin, finding a natural spot between six large trees and suddenly dropping his half of the tent, forcing Jonah to drop his with a loud thud.
"I bet there are others around here," added the rabbit cheerfully, "in case you get lonely."
"More camping nuts?" sighed Jonah, "just what I need."
"Oh c'mon, you'll get into it. Trust me. This'll be fun." Jonah seemed almost determined not to enjoy it, and let Kevin unpack it by himself.
The rabbit read the directions, and then turned the page sideways. "What?" he mumbled to himself after a minute or two of skeptically analyzing the diagram. He sighed, and started pulling out pieces of hardened wood, water-proofed cloth, and other almost-natural materials that composed the artifical enclosure.
"Could you start a fire while I figure this out?" he asked without looking up.
"Sure," Jonah replied, "if I knew how to without a stove."
The rabbit laughed, in spite of his irritation at the tent. "In that case, go get some twigs about this long," he next instructed, still trying to calm down giggles as he decided which two wooden pieces to put together first.
Jonah sighed, concluded it was at least something to do, and tramped out between the trees.
He was surprised to find how clean the forest floor was: moss, dead logs, a touch of occasional frost, since fall had come a week or two ago, but only a handful of twigs could be found. He did know enough that live ones wouldn't work; they had to be dead. He tried to stay in view of the camp site, meaning that he made a larger and large spiral outward, but unfortunately, his accounts took over his head once again before too long.
The result was that when he finally had enough twigs, he discovered that he was at the edge of the forest by the stream, and the white rabbit he had his eye on had vanished. He sighed, rolled his eyes, and walked down to the river. It was west of where we were, he thought, but I have no idea how far south I've gone. The flowing water made a sound which inexplicably relaxed him, despite his distress. He dropped his pile of twigs at his feet, and sat down on a convenient log, watching a husky standing in the stream and fish.
He had to admit, however, it wasn't the finishing that interested him; it was the fact that, despite the nip in the air, he had nothing on but a light leather vest, revealing a white, bulky front, a black, muscular back and buttocks, powerful legs divided into white and black halves, and a fluffy, curled tail that stood almost to a ring of its own accord. It was hard to Jonah not to drool.
The dog appeared to be using a rather direct method to catch fish. Jonah watched him slowly drop his string into the river, more like a crane operator than any fisherman he had seen, and then yank it out suddenly with a fish on the end. Over the course of more time than Jonah decided to count, one at a time, he hooked seven fairly small fish, less than a pound each.
Jonah had no idea what kind they were, but it didn't look like enough to feed him. All of these musings, as well as others involving counting hairs on the end of a tail, were interrupted when the husky suddenly turned around.
He flashed his bright blue eyes at Jonah, a stark contrast to his mostly white facial fur, and stretched his muzzle into a mischevious smile. Jonah, feeling he had been caught staring at the wrong part of the dog's anatomy, smiled back reflexively, and tried to keep his eyes looking at the face.
"Hello there," greeted the husky as he strode back to the bank, and then over to Jonah. He seemed to have his eyes very intensely focused, as if trying to divine a message from Jonah's soft brown ones.
"Hi," replied Jonah, too nervous to say anything else.
"I haven't seen you before," he remarked as he stood over the cat kindly, but towering in stature.
"Just going camping for a couple of days," he replied, standing up, and finding them close to evenly matched. "Aren't you cold?" he asked, trying to find a reason for looking at the wrong part of the canine's anatomy.
"Not since I let my fur grow out," he replied, "that's why we are born with it, you know."
"Mmm," Jonah nodded.
He wasn't sure what else to say on the subject of fur, so silence followed, and the cat stared at the ground. His mind once again returned to his accounts, and how they were being managed -- or mismanaged -- while he was gone.
"Lost?" the dog interrupted suddenly to break the silence.
"Huh?" he asked.
"Are, you, lost," he repeated more slowly, a hint of jesting condescension in his voice.
"No," Jonah lied, "my camp's about half a mile west from here."
The husky smirked. "Then why didn't you bring your kindling back?"
Before Jonah could come up with an excuse, however, the dog reassured him. "There's no shame in being lost," he pointed out, "everyone gets lost -- once. After that, they learn to follow themselves home."
Jonah needed only look skeptical for the dog to explain. "It's harder this time of year with the hard ground," he continued, "but I can show you."
Jonah picking up his bundle of twigs in his left hand, and followed the husky into the forest. The dog, rather than seeing where he was going, was scanning the ground. That must be tracking, Jonah thought; the husky was going to have Jonah track his own steps back to the camp.
"I get it," he smiled.
"But do you know what to look for? Footprints are hard to see in the hard ground." Without waiting for an answer, Jonah had things explained to him: shifted leaf patterns, mud prints, and since it happened to be the activity of the moment, places where the pattern of things on the ground had a distinct gap.
As he talked, the dog followed Jonah's convoluted path without comment, and in a fraction of the time it had taken him to walk it, they were within view of a white rabbit with a half-assembled tent. The cat was so impressed, and pleased with himself inexplicably, he showed up proudling with the pile of twigs, forgetting about the husky for a moment.
"See?" he announced, "I didn't get lost!"
Kevin, however, did notice the other male standing right behind him -- without any clothes on.
"And who is this?" he asked with more surprise than curiosity.
"Adam," replied the husky, extending a hand.
The rabbit shook it, somewhat nervously, or perhaps it was suspicion. Jonah couldn't tell whether Kevin was examining or pondering as his eyes moved up and down the husky.
"Pleased to meet you," he replied, trying to smile, but without much success.
"I take it you two will be here a couple of days?" Adam asked.
"Yeah," answered Jonah, trying to take the pressure off Kevin.
"It's a shame," replied Adam, "you really should stay a week. It makes a huge difference, believe me."
"Really?" asked Kevin, though Jonah sensed it was more a question to him than Adam.
"Oh, absolutely. I used to be a stock broker. But one day, I went camping, and it changed my life; enough, in fact, to quit my job and live out here instead: winters, springs, summers, and autumns."
"What changed?" asked Jonah, with more skepticism than wonder.
Adam took Jonah's twigs -- which his orange hand released without thinking about it -- and started clearing a circle on the ground in the dirt.
"I don't know if I can really describe it," he answered, "I hated the high pressure, but even the successes seemed empty; other people were making fortunes."
"One day, I went home, and it all seemed pointless. What did they do with their money, after all, but buy big houses. If I gave up my job, and made a fortune trading my own money, then I would get a big house, and feel exactly the same way in a bigger house."
As if he were assembling a puzzle, or precisely aligning an intricate piece of machinery, Adam started stacking the kindling in an interweaving pattern to form a small volcano.
"All I really wanted, I decided was not to have someone telling me what to do all day. And when I went camping one day, I discovered I could have just what I wanted."
After he leaned the two last twigs against each other, he took out a small, bulbous object with a flat bottom and cone at the top, and put it in the center of his sticks. The end result was a strange bird's egg in an even stranger nest.
"I would suggest, my dear cat," he continued, "that you watch the moon rise tonight. It's a little more than half full, not as sublime as a full moon, but should be good enough. What do you do for a living?"
It took a moment for Jonah to escape the lesser form of reverie and realize he had been asked a question. "I'm an accountant," he replied.
"You sound just like me, living for other people."
"Actually, I live in my head most of the time," he countered. "I enjoy doing books. I don't care who gets the benefits, or takes the risks; I tell people what they have, and it's that simple."
"And I enjoyed advising a buy of a million shares, watching the price rise two cents, and making fortunes, too. But surely, no job is perfect. Someone else must bother you."
Jonah thought a moment before answering. "The only thing I don't like about my job is some of the other people."
"They aren't as skilled as you?"
"I suppose that's the reason," admitted Jonah, not liking to make himself sound arrogant.
"Why not leave the accounting to them, and just live out here?"
"Because I need to do math," he insisted, "or I'll go crazy."
"And that's why you spent a week, two is better. You go crazy for about three days, and then you get used to it. After a month, you'll never go back."
Jonah wasn't sure, but Adam seemed more and more convincing. "If you say so," he conceeded.
"I'm living proof," continued Adam, "and I am simply trying to make the world a better place. If you don't want to plunge in to where so many others merely wade, so be it. I suspect, however, that your mate may have a different opinion."
Jonah's ears went back in surprise. Before he could say anything, Kevin -- allbeit in a much more positive manner -- asked, "how did you know --"
Adam smiled, "it's instinct. Far more predictable than one might think, as any good trader will learn quickly. Very few people go camping together who aren't close to each other, for it's a very intimate experience to live with someone, even for two or three days. It seemed a reasonable assumption, given also that you have both, quite understandably, taken to my attire."
Jonah felt himself blush; he had apparently been more obvious than he thought.
"Growing fur out," continued Adam, "means that I can't wear anything else. It took about three weeks for my sense of embarassment to leave me, and about five before I could forget enough worries to be properly and brutally honest in the manner I am speaking to you now."
"How long have you been living out here?" asked Jonah, the question not occuring to him until now.
"I've been out here for three winters and four summers," sighed Adam, almost listfully, "but I know many others who've lived without civilization for at least ten of each."
Jonah was getting tired of the sales pitch. "You sure you don't have an investment in 'nature futures'?" he joked.
"I'm sure," replied Adam in equal light-heartedness, "because one of my last employers was in logging, and they would love to break out of then hundred-mile designated square and replant this whole forest. It would have been better for him to get everyone out of here for financial reasons if I invested in him."
Suddenly, Adam looked up at the sky, as the sun began to approach the horizon. He stared for a moment, and then announced, "I would say it's time for me to go. I will leave you two lovebirds to enjoy your afternoon."
"Nice meeting you," called Kevin.
"I'm sure we'll meet again," replied Adam as he jogged into the forest.
***
Enjoy the rest of the day Jonah and Kevin did try. Jonah got several logs, Kevin managed to finally erect the tent, including its floor, and the two of them rewarded their enginuity with cuddling and talking.
Adam's discussion of his work made Jonah realize that he hadn't told Kevin much about it, in a day to day sense, for the two years they had been together. Since reality's difficulties had swept away his worries at last, and the comfort and warmth of the rabbit's soft, fuzzy fur made him ameanable, he decided to open up a little bit.
Kevin listened attentively, and let the cat hold him in his lap, and stroke the base of his ears. To his surprise, Jonah found his difficulties -- and his worries about leaving the accounting to Dudley -- easing the more he talked about them.
"I'm sorry to bore you, love," he finally ended, "I just feel like -- well, like that dog said, tied up in other people."
"And that's why we're here. Try to forget about them."
Jonah did feel that was getting easier, but as he found this fact, he began to wonder how Kevin was affected by the husky's speech. "D'you suppose you could live out here?" he asked, unable to hide a hint of suspicion in his voice, "I mean, what do you see in camping?"
The rabbit smiled, and rubbed his white fur against Jonah's orange. "All I wanted was an escape, so I could be with you, and not worry about everything else, and you don't worry about anything else either. Right now, I'd say it's working pretty well."
"So no romantic notions of runnig off and living life in the forest?"
Kevin smiled. "Maybe," laughed Kevin, "but now that I'm here, and I see that dog, I'm not sure I would want to live like that forever."
Jonah kissed the rabbit on the back of the head where his ears connected to his skull. "Good."
"Besides," he added, "I know you can't live without your job, and I love you too much to leave."
Such a remark was rewarded with a much longer kiss on the muzzle. "I'm glad to hear it, love," replied Jonah. "It's getting cold," he added, not realizing how much time had passed until now, "so let's see how good a job Adam did with that fire."
He went to his pack, which was a lot heavier than Kevin's, and took out a book of matches. Not quite sure what part he was supposed to light, the cat struck a match, and touched it to the edge. One twig lit, followed by another, spirialing slowly around the edge before splitting in a path toward the middle. However, neither of them were prepared when the flame touched the tip of the cone.
The fire flashed into flame; not red, but a blinding white. As both of them covered their eyes, they were instantly deafened by a screech as the cone shot out of its holder on a stream of sparks, flew high into the air, and then exploded with a sharp pop and a large puff of smoke.
Jonah's ears were still ringing when he felt Kevin -- who had jumped onto him and clung -- released him. He couldn't hear anything, but felt both of their pounding hearts and fast rising chests. His eyes recovering before his ears, he saw the rabbit's green ones meet his; at first in fear, and then suddenly, in a burst of laughter he could barely hear.
The smile was just what he needed to take the events of the past three seconds in a better light, and irresistably, he began laughging too. They laughed until Jonah could hear what Kevin was saying.
"I'm going to kill Adam," he giggled.
"I'll help," panted Jonah, whose chest ached as he panted from his slowing heart.
It took another 10 minutes for their brains to convince their bodies that the danger they reacted to had finally passed. By then, it was dark, and the fire provided them all the heat they needed to stay warm. They ate their canned fish, heated over the fire, which turned out to be better than Jonah had feared.
Jonah and Kevin then huddled together, for not only warmth, but comfort. And as it got cooler, the cloudless sky slowly rotating through its hues from light to dark, they took Adam's advice and watched the moon rise in silence.
From what he could tell, he thought Kevin looked more bored than entranced, but he managed to find something in it. The slow progress of the sky made time itself seem to slow down, crawling along to make every second an eternity. It was so different from his time doing math, intuiting a dozen answers in faster time than he could even write them down, that his mind was in awe of the mere concept.
As the sky's color seemed to complete its blackness, Kevin piped up. "Can we go to bed now?" he asked.
"Sure," replied Jonah, still in a daze. He was enough dazed the he didn't get drawn into an act of passion by Kevin's undress, as often happened many other days. Eventually, after more talking, they went to bed at last in their tent, having at least the wisdom to put out the fire first.
***
Jonah dreamed of camping, not surprsingly. But he kept having to move his tent, because people kept disturbing him along the road. Somehow, this was easy; it seemed like he was moving all the time, the very soil shifting beneath his feet. Only when he woke up in the middle of the night, for no reason he could see, did he realize the shifting sensation didn't stop.
In fact, when he became more aware of his surroundings, he was positive he was in motion, desipte the stationary floor. He also started hearing footsteps, and a gentle, constant swish from under the tent floor. Squinting through the darkness, he felt around, and tried to gently awaken Kevin.
He shook him gently, but the rabbit groaned and rolled, making all the noise and the motion come to a sudden stop.
"Quiet, love," whispered Jonah, trying to get the rabbit's mind awake more with his presence than the quietest voice he could manage, "something's wrong."
Kevin managed not to move, or make more noise, as Jonah requested, and after a tense silence, a distinct whisper from the back corner of their tent said, "okay."
As if propogating through the air, more voices repeated, "okay," "okay," "okay," around the other three corners, and then ever so slowly, the motion started.
It crept at a snails pace, accelereating at an undetectable rate, until the previous gait of slow walking was attained.
Jonah assumed this was someone's idea of a joke, and so decided to see what he could do to surprise them. He shifted his weight carefully so as not to fall and tip them off, as he crawled an inch at a time toward the front of the tent. But when he felt for the edge of the flap, he found a row of stitches.
Realizing he was trapped, his notions of intent were ignored. "Get us out of here!" he shouted, tearing at the stitches with his hands. They ripped surprisingly easily as the motion stopped, and then suddenly, the triangular tent was turned on its side.
Footsteps sprinted away from it in every direction, and by the time Jonah got the stitches off the flaps and got out, no one was to be seen. Worse than that, Jonah found himself standing in the middle a paved path completely unfamiliar to him.
His anger sank quickly into resignation. All opportunity for revenge had fled him, and the new problem -- finding his way home -- overtook it.
Kevin struggled out of the tent about five seconds later with a "what's going --", and his expression became equally blank and worried.
"I don't suppose you know how we got here," he gaped.
"No idea," replied Jonah quietly, as he searched the treeline for some indication of where "here" even was. Every tree seemed to look like the last one; there was no rhyme or reason to their heights.
"This path must be the same one we were on," offered Kevin.
"Not necessarily. If they walked all night, that would be 20 miles, at the most," he quickly intuited, "but that could be a dozen different paths. Trying all the combinations would take weeks."
"Lost?" asked a familiar voice from behind them at the path's edge.
Jonah turned to see Adam leaning against a nearby tree, a mischevious smile on his face.
"It's a real challenge preventing boredom for some," he remarked, as if talking about the subject in the abstract, "some fish, some hunt, some move tents in the middle of the night."
Jonah thought his appearance seemd rather convenient. "You didn't do this, did you?" he growled.
"I've never touched a tent!" recoiled Adam rather dramatically, "too -- artificial. I camped under the stars the first day, and nothing since but trees."
"Well, we need to get home," pointed out Kevin, "can you help?"
"Concrete is a real problem for tracking," he stated, "but let me see what I can do." He turned to the trees, and let out a sharp whistle.
Immediately, four figures appeared from different sides of the road: a fox, two wolves, and a coyote. All of them, like Adam, had nothing on below the chest, and the last two wore nothing but their own fur.
The moment Jonah saw them, he knew who was responsible for their tent dragging.
"They did it!" he exclaimed, before Adam could even address them.
"But I never touched the tent," Adam insisted, his smile widening. "Now, can we talk about your being lost?"
Jonah had the feeling he was about to be robbed, blackmailed, or something else dastardly, but knew he was in no position to argue. He just nodded with a glare, and contemplated a fistfight with the husky.
"Being lost is not a state of your body, but a state of your mind," he began wistfully. "It means not that only that you are somewhere, but that you want to be somewhere else, and that's not where you currently are."
The five of them went from their casual roadside positions to a fairly loose circle around the two campers as Adam talked, his body language seeming to be the only signal to do so.
"My friends and I are not lost," he continued as his voice hardened, "because we have no wish to be anywhere but here. We are unable to become lost -- but in so doing, have made other sacrifices.
Adam and his gang stopped a respectful five feet from the two of them, Jonah not liking even this much distance between them.
"Mostly we have given up the multitides and interactions of others, since there are so few of us. You're the accountant: how many relationships can five individuals have with each other?"
A pentagram lept into Jonah's mind, and he had the answer even before he could count the number of lines in it.
"15," he answered, looking around to notice that the dogs surrounding him -- including Adam -- now had gazes of longing in their eyes.
"That's not very many relationships, is it? I bet you see more than that in a single day at the office."
Based on a growl creeping into his voice, and the drooling of his companions, Adam appeared to Jonah to have something specific in mind when he kept saying "relationships".
"For our sacrifices, I ask at least a token of gratitude if we are to aid you."
"Do I have any choice?" Jonah asked nervously, putting his arms around Kevin reflexively to protect him.
"You always have a choice," replied Adam. "You could become one of us, and I will teach you how to hunt, fish, track, study the moon -- or, at your word, never come near you again. It is a simple choice: live like us, or give us what we lost in return for my help. We won't lay a hand on you if you don't let us," he added, throwing a gaze to the others, indicating it was a command.
"Let him go," suddenly piped up Kevin, "take me instead."
Jonah tried to back him down, but Adam did not accept his offer. "This is a collaborative decision," replied Adam, "what happens to one will happen to both, since it appears opinions are divided as to which of you is more attractive."
Jonah stood stoically, not debating with himself what path to choose, but trying to find the strength to choose the one that would get them home within a year.
"I can assure you that I am most gentle," added Adam, his long fur no longer able to hide his standing cock, "and I assume that having practiced on each other, you will be able to satisfy us quite quickly."
Adam sauntered slowly over to Jonah, and as if calming a wild animal, slowly reached out, and touched the Jonah's left cheek. The cat flinched, but only found the palm offensive in its attachment to the holder. The white, furred hand itself did nothing wrong as it twice petted him and then rolled itself down around his chin.
"It seems you have decided, then," he stated. Jonah did not object.
"Then kneel, please," growled the husky above him, as he stepped another half step closer and spread his legs a bit.
Jonah slowly bent to his knees, smelling the husky's earthy fur and sweat, and didn't like it one bit, but thought he could endure it.
The hand on his chin pulled his head toward the gently throbbing pink standing before him, and trying to imagine it belonged to Kevin, slowly opened his mouth and drew it in. He could feel Adam tense up the moment it touched his muzzle. As Jonah closed his eyes, the hand on his chin disappeared, and its twin appeared instantly on the back of his head as Adam grunted and growled, thrusting once reflexively.
The taste was like any other prick Jonah had tasted, but as Adam pushed more of it into his mouth, the smell of his fur started making it difficult for Jonah to breathe through his nose. He did his best to apply his tongue to the large flesh, getting more gutteral sounds and an occasional groan out of the husky as pre started dribbling, but Adam wouldn't let his head away from the furry pelvis in front of him, making Jonah rotate the large cock in and out of his mouth as his muzzle slid over it.
It was just as the smell of dirt approached unbearable that the husky groaned, thrusted twice, and with a sudden clamp down on Jonah's head, started pumping seed into Jonah's waiting maw. He growled, snarled, panted, and whimpered as Jonah slowly elicited every drop, stretching the member, and pulling up new fluid until Adam's member softened and he pushed that cat's head away from him.
It was just at this time, when his neck was free to rotate, that he heard a familiar groan from behind him. He turned to see that the fox had pushed Kevin up against a tree, and was pressing himself deep under the rabbit's tail. He couldn't tell if Kevin was enjoying it or not; he knew that such a sensation was a mixed feeling, but was told Kevin enjoyed it regardless of what his face said.
Before he could worry too much about his mate, however, Adam stepped back, and a thin, scrawny coyote -- with a slightly smaller penis standing tall -- stepped forward. He would be shorter than Jonah himself if the cat stood up, but knew that trying to escape would not only leave him lost, but also Kevin at their mercy.
Considering himself lucky, and hoping Kevin would forgive him for the good fortune of having a far less stressful activity selected for him, Jonah took a deep breath, and took the coyote's flesh into his maw gently. His companion started whimpering, panting, and grunting the moment Jonah touched him, sounds which despite himself, started making his own pink harden inside of his pajamas.
In less than a minute, the coyote was dribbling precum, already prepared to explode. Jonah guessed he had watched Adam, and that had almost done it for him; this was simply a more satisfactory fulfillment. His tongue was already tired, but he did his best to carefully stroke and roll, paying the most attention to the slit at the very tip, which he could get a thrust out of the coyote for merly touching.
Since he didn't want to tease him too much lnoger, he started focusing more and more on that one area, but it was a single, wayward lick to the throbbing vein that ran along the bottom that got the coyote to howl and start pumpnig semen. Jonah carefully swallowed it, deciding he could risk a tiny scrape of his teeth as his throat acted upon the sticky, bitter mess. The coyote yipped, but it didn't break him out of his newfound revere.
The coyote pushed Jonah's head away, and he turned to see the first wolf was still working on Kevin, who was now whining and pouring tears as the wild animal slammed himself in and out from under the puffy tail.
"Your friend over there is an animal," growled Jonah defensively as he stood up.
"We're all animals at some level," replied Adam calmly, "including you. Are you saying you've never been so driven by lust?"
"I always make sure I'm not hurting him."
"And so is he. You've known him for longer than I have; is he in pain?"
Jonah knew that wasn't an easy question to answer. He walked closer, slowly to make sure Adam wouldn't stop him, stood behind the tree the rabbit was pressed to, and looked Kevin in the eye. The blue irises, still tricking an occasional tear or two, just drifted past as if he were only part of the scenery.
Despite formulating his answer, Jonah's eyes now shifted to the wolf. His thrusting hips, clenched teeth, burning green eyes that bored into the rabbit's skull, and grey, muscular arms pinning him to the tree made clear his current emotional state.
But before he could break away, Jonah found himself further examining the body currently attached to the storm of lust. The fur on his legs was a shade darker grey than his arms; all was quite overgrown an dirty, like the four others'. His chest fur was so light it was almost white, but it was long enough Jonah couldn't see what muscles or fat were beneath its trimmed shape. He couldn't see the privates of the wolf, but could see his fuzzy, lupine tail held high, almost an invitation did Jonah not know better.
"As I said," repeated Adam's voice suddenly close behind him, "we're all animals. In fact," he added in a whisper, "if you will just take off your pajamas for me, I will even let you have 'revenge' if you wish," he growled playfully.
This tore Jonah quite sincerely; his hard pink and his humiliation said yes, but his sense of pride reminded him it would be bringing himself down to their level. He just watched the wolf suddenly slow down, growl, grasp Kevin, and howl quietly at the tree as he convulsed far more intermittently. Kevin groaned and panted, ceasing his tears, and squirming as Jonah knew what now entered him. He also saw Kevin had a tent of his own which he was trying to keep the wolf from banging into the tree as he worked.
Jonah finally fell back to an old principle to save him from the abyss of amorality. "I don't mate with anyone unless they enjoy it," he answered.
"I suspect dear Justin's opinion of what makes a good mating will be quite the same as yours," replied Adam, "he prefers the most visceral sensation possible."
"So he might enjoy it?" Jonah clarified, feeling even more torn.
"Oh certainly," teased Adam, "consider what state he's in after everything he expected from tonight, and then I told him 'no.' He was late to the signal."
"So the firecracker was a signal," Jonah mumbled, contemplating that Adam and his band must do this on a regular basis.
Unfortunately, this just increased his sense of anger, that he had been put into a well-placed trap. Jonah looked over to see the remaining wolf trying to imagine his hand was another object entirely. He was almost identical to the other, except for a few white patches and markings on his face, and being an inch taller.
Just looking at him, he was so close to his companion in physical stature, what lust Adam had from witnessing the attack on Kevin transferred easily. As the wolf behind Kevin withdrew, and without pause the fox gently took his place, Jonah decided revenge was the best option.
He started walking quietly toward Justin, the wolf too fixated on the task at hand to notice the cat's approach. Jonah stepped clealy out of his pajamas on the way, feeling somewhat embarassed at being naked before two pairs of eyes he knew were behind him, and crept as quietly as he could toward the tree the wolf was watching under.
Letting his instincts take over, Jonah ran the last three steps, and lunged. He grappled Justin's shoulders, and with the sudden weight without any warning, the wolf just collapsed on his knees and free hand, head hitting the ground somewhat harder than Jonah intended.
"No!" he heard Adam bark to his companions, "let him have him!"
To Jonah's surprise, the wolf did not even try to fight or even get to his feet.
"If it hurts," Jonah growled, "tell me to stop." Using his spit for what lubrication he could get, Jonah greased himself up as best he could, and then touched the fairly grimy tailhole of the wolf. He whined, but did not resist in the least, only beginning to pant huskily, knowing what was coming.
The cat slid his hard cock, which he could feel pulsing against the smooth skin walls of Justin's innards, and the wolf did nothing but give a quiet, yowling whimper, breathing becoming instantly irradic and panting. Jonah found it tight, almost too tight, and had to move slowly as a result; but the massive stimulation he recieved from it got him thrusting his hips despite the fact they didn't move his dick very far.
Becoming the animal he had feared, he started growling, and pushing down on Justin's back, rubbing his head all over the fur before him whose smell he ignored and whose texture he found irresistable. He was panting before too long, and precum started making each slow journey in and out of Justin faster.
Jonah sped up as he was able, for having the feelings along the length of his cock only became more intense as he was able to move it faster; it was as if the insides of the wolf were stroking and grabbing him all over, and his appetite for it only heightened as he approached his climax. He couldn't even hear the whimpers, whines, and pants of the dog in front of him; he could only feel that the wolf body was pushing back in time to his accelerations to keep from falling over.
It didn't take long for Jonah to orgasm, and with one more deep thrust, start pumping seed. He lost the wolf's feelings in his mind, just focusing on the sensations of his own cock, the moisture surrounding it, and the fur he could feel brushing him with every thrust.
When he finally finished and withdrew, however, he was rather stunned to see everyone else -- the rather dissheveled-looking Kevin included -- staring at him. He stood up without thinking, returning only Kevin's gaze. The way the rabbit stared at him made him realize that he had just done something wrong.
"I'm --"
But he knew saying he was sorry, no matter how he might muster it, wouldn't help the rabbit's feelings. The white face just stared back at him, blankly. Jonah could only wonder what was in his head.
"Are you finished?" Jonah growled, as Justin the wolf returned from purging himself out of sight and joined his pack standing near Adam.
"Certainly," replied the dog in his smooth tone, "it's been fun."
He slowly turned and strode away, the four others following close behind without even a word. Jonah just watched them walk until he was certain no more trickery would befall them, and then returned his attention to Kevin.
The rabbit still looked up at him with distant eyes. Jonah didn't know what to say, but knew he had to say something, so decided upon that very fact. "I don't know what to say, except I still love you more than anything in the world," he pleaded.
Jonah was about to elaborate when suddenly Kevin ran up to Jonah and wrapped his arms around him, tail and legs twitching out of fear and pain. Jonah hugged back as it finally dawned upon him: Kevin still wasn't over his own treatment. Jonah's empathy was immediately drawn into Kevin's pain. Aside from an opportunity to smooth over his own regrets, his automatic attachment to the rabbit took over his body, and made him consoling immediately.
"You'll never have to," he replied, stroking the long ears, "you'll never have to do anything you don't want to ever again."
The crying was quiet, the phrases were spoken, about how it was so good and so bad at the same time. There was nothing Jonah could do but whisper to him and pet his ears. When he finally wanted to go back to sleep. Jonah didn't dare disagree.
They moved their tent off of the path, and decided to wait until morning. He forgot momentarily about Adam's promise to show them the way home.
Once inside the tent, pajamas hanging off his arm, Jonah didn't sleep. He wondered what Kevin -- and he, for that matter -- would think of everything that happened in the morning.
***
Jonah was surprised to find himself awakening, not having remembered falling asleep. He was even more surprised to see that his tent was, yet again, not in the same place he was certain he had left it. "-- but only four miles that way," he heard a familiar voice say.
The husky's voice made him immediately wake up, prepared to kill him -- or perhaps do what he did to Justin if it suited his mood. He opened the flaps a little to find Kevin accepting and thanking the husky for directions.
Kevin saw him, and waved for him to come out. Jonah didn't have his pajamas on, but figured that since last night, there was nothing worth hiding anymore. He stepped out with little more than a cold stare.
"Late riser, I see," Adam remarked, "I'm going fishing. Want to come?"
"No thanks," Jonah growled.
"Suit yourself," shrugged Adam, eyebrows rising.
When the husky was once again out of earshot -- Jonah no longer watched his tail with interest as he walked away -- he dared ask, "did last night not happen?"
"I didn't think it was too bad," yawned Kevin.
That was quite a surprise to Jonah. "You were crying," pointed out Jonah with a s, "crying wasn't too bad?"
"That was for your benefit, silly. I didn't want you worrying about the fun you'd had."
This was rather surprising to Jonah; it was an act?
"So you're not actually traumatized?" he repeated.
"No. And yes, love, I forgive you for whatever you think it was you did wrong."
He gave Jonah a kiss as the cat still tried to process this new information.
To Jonah's own surprise, at least the him who he was several days ago, they continued their vacation its scheduled two days. They continued to bump into Adam, who never acknowledged last night happened, except to give Jonah an obsidion pendant.
"It is a sign of gratitude," he explained, "from one of my friends."
Jonah accepted it, and concluded that even Justin had forgiven him, so finally forgave himself.
The End.
(version 1.0)