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I fucking loved Christmas.

It was the first of December. My amputated left arm itched like crazy while harsh dots danced across my tired vision. The early, early morning had been spent drinking my night shift's woes away, and I'd just woken up to the smell of coffee. It started freshly brewing from that maker I managed to snag during Black Friday at the town's Buy-Mart, wafting from the trailer's kitchen. However, my first thought instantly went to my phone. Especially when I heard a distinct buzzing on the cluttered nightstand to my right. Reaching my arm out to snag the flip phone, then propping myself up with my left elbow, sating the itch by rubbing against the sheets, I blinked at the name onscreen and smiled a stupid grin across my fangs.

Despite the nasty hangover, I ignored another text message sent to me and quickly answered the call, "M-Morning, Jill."

"It's almost one o'clock in the afternoon, Bryant." She laughed like an angel from Heaven ought to laugh, making my heart skip one single beat. "Take it you had a rough day at the store again, huh?"

"Nah, not a rough day so much as a fuckin' shitstorm..." I sighed deeply, wanting to rub my forehead without setting the phone down. "I go on break for one hour and some city slicker from Clendenin gets pissed at Vick and Lana for being new to sporting goods, the freight isn't finished with, David forgot to bring cardboard to the bailer and lied about being on his phone. Again."

"And did you fire him?" She shared the same frustration with me, given how she too used to be in retail, "You mentioned this David kid wouldn't stop looking at his phone the last time you brought him up."

"Not yet," I groaned, "but I'm about so close to hanging him by his charger."

The hours I got as an associate manager at Buy-Mart didn't do enough for savings, so I often found myself doing part-time farmhand work for any farmers in need of extra paws. Or rather, one extra paw. It certainly beat having little to spend after the bills were paid for, but until April springtime finally arrived, it meant my time would be spent barking orders at punk teenagers with attitudes. Good God, I was starting to sound like my daddy.

"Will it cheer you up if I said I'm wearing your favorite shirt?" she asked in a suddenly seductive, supportive voice. "And I got nothing else on right now."

My mood brightened up faster than a lighter.

"It might, actually..." I replied with a chuckle, imagining her dressed in my crocodile green Bad Wolf Bar-B-Q shirt, then parting her legs to reveal that trimmed cooch leaking at the sight of my member. She loved wearing that shirt. It had been the same shirt I wore during our first date. "Now, if you have the time before your next class, it'd be a wonderful Christmas gift if you'd send me a picture to--"

"Jerk off to?" She finished for me, tsking on the other end. "Is that what you were gonna say?"

I sure was. Me and Jill's first time had been a couple of days after the night we first met, and if the dry spell and bags under my eyes had been any clue, we likely got ourselves banned from ever renting a room at that motel in the future. Looking back on that wonderful night, the only downside was the reminder that losing your left paw meant not being able to rub your morning wood easily.

"Now, now, we talked about this," she reminded me with a giggle. "Why bother with a photo when you can have the real thing next week?"

"Ya got me there, Jill." I managed to hide my disappointment. Oh well. "Anyway, I better get out of bed. I've got a gambling night to prepare for."

"Don't forget to drink plenty of water if you wanna fix that hangover," she mentioned, then paused before saying, "And Bryant...you know I love you, Bryant."

My tail wagged as I whispered, "Love you too, pumpkin," then hung up.

Wanna know three things I loved even more than Christmas, in no particular order? My folks on the other end of the trailer park, a premium six-pack of Böhmener beer, and of course, Jillian 'Jill' Barlow. My babe for the previous six months.

Ever since we met by chance at a country music festival near the Virginia/West Virginia border, that beautiful, sweet, blue-eyed doe had been the apple of my blond eye. I dunno how else to describe it, but we just...clicked. The moment my drunken mug locked eyes with her's, it felt like I'd gone sober in an instant second. She looked past my unkempt mullet, yellow irises, an ear with a chunk torn off thanks to a distant bar fight, plus the missing arm to see a good-looking Appalachian-born-and-raised dragon.

She asked me if I ever served. Nah, I never did, I told her. The amputated arm didn't have a complex story to it; during a family reunion in the next county, my uncle didn't warn me enough times about playing with one of his industrial farming equipment. He made sure to remind me by tanning my preteen hide the moment we returned from the hospital. By the time I finished my tale, she ended up doting on my preteen stupidity like it

Jill was something else though. It didn't matter if she went to some Shenandoah liberal arts college in Virginia, or even how it all amounted to getting a master's degree in psychology. She also wanted to become a psychological thriller and horror writer. A writer, can you believe it? Still, it didn't matter. Of all the out-of-state chicks I'd had one-night stands with, she was the only one I wanted to spend all night talking to.

Another phone call came, and I groaned at who it was.

"Hey Ma." I answered with a fake smile. "How're you and Dad--"

"Bryant Micah Saunders, did you read my text to you?"

"Of course, I did, Ma." I quickly glanced past the call screen to see it for myself. "And no, I'm afraid I can't have dinner with you and Dad tonight. It's the Christmas Gamble."

"Bryant, it's not just that!" She scoffed on the other end, "Your father and I have been hearing plenty of things about this Jillian girl you're dating, and we have the right to have you introduce her to us. Bryant, are you even listening?"

"I am, Ma. And you know how college is. She's busy all the time with classes."

"At least bother to invite her to next year's Thanksgiving, Bryant."

"Ma, I'll try, but I can't guarantee we'll even be together that long."

"Well, why not?"

I did not know. To be honest, I didn't want to introduce Jill to my mother at all. If those two met in the same room, Lord help me, my mother would insist over and over for the next eternity that me and Jill ought to get married. Then she'd ask the poor doe whether she'd be open to the idea of adopting dragon cubs. That in of itself would be a whole different can of worms.

Roughly fifteen minutes of wraparound conversations, a bit of passive-aggressive insistence from my mom to invite Jill to Christmas dinner, and finally hanging up, I found the strength to start my morning. I rolled myself out of the springy bed and staggered tiredly a few feet towards the short corridor leading to my kitchen. A quick sip of some coffee and a plastic bottle of half-frozen water helped the hangover a bit, so I eventually stumbled into the bathroom for a shower.

As the warm water ran down my chest fur and along my scaley body, I smiled tiredly at the prospect of winning later in the night. It was the Christmas Gamble, after all. See, I had three best buds I'd known since our mothers bought discount diapers at the town's general store.

There was a coyote named Jethro Harding. Loyal and having a nasty sense of humor, he worked at his pop's farm and even hired me a few times for support during harvest season. His younger half-brother cousin Leeland (their daddy fucked both their mothers, and one of them disappeared over the horizon to be with a trucker) lived and breathed everything involving computers. Unlike the rest of our group, Leeland bothered with a college education in the form of online classes. He also made plenty of cash being a 'technical consultant', spending most of his free time in a dark bedroom whenever Jethro or their parents didn't force him to work the fields. It didn't mean Leeland wasn't a country boy though. I learned sometime back that the kid could be a wild, wild drinker.

Lastly, there was Silas Ferguson, a stoic black bear two years older than both me and Jethro. He'd been held back twice in fifth grade, but an extra nudge from us allowed him to survive middle school and eventually high school. Once upon a time, Silas boasted about escaping our backwoods town on a potential football player scholarship when a broken condom and several one-night stands with the neighbor girl sent it crashing down. A passive-aggressive shotgun wedding from her meddling parents and six years of marriage later, Silas bitterly spent his days working at a car dealership outside of town. Tammy raised their two cubs.

At some point during middle school, the four of us decided to dedicate every December 1st as the night we'd play cards over whatever money we could bet. Nine rounds and the winner would walk away with more than enough cash to pay for their Christmas presents, plus some. I thought it'd make much more sense than waiting hours in the cold morning, then possibly getting trampled in the fight for discounted shit.

The location for the annual Christmas Gamble went to my humble abode, and the first rounds started right away at 5:00 sharp. Just enough time for the guys to finish their afternoon shifts, gather their betting money, then bring their lucky trinkets to hopefully win over big. Me? I didn't even need to bring a lucky trinket when it already lay around my neck.

Lifting my fingers to the dog tags dangling like a reminder of memories, feeling the shower water drip between them and over the rusting metal, I hoped Grandpapa's luck would be with me. For this year, I planned to get my girlfriend something special.

***

My trailer home lay smack dab in the middle of Terrace Park Estates. Nobody remembered when its prime used to be, but plenty of residents called it home, especially when most of us couldn't afford city slicker housing or a well-furnished life beyond the Appalachian hills we thought of as our birthright. We loved the isolation, the sense of closed-off community, the fact a 24/7 gas station sat opposite the entrance across the road (and served decent, microwaved pizza), as well as how cheap the rent was compared to somewhere else.

The two-bedroom trailer I rented happened to be a stone's throw away from the entrance, the exact opposite end of where my parents lived. It wasn't until two years after high school graduation that I finally gathered enough courage to leave, letting my poor shmuck of a father be the one to cater to my mother's nagging needs and demands. "I'm hungry, go see if there's some pizza left at the station!" "Turn the channel!" "Start the shower for me!" "Put up the decorations the right way, not that way!"

*Note to self: put up the Christmas decorations the next day.

I still visited them from time to time, but rather than be her butler, I wanted to be my own, you know? I took enough pride in myself to avoid making the interior of my home as crowded and filled with trash like my parents' place. I even regularly cleaned my bathroom once a week. Just because I happened to be southern trash didn't mean I needed to live as such. Plus, the last thing I needed was scaring Jill off with an abundance of fruit flies in the kitchen sink.

Half an hour into nightfall, the first of my friends arrived.

"Happy December, Bryant!" Jethro cackled on his way into the kitchen, already prepped with snacks and the table ready with a deck of cards. "Ya ready to lose your cash this year?"

"Are you up for it, Jet?" I joked back, then noticed his number two missing. "Where's Lee at? Still stuck at that computer of his?"

Jethro laughed, "Nah, he's just getting some cash outta the ATM by the park entrance."

"I'm right here," Leeland miraculously appeared up the trailer porch and burst inside, shivering and laughing nervously. "Ah, sorry I'm a little late, Bryant."

"No problem, Lee." I smirked back at him.

Standing next to each other, Jethro and Leeland differed the most in body type. The former was more muscular and a little taller. The latter happened to be lankier with a hint of growing muscle. Jethro's eyes were oaky auburn while Leeland's hazel orbs were a gift from his runaway mother. Yet both canines obviously looked like they both came from the same dusty, tan-furred coyote with black speckles on their muzzles.

The dynamic duo made themselves comfortable on the living room couch, with Jethro recounting his gathered money and his sibling/cousin typing on his phone as I placed a pizza in the other. Ten minutes to five, and another truck pulled up on the free space of my driveway.

"Shit, I'm motherfuckin' cold!" Silas Ferguson bellowed as he burst through the door, placing his coat on the rack and waving a paw. "Heya, bitches. Need a paw, Bryant?"

With my clenched right paw, I feigned a punch to the black bear's face. What a smartass. He barely flinched, and we laughed over it while shaking paws. The previous night we'd spent time together, it'd been at one of his brats' birthday parties in October.

Jethro only started involving Leeland in our Christmas Gamble a few years back, once the thin coyote finished high school. The fact we were all under the same roof so soon was a fucking miracle. Especially because the chosen card game for this year was Bullshit. My absolute favorite.

"How's classes going, Lee?" I browsed with one paw through my eight cards. Not a bad pair in all honesty. "I hear you got finals coming up."

"They're good, but don't remind me I got finals," he sighed midway through opening a cold can of Böhmener beer, then sipping it and helping himself to one of the free complementary chip bags. "I came tonight to forget my troubles, and to get enough cash for a new monitor that got smashed."

"Said I was sorry, Leeland." Jethro groaned. "I apologized to you already three times."

"What happened anyway?" I asked the two. When Jethro scratched the back of his ear and Lee switched between a death glare and pinching the bridge of his snout, I couldn't help but pleaded with them, "Tell me your dad didn't pull that 'smash up the electronics' crap that's on YouTube. And please tell me Jet here didn't film the whole fuckin' thing."

"Nah," Lee sighed again in clear-as-day agitation. "The big lug here just elbowed the screen and smashed it to bits."

"I was drunk!"

"That screen cost three-hundred, Jet!"

"You could just buy a new one."

"And explain to Mom why I can't just keep the old one? Forget it!"

"Can we play already?" Silas chimed in as he stepped over to grab a beer from the fridge. "Tammy wants me to get our boys some more expensive toys this Christmas, and I want to at least have something nice for her."

The bitterness between the two coyotes dissipated as fast as it started. Leeland's fully brushed tail visibly wagged behind him as Jethro sat across on the cleared kitchen table. I sat between the two coyotes and Silas sauntered into his chair across from me. Not before he helped himself to a plate of chips, dip, pretzels, and crackers.

Normally, shuffling and dealing the card deck rested on the host, but I let Jethro have the honor on account I only had one paw. No matter how many videos I watched, I could never get the shuffling right. Regardless, Jethro didn't miss a beat and skillfully, effortlessly mixed it up for us all to visibly see. The last thing anybody wanted was a cheater's funny business.

"Ya'll remember last year's agreement, right?" I asked once we got our cards settled in front of us, then motioned to the nonstick pot serving as the 'Winning Pot' for this year's Christmas Gamble. "Minimum of twenty dollars instead of ten. Go ahead and fork up your wagers."

All three of my friends easily dropped two twenty-dollar bills into the pot while I only placed one twenty. They immediately started eyeing me with contempt, like my mother when I ate the last of some food. I shrugged them off. The night was still young, after all. Besides cash, the Christmas Gamble allowed small possessions to bet like wrist watches, DVDs, video games, and even once a TV screen. Never again would I play poker while drunk off my dragon ass.

"Those tags were made during Korea, weren't they?" Silas pointed to his neck, making me look down at mine. "Nickel and chromium are worth plenty if you pawn 'em correctly."

I grasped the metal tags protectively. "Nope."

"Awww, c'mon," Silas begged me. "Me and the boys already put double in."

"I don't care if they net me a million-billion dollars, Jet." A snarl escaped my snout. "My Grandpapa trusted me with these before he kicked the bucket."

"They ain't for sale. Period." I put my foot down and asked Silas, "How'd you feel if I asked you to bet your own cubs?"

"Bet 'em? Hahaha, you can go and take my boys, Bryant!" The bear cackled less like an ursine and more of a hyena told a good joke.

"Anyway," I looked down at the cards in my paw and dropped one facing down beside the Winning Pot. "Here's one two of clubs. You're next, Jet."

The coyote thought it over for three or four seconds before slapping two cards down. "Two threes."

Silas went next. "One four."

Eyes darting left and right, then hitching a breath, Leeland's poker face clearly needed improvement. "One five?" He placed it down.

"I call bullshit," Jethro spoke up. "Show us your card, Lee."

"Augh!" He whined and revealed a nine of hearts, pulling the entire deck into his. Shuffling it with his current pairs, the lanky coyote asked, "So, what're you gonna spend on your winnings, Bryant?"

"Something special for Jill. She's had her eye on some new book out, and I'm also thinking of maybe scrounging up a trip to Harpers Ferry. Never been there." I effortlessly placed another card on the table but managed to hide my true face and lied aloud, "One seven."

Jethro whistled and nodded at my plan. "One eight." He spoke.

"Damn, that's quite a gift," Lee mentioned as Silas started looking over his cards. "Must be some girl, huh?"

Silas snickered suddenly, then cleared his throat. "Uh, two nines..." He murmured.

An eye of mine narrowed towards the normally stoic black bear. "Bullshit," I called out. "Turn it over, Silas." He complied, only to chortle as I stared down at a nine of spades and a nine of hearts. "Goddammit. Alright, hand 'em over to me..."

A trace of a confident snicker never did leave his muzzle, even as Lee's turn came and went. The look in his eye also left me wondering what got him to laugh. However, I tossed it to the back of my mind as I fought my way throughout the rest of the first round.

***

Lady luck dealt me some good cards in the first, second, and fifth rounds. I faltered a bit on the fourth round, narrowly lost the third round, but ended up skipping the sixth round for dinner. Regardless, near the end of the seventh round, down to between me and Silas, I managed to rack up $324.50. Plus, an unexpired gift card to a pizza chain courtesy of Leeland.

I smirked back at Silas, our eyes locked firmly on the other. "One nine."

"One ten"

"One jack."

"One queen."

"One king."

Silas' final cards came down to, "Two aces!"

"Bullshit my asshole, Silas!" I snarked, "Turn it over!"

The bear widened his eyes and groaned, tossing his cards into the center as I pulled my winnings into my pocket. "Haha, now what is that? Twenty bucks?"

Silas stood up to make a beeline for the trailer's bathroom. "You're going down next time, Bryant!" he called down the nearby corridor.

"Finally," Leeland munched on some pretzels. "For a second, I thought he'd piss his pants."

"Believe it or not, he did that once back in the first Gamble," Jethro laughed as he took another sip of his third beer can. "I swear, if your mom weren't fat, she'd have chased Silas outta the damn park!"

I laughed with him and joined the two coyotes in filling our snack plates back up. Jethro and Leeland started talking about some family reunion coming up near Christmas, I poured a small cup of coffee into a mug Jill gave me for my birthday. It read 'Does This Mullet Make My Neck Look Red?'. I smiled down at the mug and sipped from it, then noticed some frost and light snowfall accumulating out on my trailer's kitchen windowsill.

Although Terrace Park Estates hardly counted as isolated, I still loved how rustic it felt compared to the noise and traffic of a big city like Clendenin. Hell, I felt half-tempted to go outside and find out if the clouds were scattered enough to see stars. Near the end of August, as autumn began to rear its chilly, leafy head around the corner, I convinced Jillian to follow me into the neighboring woods for a quick stroll. Nowhere too fancy, except for a small meadow where you could see nothing but the night sky. Jill loved it, to say the least. She expressed it in a way I didn't see coming, by letting me fuck her delicate body against a tree.

"That is the last time we do something like that without a towel nearby," she joked the next day.

Anyway, Silas returned a good two minutes later. He made sure to use the air freshener like I asked. The last time he'd forgot, I made sure he'd never do it again.

"We're up for round eight, guys, so let's make this interesting," I announced with glee as Jethro went about shuffling the deck, "that way I can take even more outta your pockets. I'm putting a hundred in."

Silas whistled at my cocky confidence. He also ferally smirked. The first sign I should've known he had a nasty trick or two up his sleeve. The damn bear knew how to be slick about it.

See, the annual Christmas Gamble had a couple of ironclad rules besides the ones belonging to that year's chosen game. No violence of any kind regardless of circumstance, caught cheaters had to get a tattoo of the group's choice, nobody drunk off their asses could drive back home, and skipping more than one of the nine rounds meant giving back all the money won that night. Unless you did your business on the john in-between rounds, bathroom breaks counted too. Why, Leeland lost a hundred and fifty-five dollars in winnings the previous December 1st, when the poor coyote couldn't hold his beer in long enough and sped to Silas' bathroom faster than a demon outta Hell itself.

Nothing in the rules said anything about 'motivating' rival players to opt out of a game.

"I'm putting in sixty bucks then," Silas tossed three twenty-dollar bills into the Winning Pot.

Leeland placed two twenties and a ten in the Pot next, followed by Jethro opting to place one fifty-dollar bill he'd been saving in his wallet for an emergency. During this, I found the opportunity to set my reviewed cards down and munch on some food before washing it all down with a big gulp of my coffee.

Licking off a spot of chip crumb off my nostril, I went first and placed down a nine of clubs. "One two," I lied through my teeth. "You're up, Jet."

Jethro didn't hesitate to place face-down, "Got a three here."

Silas waited two seconds to place his card down. "One four."

Leeland set his own hand down. "One five."

I set down two cards without much hesitation in my certain paw, though my fingers nearly slipped and set down three. Moments like that made me wish I'd never lost a paw all those years back.

"Two sixes." My grin widened at my friends' distrustful looks. They either wanted to call me out on it, or risk letting my claim go, lest they end up being wrong and adopt the entire pile. "Well, what're ya'll looking at?"

Jethro narrowed his auburn eyes at me, then carefully placed his card into the pile.

"One seven."

Silas stared between all three of us, then sighed. "Three eights."

"Bullshit!" Leeland barked excitedly. "Turn it over, Silas."

He did so, and to everyone's astonishment, the black bear had been honest. An eight of clubs, an eight of diamonds and an eight of hearts.

"Looks like Lil' Lee's got himself bad luck tonight," Jethro chuckled, one paw grasping three cards as his sibling/cousin frowned at the fact he gained ten more cards.

"I'm two years younger than you, asshole," the younger coyote muttered in annoyance. "I hadn't been Lil' Lee since that growth spurt. Two kings." The younger canine placed them face-down in the middle of the table, and we continued the round. "Bryant?"

I unceremoniously tossed an ace of spades on the middle pile. "One ace."

"Callin' bullshit!" Silas triumphantly announced, only for him to reach out to flip the card and stare crestfallen. He grumblingly pulled the ace and Leeland's two kings into his collection, "Dammit."

"Seems you're not the only one with bad luck tonight, Lee." Jethro finished chuckling as he placed two cards down. "Two threes."

"Two fours," Silas tossed them down onto the growing pile, then stared up at me as Leeland placed down a five. "By the way, that uh, hehe 'girlfriend' of yours, Bryant...I just learned something very interesting about...haha, her."

I raised an eyebrow. "What?"

Here it was. The moment Silas would tell me something stupid to throw me off my ga--

"She's really he."

I paused placing down a seven of hearts and pretending it was a six. "What're you talkin' about?"

The blunt black bear made his statement a little clearer, "Jill's a transgender girl or boy or whatever they call 'em." He chuckled, "And I got me a witness to back this up!"

Jethro and Leeland were wise enough to be silent.

"Um, no she's not." I couldn't help but laugh aloud, pointing a finger at Silas and his lying trap of a maw. "I dunno what you're going on about, but trust me, I know Jill's never been a dude. I've seen the proof with my own two eyes."

"That's 'cause Jill used to be Bill!" Silas insisted, then explained to me, "See, Tammy went to Shenandoah to look through the mall for some discount Black Friday shit. Anyway, she tells me that while going through the food court, she literally bumps into a certain deer. She drops her bag, and guess what rolls outta it?"

My confused frown deepened. "What rolled out, Silas?" I asked, already getting impatient with his tale.

"A bottle of estrogen," he explained, then added, "and the kind that're high-maintenance. At first, I didn't know what Tammy was talking about or what estrogen pills are, but she told me her mom used to be a nurse. They're the hormones responsible for giving girls breasts."

My eyes widened significantly.

"Estrogen pills, you say?" I glared at Silas across the table. If there was anything I'd learned from loving Bullshit, it'd be how to spot a liar, and the bear wasn't lying. "Why would my girlfriend be needing estrogen pills anyhow? I mean, sure, her chest ain't big like a porn actress or anything, but..."

"Tammy confronted Jill about it," Silas went on, "and Jill said she used to be named Robert Barlow, or 'Bill'. Explained to Tammy she was born a boy, but her parents over in Shenandoah let her have transition before college." He laughed like it was the most disgusting, despicable yet brilliant joke in the world...to him. "Your girlfriend's a tranny, Bryant."

Jethro and his half-brother cousin laughed, albeit nervously. It did get me thinking back to the earlier phone call between me and my girlfriend, and how she sounded nervous near the end. Like, she wanted to tell me something. Could it mean...

Amused laughter bubbled its way up my reptilian snout, joining in with Silas. All three stared at me like I'd grown three heads all of a sudden.

"Wow..." I remarked while placing down my seven of hearts, "Remind me to get Jill's surgeon a six-pack."

It was Silas' turn to look dumbfounded, completely confused, and off his game. "For what?"

"For a damn fine fuckin' job, that's why!" I answered boisterously, then gave a steeled, serious gaze to the black bear, "Also, the next time I hear you callin' my girlfriend a 'tranny', I'll punch ya in the gut, Silas!"

He went about opening and closing his jaw no dissimilar to a codfish. Meanwhile, Jethro and Leeland secretly smiled at me. Not that they noticed I noticed.

Of course, it should have been no surprise to everyone else that Jill's previous gender would bother me. Unbeknownst to Silas or his Bible-thumping bitch of a wife who went and told him, Jethro and Leeland had their own open secret. A secret going well-beyond being half-brother cousins. See, the two of them fulfilled one taboo stereotype of Appalachian folks. At least, whenever Jethro's on-again and off-again girlfriends wouldn't put out for him. I had the unfortunate timing to catch the two coyote hicks in a hayloft one winter back, stripped down to their boxers and blushing like a pair of fresh strawberries in spring. They both insisted it had been 'some innocent wrestling like them Ancient Greeks'.

Who was I to judge, honestly?

"Now then," I chuckled before pointing to the card laying atop the pile, "that was a six. You gonna take your turn, Jethro, or ya gonna tell me your own shocking story?"

"Ah, um...seven of clubs?" he answered after an awkward moment, then nudged a certain catatonic black bear in the shoulder. "Silas? Silas!"

"You were supposed to be shocked, Bryant!" He suddenly growled in annoyance, facepalming with one paw as the over protectively held his cards. "I seriously thought you were gonna be freaked out enough that you'd run outta the room to call her."

"Then you'd be getting all your money back," I suggested with a flick of my dragon's tail against the cold tile floor, "correct?"

"Exactly!" He snapped his fingers at me, then placed a card down. "One ace."

I stared at him unimpressed. "Silas, we live in the 21st century. I work with much, much weirder folk at the Buy-Mart, and if my girlfriend considers herself a woman, she's a woman. And a bitchin' good-looking one at that!"

"Still fuckin' gross of you to fuck a tranny dude." The bear scoffed. "He's not a real woman if you gotta take pills to give ya boobs and a fuckin' cunt down there."

I balled my fist and casually stood up.

If memory served me right, the last time I ever hit Silas had been a couple months into our senior year. He called me what Jill would refer to as a 'portmanteau', a blended word combining two words into one. The two words that earned him a black eye happened to be 'Appalachian' and 'Asian'. No doubt my sucker punch insulted Grandpapa's Chinese ancestors in the process too.

Four-hundred-plus dollars right down the drain, but it was worth it.

***

"You have a good night now, ya hear?" I called out to the coyotes over the howling winds from my trailer porch. "See ya around, Jet! G'night, Lee!"

"Good night, Bryant!" They said and waved in unison, with Jethro shaking his muzzle as they went into his truck. Leeland went about adding, "I can't wait for next year!"

Silas intentionally bumped into my shoulder as he walked past me down the steps, opening his car. We exchanged a quick look, the bruise on his right eye still pronounced, and he chuckled.

"Thanks for the winnings, fuckface." He said.

"Yeah, yeah, fuck you too." I couldn't stop myself from flipping the bird at him. "Merry fuckin' Christmas, Silas."

"Merry Christmas, bud!" He spoke up, then paused before getting into the driver's seat, "And ah...I'm sorry for the 'tranny' comments, dude. See ya around!" He then drove off down the snowy, gravel road leading to the trailer park's entrance.

I sighed, then went back inside before I caught frostbite.

A small smile crept up my snout. Silas ended up winning $350 in the ninth round. So what? He still had to explain the bruised eye to Tammy, regardless of the winnings. He still had to explain to her how he let me almost knock him out in a single strike. That was gonna be a long, annoying conversation he'd never live down.

Thank God that Jet's hosting next year...

My phone in my right pocket vibrated. The tune it vibrated to let me know it was Jill.

"Evenin', Jill." I answered.

"Evening handsome," she chirped. "How'd the Christmas Gamble go? Did you win?"

"Nah," I confessed. "I lost all the money I earned on the eighth round, then sat on the sidelines

"Oh no," she spoke with condolences in her angelic voice, "What happened?"

"I uh, I went and punched Silas." I explained in slight embarrassment. "In the rules of the Christmas Gamble, any violence of sorts meant giving back all the money and going home. Well, since it was my home, I couldn't leave."

"Now why would you do that to him, Bryant?" She groaned.

One of my ears twitched at the memory of Silas' words.

"He called you a tranny and said you're not a real woman for taking them estrogen pills," I explained my side to her. "So, I punched Silas in the eye."

She didn't say anything for a solid eight seconds. Then, "...oh."

"Yeah, he told me after that uh, conversation ya had with Tammy in Shenandoah...I'd never even known what estrogen pills were until tonight."

I could practically hear her squirming in either her desk chair, or the bed I'd had the fortune of carefully testing with her during the one trip I made to Shenandoah University.

"Hey, pumpkin?" I asked after thinking carefully over my words. "Do you consider yourself...um, a chick right now?"

"Y-Yes." She choked out. "Yes, I do Bryant. I am a girl."

A toothy, confident grin etched up my green muzzle. "Then that's good enough for me, Jill. I love you, and nothing'll change that for me. You could turn back into a dude for all I care, and it won't make any fuckin' difference how much you're a beautiful girl to me."

The sounds of a gasp and sniffling could be heard on the other end.

"Oh shit, you okay, Jill?" I asked in slight alarm. "Did I say something--"

"How the actual shit did I get the greatest boyfriend?" She moaned out in a happy voice. "Oh God, I wanted to tell you after that night at the festival, Bryant. I wanted to tell you everything, but then I figured it was a one-night stand. Then we exchanged numbers, you kept listening to me, talking to me...Bryant, I'm sorry I kept something like this from you!"

"Hey, hey, hey, don't cry on me now..." I discreetly used the stump on my left arm to wipe tears forming on my eye. "If I were you, I woulda been silent for a while too. I should apologize though. I was gonna bring you to Harpers Ferry as a Christmas gift, but I blew it."

Her sob turned into beautiful laughter, music to my torn right ear. "I never thought you were that much of a romantic, sweetie."

"Ya better believe it, pumpkin!" I boasted while sitting down at the living room couch, overlooking the ransacked snack bowls lying atop the counters, as well as the messy kitchen table. "Hey Jill? Wanna meet up sometime? I'm off again in a week, so I could meet you at the campus or something. Oh! And uh...if you're not too busy next December, do ya wanna join in on the Christmas Gamble for next year?"

"Awww, I'd love to do that, Bryant! Yes, on both counts!"

I laughed. "Sounds like a plan then."

"I need to go to sleep soon. Got some really early meet-ups tomorrow, can't miss 'em."

My tail swished against the cushions, happily. "I understand. You sleep well."

"Thank you, sweetie." She cooed, "I love you, Bryant."

"No problem, pumpkin. I love you too."

Click.

Standing up to stretch my muscles out, the lazier part of my brain won out and I decided to clean up the next morning. For now, I deserved nothing less than a warm shower, a can of the remaining beer, then some TV before going straight to bed. Maybe even a quick jerkoff session?

Overall, it ended up being one of the more memorable Christmas Gambles in my young lifetime. However, it would be far from the last. Especially with next year to look forward to.