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"So what is a homecoming queen?" Sophia asked, regarding the ballot with the air one normally reserves for junk mail. "Does it carry true power, or is it just another childish popularity contest?"

"Kinda," Tony admitted, "but if you see someone who really stands out tonight, you might choose them instead."

"Maybe me and Dox will get it," Jason suggested, playfully. "We stand out, right?"

"That's stupid," Charlie said, loudly, "You'd look like an idiot with that big bunch of flowers." As he guffawed at his own joke, Dox smiled and silently thanked him for not assuming that it would be he who would be holding the bouquet.

When they had quieted down a bit, Jason turned to the defensive linemen across the table from them and tried to sound casual as he asked the question that had been squirreling around in his mind ever since he saw the damage caused to the locker room. "So what happened to Joey, anyway?" He wished he could have just called it even and let the whole thing go, but Joey was such a loose cannon that nobody knew what he might do next. He might get the message and back off, or he might decide to ambush any one of them like he did Jason, only this time there might not be anyone around to stop him from seriously hurting them.

"You really don't want to know, dude," Charlie said, and the tone of his voice left little doubt in Dox's mind that he was right. Whatever they'd done, the fact that Joey wasn't anywhere to be seen sent an unsettling chill racing up and down Dox's spine. His uncle had once told him that the snake you could see wasn't the one you needed to worry about. For all he knew, Joey was busy smashing the headlights out of Jason's car in the parking lot right now. Or worse.

Jason chewed over Charlie's answer for a while, clenching his jaw in frustration. He wanted to believe what his teammate was telling him, but it didn't work. Finally he had to speak his mind. "You know how he is, Chuck. It's bad enough that he's gonna come after me again, and you know he will, but what if he comes after Dox?"

Mark leaned in towards Dox, lowering his voice so nobody but the six of them could hear, and his voice was unexpectedly compassionate. "You're safe for now, little guy, so don't worry about it."

Charlie's lips thinned out as if he really didn't want to talk about this, but Jason was forcing him to. "If you want to send flowers, he's at Baptist Memorial."

Jason wasn't expecting that. He'd thought that Joey might have come out of the conflict with a sore jaw and maybe even a cracked rib or two, but nothing so serious that it would need medical attention. They had all taken brutal hits on the field and walked away from them without complaint, so Jason knew that Joey wouldn't be in the hospital if his injuries weren't serious. He lowered his voice so nobody around them could possibly overhear. "What did you guys do to him?"

Dox caught the uneasy look that passed between Charlie and Mark, and he was sure that Jason saw it, too.

"Come on, guys," Jason said, picking his jacket off the back of the chair and shrugging into it. "Let's get some air."

At the front of their school next to where the buses unloaded, stood a low rock wall where the stoners smoked and young lovers necked while waiting for their first class of the day to begin. During the daytime there were dozens of people hanging out there, but by this time of night it was deserted. Dox remembered it as the place he'd first noticed Joey and Richard watching him, that day they'd beaten and robbed him. It had been just one more of the countless humiliations he had endured in his past life, with one difference. It had led him to Jason. For that alone, he would have gladly taken a dozen beatings.

Jason and Dox sat side by side on the cool stone while Mark and Charlie took turns nervously pacing back and forth. Tony held Sophia from behind, shielding her from the evening's chill by wrapping his leather letter jacket around them both. When she heard about the assault on Dox, she had insisted on coming out with them even though she hadn't been involved. Jason took that as a good sign; Sophia was fiercely loyal to those who had earned her favor, and it pleased him that she would feel that way about Dox.

"So where are the other guys?" Jason asked, referring to the other three players who had gone into the locker room with Mark and Charlie after the game.

Charlie blew out his breath in a billow of condensed moisture and ran his hand over his bald head. "Ryan's grounded, so he's at home. Karl and Jerrod..." he shook his head. "I dunno."

"They're probably out somewhere getting hammered," Mark suggested, and from the look on his face, he was wishing that he'd joined them. Coming here must have been Charlie's idea, Jason thought. Growing up just a few doors down from one another, the two jocks were rarely out of each other's company. They took the same classes, had the same friends, and rarely even went on a date without each other. They argued like sailors and occasionally fought like bears, but they were also closer than brothers, and woe be to the person who tried to stand between them. Jason took distinct pity on the women these guys chose to marry, should they ever find two women who would endure a dual ceremony and joint honeymoon.

They were two of the biggest guys in the school, and even though neither one of them had ever laid a hand on Dox, they still intimidated the crap out of him just because they could have pulled him in two like a wishbone. Whatever they'd done to Joey, it wasn't good.

"So what happened?" Jason asked, trying his best to suppress the bad feeling that was gnawing away in his gut.

"Things just got out of hand," Mark said, digging a green container with a circular silver lid out of his back pocket. "Karl picked up Joey and tossed him into the locker banks." He shrugged, "It was a discipline hit."

The look on Dox and Sophia's faces suggested that they had no idea what he was talking about, so Charlie explained, "That's where, if you do something stupid and get whacked by your buddies, you lie still, you get chewed out, there's a lot of barking and growling, but nobody really gets hurt."

He watched as Mark dug a big pinch of snuff out of the container, stuffing his lower lip until he looked like a squirrel with a nut. Since he was busy, Charlie took over. "Instead of just laying there like he should have, Joey got up and came back at Karl with his guns blazing. Me and Jerrod and Ryan tried to keep him off Karl long enough to talk some sense into him, but he was out of it. Just kept screaming about all of us being faggots and shit, and trying like hell to break loose. It was like holding down a fuckin' pit bull with rabies, or something."

Mark tossed the snuff tin to Charlie and continued. "We thought he'd finally calmed down enough to talk to, and we loosened up a bit. I mean, shit, we're the biggest guys on the fucking team, right?" He glanced over at Sophia and quickly apologized. "Pardon my French. Who's gonna be stupid enough to keep trying to mess with all five of us at once?"

"Nobody with half a brain would," Charlie said, "but Joey did. He took a swipe at Jerrod that opened up the side of his face, and that just pissed Jerrod off." The dry laugh that came out of him as he looked over at Jason was completely humorless. "You've seen that boy when he's pissed off, and you know it ain't pretty."

Jason nodded silently, suppressing a shudder. Charlie was right. Jerrod's insane strength and unpredictable nature made Jason a little nervous even when the guy was in a good mood. In a bad mood, he didn't want to get anywhere near him. Some guy in a dogpile once tried to stick his fingers into Jerrod's face mask, and got the end of his finger bitten off.

"So he picks Joey up by the chest and the crotch and kept slamming him into the lockers until he just went limp," Mark said, crossing his arms in front of his barrel chest. "I thought he'd killed him, or something."

Jason whistled through his teeth. He knew Jerrod was strong, but he had no idea that even he could do something like that.

"So we got dressed real fast, stuffed Joey in his pants and drove him to the hospital in Karl's truck." Mark's gruff voice had become a bit unsteady. "Jerrod left him in the emergency room. Told them he found him wandering around. Then he just walked out. We came back here to get his face stitched and get cleaned up."

"Not a lot he could have done at that point, right?" Charlie said, hopefully. "Sticking around the ER wouldn't have done any good."

Dox wanted to be compassionate, but Charlie had been good to him and he deserved to know the truth. "Sorry, guy, it makes a huge difference. Making the doctors start from square one when Jerrod knew what had happened to Joey could have killed him."

Charlie shot him a look of anger, and instead of shrinking back like he once would have, Dox stood up bravely to the scrutiny. "You can be pissed off at me all you want," he said, "but you stood up for me when I needed you, and I owe you big time." Dox looked between Chuck and Mark. "Letting you stay ignorant isn't doing you any favors. You need to know what you're up against so we can fight this."

Both of the big players looked somewhat mollified, and Dox continued. "At the very least, you've got an assault charge on your hands. And this isn't just another case of some guy getting beaten up at school. As soon as he went into the hospital, that killed your chances of keeping this inside the football team. Now his parents are involved, and I guarantee you they're going to want to be compensated for his medical bills."

Dox had their undivided attention, now. "I'm just speculating here, but it seems logical that they're going to push to have you all expelled, and I'd be amazed if they didn't try to have the coach fired for negligence."

They all heard what he was saying, and accepted that it was probably true. "Oh, Jesus," Mark muttered, his eyes wide, voice gravelly with regret. "I don't give a damn about Joey, and I'm not gonna say I'm sorry we beat him up 'cause he's an asshole and he deserved it. But coach..." he trailed off, folding his arms in front of him as if the cold of the night had suddenly penetrated his fur.

Coach Lesner might be a hard-assed son of a bitch at times, but the guys all loved him like he was their own father. He'd pulled most of their asses out of the fire a time or two, and the thought that he was going to have to pay for their mistake ripped their hearts out. Tony groaned at the thought, and Charlie, the three hundred pound fullback for the state's toughest football team, the guy strong enough to lift up a car by the back bumper, suddenly looked upset enough to cry.

Although he was still wary of them, seeing their emotional distress made Dox want to reach out to them, to make things better, to give them some sort of direction. "We've got to keep that from happening."

Dox then had five sets of eyes boring holes into him, all hoping that he was about to pull a fluffy white rabbit out of his proverbial hat. "Okay," he said, finally, "I think we can do this, but we've got some details to work out, and I'd rather not stand out here in the cold while we do it."

"I got this." Charlie said, turning and walking towards the athletic complex.

Charlie's old van might have looked plain on the outside, but on the inside it was decked out with every conceivable comfort option. With the front chairs swiveled around to face the back and the middle seats pushed outwards, it even made a good conference room. Track lighting around the edges of the ceiling illuminated the felt-covered card table that folded up from the floor between the seats.

When everyone was seated around the small table, Charlie slapped his forehead theatrically. "Where are my manners?" He reached above his head to a console built into the roof and pushed several buttons. Quiet music drifted out from hidden speakers, and two motorized refrigerator boxes opened to reveal bottled beverages half-buried in crushed ice.

"Good God," Dox said, "This van has more tricks than Batman's cave."

Charlie fairly radiated happiness at the comment, reaching into the coolers to pull out a bottle for each of them. After years of partying with each other he knew what each person preferred to drink. Except for Dox, for whom, after a moment of thought, he chose a light cider. "Try it, buddy. I think you'll like it."

"We've got plenty," he told the others. "I was planning on havin' a party tonight, but it looks like that ain't gonna happen."

Dox gave him a small smile of thanks. "What are you going to do about Danella?" he reminded Mark. "You'd better call her."

"Oh, shit!" Mark exclaimed, grabbing for his phone. He wilted when he looked at the display, reading through the messages one at a time. "She's pissed." His huge fingers mashed the keypad a few times, and scrolled through the messages she'd left him over the past hour. "Oh, she's really pissed."

After reading the last message, he flipped the phone closed with a sense of finality, and with one eyebrow raised, announced, "I'm single."

He didn't sound sad, or even disappointed. "Well that didn't take long, did it?" Tony asked.

"What are you talking about?" Charlie protested. "They've been dating for almost four weeks. That's the longest he's ever had a girlfriend!"

Mark turned around and cocked a fist to punch him in the shoulder, but decided against it. He was right, after all, and he couldn't very well be pissed off just because his best friend was right. But he punched him anyway, on principle.

Turning back around, he stared at Dox. "You got a friend?" Mark laughed easily, along with the rest of them, but the look in his eyes made Dox wonder if he was really joking.

Jason knew that time was short, and after a few minutes of letting them blow off steam, brought the group back to serious matters. "We've got enough evidence against Joey that we might be able to keep him off your backs, but we need everybody on the team together on this." He looked pointedly at Mark and Charlie. "Everybody saw you go in there after him, and if anybody decides to squeal on you, that's going to make things a lot harder."

"The fact that five of you went in there works in our favor," he continued. "Since nobody can pin the blame on one of you without getting all five in trouble, we just need to know who isn't a friend of anybody in the group."

Mark and Charlie looked at each other before shrugging in unison. Charlie spoke for both of them when he said, "Yeah, we can do that."

"It ain't gonna be all that hard," Mark added. "Even if they might not be on our side, there ain't that many guys gonna stand up with Joey after how he's been acting."

Dox pulled a spiral notebook from the books and papers strewn across the floor and pushed it towards the two. "Make a list of all the people on the team, and weed out the ones who you think might side with Joey. Start with that third-string asshole that helped him jump Jason."

Tony, quiet since their informal meeting began, cast both his and Sophia's chips into the pot. "How can we help?"

"You can help those two boneheads remember everyone on the team," Jason told him. "But Sophia..." he treated her as protectively as if she were his sister. "You're the only one who doesn't have a dog in this fight," he said, cautiously. He knew she wanted to help, but would that be wise? "Are you sure you want to get involved?"

"Absolutely, I am sure," Sophia said, her voice clear and strong. "Joey got one of my friends drunk at a party last month and date-raped her, and she is so scared of him that she will not go to the police." Her beautiful mouth twisted in a cruel smile which reminded Jason that even the most beautiful roses have their share of dangerous thorns. "I will see him punished for that."

Dox looked at her with understanding eyes. "Do you think we can talk to her about that?"

"I believe she would talk to you," Sophia said, after considering him for a moment. "And she is not the only one. There are others he has treated this way."

As soon as she said that, the pieces clicked in Dox's head. He remembered something Jason had told his father weeks ago, when Dox first met him. Something about hanging out with a girl named Mindy until she passed out, and suggesting that he'd had sex with her. Dox knew Jason well enough to understand that this wasn't something he'd just dreamed up on the spot, it was something he'd actually seen before.

They all had.

The people he was helping had watched big, imposing guys like Joey get girls drunk and take advantage of them, had known that they frightened them into silence, and had done nothing to stop it.

Had Charlie done that? Had Mark? He knew that Jason had never done that himself, but he knew it was happening all along and he hadn't lifted a paw to stop it.

Dox felt heat creeping up his collar, and for a moment he had no idea what to say. When he found his voice, it was evident to all of them that he was biting back on his anger. Cutting his eyes to each of the football players in turn, he said, "You knew about this." None of them could meet his eyes for more than an instant before looking away, and he knew it was true.

"Okay," he said, pushing down on his anger in the same way he repressed his fear. His mental lockbox was suddenly feeling quite full of negative emotions, and for the first time he could remember, fear was not the dominant one. Perhaps anger eats fear? They had all known what Joey was doing and had said nothing. But now was not the time to call them on the carpet for turning a blind eye to what Joey had done. Right now he needed their support.

His eyes went back around the group as he spoke, and he pulled no punches with Jason, for he had been involved in this just as much as the others were. "We're going to handle this one issue at a time," he assured them. "We're going to get Joey under control first, but after that we're going to have a serious talk about putting honor and discipline back in your team."

To his surprise, all four of the guys nodded guiltily, prepared to accept responsibility for their inaction. Dox was satisfied with that, for now. He turned to Tony's date. "Sophia, will you call your friend, for me? We need to talk."

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Jason said, worry creasing his brow.

"Not really," Dox said, "but I don't think we have any choice."

"Okay, then," Jason said, reluctantly, "I trust your judgment." He gave Dox's back a quick rub and then released him. He hated to let him go, but he knew that he had to.

As Dox walked by, Mark and Charlie clapped him on the shoulder, almost making him drop the electronic reader he carried in the crook of his arm. But he didn't care. He was more concerned with what lay in front of him.

Opening the door, Dox walked through as if he hadn't a care in the world - which he didn't, he reminded himself. He held all the cards. "Hey, Joey."

To say that Dox was not fond of Joey would be an understatement, but he still felt bad seeing him lying in that hospital bed with one arm in a cast and bandages wrapped around his head. As he walked closer, he could see that after almost eighteen hours, one of Joey's eyes was still nearly swollen shut. Dox thought that perhaps he might get some pleasure in seeing Joey this way, but he didn't. Seeing anyone in pain, even someone who had brought him so much grief, brought him no satisfaction.

Joey didn't bother giving him more than the quickest of glances when he first entered the room. Once identified, Dox was instantly dismissed in favor of a football game playing on the TV mounted to the wall of the room. "Get out of here, faggot."

Dox was surprised by how little this comment bothered him. "I've got something for you to watch that's much, much more interesting, Dox said, walking over to the wall and yanking out the television's power cord.

Joey sat up and growled dangerously, but he didn't attack. It unnerved him that the timid little lamb was acting like a lion. He watched with eyes narrowed in suspicion as Dox activated the screen on the data pad he was carrying, then turned the screen to show him the photo of his faggot boyfriend, Jason, carried on the shoulders of his teammates.

"So what?" Joey sneered.

"So," Dox said, zooming out slightly and sliding the picture to the left, "If we look over here, you can see a clear picture of you, winding up to smash your helmet in my face."

"That was an accident," Joey said, a malevolent grin marring his otherwise handsome face. "Oops."

"Yeah, well, you might have hoped it would look like an accident," Dox said, calmly, "but it's pretty clear by the way you're staring straight at me that you mean to do it. They tell you to "keep your eye on the ball", and you did."

Dox's heart skipped a beat when Joey's big hand shot out to knock the reader out of his hands, but he didn't let it show on his face. The pad flipped end over end and hit the ground hard, the screen going dead as the machine emitted one last pathetic beep.

"Oh, too bad," Joey mocked, "you dropped your toy."

"It doesn't matter," Dox said, easily. "That was an old one that the school was going to recycle anyway, and the image was just a copy. The full-resolution image is stored on the internet where you can't touch it."

"You can keep that," Dox added, shoving the remains of the computer into the corner of the room with one foot. Looking around, he spotted a metal stool that he pulled closer to the bed, a conscious move to show the Rottweiler that he wasn't afraid any longer. Seated on top of it, he stared into Joey's hateful, piggy little eyes.

He spoke with a cool reserve that he had learned from his mother. "Between this latest incident and when you tried to choke Jason, if we wanted to, we could have you arrested for both assault and battery. And as if that's not enough," he said, sweetening the pot, "we've also got several girls who can have you arrested for rape."

"You're out of your fucking mind," Joey said dangerously. "I've got girls crawling all over me. I get all the pussy I want."

"Remember how you had to repeat the seventh grade?" Dox asked. "You turned eighteen years old just before school started. You're of legal age, and they're sixteen. One was even fifteen at the time. In this state, that's statutory rape. They're willing to not turn you in if you cooperate with us." He asked, conversationally, "Do you have any idea what this state does to sex offenders?"

The expression on Joey's face didn't change much, but Dox saw a dangerous fear blooming behind his eyes as he came to the conclusion that Dox was telling the truth. When someone like Joey was afraid, they made choices that were often painful for everyone around them. Unfortunately, one of those people was now Dox.

Time to pull back a bit, he thought. "I'm not here to throw you under the bus," Dox said, perhaps overstating the case, but wanting to be certain that he had Joey's complete attention, "and believe it or not, I don't hate you. Not that you care," he added, offhandedly, "but there it is."

"What do you want?" Joey growled, suspicious as always.

"It's pretty simple," Dox shrugged. "I just want you to leave me alone. And everyone else."

"That includes me," Jason said, entering the room and standing beside Dox.

"Yeah, sure," Joey said, rolling his eyes. "Whatever you say."

Dox didn't move as Jason put his arm over his shoulders, hugging him to his side. "I know you, Joey, and there's no way you're going to make it that simple. Problem is, nobody on your own team trusts you anymore."

The words Joey spat out were like bullets fired at Jason. "They don't trust you either, faggot!"

"Yeah, we do." Tony said, coming into the room and standing next to Jason.

"So you're one of them now?" Joey sneered, disgust for his teammate obvious in his voice.

Tony didn't have Jason's cool, and Joey's bigotry caused his Italian blood to boil. He kept from shouting back, but just barely. "I don't care who he fucks, Joey! He's on my team, so we stick together! Why the fuck do you care, anyway? He's not trying to fuck you, so stay the hell out of his business!"

"I worked hard to build that team," Joey said coldly, "and I'm not going to have a bunch of faggots tearing it down!"

"They're not tearing it down, Joey," Chuck said, coming in along with Mark to stand beside Tony, "you are." He gestured to Mark and said, "We don't care what they do."

"In fact," Chuck said, throwing his two cents in, "Dox is pretty cool, and you'd know that if you weren't so busy being such a prick to him!"

Dox wasn't expecting this, and his head spun around in surprise to stare at the big defensive tackle. "Thanks," he said, quietly, receiving an enigmatic shrug for his trouble.

"Y'all are fucking morons," Joey said, crossing his arms defensively.

"Don't call him a moron, you fuckin' piece of shit." Jerrod said, ducking his head to clear the doorway before coming into the room and staring at Joey with cold hatred. He looked as if he wanted to cross the distance between them and pound Joey into pulp. "You're the one with the problem." He stood behind the small group and crossed his arms, looking like an angry war god even when he wasn't wearing his bulky football gear. The row of fresh, angry stitches along his cheek did nothing to lessen the effect. "We went along with you because it was easy, not because it was right. It's time for you to stop being such a fucking tool and leave people alone."

Behind him, many of the other players on the team quietly filed into the room and crowded around Joey's bed. None of them spoke, they all just... stared. Shoulder to shoulder, they packed into the room like sardines in a can, and stood quietly watching Joey. Dox noticed that none of them wanted to get within arms length of the bed, as if the man laying on it had contracted a communicable disease.

When everyone was in the room, when twenty tightly packed pairs of eyes were boring holes into Joey and he'd heard the door latch behind them, Dox spoke again. "Like I said earlier, Joey, we don't hate you. But right now we don't like you very much. You got what was coming to you last night after the game, and we're willing to call it even if you agree."

And then he leaned over and stared Joey straight in the eyes with a malevolent intensity that Jason wished he'd never seen coming out of his beloved, gentle Dox. "But if you cause trouble for anyone else, and that includes anyone on the football team, anyone at school, anyone," he emphasized, "we're going to come after you. And with the hard evidence we've got, we're not going to bother with anything as juvenile as beating you to a pulp or having you expelled." Dox's voice had grown so quiet that the people in the back of the room had to still their breathing to hear him. "We'll have you thrown in jail so fast you won't know what hit you."

Dox leaned in and his voice took on an eerie quality that, although barely louder than a whisper, reached every corner in the room. He let his unblinking eyes casually rove over Joey's handsome face like a fly impersonally wanders across a lifeless chunk of meat. "And with your pretty face," he said, his voice growing soft and unsettlingly tender, "it'll be about two days before they're fighting each other for a piece of your ass." Jason suddenly wanted to pull Dox back and make the creepy voice go away. "They've been locked up in there a long time, Joey, and they're hungry."

Sitting back upright, Dox shook off the eerie quality as if realizing where he was, and freed himself of the unnerving persona. "So here's how it is. You and your five teammates had an argument in the locker room," he said, his voice returning to its normal pleasant, reasonable tone. "You got pissed off, changed into street clothes and ran out the back door. You weren't looking where you were going, and you must have been hit by a car, but you saw nothing. Jerrod found you lying in the street and brought you to the emergency room."

"After a lifetime of being an asshole,' he continued, "you deserve the beating you got. If you tell anyone that the guys from the team had anything to do with this, we're going to assume that means you don't want to play ball with us, and the next day, you'll be in county lockup. If they go down, you go down. Hard."

Joey had clammed up by this point, resorting to staring at Dox with eyes that burned with a smoldering hate. Dox sat back on his stool and reduced the intensity of his gaze, but refused to break eye contact with him. Dox was in control here, not Joey, and he wanted him to understand that.

"Believe it or not," Dox said, conversationally, "I was one of the few people who didn't want to just beat the shit out of you and turn you over to the cops."

"You're a fucking saint, you know that, Doxie?" Joey spat, unable to hold his vitriol inside any longer.

"You might want to be a little nicer to him, you dumb fuck," Karl suggested, between gritted teeth. "He's the one who talked the coach into not kicking you off the team."

"I hate to admit it, but you're good at what you do," Tony said, grudgingly, "and we'd like to keep you on the team. But the hate's gotta stop. I don't care if you do it by yourself or you see a shrink or whatever, you need to get your shit together. If you can't," he shrugged indifferently. "If you can't, not only are you off the team, but we'll throw you to the cops. It's sink or swim time, buddy. All or nothing. Either get help and learn to be a human, or learn to enjoy sucking cock in the slammer."

Joey didn't seem inclined to say anything in rebuttal, so Tony dismissed all of them the same way he ended the weekly team meetings. "That's it!"

The crowd filed out the same way they filed in - one at a time. Soon the only ones left in the room were Jason and Dox. When they turned to leave, for the first time Tony had dismissed the group, Joey spoke. "Hey. Dox."

Dox put his hand on Jason's back and gently pushed him towards the door. When they were alone in the room he turned to face Joey, but did not move any closer to him. He knew how dangerous Joey could be, given the chance. He could still get his neck snapped if he stood too close.

"Was it true, what Karl said? You stood up for me?" The tone of Joey's voice was flat and completely unreadable.

"Yeah," Dox said, nodding. There were a dozen other things he wanted to say to Joey right then, but he let the silence between them grow.

Eventually Joey turned his stare back to the dead TV in the corner of his room with a sneer. "Huh."

There were no great heart-rending sobs of apology, no promises to change his life or turn over a new leaf, and no confessions that he did what he did because, secretly, he was a closeted homosexual himself. Dox had not expected anything more, so he wasn't really all that disappointed.

Dox turned and walked out of the room, and instead of politely muffling the sound of the closing door by turning the knob like he usually did, he let the door latch shut on its own with an audible click that echoed through the hard-walled room. He wanted Joey to know that he was alone.

"So do you think it'll do any good?" Jason asked, holding Dox's hand as they drove away from the hospital.

"Yeah, I do," Dox said. "But maybe not for Joey. By coming together like that, the team might have healed the divisions that he caused."

"And now it sounds like they're off our backs too, pup," Jason said, trying to lighten the mood again.

"Thank God," Dox sighed, weary to his bones. "It took long enough." He was so damned tired. Their group had stayed up late into the night calling people and getting everyone on board with their plan, and he hadn't gotten any sleep even when he did finally make it to bed.

"People accuse me of being good at planning strategy," Jason said, admiringly, "but I've got nothing on you."

Dox scoffed at this. "Oh, they were all just doing something they already wanted to do. The only thing I did was to put them all in the same room."

"You don't give yourself enough credit, puppy," Jason said, "What you did today got the guys out of trouble, stopped Joey from terrorizing the weaker students, got all the football players off our backs, and even maybe saved the education of the person who used to beat you up, all in one fell swoop." Jason took his eyes off the road for just long enough to look at his puppy. "You're amazing."

"Well, yeah," Dox admitted, laughing tiredly as he took Jason's hand. "But I had help."

"Come on in!" Mr. Rayburn said, inviting the Thomas family into the house. "It's cold out there! Is it snowing yet?" He gave Billie a hug, careful to avoid upsetting the large, foil-covered trays she carried, then shook Jason and Bruce's paws in time to stand back and watch as Dox's mom came into the room and repeated the whole routine.

"Hurry up, y'all!" Dox called from the living room, "it's almost kickoff!"

"I never thought I'd see the day when Dox actually sounded excited about the start of a football game!" Mr. Rayburn commented, sniffing back huge, dramatic crocodile tears. He turned and gave Jason a huge hug. "I owe this all to you, Jason. Thank you!"

"I heard that!" Dox called from the living room, and fake tears turned to laughter as the men walked into the dining room and grabbed paper plates. Billie found an empty space on the table and began pulling aluminum foil from the trays she carried.

"Beer's in the fridge, Bruce," Chris said, to Jason's dad, then called back to the living room, "Come in here and get your plate, Dox! Your diet doesn't count today."

"What?" Dox said, from a foot behind him, "I couldn't hear you."

"Jesus!" Mr. Rayburn exclaimed, nearly dropping his plate in surprise. "Where did you come from?"

"What, did you think I was going to miss out on Billie's brownies?" Dox scoffed. "No way!" His time in the gym with Jason hadn't been wasted. He'd been rock steady at 180 lbs for a couple of weeks, but his pants were getting looser on him every day. Soon it would be time for another trip to Maggie's store for some smaller pants!

Billie beamed with pride, feeling far more a part of Dox's family than she ever had with her husband's. Bruce's family was not particularly pleasant, and she hadn't realized what she was missing until the Rayburns had invited her family over for dinner that first time, right after Thanksgiving. She found that, although Margaret Rayburn could be a little bit tight-assed at times, she was a good woman and cared deeply for both of their boys. Their families had shared much more time together after that and had grown fond of each other. Billie supposed that this was as close as she'd ever get to having a decent set of in-laws, and she was perfectly happy to have it this way.

"Someone's parked in my spot!" a voice called from the front hallway, cutting through conversation.

"Candy!" Dox shouted, excited to see his sister again. Putting his plate on top of the refrigerator, he ran to her and pulled her into a fierce hug. "You're early! Oh my God, I'm so glad to see you!" The odd smelling synthetic stuffing of her parka which had always annoyed him in the past now seemed oddly comforting.

"I know, right? They cancelled next week's classes because of the weather that's blowing in, so I just got in my car and drove while I could!" She and Dox had e-mailed back and forth since she'd left for college, and although he'd told her about the changes in their mother, she wasn't about to believe it until she saw if first-hand. Candy's relationship with their mom had been less strained than Dox's, but she still hadn't been in any massive hurry to come home. If it hadn't been for missing her brother, she'd probably have weathered the storm at school.

She peppered Dox with questions, rapid-fire. "Wow, it smells incredible in here. So who's truck is that? You said Jason had a Camaro. Is he here?"

They made their way to the kitchen, Dox explaining as they walked. "Yeah, he's here, and so are his folks. They're here for the... Oh, crap!" Dox said, eyes widening, "I almost forgot. They're here to watch the game with us, and it's about to start. Hurry up!"

"What, so you can watch the commercials?" Candy teased. "Oh, I forgot!" she said, snapping her fingers, "You got yourself a football stud, so now you're all into football, right?"

Dox favored her with a brotherly glare, and responded in his most reasonable tone of voice. "I'll have you know that it's a fascinating game. Which you'd know, if you weren't so busy ogling the players."

"Guilty," Candy said, "but I've seen you staring at them too, when you don't think anyone's looking."

Dox gave a guilty shrug and introduced Candy to Jason's family. "Bruce Thomas, this is my sister Candy. And this is Billie," he continued, "and..."

Before he could introduce Jason, Candy had grabbed Dox by the arm. "Oh my God," she said excitedly, turning her head but making no particular effort to hide her voice, "you never told me he was so hot!" Turning back, she smoothed her fur and held her hand out to Jason coquettishly, as though she might win his affection. "Hello! My name is Candice, but you can call me Candy."

"Bad girl!" Dox exclaimed, playfully thumping Candy on the head with a rolled-up magazine. "Leave it. Leave it!"

"Oh, fine." Her shoulders slumping as if disappointed, Candy started carefully assembling a snack plate, not wanting to miss anything tasty, but still concerned about her figure. "I guess it's true. All the good ones are either taken or gay."

"And thank God for that," Dox said, putting one of Billie's homemade brownies on his sister's plate. "Here, you've gotta have one of these. They're insane."

"Oh, please," she said, carefully breaking it in two and putting half of it back on the tray, "you know I have to watch what I eat." After licking a few brownie crumbs off her fingertips, she paused, reconsidered her position, then put the other half right back on her plate. Eyeing the tray thoughtfully, she picked up a second brownie and put it on top of the first. Seeing Dox's knowing grin, she said, "I'll run an extra mile tomorrow."

Their parents watched in amusement as she walked into the living room, arm in arm with Jason. "So maybe you have an older brother?"

Jason's dad looked bemused. "Is it really that easy, these days?"

Chris Rayburn stopped filling his plate for a moment and thought about it. "I'm sure it's still not easy, but it's gotta be better than how kids had it when we were their age."

"When he told me," Bruce said, in a tone of voice that would not carry to the other room, "I wasn't sure how to handle it. He didn't give me a lot of advance notice," he chuckled, "it was just, 'Hey dad, guess what!'"

"I didn't know whether I was supposed to be happy, or mad, or what. I've always thought it was shitty how some folks abandon their kids because of something like this, but I never thought I'd have to face it with Jason."

Chris wasn't usually the most sensitive or socially perceptive man, but he could tell that this wasn't the time for him to be talking. Wisely, for once, he clamped his lips shut and just nodded his agreement. He and Margaret had shared meals with Bruce and Billie and the boys, but there had always been some sort of emotional wall separating Jason's dad from the group. It was like he was there as an observer, "a scientist among the apes", Margaret had called him. Maybe that wall was finally coming down?

"I thought maybe he was joking around or something, but then he started to get all emotional and I knew he wasn't kidding," Bruce said, nervously twisting the end of a paper napkin as he spoke. "At first I was a little pissed off, you know? Not that he was.... that he liked guys, but I felt like he'd been lying to me all these years, like he didn't trust me, or something." He looked up at Chris with those startlingly deep blue eyes that Jason had inherited, eyes that seemed to seek common ground between the two men. "You know what I'm talking about?"

"Sort of," Chris said, looking at Margaret for confirmation. "We never really talked about it, but we always thought that Dox was a little different like that. He never showed much interest in girls, so we just assumed."

"Hmm..." Bruce said. "Well, I can't say that I really understand it, but seeing what he's like when Dox is around... It makes me remember how I felt when I first met Billie, and then it made a lot more sense to me."

Billie, normally irrepressible, watched the interplay between the men with no small amount of interest. She rarely saw her husband open up like this, especially around people he hadn't known for half his life. Bruce's circle of friends was a close knit one, and was mainly composed of people he'd known since grade school. Getting him to trust someone new was difficult, to say the least. For him to be talking about his feelings with Dox's parents was nothing short of amazing, and she wasn't about to break whatever spell had come over him by interjecting her own two cents worth. There would be time enough for that later.

"Dox is a good kid," Bruce said, almost nervously, "and I just wanted y'all to know that I..." he trailed off for a moment and looked at Billie, who inclined her head slightly in agreement, "we... consider him family. If there's ever anything we can do for him or any of your family, you just call us."

Dox's dad was certain that he must have looked like a deer in the headlights at that moment. Jason's father was an imposing man. Not the kind of 'imposing' that comes from getting a bigger paycheck and driving a bigger Hummer than everyone else in the office, which was the sort of status that Chris had to endure and knew how to respond to, but the kind of 'imposing' that comes from living a harder life than most men could have possibly handled and making it look easy. Chris knew that the Thomas family didn't have money to fall back on, and he knew that Bruce probably worked twice as long and twice as hard to make half the money he did. For him to make that sort of blanket offer was not to be taken lightly.

For a moment, he had no idea how to respond, so he did the only thing he could think to do. He held the other man's gaze, let the expression on his face do the talking and silently held out his paw to Bruce.

The older shepherd's paw was calloused and his grip was iron-hard, but his handshake was tempered by good manners. It seemed evident to Chris that this man's handshake was his bond, and he was certain that if he came back in twenty years, Bruce's offer would still be on the table, waiting patiently for him to accept. He felt honored to be a part of this man's circle, and was very glad that he'd chosen to remain silent, because his voice would have been quite unsteady.

Still clasping hands, both men looked over as Margaret took the reins. Looking at Billy, she said quietly, "You should know that we feel the same way about you and Jason. Even though it hasn't been very long, we consider him part of our family as well. You've raised an amazing son."

Billie responded in the time-honored manner which well-bred southern women have relied on for two hundred years. Leaning forward to embrace Margaret in a warm, bosom-y hug, she exclaimed, "Aaaw! Aren't you sweet! Thank you so much." It may have been rote, but that didn't stop her comment from being both sincere and heartfelt.

"Come on, guys!" Jason's powerful voice came blasting into the kitchen, strong even over the distance between them. "They're about to start!"

"Good God, that boy's got a set of lungs on him!" Mr. Thomas remarked, grinning. Gathering their plates, the four made their way into the living room, where they added their voices to the maniacal enthusiasm of millions of other screaming fans around the globe.

"Great game, huh?" Dox asked, breath making frosty clouds in the night air.

"Sure was," Jason agreed. "Would have been better if we'd won, though."

Dox shrugged, "Even if they didn't win, they still played really well."

"I'm glad your sister made it home early," Jason said, stuffing his paws into his jacket pockets, "she seems really nice. And cute, too!" he added, waggling his eyebrows suggestively.

Dox reached over and punched his boyfriend on the shoulder. "Stop it." Dox laughed, "She's a lot nicer, now that she's not around to steal my boyfriends." He took one paw out of his pocket and slipped it into Jason's letter jacket, where it found its usual place joined at the fingers with Jason's. "I guess when you're not around someone every day, it's easier to be nice to each other."

"I guess," Jason said, "After my sister took off for Las Vegas, she never looked back. She never seemed very happy at home."

Dox nuzzled up to Jason sympathetically, and the two walked a few minutes more in silence. They had walked a mile or so from Dox's house, but were in no great hurry to return.

"Hey, look at that!" Dox said, as they walked past an overgrown driveway that looked like it had been built long before any of the houses in the area. "It's still there!"

"What," Jason asked, perplexed, "a bunch of weeds?"

"No, the old road back to the stables."

"They had horses back here?" Jason asked, curious now.

"Sure," Dox said, "There used to be a small stable back here that held a dozen horses. Candy had a horse for a couple of years, and I used to ride bikes back here with my friends when I was little. I thought for sure they'd torn it down by now."

"Guess not," Jason said, "you want to check it out?

"Sure," Dox said, clearing some of the brambles away from between the fenceposts. "I don't know if anything's still back there, but we can see. It won't take long," he promised, "It's only about two hundred yards back."

They managed to cross the natural barrier without too much trouble, and walked down the rutted dirt road to the old stable. "The field is gone, but the barn is still here," he observed. Where he'd indicated used to be the old pasture was now single-family residential housing, the sight of which depressed Jason. He had a strong affinity for the country, and watching urban life encroaching on land that used to be the running ground of children and horses just killed him inside.

"The barn looks to be in pretty good shape," Jason said, "How long has it been abandoned?"

"Probably two or three years," Dox said, walking towards the old structure. The single weathered 2 x 4 that blocked the entrance from meandering horses posed no obstacle to Dox, and he walked into a sea of sounds and smells that he hadn't experienced in a decade or more. "Come on in.".

Slowly, they explored the old structure. It had been pretty much cleared out, but the smell of old manure, fly spray and carboline oil still danced a delicate ballet through the air, making Dox fall in love with it all over again. "Oh, wow!" Dox exclaimed happily. "The old hay loft is still up there! Let's go see!"

"Are you sure it's safe?" Jason asked, warily.

"Sure, come on!" Dox encouraged.

Climbing into the loft, Dox was struck by the wonderfully sweet aroma of dried alfafa hay. "Oh my God, "he said, filling his lungs as Jason climbed up the stairs behind him, "it doesn't get any better than this."

And then Jason proved that statement wrong. Wrapping his arms around Dox from behind, he pulled his jacket around them both and rested his chin on his boyfriend's head, surrounding Dox with his protective warmth. "You're right," he said, the woody scent of Dox's favorite shampoo coming up to meet him like an old, familiar friend. "I like it up here."

They stood like that for a while, rocking gently back and forth as one, until Jason's cell phone buzzed insistently from his pocket. Sighing, he regretfully let go of Dox, looked at the display, and opened it. "Hey, mom."

Dox's roving eye spotted something out of place, and he explored a bit while listening to Jason talk to his mother. "Yeah, everything's cool. We went on a walk and got sidetracked. We might be a little while, so why don't you go on home. Dox can drive me home when we get back. Or can I just spend the night, maybe?

Something was sticking out from underneath one of the bales of hay, and Dox bent down for a closer look. "No," he heard Jason saying, "We were passing by an old horse barn where Dox used to play when he was a kid, and I wanted to see it."

It was the end of an old horse blanket, abandoned when the rest of the barn was evacuated. Dox rolled the hay bale off of the blanket and pulled it loose, carrying it to the end of the loft to shake out the loose hay into the cold night air.

"It's pretty cool!' Jason continued. "I think I want to come back here when it's daylight and get some pictures. Yeah. Yeah. Okay then, thanks!" Turning his telephone off, he stuffed it back in his pocket and went to see what Dox had found.

The light of the moon tinted everything around them blue and neither of them could tell what color the blanket really was, but they could tell that it was in surprisingly good shape for being left in the wild for a couple of years. Better yet, it didn't even smell bad when Dox wrapped it around both of them and pulled Jason close. "Hi."

"Hey yourself!" Jason grinned back at him.

"What did mom say? Can you spend the night?" Dox asked.

"Believe it or not," Jason said, "that was dad using mom's phone! It's never been this easy to talk to him before."

"So what did he say?" Dox asked, slowly, gently rubbing back and forth against Jason.

"He said to have fun and be safe." Jason answered, adding, "I think he likes you." He hoped Dox wasn't just teasing him with all the physical contact. He was feeling a little warm, all of a sudden.

In the moonlight Dox's eyes were as dark as night, but still they sparkled with laughter. "Do you think he still wants you to do what he thought you were doing with the cheerleaders?" he asked, turning his gentle rubbing into gentle grinding. He hoped Jason was taking the unsubtle hint. They'd been around each other all afternoon, but had only been comfortable making the most minor of physical contacts around their families. It was tantalizing.

Jason smiled enigmatically and wiggled a hand free of their horse-blanket cocoon. Dox looked down to see what he held, and his eyes popped. "A condom? You've got to be kidding me!"

"No, I'm not!" Jason laughed, "He's still giving them to me!"

"What, are we supposed to make balloon animals with them?" Dox asked, perplexed. "How many did he give you?"

"Just one," Jason replied, "I think you're supposed to supply your own."

"Actually," he corrected himself, "I think he's doing really well handling the fact that I love you, much less accepting that we might occasionally have sex. I think it might send him over the edge if he suspected that I wasn't always the one on top."

"He doesn't need to know," Dox said, snuggling up against his meathead and reaching around to grab two handfuls of his delicious rump. "Nobody needs to know. And although I appreciate your dad's sentiment, I don't want you wearing a condom."

He pulled Jason against him, grinding his stiffening sheath into his lover. Even through multiple layers of winter clothing, he could feel Jason's growing hardness. "I love the thought of you filling me up with your cum," he whispered, "especially when we're tied together." He heard Jason's breath catch in his throat, and knew he'd hit a sensitive spot.

Jason looked around them and made a quick count of the hay bales. "I'll be right back," he promised, ducking out of the blanket. He moved a few bales around, and soon had a very nice cave in the hay that was just large enough for two. Taking the blanket from Dox's shoulders, he gave it one last good shake and put it down over the bed of hay.

Coming back for Dox, Jason picked him up and carried him into the lair he'd made, then carefully laid him down on the blanket, joining him after he'd settled in. The hay insulated well, and within minutes the two were stripping off their outer clothing to keep from sweating.

"I can see what you like about living in the country," Dox said, between kisses. "This is nice."

"It's not nice," Jason said, reaching over and pulling Dox's shirt over his head. "It's naughty." He took Dox's nipples in his mouth one at a time, and lovingly suckled them until they became firm against his tongue. Reaching up, Jason held Dox's wrist above his head, and his licks became gentle nips with his teeth, causing Dox to make little cries in the back of his throat. Jason could feel Dox writhing underneath him, struggling as if to free himself, but it was halfhearted. He was enjoying this too much to want his freedom back. Jason knew that Dox didn't want to be gently loved by his partner tonight. He needed to be fucked by his meathead, and Jason was all too willing to satisfy.

Ripping his pants open with his free hand, Jason pushed them down enough to free his straining cock from its prison. Oh, it ached! It had been over a week since they'd had any time alone together, a week spent around the football team, and lifting weights, and listening to all the other guys talk about fucking their girlfriends, and Jason had allowed himself no release. His grey-furred sheath was thick and heavy, unable by this point to contain his entire length. A good three inches of thick-veined, rock-hard cock glistened outside the fur, begging for release.

Still holding Dox's paws above his head with one hand, Jason pulled his pants off with the other and climbed on top of Dox, letting the exposed part of himself rest on Dox's lips. Jason didn't pull his sheath back to expose his full manhood, because that seemed cleaner, somehow. Civilized. Dox wanted it dirty.

When Jason's exposed cock hit Dox's lips he whimpered in frustration, but he did not allow his lips to part. It smelled so good, but he had to be a good boy, to obey his meathead's orders, to keep his mouth shut until instructed otherwise. But he wanted so badly to taste it! Thinking about having it in his muzzle made Dox's eyes roll up inside his head in ecstatic agony as he squirmed underneath Jason's heavy weight.

The meathead reached down and took his obscenely swollen sheath in his free hand, slapping the exposed flesh against Dox's pretty mouth until he couldn't deny his pleasure any longer. "Suck on it."

Dox immediately began trying to angle his head so he could take it into his mouth, but their position made that impossible. Instead, he lapped greedily at the exposed flesh, trying desperately to give satisfaction to the muscular man to whom he had given total control.

"That's good," the meathead crooned, leaning forward so the occasional spurts of pre were aimed into Dox's willing mouth. "Oh, that feels so good. You're a good boy, Dox, a good boy."

The encouragement was all Dox needed to redouble his efforts, wrapping his lithe tongue around the meathead's shaft between spurts of his clear lubricant. His satisfaction would have been to feel the jets of hot, pungent semen blasting down his throat, but as soon as the jock's breath began to quicken, the powerful shaft was pulled out of his reach.

The meathead looked down at his pulsating cock with no small amount of pleasure, then flexed it and watched as a drop of his watery pre squeezed out of the tip and fell the short distance onto Dox's muzzle. Slowly, lovingly, the tongue which had so recently been wrapped around his cock explored where the pre had fallen, locating it, digging in deeply and working the salty-sweet liquid out of the fur and into his mouth.

"You didn't have permission to do that!" The meathead growled menacingly.He quickly moved his muzzle down and tried to get his drop of pre back. Running his tongue along every surface of the inside of Dox's mouth, he reclaimed his bodily fluids along with a good amount of his toy's saliva.

"I gave you a chance to be good, and you blew it," he grunted angrily. "Now I've got no choice. I'm gonna have to fuck you."

Dox whimpered, his ears laid flat against his head. His hands began to fumble with his belt, but then lost courage. "No," he begged, "please, no."

Impatient hands slapped his away and grabbed the waistband of his pants. With one quick yank The meathead had them pulled down around his knees, and Dox's hands flew down to cover his bouncing erection. "No," he moaned again.

"Take your shoes and socks off. I want you completely naked," the meathead ordered.

Dox whimpered in humiliation, but he obeyed, imagining that to refuse would mean a painful public beating. Soon he was completely naked, laying pitifully in the shadow of the huge, muscular jock who refused to take off any more of his own clothes than was absolutely necessary.

"Get on your knees," the meathead ordered, roughly lifting Dox into position.

He heard a cruel laugh behind him, and the familiar sound of a lubricant packet ripping open.

"Oh my God, no!" Dox cried, as he felt the tip of the meathead's cock pressing against his virgin tailhole. "I've never done this before," he begged, "Please, go slowly!"

In one steady, irresistible push, the meathead dominated Dox, causing him to simultaneously yell in pain and quiver pleasure. The contrast made him want to pass out, but he didn't dare - there was too much pleasure to be experienced on this side of consciousness.

When the meathead felt the tip of his thick tool resting just inside Dox's pucker, it was all he could do not to drive it inside his warmth and fuck him until he screamed. He convinced himself that it would be better, smoother, slicker with a good shot of lube, and he dug a pack of silicone lube out of his back pocket. He'd been carrying it with him all day long, waiting for the chance to play with his toy. And now it was time.

Rearing back to get a better angle, the stupid meathead mindlessly shoved the entire length of himself knot-deep inside the begging, hot body of his toy, who was pleading with him not to, but secretly wanted it rough.

As he pushed himself in, the meathead could feel every wrinkle of skin, every hair, every protrusion he passed. It all rubbed deliciously against him. His cock was one of the longest ones in the locker room, and Jason loved watching as it sank deeper and deeper into his victim.

And fuck, he was steaming hot inside, too!

Reaching down, he pressed the lab's ass cheeks together as he slid inside him, increasing the friction to an almost unbearable point. "Aaah!" he cried out, unable to contain himself. "Oh, good boy!" He knew that he wouldn't last very long.

The meathead let go of the butt cheeks and gave them one last hard slap, enjoying the muffled squeal that it brought from his toy. He grabbed his toy's hips and began slamming himself in, pushing deeper and deeper until his low-hanging, furry balls began to slap against the brown furred ones underneath him.

Every driving thrust rubbed him against his toy's prostate, making him writhe and moan underneath him as he kicked feebly to try to get away. But try as he might, the meathead was far too strong for him to escape.

The huge jock's knot began to bang against his toy's asshole, and despite his victim's final pleaded protests, with one hard thrust, the meathead roared and buried himself in that hot sack of meat.

His orgasm was instantaneous, roaring over him as soon as his toy's ass ring clenched around his knot. Shooting load after load into his bitch, he bred it so hard that he occasionally lifted his toy's knees off the blanket they were kneeling on.

His satisfaction was nearly complete, and there was only one thing that could possibly make it better. Benevolence.

His biceps were so large that they squeezed against the ribs of his toy as he reached around to gently fondle his aching cock. It was so large that it felt more like a dildo, but it pulsed with life. Fondly, almost tenderly, the meathead stroked his toy's erection. He moved his paw up and down, beating him off with his own sheath at the same time he fingered the tip with the paw pads of his other hand. Slowly, he played with the pre that was leaking from his toy's cock in a steady stream now. He swirled it around his cock head with the calloused finger of one hand while he steadily jacked him off with the other.

The meathead's pace increased, and his toy could feel the biceps on either side of him bouncing up and down with each stroke. His toy was completely helpless. He had two hundred and fifty pounds of angry, muscular dog resting on his back, and a huge cock jammed up his ass.

Dox told himself that he should be relieved when the huge dog on his back stopped pounding at his ass, but he really wasn't. He was a dirty boy, he admitted, and he wanted it to go on forever. He secretly loved giving pleasure to this meathead, his meathead, and loved it even more when he could feel the thick, pulsing jets of hot semen painting his insides, breeding him, marking him. This huge, hung, vicious dog had chosen him to mate with, and he wouldn't have traded it for anything in the world.

When he felt the meathead's warm, heavy arms wrap around him and begin fondling him, he could not hold back a filthy groan of pleasure. His own orgasm was secondary to pleasing the meathead whose cock was locked deep inside him, and it didn't make any difference whether he shot his own load or not. But feeling those rough hands gently gliding up and down his penis made Dox weep with joy. The meathead wanted to give him pleasure, too!

Dox opened himself up and rode the wave of sensations that threatened to overwhelm him. He could feel the heat and pressure of the meathead's knot pulsing just inside his anal ring, and he could feel the tip of his cock buried deep inside him, twitching occasionally whenever yet another jet of semen pushed itself out. And every time the tip twitched, his butthole could feel the muscles at the base of his meathead's cock flex involuntarily. Hundreds of girls at school had fingered themselves off imagining that they were feeling this sensation, Dox thought, but I'm the only one who really gets to.

The meathead's grip began to firm around Dox's shaft, pumping up and down with muscular endurance. Even if he'd wanted to, Dox couldn't have stopped him. The meathead wanted him to shoot his load, and he had no say in the matter. And he loved it.

Dox's head began to loll back and forth, and his breathing became ragged and quick. In the far off distance, he could hear moans working their way free of his muzzle as the hands continued their work. And then, he felt the beast within him awaken, the unstoppable animal that demanded its satisfaction. At first it merely walked into his awareness, but soon after, it began padding towards him. Then its advance became a full blown charge, racing towards an inevitable conclusion that he was powerless to stop.

Even when it was obvious that Dox was past the point of no return, the meathead's warm, thick fingers continued to trace their slippery way around the tip of his cock. When Dox screamed out and unloaded into the meathead's hands, his semen shot all over the wide, masculine paws, eventually dripping down through them to be absorbed by the coarse blanket underneath.

When Dox awoke, he found himself sitting in Jason's lap, wrapped tightly in his arms and covered by the blanket, the big jock's cock still firmly planted inside him. "It's about time you woke up, puppy!" Jason said, equal parts of humor and relief coloring his voice. "I was about to start worrying about you." He gently nuzzled the side of Dox's face, glad to have his puppy awake.

Dox leaned back into Jason's thick chest and relaxed. "Oh my God, that was..." he sighed, "amazing."

"Oh, yes, it was!" Jason agreed, almost whispering. "I think we should do it in a barn more often." Leaning his head forward slightly he gave Dox's left ear a languid lick.

"How long was I out?" Dox asked, dreamily.

"A minute or two, I guess," Jason told him. "I wasn't about to go digging for my cell phone to check the time."

They lay there serenely for a few minutes, basking lazily in the afterglow like a lizard might warm itself against a desert rock

Jason tightened his embrace. "Puppy?"

"Mmm hmmm?"

"What do you do once you have everything you've ever wanted?"

Dox thought about it for a moment, then snuggled back into Jason's wonderfully broad chest, pulling his mate's arms tighter around himself. "I guess at that point, you start helping other people get what they want, too."

It wasn't the sort of answer that Jason had expected, but it seemed like the right one. Leaning down, he contentedly nuzzled that amazingly soft patch of fur between Dox's ears, never wanting this moment to end. Dox stirred underneath him.

"Meathead?" he asked softly, not wanting to harm the mood.

"Mmmmm?"

"Can you reach my pants?"

Jason looked around in the dim blue moonlight, and found Dox's pants crumpled into a heap just off to his right. By stretching a bit, he was able to snag them with a fingerclaw and pull them close. "What," he joked, "do you need to call your folks and tell them we're going to be late because we're stuck together?"

Dox chuckled softly, "No, not that, babe."

Jason put his huge head next to Dox's, and watched with curiosity as the smaller dog fished something out of his pants pocket and offered it to him. He couldn't tell what it was until he had it in his paw, but the instant he took it, the familiar hard, smooth shape made his eyes water.

It was his granddad's pocketknife that he'd entrusted to Dox, what seemed like years ago. He'd given it to Dox as an anchor of sorts, to give him a feeling of security that Jason would always come back, and told him to hold on to it until he felt more secure with their relationship. Even back then, Jason would have come back on his own, but now... now he had no choice. Inside he knew, they were mates for life.

The warm, soft shape of his puppy returned to his comfortable position nestled in Jason's lap, and whispered, "I don't think I'll be needing that any more."