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About 6500 words

Zeke's Blue Hole

By Televassi

It happened early this morning. The sight was hypnotising, imprinted on my eyes. But it had nothing to do with diving. At least, directly.

The cabin we shared on the ship was cramped, but at least it had a tiny en-suite. Still, the whole idea of a dive liveaboard isn't comfort; it's waking up at 6am, having a quick coffee as the sun rises over the lonely ocean, and then slipping into the water as the reef comes alive at dawn. The whole experience is as close to Cousteau as you can get these days - being alone on the reef, enjoying the magic of being alone in nature, sharing in its precious few, still pristine delights.

Zeke was the one who got to try out diving. It was the thing that gave the hyena his enigmatic, laid back charm. He and the ocean mixed well together. I'd known him since our early twenties. We studied the same subject at the same university - marine biology. I remember swapping beers and dreams in our first week; a scrawny hyena and a lanky husky wishing to save the ocean. Unlike me, he always seemed at home on the waves, and more so underneath them. Diving just came naturally to him, and despite the clunky gear and chunky regulator stuffed in his muzzle, he moved with slow, suspended grace that filled me with admiration (and a little envy).

But it was university, and no marks were given for being a great diver. Academic reality hit hard. Zeke dropped out at the end of his second year. I scraped by in my final year, adrift, trying to crew what was once our shared dream alone.

By sheer stubbornness I finished with a 2.1 overall, but I didn't fare any better. The cold shower of reality washed over me as soon as I graduated, and all my efforts got my curl trapped behind a desk, pushing paper, feeling powerless and aimless, watching the best years of my life slip through my fingers.

Zeke was the only one from uni who kept in touch. He told me he found work as a diving instructor and guide, living a nomadic existence crewing boats that darted between the tourist hotspots of the world. Sometimes it was months between messages, but he always had plenty to say, and more importantly, show. Pictures of all manner of aquatic delights added shades of tropical azure to my grey desk-job days; pictures of the hyena swimming with all the big ticket fauna: turtles, manta rays, sharks - you name it. And even though he rarely got a day off a month, they were still worth a thousand of mine. Lying on some lonely, white sand beach staring out at the sea, sipping a beer underneath the swaying palm trees...

I wish I'd dropped out too. Then one day, close before my thirtieth birthday, the hyena gave me an offer out of the blue.

Free spot on a liveaboard. Caribbean. Two weeks. Diving is mostly reefs, a handful of wrecks, but they're going to include the Blue Hole I discovered on a remote atoll. Want to come?

My stars had aligned with his nomadic existence. Three days later I was on a bargain plane ticket, and twelve hours after boarding, I walked bare-pawed up the liveaboard's gangway, grinning like an idiot as I saw my best friend for the first time in years.

Stars. I felt alive again.

But the view that was imprinted on my mind, hanting me whenever I closed my eyes, wasn't anything to do with diving. Instead, it was the close up view I got of Zeke's perky blue asshole as I stumbled into the unlocked door.

***

I thought it was empty.

The opaque door was ajar and there was no sound of running water inside. The usual gentle lap of the ocean through the open porthole was overpowered by the hum of the engines. It was odd that they were on this early, but I thought nothing of it.

I assumed the hyena had woken up earlier. It'd been a week of four dives a day, and unlike Zeke I wasn't so familiar with the routine. He woke early and sat on the top deck, pawing through some tattered second-hand paperback as the sun rose while I snored away in bed for an extra hour. By the time I woke, I could simply jump through the shower and gulp down a coffee fix before joining Zeke for the first dive before breakfast.

Except this time, there he was. Plump rump spread wide. Nub tail lifted high. His blue hole quivering in the silence between us.

Fuck.

I got a full, potent breath of his scent - deep, masculine, a little musky with the tang of salt, yet still pleasantly earthy. While my nose processed his intimate scent, bypassing any questions my brain might have had by firing down some old, forgotten nerves, my eyes feasted on the detail.

His tailhole was a sweet light blue. Cyan - that's what popped into my head. He made my mouth water a little - his ring glistened with small drops of water as they caught the soft morning light, and it clenched smoothly, each subtle wrinkle and crease quivering with sensual anticipation. His lifted, scrawny tail made it impossible to ignore, and the shapely, pert contours of his rump couldn't prevent my eyes running down his form.

It was a full couple of seconds before we both processed what was happening, and a couple more still before our senses let us react.

"Ah shit, sorry dude!" Zeke blushed, twisting his body - and tail - as if he could cover himself. Instead he only gave a side on view of his plump sheath, beyond subtle enough to let the mind wonder.

"I didn't hear you over the engine!" I yelped, shielding my eyes with my paws rather than shutting the door. I wasn't thinking, of course.

"I didn't think you were awake!" Zeke's paws fumbled as he tried to close the door and preserve his dignity.

"You're usually not this late!"

Somewhere between the excuses, we both found a way to shut the door. It didn't really matter. Every time I blinked, there his cute pucker was, flashing before my eyes like a subliminal delight. In reality it lasted just a second, but already the memory dilated, stretching out into seconds as if I almost wanted it.

"I slept in this morning. They cancelled the first two dives today."

"Why? I didn't hear that?"

"The notice was posted up in the galley." The hyena's words were muffled by the door and the hiss of the showerhead trickling to life.

"Aren't you done in there?" I blurted out, the jolt from it all loosening my lips. Thank the Stars I didn't say more - from what I'd just seen, Zeke looked pretty done, given the drops of water running all the way down his smooth taint.

"Five more minutes, sorry!"

"Sorry," I repeated it back. What else could I say?

"It's fine dude!" Zeke called from under the hose. "Bound to happen sometime in a small space like this."

I think I mumbled something about going to grab coffee and there being no rush for him to finish up in there, but my memory was hazy. I threw on some clothes, wandered down the ship's narrow corridor, and climbed the ladder to the main deck, trying to figure out why the skin under my fur felt so hot. It was the Caribbean after all - even in summer, the mornings were still hot.

Or...

I found some time to focus sitting down in the galley, pouring a cup of filter coffee. I remembered to stop when I felt the hot liquid scald my pawpads, and sat down in one of the free nooks in the corner of the galley. Sure enough, there was the message on the notice board: first two dives cancelled while we sailed to Zeke's Blue Hole.

Really?

I remembered something the hyena had said, about the possibility of diving a blue hole, but he'd neglected to mention it was one he'd discovered. But concerns over his apparent modesty were pushed out of my head, my mind choosing to focus on another 'blue hole' I'd discovered.

Pushing through the haze, I tried to process my reaction. Why had it taken so long for me to look away? I thought about my watering mouth. I hadn't thought of him before as anything other than a platonic friend. We'd never experimented at uni, or shown any hint of something more in our fragmentary conversation to date. I played through all the moments this week in our tiny cabin and found nothing unexpected. Maybe my reaction was just the awkwardness of getting face to face with Zeke's tailhole, but at the end of the day, everyone's got one.

You're just being prudish.

I took a comforting sip of coffee. The warm liquid soothed my throat, its hot tendrils worming through my chest, delivering the familiar buzz of caffeine to my receptive flesh. I looked out the window as I sipped away, the mirror flat sea gliding aside with comforting familiarity and repetition. Occasionally, the azure band of a coral reef would twist and turn out beyond our path, the blue waters melding into inviting shades of turquoise that sometimes seems not so dissimilar to-

"Heya daydreamer!" Zeke quipped, paws thudding down onto the table. "Coffee's going cold, I got you a refill." He pushed the spare cup over, along with a plate of scrambled eggs and toast. "Breakfast's going quick too."

"I've already eaten," I lied.

Zeke sniffed, but the hyena didn't question it.

"Suits me," he sighed, tipping the second plate onto his own with the unabashed grace of a natural scavenger. He ate like a hyena, shovelling the food away into his muzzle, a blessing that let me try to figure out my next words.

Embarrassment gave us a sort of magnetism. It was hard to look at him, but equally hard to look away. Despite his shower, the coffee, and the food, his scent was strong. Now that I'd sampled it, I couldn't help but notice it linger in his natural aroma, a fine dusting sprinkled over his groomed, civilised veneer. I still managed to say nothing as he scraped the final flecks of egg from his plate into his hungry maw. It struck me odd that his tongue was just pink, rather than-

"About earlier. Don't let it ruin the holiday." The yeen shrugged sheepishly, scratching the back of his neck while his eyes rolled back up to the ceiling.

"I said it's fine."

"Good," Zeke nodded. "It's just one of those things that's going to happen but you don't make a fuss about - like how on a long dive everyone pisses in their wetsuits."

I raised an eyebrow and grunted. It came out a bit higher pitched than usual. Zeke's ears twitched in response, but he didn't question it.

"Just lock the door next time," I muttered, hoping to channel indifference. This time the words came out fine.

We went on to make small talk about yesterday's dives and update our logbooks with the information from our dive computers. Neither of us mentioned the upcoming Blue Hole, even though it was something I've never done.

"I'm going to grab a shower," I announced, hoping to solve the question of what to do over the next couple of hours.

"Cool. I'll be on deck putting together the briefing. I'me guiding the next dive."

"Sounds good."

I headed back down the stairs and towards our cabin. Door closed behind me, I quickly stripped down to my fur, and tossed my clothes onto my bed. My eyes lingered on the crumpled duvet covering Zeke's side.

"It's just a mishap. Avoidable maybe, but not unrealistic when two guys find themselves sharing a small cabin," I paused, trying to reassure myself. "Yeah."

Why was it then that when I stepped in the shower, I hesitated in locking the door - fantasizing instead of a cute yeen joining me? I tried to find some distraction by fiddling with the temperature - first with cold water, then hot. Even when I just stared up at the blank white ceiling, there was still this tingle in my sheath. But this time, alone and with the door safely bolted shut behind me, I closed my eyes and let his tantalising feeling blossom.

***

I still felt flushed, even after I turned the warm shower off and towelled down my fur. It wasn't like the rustic accommodation needed AC though. The cabin was deep in the ship's bowels, my bed crammed against the hull. Even if there was no room for a stray fan, thousands of litres of water to my side served to keep things cool.

I hopped out from the shower cubicle, claws scratching on the lacquered deck, and sprawled my limbs limply across my single bed. Sleep would soothe things, in that same way it lets you solve the thorniest of problems after some good shut-eye.

I wedged myself in the nook between my mattress and the wall, focusing on the reflections of the sun in the waves and water as they shone through the porthole onto the opposite wall. As time went on, the swell of the ocean grew, the deep blue waves washing over the window entirely and plunging the room into a light blue hue.

Sleep, unsurprisingly, refused to come.

"I could do without this," I huffed, emptying my lungs. I didn't know what this exactly was. I'd never felt this way inclined before even for admittedly far more attractive guys. I tried not to dwell on the idea I was sizing guys up mentally, but I kept searching for examples that proved my current predicament wrong. At university there was that lithe fox - or more recently that caribou stud at work who's bulging thighs reduced just about any unflattering cut of jeans into the skinniest style. Neither of them held sway over me, so why should Zeke be any different?

I shook my head and laughed, a little forced so it squeaked and sounded breathless in places, but there was something amusing about it all that clawed at my mind.

"How the hell did he get a blue asshole?"

I shook my head and this time laughed genuinely, finding a confidant in the swirling patterns of the wooden ceiling.

"I mean, that's got to be a choice - but what kind of place does that?"

Zeke was, after all, far more travelled than me. Perhaps he'd woken up like that after a particularly wild night out... And here I was thinking that bleaching your fur for a tattoo was the worst drinking could offer.

I took a long, deep breath and smiled, shaky relief flooding through me. The more I thought about it, and spoke about it, the more it seemed to settle.

"Zeke's always been a hot guy," I admitted. I breathed in deep, holding my breath. "But he's not for me."

I breathed out again.

Then why did he save you a spot on this boat?

Buried in the ashes, I felt a glowing ember. It tingled in the darkness of my stomach, flickering as I held my breath. It faltered as I breathed out, but then - and in - it grew.

Things had only smouldered while the rational side of my brain papered over the cracks in the walls, and wrote over them with fancy words for denial. I took another deep breath, and there, as if an invisible feather tickled the quivering black tip of my snout - was something in the air that made me crave more still.

Is it his... scent?

I felt the skin under my fur flush at the thought. I sniffed about, trying to figure out where it might be coming from. The cabins, despite being submerged in a watertight hull, were surprisingly breezy - the ship having been built so that the fresh sea breeze could circulate beneath, and spare those below deck the worst days of stale scents could offer. It meant only one thing.

Had he heard me?

With speed and stealth I leapt off the bed and snapped the cabin door open, scanning the long, dark corridor beyond. I trembled in relief to see no one in sight, and most importantly, no fresh scent of his lingering in the corridor either.

I closed the door behind me just as swiftly as I had opened it, sniffing loudly so I might divine the invisible currents lacing the air.

His smell was coming from something near. Something new, but... discarded? I scanned the room but saw nothing, so I leaned down onto all fours, finding the tingle becoming more of a smouldering burn this low. He laced each breath with growing abundance, and it was not long until I found the source: a discarded pair of the underwear, crumpled under my bed. They must have gotten kicked under there this morning.

I felt strangely transfixed as I crouched against my bed, holding that sensual memento of his presence. Even as my sheath started to swell, I was more comforted by the illusion of his presence, unperturbed by any questions that might have come from my growing arousal. It was easy in that silence, accented only by the gentle sway of the waves, to dismiss the embarrassment and nervousness of our earlier encounter. Each breath of him brought a new pulse to my sheath, a new inch of my cock sliding free. In this moment of privacy, I could distinguish the thrill that came with each warm wave of bliss over my loins.

I wasn't just pent-up. This was new. Exciting. And a healthy dash of naughty.

As I continued to stroke my cock and squeeze my knot, a thought pushed right to the forefront of my mind instantly.

Huff it.

My heart quickened, and the giddy feeling doubled in intensity. But the thought - and feeling of it - made every squeeze of my knot far too enjoyable to ignore, and the part of my brain that thought of anything other than my pleasure was too far away.

His discarded underpants were in my paw, and soon they were stuffed against my muzzle. I breathed deep and hard - like his scent was precious, or as if this was my very last breath.

Fucking Stars!

His scent filled my lungs, dissolving my ability to think. He smelled amazing. I knew that even before I was conscious of that fact, before my hard dick throbbed and leaked thick drops of pre into my clenched paw. I kept going, savouring all the intimate things it told me about the hyena, while the drops of pre turned into a steady stream as I indulged in his exotic maleness.

I was glad my mind was so far gone. It was bliss to surrender, to enjoy this newfound pleasure without question - to surrender to each lurid fantasy about his beautiful tailhole. This was a holiday, and holidays should always be for enjoyment! So, I kept exploring - stuffing my snout against the fabric and stealing another heady lungful, like I'd never be able to breathe again.

While my senses delighted in the feeling of him, my knot was harder than it felt it had ever been. Each throb made my body tingle, washing my nerves with waves of delight, but the tides within me were no less diminished by distance. It felt like my balls churned desperately with the need to give him my seed. I kept edging for as long as possible, but I couldn't control the tide.

Excitement melded with nerves and anxiety into a potent cocktail. I took one last ravenough breath, breathing in both the scents of his sheath, his balls, his hole. My paw took his underwear and wrapped my knot with his scent. I barely even needed to squeeze before the first spurt of thick cum erupted - and I kept going, shooting into his underwear, growling in need and desire as I added my scent to his, blurring that sensory boundary between us.

Husky and hyena - together we smelled even better.

I lost count of my spurts - my orgasm kept rolling over me with renewed vigour each time I thought it was over, until the final wave inevitably receeded. I leaned back against the frame of my bed and stared up at the ceiling. My mind was surprisingly clear, even as my sensitive knot twitched inside the pungent, creamy mess I'd made of Zeke's underwear.

Strangely, I was untroubled by what had just come over me. It just felt right, natural, and loving. Perhaps it was some older part of me, beyond words and society, that was untroubled by it all. I was just glad of that small mercy - I didn't want to think about it. I didn't want to change. I didn't want to unpick everything I thought I knew about myself.

A knock on the door brought me to full flight.

"Hey buddy, you in there?"

"Yeah, don't come in!"

"No worries," Zeke laughed from behind the door. As if it was nothing. As if what had happened earlier was just so easy to brush off. As if the very sight of his tailhole hadn't upturned everything I thought I knew about myself.

"I'm doing my dive briefing in ten minutes, you in?"

"Give me a moment, I'll be up in five."

"Sure thing buddy, see you there. This Blue Hole is going to be a mind-blowing dive!"

I stared at the hyena's underwear in my paws, the thick, slick ropes of cum dripping over the fabric in the dim light.

"I can believe that," I mumbled.

***

"Diving a blue hole is a once in a lifetime experience," Zeke grinned, nub tail twitching behind him as he spoke in his best peppy, client engagement tone. "They're formed from caves which flooded when sea levels rose at the end of the last ice age, their roofs collapsing in the process. Their deep namesake - blue - comes from physics. Water absorbs longer wavelengths of the light spectrum first, so the deeper you go, the darker the blue hue becomes."

The hyena paused, looking around the mess table at the assembled dive crew. They were a range of species - a motley mix of canids, one very scruffy looking wolf (his fur was absolutely clogged with dried salt), a handful of cats (who all looked immaculate despite the salt), and a tall, buff elk (who'd purposefully cut his antlers specifically for this liveaboard so they wouldn't get in the way when diving any wrecks).

"Torvelu's Blue Hole is certainly deep - over 200 metres from our best estimates. There haven't been any technical dives beyond 100 metres, and to date no one has reached the bottom." Zeke paused, taking a moment to change tone. "Of course, this is well beyond the limits of recreational diving. We won't be going anywhere near those sorts of depths, but there's plenty to see within the first thirty metres of this illuminating blue amphitheatre..."

Zeke continued through the usual catalogue of most dive briefings: facts about expected flora and fauna, a note about expected currents, and features of interest along the route he'd drawn on the galley's whiteboard in blue, red, and black marker. I still paid attention, but I'd lost interest in the meaning of his words, instead enjoying the pleasant sound of his voice washing over my ears...

"... so remember. Keep an eye on your depth gauge. Set your dive computer to a maximum depth of thirty metres, keep a close watch on your air pressure, and stick close to your buddy." The hyena made eye contact with everyone in the group, moving on only when they nodded in agreement. I shivered when his eyes found mine, hidden behind the soft, swaying locks of purple and black from his headfur. It took me a moment longer to nod than everyone else.

"Good! And with the safety done, remember to enjoy yourself!" He chirped, hopping down onto the dive deck. The rest of the crew finished up their notes for their own logbooks and began their pre-dive checks - testing their regulators, the taste and scent of their air tanks, checking weights, fins, masks, BCDs - once, then once again.

I was quiet as I squeezed into my wetsuit quickly, hoping the smell of sea and salt would overpower my hasty attempt to wash away all trace from ten minutes earlier.

"How was I?" Zeke asked quietly, his tail gently brushing my side as we went about our own buddy checks.

"You forgot to mention you discovered it."

"I figured a little modesty wise," he blushed, looking away as he fiddled with his fins.

"Perhaps," I nodded, spitting into my mask and rubbing the saliva across the lens. "But going on a dive with the site's discoverer adds a certain, je ne sais quoi."

"Or, alternatively, a whole heap of pressure that the site will deliver," Zeke said quietly.

"I'm sure it will." I nodded, patting him on the shoulder.

I bit my tongue, trying to avoid voicing my thoughts about his other blue hole.

We let the palpable silence hang between us as we clipped into our dive gear and shuffled down onto the RIB. It was a short five minutes as the boat skimmed across the clam sea, the clear, shallow waters shifting to a deep blue hue as we crossed to the centre of the hole.

"You ok?" Zeke asked, pulling his regulator from his muzzle as the RIB slowed to a halt. The deep, midnight azure lapped at all sides. It was hard to swallow the silly feeling that we hovered over some otherworldly precipice, and that diving in would result in no way back.

"I'm fine," I replied and stuck my regulator in my muzzle. I gave my BCD's inflator hose a quick squeeze, the valves on the back of my jacket hissing as it inflated, and then dumped the excess air.

I signed OK and leaned back off the side of the RIB. The splash of the cool water and murmur of bubbles around me heralded my immersion, bringing relief that there would be no more talking for at least sixty minutes.

For a moment we were in complete suspense; the movement of our air bubbles bringing any sense of which way was up and down. The surface was distant above and the bottom lost further below.

When we reached 30 metres I signalled OK again and swam up close behind the hyena, keeping one eye on my depth gauge and the other on the perfect view of his shapely body encased in black neoprene, grateful for the opportunity to be so close to him.

We swam further, until the sinkhole's walls faded in from the gloom. They were sheer, extending deeper beyond our sight in the clear water, but as we slowly rose the corals bloomed, dazzling us with the full spectrum of colour. Vast sea fans stretched out into the open blue, tiny pygmy seahorses delicately clutching at the branches with their tails, while sleepy turtles nestled between cracks in the walls slumbered through our passing. I lost count of the myriad of colourful shoals darting back and forth - the entire rim filled with a rich array of life, sheltered from the rest of the ocean.

Sixty minutes passed far too quickly.

Soon enough we were back on the surface: a world full of words that I had no idea how to order anymore.

***

"That dive sure was something, right?"

Zeke smiled and took a swig from the brown beer bottle. The hyena had settled on the topside of the boat, paws dangling through the scupper at the base of the deck. I sat cross-legged in the middle, arms folded over my legs, pretending that I was somehow uncomfortable with the idea of straying into a staff only part of the ship.

"It's definitely a change." I sighed, frustrated with myself and my belated reply. I could see how my lack of enthusiasm hurt him - his ears dipped and his neck fluff drooped.

"Not a fan?"

"I didn't say that," I replied quickly, but I didn't know what else to say - I didn't know how to say what was really bothering me. "It was just... quite breathtaking. I've never seen anything quite like it."

I swung my head to the side and stared across the wide Sargasso Sea. Its beauty stretched uninterrupted in all directions - ribbons of emerald green flanked by azure, crystal waters that extended in all directions against the setting sun. Far in the distance, a few stray slivers of land beckoned, not a single light glowing upon them as the palm trees swayed in tropical idyll. I kinda wanted to jump overboard and swim to their shore, and in their unblemished simplicity return to the natural primacy of being - where there was no fear or doubt for what I felt.

"We should probably add some wrecks to future itineraries. Give things a bit of variety still, so it's not all reefs," Zeke said, once again steering the conversation, clearly thinking about the elk that'd cut his antlers for the trip.

"Maybe another time," I shrugged, ignoring how Zeke flicked his ears questioningly about the gap between us. "But I think you should include that dive. Personally, your Blue Hole is better draw than the one in Dahab."

"Oh yeah?" He smirked.

I flicked my eyes in annoyance.

"Yeah," I persevered. "I know you were worried about people getting in trouble, but that's why you demand experience as well as disclaimers. No one's pushing anyone to take the plunge. In the end, you've got to trust you know what you want, and be able to see it through."

Zeke shrugged, ears twitching. Perhaps he sensed the deeper meaning I hid inside, but he remained silent. I felt my next words building on the tip of my tongue, growing stronger despite the sip - then gulp - of beer I took.

The hyena meanwhile brushed his purple mane to the side, thick locks quivering alluringly in the evening breeze. Stars, he looked beautiful - at home among the open sea, his movements quick, alive, and free as the elements. I could barely contain my envy. Soon enough I'd be back behind a desk, salt washed out of my mane, sea-breeze in my lungs a distant memory. I didn't even care that it meant my curly tail would be restored to its full glory.

"Is everything all right?" Zeke asked again, this time shuffling close to me. "You've been acting all weird recently."

Stars, spare me. I thought. Can't he just say it?

I took a gulp of beer, practically draining the brown bottle.

"I've known you for a while." He pressed again. I could feel his eyes searching for my own but I kept avoiding them. He stood up and sighed loudly, grabbing himself another beer from the icebox. He flicked the cap off with a sharp claw. "I'm sorry about earlier, but look, please don't-"

"Don't apologise for it."

I was giddy, swaying from the erratic beat of my heart. My mouth hung open while I tried to find the words, but all my head could say was fuck it,go for it.

"I really liked it... you."

I felt like I shrank and grew at the same time - my relative size in the universe thrown into doubt as I finally cast aside the confines of everything I knew.

"You... want to see me again?" Zeke asked, flicking an ear. I caught him looking at me out of the corner of his eye. My own strained to hear him; the quiet breeze playing with my mane sounding like a hurricane.

"Yeah," I whispered. My heart thudded like it was made of thick wet clay, but my blood still roared as it surged past my ears. I kept looking out to the horizon, watching the sunset, focusing on how he made me feel. How I wasn't just hoping for some fun, or something fun to explore. I wanted to try for something more, something that I'd never noticed or paid heed to in all our time together.

"If that's okay." I gulped.

Each second passed like agony. Zeke was quiet for a while, but when he did speak, there was an edge of giddy anticipation to his words that made me unashamed of my own.

"If not - that's fine - just please, don't make a thing out out it-"

"Have you ever... you know?" The hyena tilted his head, nudging me.

"No." I spoke quickly. "But I want to try-"

The hyena closed the gap between me, his features tinged as the sunset shrunk closer to the horizon, rendering most detail into dark silhouettes. His growl rumbled in his throat, matching my own. I could still see his delicate tongue as his parted muzzle met my own - see the intensity to his eyes as he tasted me on his lips.

I let words slip away once more, our arms folding around each other as our bodies sought to match the connection of our kiss. We surfaced from that embrace gasping for air, both of us irritated that our bodies couldn't remain entwined for longer.

"You don't hesitate even," the yeen smiled at me, his muzzle brushing close once again to my lips. I could feel his hot breath on my nose.

"I want more," I whispered.

"Well," Zeke grunted. "No one's coming up here."

He spoke with such surety. My body ached to believe him, but still, the fear of getting caught was strong - enough that he picked it up on my scent on his next breath.

"They're doing a night dive in the shallows, skirting the rim of the Blue Hole," Zeke breathed into my ear, clutching his chest against my own.

"You didn't tell me about this..."

"I had a feeling that when I handed you that beer and asked you to join me up here, you were interested in something other than a dive. "

His strong, firm paw pushed me down against the deck, the tan streaks of his fur gleaming in the final rays of the day. Beneath us and out of sight, there was the final immutable chatter of pre-dive checks, followed by several splashes as the rest of the crew entered the water. I held my breath as I waited for his next move.

"What do you think that might be?" I breathed.

"I have an idea..."

He shifted his position on top of me, sliding out of his shorts with practised efficiency while I wiggled against my own underneath him, finally slipping free of their confines with his helping paw.

We took a moment, pausing to appreciate the natural intimacy between us. His bare fur on mine. The gentle breeze between the two of us. If I closed my eyes I could believe we were alone on an island together, the rest of the world and its cares unknown.

"I really liked the look of you this morning..."

"I wondered," the hyena replied, straddling my stomach with his hips. "And I'm glad."

"Was it an accident?" I asked, feeling that familiar tightness in my sheath.

"Yes," Zeke blushed momentarily.

"What on earth were you doing?" I growled needfully. He shifted himself further up my chest.

"I was thinking of you," the hyena admitted, his ears folding down. "It'd been a week here, and I was starting to wonder-"

"Wonder what?" I asked, reaching up to trail my paw down his chest, lingering as I teased his plump sheath, his pointed tip already poking free.

"Whether you were into me. Whether I'd just squandered my savings on a dream."

His admission cut through the moment.

"I thought you said my ticket was free?"

"Kinda. I mean, I wasn't going to ask you to pay-"

"How much did you spend?" I pressed, trying not to raise my voice further. Even though I didn't know how much he earned, I knew dive guides like him weren't awash with cash.

"For a dream like this?" He wiggled his hips. "Enough."

The yeen silenced my protests by shifting his position further still, until his ass hovered directly above my waiting muzzle. I couldn't resist - leaning up to press my snout between his cheeks, burying myself underneath that gorgeous nub tail. Heaven, he tasted even better than he smelled. Despite the darkness and blooming stars overhead, the light that flickered behind my closed eyes as I indulged in him was greater still. Zeke's breath trembled as he settled down on me, his weight burying my muzzle against him with a firmness that made my growl long and loud. I reached up and played with his sheath, pulling free his knot and stroking his already slick length as I kept eating him, wriggling in delight underneath him.

There was little restraint. My muzzle pressed and stretched his slick ring. My paws squeezed and worked every inch of his knotted cock. My tongue swirled deep inside him, and I pressed my muzzle further against him still - feeling like even my muzzle now slipped inside him.

When Zeke came, he quivered like a spring blossom on a resurgent wintry breeze. I felt his every clench, and milked him for every drop I could, wishing that he would last just one moment longer...

With a breathless gasp, Zeke rolled over onto his back, lying flat on the deck as we both looked up at the stars. The silence between us was perfect, but soon enough one of us had to speak.

"I'll pay you back," I said, stroking his fur. "I would have come anyway."

"Thanks, but you don't have to," Zeke sniffed, rubbing his eyes. "I don't want to spoil this... but it was a silly idea. I knew back then you'd have to go back."

"But I don't want to go back," I replied. I actually felt tears well up against my eyelids, but for his sake I didn't let me get further. I didn't want to spoil this moment, and I didn't want it to go back. So I took a leap.

"I'm not going back."

I reached out and squeezed his paw, rolling on top of him and leaning in for another kiss.

"I let the world crush my dreams once. I'm not going to let it do so again."

Zeke kissed me back with wordless fervour.

"So... are you going to help me explore this blue hole?" I grinned, the image of his smiling face imprinted behind my eyes as my paw teased his rump.

The sight was there when I closed my eyes, drifting off to sleep in each other's arms.