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On the Fourth Day of Yiffmas, Jakealope Wrote for Thee...

Four Calling Beans

"Dan? Earth to Dan?"

"Huh?"

Dan looked up and was surprised to see everyone staring back.

"What--What uhh..."

"It's your turn," Matty said. The otter held a card out in his left hand, obviously waiting for Dan to take it.

"Oh, yeah. My bad," Dan sheepishly replied.

"Something wrong?" asked the grey fox on the opposite couch.

"No Wes, I'm good. I'm good, really. Just zoned out a little..."

"Try to liven up a little," Scott said to his right. The dingo looked very much agitated with Dan's lack of attention span. "I wanna win tonight, and you being 'zoned out' ain't gonna cut it."

"Quit worrying Scott, we've got this," Dan snapped his jaws back.

Scott wacked his fist lightly against Dan's shoulder. "Not right now we don't; we're two behind them because you've been on the fritz tonight. You really gonna have us lose to these dorks?"

"...We're right here, guys," said Matty, and Wes lowered his ears at Scott in thin-veiled annoyance.

"I said don't worry!" The agitated labrador flicked the playing card face down onto the coffee table. "We aren't breaking our win streak tonight."

"Better not..."

Dan ignored the dingo's backhanded comment as he stepped up to the whiteboard. He was lucky to be able to talk himself out of that awkward situation. No one seemed to notice what exactly Dan was fixated on, to which he was extremely thankful for, otherwise they'd have given him so much shit for it. They didn't need to; Dan was giving himself shit already. What had gotten into him tonight?

He remembered sitting back one moment, relaxed and full of chips and beer, enjoying the feeling of another round won. Wes complained about the heat from the roaring fireplace being too much and went to remove his socks, and after he did so, the fox threw his paws up on the coffee table to use as a footrest.

Dan didn't think nothing of it at first. Maybe he would've complained about the fox scraping his claws against his furniture, or maybe he wouldn't have been bothered at all, but as Dan sat in his plush contentment, waiting for Matty and Scott to return from a bathroom break so the next round could start, something odd started to happen. His eyes wandered lower. Sounds blended into nothingness. Thoughts struggled to form.

Dan's entirety ground to a halt as he salivated over the sight of the grey fox's paws. They flexed and curled, scratched and scrunched, a mind completely separated from their owner's idle browsing of social media on his phone. They looked comfy, and Dan hazarded a bet they were smelly, too. He dreamed up the scent and texture while they waited--a smothering mixture of sweat, oils, and grime that would smear so nicely on his cheek tuft while being smothered by those beans.

But then the other two were back and ready to start again, and the labrador needed to refocus... except, he couldn't. It was the twirling circles here, the bouncing beans there; every little motion Wes' paws made, Dan's eyes were keen on watching. He tried to focus! He really did try--but those paws looked so nice and pillowy soft and probably stunk really bad...

"Move it or lose it, Dan!"

Up at the whiteboard, he at least didn't have direct line of sight on the paws, which was enough slack on his brain to let him think again. Dan looks at the prompt on his card and considers how he'd draw it out. "Uhm... Okay, I'm ready. Start the clock."

"Starting... now!" shouted Matty.

Dan quickly got to drawing, while Scott began firing of a barrage of guesses, "Pipe! Stick! Boomerang! Uhh--A sock! Shoe! A boot! Roller blades! Ice-skating shoe! What're... oh, a paw! A--uhm... Paw pads!... Paw beans! No?! What--"

"Time's up!"

"Scott, come on dude!" Dan yelled to his dingo partner, who was equally up in arms with him.

"Don't you fuckin' start! What the shit were you trying to draw anyways..." Scott whisked the card out of my hand before I could object and read it aloud, "...wristwatch? Dan, why did you draw a FOOT when the card says WRISTWATCH!"

"What? No! No, it said--it said..."

Scott turned the card and showed it to everyone else, Dan being the last. Sure enough, there was the word 'wristwatch' written in big, bold letters across the middle.

"I drew... The card said something else..."

"I think I know what's gotten on Dan's mind."

Everyone looked to Wes, who'd straightened up in his seat, seeming a bit nervous. Dan felt he knew why, and a nervous, tingling sensation washed over his fur, too.

"What do you mean by that?" asked Scott, not accusing the fox but still wanting a clear answer from him.

"I mean that I think I know what's been distracting him..."

"Spit it out then dude, come on!"

But rather than say it aloud, he simply gave a visual demonstration: two fox paws slapped back on the table, their black, plushy beans scrunched up amidst tufts of gray fur.

Scott looked at Wes in bewilderment. "What, your paws? You think he's drawing your paws on the board? Come on Wes--he's not gonna do that. Right Dan?... Dan?"

Matty and Wes were already looking at the labrador behind his right shoulder. When Scott turned around, he couldn't believe it--Dan was drooling. Literally drooling! Big drops of slobber hit the rug, with more still dripping from that gaping, dumb expression on the dog's face.

"Dan! The hell has gotten into you man?!"

But Scott couldn't get through to the labrador. He was too far gone in the world of Wes' paws. Even from across the table, the smell somehow was taunting Dan, drawing him in like a hooked finger that begged for his attention. The sight was even more convincing; two gray-furred, black-beaned beauties reflected in the labrador's eyes. It was like those paws were flirting with him to come closer!

"Dannnn! Dan, knock it off!"

"That's not gonna work, Scott," said Wes.

Scott stopped waving his hand in front of Dan's face to look back at the fox. "Why not? What's your bright idea, then?"

Wes shrugged unhelpfully, "I really don't think there's anything that can reverse what I did, to be honest..."

Matty was the first to ask the obvious, "...What you did?"

"Yeah, what exactly does that mean?" Scott chimed in.

Wes wrung his fingers like they owed him money, not able to match the others' stares. "Promise that... what I'm about to say stays between us and us only. No one else--got it?" When Matty and Scott gave their verbal vows, Wes said in a hushed voice, "I... might've hypnotized him? With my paws?"

"Hypnotized?" both the otter and dingo said in unison. Dan said nothing, his drool continuing to pool on the carpet below.

"Yes... It's--complicated. Where to start..." Wes squirmed into the sofa cushions while he gathered his tail into his lap. "I come from a family of--ugh, this is gonna sound so stupid--I come from a family of..."

"Dude, just spit it out!"

"A family of paw hypnotists!"

That shut Scott up real quick. Matty was dead silent, too, mouth slightly agape.

"It's a thing my father did... my grandmother before that... and my great-grandmother before her. I was taught by my dad, but I was, I dunno... hesitant to use it? Like, I saw it in action, I know it works, but still didn't do anything to carry on the tradition." Wes scratched roughly at his ear and gave a big sigh. "And it's been years without ever once giving into the temptation--and suddenly I see Dan looking a bit at them and decide for whatever reason to give it a try for fun..."

"...And you turned Dan into a brainless zombie?" Scott finished.

The three looked at Dan, who'd been teetering ever closer to the fox's exposed paws on the table.

"Yeah. Didn't think it'd actually work--and that quickly," Wes said. He began twirling his paws as he thought aloud. "All I did was a little--"

Scott cut off the fox and his paw antics with a yell. "Whoa! Put those GRIPPERS away!"

"Yeah, we don't wanna end up like Dan!" said Matty.

"Mmm... Paws..." Dan muttered, perhaps hearing his name somewhere in the deep recesses of his mind. The brainwashed lab kneeled in front of the coffee table, his chest laying against the wood top so he could nestle up close to those delicious paws.

"Oh great, you made him even worse!" complained Scott. "My freaking teammate's been hypnotized into a freaking foot freak, and you--" He wagged a single claw at Wes. "You did this knowing full well what it would do, so that's CHEATING!" The dingo raises both hands to the ceiling. "You two are D-Q'd for that--and that means my winning streak is still going strong, YEAH!"

"Oh, kiss our ass, Scott," Matty bit back.

"Maybe you ought to, otter boy."

"You wish!"

"Yesss... Paws~"

They all watched the once brazen labrador apply himself to the efforts of sniffing and rubbing his face against every available surface on the fox's paws. He was really getting into it, too; Dan's fur quickly became a sweaty and likely stinky matted mess. It seemed the worse it got for the dog, the happier he seemed to be, and the deeper he inhaled those filthy beans.

"...Are you really gonna just let him... keep doing that?" asked Matty.

Wes shrugged to the otter. "It's not like I can un-hypnotize him. Well, I can put my paws away and he'd go back to normal quicker--but I kinda like him this way? And I'm not minding the attention..."

"How long is he gonna be like this, though?" Scott waved at the dumb dog sprawled out on the table. "I eventually need my partner back, and not this drooling idiot."

"Not too long--an hour, two tops?" replied Wes, sounding a little too uncertain for Scott to believe his numbers. "Depends on how long it takes to scratch the itch I planted in his head."

Matty sat back down on the couch, idly watching the entranced dog now put his tongue to work. "Well, what do we do until then?"

"Fuck if I know. This has completely screwed up game night..." Scott growled. Finally he looked back to the otter, and all caution was thrown to the wind. "Wanna go somewhere quiet, and, you know..."

Scott raised a brow at the otter, and Matty's eyes flew open wide, his cute little paws covering his snout. "S-sure. That'd b-be fine with m-me," he said, muffled by his furry beans.

"Good," the dingo said, a smile creeping back on his smug face. "At least we can have some fun, rather than let Wes hog it all to himself."

Wes gave him a half-assed shrug. "Whatever--I did say I was sorry."

"Paws~" Dan groaned, humping the air as he continued on cleaning Wes' musky paws. Lick by lick, serving those hypnotic beans that called out for his undivided attention...