FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story and all characters are copyright © 2012 K.M. Hirosaki.

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Once upon a time there was a coyote named Gareth. He was a cute young kid, energetic and optimistic, finishing up his time at college and not quite ready to be thrust into the real world of adults and responsibility.

This one time, in the middle of sucking my dick, he stopped, looked up at me, and said, "You've got such a pretty dick, Reylin." That's how Gareth was. No schmaltzy lines about me having pretty eyes or a pretty smile, but when he complimented my dick, he meant it. That was part of why I dug him so much.

I don't have a sweet story about how we met and fell in love. I have a story about how we met because we ran and fucked in the same circles. I have a story about how he played hard to get and how that made me want him that much more. He was swishy and slutty and shameless, and I was drawn to him, because hey, there were at least three things we had in common there.

When he played hard to get, before we ever hooked up for the first time, it was to make sure I was worth it. In the process, though, it let me see that he was worth it.

Everyone should have a neighborhood bar. I'm firmly convinced of that. I mean, you see it on television all the time: the group of friends who have 'their' bar, where they sit, night after night, week after week, always in 'their' seats, as if they were permanent fixtures. And yeah, okay, I know that TV isn't real life, but there's a reason that's a motif that shows keep coming back to.

Now, I have what can euphemistically be termed an 'active' social life. There are lots of labels you could stick to me: party animal, socialite, club slut. Any given week, I could be at any number of bars, dance clubs, warehouse raves, and other nightlife spots. Some of them are places I wind up frequently, and others I only hit up once and never go back.

But even I have my neighborhood bar. I mean, it would be more convenient if it were in my neighborhood, because then I could stumble home drunk instead of waiting for an hour after last call to sober up in the sad event that I didn't find anyone else to take me home. Nothing's perfect, though, I guess.

The place is called Sparkles, which is probably the second or third most precious name for a gay bar I've ever heard. When you step inside, the first thing you're likely to notice is the array of multicolored lights that hang above the bar itself, and while the effect doesn't really resemble a true rainbow all that much, the intent is clear. Neon signs for different beers, both local microbrews and national brands, adorn the dark walls but remain dim and unobtrusive. The place is pretty much a dive, yeah, but it's close enough to a couple major thoroughfares that you still have non-regulars wandering in often enough, and unlike a lot of gay crowds, it's not exclusionary and elitist. But hey, maybe trashed gay guys are just more prone to being huggy than catty. Some of them, at any rate.

The atmosphere is pretty chill. Every so often, someone gets a bit too drunk and causes some brand of awkwardness or another, but it never lingers longer than it takes someone to usher that poor sap out the door and get him into a cab and on the way home. Sometimes they do karaoke. When I'm sober, I sing pop hits; when I'm not as sober, I do showtunes. I think drunk me gets better applause.

Now, I'm not going to lie: I've slept with my fair share of the regulars there, including Micky the short-and-stocky jaguar, Kyle the scraggly-furred mutt, and even Alice the cross-dressing squirrel (we were both really drunk, but I'd be lying if I said that wasn't some of the finest sex I've ever had). One of the people who I saw all the time but hadn't slept with was Sammi, the rabbit bartender.

Sammi is a big guy. Not "big" as in "tall," but as in--well, okay, so he's chubby. I won't mince words. Not huge, mind you. Just big, like I said. I mean, he's really cute. And I'm not going to say that it's in spite of him being heavier or because of it, and honestly I'm not sure it matters either way. What matters is that I think he's adorable, and he ranked pretty high on my list.

Also, what matters is that Gareth and I had agreed that he was worth a full three points in the little contest we were having.

I watched Gareth make out with the big-dicked otter as they both floated around the swimming pool. The midsummer sun hadn't quite set, but the alcohol had certainly kicked in, leaving the evening rife with possibilities. Gareth, it seemed, had already decided on where he wanted his evening to go.

Which was totally his prerogative as the party-'yote and all. Far be it for anyone, even me, to tell him he couldn't sleep with who he wanted to on his own birthday. Besides, the pre-show was a hot one from where I was sitting.

Coyotes are better at swimming than you might expect, but not when put alongside otters, and certainly not when they're drunk. It was funny, watching Gareth try to keep his head above water, breathing in through his nose as his mouth stayed occupied. The otter--Joel, his name was--seemed just as amused as I was, but he used his own natural talents to help keep Gareth afloat with him, kissing back just as intently.

I was sitting in the hot tub a scant few feet away. Now, I should point out that, when you're a cacomistle, deciding to go into a swimming pool or a hot tub is a commitment, because you have to accept that your tail is going to get wet and stay wet for the next long while, and nobody's going to want you running through their house anytime soon after. This was one of those shindigs that had been going on for a few hours already, though, and was liable to go on for a few hours more, and hey, I'm not the kind of party guest to pass up the opportunity to go hottubbing with a bunch of cute gay guys.

A set of splayed toes pressed against the front of my swim trunks. I squeaked in surprise and turned my attention to Rashad, the black-and-white husky sitting across the tub from me. His muzzle was split into a broad grin, and he nodded towards the couple in the pool. "Jealous?" he asked.

"Of which one?"

Rashad chuckled, and hints of a forthcoming apology appeared at the corner of his smile. "Well, I meant of Gareth, but I guess either one works, huh?"

Gareth is my not-quite-boyfriend. I mean, we're a thing, but I'm not sure there's a word for what we are. Whatever we are, I wasn't going to stop the coyote from having his fun. "I guess a little jealous, sure," I replied. "For one thing, Joel's pretty hung."

The husky perked his ears up and leaned over the edge of the hot tub, craning his neck to get a look. "Whoa, what? Did Gareth get his bathing suit off?"

"No, but I stole a grope from him earlier." I stuck my own foot between Rashad's thighs, and I'll be damned if he wasn't ten times more worked up than I was at the sight of Gareth and the otter getting all up in each other's business. "Now who's the jealous one?"

I'm not sure if Rashad quite knew what the full story between Gareth and I was, but he at least seemed to get that I was really easy, and so he didn't pull his own foot away. I hadn't quite decided if I was going to put out for him or not, but another hard lemonade or another fifteen minutes in the hot tub was probably going to change that. A sharp little yelp followed by a tiny splash tore my attention away from more immediate urges, though, and I turned just in time to see Gareth disappear beneath the surface of the water, both of Joel's webbed paws pressing down against the top of the coyote's head.

There was a flurry of louder splashing and flailing that ensued, and finally Gareth managed to fight his way back to the surface, gasping for air, his wet ears set flat against his head. He let out a few drunken giggles and smacked Joel playfully on the chest a few times before dog-paddling his way over the edge of the pool to drag himself out. His fur was sopping wet, and his swim trunks hung down low on one side, exposing one of his rump cheeks for a few seconds before he clumsily hiked them up.

He waddled his way over to me, dripping water all over the stone patio. "Hey Rey," he said, voice buoyant due to a fair amount of alcohol. "How's things in the hot tub here?" I couldn't tell if he could see that Rashad's foot was in my crotch or not.

"Not as interesting as what's going on with you," I replied. "At least not yet." Joel was climbing out of the swimming pool as well, and he and Rashad were making eyes at each other behind Gareth's back.

The coyote leaned in close and whispered into my ear so that none of the other guests would overhear. "You're starting to fall behind, cutey. This is plus one for me." He then gave me a kiss--not on the lips, but on the cheek.

"Not yet it isn't," I replied with a tiny smirk, even though we both knew that it was a lock for him. "And doesn't the tally reset since we're here together tonight?"

"Not unless we sleep together. And I expect I'll be a bit too busy for that."

"In that case, I expect that I'll get my own point later on, too."

Gareth gave the row of piercings in my right ear a soft flick. "You'll still be trailing by one," he pointed out, and he started to say something else, only to yelp playfully as Joel came up behind him and got him by the scruff of the neck.

"Come here, birthday boy," the otter told the coyote, dragging him back towards the house, snatching a pair of towels from a nearby rack along the way. "Time for your present."

Gareth allowed Joel to cart him off, and he flashed me and Rashad a flighty little finger-wave just before Joel wrapped a towel around him, opened the sliding door into the house, and shoved the little coyote inside.

Rashad shook his head, a big, dumb grin on his face. "Well," he said, clearing his throat. "Happy birthday to Gareth, I guess."

"The party doesn't have to stop just because the guest of honor is preoccupied," I replied. "Speaking of which, want me to nab us a couple more drinks?"

I woke up the next morning to a hangover and the knowledge that Gareth had increased his lead over me to two.

The couch I was on was not a comfortable one. One of my shoulders was sore from my having slept on it wrong, and my mouth felt dry and gross. Sitting up took several minutes and way too much effort. When I finally managed to swing my legs off of the couch, I stepped on my own tail.

I couldn't see any clocks, so I could only guess what time it was. "Too early" was all my brain could come up with. When you've had too much to drink, it's hard to tell the difference between falling asleep and passing out, but it's easy enough to tell when you haven't exactly gotten a good night's rest.

The house was dead silent. I listened as best I could, but I didn't hear anyone else up and about. Gareth and Joel, at least, had crashed here like me, and Rashad lived here, but I didn't know how many other guests might have spent the night on spare beds or open patches of floor. Whoever they were, they weren't conscious. I wished that I could rejoin them, but the throbbing in my ears and skull told me I was better off finding some painkillers and a whole lot of water.

If you've never woken up after partying at somebody else's house, it's really disorienting. Everything looks different in the morning light, nothing that you want to find is where you think it should logically be, and if nobody else is awake, you feel like an intruder. And I was an intruder who hadn't even done the courtesy of blowing my host.

My memory of the night before was cloudy, but I remembered that Rashad had passed out before me. We'd continued flirting and teasing after our little episode in the hot tub, but several hours of partying and drinking went by before we'd wound up alone in his bedroom together, and by that time, he was too drunk to get it up and I was on the verge of throwing up. I'd gone to find some water, and by the time I'd gotten back, the husky was snoring with his pants half-off. Somewhere after that I must have wound up on the living room couch.

The kitchen was a mess; plates of unfinished food and empty pizza boxes filled the air with their stale scent, and there were red plastic cups all over the place, some still half-full with various mixed drinks. I found the one that said 'Reylin' in black marker still sitting on the counter. I rinsed it out, filled it with water, drank it quickly, and then filled it up again. This time, I sipped more slowly as I staggered my way to where I remembered the guest bathroom being.

Someone had thrown up in the sink and hadn't done a good job of rinsing it out. I was pretty sure it hadn't been me. I did my best to wash it up without touching anything, but most of it was dried up and stuck to the edges of the sink, and if I hung around too long it was going to make me vomit from the smell and sight. Cleaning it properly was going to have to be someone else's problem.

Doing my best to ignore the sink below, I opened up the medicine cabinet, found a bottle of store-brand painkillers, and popped three of them before stepping back into the hall--

--and right into Gareth, who let out this adorable bark as he stumbled back into the wall, causing one of the pictures hanging out it to skew slightly.

The coyote was wearing nothing but his boxer-briefs, and he smelled mostly like chlorine, otter, and lube, in that order. His fur was disheveled and matted, and he was bleary-eyed, but in a way that suggested simple tiredness more than a hangover. As soon as he'd gotten over the shock of my bumping into him, he smiled, and his wagging tail smacked against the wall behind him.

"Oh, hey, sorry," he said, and then his initial smile faded. "Wow, you look pretty, uh, awful, Rey."

"Good morning to you, too." Hearing my own voice immediately made me feel even worse. "Shit, what time is it?"

Gareth gave me a pat on the hip. "Around eight-thirty. Which is way too early, I'm guessing, from the look of it." His face twisted up with mild but noticeable concern.

I shook my head (which was a mistake). "I'll be fine once the magical brain pills kick in," I said, hoping that would be true. I took another long sip of water, doing my best to savor it. "You look like you had a better night than me, though."

The coyote flicked his ears back before I could see whether or not he was starting to blush. "Uh, well, it was pretty good, yeah," he said. "Kind of sore, but not in a bad way."

I felt pangs of jealousy--not that someone else had slept with Gareth, of course, but more than his getting laid had kept him from drinking as much as I had. "How many times did he get you?" I asked. "Three?"

"Just twice." Now I didn't need to see his ears to tell that he was blushing. "But he didn't exactly have a short fuse the first time, and he's not particularly, er, small, either."

More jealousy, this time because Gareth had gotten some and I hadn't. "So I'm guessing he's still asleep?"

"He expended an awful lot of energy, I'll just say that much." Gareth chewed his lip and then reached up to set a paw on my shoulder. "Tell you what: let me just take a leak and get dressed, and I'll drive you home and we can clean up there, okay?"

Since I live downtown, I don't own a car. Gareth does, though. He bought it with his graduation money, even though he was still taking summer courses and technically hadn't really graduated yet. It's not the newest or most glamorous set of wheels on the road, but what it lacks in fabulousness, it makes up for in actually running reliably.

Unfortunately, since it is kind of old, the suspension isn't in the best shape, and so the ride back to my place was bumpier than I would have liked in my delicate state. The way Gareth apologized with an embarrassed squeak each time we hit a bump or took a corner too sharply was kind of cute, though, even if I wasn't in the best shape to appreciate it. It wasn't like he needed to apologize for anything, anyway, since it's not like he's the one who made me drink as much as I did.

After a few minutes passed without my groaning too much, Gareth turned to look at me with a pitying smile. "So no luck with Rashad, huh?" he asked.

The way the car wobbled nicely mimicked the way my vision had swum when I'd last seen Rashad, sprawled out on his bed, unresponsive, pants not even all the way off. "God, it was so sad," I muttered. "Somehow big cocks look even sadder than small ones when they can't get hard."

The coyote clicked his tongue. "Aw, that's a shame. You usually have such good luck with the huskies, too."

I chuckled, and though the actual laughter made me feel more queasy, it still felt good to laugh at all. "Keeping tabs on my habits, huh?"

"Well, you do keep telling me who you sleep with," Gareth pointed out. "To say nothing about your reputation in general. So yeah, huskies. Canines in general, really."

"You're a canine."

"I certainly am." I couldn't tell if his tail was wiggling between his butt and the seat, or if my nauseous vision was playing tricks on me.

When we got back to my place, Gareth followed me upstairs. Thankfully, my apartment building has an elevator, because otherwise I might have just decided to camp out in the stairwell for a few hours, unless Gareth wanted to physically drag me.

He did seem intent on dragging me into the shower, but even though I'd been awake for a while, the headache and the nausea still outweighed any desire to have fun. Even when he said we wouldn't need to do anything but help each other get clean, I had to turn him down. Not because I didn't believe him, but because what I needed more than anything was to just be as motionless as possible and let some warm water run through my fur while I tried to meditate the sickness away.

Besides, I know myself, and having a naked, soaped-up coyote with his paws all over me, even in a manner that passed for chaste, would lead to places that neither my brain nor my body were ready for.

I remembered that I felt better after my shower, and I remember lying atop my bed to wait while Gareth took his shower, but I didn't remember falling back asleep.

When I woke up, I had a throw blanket draped over me, my shades drawn shut, and a glass of water sitting on my nightstand. On a folded napkin next to the glass of water were a few more painkillers. Because that's how Gareth is. He's a fucking sweetheart and I need to give him more credit for it.

Written on the napkin itself, in Gareth's chicken scratch, were the words I'm still up by two.

"Wait, so you have a contest with someone to see which of you can have sex with more people, and you're losing?"

I took a sip from my martini glass (though my panther friend Kario says I'm not allowed to call any drink made primarily with butterscotch liqueur a martini). "By two," I reaffirmed.

"Wow." Dane stared at me, his eyes actually going glassy. "Just... wow." The skinny black fox leaned back, paw braced against the bar for balance. "What does the winner get?"

"To do whatever he wants in bed with the loser. Within limits, I mean."

Dane stuck his tongue out between his fangs. "If I didn't know you better, I'd think maybe you were playing to lose."

"I don't know if anyone could play to lose against Gareth. There are a lot of things I can think of to do with that coyote."

The idiotic grin was still splayed across the fox's muzzle. "Wait, do these people have to be ones you've never slept with before?"

"Is that an offer?" I asked without missing a beat. I wasn't about to be upstaged by Dane, of all people; of all the regulars at Sparkles, he's the one that it'd be most emasculating to be shown up by. I don't know if he originally started doing the whole goth thing because his fur is already black or what, but he's been doing it long enough now that he accents his fur with makeup and manages to not look like a basement-dwelling loser when he does it. Most of the time. That, and he's so much of a twink that even I could probably kick his ass.

He hummed as he leaned back forward, and his grin wasn't getting any less smarmy. "I'm not sure yet. I need to decide how much respect I still have for you after hearing this."

"Now, now," I chided. "Since when did respect ever come into the picture when it came to folks in this bar hooking up with each other?"

From the other side of the bar, Sammi called out, "Not for as long as I've been working here, that's for damn sure." I hadn't thought I'd been particularly loud, but hey, maybe rabbit ears are good for something besides serving as handles.

I should tell you some more about Sammi. First and foremost, he's pretty much the only bartender at Sparkles. On busy nights, he'll have people helping him out, but those people are also regulars, so they almost don't even count. Which basically means that Sammi is Sparkles, in a very real sense.

He's an opinionated motherfucker, too, but not in a bad way. Well, not usually. Sometimes he refuses to admit he's wrong, even after it's proven than he is, but that's neither here nor there. Usually, though, he's sharp and pointed and sarcastic, even by my standards, and he's a picky little bitch, and I can't help but respect him for it. Sammi doesn't take shit from anyone, and in a bar like this, that goes a hell of a long way.

Dane laughed at the rabbit's remark. "Okay, that's a point." He set down his drink, then adjusted his banded arm stockings. "For what it's worth, though, I'm content to leave you with whatever shred of self-respect you still have."

"Meaning you will or won't sleep with me?"

With a coy smirk, the fox rapped his claws atop the bar, and he paused as if to consider the situation in deep, tactical detail. "Well, I'm not sure," he murmured, lifting up his paw so that he could rub the tip of his finger along the rim of his glass. "What's in it for me?"

"Uh, you get to sleep with me?" If he was going to be overmodest, then I was going to be as far from modest as possible. "I somehow doubt you'd still be on about this if you didn't want to."

"Maybe I just want to see you squirm."

"There are better ways to see me squirm," I shot back. "But I'd bet the stakes of this whole discussion that you want me on top and not the other way around."

Dane snorted and picked his glass back up, taking a big swig before licking his lips. "Let's cut to the chase, Reylin. We both know what it is I want."

I rolled my eyes, and had to set my own glass back down lest I spill half its contents. "For the last time, I am not joining your fucking LARP."

"Come on, you'd be amazing!" Dane's voice rose a full octave as he pleaded with me. "You're, like, one of the best roleplayers I've ever met."

"Are we talking in or out of the bedroom?"

He poked me in the chest. "You know damn well what I mean. You're not self-conscious, you'd be able to put together great outfits, you're great at--"

"I don't feel like getting dressed up on weekends to pretend to be a vampire. Besides, the whole mental image of a vampire cacomistle is ridiculous."

Dane smirked. "Are you sure? There are some website links I could send you."

"No thanks." I polished off the rest of my drink, then slid the glass away from me. "And no thanks on the whole LARP thing, either. I have a reputation to maintain."

"A reputation as a huge slut?" Sammi said as he picked up my empty glass. The rabbit had snuck up onto the conversation while I'd been too busy being indignant to notice.

I flashed him a smile. "Better a huge slut than some weirdo who dressed up in secondhand trench coats and throws beanbags at people."

Now it was Dane's turn to roll his eyes at me. "Oh, please. Like you're one to talk, Mr. 'I Ran the Best Campaign Ever Back in College.'"

"You're just jealous because you weren't in that campaign," I replied. Then I turned to Sammi and said, "Can you get me one of those things with the pineapple juice you made for me last week?"

The rabbit winked at me, and his smile nearly made me want to reach over the bar and drag him in for a kiss. But I held back, and then he turned and asked Dane, "How about you? CanI get you another?"

The fox pounded what was left in his glass and then smacked it back down. "One more of the same," he said. His toes then brushed in against my ankle where the bartender couldn't see it. "I'm good for at least one more drink."

I took a deep breath and let it out as a sigh. "Hey, Sammi," I called out as the rabbit waddled over to grab a pair of glasses. "Put his last drink on my tab, okay?" Yeah, okay, so he wasn't a canine, as Gareth might have been quick to point out, but he was close.

"Much obliged," Dane said, his toes curling in so that his claws could hook beneath the hem of my pants leg. "I guess in lieu of joining my game, that's good enough."

I had to smile at that. Not because Dane was actually so easy that he'd go home with me after one drink, but because playing this little game with him had still been fun, and in the end, we were both going to win. Before I could say anything, though, Dane then added, "Of course, you'll still be down by one. Hopefully you'll have better luck between now and whenever you see that coyote of yours again."

The fur on the back of my neck bristled, but I doubt the fox noticed. I didn't really like the possessive applied to Gareth, in my case, nor did I think it was proper to explain that Sammi was worth three points and that I was still confident in pulling ahead. Instead, I said, "Well, maybe if I stay the night, I can get in two."

"Does the morning after count as a separate time?" Dane asked, and he sounded like he was actually curious. Granted, Gareth and I had actually taken the time to sort out the rules, so I guess the fox taking them seriously wasn't that weird, really. "And how long are the two of you going to do this?"

"I don't know," I said, and truthfully I didn't. We hadn't discussed that yet. "I guess until the end of the summer or something? Or until Gareth and I stop doing this, you know, whatever it is we're doing."

"What, you mean dating, or this contest of yours?"

My chest tightened. I stared over at Sammi, still fixing our next round of drinks. God, I needed more alcohol in me ASAP. "Probably just until the end of the summer," I said.

Either Dane didn't notice my dodge, or didn't care enough to press the issue. "Well," he said, leaning in closer to me, "depending on how late we're up with Round One, we'll see if the morning will allow enough time for a Round Two." With Sammi close to finishing our drinks, Dane then leaned in even further, his muzzle coming up right to my ear. "Though I should warn you ahead of time that you're wrong about me wanting you on top."

The fox pulled away just as Sammi stepped up to set our drinks down. I took a sip of mine, first, before looking back at Dane and sighing as I said, "All right, fine," but truth be told, I was more in the mood for that, anyway.

I was still down by one the next time Gareth and I got together. I'd been too busy with work and the more boring responsibilities of daily life to find the time for anyone or anything else. Same with Gareth, it turned out.

He was typing away on his phone as he spoke to me. "So that's two round in a row for me. If you don't win this next one, I'm going to think you're either not trying, or you're just lying to make me feel better."

"Hey, the only thing really on the line here is personal pride," I replied. "There's not a lot of personal pride to be had in lying in a contest based on the honor system."

Sure, the bedroom turnabout thing was fun, but Gareth's sexual tastes and mine already lined up pretty well anyway. So far, neither of us had made the other do anything that was too far out there. Mostly, it boiled down to the occasional light spanking and a lack of argument over who got to be on top. And this time Gareth had used his victory to put himself on bottom, so hey.

The coyote still didn't look up from his phone. My bedroom still smelled heavily of the both of us. I was naked, but Gareth was wearing his white overshirt, open and unbuttoned. For some reason, Gareth always likes to grab his shirt and put it back on after sex; I've never asked him why, but it's kind of cute.

He's an excellent bottom, by the way. He's vocal and responsive, and he knows when to get mouthy and beg for it, and when to keep his trap shut before things get too forced and theatrical. Plus he's pretty tight, and he knows that, too.

I leaned over as the coyote continued to type. "Are you texting someone?" I asked.

"No, I'm just recording the results. You know, for posterity's sake."

Though I could make out the screen clearly, I could see that he was typing out words and not just numbers. "Wait, are you putting the names down, too?"

Now Gareth looked up. "Is that not okay?"

I tried to think if I had any actual serious objections to that. "I guess anyone who'd be pawing through your phone without permission is probably someone who's already slept with you anyway."

The coyote gave me a weak jab in the shoulder. "Shut up," he giggled. "If I don't let you look through my phone, I'm sure as hell not letting anyone else."

"And what makes you so sure I haven't already?"

Gareth finished up typing real quick, then tossed his phone down onto the pillow next to him. "Because," he said, leaning in close to me, his arms to either side of my hips as he brought his muzzle in towards mine, "I've got it password protected, and it's nothing you'd ever guess."

I gave him a kiss on the lips, followed by a single lick to his whiskers, then I took hold of his shoulders. "And what makes you so sure I'd never guess it?"

"Because there's a lot you don't know about me yet, for starters." He kissed back and began to crawl into a straddling position with me. As he moved, my paws wound up sliding down along his arms. "Not that I don't expect you to still try."

My long tail slid along my rumpled sheets as I curled back in closer to myself. "Are you trying to goad me into guessing your phone password or trying to goad me into fucking you again?"

Gareth's tail, in turn, was now wagging between my legs, brushing against my thighs as it whipped back and forth. "Maybe I'm trying to goad you into getting to know me better," he whispered into one of my ears before beginning lick and nibble at the edge of it.

I let out a weak little gasp, then grabbed hold of the coyote's slender hips. "That still doesn't answer my question," I murmured back to him as I dipped my head in order to nuzzle at the hollow of his throat.

"You could always try both."

My ears and my eyebrows perked up as I pulled back and looked him in the eye. "I like how you think," I said, nipping at the end of his chin for good measure. Then I looked down at him, naked except for his shirt, almost but not quite pressed against me, the scent of his fur in my nose and the touch of his tail against my legs. It was weird to think that there was a time (a time not that long ago) when I could only imagine what this would have been like.

"Hey," I then asked, my tone of voice changing abruptly as my thoughts pulled me out of the moment. "Would you let me take some pictures of you in this shirt?"

Gareth cocked his head to one side. "Like, right now?" His tail stopped moving.

"Well, not right now," I assured him, sliding one paw back in order to grab and squeeze his butt. That got his tail back to whipping back and forth again. "After we're done."

Okay, so the bit about taking pictures reminds me that I should probably tell you about what I do for a living, because it actually is relevant, here.

So, I'm a freelance photographer. I started playing with cameras in high school as a hobby, and it wound up becoming one of the big driving creative forces in my life. Seriously, if there's anything that can get me locked down talking your ear off for hours that isn't related to dance music or who's secretly fucking who, it's photography.

But I won't bore you with too many of the details. Suffice it to say that working freelance is an interesting experience in terms of finances. Life becomes a sort of "feast or famine" affair; you either have more on your plate than you know what to do with, or you're barely scraping by. Sure, sometimes you hit a pretty steady clip where you're neither overworked nor overpaid, but you can't exactly count on those.

The end result is that sometimes you're able to live large, and other times you need to hole up and live off of leftovers and instant food. You try to learn how to be better about managing your savings, but when your hobbies include things like dressing up nice, going to expensive bars, and personal photography projects that you don't get paid for, you inevitably fail to keep yourself from splurging here and there.

If it sounds like I party pretty hard, it's because I have to, in order to stay sane. For every story I have about some crazy night out a club where I got fucked in the back room and then blew someone in a dark corner booth, I have way more nights where I'm up late developing, airbrushing, and pulling my fur out trying to meet a deadline. So it balances out: you work hard, you get to play hard. It's only fair.

Taking pictures of Gareth in nothing but a shirt after I've fucked him twice counts as "play" and not "work." More than a few people have told me that they're surprised that I don't do photography for adult magazines or stuff like that. My response is that I have a policy of not mixing business and pleasure. I'd hate for the sight of a cute naked canine to make me think of work. And I mean, sure, I've done nude portraits of plenty of guys (and girls, be still your hearts). Professional ones, too, like for models, and also for folks who just wanted some nice photos of themselves for whatever reason. But again, those are professional and mostly tasteful, and don't tend to involve close-ups of sticky, matted fur beneath a raised tail like the ones I took of Gareth.

Lately, I'd been doing a lot of food photography, of all things. Not exactly my biggest passion, but whatever pays the bills, you know? And at least it's artistic and pretty and I've developed a good feel for how to make things look good. Plus, there are a lot of really, really flaming chefs out there, as it turns out.

Imagine my surprise, then, a scant few weeks later into the summer, when I got an email from a prospective client asking me to do some work for a gay travel guide. Specifically, I'd be getting some photos of some of the local gay bars in the area, including, of all places, Sparkles.

At first I was confused as to why a (supposedly) respectable guide book would want to document a shitty dive bar, but then I remembered that I'm not the only person who thinks that shitty dive bars are awesome. I had to wonder who'd been given the task of scouting out gay bars in the area to put together the final list to be covered in the guide, and then I had to wonder if I'd maybe flirted with them when they'd come by.

But that was neither here not there. As I said, no mixing business and pleasure. At least not where I can avoid it.

Sammi looked me over, his lips pursed in a silent whistle. "Wow, Reylin. You look really..." He twirled a finger around in the air as he looked for the right word.

I'd shown up wearing my photographer's vest and one of my nicer pairs of slacks, and had a DSLR camera on a strap around my neck. "Professional?" I offered.

"I was going to say 'gay,' actually," Sammi replied. "Which is saying something."

"Oh, screw you. I totally pull this off and you know it."

The rabbit wiggled his whiskers and turned to grab a file folder full of paperwork. "You're taking pictures of a gay bar, not going on safari."

"Yeah, well, I don't own a ranch, and yet you never give me any guff for wearing leather chaps around here."

"Please, if you stopped doing that, I'd lose half of my customers," Sammi said. "Or, well, at least half of the ones on Tuesday nights. There's plenty of other eye candy going around on the weekend."

I settled down onto one of the bar stools and leaned forward with both of my paws supporting my chin. "Now you're trying to use reverse psychology on me, Mr. Bartender," I said. "But if it means dressing up in even more revealing outfits around here, I suppose I can be a good sport and play along."

Sammi scratched at his belly, but didn't look up from the paperwork as he sifted through it. "Hey, it's the other clientele who'd be thankful for it," he said. "I can't afford to let myself get distracted by pretty-looking boys while I'm on the job or I'd never get any work done."

Here at midday, setting up for a photo shoot outside of normal evening business hours, I realized I had a great opportunity to really lay down the flirting with Sammi. After all, he wasn't distracted serving other customers, and my flirtatiousness didn't just have to be an act to get stronger drinks (I mean, not that I didn't appreciate that for its own sake).

But the trick was that while I was seeing him outside of his work environment for once, now he was dealing with me while I was in mine. Business and pleasure, threatening to mix again. Well, that was a killjoy, for sure.

"Sammi," I said, "the fact that you're able to get anything done at all with the gaggle of old queens you call your clientele is a miracle in and of itself. It's a privilege and a pleasure to make life easier on you."

My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out, and the preview image on my screen was a shrunken-down photo of a young lion, probably college-age, sitting in what appeared to be a small coffee shop. The preview showed that it was from Gareth, but I didn't need to open up the text message itself to know that the coyote had gotten his first point in our next round.

"You want to make things easier on me, you make this photo shoot go as smoothly as possible," Sammi said as I slipped the phone back into my pocket. "Petunia's going to be super-anal about how you show the place, just so you know."

"I'm not sure that's entirely within her control. But you let me worry about that. Making this place look good is my job."

"And keeping Petunia from losing her shit is mine."

"Then let me leave you to that, and I'll finish getting myself ready," I said. "You're cool with me messing with the lights and stuff, right?"

Sammi glared at me. "You blow a fuse and I wring your neck."

I held up a paw. "Hey, deal. I'm not going to do anything fancy. Just turning shit off and on."

"Well, good." The rabbit turned his attention back to his paperwork. "Last time someone tried to get 'fancy' with the lights here, I had a neon sign explode and some drag queen's dress caught on fire."

My camera started to slip from my paws, but luckily the strap kept it from falling to the floor. "You're making that up," I said.

"You've been coming here for years," Sammi muttered. "When have you ever known me to make stuff up?"

"More like when have I ever been able to prove it."

The rabbit looked up and shot me a look that made me simultaneously want to kiss him and smack him. "Go ahead and prove it, then. Take your time."

I couldn't in good conscience pass up the opportunity to flirt, now. "What's in it for me if I do prove it?"

"The satisfaction of knowing that you're right."

My tail flowed smoothly from one side to the other as I leaned in over the bar, making sure not to smack my camera on the edge of it. "That's it?"

Sammi leaned back in as well, and my pulse quickened just slightly. "I don't see the point of offering up more than that when I know you won't succeed anyway."

I brought my muzzle a tad bit closer to his. "If you're not worried I'll succeed, why be afraid of offering up more?"

The rabbit brought up a white-furred paw and playfully shoved my face back away from his. "Hurry up and take your goddamn pictures," he said. "I can't keep people out once it comes time to open." Because he'd been leaning over, his shirt had ridden up over his belly a little, and once he straightened out, he tugged the shirt back down.

I held up my camera and snapped a quick picture of him like that, then blew him a kiss. "If I blow a fuse accidentally, I'll give you a holler," I said.

"So you really think you can still seal the deal with this bartender of yours?" Gareth asked. He shifted his weight back as he leaned more cozily against me while he typed away on his laptop.

I rubbed at the coyote's shoulder and tucked myself further into the corner of the couch so that I could stay comfortable, too. "I wouldn't still be trying if I didn't think so. You know I don't like wasting my time."

"And yet here you are, spending your summer flirting with a bartender," Gareth replied, his eyes fixed on his monitor as his little claws clicked away at the keys, creating a soft patter underneath the music coming from my stereo system.

I gave him a tiny jab in the ribs. "Yes, but he's been flirting back."

Gareth stopped typing. "He's a bartender at a gay bar. Of course he's going to flirt with you. That's how they get tips."

"I go to plenty of gay bars. I know the difference between flirting for tips and flirting legitimately."

The coyote reached to one side and patted me on the knee. "And yet this still brings us to the fact that you haven't fucked him yet. What does that tell you?"

"That maybe he should be worth five instead of three?"

Gareth giggled at that, then lifted the computer out of his lap and set it down on my coffee table. "Now I almost feel bad for encouraging you," he said as he turned to kiss me, his teeth catching my lower lip afterward. "Almost. It's too entertaining for me to feel all that bad about it."

I tapped him on the nose, then pushed my fingertip in against it. "We'll see who's laughing when I'm two points ahead," I grumbled to him. "I'm betting your summer classes are taking up too much of your attention for you to really get out there and fuck."

Gareth kissed me again, this time on the cheek, then leaned back over to pick his laptop back up off of the coffee table. His tail wagged back and forth, smacking against my lower belly as he bent forward to do so. "You know, I've been meaning to ask," he said as he lounged back into position against my side on the couch. "Just why are you so keen on getting this guy into bed?"

"Is that a trick question?" I asked. "When aren't I keen on getting a cute guy into bed?"

"That's just the thing, though," Gareth said, and now he sounded confused and maybe kind of embarrassed, too. "He doesn't really fit the, uh, profile you've established with the other folks you've been sleeping with."

I gave Gareth's tail a gentle tug. "I'm not that canine-obsessed. You know that. Besides, I've done plenty of rabbits in my day."

"No, it's not that he's a rabbit. He just doesn't otherwise strike me as your, uh, type."

"What, you mean a bartender?"

The coyote's ears went back partway. "No, I mean, like, a big guy."

It's rare that anything Gareth says takes me aback, but this really did feel like it had come totally out of nowhere from him. "You think I have something against bigger guys?"

"No, I--I mean, not that you had anything against them, no," the coyote said. "I mostly just thought that you were into smaller, twinkier guys. You know, like Dane or Kris or Derek. Or me."

I knew that Gareth had been recording the names of the people we'd been sleeping with, but I hadn't realized he'd bothered to memorize them. "I'm into all sorts of guys. I would have thought that much was pretty obvious by now."

"Well, yeah. I mean, I guess kind of? Just never really figured you for--"

"For what, being shallow?" I interrupted. I'd meant it as a joke, but from the way Gareth's ears went the rest of the way back, I knew at once he'd taken it the wrong way. Or that I'd just gone too far.

He was quiet for a few seconds, and then went back to typing his paper. "I never said I thought you were shallow."

I tried to give the edge of one of his flattened ears a playful nibble, but he pulled away partway through. I started to sigh, but soon stopped myself, and instead said, "You know, my first boyfriend was a heavier guy."

The typing stopped, and Gareth was quiet again. His ears didn't move this time. Finally, he said, "So you have had boyfriends, then?"

"Did you think I hadn't?" I asked. "And here you've been teasing me about not knowing enough about you."

The story about my first boyfriend is too long to get into right here, and I don't want to just give the ultra-short version because it's a story that deserves better than that, and besides, it's not actually immediately relevant to this whole thing with me and Gareth aside from the aforementioned "big guy" thing. Which isn't to say that Sammi reminded me of said boyfriend, because that sure as hell wasn't the case at all. For starters, I hear more negativity out of Sammi on a single rough night at the bar than I did in the course of my entire relationship with this other guy.

As I'd said to Gareth, though, I really was surprised that he'd thought I had some hangup about body types. I mean, maybe I shouldn't be surprised, since I guess the default assumption is that skinny guys like other skinny guys and big guys like other big guys, but seriously, fuck that noise. And no, I'm not going to try to sell it like, "Oh, personality matters more than looks," because, okay, yeah, personality does matter more than looks, but that doesn't mean I don't run into plenty of ugly people that I wouldn't fuck with someone else's dick. And also because I'm not above dragging someone home (or into the nearest back room) for sex even if they're a complete asshole provided they're also super hot. Which multiple experiences can certainly attest to.

But yeah, Gareth getting all uppity about the whole thing made it feel like he thought I was just saying shit like I had something to prove. And his thinking that, in its own fucked up way, made me feel like I did have something to prove, because I didn't want him to think I was full of shit or something like that.

Okay, so maybe "uppity" isn't the word for how he was being. But he'd pissed me off and I don't like being annoyed, especially at someone normally as awesome as Gareth.

So there I was, at this place called Graulers, feeling like I had something to prove. I also felt really fucking small. But being in a place where most everyone else was around a foot taller than me and two to three times as massive will do that.

Graulers is a bar that chiefly caters to gay guys on the bigger side. I'd only ever been there a few times because it's not really my scene. I mean, yeah, I'm totally down with big guys, but I don't fit in at places like Graulers. Even my best (and most sincere) flirting usually gets me shot down. In my experience, when it comes to bars like this one, I'm unwelcome for one of two reasons: because the people there are mainly interested in other big guys, or because they see a tiny little ringtail like me and assume I'm some chubby-chaser and immediately resent me for it.

For the record, I can empathize fine with that latter point. It's one thing for people to assume I'm looking to get fucked when I'm out at a club and I don't even have my ass covered up, but it's another when someone jumps to the conclusion that my being five feet tall and change means I don't like to stick my dick in other people. Which, okay, I know that's not the same thing as being fetishized because your body is a certain shape, but in my personal case it's the closet equivalent I can think of.

That being said, yeah, I was trolling for a big guy tonight because of Gareth and his making me feel like I had to. I'm not saying it was a smart idea, but with the mindset I was in, it seemed like one. Or it at least seemed like an idea. I'm not sure intelligence was factoring into my master plan to find someone who looked like they'd be up for getting their dick sucked by someone who was acting like a total shameless slut.

The someone that I'd zeroed in on was Teddy. Teddy was this big, leather-clad wolf who was close to a foot and a half taller than me and easily over three hundred pounds. He had this smile that, even if I hadn't specifically been on the prowl at a place like Graulers, probably would have drawn me in from across the room anyway. Wolves can just grin like that, you know?

Teddy was nice enough to buy me drinks, and not just beer like most of the folks there were drinking, but the sweet pansy-ass drinks I wanted. Sure, bright blues and greens clashed with my own black leather ensemble, but I didn't give a shit because I'd already pregamed at my apartment before heading out. Sometimes not having a car isn't that bad, really.

The two of us were tucked in one of the corners in one of the booths--no, they didn't have booths there, I don't think. We were sitting next to each other, though--I know that because I was cuddled up against his side, occasionally stroking his belly, so I'm pretty sure we weren't in chairs. Unless I was in his lap, but I don't think that was the case, either.

We talked for a long time, I think probably a couple of hours. I remember telling him about how sexy I thought wolves were, how I loved wolves and dogs and loved heavy guys and how there was this adorable fat rabbit that I wanted to fuck who was a bartender at this other place I went to and how I was a photographer and that I should do a photo shoot for some leather magazine or something that catered to big guys because that would be awesome and it wasn't even pornography technically and how I could still keep my professional respect and also that I was so horny because my not-boyfriend was being all weird and stuck up.

He shut me up by kissing me nice and deep. A few times, if I recall correctly.

The next morning I woke up at my place. On my couch, of all places, which led me to believe I hadn't gotten fucked. I was naked, though, so I didn't rule that out until I'd checked with some testing fingers and decided that, no, I probably hadn't been. Not by someone as big as Teddy.

My hangover wasn't as bad as the one I'd had after Gareth's birthday party at Rashad's place, though part of that may have been because of my throwing up in the shower, which probably cleared out my system somewhat. I managed to not pass out on my bed afterward, but I was still too dizzy and out of it to focus worth shit on any of my photo editing work, so I mostly just sat in my desk chair in a daze while trying to remember whether I'd brought Teddy home or not.

I mean, you'd think that'd be hard to forget, but that's the thing about being a little guy and having a lot to drink: you can black out pretty good if you're not careful.

After trying to eat a sad excuse for a lunch a few hours later than would normally be lunchtime, I was at least functional enough to send some emails to clients and look over my upcoming schedule to start planning things. On my calendar, I'd marked the date when Gareth would be done with his summer classes, and upon seeing that, I had to stop and wonder how much time I was going to need (or want) to budget once he was free to the world.

I got an email from the travel guide people saying that, at least at first glance, the Sparkles photos were exactly what they were looking for. Granted, out of all the ones I sent them, they'd only wind up using one, two at most if it were a larger spread, but hey, if they liked my stuff, maybe that meant they'd hit me up for other jobs in the future. I still had a few more bars on my list to hit, too, before the job was done, and since they didn't have any overly detailed feedback, that meant I was at least nominally free to keep doing things the way I'd been doing them.

The thought of getting more photo shoot opportunities from a travel guide company made it harder to focus on work, because I started fantasizing about being actually sent out on travel to do some on-site photography and getting out of town and away from my life for a couple of weeks. I'd only just realized that I'd been "unwinding" a little bit too hard as of late, and now I was retroactively aware of all this stress I'd been ignoring. If I weren't still hung over, I'd have gone right to the cabinet and poured myself a drink.

Instead I just put my elbows on my desk and buried my face into my palms, the glow of my computer monitor still burned into the backs of my eyelids. It worried me that I was so obviously in need of changing things up, and yet the first thing to pop into my mind along those lines wasn't even a real vacation, but work-related travel. Maybe I'd just gotten into a rut, and I hadn't noticed because of my whole partygoing lifestyle or some shit. I mean, going to clubs and concerts and having sex contests with coyotes you were half-dating didn't make you immune to falling into ruts, right?

Rubbing my eyes, I went back to my computer and started to look up the phone numbers for the other bars I needed to take pictures of so that I could schedule some times to come by and do my job.

A late lunch meant a late dinner, and by the time I was ready for it, I was fucking ravenous. Something about alcohol stripping the body of all its nutrients or something, I guess. I hopped on a bus downtown so that I could go to this one noodle place I knew of where I could get a bowl the size of my fucking head. That way, if I didn't finish it (and I wasn't sure I wouldn't), I'd already have lunch for the following day, leaving me with more time to catch up on all the work I hadn't done while hungover.

Also, while I was out, I'd probably go do some dancing. Maybe just have a drink or two to prove to my muzzle and my stomach that it wasn't going to kill me, and I dunno, try to flirt heavily without actually hooking up because I was honestly probably too tired to be a good lay anyway.

That was the plan. I was about half a block from the noodle place when I got a text message from Gareth.

"So do you have time to maybe get together this weekend or should I just look forward to more inappropriate photos?"

I came to a stop in the middle of the sidewalk, causing the squirrel behind me to bump into me. I murmured an apology and avoided her dirty look as my thumb slid up the screen of my phone, and then I ducked into the shadow of the closest building so that I could both look in more detail and keep my screen out of public view.

Well, I'd brought Teddy back to my place, all right. I could recognize my living room rug in the background of the crudely taken pictures of my face pressed against the wolf's big gut, of my face wrapped around the wolf's big dick, and other, more blurry shots of my face that I had to have taken accidentally. All told there were around half a dozen I'd sent to Gareth, and what I was seeing had me pretty mortified.

The pictures themselves were one thing (both the fact that I'd sent them to Gareth, along with my professional pride that I'd taken such shitty photos even with a simple phone camera while drunk). The outgoing text messages that accompanied them, however, were even worse. Some of my gems included:

"see I told you ic ould pull this off"

"if you had a belly like this id suckyou off more often insteade of just mypaws"

"haha ithink hes getting pissed off ohwell"

The very last picture in the set was the kicker, though. It was much more in focus than any of the others I'd sent, just a framed shot of my head resting on one of my couch pillows, accompanied by the message, "I miss you why aren't you here?"

My overwhelming desire to eat noodles was overtaken by my immediate desire to call Gareth and talk things out. I paced in the alcove of the building for close to a minute, debating whether or not calling him was actually a good idea or just my knee-jerk reaction, then spent another minute trying to figure out what the fuck I was even going to say to explain myself. My skull throbbed for reasons having nothing to do with my earlier hangover, and I gripped my phone harder in order to fight off the urge to start pulling out tufts of my own fur.

Finally I called him, continuing to pace on the sidewalk, probably looking like a crazy person. On the third ring, I started to mentally edit what I wanted to say on his voicemail, but on the fourth ring he actually picked up. "Hey," was all he said at first.

It was so clipped and dispassionate that I came this close to just hanging up. But I gritted my teeth, kept myself from growling into the receiver, and replied with a short "Hey" of my own. So much for all my rehearsing.

"You know, if you're busy, you don't need to call up on my account," Gareth said. "I figured you'd probably be out somewhere by now."

If I'd been in a club or at a bar, he'd be able to hear it through the phone, but as much as I wanted to snap at him for being a bitch and trying to bait me, I instead just squeezed my fingers into a fist and forced the uncharitable thoughts away. "I was actually just out grabbing some dinner," I said. "Did you want me to pick you something up?"

"I already ate," he said, and given the time, I didn't think he was lying about that.

I paused to see if he was going to at least thank me for the offer. When he didn't have anything to add, I instead asked, "Well did you want to swing by tonight? Maybe we can talk about stuff."

There was just enough of a pause that I could tell he was considering it, but he was quick enough with his, "I've got another paper," that I couldn't reasonably call him on it without being a dick about it.

"Do you have a few minutes now, then? Just to talk?"

"I guess. What do you want to talk about."

Fucking Gareth. "I mean, you texted me asking if I have time to see you this weekend, so I'm telling you that, yes, I have time to see you."

"Yeah, maybe," the coyote said. "I mean, I guess I'll see how this paper goes, you know?"

"Then let me know," I replied. "Otherwise, I'm just going to be working on photography stuff."

Gareth sighed on the other end. "Well, good to know I'm a go-to choice to save you from monotony."

"That's not what I meant, and you know it." I was close to snapping and I didn't care. "Look, if this is about last night, I don't know what the big deal is."

"No, I guess you don't." He sighed again, and I could practically see him on the other end, rubbing his temples with his fingers on one paw. "Look, I really am busy tonight and I don't want to get into this on the phone."

I stared down the street, into the distance. The noodle place wasn't closing anytime soon. "Do you want to talk this weekend, then?" I asked. "We can meet for lunch or dinner and then, I dunno, go for a walk or something?"

"That's not too romantic for you?"

For just a couple of seconds, I imagined how satisfying it would be to hurl my phone at the sidewalk as hard as I could. I savored the image, let the moment pass, then said (with as much irritation removed from my voice as I could possibly manage), "Gareth, look, do you want to get together and talk things out this weekend or not?"

Gareth was quiet for a bit, but that was better than sighing melodramatically. "Yeah, I can see you this weekend," he said, some conciliation having slipped into his voice. "Anyway, have a good dinner tonight, okay, Rey?"

"Thanks. And good luck with your paper." I actually felt a little lightheaded as I hung up the phone. Having gone from feeling like an idiot to being confused to wanting to strangle Gareth to just wanting to get food again all in the span of a minute or so had taken its toll on my state of mind.

I began my walk back toward the noodle place. All the while, I was trying to figure out whether going out for drinks after was the best or worst idea ever.

I knew as soon as I pushed the door open and the scent of liquor hit my nose than swinging by Sparkles had not, in fact, been a good idea. The belly full of noodles would be perfect ballast for simple drink or two, but I wasn't sure I even felt like tasting any alcohol.

On the way over, I'd rationalized the trip as my needing to sit and talk with Sammi for a bit. Now that I was here, though, I wasn't sure what I'd even talk to him about. That I was having issues with a guy I was half-dating but that the two of us had already made plans to try to talk our way through it? What the fuck was that going to accomplish?

From the far end of the bar, I heard a quick, sharp whistle, then recognized the soft chuckle that followed as Dane's. "Well hey there, beautiful," he crooned, leaning back atop his stool so that I could see him now, the multicolored lights glinting off of his black fur. "Come back for another helping of fox, have you?"

"Yeah, you wish," I shot back with a bitchy yet good-natured grin as I sat myself down several seats away from him. "I'm just here to down a few shots so I can forget." Even the idea of doing shots right now made me queasy, but I hid it well.

Sammi nodded in acknowledgment as he finished up pouring a beer from one of the taps. Dane leaned back into my line of sight with a smarmy grin splayed all across his goth-fox face. "Yeah, I'll bet. Probably still sore from last time, huh?"

I reached back and rubbed my ass a few times before giving it a gentle swat. "Dane, I am amazed I can even sit down right now."

Before Dane could counter-riposte, Sammi waddled up to me and leaned in close, his head blocking the fox's view of me. "What can I get for you, beautiful?"

I don't know if he'd heard Dane call me that mere moments before or not. It wasn't like Sammi to mess with me--well, not like that, at any rate--so I was willing to chalk it up to coincidence. "Whatever that butterscotch thing you made for me last time I was here, I guess."

As Sammi slipped away to work on fixing my drink, in slunk Dane, sliding on the stool next to me, his toes brushing one of my ankles as he set his own drink down and got comfortable. "So, what does bring you back around to our lovely Sparkles tonight, Mr. Saticoy?" he asked, his muzzle tipped ever so slightly forward.

I sighed and tried not to look him too directly in the eye. "Honestly, I'm just here for a drink," I said. "Then I need to go home and get ready for a long night of working."

Dane picked his drink back up and took a teensy sip. "That's a shame," he said. "Still, if you're not here for sex, does that mean--"

"Not joining your goddamn LARP, Dane."

The fox's snout broke into another grin. "Had to ask. You'll turn around someday." Then he reached down and patted me on the butt. "Not counting in the bedroom, I mean."

My tail flicked with agitation that I was unable to disguise. Sammi was taking his sweet-ass time with my drink. "Dane, seriously, I'm not in the mood to fuck around tonight. Or to fuck tonight. Or whatever. I just want a drink and then I want to go home."

Pulling his paw back, Dane took a longer sip of his drink. "Good god, Reylin. You're hot and all, but there are other guys here at the bar that I can get to suck my dick who won't fucking bitch and moan and mope about their goddamn baggage the whole time."

Maybe I could bum a cigarette off someone if Sammi kept taking forever with my fucking drink. That, or a joint or something. "So then what the fuck are you still bothering me for? Go hit up one of them."

Dane swirled his drink in his paw, the half-melted ice clinking around inside the glass, then stood up from his seat. "Don't worry. I'm going to."

He started to stomp off. Well, not stomp--a fox with his girlish build can't really stomp, anyway. "Dane, hold on," I called out, and that got him to stop, at least for a few moments. "This hounding me you keep doing. It can't just be about your vampire game. Seriously, what's your deal?"

"You know, if you're going to be all pissy and whiny about it either way, I'm not sure what difference it makes." He swallowed down the rest of his drink and put his empty glass down on the bar. I thought he was about to go back to storming off, but he stood where he was, and stared back at me instead. "Whatever happened to the sex contest you and that coyote were having? Is that still going on?" He cleared his throat, then added, "I mean, just 'cause I'm curious."

I propped my elbows atop the bar and pressed my eyes sockets against my palms. "I honestly have no fucking idea anymore."

Somewhere over the course of the next minute, Dane finished disappearing into the crowd, and Sammi left my drink in front of me. I think he said something about it being on the house. My eyes ached as the sparkly lights poured back into them. I took a testing sip of my not-martini and almost choked on it. Too sugary, too much alcohol.

Sammi turned his head at the sound I made, then frowned. "Are you all right, hon?" he asked.

Why had Dane kept trying to press things despite my being a total bitch?

Why was Gareth still willing to give me the time of day after I'd clearly done something worse than just piss him off?

"Yeah. Maybe. I mean, yeah." God, why didn't I just stop talking? "It's all right."

The rabbit reached across the bar and took one of my paws in both of his. "You sure? Is there anything I can do for you?"

Any number of possibilities came into mind, but all I mustered was a derisive chuckle directed at myself. "Take my money so I don't feel bad?" I offered.

"Well, I hope you get past whatever's bothering you," Sammi said. "You're a lot cuter when you're smiling."

He gently reeled me in by the arm and leaned in closer to me, angling for a kiss. In the split-second I had to react, I managed to turn my muzzle slightly aside so that my lips pressed instead against his cheek. "Thanks," I said, forcing a smile to my face as I leaned back so that I had room to fish my wallet out of my pocket.

I dropped a few bills on the bar as I got to my feet. I'm sure Sammi would've let me leave without paying for my barely touched drink, but hey, it wasn't like I was saving up to go on vacation anytime soon anyway.

I also couldn't realistically afford to take Gareth out to a nice dinner, but I could at least afford a lunch at a sit-down chain restaurant and a ninety-minute time window to make peace. At this point, I wasn't banking on him sticking around for long afterward, but I was hoping I could at least keep him from deleting my contact info from his phone (and then I'm sure I'd never learn the password to unlock the damn thing).

Gareth's not a big eater, but he is a quick eater. He regarded me carefully between his sharp, clipped swallows while I told him about the photo projects I had coming up. Mostly it was to buy time with small talk while the coyote ate and got to decide what, exactly, he wanted to say to me. I nervously poked my food with my fork and took bites only when the coyote took a moment here and there to chime in.

It wasn't the best lunch date I'd ever been on, that's for sure. But he hadn't thrown a drink in my face, either. Not yet.

Soon enough, I was out of things to say about my freelance jobs, and Gareth was out of food to eat, but he still wasn't volunteering much in the way of his half of the conversation. I tried to get some more buffer in, just in case, by stuffing my own muzzle full of larger bites, but the silent looks I was getting from across the table were getting less and less approving at a faster and faster rate.

"Okay, look," I finally said. "I'm sorry, all right. I just--"

"Well, see? There's a start." Gareth didn't quite smile, but his expression turned a tad less sour.

"I... What's a start?"

"The 'I'm sorry.' That's a good start. You should be sorry."

I set my fork down. "I said I was sorry on the phone already," I pointed out.

"No, you didn't." Closer to a smile now. "Trust me. It was the one thing I was waiting to hear, and I was beginning to wonder if you were ever going to get to it."

My fingers brushed along the edge of the polished wood table as I stared down at it. "How long were you going to give me before you gave up waiting for it?" I asked.

"Probably not too much longer," Gareth said. "But I guess if I didn't believe you'd get there, I wouldn't have actually shown up today."

I nodded like I understood where he was coming from, but I wasn't completely sure I did. "Well, I am sorry. If I'd known that pictures, uh, bothered you, I'd never have--"

"It's not about the pictures, Rey. Well, okay, it kind of is, but it's more about the context of them."

I checked to make sure our waiter wasn't nearby. "What, you mean me fooling around with some random wolf?" Despite the minimal risk of being overheard, I still chose my words carefully, because in restaurants like this, you sometimes never know.

Gareth shook his head, and then he squared his gaze at me. "Can you tell me the names of any of the people I've slept with this summer?"

Fleeting memories of bedroom antics, related to me while also in the bedroom, crossed my mind, along with flashes of cell phone photos of indistinct furry faces. "Uh, well there was that lion from the other day?"

"Okay. What was his name?"

I remembered the lion and the coffee shop backdrop. "Uh, is this a trick question, like where you didn't actually tell me?"

"No," Gareth said. "That would be more like the pictures you sent me the other night."

The texts I'd sent with the pictures came to mind almost verbatim, much more clearly than memories of whoever else the coyote had been fooling around with. "Okay, so I don't keep track of everyone you've been sleeping with. But I mean, is that so bad? That I trust you?"

"It's not about trust. It's about..." Gareth trailed off, then slumped back in his seat and slid down several inches. "Look, you have this obvious pattern of guys you like to fuck around with. Younger, smaller, twinkier guys. Usually canines." He paused, obviously to let me put the pieces of that description together. "And then suddenly you've got the big 'bonus prize' for some other guy that reminds you of an old boyfriend?"

"He doesn't remind me of my old boyfriend," I said. "Seriously, other than the heavy-set thing, they're literally nothing alike."

Gareth had his hands in his lap now. "Yeah, well look at it from my perspective, you know? I mean, it's not like I think you don't like me, but compared to--"

"I do like you."

"Sure, I get that." Gareth had his hands in his lap now. "I've just been trying to figure out what you like about me other than my being really easy, and it's been hard to come up with anything."

Given the huge runaround Gareth had put me through before I finally landed him in bed the first time, I almost laughed in response, because I thought he'd made a joke. His voice and body language told me otherwise, though. "There's a lot I like about you," I said. "And yeah, okay, you being a twinky canine is part of that. And I mean, it's not wrong to like that we have good sex, right?"

The coyote cracked a smile. "I'll give you that," he said. "But no, I mean, like, I know you like the dancing and the clubbing and the hot, frenzied fucking--" He interrupted himself with a quick cough, having started to get louder and more animated in his speech; near as I could tell, though, none of the other restaurant patrons had taken note. "But then there's things like sports and school and my other hobbies."

"What other hobbies?"

"See, exactly!" Gareth was animated, sure, but he didn't seem angry in the way he'd been before. If anything, he was coming across as kind of excited. "Whenever we get together, I feel like we run out of stuff to talk about in between going over the lists of people we've had sex with and then having sex with each other."

When was the last full-on, actual conversation I'd had with Gareth that wasn't about sex or arguing? Maybe before his summer classes had started up. Obviously it's not like we hadn't talked about anything, but the coyote had a point. "Tell you what, then," I said. "So long as it doesn't involve you dragging me out to some bar where I can only drink beer and I have to watch some sport I don't understand, once your schedule clears up, you and I can do whatever together."

Only slightly slouched still, Gareth lifted his head a little higher. "I suppose maybe it's too much to ask that you might already have a good idea based on something you know about my interests."

I scratched my chin. "Are you into roleplaying stuff? I know someone who's looking for a player in a LARP."

"Come on, I'm being serious."

"So am I. And for what it's worth, I think you'd make a cute vampire."

A naughty gleam caught in the coyote's eye. "You know, if you just want me to bite you harder, we can skip the nerd stuff in between."

"Hey, you were the one who was just saying you want to talk about more than just sex."

"Well, yes, but," Gareth started as he slouched all over again. "It's not like I'm not interested in sex with you."

Any other day, I'd have teased him for caving so easily, for going back on his usual hard-to-get stance with me. But I knew that I was lucky he was even feeling nice toward me. "Come on," I said instead. "If you see our waiter, try to flag him down so that we can pay and get out of here." Then I leaned a little further across the table as one of my feet bumped against his down underneath it. "Then we can take that walk I talked about and maybe I can figure out what some of these hobbies of yours are."

The walk itself was pleasant in a way that you really only ever get on lazy weekend afternoons. And mine was a walk with a cute coyote who wasn't too embarrassed about being affectionate towards me in public, so that was a bonus. I mean, the walk ended back at my apartment, but since the two of us had already made plans to go take a short road trip to some used bookstore once school was done, I didn't feel like a heel inviting Gareth up.

He didn't balk, either, which I took as a sign that I could have simply dragged him into the bedroom and pounded him senseless if I wanted to. And, okay, sure, I did want to, but there were other things that took precedence.

"So," I said as I sat down on the edge of my bed. "I've been thinking. About our little contest."

Gareth eyed the bed, then me, and then his ears flushed. "Near as I can tell we're tied."

"Not yet we're not." I smirked, and the color in the coyote's ears deepened. "But no, near as I can figure it, you're actually ahead right now, with your one to my negative two."

"Why's that?" Gareth asked with a chuckle. "You subtracting points for getting me all pissed off at you?"

"No, I'm subtracting points for Sammi, the bartender," I said as I reached out to caress one of Gareth's hips as I coaxed him closer to me. "Because I totally could have fucked him the other night and I didn't, and if he's worth three points--"

Gareth play-swatted my arm away, then set his paws on my shoulders and shoved my onto my back. "You did not almost fuck the bartender," he insisted.

"Did too almost fuck him," I insisted right back. My fingers were now fast at work at getting the coyote's jeans open, but though he didn't try to stop me, he did squirm playfully for the purpose of making it more difficult for me.

His muzzle dipped in closer to mine. "Oh really?" he asked, his fingers yanking at my own belt, hauling me up an inch or so from the mattress before dropping me right back down. "And why ever did you pass on that?"

"Because," I replied, giving a single, delicate lick to his lips, "I knew this would be the last round of our contest, and I didn't want to embarrass you by winning by four points."

Still leaning over me, Gareth went still and stared down at me. "You don't want to do the contest anymore?"

"Not if it upsets you, no."

He shook his head. "The contest doesn't upset me, Rey," he said. "Shit, I think it's kind of hot, hearing about you doing all this stuff with other guys. And duh, I was participating, too."

Coyote logic has always confounded me. This was no exception. I started to speak, but Gareth then took a paw and gently held my muzzle shut. "Still," he added, "I do think it's sweet that you care enough to not want to upset me."

And that was the thing, really. Trying to figure out Gareth had been driving me crazy. But if was the fact that it did drive me nuts, and that my first instinct wasn't to just tell him to go fuck himself, that told me that, hey, even if I didn't understand him, I cared enough to want to understand.

I never claimed that cacomistle logic was better.

"So I guess I still don't get it," I said. "Why'd you agree to the 'three points' thing if you were--"

Gareth squeezed my muzzle shut again. "Later," he said with a grin. "That's a much longer conversation, and right now, I want to focus on claiming my final championship in this contest of ours."

With that, he released my muzzle from his paw, then leaned down and pressed into a nice, deep kiss with me. And as I lay there on my back, hurrying to get the coyote's pants off while I kissed him back, all I could think of was how there were way worse guys out there in the world to lose a contest like this one to.