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Wolf Play

by H. A. Kirsch

Copyright 2013

May make more sense if you read, "Buck Daly's Sweet Ride".

---

Buck Daly and I weren't friends. We were lovers. We weren't together. We were roommates. I found that strangely comforting to repeat in my head.

His dark gray fur and red highlights gave the impression that he was a crass alpha male wolf. He was fond of fast and powerful cars, cigars, powerful clothing, predatory sex.

But he also gardened, to an almost obsessive degree. He volunteered religiously with local parks projects and environmental conservation efforts. And he liked nature shows.

On the other hand, I was a prissy male cross fox. Well, I still am a prissy cross fox. It's quite hard to stop.

Thanks to Buck, I had become somewhat of a stoner over the six months we had been living together. Not only did he provide easy access to marijuana, fond of it himself, but my previously full social life had suddenly dwindled and closed in. My friends left town (the case with cougar Macy and transsexual partner in crime Shin, both working to open a spa in California) or even died (in the shocking case of Carter the skinny-because-he-was-secretly-a-meth-addict wolf).

Instead of exploring the world of people to find replacements, I careened off in a different direction, exploring inside of myself, and the domestic oddity of our sexual odd coupling. It even led me to question whether I wanted to be the customer service coordinator for a bank that was increasingly looking to plump up the bottom line of its shareholder wallets.

One night, I became particularly baked off my ass and had a momentary thought that I would dress up in something frou-frou to get Buck's attention. I managed a fluffy poet's shirt and a pair of black 'manties' before I decided to get a snack. And of course, the kitchen was very close to the living room, so I ended up on the sofa where Buck was watching yet another exposition on the world around us.

"Don't you think it's odd," and I leaned on the word Odd until it seemed weirdly stretched, like a snobby person from a fantasy film, "that you're a wolf, watching a television show about wolves?"

Buck grunted. He clearly didn't care what I was wearing.

The show's content is somewhat lost in my memory, aside from being about wolves. There was scarcely little narration, and all I can remember is that it seemed to show wolves being wolves in actual nature, instead of in animal sanctuaries.

I remember one long cut involved a dark wolf watching the cameraman. Staring, although staring was a human thing. Animals always stared; it was what happened if they didn't look away. The show left the cut in, despite poor attention spans, and it was unnerving.

"He has your eyes," I said, finally.

Buck was just as stoned as I was, and became even less likely to talk. "I saw a real wolf once. In the wild. I'd been camping," he suddenly started to say, and it was like someone had unplugged a hole. "We cooked some chicken and it didn't really work out right. Like the fire went out and we realized one piece was still raw, so we had to throw it out. We weren't really thinking and just tossed it a little ways away. So I got up in the middle of the night and had to pee really bad. It was really fucking scary, being out in the woods, literally out in the middle of the fucking woods, you know? I was I dunno, ten or eleven. So I was out there peeing since I knew where the fucking chicken was and didn't want to get lost, and then I had to shit. I turned off my flashlight so I wouldn't attract all those stupid bugs, and was trying to drop one while being scared of the real fucking dark."

On the show, the wolf was eating something that looked like a deer. Nearby, a few crows were waiting their turn.

"The moon was out so it was you know, a little light, like I could probably have walked around without the flashlight. And despite barging through the fucking woods and pissing all over a tree and taking a shit while sitting on a root, I didn't scare off this wolf that came around to eat the damn chicken. I dunno, I guess he was a hungry wolf. Like if I was out in the wild and someone left some chicken there, I'd go eat it. Wouldn't wanna starve."

It was my turn to be quiet. Buck was actually expressing something. It was enough to make me even forget that I desperately needed a snack.

"Do you go out in the woods and shit like that?"

"Well, you do remember how we first met..." As I spoke, I started to regret how I sounded, a split second too late to stop myself.

"You ever run into some sort of wild animal? You think if you startle them, that they'll run away. But that's only sometimes. I guess I really startled this wolf because he just stayed there, just like that one," and he pointed to the screen. "And stared at me. I could see his eyes reflecting the fucking moonlight, like they were fucking metal in his head. And he stared at me. And he fucking stared Into Me."

"Wow," and I meant it.

"Do you know what that's like? I knew what he was thinking. I KNEW WHAT HE WAS THINKING. I felt it. I was another wolf. And he knew it. We both knew it. We were both wolves. Have you ever looked at a fox?"

"They have cat eyes, and it's sort of bizarre really."

"What'd you feel?"

"Perhaps a little awkward, because he was in a cage. It was a science thing at school, they brought animals to show us."

"I don't feel like that when I look at a wolf. I feel like I do when, I dunno, I look at another person."

Something inside of me cracked open. "You watch all this stuff because you're homesick."

Buck looked uncomfortable in his seat and jostled his only-underwear self around until he was sitting cross-legged. "I don't know."

"If you're homesick, why are you here? Why are you living with me, in a house, why do you drive a car, why do you do any of that stuff?"

"I have two homes."

I cocked my head.

"I'm a First."

We then suffered through a long silence. Maybe ten minutes. At first, I felt a little awkward, because I didn't know how to respond, couldn't tell if Buck was upset or not. Then I forgot about that feeling and simply enjoyed the uncommon peace of being with someone and being quiet.

"You know what that is?" He finally said, and looked at me with a serious, hard look.

"I'm not _stupid_, I went to school. And I'm not one."

"Didn't know until a few years ago. My parents tried to hide it. I guess that was a Southern thing. Privacy and family secrets and bullshit." Buck shifted around on the sofa until he was sitting with his feet on the front edge, then moved around to kneel.

"That's awfully rude. Isn't it a big deal?"

With every passing second, he looked more and more antsy. "Those First Dawn weirdos think so. I fucking hate activists. Do things 'cuz they're the right things to do, not 'cuz you want to influence people. I hate that stuff." He started to paw at his chest. "I'm fucking hungry. Go make me a snack."

I scoffed. "I'm not your servant." I could see him lifting his shoulders to growl. "But _I_ am hungry. That's why I came out here. So fine." I got up and went into the kitchen. Buck followed me almost literally on my heels.

Some people get paranoid on pot. I never did - it was purely hedonistic, although I could see how the heart-pounding could lead someone to think that something was wrong, and then fall into the spirals of intoxication concocting an explanation for the fear. But the ideas! Buck's literal stalking would have normally scared me, but it was sexually thrilling and he was quite plainly drooling. In the wild, that would have been bad for a small bunny rabbit, or perhaps a fox that got in between said dead rabbit and the wolf, but civilization had such wonderful things as refrigerators and packaged food.

And I had gotten a glorious, overly large portion of fajitas for take-out earlier. "If you keep clinging onto me, I won't be able to make you anything."

"Rrrrrh, you'll feed me. I know it. I fucking scare you."

"Yes, you do. Like the other night, when you so casually fucked me without wrapping it up. That was very scary. What if I get a disease? Then it's your fault." I kept on lilting away, despite the fact that it was in fact scary, I had no idea if I could really trust Buck, and he had very pointedly not taken the hint.

"You could have asked. Food. Now." More and more growl.

"Sit." If he was going to bareback me like one of those game players, I was going to fuck with him.

With a loud gruff, he sat back onto a stepstool.

"You know, Buck, you could act more like a wolf sometimes. Commands are for dogs." I rummaged in the fridge. Oh, where were the fajitas? Were they _here_? Were they _there_? Maybe I had to take the milk out first. That was quite refreshing - I had some, and left a smear of it on my mouth, then wiped it off. "Dogs are just wolves that didn't grow up."

When he saw me give myself a 'milk mustache', he whined.

"And since I'm a cross fox, which is a garden-variety garden-infiltrating hen-stealing egg-on-face wild animal, I don't have to worry about that problem. Unless I'm in Russia, I suppose." There was the meat! I pulled the carton out and Buck immediately leaned forward. "Are you out of your mind?"

"Wolves on TV," he growled, and that was the only thing he said for the next few minutes. That was a rather odd explanation.

I opened the styrofoam and picked up a piece of steak with two fingers. By this point, the marinated, medium-rare meat had that odd dried reddish look, which could almost be unappetizing. If one weren't hungry, carnivorous, and stoned out of their fur. "You should try this place sometime. It's really fucking awesome," I said, and would like to think I sounded totally snarky, but I'm sure I really just sounded desperate and stupid. Then I carefully ate the meat from between my fingers. "Mmm."

Buck grabbed the seat between his legs and leaned forward.

"No, sit. If I'm going to make you a snack, you're going to behave."

Thankfully, Buck's tendency to avoid using actual words left him grunting at me instead of insulting me back. I could only imagine what he'd say. Actually, I did imagine. I was a filthy, disgusting, smelly fox bitch who fucks himself stupid with anything that'll fit up his ass.

I picked up another piece of the steak and stepped in front of Buck. I held it up and brought my hand over in front of his face. He immediately sniffed forward and I held it up and away. "Now be good. No nipping at my fingers. I enjoy having fingers. They make it very easy to masturbate." This was too fun. It was a perfect way to forget about all that bareback fucking nonsense.

I lowered the meat again, and Buck snapped at it. I dropped it to the floor, and not just because I was feeling cocky. It was quite a reflex. The meat strip landed with a wet splat, and Buck let out a whine-growl and huffed so hard that I could see his torso compress and puff back out.

I actually started to bend down to pick it up, but Buck slid off the stool and slapped onto all fours, ducked his head down, and licked the meat up off the floor. He chewed and growled, let it drop back onto the floor, picked it back up again, chewed again, swallowed it, and then _licked the floor_.

"That's a good wolfy," I said, but mid-sentence I felt wryness give way to slight alarm and turned away. Unlike Buck, I really didn't want meat. I wanted crunchy snacks, which meant PowerCrunch crisp nuggets so I wouldn't get fat or get my fur all out of sorts. They were in the pantry, so of course I could turn away from Buck and go rummaging in the pantry and-

Rustle. Splat-slap. I snapped around and there was Buck, having crushed the styrofoam container in his jaws and yanked it off the counter, only to drop it on the floor over in the corner.

"I don't mean to sound rude, but maybe you're wrong about that out of mind thing?" I said, clutching the PowerCrunch box. "Granted I started dangling meat in front of your face, but I was thinking, you know, of something kind of Nine and a Half Weeks, all that sitting in front of the fridge and eating olives out of your navel, you know, that sort of messy sex stuff?"

By the time I finished expressing my concern, Buck had completely demolished the leftovers, complete with a peaceful cleaning lick to the floor afterwards. He stood up and approached. "I was fucking hungry."

"Yes, I can see that, but you didn't have to splatter it all over the floor. Although you did lick it up, that's so naughty."

"You're a prattling faggot. Gimme that." He snatched the snack box out of my hand and tossed it aside on the counter, then backed me up against the sink and kissed me. At first I thought he was going to eat my muzzle off, jaws opening and gnawing at my lips and chin, then licking and slurping all over my face. He stank of cigar smoke, grassy drug, and that almost rancid fatty meat smell from the cold leftovers.

I pushed and slapped at him, but ended up holding onto his arms, then embracing him. He was hard as a rock and bent on thrusting me against the edge of the counter. "Mmmf, stop, that hurts my back," I whined.

"You fucking complain about everything!" he growled, and tongued into my mouth. After a few more licks, he backed off. Now that his greasy muzzle wasn't jammed in my whiskers, I could smell that alarming fuck-musk wafting up from his groin. "I bet you're gonna complain about something right now."

"You, as usual, stink."

Gruff, snort, and he let me go like I was a small dead animal he was bored of chewing to bits. "You got a mess all over your face. Go take a shower or something."

Hmf, I snorted right back, and stalked off, without having any sort of a snack. Fine. I'll go pretend to shower but actually call up Macy, surely interrupting the cat's workday out in sunny California. I went into my bedroom, too stoned to remember to close the door all the way, and got out my phone. Speakerphone time! I wanted to look at the screen. It had a pretty screensaver if I let it sit.

"Maaaaacy, are you busy? Are you cutting someone's hair right now? If so, you're a naughty little kitten for answering your Phone."

"No, it's Saturday, I have the day off, and you are completely off your shit, aren't you?"

"I can't even tell you what I've been doing because I'll laugh so hard. So, what I've been doing, is, well, I got Buck to eat some fajita steak off the kitchen floor. Like a dog! Actually, I didn't really have to get him to do it, he did it on his own!"

"That's disgusting. Haven't you heard of the five second rule? If someone eats something that was on the floor for more than five seconds, puke time!"

I listened for the sound of the shower, to see if Buck was cleaning himself off. Nothing. Nothing except maybe a thump or two from the other side of the house. "We were having a deep discussion about, oh, what's that called, Firsts. IPC-1, all that stuff. Apparently he's one of them."

"Are you SERIOUS? They kill people!"

"Everyone kills people, Macy. Breathing kills people."

"Firsts are totally badass! That like, totally explains why he's so disaffected and macho and drives a fucking Camaro."

Squeak. But it wasn't a leather squeak. "Macy, he's probably outside my door listening."

"Hellooooooo Buck! Do you recognize my voice?"

Squeak thump thump squeak. Okay seriously what - and someone picked me up from behind, right off the floor. I fox-screamed.

"Shut the fuck up, you make the most god fucking awful noises sometimes," he grunted. "That sounds like my fucking hair dresser. C'mon, we're gonna have some fun."

It was obviously Buck - who else would sneak into my bedroom and grab me up like a child, but Buck? I looked down, and the hands that were holding me were covered in thick black rubber, like a hazmat suit or something from a science fiction horror movie. "Buck what the fuck are you doing!? Let me go! Buck! BUUUCKKK!! Help, Macy, he's kidnapping me! He's going to do awful things to me! If you never see me again, I'll probably have gone out with an orgasm!"

That was just to make sure Macy didn't actually worry about me. I was going to worry about me, because Buck was wearing an insane outfit. On his arms, thick and loose black rubber gloves that reached all the way up to his shoulders, ready to plunge into all manner of disgusting fluids or holes. On his legs, black rubber hip waders that tickled his balls. While he wasn't really hard, his big red and black dick wobbled around peeking out of its fleshy tube. I could see it in the hallway mirror as he started walking.

"Oh my god, why are you wearing fireman's boots?" I incorrectly groused as I clung onto him. His face still smelled like meat. "Are you going to take me out into the mud again? I bet once you get mud in your foreskin, you'll be totally sorry!" The pot made me a bit oblivious - one minute, we were in my bedroom; the next, in his attached bath.

"It dried up. They're fishing boots. What the fuck's with this outfit you have on? Take it off. I either wanna see you naked or wearing some crazy-ass full getup, not a pair of panties and a vampire novel shirt." He set me down in the bathtub. I took off the shirt, then squirmed out of the 'panties', which were really just tastefully skimpy male briefs. He hadn't seen my real panties yet.

"So what're you going to do to me? Besides embarrass me in front of my friends. I'm sure Macy's gonna worry himself sick over me."

"Was that really Macy? That was the guy who used to do my fucking highlights. He left the salon or something. I dunno, kinda liked his airhead kitty-cat thing. I'm gonna piss all over you."

"Hah," I sputtered, then looked around. Bathtub. "Oh you're serious! What a wolf you are."

"I'm gonna piss all over you and you're gonna roll around in it. And then we're gonna take fucking turns, 'cuz that's nice and polite." As he said that, his cock pushed that extra inch or so out of its foreskin like a drowning worm after a rainstorm. I really couldn't get over that tattoo. It was some tribal quasi-dragon thing that curled around the head and pointed right up at his pisshole underneath. I could only imagine how much it had hurt.

"Of course! That explains the rubber gear. At least you don't want to play butcher. Or fist me, although I..." My prattling didn't seem to work. He just glared. "You really are serious? What if I don't like watersports?'

He leaned down over the edge of the tub, then snapped the drain shut. He stood back up and throttled his cock, inhaled and filled his beefy chest, then held it with a frown. A big slobber of precum drooled out of his cock and hung from the end.

How could I resist? I leaned forward and licked up the boot rubber that covered his thigh, cleaned up the wet splat his precum had made, then kissed his slimy cockhead. Slurp. Lick. Then I pulled back to give him some sultry look - he had told me once that he only wanted me to say something 'flattering', in my words, while fucking - and he let go all over my face. One big, hot squirt, and then his cock bobbed upwards.

"Unh," I hissed, face squished up as hot piss ran down my fur. It smelled terrible, but in the same strangely alluring way that Buck himself smelled terrible.

"Lie the fuck down," he growled, then smacked me in the chest. I didn't see it coming and it was really a small-looking tap, but I went right back over and scrabbled about, barely avoiding a head-smash against the back of the tub. He stomped one of those huge rubber boots into the tub next to my leg and splatted a hand against the tile wall above my head.

The glove squeaked downwards a few inches, and I cringed into the corner, expecting hundreds of pounds of wolf to collapse in on top of me. Instead, his cock bucked upwards and twitched, abs heaved above it, and then a hot arc of urine gushed out, dark and yellow and reeking as it hit my chest and spattered. In a few seconds, the sound was wet, exactly like the awful four-in-the-morning realization that one was actually pissing on the toilet seat cozy instead of into the bowl.

And the grunts! Buck received his communications degree from the Tim Allen school of primal utterances. I could only imagine that he would grunt at customers while accepting their work orders for garish fiberglas car bits. Pissing on me, he groaned like someone was pulling organs out of his body, face even screwing up a few times like he was actually in serious pain. The stream petered out after dumping a few cups all over my fur; the yellow fluid tucked up under his cock and ran down to his balls, dripped onto my leg, and then burst forth again to hit me on the shoulder. "Unnrh!" Then onto my face. "Nrnrunhm!" Huff! "Roll the fuck over!"

I rolled the fuck over, which hurt. Being pissed on made me so unexpectedly hard that it was like hitting my elbow on a table as my dickhead clubbed the side of the tub. He climbed in with both legs and leaned over closer, then forced the last of his piss out all over my ass crack. I could feel it run around my tailbase, then down over my hole, then down my taint, then off my balls onto the tub.

"Squirm around in it, you little faggot."

I not only squirmed - I licked a few drops of it off the wall of the tub. Unlike my bathroom, he didn't quite clean his that often. So what? He had just Pissed On Me. The only bad part was the closed drain; that puddle was uncomfortably cold already.

"Now I wanna do something fucked up," Buck growled, and sat down on the bathroom floor with a thump.

"More fucked up than pissing on me and making me roll in it?" I said, and peeked up over the edge of the tub to see what he was doing. He was removing one of those massively tall rubber boots. I wasn't quite sure if I liked the look of all that gear. My clothing fetish involved fancy themed outfits, not piggy-play gear.

"That's nothing. Wolves do that kind of shit all the time," he grunted, then finally pulled the boot free. He immediately stuck his head into it and groaned, grunted, and snuffled. He took a particularly big breath and the rubber sucked in on itself before he pulled his head back out. Then he held it open. "If you died, I'd roll around in you."

"WHAT?"

"Piss in there."

"WHAT did you just say? How terribly unarousing of a thing did you Just Fucking Say?"

"Piss in my fucking boot or I'm gonna keep saying weird shit!" He shook the black rubber and the foot swayed back and forth.

No longer aroused, the idea of peeing into someone's boot was ridiculous. But, no longer aroused, it was much easier to actually do it. I stood up in the bath and let 'er rip. A few seconds into the stream, and I felt a little giddy. Maybe this was why people were into pissing on everyone and everything else? And it felt good, as just about anything else seemed physically more stimulating while high. Such a dangerous thing. "Is this what happens when you become a drug addict? One minute, you work for a bank and have fashionable gay friends, and the next you're pissing into some wolf's boot?"

"Gimme," he snarled, and took the rubber back to himself. Then, with just a grunt, he pushed into the bathtub next to me and sat down. I could barely get out of the way before he upended the boot all over his muzzle, pouring yellow fox piss all over his neck, chest. His rubber-gloved hand smeared the scent all over his fur, ending up in a loose handjob.

"I don't know what to say, Buck."

He relaxed and groaned, then let go of his cock. "Kinda know how you feel. What, you're not into this?"

"Are you?" But before he could answer, "It's actually rather hot. Moreso you actually doing it, than that," and I gestured at his soaking, musky head and facefur.

"I think I fucking smoked too much, I feel kinda fucked up. Like I'm gonna open my mouth and words aren't gonna come out anymore." He wiped at his forehead with his gloved hand. "Did you say fisting earlier? I heard you say fisting."

And I got so, so hard again. "Well, those are fisting gloves, you know?"

"These are the kind of gloves you wear when you gotta shove your arm up a cow's asshole," he growled.

"That's disgusting."

"That's _true_. I grew up on a farm. Kinda. My dad was a plant manager at this big factory farm. He made me do one of everything you could do there to see if I could follow on after him."

"That obviously worked out well."

"I don't wanna talk about _that_. But yeah, no thanks. I'd rather shove my arm up a fox's asshole." I winced, and he sat up a little. "Are you fucking into that? Are you shitting me? I could touch the outside of your fucking hips with my fingers," he said, and splayed his hand out. Perhaps.

"I've only done it once. And it was a cheetah," which was only half true. It really was a cheetah, but I'd been fisted more than once. He didn't need to know that. If Buck knew that, who knows when he would decide to try it out.

"Turn around." I balked. "Turn around already! If I'm not gonna cum, you are."

"You can't just do it right here, I need preparation."

"I'm not gonna fist your asshole open right here. Just turn around. Trust me."

Relax, then take my hand. Wow, where did that song lyric come from? It welled up inside of me and I felt a little quivery behind my navel. I turned around and braced myself into the corner of the shower tub stall, then sank down until I had my knee jammed onto the ledge. Buck lurched forward, snorted, then spit on my asshole. Before I could complain further, two of those gloved fingers jammed up inside. "Aaaah! AAH! Buck you asshole! Have you ever fucked a guy before, EVER?"

"Yeah, you," he grunted.

"CLEARLY! Be Gentle."

"I know what I'm fucking doing," he growled, and started to thrust his fingers in and out. It hurt, but less. And a little less. The rubber was very slick already. Of course - rubber 'polishing' usually meant silicone lube. I had watched at least one of every strange amateur porn on the internet. Who hadn't?

Buck did not tenderly fingerbang me. He didn't hammer me like a porno actor. He didn't coldly twist his fingers around like a doctor. I can't really describe what he did differently than I had done to myself or what anyone else's mating prong had done to me before. It was the anal equivalent of one of those deep tissue massages where the therapist all but leaves bruises. Every second of it almost hurt too much.

At first, I just wedged my head into the corner and winced, hissed through my teeth, and steadily drooled. Then I realized that his forceful rocking finger-thrusts were coming every time I unconsciously shifted my body in just a certain way. So I started moving that way more, until he was pressing in hard enough that I had to feel around the tiled wall for a better position.

The wolf could have berated me with all kinds of filthy talk, but occupied with shoving his rubber-gloved fingers up my ass, he fell into his typical grunt-laden silence. I could even really make a noise most of the time, as the severe pressure not only made me feel like I had to piss to the point of dribbling more of it all over, but it made me tingle and quiver out to my clawtips.

It was, for perhaps ten minutes solid, the absolute most amazing feeling I had ever encountered in my life.

"You've been cumming for the last five minutes. What a fucking mess," Buck said, and I started to tense up as he broke my reverie.

"What? That's silly, I'm not done yet!"

He smeared my face with his free hand, and I smelled rubber, piss, and the salty chlorine musk of fox sperm. "Kinda like milking a cow, except I don't have one of those machines. And you fucking stink of piss."

I clenched my teeth together. Tighter, tighter, I couldn't help it! "You're so crude!"

"You're FILTHY! You let me piss all over you! You pissed in a fucking boot for me! I'd have my fucking arm up your ass if you-"

In rushed the real orgasm, not the semen drool from forced muscle contractions from lupine intervention. Out rushed a fox scream, so loud that the room closed in on itself and the volume actually dropped, as if the only thing in existence was my tail-crushed siren wail.

Buck pulled his fingers out and I slid down until I almost smashed my face on the corner of the tub. The thing stopping me: his cum and piss-splattered hand. I twitched and literally convulsed, twitching in the cold puddle of urine, absently smacking the drain lever with my snout and sending it rushing away into the sewer with a gurgle more appropriate for how my asshole felt.

I tried to speak but I blubbered for a few moments, so overstimulated. So, so overstimulated.

Then the aftershocks. One of those internal spasms post-climax, and I felt like I was cumming all over again. I sputtered and chuckled. Then another one. I felt like I had to pee a little more, and I relaxed, and then _another_ lightning bolt.

"Hey, hey, easy," Buck growled into my ear, and held me hard from behind. I was suddenly his wet, musky cuddle pillow, and he was a strong one. "Hey. You alright? You wanna take a shower?"

"Muh," is all I managed to say.

One minute, Buck was holding onto me like he was a scared puppy. The next, his boots and gloves were in a wet pile on the floor and we were bathed in luxurious suds and hot water.

"Let me wash you, that's supposed to be romantic. Or are you not one of those?" I mumbled, as I tried to sponge Buck's fur with a bath fluff.

"I can wash myself." And he scrubbed me rather hard, enough that it made a mess of the fur trap.

"Don't fuss over me. That's how you feel, right? You don't want me to fuss over you. Well don't fuss over me. We should equally not fuss."

"You were crying. You need a good scrub."

"I was what? Are you serious?" I honestly wasn't sure what had really happened for some stretch of time between unloading and being stuffed into the shower.

Rinsed, and done. A spin through the fur dryer, then buck wrapped me in a towel and carted me off again, carrying me like a bride over a threshold. He dumped me in my own bed. "I'm a bad influence." And he turned to leave.

"Oh come on! Buck, if you leave this room, I'm going to follow you and beat you up." He just glowered at me. "Okay, I'll scream. Again."

"Fine," he huffed, and sat down on the edge of the bed so hard that it bounced. "I don't like sleeping with other people. In bed. I'm not cut out for that shit. None of us are. I mean, you know. Like me." He looked like a pet dog begrudgingly sitting as commanded. "And I bite in my sleep. I keep a fucking towel around my pillow 'cuz I chew it to bits."

"Well, comfort me until I fall asleep."

"No. Cuddle me if you want. I already clung onto you earlier." He dropped flat on his back and put his arms up behind his head.

I sniff-huffed and curled up next to him. I had to nuzzle into his armpit. He still smelled like piss. And wolf. I splayed my black hand against his chest and made idle circles. "I bet you think I'm going to tell you I love you and make you all uncomfortable."

Rrrh.

"I have a feeling you don't really wanna have a relationship," I said, and started to feel drowsy. Instead of making figure-eight circles, I just dragged my fingers up and down the center of his chest. Buck groaned and pushed his ribs up, tucked his ass back into the sheets. "I bet you just wanna lie here and cum and go to sleep."

I slid my clawnails down towards his navel and his cock filled up like someone inflating a water balloon. A balloon-dog-animal water balloon. The thought crossed my mind; I was stoned and half-delirious. Excuse me. Back up to his chest, and he murr-growled. Back down, and his leg tucked up, then relaxed with a soft rustle of heel against the sheets.

And then I fell asleep.

---

I woke up with almost a migraine. I wandered into the kitchen and started the coffee pot, only to panic out of my fur when something grunted over on the living room sofa. For a good four seconds, I was convinced someone had broken into the house.

But it was only Buck. "Finally. Thought you'd never fuckin' come out. Been waiting for breakfast."

"You're such an ass," I said, but opened the pantry anyway.

"I'm not the one who flipped out in the middle of the night and attacked me in my sleep. I'd be in my own bed but I could-"

"Excuse me, what did you say?"

"You were so messed up last night. I thought you passed out on me in the bathroom, and then you were sobbing and giggling at the same time, and then you got all cuddly." He rolled up and over the back of the sofa, flipping around to stand up, and his cock made an audible thwap against his thigh as he did it. It was smeared with dried semen. "Fell asleep and I had to finish out here, and you got all weird-ass while you were sleeping."

Buck approached me, and I stared at him. It was almost a predator stalking, and I didn't quite know how to take that. Back in the day, when I was in college and living downtown, I frequented clubs. The crew - the former crew - and I would make sure we knew what to do if someone came after us, for their good, or just for bad. But this wasn't the same thing. Buck was half animal. My animal parts wanted to run away. My human parts wanted a glass of water and something to eat. He came up and slapped my dick as it jammed out into the air. Yes, I was naked.

"What was that for?" I huffed.

He shrugged. "You were sticking out. Look, I gotta get ready for work. Don't screw yourself."

"Excuse me?"

"Are you gonna be fucking indignant about everything I say? Don't hide shit. I know what happened to that other wolf buddy of yours. I know about that hairdresser and the weird girly fox that went off to Cali with him. You gotta get outta the house when you're not working. You gotta be someone."

"Who are you to suddenly tell me what to do like that?" Suddenly, so vulnerable.

"Well I'm the only wolf here, so that automatically makes me the alpha."

I rolled my eyes.

"You got some mail on the table. I'm out." Then he turned and wave-wandered off to his own room.

I had fucked him three times. Well, we had fucked three times. We had sex, of some kind, three times. Three and a half if you count foreplay where I fell asleep, just hours ago. Over six months and three desperate and kind of furtive encounters, despite living in the same house, Buck had very slowly started to open up. I decided to take his words into consideration.

I made an egg sandwich and sat down at the kitchen table. Oh, he was right. Carter was such a shock. I didn't know what to think. I knew him, but I didn't _know_ him that well. None of my friends, or anyone else I ever knew, really knew much about Carter. He was sort of attached to our little group as the not-quite-so-girly holdout. He was always nice, he was always willing to hang out, he was just manly enough to be a contrast without actually being a Man. Contrast that contrast with Buck, who was so manly, he wasn't even a Man anymore, just a wolf.

But Carter had been a meth addict. He'd picked at his food for years because he wasn't hungry. He'd been willing to go all night at clubs and out on the town because he didn't need to sleep. He could afford a brand new car right out of college not because he had a good job, but because he started dealing to be able to afford to do it in the first place. And unlike raw humans, meth addiction doesn't give hybrids those awful sores. Just skinny frames and bad teeth, and Carter's family was British so he said, so we all just laughed together. Then he missed lunch one day. We called him up to go to the club, and go no answer. It took three days and finally some calls to the police to find out what happened. He'd been making some kind of pickup in the warehouse district, in the real rough parts where some buildings had decayed and just stayed like that. He had, apparently, just keeled over from a heart attack and whomever he had been meeting simply left him there to rot.

As I sat at my dining room table, nibbling on my fox food, I really couldn't believe it had happened. It was so stupid that we didn't know. We never tried to really know. Pink elephant in the room, all that. Of course the signs were there, no appetite, gaunt, restless, wide pupils, furtiveness.

Then there was Macy and Shin. They had a happy ending - they moved off to California to open a spa. Apparently it was even working out, which seemed ridiculous to me. Starting a business was terribly hard. I'd learned that in college, and decided I wouldn't try my hand at it until I was older and more settled. They settled up in Berkeley, so perhaps the frou-frou crowd was more amenable to flighty businesses. Most likely, Shin was the brains of the operation. She was the product of a tiger mom, and if she ever adopted kids, would be a tiger mom herself, as much as a fox could be a tiger. Macy was just quite good at cutting hair. Plus, the two had fallen in love without saying so much, which was so quaint.

That was it. Those were my friends, and now they were gone. My car, which was nothing special, had tipped over the edge of being old and would be donated off by the end of the week. My job... was a mess. As customer relations coordinator for a bank, I was having my department slowly taken away to help the bottom line. Why help people who don't like the bank, the theory went. Get rid of them, or placate and push products on them. While I have never been a hippie, let me say, Fuck Capitalism.

I opened up the piece of mail addressed to me. Finally, something that wasn't a bill or junk! It was from the rental management company that actually 'owned' the house. It was bad news.

Buck came back out, dressed in his work uniform for his car-bodywork-fabricating job or whatever he exactly did. As he walked by, I stopped him with my arm. "Buck, they're selling the house."

Grunt.

"Are you going to play dumb? The rental company is going to be selling the house. After my contract is up in a few months, it can't be renewed."

"The fuck. Can they do that?"

I sighed, and despite input of food, felt dizzy. Pounding heart. Just like when Buck bothered me, but this was purely bad. "Yes, they can do that. It's in the contract. Presumably the guy who used to own it wants to get it liquidated for the money. We have some warning, it's another three months. They're even offering a cut rate on other rental properties! Isn't that sweet? Goodbye, you can't live in your house any more, here, have another one that will probably get sold off too!"

Grunt. "That sucks. I gotta go." And that was Buck's reaction.

All of a sudden, the world closed in on me.