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The muscled young lion shifted the pin in the weight training machine to add another five kilos to his lift, then returned to his position in the chair, readying himself. He breathed slowly and fully three times, then pushed his arms smoothly, returning at the same speed instead of letting the weights fall quickly. He felt the burn in his chest and arms, confirming that it was the right sensation, that he was performing exactly as he was supposed to. He wasn't choosy about too many things in his life, but this was one of those things. He was perfectly aware of every part of his body, the muscles that he was working now, the muscles he'd worked before, the position of his thick mane and tail tucked away from the machine's moving parts, the sweat and heat and scent that his body created, the sound of his heart and of the slow, rhythmic whirring and clanking of the equipment in the otherwise deserted varsity workout room. It wasn't until he had finished his set, lowering the weights gently back to their resting place that he was aware of being watched.

His breathing quick from the exertion, the lion looked his visitor in the eye, doing his best to reveal nothing. "Parker."

"Harris." The meaty, well-built white-furred Akita pushed away from the wall against which he was leaning, his own face set neutrally. The lion was junior varsity, his well-earned position as quarterback being about the only reason that he could bend the rules enough to have his workout on his own in what was usually the venue only of the college's varsity squad. It wasn't any big taboo, but Parker had enough rank as a varsity fullback to bump Harris from the machines if the canine wanted to use them.

The lion stood, adjusting his shorts slightly, his chiseled bare chest rising and falling rhythmically. "You want the machine?"

"No." Parker approached slowly, non-threatening in any conventional sense of the word. "I want to talk about what happened yesterday."

"Nothing happened yesterday."

"At the library."

"Wasn't there."

The Akita stopped a few meters from the lion, his forepaws relaxed, his muscular arms to his sides. "You seem to have a lousy memory."

"My memory is good." The lion's expression held to its neutrality. "I remember very well what I'm told."

"Did you kiss him?"

"What did he tell you?"

"Nothing."

"Goes double for me." The lion padded over to the wall and hauled down a workout mat. "Don't read anything into this; I'm only lying down in order to work my abs."

As the junior began his crunches, the senior moved to one of the benches of the nearby weight machine and sat down, his curled tail bobbing with an uncertain twitch that the lion couldn't read. "How long have you known him?"

Grunting, Harris said, "You mean Jerry-Fairy?"

"Not his favorite nickname, he told me. Don't you call him anything else?"

"Nothing I'm gonna tell you."

The Akita nodded. "Fair enough. Do you trust him?"

"More'n I trust you."

"Do I have to drag every word out of you?" Parker growled.

The lion paused in his crunches and looked carefully at the canine. His first instinct was to tell this pup to shove a broom up his tailhole and sweep the floor on the way out. His next thought, however, was of the golden-furred otter who was the subject of this conversation, and he thought better of his anger. "Let me finish this set, and we'll talk."

Parker seemed to have no response to this, so Harris let himself focus on the last few dozen of his crunches, then enjoy the luxury of laying flat on his back and catching his breath. In a fleeting moment that was almost out of reach of his conscious thoughts, he found himself wishing that the well-built, buffed Akita would come lay next to him and kiss him, long and sweetly. The canine's body would be close enough for the feline to catch his scent, and he was somehow sure that it would be particularly dark and musky, the kind of scent an alpha-type would have, commanding, dominating. The lion's tail would twitch and play as the Akita moved his muzzle downward, his forepaws ripping away the only clothing left on him, until his fully aroused cock was pointing stiffly toward that curious and exploring muzzle which finally moved down to engulf him...

Harris blinked. In Jerry's voice, he heard the words Physiology strikes again. He was wound up from his workout, from the inundation of his own musk, from being alone and without release for longer than he was used to. False alarm, or at least one he needn't answer. It wasn't what Parker was here for. For that matter, it wasn't what Harris was here for.

The lion put his forepaws behind his head, bunching some of his luxuriously thick (and, at the moment, sweat-dampened) mane to relax upon. This, perhaps unintentionally, allowed his armpits to express themselves to the already hot, thick air of the workout room. If the Akita noticed, or was affected, he managed to hide it well. "You want to call him, don't you?"

Parker didn't answer.

"You really should."

"Why?"

"He knows the answers to your questions."

"Did he know yours?"

The lion grinned. "He knew questions I didn't even know myself."

"Like, are you gay?"

"Why - you lookin' for a date, puppy?"

The Akita started to rise, his forepaws bunched into fists. The lion sat up quickly, his own paws making a forestalling gesture. "Sorry... uncalled for. Sit down. I'll be serious."

It took Parker a long moment to relax himself, and even when he did, his ears were still splayed in annoyance. Finally sitting, he said, "I'm not gay."

"Neither am I."

"Did you have sex with him?"

"Did you?"

"Why are you--!"

"Because_you_ are!" the lion half-roared, showing his fangs against all proper etiquette for any civilized conversation. "You're playing some kinda 'gotcha' game, and I'm not interested, no matter how much help you need! You want to call him, call. What have you got to lose?"

It took several long seconds for the Akita to answer. "I'm not sure."

After a similar pause, the lion nodded. "I wasn't either. So I guess maybe we're more alike than not. Tell you what. I'll ask you a question that applies to both of us, then I'll answer first, and then you can answer. Let's get the easy one out of the way first: Are you gay? I'm not."

"I'm not either."

"Why did you follow Jerry into the males' room stalls?" The lion paused for only a second, shook his mane and said, "I did because I thought he was specifically leading me on, and I was horny enough not to care that it was a male who wanted to polish my knob."

"I guess..." Parker began, then hesitated. The lion raised an eyebrow, insisting upon an answer. "Something like that. I felt sort of drawn in. Curious, maybe."

Harris was tempted to make the next question, Ever get your knot stuck in a glory hole? In a lot of circumstances in his life, such as hanging out with the fraternity studs or the half brain-dead guys on his team, he'd be enough of a complete shit to do exactly that. After all, it was what he was used to, what he grew up with, that whole proving-your-maleness, tail-swatting, showing-your-balls crap. Then, for the second time that evening, the memory of the svelte golden-furred otter seemed to keep him focused. "He gave you a card, told you to call, and you had no idea if you should. That's what he did for me, and at first I thought it was because he wanted to have more sex with me. He's good; that otter could suck an orange through a garden hose. I thought I could use him as a back-up, if I didn't get any females after a game or something. Cumming is cumming, right?"

The Akita could only nod.

"Physiology. That's what it's all about, he said. If you're at some party, and some guy tells you there's a female and a glory hole in a dark room..."

"Heard that one."

"Not sure if it was entirely like that with me. That's what made me worry." The lion looked around. "They're gonna close this place up soon. I need a shower. We can still talk." Harris laughed at the look on Parker's face. "No, you don't have to take your clothes off! Stand to one side in the door. There's no one else here to hear us."

Rising in a fluid motion that told of years of training his muscles to do his bidding, the junior quarterback took the time to replace the workout mat to its place on the wall, then padded languidly to his locker and shucked off his shorts. He stuffed them into the metal box, took out two bottles of fur treatment, grabbed a folded towel from the community table, and moved toward the showers. He was fully aware of the Akita's eyes on him as he followed the lion. Was the pup checking out his tail, or his glutes? The slim yet beefy shape of him? The soaked yet full mane that would regain its full glory soon enough? Or was he just following him, keeping his thoughts more neutral than Harris was?

Tossing the towel onto a hook in the dry section of the communal shower, the lion shimmered into a space underneath a showerhead and began adjusting the temperature. He wasn't fully conscious of being sensual; it was his nature, and females of many species and breeds tended to find it vaguely hypnotic. It may have been a trait of being feline, or of being specifically a lion (the whole King 'o the Cats thing), or maybe it was just him - he loved his body, took care of it in a nearly obsessive-compulsive way, and enjoyed every move it made. The more he learned about how it reacted, the more he loved it. Even now, standing beneath the steaming needle spray, he reveled in the sting, the heat, the flow of water over his muscled body. He was well aware that he was being watched, equally aware that his cock was swelling, if still limp. He let himself enjoy the sensuality, reminding himself that Parker wasn't here for any mutual undertakings in that arena. He considered, then dismissed, the temptation to ask the Akita to scrub his back.

"I'm going to have to trust you to keep your muzzle shut," the lion said, applying the body wash to his firm torso. "Of course, if you did decide to mouth off... I imagine Jerry's already made his position clear."

"Like smashing a clam on his tummy, I think he said."

"Don't think he couldn't. He's strong." The lion paused, feeling memory flow through him, pleasure and pain and confusion and desire vying for supremacy. His paw resumed soaping himself up. "That first time, when I called him, I met him at his apartment. Like I said, I thought he was looking for more sex. You don't have to ask. Let's say that I wasn't disappointed." He felt his cock twitch involuntarily. Too late to worry if the Akita saw it or not. "Unlike the glory hole situations, I was completely naked, and so was he. He didn't ask anything of me, other than to enjoy myself. I did. Oh, by the gods, I did. He blew me quite expertly, then gave me full-body massage so complete that I dozed off. It was the best sex I'd ever had."

Harris continued soaping himself, careful not to linger around his crotch too much. Good to clean, bad to fondle. Balancing on one hindpaw, he brought his leg straight up, almost tucking it into his chest as he soaped and massaged himself. His body was an artist's model in careful, studied motion. The eroticism was innate; even if he were alone, he would have washed himself like this. Didn't prevent him from realizing how sexy he looked. He changed paws and soaped up his other leg exactly the same way, with the same lingering sensuality. He found himself wondering if the Akita had been aroused by his description. He could be more graphic, no question; he remembered everything about that first encounter, and about every other encounter... but again, that wasn't the point, or at least it wasn't supposed to be.

"You're probably wondering why I still say I'm straight."

"It's not for me to say."

"No, it's not." He looked over at Parker, again leaning against the wall, his forepaws in his pants... and was that a bit of bulge he saw there? "It wasn't for Jerry to say either. He asked me. After I woke up from my doze, he asked how I was feeling." The lion put his muzzle and face into the spray for a moment, shook it off, began rinsing the rest of his sleek body in the stream. "I felt like running out of there screaming, without even putting my clothes back on. Every thought in my head was that I should kill the faggot, burn his house down, and drown myself in bleach to try to get his pawprints off of my body. Every moment of my short, paranoid, redneck life was building up into a fireball screech that would make my brain explode and land me in the loony bin for the rest of my life."

He paused, standing in the steady flow of hot water, his half-lidded eyes staring at nothing that anyone else could see. He saw plenty, and he still didn't know what to make of it. He was afraid to know what to make of it. "Something you'll discover about Jerry is that you can't lie to him. He'll call your shit even before you know it's shit. He won't let you get away with lying to him, or to yourself. It's not right to call him godlike, but damn, he can look right into your head, peel apart the layers, and pluck whatever thought it is that you need to look at. He's not cruel. Seems like it sometimes, but he's not cruel. That's part of what it made it different. Made it real."

"What are you talking about?"

Harris reached for the second bottle, pouring a generous amount of the fluid into one forepaw. "They call this stuff 'mane and tail conditioner,' mostly for equines. Works well for me too." Putting the bottle aside, he rubbed his paws together briefly and began to massage the sweet-smelling fluid into his thick russet mane. "Did you ever notice it about females, that they know exactly where to hit a male?" He smiled ruefully. "I don't mean racking our balls. I mean mentally, emotionally. When they talk about 'female intuition,' it's nothing to do with solving mysteries. It's about peeling back layers, the way that Jerry does. Most females aren't as good at it as he is, and thank the gods for that. They'd destroy us all, if that were true."

"What are you talking about?"

"If I asked you how many females you've known in your life, would you tell me the truth?"

"Counting my mom and sisters?"

The lion, his head covered in scented bubbles, laughed. "They could count, but keep it to the females that are a little more intimate. The dating roster."

Parker paused, considering. His tail twitched, his eyes turned to one side, thinking. "Not too many maybe. A few here in college, before Pris."

"Oh, is that her name?" Harris rinsed his mane thoroughly, again reveling in the heat and sting of the spray. "Good deal then. How about before? Have any 'steadies' in your high school days? Stringers on the football team? Cheerleaders? Females who'd bail you out of getting your term paper done on time, or slip you some answers during a test?"

The Akita shifted from one hindpaw to another, his face reddening under his white fur. "I wasn't exactly that popular in high school."

"You must have had a few females who you were involved with, though? Didn't you notice how they got into your head?" The lion poured a bit more from the bottle and went to work on his thickly-furred tail tip. He turned toward the pup as he did so, realizing that his actions - or perhaps his still languid cock spilling over his full rounded ball sack - made Parker squirm a little more. Despite his better intentions, Harris enjoyed the moment. "They could get you to do just about anything. Females pay more attention than males; they can get into our heads like FBI profilers if they want to."

"That sounds pretty paranoid."

"You saying it isn't true."

Parker paused just a fraction of a second too long. "You're exaggerating."

The feline shrugged. "Maybe. I'm a business major, or at least that's what I'm telling my parents and guidance counselor. There's a truism that, in any business transaction, the winner will be the one who cares the least about the outcome." Harris maneuvered his tail under the water and rinsed out the freshly treated fur on the tip. "Apply that to this dance that straight males play with their female counterparts. Clever females learn early how to manipulate our testosterone-driven brains. They have a prize that we'll do just about anything for, and they know it. We tell them more than we think, even when we don't plan to, and they'll use it against us." He shut off the water and turned to Parker directly. "Think of the most cruel thing that anyone has ever said to you. I'll bet it came from a female."

Smiling, the Akita shook his head. "Nope. My high school coach ragged on me so bad, I went home crying some days. He was a mean bastard."

"I didn't say 'mean.' I said 'cruel.'" The lion padded slowly closer to the pup. "There's a difference. Males can yell, can insult, can even be damned evil in their verbal and psychological attacks. But it takes a female to be cruel."

Harris stood close to Parker, his mane and body dripping from the shower. Even though the smell of the soap was strong on his fur and closest to his nose, the lion could catch whiffs of the Akita's scent. The pup was sweating, nervous, uncertain. Harris had been right - the scent was indeed musky, dark, whispering of pack predation, of being part of the chase even more than the kill, the thrill of domination from a position of power. The feline's eyes were locked on Parker's, so he was reasonably sure that the canine didn't notice the involuntary twitch of his wet, exposed cock. Harris' sweat and arousal had been from the workout; Parker's was from fear, tinged with... was that desire the cat was smelling?

Without shifting his eyes, Harris reached for the towel and began drying himself. Parker broke the gaze (could that have been guilt, shame in his eyes?), moved a few steps out of the shower area. The lion took his time toweling off the majority of the water. "It took me a long time to figure it out. Or more precisely, it took me a long time to find someone who could tell me about it. Tell me why I'd find a female, take her, leave her, find another. I've almost never had the same female twice, and certainly never three times. Gives them too much time to find my vulnerabilities. My bare spots."

"You get them in the sack that fast? No conversation?"

"No serious conversation." He flowed toward the wall dryer vents, his body seeming to be only rippling muscles on a slender frame, an organic machine designed to precise specifications of physicality and sensuality. He activated the blowers, raking his long fingers through his mane to help the air dry it more quickly. "Easy to make small talk, as long as you don't give anything important away. Make it past the first hugs, a stolen snog or two, and the physicality takes over. Many females aren't actively looking for a way to control a male; too much effort, if the goal is only a quick shag. Females not interested in sex seem content to let the others get closer than they do, and then it's only a matter of time before the opportunity presents itself... and the female presents herself. The rest is physiology."

"And cumming."

"Yep. As much as can be had." Harris faced the blowers, letting his mane blow out behind him, running his fingers through the thick ruff across his chest. He luxuriated in the dry warmth as much as he had the hot water. He placed his legs slightly apart, presumably to help dry the spaces between his hard thighs and his groin, but also because the sensation was like warm breath on his not entirely flaccid penis. The joke about "blow job" was too obvious, and he couldn't get off on the hot air alone, but it felt good, and that was, of course, the point of it all.

He glanced over at Parker, who was at least aware of the show if not moving to become part of it. He realized all at once that he was being more childish than not, and he shut off the blowers. Tossing the towel into the large clothes hamper, he passed the Akita digitigrade, his tail flicking behind him in an odd combination of annoyance and seduction. Part of him wanted to take the chance, just to pounce the pup and let himself experience whatever happened. The problem was, he wasn't gay. No other male had touched him except Jerry, and truth to tell, he didn't want any other male, not even the hard-muscled Akita whose eyes had tracked every move he'd made since the pup had come into the workout room. Not even the slender freshman tiger who sometimes helped him with his English papers, and whose "my hero" eyes told everyone more than the poor kit intended. Harris didn't want him sexually. He only wanted not to be cruel to him, to protect him from being hurt... and he feared that he might not be able to keep that promise.

The Akita followed him over to the lockers. "What about Jerry?"

"What about him?"

"Was he a one-off, like all those females of yours?"

Harris paused, his jersey shirt in paw, just ready to put it on. Truth or fiction? He thought of Jerry again. "No. He wasn't a one-off."

"More than once?"

"Yes."

"How many times?"

"Why do you need to know?"

"Because you're not gay, right?"

The lion pulled the jersey on, arranged his mane and turned toward the Akita. "No. I'm not. Neither are you. And Jerry will tell you that too."

"Then how many times have you had sex with Jerry?"

Harris pulled on his plush fleece pants, fastened the rope-like belt, let the jersey cover the waist. Could he answer? Should he answer? What's the truest thing he could say? Does this cocky bastard deserve the truth? Was he even sure what the truth was?

"Well?"

He willed himself to sheathe his claws, calm his temper. It wasn't Parker's fault; he still hadn't talked to Jerry yet, hadn't had the full understanding of what was going on. It was too complex to be talked about like this in simplistic terms like "how many times," as if statistics could describe it all. He couldn't explain everything to the pup, there just wasn't time, or words, or patience...

"How many times?"

Harris slammed his locker shut with a huge crash. In the remaining silence, he said, "Not enough."

Itching for a fight, he literally shoved Parker out of the way and stormed out of the gym. He was almost disappointed when the damned dog didn't bother to follow him. Like a freight train off the rails, he pushed out of the building and into the cool of the autumn night, thinking that raising a few beers with some of his frat buds would be just fucking perfect. Get loud, get rowdy, maybe find that fight after all, because his fists and his claws could use a workout just as much as the rest of him. The Quad was nearly deserted, but all he needed was one, just one male to look at him cross-eyed, just one, he could make a Happy Meal out of one guy just fine, hold the fries and spread the ketchup...

He stopped at the edge of the Quad, finding himself flopping down onto a bench near one of the brightly burning lamps in the area. In the mercurochrome glow of the sodium vapor bulb, his tawny fur took on a sickly pinkish hue, as if he'd been completely dipped in a vat of diluted iodine. Somewhere inside him, the harshly glowing coals of rage shattered into fine dust, leaving behind a pain so deep that the lion coughed out a single harsh cry of desperate agony before he caught himself and, fist-clenched forepaw to his muzzle, choked back the rest of the howling pain. He could not stop the flood of tears that came next, and he lowered his face to prevent anyone from seeing them. The pavement between his hindpaws was dotted with memories and questions, ecstasies and agonies, marking, spreading, to vanish long before the telling light of dawn.

After many long minutes, he sat up slowly, his face relaxed, his muzzle damp. His forepaw moved of its own accord, reaching for his cell phone and activating a number on his speed dial. When the receiver answered, Harris' voice came out small, hurting, needful.

"Jerry, can I come see you?"