{"sf1_id":778244,"sf2_id":null,"title":"The Dogs: Litany - Episode II","author":"Aux Chiens","words":3048,"posted_at":"2014-11-05T02:17:00.000Z","tags":["Character Development","Gay Relationships","Hybrid","M/M","Male","Male Pregnancy","Plot Development","Story Progression","Transformation"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/778244-the-dogs-litany-episode-ii","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/view/778244","image_url":"https://www.sofurryfiles.com/std/thumb?page=778244\u0026ext=.jpg","description":"","content":"            It was a five minute drive, probably\nless, and at that hour of the evening, barely six and everything closing for\nthe day, it should have taken them\nless, but no - Bligh's Ranger was out of gas, he was going to fill up Monday,\nbut tonight was Sunday, and he now he had to stop because it was almost out. \n            Why hadn't they just taken\nAndrew's car? Jesus, Bligh really never did plan anything...\n            Such a rush to leave the house\nand now there they were, sitting on their ass at the Circle K - Andrew didn't\nhave to look to know what Bligh was doing, he was leaning with his back against\nthe truck, arms folded, one shin draped over the other, smoking, even though\nthe sign very clearly told him not\nto.\n            Around them, ambient, the\nfaint buzz of the canopy lights above them, the vague chatter of people coming\nin and out of the c-store, the dull roar of the road with the lazy Sunday\ntraffic.\n            There was a strange stillness\naround gas stations - they were permanent features of the cityscape, and yet\nthey were designed exclusively for transience, cars and people in and gone,\nanonymous, faceless, back out into the drunken lights of the outer Tampa\nsuburbs that clung to the inky shallows of the Bay...just a breathless pause in\nthe nightdrive, a time for reflection, wanted or unwanted. \n            And reflect - Andrew did.\n            The only reason they were out\nin the first place was because Bligh had insisted on it, had made that lethal\ninference that Cody working after hours for inventory would endanger his pups, his pups, his - puppies, not even human children, no, actual puppies, they would nurse at Cody's\nteats and play-fight with each other and bark and yowl and whimper, there was a\nnagging sense that Andrew needed to buy bottles from the pet store and buy raw\nmeat for them, as though it was completely normal and everyday that his\nboyfriend, now husband, would be whelping puppies.\n            They'd look, he figured - he\nassumed, something he despised doing - like Duke, probably exactly like Duke,\nwho was the whole catalyst of this giant mess, if Bligh and he hadn't--\n            He forced the thought from his\nmind. It didn't even bother him, and he was shocked as Hell it didn't bother him, but yes - Bligh was a\nzoophile. He was sexually attracted to dogs, to dog genitalia - but what of it?\nHe was living in some tiny, forgotten corner of eastern West Virginia, that\nsort of thing probably happened all the time, and there was some footnote in\nsome course he took at USF a year or so ago that basically said it did happen all the time...\n            ...to someone else. But Andrew\nhad found these past weeks - it was happening to him, too. \n            The orgiastic honeymoon period\nhe had enthusiastically shared with Bligh and Cody - exploring each others'\nbodies, seeing how their tails and ears and penises worked, the thrill of the\nfur and the fangs being so new, and being theirs,\nsecret, together, and with the studious zeal of the scientist he had always\ndreamed of being - had passed, and what had started out as sexual fun had\ndevolved, like Bligh hinted that it would, into addiction.\n            He found himself, abashed and\nsometimes afraid, craving the strange alien substance that spurted from the\nstrange alien phallus that Bligh now had, not the one he was born with, but the\none that Duke, with his DNA-altering semen - worthy of a funded graduate study,\nas if he'd ever bring that before a\nBiology department - had given him. And it was wrong to call it strange or alien or any adjective that meant it was altogether different - it\nwasn't. Functionally, aesthetically - it was a wolf's, a dog's. Just as his own\npenis was - there was no difference between him, and an improbably blond,\nsmooth-furred husky, at least below the waist, with his chubby sheath and his\nfur-covered testicles, like a faun, or a satyr, but canine instead of caprine.\n            Sometimes, and right now,\nespecially, it became a burningly uncomfortable thought - but this was life\nnow. This was the new normal. He had changed. \n            He adjusted himself in the\nseat - it wasn't particularly painful to sit on his tail but after awhile he\nneeded to fidget around - scrolling through the science blogs he followed on\nhis phone, tabbing over to the Wikipedia article about Fried chicken because he had never bothered with the history of his\nfavorite food, feeling the brittle peace of the new life Bligh had inducted him\ninto silently shatter, the cracks forming, small at first, but growing larger,\nsecond by second.\n            He loved Bligh - he kept\ntelling himself that, and even when it wasn't enough to keep saying that and\nlet that be that and ignore that there was something deeply and unsettlingly\nwrong with their living situation, it was still objectively true. The only thing\nworse than being with Bligh, than trying to make the best of a situation that\nmade him feel like a refugee or a targeted minority in a dictatorship\nsomewhere, was being without him.\n            He glanced out the truck\nwindow, idly watching two well-dressed Mexican men have some sort of heated\ndiscussion about the tire pressure machine:\n            \"¿Por qué no es\ngratis?\"\n            \"Yo no sé, yo no sé, el otro es--\"\n            \"¿¡Y\npor qué no eso?!\"\n            Andrew watched them with\namusement - only a few years down here he had picked up enough Spanish to\nunderstand what they were yelling about:\n            \"Of course it ain't\nfree,\" he muttered. \"Ain't nothing free anymore - not even air...\"\n            His Pa had taught him that -\nnothing in this world is free, everything has a price, everyone has their price.\n            Andrew's price, he reasoned,\ntrying not to giggle at the first Mexican, tie askew, ketchup stain on his\nwhite dress shirt that Andrew surmised had come from the tire on their SUV\ngiving out while he was holding the burger he had thrown in the trash when he\nhad exited the vehicle, bellowing, gesticulating at his cowering companion -\nAndrew's price was too high to ever put down to numbers, blood, and treasure. \n            The only price was Cody and\nBligh - and it always had been. That's what he returned to, every time, when\nthis cosmic parlor game played out in his head - that they were worth it, both\nof them, no matter the challenge.\n            That was the conclusion he had\nreached earlier that day he was being cozy and domestic, he was pretending that\nliving as a new tribe of half-dog people was only a mild inconvenience, and\npractically speaking, it was - a little more extra precaution, changes in diet,\nno huge deal.\n            As long as they weren't\ncaught. \n            That was the fear: one peek,\none glimpse, and they'd be plucked out of their homes and studied, poked,\nprodded, humiliated - there'd be some sort of scientific-spiritualist\nrevolution, there'd be government panels, testimonies before Congress, an\ninternational debate as what to even do with them, like ­the mutants in X-Men except no Stan Lee to give them a\ndecent ending. Suddenly it was a very\nhuge deal.\n            He'd mocked Bligh for even\nentertaining what were, at the time ridiculous notions - but no, Bligh was\nright, the danger was real, real and everywhere.\n            And it begged the question -\nwere they alone? Since they hid so well, did that mean others could, and were,\ndoing the same?\n            It had haunted him briefly\nthat first day, his mind, the mind he had trained to be scientific, had been\nexploded with the notion that the ordered universe he so cherished was an\nillusion, that though what he was, what Bligh was, what was happening to Cody -\nthat though all of these could be explained by science, it was a queer and dark\nscience, it was a science that leered out of the myths from mankind's early\nyears, it was a science that, if proven, would undermine the science he knew\nand loved once and for all.\n            He thought about this more\nthan he ever told Bligh or Cody...as his ancestors had been, trekking across the\nAppalachians for the first time, and laid claim to that nighted wilderness of\nAmerican virginity - quite literally, Virginia,\nand you could still hear the courtiers of Elizabeth I doffing their plumed hats\nin a grand sweep as they said it - he\nwas in uncharted territory, absolutely alone.\n            Alone - he could not shake the feeling that had slammed into him, a\ntractor-trailer t-boning a convertible, back at the apartment. He was carrying\nso much, patiently, quietly, trying to make normalcy out of low-fat madness,\nand he was doing it all by himself. As he was for Stephen in the past, and for\nCody, and sometimes for Bligh, so too was he fated to be again - the strong\none, the one always depended upon.\n            At least it had never been\nthankless. Even wordless thanks, from all three of them, was thanks enough.\n            He put his phone between his\nlegs, sliding down in his seat, relishing the sensation of his tail pressing\nagainst his leg inside his khakis, an oddly pleasurable discomfort - the\nheadliner above him was fairly new, Bligh had taken great care of the truck he\nand Andrew had both learned to drive in...Pappy had seen to that. Andrew's Pa had only let him touch the\nMercedes 300 SEL that he was conceived on - or so the story went - and which\nStephen would later wrap around a tree, once, for his junior prom...it would have\nbeen twice, for his senior prom too, had not Stephen's Beagle, Walker, died and\nAndrew had to stand up his girlfriend, Betsy Barnes, to protect his brother\nfrom utter and complete collapse.\n            Stephen - what would he tell\nhim, what would he say, when the time came, and he had to know that his own\nbrother was no longer human? He hadn't texted him since that afternoon -\nperhaps he had given up the siege of trying to bully Andrew into saying yes to\nhang out at last.\n            The two Mexican businessman,\nor who he assumed were businessmen, either way too cheap or too arrogant or too\nwrongly-principled to pay for tire-air, had gotten back into their SUV, the one\nin the tie still berating the other, and drove off, the flat tire making an\nunpleasant noise that sounded like a dry fart. The space they occupied was\nvacant ...it was the same space where he had pulled over, just over a year ago,\nand saw Cody, shirtless, skateboard in hand, desperate and alone, framed\nperfectly by the sunset.\n            The memory played out, again,\nas it always did, eidetic and perfect, but lately it was tinged with something\n- a bitterness, a possessiveness, a victimhood, an outrage that this boy's life\nwas owed to Andrew, but now he was pregnant with someone else's puppies - the cascading absurdity of the statement\npassing into reality, where it crystallized into something he had tried not to\nfeel, even when attempting to talk it out with Bligh earlier, but no, there it\nwas, fully-formed and pulsating like a diseased heart: jealousy.\n            He swallowed hard. As Stephen\nliked to say, fuck everything. \n            Again that shuddering truth\ncrept into him, how lucky indeed that he was bisexual and had the option,\nshould he have chosen it, of not to\ntrying to reproduce with a human female - there was a reason Stephen was so small, why he had been born so premature, it\nwas because the tightening strands of DNA were becoming nooses for the\nLightfoot offspring, generation after generation of cousins marrying cousins\nmarrying cousins...their mother was the first Lightfoot woman not already related to the Lightfoots, and\nit was for this reason alone, probably, that Andrew was as comparatively normal\nas he was. \n            But he and Stephen - he\nguessed but dared not prove, confirming as it would the inevitable doom of the\nLightfoot name - were probably infertile. It made sense, given how sickly\nStephen had been, how long it had taken his parents to conceive them both.      The sins that the Lightfoots had committed,\ndancing madly in the blood of the natives and the raised scars across the backs\nof Negro slaves, stoked the flames of the Hell they would all, Lightfoot after\nLightfoot after Lightfoot, no matter how kind or mindful or generous, march to,\nin procession, hands clasped, two by two.\n            There would be no\nsuperfecundation. Bligh got there first - Bligh was always first - and he, yes, he,\nAndrew, Bligh's sidekick, never out of Bligh's shadow, always together, how\nthey must have whispered and how they must figured, Andrew and Bligh, Bligh and\nAndrew...Andrew was jealous.\n            It was high school all over\nagain. Bligh had the bigger dick, Bligh was better at sports, Bligh was taller\neven if only by two inches, Bligh had the father figure that actually gave a\nshit about him, and working and playing and hanging together as best friends,\nblood-brothers, eased it all, but it was always there, the jealousy, the need\nto be around him, to be around someone better\nthan he was, even when his family practically owned the Goddam town.\n            Bligh had been unkind their\nfirst day as lovers about how true it was Andrew just followed Bligh around and\ndid whatever Bligh wanted to do because, enormous wealth and privilege or not,\nBligh was more commanding in himself, in his character, than Andrew, de facto brains and leader of their\nlittle triad now, ever could be - he was unkind and Andrew was glad of it, he should have been unkind, how pathetic\nAndrew was, needing him so much.\n            Fuck everything, yes indeed. What a mess - what a horrible fucking\nmess.\n            He shifted again in his seat,\nfrowning deeply. The unsolvable paradox: Bligh owned him, as someone owns land,\nand Andrew let him and even enjoyed it that way because, in Andrew's own words,\nhe loved Bligh that much, but in that descent into willful emasculation,\ntranscendent bitchdom, Andrew was still the caretaker of the house - repaying for out-mating and out-sexing\nhim and wedging himself into he and Cody's relationship, and any resentment\nthat Andrew should rightfully feel had been erased in the name of new harmony\nand love...even if his life had sucked without\nBligh, was his life really better with\nBligh, now that the afterglow had faded? \n            He gasped aloud at the thought\n- no, no, that was tantamount to blasphemy, a terrible thing to think, and a\nworse thing to believe. \n            Didn't Bligh still dazzle him?\nDidn't his smile, his gratitude, his very presence, make it worth it? All the\nfurry, warm cuddles and the debauched sex and the domesticity that worked so\nwell despite how grotesque and insidious its underpinnings were? Even now, with\nthe frankly creepy design - a spade needed to be called a spade - to make Cody\nquit his job because he was pregnant, even though it was anathematic to\neverything Andrew himself believed relationships should be, but he was going along\nwith it because Bligh wouldn't have it any other way?\n            He loved Bligh more than\nanything save Cody but...\n            ...but there was a line, a line\nas faint and ephemeral as the dying trill of the Autumn crickets, that\ndemarcated the two parts to the half-Moon beginning to rise, and the glare of\nthe lights of the Circle K, a line, between love and--\n            \"Ey - ey man, yew\nthirsty?\" \n            Andrew jerked his head at the\nsound of Bligh's voice coming from the rolled-down driver's window - Bligh was\nsmirking, a little bashful , his hands gripping the frame of the door, leaning\noutward in an awkward stretch.\n            It seemed like he was aware of\nhow deep and how dark Andrew's introspection had gone - no, of course he was aware, it was impossible\nfor him to hide anything from Bligh, how long they had known each other, how\nmuch they knew about one other's moods and feelings...\n            He smiled, feeling his ears\nstruggle inside his cap - a small chuckle escaped him. \"Y-yeah, actually\nI'm - yeah, I am.\"\n            Bligh gave one of his little\nnods. \"Aight, lemme, uh--\" One arm dropped into his back pocket to\nfumble with his wallet, worn black leather that was badly in need of replacing.\n\"Lemme git ya that water ya like, I'm-a git me a Coke.\"\n            Andrew leaned forward, shaking\nhis head. \"Dude, no, you don't--\"\n            \"Ev--Evian, right? That\nFrench stuff?\"\n            Andrew swallowed hard and\nnodded with a grateful smile that he was surprised was not forced - he blushed,\nand in the half-light of the gas station's light he was thankful Bligh could\nnot see it.\n            \"Y-yeah - Evian. It's um\n- it's naïve spelled backwards, did\nya know that?\"\n            Bligh tittered, but in the\ncorner of his eye there was a wistfulness, a regret. \"Used ta say that all\nthe time back home, man.\" He relinquished his grip on the car, and nodded\nagain. \"Be back,\" he said.\n            \"Alright,\" Andrew\nanswered, watching him pace away into the c-store.\n            Bligh had to have seen his\nface - he had have to seen the conflict and the questions in it, he had to have\nread his thoughts written in his eyes and mouth.\n            He waited until the door to the\nc-store shut behind him and he disappeared amidst the chips on his way to the\ncooler to get him his bottled water to cringe, hanging his head, his ears again\nstruggling to flatten, humiliated, inside their USF cap prison.\n            \"Fuck everything,\"\nhe said under his breath. \"Fuck - fuck everything...\""}