Chapter 7: What's Love Got To Do With It?
#7 of The Mating Season 4
Chapter 7: What's Love Got To Do With It?
Whenever Kilyan was miserable, there was always one place he loved to go. But on his way to Keeno's hut, he was startled into halting in the street: Keeno was walking his way and looking just as miserable. The two males stood staring at each other in the middle of the dark street, then came face to face.
"Well, this is just great," Keeno said, tossing his paw and giving a miserable smile. "I came to you to be comforted, but here you are coming to me."
"So what do we do now?" Kilyan wondered, scratching his ears.
They looked at each other and said in unison, "Aros."
Aros' hut was virtually empty. It was common knowledge that Aros did not get along well with Lila, his wife. And his daughters Mora and Nyssa were constantly out with Enya or with their grandmother. So it was no surprise to Kilyan and Keeno when they paused in the doorway of Aros' gloomy hut that their friend was slouched miserably on the sitting furs before a low fire, taking long swigs from a wine skin.
Kilyan and Keeno glanced at each other: Aros was miserable too.
"What are you waiting for?" Aros asked without turning. He took another long, bitter swig and paused, staring dismally at the flames.
Kilyan and Keeno entered the hut and sat with their friend around the fire. The three of them passed the wine skin around in a miserable silence before Keeno spoke:
"So who should go first? I think mine's the worst, so I'll go last."
Kilyan heaved a sigh and said, "Lea wants another pup."
Keeno and Aros groaned in unison and rolled their eyes.
"What!" Kilyan demanded indignantly when he saw his friends exchange smirks. "My problems are just as real and as complicated as yours!"
Aros gave a dry laugh. "Shut up, Kilyan. Just . . . shut up."
"Why? Why the hell should I!" Kilyan retorted and chucked a small rock in the flames.
"Because we're tired of listening to you whine about your great fucking life, Kil, that's why," Keeno said in a bored voice and accepted the wine skin when it was passed to him. "Aros is trapped in a marriage with a female who hates him, my daughter is in love with another female, and here you are moaning about how badly Lea wants you to come inside of her --"
"Enya is what?" Kilyan and Aros said in unison, their wide eyes trained unblinking on Keeno.
"You heard me," said Keeno with miserably hooded eyes. "She's in love with a female. Zalia told me this evening when I came home. You should have seen how calm she was about the whole thing. It was bizarre. I thought I was having a nightmare."
"It's not one of my daughters, is it?" Aros demanded, who had frozen to hear Keeno's words. "Because I'll shut Mora and Nyssa up so fast their heads will be spinning --"
"It's Yuri," Keeno cut across him and took another bitter swig of the wine skin.
Kilyan stared at the fire with wide eyes. "Oh, god. What're you going to do? If Enya refuses her first mating season, she could be stoned!"
Keeno shook his head darkly. "I don't know. She wants to go with Yuri to the sun village. I tried to talk to Enya about it, tried to make her see reason. There's just no way she likes other females. There's no way. This has to be some sort of teenage phase . . ." Keeno shook his head again, his dark eyes staring blankly at the wall.
"How did Enya react?" Aros slurred. "I'm guessin' not well."
Kilyan's heart sank to see Keeno's dark eyes go dull with pain. Keeno swallowed thickly and answered, "She said she hated me."
Aros snorted. "Don't all teenagers say that? Mora and Nyssa tell me that once a week. It's not a big deal, Keeno. This whole thing will blow over, you'll see. Enya will have her first mating season and meet some young stud and forget all about Yuri -- Hey, pass that this way. Don't hog it: cost me an arm and ah leg and ah side of storage ham my wife won't let me forget about . . ."
"I guess you're right," Keeno said to the ground. "I just can't believe she said those words to me. 'I hate you, Dad.' I couldn't move when she said it. It was like time stopped or something."
Kilyan took a drink from the wine skin and eyed Keeno sympathetically. Keeno had always been very close to Enya, after all. It wasn't hard to imagine how he must feel.
"Keeno," said Kilyan slowly, "you ever stop to think that maybe Enya really does love Yuri?"
Keeno scoffed, his eyes slightly off focus. "Are you kidding? Enya is a female, Kilyan. If she was a male, I'd overlook this. But she's not. She's a female. And if she tries to take a female lover rather than settle down and get married, you know damn-well what will happen to her!"
Aros drew his finger across his neck and made a sound to indicate.
"What the hell did you put in that wine, Aros?" Keeno demanded, jerking with a silent belch. "There's more than just wine in that skin."
"My own special blend," Aros said, tapping a finger to his forehead and grinning.
"So that's it?" Kilyan demanded. "Even if Enya's feelings for Yuri are real, you're just going to ignore them and force her into an unhappy marriage?"
"Listen to him, Keeno," cut in Aros, whose eyes were badly off focus now. "You don't want little Enya to wind up like me. . . ."
"Shut up, Aros," Keeno snapped. "Listen, Kilyan, and listen good: my little girl is not getting stoned by a bunch of ignorant-ass wolves because of a teenage fad! And further more, I'm doing Enya a favor. What if she wants pups one day? Who is she going to have them with? Yuri?! No, she'll be much happier if she follows the summer wolf tradition and marries a male! I mean, every female wants pups. Who should know that better than you, Kilyan!"
Kilyan stared at the fire. It just didn't seem right. "But why can't you just let Enya go back with Yuri to the sun village? They don't stone wolves for these things there --"
"That's enough, Kilyan!" Keeno warned, his fangs flashing. "I'm Enya's father and I know what's best for her, and if anyone else brings this shit up again, I swear to god I'll march right down to the village council and request a formal engagement for my daughter. I'll have her marry that Theo boy. He's a f-fine warrior . . ."
Keeno swerved a little and sat glowering at the fire. Kilyan could see that whatever was in the wine was making him increasingly intoxicated: there was no point talking to Keeno when he was like this, so Kilyan said nothing.
"You know, Kilyan," said Aros with a little belch, "you just fuck Lea. Fuck her brains out. Who cares if she has another son? My two girls practically raised themselves." He waved a careless paw and snatching the wine skin from Keeno, tossed it back.
"I'm glad you're so proud of that," said Kilyan, lifting an eyebrow.
"Zalia's not speaking to me either," Keeno said to the fire. He heaved an angry sigh. "Females."
"Fucking females," agreed Aros, pointing a finger at Kilyan as if to say "I told you so."
"Hey," Kilyan warned, "that's my little sister you're talking about! I'll see you jerks tomorrow. Don't sleep in this time, Keeno." He got to his feet and moved toward the curtain, but paused and pointed a finger at Keeno, "And I happen to think Zalia's right: you should let Enya go to the sun village, Keeno! You try marrying her off and it's gonna blow up in your face!" With that, Kilyan shouldered his spear and left the hut.
Keeno glowered after him. "Who the hell does Kilyan think he is, lecturing us with his perfect little life, his perfect wives and his perfect sons." He sneered and licked a bit of wine from the tan fur on his chin.
"I wouldn't exactly call Kilyan's sons perfect. . ." muttered Aros under his breath.
"Damn. I am really getting s-sloshed. . . .What did you put in this, Aros?"
"If I told ya, I'd have ta kill ya."
Aros gave a little laugh, and Keeno gave up.
They both sat staring into the fire, each brooding, lost in his own thoughts and passing the wine skin back and forth.
After a long while, Aros said quietly, "Did you ever, you know, experiment when you were Enya's age?"
Keeno looked at Aros in disgust. "God, no! Why would you even ask me that?"
"Just trying to help you understand Enya's feelings, Keeno," Aros answered, but he looked so embarrassed that Keeno knew there was something more.
Suddenly feeling a wave of guilt, Keeno asked tentatively, "This isn't about Lila, is it? Because I swear it was just that one time --"
"What!" Aros snarled, his eyes snapping on Keeno.
Keeno winced. Ah, crap. So it hadn't been about Lila at all.
Aros was so wasted on the wine mix that he could barely keep Keeno in focus, but he managed to grab him by the neck and pull him close as he growled, "What about Lila!"
"Take it easy!" Keeno said, shoving Aros off. "It was just that one time out in the fields. We were kids. Lila probably doesn't even remember."
"What did you do to her?" Aros demanded. "Did you fuck her?"
"Maybe," Keeno admitted with a guilty wince of a smile.
Aros gave a roar and tackled Keeno to the floor. His teeth sank in Keeno's neck and he shook his head around wildly. Keeno twisted and grappled beneath him, and the two males wrestled and snarled on the sitting furs, struggling against each other in a drunken rage.
"How could you?" Aros shouted. "HOW COULD YOU!"
Keeno was so drunk that he was getting dizzy but he didn't care: he fought wildly and eventually succeeded in pinning Aros to the floor. Aros would twist and struggle, but his efforts became weaker the dizzier his drunken mind until he stopped altogether and just lay under Keeno panting.
Keeno was suddenly very tired too and flopped on top of Aros, trying to catch his breath, as well as his brain: under the influence of the drugged wine, things were getting very blurry. But everything came sharply back into focus when Keeno felt what was unmistakably a hard cock against his belly. Keeno looked down at Aros, whose dark gray cheeks were steadily turning crimson.
"Aros!" Keeno cried, backing off.
Aros sat up and put the wine skin over his hard-on. He couldn't meet Keeno's eye.
Keeno's first instinct was to leave, but Aros was one of his best friends: he had known the wolf all his life and had never once suspected. . . . He was just too shocked to move.
"Aros," said Keeno slowly, "are you mad that I slept with Lila . . . or that Lila slept with me?"
Aros scowled at the fire. "Shut up, Keeno. If you make fun of me, I swear I'll kill you!" He looked at Keeno with such a fiery indignation that Keeno lost his voice and merely sat staring.
"You're right," Aros whispered to the flames. "I . . . I have feelings for you. Obviously . . ."
Sitting there staring at Aros, it all suddenly became so clear: Aros' miserable marriage to Lila, his drinking habits, his bitter hatred of straight couples. Aros was a frustrated tail chaser, a tail chaser who had been in the closet for years. After knowing Aros for so long, it was almost surreal to discover such a thing. Sitting there beside Aros, Keeno suddenly wanted to cover himself too: had Aros been secretly lusting after Keeno all of their lives?
"You can stay here tonight," Aros suggested timidly. "If you don't want to go home. . . . I mean, I don't mean like that -- just as, you know, friends . . ." His voice trailed miserably into silence.
"Aros," Keeno said uncertainly, "how do you feel about me . . . exactly? I mean, are you in love with me or . . .?"
"Love has nothing to do with it, Keeno. I just . . . want you."
Keeno stiffened to hear those words admitted so bashfully from Aros, a male who had always seemed rigidly pussy-loving. He could still remember the mating season, when they had taken Zalia, Lila, and a few other females and had gang banged them in the bushes all night long, raping their mouths and even their asses. Aros had been ravenous, a wild beast, grabbing the breasts of the females and fucking them hard, even tit-fucking them. Keeno sat there and just didn't know how it was possible.
"Let me make this simple," said Aros, who could see Keeno's confusion. "I want to fuck you. I've wanted to fuck you since your balls dropped. And when you were on top of me just now, it made one of my fantasies come true."
Keeno sat in silence, unable to believe what he was hearing. He almost wanted to believe it was a joke but knew better: there was a reason why Aros was so miserable.
"Now if you don't mind," said Aros, glowering at the fire, "I'm going to finish off this wine skin. Then I'm going to jerk myself off and go to bed. See you tomorrow, Keeno."
Aros took a swig from the wine, but Keeno didn't move.
"Aren't you leaving?" Aros demanded. "What are you waiting for?"
Keeno snatched the wine skin. "Let me make this simple: I don't care if you like males. Fuck all the males you want, just don't fuck me. I'm staying here tonight because I can't go home to two females who hate my guts."
Aros stared at Keeno, startled. He smiled slowly, and Keeno got a creepy feeling.
"We're not having sex, Aros," Keeno said flatly.
"I know!" Aros snapped, snatching the wine skin back. He took a long drink, then flopped on his back.
Keeno flopped on his back beside him.
"So you really meant it when you said not to let Enya become like you, huh?"
"With every fiber of my being."
"But, Aros, why didn't you just, you know, settle down with a male?"
Aros passed the wine skin and Keeno took a long drink before passing it back.
"I never met a male I wanted to live with. Besides, I loved Lila. Loved. That's the key word. We hate each other now. Especially when she found out I was sneaking into the woods for male ass. She never touched me again after that. And I . . . I couldn't bring myself to fuck around on her anymore."
"You should both find other mates," Keeno said, lazily slurping from the wine skin.
"Not that easy, my friend. We have pups, or did you forget? Not a lot of males would marry a female with pups that aren't his. And I wanted to be around for my daughters."
"Staying together for the pups. What a fucking lame excuse. If it's over, Aros, then get the fuck out of here. Find a male. Be happy. Who says you can't still be around for Mora and Nyssa? I mean, what's better? Having your daughters see you like this everyday -- drunk and miserable and puking in the fire pit -- or having your daughters see you sober and happy? You realize you're doing more damage by sticking around than by leaving?"
Aros gave another dry, bitter laugh. "How's that, Dr. Keeno?"
"Mora and Nyssa will probably want some miserable fucking slacker of a male who reminds them of their father. That's how!" He threw the wine skin hard at Aros, and Aros groaned and turned his head as it hit him.
"What the fuck do you care?"
"What do I care? I'm your friend! And I hate to see you fucking up your life. I've told you this shit before and you still won't listen."
"And yet the second Kilyan tries to tell you about your own life, you blow your lid. What a fucking hypocrite you are, Keeno."
"Shut up about Enya!"
Aros playfully pinched Keeno's cheek and added, "What a cute fucking hypocrite."
Keeno shrugged him off. "Cut it out!"
They passed the wine skin back and forth again, and after a long pause, Aros said, "Fuck, I'm horny."
Keeno burst out laughing. He didn't know why. Then he realized: he was twice as drunk as before. So was Aros. He rolled over and gave Keeno a sloppy kiss on the lips, his tongue forcing hungrily inside Keeno's mouth.
"Hey," Keeno slurred, shoving Aros off. "No matter how drunk I am, that's not happening."
"Mmmm, come on, Keeno. I don't wanna fuck you -- just kiss you."
"This is date rape," Keeno laughed when he felt Aros' paw fumble clumsily over his cock. He was horrified to realize he was stiffening and quickly shoved Aros' paw away.
"Oh! Look at that," sang Aros. "You're haaaaard."
Keeno groaned. "I knew I should've gone home."
"Come on, Keeno, just let me touch it," Aros wheedled in Keeno's ear.
Keeno felt his cheeks burning hot. But he knew that so long that Zalia was angry with him, he would never have an opportunity to be touched like this again. And besides, it wasn't as if a male hadn't touched him before, he remembered with a grimace.
"You can pretend I'm Zalia," Aros sang in Keeno's ear.
Keeno laughed. "Yeah, all right, all right. Just don't tell anyone about this."
"These lips are sealed," Aros promised.
But Aros closed his mouth at once over Keeno's and thrust his tongue inside. Keeno protested in a muffled voice behind the kiss, but Aros' paw was suddenly massaging his cock, slowly and deliberately, and he felt himself stiffening so hard that he simply melted into the kiss. Aros could really kiss. Keeno felt a burning shame that he was enjoying this, a burning shame when he reached up to embrace Aros and pulled him closer in a silent plea for more. Aros seemed only too eager to give: he massaged Keeno with deep, firm strokes and even reached down to fondle his balls. Pretty soon, his kisses were traveling along Keeno's jaw, down his neck, and Keeno was flushed and panting: he was close to climaxing.
"Let me suck it," Aros whispered in Keeno's ear. "I want this big cock prodding the back of my throat!"
"Oh, Aros . . . God, I'm never going to live this down," Keeno said as Aros' kisses traveled hard over his cheek.
"Come on," Aros whispered. "Let me . . ." He squeezed Keeno's cock and Keeno gave a little whimper when he felt the pre-cum dripping out.
"Let me," Aros whispered again, nibbling at Keeno's lip.
Keeno looked worried but consented with a whisper, and Aros was hovering over his cock at once. Keeno closed his eyes and groaned when Aros' hot mouth closed over him, wet and hungrily pulling. His tongue sucked and pumped against Keeno, his lips clamped down tight as they pulled in long, wet strokes, and Keeno felt his cock jerking in spasms in a strained attempt not to come. But Aros was making that very hard: he slathered Keeno's cock with his tongue, and his fingers toyed with Keeno's balls until his toes were curling.
"Oh, god, Aros," Keeno whispered to himself, in a daze, "where did you learn this . . ."
Aros gave a final long, wet suck and it happened: Keeno cried out and came in his friend's mouth. He was a little surprised when Aros didn't pull back but gulped down his cum. He felt his cock flop soft against his thigh and then Aros was licking it hard and long along the shaft.
"Oh, no, don't make me get hard again," Keeno protested, panting as he sat up.
"That was fucking hot," Aros whispered, pressing close to Keeno and kissing his neck, his ear. He brushed his lips against Keeno's and whispered, "I've got to get you drunk more often."
"Don't tell anyone about this, Aros!"
"I won't, I won't!" Aros cried impatiently. "Now come 'ere!" He closed his mouth over Keeno's, and they embraced and sank to the floor.