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The fortified walls of Darwin opened for us, then closed the instant we drove away.

Honking the horn to thank the gatekeepers, I maneuvered the custom-outfitted semi-truck down the cleared road and straight southeast along Highway One. The Sun blazed high above. The sky remained cloudless. The old vehicle's air-conditioning unit transformed our interior into an icebox. Ahead of us stood nothing but a sprawling desert hellscape and seas of abandoned towns. Behind us stood an oceanside concrete castle, where my boyfriend and I enjoyed a week's worth of rest and relaxation before getting back to our job. Adelaide required goods and nonperishables that Darwin managed to import from a Timorese warlord. Melbourne and other surrounding settlements in Victoria also expressed interest in bidding for several solar panels Martin and I managed to acquire recently.

Speaking of whom, the cat and I found ourselves on a…rather intense discussion.

“Tosser."

“Wanker."

“Fuckwit."

“Shitcunt."

“Daft git."

“Arse wipe."

“Boomer-wanger."

“Scone-fucker."

Martin's groan interrupted our flirtatious banter. The frustrated tabby cat let out a feline trill, and he leaned further against our semi-truck's passenger side dashboard.

“Now that one's not fair, Jim!" He said indignantly. “You're reminding me of home when you bring scones into it."

“Sorry," I apologized, only to let out a small laugh. “By the way, that last one of yours doesn't make sense. The fuck's a 'boomer-wanger'?"

“A stubborn kangaroo," he chimed.

I snorted. “Oh, piss off, you smarmy Brit…" The urge to kick the British cat nearly distracted me from the wheel and the road. “I'm not doing it either way. I won't do it."

“You should at least consider it," he mumbled behind those whiskers. “You're not even trying to consider it."

“I did." One of my overgrown eyebrows twitched, and my thick tail smacked at the closed driver side door. “What you keep going on and on about is suicidal! Stuart was difficult enough to traverse through before the end of the world, but now, it might as well be fuckin' Mars. Why go through all of that when we're perfectly safe going the regular route?"

“The regular route's the stupidly long route, Jimmy!" He hissed. “Getting to Adelaide across Highway One takes weeks, months even! Imagine cutting it down to days instead of months! Think about how much street cred we'll get being the only—"

“Highwaymen stupid enough to get ourselves killed?" I inferred. When Martin let out an angry chuff and kept staring out his window, I couldn't help but sigh. “We'll be in Katherine in a couple hours. We can talk about it then. Okay, Martin?"

He exhaled. “Fine, I guess."

My eyes traveled from the British tabby to our windshield. In the rearview mirror, the fortress walls of Darwin had transformed into a mirage. Ahead of the semi-truck—which Martin and I affectionately called Optimus because of the faded red and blue paint job— was a long highway that seemingly stretched over the horizon. Surrounding us on all sides for kilometers nothing but desert plant life, a rare feral animal, and the scorching remains of what used to be Australia.

The apocalypse arrived with little fanfare. First, there were many more natural disasters and famines than usual. Wildfires got worse and worse. Supply chains between Australia and the rest of the world splintered into a million chards. The interior of the continent grew hotter, and the Outback no longer carried hospitable life. Citizens everywhere fled to the coasts for safety and to cool themselves from the harsher climate. Then, the Internet stopped working one day, followed by phone lines, electricity, and eventually the government. The only places that supported the rule of law nowadays were the walled-off cities and fortified towns along the Australian coastline.

Nobody fully knew what the rest of the world looked like. War broke out on the Korean Peninsula and so did the Middle East. Both regions now resembled Chernobyl. Whole countries across Asia, Europe, and Africa had devolved into tiny survivalist fiefdoms. Radio transmissions even suggested that the United States no longer existed. The same could be said for Australia in a sense, but at least what united us all was the Highway One stretching all around the godforsaken continent. While each settlement along the coast was an island, the Highway prevented them from being isolated islands, making communication and trade much more possible.

Those responsible for transporting goods and traded supplies between settlements and cities were us: the highwaymen. We were basically delivery boys. Well-paid and well-respected, but still.

As we began approaching the farthest outskirts of Katherine, its entrance a bridge overlooking a dried up river, Martin decided to renew our earlier conversation. “I still think we could do it," he said. “Truckies used to go through the Outback all the time, and we can do it again. We'd just need to carry additional water for the cistern, a little more food, supplies…"

“It'll be much more arid and hotter down there than usual," I pointed out. “And that's not the main reason I'm saying no. There're much worse ways to die than dehydration. I'll follow you anywhere on this highway, but Stuart's too dangerous."

“Let's say I wanted to do this anyway with or without Optimus—would you follow me anywhere?"

“Martin, be reasonable here—"

“You said it to me when you agreed to be official," he said, pointing a claw at me as gusts of wind pounding sand into the scratched-up windows. “You said, and I quote, 'I will follow you anywhere'. Unquote."

“I'd like to add a supplemental of 'except there'," I retorted, nose wrinkling and frown deepening. “With 'there' being a suicidal shortcut through the bloody damn continent."

“We could set up a safe house in Alice Springs—or what's left of it—a supply depot just for the two of us," he persisted. “Nobody else needs to get involved and we don't need to make it a big depot like Katherine! Think about it! Everyone in the cities from Darwin to Adelaide to bloody Sydney will give us literally anything we want if it means getting their traded crap sooner!"

“Martin, you do—"

He hissed, “Don't 'Martin' me. You always act condescending and know-it-all whenever I try to be logical with you."

“I've been trucking for much longer than you," I argued.

“You never let me forget," he told me. “You never let me forget this is your trade and I might as well be your assistant. Just because I wasn't born here and got stuck in this shithole doesn't mean you get to—"

I tried interrupting, “Martin, if anything happened to—"

“I said to don't fucking 'Martin' me!" He growled, one of his fists colliding with the roof. “God, you're such a prick sometimes."

Suddenly, I parked on the side of the road with half a kilometer left between us and Katherine's bridge, and the two of us devolved into arguing. All of it angrily blurred together as our voices rose and each barb or insult started to feel less flirty. At least, until I grabbed his shirt collar, and he grabbed mine. I felt for certain one of us was going to throw the first punch.

Fortunately, it seemed that hot angry love was in the air.

The limber tabby suddenly lunged at me, our lips connecting. I was too distracted by the taste of his dexterous tongue and the ticklish caress of his whiskers to be surprised, but before I knew it, I fell under his spell. Then, I took control. My nose nuzzled those silky whiskers. I playfully bit down on the lower lip, brushing it with my tongue. One of my wandering sets of fingers grasped the base of his tail. Our breaths felt hot together once we parted for air.

“Back," I snarled. “Now!"

Martin only managed to get halfway over the front seats when I lewdly groped his backside. His tail shuddered and he let out an excited purr. Smirking, I climbed over our seats and joined him in the semi-truck's sleeping cabin, careful not to smack any of my shoulders or head against the confined interior. On the bed, Martin already kicked his jeans off and turned over on his stomach, spreading both knees and tail raised high, the tip swaying at me like an invitation.

“Katharine Settlement's still close by," he mentioned. “Shouldn't we worry if a resident's going for a hike or—"

“Nah." I scoffed between deep, carnal pants. “Like people give a shit about fuckin' decency anymore!"

My words melted into a moan as I knelt on the floor and plunged my drooling tongue into the musky crevice between those perfect tangerine globes. With gusto, my thumbs dug into the plush fur as I began spreading the crevice wider and wider for easier access. Martin himself let out a cacophony of cries, sweet nothings, purring cheers, and delighted groans. My eyes closed and blissful hunger filled my lungs along with his scent. He shivered against my devouring lips as the cold tip of a kangaroo nose tickled his crack and a long tongue played oral waltz with his tight entrance. The feast went on and on until I felt certain he'd melt under me. I couldn't get enough of it. My mind wandered in delirium.

I dwelled on a distant memory: the two of us met at a truck stop on the outskirts of Sydney. We met on an app that once existed called Grindr. His profile described an English orange tabby in his early thirties, born and raised in Hampshirite before moving to London. He worked as a marketing consultant for a big advertising agency and desiring a proper Aussie welcome during a two-week holiday Down Under. That night, after Martin finished sleeping off the jet lag in his hotel, I happily messaged him to give that welcome in the back of my old semi-truck. A few days later the Internet stopped working. A week later, international flights no longer got scheduled, and Martin found himself stuck on the other side of the globe with little hope of returning to England. During all of this, we kept in touch, and we found our slice of Heaven in this brave new world. The thought of possibly losing him was too bloody intolerable.

“Fuck me, Jim!" he cried, gripping my pec hair as my dick rubbed under his tail. “Fuck me, fuck me, p-please!"

“Oh, Martin!" I snarled.

I lay on my back. Martin straddled my waist, and I unceremoniously thrusted my waist upward, my rigid cock penetrating that tight feline ass. His tail spasmed in the air like a wild snake. A loud hiss from his fangs chorused with a bark that escaped the back of my throat, and I clasped my paws around his hips. My strong legs did the rest of the work, holding the tabby in place like a fleshlight.

Martin let out a beautiful series of noises between each hard fuck. When I made rapid bucks inside the tight cat, he let out a gasping cheer. When I swiftly pulled my hips back and dragged my member's shaft out and along that squeezing passageway, he emitted a mixture of deep purrs and delighted trills. Every time my cock tip brushed against that sensitive prostate, he squealed like a bitch in heat, getting that painful itch wonderfully scratched. Over and over and over.

We exchanged words that mostly consisted of either saying 'fuck' or each other's names. The only sound filling the sleeping cabin were our squelching thrusts, squeezes, grunts, moans, a bleat or two from me, and howling wind colliding with the truck's exterior. I felt 100% certain that anybody looking across the bridge would spot Optimus rocking back and forth. Neither of us gave a fuck though. Not as I let out one final snarl and Martin squeezed around my shaft as it emptied inside his velvet depths, the feline's claws almost breaking the skin between my fingers.

A sudden clarity flooded my senses, sans lust. I gripped his digits back, letting out my own bleating cry as my balls felt less heavy, but the tabby did when he collapsed between my arms. The next thing I knew, it was light's out.

***

“Jimmy?" an angel's voice called me. “Jimmy, you can shower now."

I opened a tired eye, staring up at the cabin's ceiling before turning to see Martin closing the bathroom door. The furs on his beautiful naked body dripped with residual droplets of water. I was momentarily hypnotized by his rear as he turned to face me.

He smiled at me. “Hey, Sleepyhead. You've been out for an hour or so…"

Thank Christ that Optimus came with a bathroom/shower. It didn't matter if my tall frame could barely fit inside or that I needed to empty the sewage tank every so often once the shitter got full. Having an amenity like a working toilet and shower stall made the apocalypse feel less awful than usual. It certainly had its limits though, especially given that freshwater was finite and the semi-truck's custom water purifier didn't always do its job. On any normal day, I would've made a fuss about taking a shower between short stops like the one between Darwin and Katherine. However, as I sat up on the narrow bed and felt the aches in my legs, then sniffed the stink wafting from my fur, I had to concede. The very last thing I wanted was Katherine residents noticing the stench of sex on us.

“Am I getting old?" I groaned, standing up and walking a couple of short meters to the bathroom. Martin stepped aside for me. “God, what we did knocked me out cold…"

“You're only thirty-five." Martin surprised me with a kiss on the cheek. “I'm thirty-six. Technically, I'm the one who should be feeling old."

“Or maybe you're just a bloody good fuck," I chuckled, and yelped at feeling a pair of clawed fingers pinch my left butt cheek. “Ow! Easy with the goods!"

“Hehe, just don't take too long in there," he said. “Betty radioed us several minutes ago. She said and I quote, 'Sandstorm is coming in an hour or so. Stop rutting like pigs if you don't want sand up your ass cracks.'"

I laughed, craning my neck to give him a sluggish kiss. “Sounds like Katherine's radio master is concerned for us," I surmised. “Don't worry. I'll be quick."

Five or so minutes later, I emerged from the bathroom feeling like a king. I beamed with joy at seeing spare clothes neatly folded on the opposite counter, then entered the front to find Martin seated back in the passenger seat. He held an unfolded map of Australia, one of his fingers scrutinizing the highways. I didn't need to stare close to know why.

“I wanna apologize," I said, both ears folded downward as I rested a paw on his slumped shoulder. “I'm sorry I'm a…bit of a stubborn jackass. You're not my assistant. You're my partner. I should include you in decisions."

Martin didn't say anything. At least, not until he reached a paw on top of mine on his shoulder, and he kneaded it while turning to me.

“I'm sorry too," he apologized. “I get you don't wanna bite off more than we can chew." The tabby let out a suppressed sigh. “Anyway, let's not delay any longer."

I stepped in the driver's seat without a word. However, my mind did start racing with possibilities against worst-case scenarios as I restarted the engine and guided the lumbering semi back on the elderly road. My paws gripped the wheel at nine o'clock and three o'clock. I stared ahead and spotted the bridge through our windshield visor. I let out a contemplative hum.

“I'm thinking about replacing our cistern with a larger one," I spoke up. “We won't find that in Katherine, but I know we'll find one in Sydney. Brisbane if we're lucky. And if we do travel through the Outback, it could help to carry more ammo and food. Gas and diesel too. It'll probably help if we get a second trailer and make Optimus into a road train. To carry more water for us on longer trips…"

Martin stared at me like I'd just popped the big question to him.

“Are you serious, Jim?" When I nodded, he let out a satisfied chuckle. “Note to self: use sex to win all our arguments from now on…"

“Don't push your luck too much," I said with a contemplative smirk. “If we are gonna do this, I ain't doing this half-cocked. The Outback's No Man's Land for a reason, and there's no bloody way we'll get all we'll need in Katherine."

“Mmm, doesn't this mean you're open to making Alice Springs our private little oasis?"

He winked coyly. I returned the gesture with an eyeroll.

“If it isn't buried under a mile of sand, then yes," I said, and smiled softly. “It might help to stop by Tennant Creek and Coober Pedy too, when we get a chance. Make those oasis stops too. For now, though, we need to focus on getting to Adelaide first. We'll have plenty of time to outline this new business venture of ours by then…"

Katherine's bridge stretched ahead of us above a dry riverbed. However, the movement of mammals on the other side of the ravine revealed life. A few mammals stood behind fences to watch our home drive up to theirs. The flag wavers in the guard towers beckoned us to drive forward, and we did.

“I am so going to start using sex to win argument from now on," Martin snickered.

“Don't make me start using my left paw again, babe," I warned, but not really.

Martin scoffed. “Wanker."

“Tosser," I replied.

He pressed those whiskered lips to my cheek and sat back down. “I love you."

I smiled, driving past the gates. “Love you too."