M A R A N A T H A
   
   
    © Osfer, March 2005
   
   
    All rights reserved.
   
    May only be distributed for free.
   
    May not be altered in any way.
   
    Contains material of an erotic and homosexual nature which may be illegal to read in your country, state, province or region.
   
    The author takes no responsibility for transgressions on the part of the reader
   
    Comments welcome at osfer.kesh@gmail.com.
   

Available on paperback in 2005

Mail the author for information or join the mailing list!

   
    ~ Enjoy. ~
     

Chapter XII - as told by Owen Zelazny

Whoever thought it’d be a real swell idea to train cops to yell “Freeze, police!” when they bust into somebody’s place ought have his head inspected, and so should the guy who just yelled that particular phrase on account of said head having just received a sharp kick in the teeth from Malloy, or at least that’s what it looks like from my angle.
    The room’s dark and until two-thirds of a second ago I was comfortably asleep next to my Doberman pal on the comfy bed. Now there’s a little light, the swerving beam of the flashlight that’s flying from the kicked cop’s hand, but more worryingly, other flashlights as well. The cop staggers back against the wall right next to the open doorway that leads to the living room and his hat goes flying, two more dark, hulking figures emerging at the doorway and casting their lights on us.
    Neither of us, me nor Malloy that is, warns the other. We’ve practiced this sort of thing too often to make the mistake of shouting at each other by name – never give a cop information if you don’t need to. “Bed!” I yell instead and Malloy must have had the same thought, because he’s rolling out of his side of the bed and I out of mine and together we hoist the head of the bed up and with a combined roar we upend it, sending the no doubt valuable antique bed crashing against the open doorway, blocking the way against the two more cops I can see.
    Thank God there’s a second door on Malloy’s side of the room and I follow him through it in a flash while the police are still pushing the bed away. He stops, suddenly, and I bump into him and if I hadn’t done that maybe the cops would have been confused for another three or four seconds, but I look over and see why he stopped. Kicking in the door is a panther in a yellow raincoat, looking serious like he’s a mixture of Columbo and RoboCop and behind him two uniformed cheetahs.
    We honestly couldn’t be more fucked if we’d tried.
    There’s only a handful of ‘em in Maranatha PD because any cheetah who signs up knows he’s never going to get promoted off the street, simply because there is no finer beat cop than a yellow-black spottycat. And there’s two, just waiting to track Malloy and me down. Even if we make it to the kitchen window and manage to break through the glass without cutting ourselves to shreds and even if I manage to follow Malloy on the rooftops there still isn’t anywhere we can go where the cats won’t follow us, and quicker.
    “Freeze!” yells RoboColumco, pointing at us as if he could shoot bullets from his finger and, snarling in that spine-chilling feline manner, the cheetahs push past him and head toward us, the streetlight from the window beside us giving them a particularly demonic appearance as they close the distance at light speed.
    A hand grabs my arm – it’s Malloy’s, I sense before I see it, I’ve never met a male with warmer hands, and he does two things. Firstly, he leans his weight on me and pushes me backward, toward the open kitchen door, and secondly he uses that leverage to deliver a sharp kick to the mahogany coffee table that formed the centerpiece of the living-room, in the absence of couches and chairs.
    He kicks it hard, like, really hard and I tumble into the kitchen, trying not to think about the crunch I heard when his foot connected with the table. I waste no time, grabbing the little butane camping stove we used to make tea or soup over and hurl it through the kitchen window, shattering century-old glass into razor-sharp splinters as I hear the satisfying thud of furniture impacting two chests, and two light-weight felines falling over.
    Malloy staggers into the kitchen and I feel sick to my stomach as I note how lightly he steps on his right foot and wonder, if the light was better, what kinda shape his foot would be in, or what bruises would show on his shin through that sleek black fur. “Go on, run!” he yells to me, but he grabs me by the arm and pulls me away from the window. “Get out of here!” he yells again and this time he pushes me against the wall… which gives. “Run, I’ll hold them off!” he roars out of the window, but I’m not out there, nor am I in the kitchen. I’m in a cold, dark place no wider than a coffin, smelling dank and musty air and metal and grease.
    Oh, what a discovery it was when I first found this compartment. That is, I claim the discovery because I fell into it first. This was years ago, remember, Malloy and I was playing Thief-and-Newlywed, with one of them obviously having his way with the other, and while he was pushing up my nightshirt I stumbled backward and found out that one panel on the wall swung backward and revealed a black-painted compartment, a hidey-hole for the house’s owner, or a lover that ought not to be discovered by a spouse, I don’t know.
    “Goddammit, I said freeze!” yells a hoarse voice and Malloy answers it with a snarl and I try to picture what’s happening outside by the sounds of it. It’s like listening to a boxing match on the radio without a commentator. Malloy has the upper hand and presses it, but with every punch he lands on those light-bodied felines I hear him grunting as he puts even more pressure on his injured foot.
    “Oh, for crying out loud,” says the voice again, the panther in the raincoat and then my gut tightens at the electrical buzz of a tazer and then the heavy thump of Malloy’s canine body slumping on the ground.
    Right away, footsteps come toward me, light and fast and I’m sure I’ve been discovered, I’m sure they saw that one of the wall-panels don’t quite line up with the others, but then the footsteps end and I hear sounds out the window – one of the cheetahs hopped out the window and took the fire ladder up to the roof, his partner hopping out and sliding down the drainpipe to the ground. Damn, those fuckers are fast.
    Another set of unsteady footsteps comes into the kitchen – a heavy-set character, this, no doubt the somewhat portly policeman into whose unsuspecting face Malloy and I kicked the bed. He murmurs something, no doubt apologetic, to the panther, who tells him to “pick him up and take him to the car,” and to be careful about it.
    Then it’s quiet, and I hold my breath. I just know there’s somebody in the kitchen, still, that the panther didn’t leave when the portly cop hauled Malloy’s naked ass out of the Old House. A click and a beep, a radio being activated. “Did you get him?” asks the panther. I can’t hear the response. “No, call off the search, I don’t want any attention. Report back here and keep watch in case he doubles back.”
    Oh, goody. I get to be stuck in this cramped hidey-hole for a while. Yippy skippy whoop-de-fuck.
   
    Two people came in a little later, staggering slowly and wheezing and panting like old men in scuba gear. Yup, cheetahs. Great sprinters, no good for the long haul. Unlike us wolves, and even though my new dye job and my even leaner frame (diet Coke and margarine on my toast instead of butter, yegh) lends me the look of a far less illustrious canid, I’m still a wolf. A wolf, stuck in a secret compartment in the wall of a kitchen of a century-old house, now occupied by two bored cheetah police officers who’ve spent the last four hours bullshitting each other in those raspy feline voices of theirs and who’ve just now started bitching about having to stay another four hours.
    There ain’t any cracks around the secret door for light to creep in but I can feel the day moving on ‘cause the air’s getting warmer. Which sucks like a whore come rent-day as it only serves to bring home how fucking cold I feel and for one entire hour I struggle not to cough or sneeze – a harder task by far, lemme tell ya, than most sexual acts that last that long – but finally my body wins out and I let out a weak little achoo that shuts the cheetahs right up in the middle of their conversation about how they can’t understand kids being so crazy about swimming.
    “You hear that?” says one. I know him now as Eric, father of two, and the one who’d jumped down outta the window to chase after me.
    Conroy tells him to be quiet. Conroy’s the other. No family, ‘confirmed bachelor’ he said more than once. Never heard that before, but I think it’s a nice euphemistic way of saying he’s queer. They both go out of the room, or at least I think they do because I can’t hear the floorboards creaking no more, but then, maybe they’re just walking soft. Damn cats.
    I wanna get out of here. I wanna stretch my legs and wave my arms about. Thank God I don’t have to pee, ‘cuz that’d just be dreadful, although there is this one other urge that’s building in me, that I ain’t gonna be able to keep under control for another four hours. If ya can’t guess it, just think that I’ve still got the Henderson microbes in me, and I ain’t been milked in two days.
    Now, I ought to be grateful. When I first got the bugs they was dormant and after two days I was already climbing the walls – I told you how horny I was getting back in Ferrum’s office, you remember back that far? I do, right now. How he walked right past Malloy’s gun, how he shrugged off his jacket and peeled his shirt off a chest made out of solid Italian marble en with us went into his in-office bathroom to take a shower without even closing the door…
    My throat’s dry.
    But my point is, I felt really horny after two days with the bugs being dormant in my system. When they went active it was a matter of minutes before they drove me nuts. I’ve been getting ore used to them, though. Only need three or four ‘milkings’ a week. So I ought to be grateful that I’m not as bad now as I was then. Still, I’d suck a dozen dicks for a shot of Rut right about now. Hell, I’d suck a dozen dicks for nothing, as horny as I am right now.
    “It’s an old building. Maybe it was rats,” says Eric and I groan inwardly as they both ease into their creaking wooden chairs. I place my palms against the wooden door that separates me from them, feeling its cracked paint and press my face against it, lightly, so’s not to push, but to feel the cool lacquer against my face and to hear the cops soft, murmuring voices.
    I bet they’re hot. I’ve never met a cheetah who ain’t. They never lose their figure, but they never gain any bulk either. Always lanky – lankier than I am now. I had a cheetah for a client once, and he spent the first hour in bed just stroking my body and hugging and kissing, telling me how jealous he was that I could buff up if I wanted to, that I could have a firm, rippled tummy instead of the flat plane he had. At the time I’d laughed, because it hadn’t been but half a day since I’d been in the same position with a bear who said he hated the naturally bulky form he’d been given.
    I wish I could see them. Their uniforms are no doubt well-fitting. Given that they’re sprinters they probably wear the lighter style of jacket, rather than the leather-with-fur-trim that most cops wear. Blue cloth, their jackets, just like the rest of their uniform, I’m sure of it. Makes their shoulders nice and square. Fuck, I wanna see them…
    Wait. Did I make a noise? Did I do something? They’re not talking any more. I move away from the door and clench my hands into fists. Fuck, did I do something stupid? Did the door move while I was enjoying a moment of horniness? The fright quickens my breath and I turn my head away from the door so they can’t hear me. Shitshitshitshitshit.
    “I think we’re gonna be here for a while, Eric. How about you go get an hour’s break come back with some hot food, and I’ll take an hour’s break later on? Sound fair?” asks Conroy and my sigh of relief is masked only by Eric’s. Whew, that was close, I think and settle back against the back wall and start to think about stuff so’s I don’t have to think about my pressing need to take a leak when, after the outer door’s shut, I hear footsteps coming back into the kitchen and a gruff voice saying, “You’d best come out now.”
    It’s Conroy, logic tells me – I ain’t no Vulcan, but I got a pretty reasonable mind even under stressful circumstances. My breath quickens and I really need to piss and my dick hurts because – holy crap, because it’s hard. Or trying to, in that fucking cocktrap I’ve still got on.
    “Look, I’m just going to lay it on the table, as it were,” says the voice and I hear things moving, glasses, plates being shuffled around, chairs moved. “You come out of where you are right now, and you and me can make a deal about you getting outta here. You’re Luke, right? I’ve seen you playing at the Crosshairs. I hear you’re one of them tank dancers in the Dive. And I hear,” he adds, clearing his throat, “That you sometimes like to show your fans a good time for a little cash. Now Luke…. I’m a fan. And I’d like to see you get back up on stage. So how about you and me make a deal, hmm? Come out…”
    What am I, stupid? You honestly think I’d fall for a lame-ass ploy like that? He’s obviously just gambling, he read the file the detective gave him – Q. I. Malloy and Luke McCall were seen entering this building, subdue and detain… He’s grasping at straws, speaking aloud, just gambling. He can talk for a few more minutes and then he’ll just sit and wait, convinced there’s nobody here, so all I have to do is keep quiet. Honestly, now. What am I, stupid?
    Uh huh.
    The secret door opens with a creak and a fucking moron walks out of the hidey-hole, and that moron, ladies and gentlefuckers is me, panting heavily, licking my lips since they’re dry, timidly stepping out of the cold compartment and shivering as I look at the handsome feline police officer who’s standing by the kitchen table. He’s spread a rug over it and moved all the crockery out of the way and his eyes are on me.
    And who could blame him? Do I need to remind you that I’m sex on legs? On the lean side of muscular, naked but for a jockstrap, nipples pert from cold and horniness, beautifully coloured fur, mildly rippled ass and buttcheeks dimpled just right. This is the kind of body that could silence an entire prison simply by walking past, that could turn devout fathers queer, that could excite nuns.
    And this body is looking at him with big puppy eyes, ears folded. Where’s that strength I’m so proud of? Where’s my fuck-you attitude? I have no idea, it’s gone. All I can think of is how nice this man is and how great it would be if he’d let me go. I look at the table and smile. “You’d like to fuck me? That’s cool,” I say sweetly, and prance on over to the table like some kind of fairy faggot, hop onto it and lie back, making myself comfortable.
    The cheetah cop still hasn’t recovered from the fact that his hunch was right. He never expected me to actually be there, let alone show myself. And how I’m showing myself. I’m like a slut on acid, lying on my back with one leg pulled up and the other draped over the edge, my chest and belly exposed, arms splayed out, one stroking over my chest. “Holy fucking crap,” says the cheetah, but he isn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth and two seconds later, Conroy’s closed the distance to the table, standing at the edge between my legs, leaning over me and fumbling with his zipper. “God fucking dammit!” he mumbles, looking at me and his groin and at me again.
    I’m so damn calm, it’s like I just lit up a few joints. You’ll notice I equate a lot of this shit to doing drugs, and that’s really what it kind of feels like. I don’t feel like myself and yet it feels natural. And to be honest, once he’s over me and I give that cheetah a reassuring kiss, reaching blindly for his pants, effortlessly unfastening them and freeing the lightly barbed erection, it truly does feel natural. He slows down once he realizes I’m truly into it, which ain’t that weird since he’s truly a studly piece of feline. Lanky he may be, but the muscle’s hard as his dick and that kittenmaker throbs real nice in my paw right about now and – ahhh… there it goes, where the sun don’t shine.
    The sun’s shining in his eyes, though, they positively sparkle and he starts to tremble ever so lightly. His uniform is clean and feels warm aagainst my chest as he lowers himself down on top of me, pushing himself forward with his toes, still anchored on the ground. This is where I should ask him to let me go, right now, just as he’s bottoming out in me, his cold belt buckle pressing against my jockstrapped balls, his face relaxing in a grimace of bliss. I could ask him for his gun and he might hand it over… no, not his gun. Maybe his badge, he’d give me that if I asked him. He’d close his eyes to kiss me – hell, he’s doing that right now. Thin black lips press against mine, a much shorter muzzle mashes with mine, teeth clacking, his raspy tongue dragging over my palate as his drippy erection works in and out of me, the barbs tickling as they always do when felines fuck me.
    His pressed pants bump against my ass, his breath comes in short gasps and this feline’s really enjoying himself. Now, Owen! I think. Grab that teapot and smash it over his head and get out of there!
    But do I listen? No. I’m stupid. I wrap my legs around his waist and the look in the cheetah’s eyes is as if a girl he’s been asking out on a date for four years finally said yes and as I roll my hips upward he can really get into his thrusts, plowing down into my ass… I’m still slick from Malloy’s cum, but he doesn’t know it. All he knows is that I’m a smooth little ride, a pretty boy wolf, helpless…
    Helpless. God, now I see it. This isn’t some starstruck fan that’s glad the boy on stage is paying him attention, no, there’s greed in his eyes. He grabs my hips and starts to buck harder, bumping me against the table, kissing me more fiercely. He doesn’t just want me, he thinks he has a right to me, like he’s entitled to me. He breaks the kiss and tells me, I don’t know, what a slut I am, how good I feel, some shit like that, it don’t matter.
    It’s only been two or three minutes, but he’s already cumming in me – sheesh, felines. They’re like horses, they finish really quickly. Now, horses make up for this with the intensity of the fuck, while felines do it by making up in quantity and even after I feel him squirt a modest load in me, readying myself to start talking to him, he silences me with another kiss and starts humping me again, his studded erection slipping in and out through my ring, working his load deeper in me.
    And God, I don’t even care what’s happening or where I am, this cheetah’s a godly fuck. His raspy tongue chafes my own, his barbed cock making sure I never forget he’s going in and out of me, each plunge punctuated by a smooth, wet sound as his first load lubes me up so he can go for his second. His abdomen doesn’t lean on mine, like most men’s would during a face-up kitchen-table fuck, ‘cuz cheetahs have tummies so flat as to be almost hollow. This is awesome, because no pressure’s placed on my sincerely uncomfortable crotch and I can just wrap my legs around Conroy’s waist and enjoy the ride…
    He’s enjoying it, too. A part of my brain that ain’t been numbed by horniness recognizes that star-struck look in his eyes guys get when they get to fuck me after I’ve been on stage, or after I’ve climbed out of the tank at the dive. When they fantasize about fucking me, like they’ve been doing all night and they realize their fantasy’s real, right in front of them.
    Conroy holds my hips good and hard as he bangs away between my legs, the very tips of his claws pushing dents in my hide, the poor cheetah too excited to retract them fully. “Oh god, yes,” I moan, and I sound like a god-damn two-bit whore. And it ain’t even fake, I really fucking love it!
    When I feel him shoot his load I arch my back to feel it squirt nice and deep inside me, reaching behind my head to grab the edges of the table, only my palms and forehead touching anything that ain’t cheetah. You know, when you go out drinking and all of a sudden there’s that one glorious moment, could be a minute or an hour, when you’ve drunk just enough that the music and whatever company you’re with is the awesomest thing in the universe, but not enough to be drunk? That’s what this feels like. The world glows and all I can think of is the good things. Alice and his girlfriend. My new boyfriend, the cop. Tonight’s dancing in the Dive’s tank. Tomorrow’s – boyfriend? What the fuck did I just think?
    “I love you,” I whisper softly.
    Have you ever heard anything so pathetic?
   
    I can’t bear it. I honestly can’t. So I ain’t gonna tell you what happens for the next hour or so, other than that Conroy got all sappy and fucked me slow a second time and kept asking ‘Really?’ and I kept answering what I thought was the truth. It makes me retch! It makes me puke up rancid bile. But I’m not myself during all this, I’m on some hybridized form of horny that thankfully doesn’t leave me a shivering, screaming wreck like I was when Sharpish took me, but still makes me a good deal more like Cannit than I like to be.
    From what I hear, that faggot of a hare – and let me just digress a little; because while I’m a grade-A cocksucker myself and I do like to dress my best I don’t dally around the mall for hours on end and gossip with likeminded hipcocking boys, nor do I return wolfwhistles from construction workers with Oooh! or ask people whether a pair of pants makes my ass look fat – spends a lot of time in the trunk of a car, or a number of cars, and I am too right now.
    After the fucking stopped, you see, Conroy gently urged me back into the hidey-hole, despite my pleas to let me stay with him. We kissed more than my aunt Davida ever kissed her nephews and all the time I was in that dark hiding space, while the other cop, Eric, was keeping watch, I’m pining for him. Conroy that is. My beloved fucking Conroy. I swear to God, something’s snapped in my head because I feel head over heels and I ain’t never even felt like that about anybody.
    Butterflies in my stomach. Think about buying him flowers, wondering if he likes his cock sucked straight and deep or corkscrew-style and if he likes it right when he wakes up or after his morning piss, that sort of thing. Makes me cringe but seriously, it’s what’s on my mind and it makes me happy right now.
    Time drags like the night before your birthday as a kid and I get all antsy. I still gotta pee but that doesn’t even bother me. My stomach’s in a knot, the tip of my tongue itches. In the plus column my dick doesn’t hurt. Funny thing – it’s always the guys I really like and the ones I really don’t like that my dick naturally stays soft for. Malloy’s a curious exception. Often wonder about that.
    Right now, though, it’s as if I never knew him. I’m hoping Conroy will come back and take me with him and let me do sex to him, so to speak, until he passes out, so I can surprise him by cleaning his house – I’m typically crap at cleaning, but right now I feel like I can learn everything I need to know if I work hard enough – and cooking breakfast for him. Really, the shit that’s going through my mind… Me wearing an apron and cleaning gloves and nothing else so that, if Conroy wakes up before I’m finished cleaning, he has something to do while I’m kneeling and scrubbing the floor with my tail high, high up.
    You’re picturing it, aren’t you. If you’re grinning, so help me, I’ll come get you and I’ll bring a hammer and I’ll fuck you up. This is me we’re talking about! I’m sexy and cool and ever so thoughtful, not some two-bit kneepad-wearing “I do”-saying bitch! Respect me some, okay? Feel for me! Sympathize in my moment of weakness.
    Enough. I said I wasn’t going to talk about it long. After the last few weeks, sorry, hours, were up, Conroy came back and weaseled the situation until Eric agreed to go out and get them both some high-fiber sandwiches from the deli – when did cops stop eating donuts? This world. I tell you. – and in the short time the other cheetah was gone Conroy pulled me out of the hidey-hole, had me follow him downstairs and them let me hop in the trunk of the copcar, slamming it shut just in time for Eric to return.
    It’s a blissful agony, the waiting, the anticipation. Like I said, like the night before your birthday. The presents can be great or disappointing, that’s as may be – you wouldn’t be a real kid if you couldn’t be disappointed in the gifts your parents got ya, even if they spent months looking and thinking – but the waiting, oh, the waiting is like a picture of Disneyland. All promise and hope, all agonizing, restless temptation.
    I listen. To the hum of the engine, feeling it thrum through my bones, jostling me in my confinement, my legs curled up in the fetal position, occupying space normally reserved for toolboxes, extra handcuffs and clips and a reserve tire, all of which Conroy left behind at the Old House. I listen to the sound of the street passing under the wheels, to my own little yelps and squeals every time we hit a bump too hard and the coughs and sneezes Conroy fakes so Eric doesn’t hear the sounds. Their conversation, too muffled to make out but I’m so head-over-heels that simply the drowned-out drone of Conroy’s voice makes my toes wiggle.
    After what seemed like forty minutes, but was actually an eternity (this is really the best way to describe my sense of time at this juncture, go fig) the car stopped. I hadn’t heard any voices for a while and the car was driven much more carefully than earlier, so I hardly had any bruises from being banged around the trunk when Conroy opened his face.
    When he opened the trunk the sun was precisely behind his head, casting his gorgeous face into shadow with an aura around it, like Christian saints are sometimes depicted. My jaw dropped, ears folded. I fucking worshipped the man. He smiled down at me and helped me out, holding my hips and accidentally, of course, grabbing a feel of my ass, as I wobbled on my aching legs.
    I turned to him with urgency and saw he was holding his gym clothes for me to wear, but I kissed him quickly on the lips, said “Excuse me a moment,” and made a mad dash across the open grassy hillside he’d brought us to for a copse of trees where I reached into my jockstrap and bent over and twisted the valve that Malloy and I had McGyvered on the thing on my sheath, for which I still ain’t decided on a name, but Jesus, this is the best piss I ever had… I don’t even make it to the trees before my knees give out and I just release right on the grass, one hand on my crotch, the other carrying my weight on the grass, pissing like a horse in a field and fuck me, but it’s just what the doctor ordered.
    As the torrent slows to a trickle, my tongue lolling like a dog’s and even my leg twitches in response to the sheer bliss of relief, I feel a warm hand on my ass. “Looks like you needed that, sweetness. Sorry I didn’t think of that before, you must have needed that for hours.
    I turn my head and then my whole body and then I roll onto my side in the soft grass, well away from the wet patch that served as my urinal. My hands are resting on my chest like a dog’s paws, rubbing over my pecs, looking up at Conroy with a beatific smile. It’d be almost cute, if it wasn’t so humiliating – and you may find these little side comments annoying, distracting you from the really tender scene going on before you, but hello! I’m all fucked up in the head and this is horrible, what’s happening to me, what I’m doing. So all of you romantic saps going ‘aww, ain’t that just the darlingest thing’ can kiss my dyed, cheetah-cum-filled posterior, cuz I ain’t gonna let you just sit back and enjoy this.
    Still, it undeniably is sweet, the way my handsome cop lies his lean body down beside me, stroking fingertips from my stomach to my chin and back again. Gives me goosebumps, that touch. Sun on my body, hands… Soft kisses. He’s hard, is Conroy, I can see the tent in his pants. But that don’t bother him, it ain’t what he’s after. I turn onto my side and kiss him back. Soft grass beneath us, fresh and succulent even to carnivores like us. It should be cold, what with the recent bouts of snow, but it isn’t. My breath doesn’t even mist up, the grass isn’t even wet.
    Still, hours without clothes or shelter take their toll and I ain’t even begun shivering before my Controy, I don’t even know his first name, reaches out to grab my butt and, squeezing it, pulls be against him. His body is warm beneath his crisp blue uniform, his shirtsleeves rolled up, his jacket hung over the open door of his copcar.
    He breaks the endless kisses and presses his forehead against mine. I sense worry from him and my ears fold and my heartbeat quickens even more and he senses that right back and soothes me, squeezing a buttcheek, kissing my chin, smiling reassuringly. “We have stuff to talk about, Luke,” he says softly. A few hours ago, when he was so lewdly bullying me out of my hiding space, I wouldn’t have thought there to be such a soft, tender core to this man.
    “Okay,” I says, nodding up and down, and then my hand sneaks up the inside of his thigh and rests on his groin, my thumb trailing down the side of what, gosh yes, must surely be an erection. I grin at him almost bashfully and he closes his eyes at the simple touch. “Is it okay if I just listen for a while?” I suggest and push him over onto his back, kissing his lips as I grip his hardness more firmly. Then I start kissing my way down his gorgeous, impossibly trim feline body.
    He lies back and looks up at the sky the way men do when they want to say something without seeing its effects. “I wasn’t… I wasn’t truthful, Luke.” Kisses on his stomach, pulling the thick blue shirt, pressed and creaseless, from his waistband. The white of his tummy exposed, a fresh kiss, which causes him to groan, so I kiss him again. Wide-mouthed, gnawing on the tender, skinny muscle of his stomach. He calms, and I move on, sliding my hand under his shirt, starting to unbuckle his belt with my teeth. “Oh, Christ,” he says. I smile and continue as he lays a hand on my ass again – about time, too, I’ve been wiggling it about to get hit attention since I started moving down.
    “I, um,” Conroy says, breathing very hard indeed. “I made you think that… I want you to know that I just – hell, I, I’ve seen you at the Crosshairs and I heard that you went home with your fans sometimes, or let them come backstage and, and I wanted to so badly, but, like, I’m a cop and it’s not allowed…”
    As he speaks, I draw his belt out of his waistband, laying it aside before continuing. I have one hand on his inner thigh, the other caressing his chest under his shirt and I move my head down to start unbuttoning and unzipping his slacks with my teeth. He’s quiet a little longer, no doubt captivated by the sight of me, and who wouldn’t be? A canid with beautiful fur patterns sprawled comfortably, naked but for a jockstrap, on his belly in the grass, raised on elbows, head bobbing calmly as he opens another male’s pants…
    “When I saw you in that bed and then I realized that maybe you hadn’t left the house, you were hiding, I… It was a trick, I just wanted you to come out, I wouldn’t have done anything to you.” Conroy’s raspy voice is almost pleading, his grip on my butt urgent, the way one might squeeze a rabbi’s arm when in need of some advice that’ll soothe your aching soul. “I just wanted you to come out so I could tell you – if I’d told you straight away, when you were still hiding, you’d have thought it was a trick, see and ahh!”
    Feeling my lips slide down your cock before even fully opening up your pants’ll shut you up, any of you, and I don’t care if you’re straight, saint or seventy, it’s a goddamn fact. I draw hard on his firm, feline erection, feeling the zipper part further as I push my snout into his pants, inhaling the scent of him, the sex we had. He’s a big boy, is Conroy. Not too big, though, which is even nicer. His cock has a slight upward curve that feels so nice sliding down my throat from this position; I could do this all day. I will, if Conroy will let me.
    Nothing but his word can stop me and even then, the word has to be ‘stop’. I continue, bobbing my head ever so slowly, smoothly rubbing his chest and his thigh as my mouth makes love to his cock with long, deep strokes, even when he tells me that the cops aren’t actually looking for me for anything, they just want my statement, it’s procedure, if I hadn’t been in bed with Malloy when they busted him they wouldn’t even be interested in me.
    All of these things should have made some impact on me, but I simply accept them. Oh, yeah, Malloy’s in jail. They’re going to press a laundry list of charges, oh, really? If I come to the station and make a statement, maybe it’ll be easier on everybody, maybe it won’t take so long. Sure, Conroy. I’ll do whatever you say, of course I will. Do you like it when I bob my head evenly, or when I go quicker on the way down?
    After he’s finished talking, after he lies back, so relieved that I don’t think ill of him for his tricks, it don’t take me more than a minute to get him off and when he’s there I suck nice and hard, denying myself the taste of his cum no matter how much I hunger for it, letting him cum down my throat because I know that feels nicer for him than in my mouth.
    He positively collapses. And that ain’t nothin’ weird, ‘cuz this was the best blowjob I’ve given in years. Honest. Better than I gave Malloy, better than I’ve given anybody in forever. Now, how can one blowjob be better than another? A blowjob’s always supposed to be approached like a kiss, showing the urgency of your lust and then taking a breather to let the tension build before satisfying it, same with givin’ head. Suck hard for a couple minutes, then pull off, lick and nuzzle, suck his balls, till he’s burstin’ to get back in your muzzle, and then you take him in there again, that’s how you build a mind-blowing orgasm. I know how it works, because I can see the reaction on my johns’ faces. Now, I sensed that response from Conroy every single time I took him down into my throat, and I didn’t pull off more than half a dick’s length. I don’t even know what I did – if I did, I could probably charge so much that I could live like a prince on a blowjob a week.
    He told me, while I was going down on him, that we’d have to leave pretty soon; and since the sun’s already setting I figure he won’t want to enjoy the afterglow too much. Kissing his dick as it recedes into his sheath, I button up his pants again and kiss his groin, stroking and nuzzling to make sure his sheath’s good and comfortable. I raise up on my knees and look at my man. God, he’s gorgeous… Sinewy biceps and stomach, heavy forearms and expansive chest. Short muzzle, compact features, those gorgeous teardrop marks down the cheeks. I trace one with my finger and he smiles at me, licking my fingertip and I feel so goddamn honored.
    Once more: I ain’t in my right state of mind, and this ain’t sweet.
   
    I dress in the gym clothes he gives me. They smell of him and, well, you can imagine how much that thrills me. I offer to sit in the passenger seat and give Conroy – he still hasn’t told me his name, come to think of it – some road head, but he put on his cop cap, making me swoon and cling to him because he looks so damn commanding in full uniform, and tells me that would be unsafe. My ears fold and my knees go weak and I’m so impressed with him. Immediately I try to impress him and when he says I should get in the back seat and keep my head down, I ask him if it wouldn’t be better if I went in the trunk again, so he could let me out when we got to his garage. But then he says he doesn’t have a garage, and I should just do as I’m told. He’s so awesome.
    I ask him a trillion questions on the road, keeping my head pushed down. What’s his house like? Where does he come from? Does he prefer doggystyle or missionary? Does he like girls as well as guys, and would he like me to dress up as a girl, would he like that? Thank fucking God he said ‘no’ to that. Does he prefer coffee or tea? And would he like a blowjob when he wakes up, or wait to fuck in the shower? Would he mind if I kept working at the Dive, and singing at the Crosshairs? If he doesn’t want me to sleep with my fans any more, that’s no problem at all, I wouldn’t dream of making him unhappy.
    Fortunately – that is, it doesn’t strike me as particulary fortunate at the time because I don’t mind either way, as long as Conroy approves of me – he thinks it’s kind of hot that his boyfriend’s a hustler, tending to countless strangers with professional gusto, only to return to his man, to take care of him after a hard day of walking the streets and mind-numbin bureaucracy. Conroy talked wistfully of coming home to a clean house and a beautiful, naked dogboy. I’m so in love with the guy that I don’t even take offense at him taking me for a dog instad of a wolf.
    Oh, joy! Oh, glistening rapture! Glory divine, oh, sweet, happy day! We’ve arrived!
    I hop out of the car as soon as Conroy opens the door for me. I positively explode out of the car and into his arms. Course, there’s more weight to me than my slight, could-pass-for-eightteen would suggest and less to his upper-body buffness so he ends up falling backwards and I have to sort of catch him. We laugh, the way two people laugh drunkenly after a date when they trip or almost get run over and he ushers me up the staris to the entrance to his aparment building, smacking my ass on the way up. I hop at the door, waiting for him to unlock it.
    He hushes me, laughing, as he opens the door and listens at the crack. “Okay, come on!” he says with a grin and I press past his slender frame, jogging through the dirty-carpeted hallway beyond. It’s a much nicer apartment building than mine – the wallpaper may be torn here and there and some of the lights may not work, but at least there’s wallpaper and lights. “No, no, it’s right here,” says Cnroy, grabbing my arm as I”m about to walk up the stairs to the second floor. He fiddles with his keys and manages to open the door to his pad.
    I run right through and pull my gym shirt off, tugging Conroy’s gym shorts down as well, finally pulling off the jockstrap as well.
    “What’s that?” asks Conroy as he closes the door, hanging up his jacket, nodding toward the metal guard on my sheath.
    I grab it, stroking the metal surface, scarred from many attempts to remove it, the little prongs of the ring around my ballsac still penetrating the skin. “It’s a long story, but it’s moe or less stuck there. Does it… does it bother you?” I ask, biting my lower lip.
    He walks up to me and hugs me from behind, sliding his arms around my waist. “How could I mind a boy who only has one cock on his mind… and it’s not his own.” He cups my balls and rather than emphasising the ache, his touch actually soothes it. I guess maybe there is a positive side to this whole debacle.
   
    And that’s how it goes. I’m happier than I’ve ever been. After a few hours’ fucking, a trip to the police station where I tell them how I know Malloy, how long I’ve known him, what he was doing in the Old House. Apparently they’ve caught him on a charge of pederasty. Can you believe that? He’s a professional drug dealer, but there’s not a single charge of that sort on his record. Seem a sixteen-year-old dingo he was fucking on and off for a few months up until the whole C-65 shit started happening got jealous and decided to tell his Dad that he was raped. The little shit.
    Then he drives me to my old apartment. I say ‘hi’ to Butterfly, go up to the attic (always an exercise in suicidal athleticism, that) for band practice and find Double Bill both trying to chat up the same chick. They’re standing around the drum kit, drinking cans of Coke with electric wiring coiling around their legs that’s simply waiting for an opportunity to spark and kill us all, and they introduce the lioness as a friend of theirs who’s shown some interest inhelping fill out the sound of the band. She had some basic guitar lessons when she was younger and if she took over basic rhythm guitar that’d leave Will free to do some more exciting work.
    “Hey, I’m Luke,” I say and Double Bill share some smirks at the lioness’ bizarre, scornful reaction upon meeting me.
    “Hey,” she says with a degree of disdain that’d normally make my ears fold and my shoulders slump, but I’m still high on my new boyfriend and all I can do is grin at her. She steps closer to me, her nose almost to mine, standing up on her toepads to reach and, sniffing at me, actually grins. “I’m Nezzy.”
    I didn’t even recognise her. I hadn’t seen her since I was taken by Sharpish, and since then she’s gotten a labret piercing, no doubt to mach her new bull boyfriend’s thick nose ring. She’s also gained a tattoo just below her left eye and instead of her usual punker gear she’s dressed in a truly sexy Chinese dress. Short sleeves, a high collar, black silk covering her breasts and flowing down over her pants down to her ankles. It give her a powerful, commanding look.
    She recognises me. Maybe it’s female intuition, maybe it’s just that I haven’t had a chance to put on any cologne on and my natural scent’s a little more recognisable, but she recognises me. And I know that she does, and she knows I know and she smiles at me to let me know it’s all right, that she’s glad I’m all right and I know she won’t tell anyone, not even Alice.
    That joy, of seeing Nezzy again and knowing she isn’t angry at me for going underground, almost exceeds my continued satisfaction at the thought that my boyfriend’s going to be in the audience later on and that it’s him who’s going to come backstage for a victory fuck afterward, that he’ll take me home and let me sleep in his bed and when he wakes up I’ll take care of his morning wood and h won’t have to do anything to clean up the house before he heads out to the office because I’ll have all day for laundry and cleaning and I’m looking forward to all of that.
    Nezzy grabs her guitar, looking positively regal in her dress, sparkling darkly against the punkish attire of Double Bill, Rod the fox’ tight white outfit and our bare-chested bear of a drummer. She’s a queen, and me? I’m a courtesan. Wide painter pants, sagging around my hips, showing off the curve of my groin and a tank top that just about covers my navel. Conroy told me, while we were fucking, that that was his favourite of my outfits, so it’s the one I put on when I stopped over at my apartment.
    Tonight’s going to be quite a show. And that’s all that’s on my mind. Not Malloy in custody. Not somebody out there who knows I’m Owen and for all I know wants to blackmail me. Not the continued risk of Sharpish who, with Malloy being in custody, now will no longer receive his weekly samples of my semen and will respond in God knows what manner.
    I have a boyfriend, a job and friends, all of whom I love. And this is more than enough for me and with my love-addled brain I have absolutely nothing to worry about.
    And I know I’ve been telling you all the time how much I hate all this, how much I wish I was in my right mind and how embarrassing all this is, but… If I had to be honest? I’m glad I didn’t have a choice in the matter. Because if I did, if I got to choose whether to be in my right mind, or in this sweet, ignorant bliss, I don’t know which I would have chosen. And I know that makes me weak, and that maybe I don’t deserve my friends, Malloy and the rest.
    But that’s why this’ll be our little secret.
    Deal?
    Cool.

    To be continued.

Available on paperback in 2005

Mail the author for information or join the mailing list!