Divisions (Dev and Lee) (26 page)

“In a minute,” he pants against my ear, “you’re not going to need it anymore.”

“Uh-huh.” I gasp as his thumb tweaks my tip, and my body shudders. “Saves me a trip, then.”

He pauses in his stroking and then pulls me up over his thigh to sit in his lap. “Mmkay, then. If that’s how it is.” I only have a second to settle myself before he’s stroking again, and now I can feel his hardness against my rear, his chest and arms all around me, and he’s managed to push my pants down enough to get my cock out into the air. I look down at his paw on it, still moving, at the glistening tip. I rarely get to watch myself being jerked off when I’m not doing it. It’s pretty hot.

I squirm and he holds me tightly. I pant and he strokes faster. I press back, whining to let him know I’m close as my back arches and body tenses, and he must know that this is where he needs to stop if he really wants to fuck me tonight, but his paw keeps going, and then it’s too late, I’m thrusting up into his paw, spattering sticky warmth over his fingers and my shirt and stomach and gasping out moans at the waves of pleasure.

He purrs against me, holding me when the shudders die down and I sink back into his embrace. “So,” I manage to pant, “want me to get that lube now?”

His chest bounces as he chuckles. “Thought you didn’t like to be entered when you’d just come.”

“I don’t.”

“What about in that adorable muzzle of yours?”

“Mmm.” I let my tongue loll out. “That could work.”

And once I’ve recovered, it works very well indeed, even if I have to wipe myself up with my shirt and he has to keep his paw lifted off the couch all through the blow job. But soon enough, my muzzle is as sticky as his paw, and then we go clean ourselves up and crawl into our nice clean bed.

“See, this way, we don’t have to clean the sheets again,” he purrs, squeezing me against him in the dark, both of us sleepy.

“There’s still the morning,” I murmur back, and my tail wags against him because this is what I thought it would be like, living together. The thought passes across my mind that he pretty much did what he wanted to me tonight and I wasn’t much good at talking him into anything. But I wanted it, too, so that doesn’t count, does it? I squelch those thoughts as best I can.

***

Tuesday while he’s out at practice, I go out and do some Christmas shopping. It’s the 17
^th
already and though I don’t have a lot of people to shop for, I want to get something for my dad, and for Dev, of course. I should pick up a few cards for Salim and Allen, and Hal, and yeah, I guess maybe Brian too. I wonder if there’s a card that says, “Merry Christmas. I wish I didn’t hate talking to you so much.”

Of course, that one would be more appropriate for Mother. I think of her when I’m passing a gift store and spot a family of crystal foxes, really nicely done. It’s just the thing she would’ve liked, and just the thing I might’ve gotten her a year ago. Gifts like that kept the uneasy peace between us, something I could get out of obligation and that she could pretend represented affection.

For Dev, I get a couple nice pieces of art I think would look good in the apartment, and a sporty blazer. I’d like to get him something for our sex life, but I have no idea where to find a store like that in Chevali. At least the pharmacies sell lube now, even if it’s not the flavored/scented kind.

I thought about a new phone, too—there are those brand-new iPhones out that everyone is so hot over. But knowing Dev, I’m not sure whether it’s worth investing six hundred dollars in a phone that could end its life the first time we yell at each other, or the first time his family pisses him off in 2009. In the end, I get him a good solid case for his current phone, so the next time he fires it at the wall, maybe it won’t shatter.

All the malls here offer bland gift shops, unless I want something that’s mainstream-edgy. There’s a t-shirt that says, “I’m not gay but my boyfriend is,” which I think would be really funny, but he would never wear it. I walk around all morning, grab lunch at a food court, and then find that I’m just looking for gifts rather than thinking about what makes the people special, so I give up and go home to get online.

That turns out to have some better options, and gives me the best gift I found all day. Forester University is selling off pieces of the turf in the stadium as they replace it with the new synthetic turf. The fifty dollars, steep for a four by four inch patch of ground, goes toward the athletic program. Even though Forester turned out a UFL star in Dev, they don’t have a lot to cheer about, so I don’t mind supporting the program. And Dev will like having a piece of the turf he ran on while I was watching him, back years ago.

While I’m shopping online, I find a local microbrewery that offers a tour package and I buy one of those for Dev as well, setting the date for sometime in late February when he’s finally going to be able to relax. Last February he went a little stir-crazy and took a week off to try to learn snowboarding, only his contract doesn’t allow him to do anything harder than a cub slope, so he got frustrated and sulked for the last three days. I’ll be busy with Yerba—I hope—but maybe I can fly down for at least a day.

By the time Dev gets home, I’m done with the majority of my shopping and back to playing video games. He flops down next to me on the couch and picks up the controller. Tells me a little about Strike and how he’s still kind of an asshole, but the team is excited to see what he can do next. There’s optimism about the Hellentown game. “Don’t look past Kerina,” I say.

“Trust me, we’re not.” He stretches and grimaces. “We’re going through our exercises and they’re adding new plays. Only new play we need is Aston to Strike, if you ask me.” He mimes a long pass and catch, sitting on the sofa.

“Against Kerina, maybe,” I say. “Doesn’t hurt to get in some new wrinkles you can also use for Hellentown, though. What do the new plays look like?”

“Wish we could just play that game this week, instead of flying out to Kerina and back. There’s no upside to this game. We’re supposed to win, so if we win, it’s like, big deal. If we lose, it’s an upset, and they’re motivated ‘cause it’s a division game. Wish Hellentown would lose.”

I don’t ask him again about the new plays. “Well, you can’t control what Hellentown does. You can only control what you do.”

My game ends, and he gets in on some two-player action. While we’re setting up, he says, “Flight out is at 8 am tomorrow. So I need to get out of here around 6:30.”

“Okay. I’ll set the alarm.”

He leans over to kiss me. “I got you a ticket and a hotel room for Saturday and Sunday night. See you there?”

“I’d fly out Friday,” I say, “but I’d be bored in Kerina.”

Dev grins and bumps my shoulder. “I’m gonna be bored in Kerina.” He starts up our game, and his tail thwaps the couch. “So just get there Saturday and cheer me up.”

“That’s my job,” I say.

I do my job pretty well, to judge by the noises breathed hot between my ears that night. I want to ask him about the beer commercial, but I don’t want to spoil the night, because I know I’d just end up asking him why he doesn’t want to take time off for gay kids. I promised myself I’d let him bring it up, but of course that was the same thing as letting him not do it at all, because I knew he wouldn’t bring it up.

In the morning, though, I put up a wall in my mind about the Equality PSA so I don’t talk about it, and I ask him if he and Strike worked out a time for the beer commercial.

“Oh, yeah,” he says. “Ogleby finally got all the paperwork done and Strike’s agent set up the time with Strongwell. It’s going to be the Monday afternoon after the Hellentown game. They’re flying us out to Crystal City for the filming and then back here Monday night so we can get to practice Tuesday morning. Coach ok’d it and everything.”

“Great.” I smile, because it is good for him. And for me, I guess, though when I think about getting that million dollars, it feels just a little wrong. If I wanted to, I guess I could get him to donate some of it to Equality Now, but that doesn’t feel as constructive as him actually filming a commercial, getting himself out there as a gay rights spokesperson. It’s frustrating because he has so much potential and he’s not using it.

I remember how I watched him play football and saw that same wasted potential. And before I can stop myself, I say, “Maybe when the beer commercial’s done, you can think about doing the Equality Now spot?”

So much for putting up walls in my head. He gives me a narrow look and I can see the wheels turn in his mind: don’t yell at the fox right before leaving for a weekend. “I thought you were going to let that go.”

Before that phone call from Brian, I hear. “Yeah, well. I mean, the whole Vince King thing and the stuff with my mom kind of keeps coming back to me. Sorry.”

He shakes his head. “The beer commercial—I know it’s just money, but it’s sort of about gay rights too. It shows me as a regular guy who drinks beer and that being gay is okay.”

He sort of has a point. Sort of. I nod. “Yeah, I know. It’s better than nothing.”

“And you know, maybe we can donate some of the million. To good causes.”

It’s so close to what I was thinking, with such a different spin on it, that I have to smile. “That sounds like a good plan,” I say.

“I want to do the spot, too,” he says. “After the season.” I believe he means at least part of that. So I kiss him and tell him to have a good flight, and then watch him walk out the door.

It’s so hard, because he has the opportunity to do something really special, and yet taking too much time to do that might compromise his career and his whole life. And then I think again about the kids whose lives are already compromised for them. Not just King, again, but kids who spend their lives feeling miserable because there’s nobody for them to look up to. Dev could change that, or at least start to, and while a beer commercial is a start, it isn’t exactly “I have a dream.”

While playing UFL 2009 against myself (Dragons against Firebirds), my phone rings. It’s a local number I don’t recognize, and the voice isn’t familiar either, but she knows my name. “Hello, Mister Farrel,” she says when I’ve answered. “This is Myrna Martin from the Chevali Firebirds. I’m the assistant to David Rodriguez. Is this a good time?”

Rodriguez is the general manager of the Firebirds. I sit up straighter on the couch. “Yes. What can I do for you?”

“We’ve been having internal discussions around Devlin Miski and have decided that it would be advantageous for the Firebirds to initiate some kind of effort to reach out to the gay community.”

“Oh.”

“Your name came up in our discussions. We are interested in your background in gay community outreach, and of course, it helps that you are familiar with the internal working of football organizations.”

“Right. I was a scout, you know, not community outreach.”

“Of course.” She asks me some questions about the Dragons, and about my work with Forester. I answer mechanically, while my mind is spinning, trying to figure out what’s going on. Am I interviewing for a job that I didn’t apply for? Or is this just a one-time thing that they want me to help on, like a contract?

I ask her that, when she gets to the point where she asks if I have any questions, and she says, “We’re still determining what this position is going to look like. It would run at least through the remainder of the regular season, and sometime in the summer we would re-evaluate.”

“And it’s only community outreach?”

“Correct. Is that something you’d be interested in?”

In the short term, maybe? But I don’t want to say that because this is, after all, an opportunity to do some good stuff and work with Dev. “I have been looking for scouting work and that would be my first priority, but this sounds interesting, yeah.”

“Wonderful. Let me discuss this with David, and we’ll be in touch in the next few days. Is this the best number for you?”

“It is, thanks.” And it’s only after I hang up that I wonder, how did they get my number? If it was from Dev, why didn’t he mention it?

So I call up Hal, and see if he wants to do dinner Thursday night, because he knows some of the guys in the Firebirds, and this seems like a little longer than a lunch topic. We settle on a bistro he knows downtown.

While I have the phone out, I call Father to bug him again about coming down here for Christmas. He still sounds reluctant to commit to that, as though maybe Mother will change and he can go home. I point out that he should be with some family on Christmas, and he points out that that sounds disingenuous coming from me, and I say that clearly people can change, and maybe everybody shouldn’t be so goddamn sure that they know me that well. Then he says he doesn’t want to intrude on me and Dev and I remind him that Dev is basically working through Christmas. I don’t even know if he’s planning to celebrate other than a little bit with me the night before. The conversation ends with him tentatively booking airline tickets to come down.

Thursday, Brian calls to ask if coffee would be okay because he needs to meet earlier than lunch, and I say okay as long as it’s not Starbucks, and he picks some pretentious hipster place called Café Monde that is clear on the other side of town. It would take me an hour and three changes to get there on the bus, so I check a map online and drive, which I have been trying to do less of here. It takes twenty minutes and then twenty more looking for the right street and a place to park, and by the time I get to the coffee shop ten minutes late, my fur is bristled. I don’t take the time to smooth it down.

“All in a lather, Tip? Have the vanilla latte, it’s splendid.”

I have to say, Brian does look pretty good. I think he’s put on a little weight, but he’s wearing a nice collared shirt and a pair of white slacks, and he’s holding a stack of pages that are folded back: a script, I guess. He puts it down when I walk in, and lifts the drink he’s got. I can smell the black coffee from here, probably a dark roast.

Since I had to walk past two anarchist bookstores and a head shop on the way here from my parking spot, I am pretty smugly happy I was right about what kind of place it is. Sure enough, they have “fair trade” slapped up all over everything, communist tracts on the counter, and coffee blends called “People’s Roast” and “Mocha Revolution.”

As a minor act of rebellion, petty revenge for making me drive through Chevali, I get a spiced chai, and I wait for it at the counter while Brian smirks, unfolds his script, and goes back to reading it. He gives it his full attention; it’s like I’m not even here. Like I said, a great actor. I study him while he reads.

He’s kicked back in the wooden chair, one foot on the coffee table, the other on the floor. Last time I saw him, a couple months ago, I felt like he’d never left college. Now I feel more like he’s brought college to this coffee shop with him. He looks a lot calmer, and I think maybe I did actually do him a favor, getting him back into activism. He was never happy after leaving FLAG, and Equality Now sounds just like a grown-up version of that.

They pass my chai over the counter. I take it and sniff—spicy indeed—and walk back to the chair opposite Brian.

He holds up a finger, turns a page, and reads a couple lines, then puts his script down. “Ah, the Bard,” he says. “The words really mean something.
He heareth not, he stirreth not, he moveth not
.” His eyes glitter at me, and just above them, his notched ear flicks.

“I remember the play,” I say, though I must admit I don’t recall those specific lines. But if it’s Mercutio, chances are it’s mocking Romeo. The parallel doesn’t escape me. He already knows, I’m sure, that Dev won’t do the spot, so I just say it outright. “I don’t think I can convince Dev to be in a commercial.”

He just nods, and his smile doesn’t crack. “It’s okay,” he says. “You and me, we can make this work.”

I thought he’d be more upset. Part of me wanted him to be more upset. But part of me is also excited that I could do something without troubling Dev. “Did you find something out about Families United?”

He tilts his muzzle. “I thought you were working on that.”

“I was.” I stare down at the chai. “I still am.”

“Well,” he says. “This is better. This is actually something substantive. You’re going to love this one, I promise.”

I’m excited, but the way he says “love this one” makes me a little apprehensive. All this time on the phone I had been remembering Brian from college, the excited, idealistic Brian, because that’s what he sounded like. In person, his scent is older, and even though he looks good, he still has the desperation of someone who doesn’t belong in this time but is trying to force the time to belong to him. He’s much more like the guy I visited a few months ago. The one who guilted me into a quick handjob.

Memories and shame flatten my ears. I try to drown them in spiced tea and for a moment, I can’t smell anything, so it sort of works. “Okay, what is it?”

“Paula’s been working on setting up a meeting in Potomac. It’s my first time working with her directly on something.” His eyes shine, or maybe glitter.

I raise my eyebrows. “I thought this was a local branch.”

“It is, but you know, we’re not exactly on the forefront of the civil rights movement down here in the desert. Paula overcompensates sometimes. Sweet rabbit. Tough as nails. Her husband owned a cattle ranch, you know, and died when a bull trampled him. Paula took over the ranch, and three years later brought her partner Brooke to live with her there. They still run it. You’d like her.”

“So she gets into national politics.”

He nods. “She went to Potomac to lobby for the beef industry when her husband was alive.”

“Lucky us. I’ll think of her next time I make steaks for Dev.” I pause. “So there’s a meeting in Potomac. Lobbyists?”

“Senators.” He looks proud. “There are a couple football fans who are at least willing to sit down and talk about some legislation we’re proposing for next session.”

I put pieces together. “Whoa. You want Dev to go to Potomac? I thought this was just filming some spots, maybe some Q&A later.”

“You think small, Tip. Well. In some respects.” He lets that one hang there. I don’t swing at it. “This is a real chance to make a difference on a national front. It’s the kind of thing we dreamed about getting involved in back in FLAG, and here we are with the chance to do it. You and I could go to Potomac together and really make a change.”

The chai is warm in my paws, the ginger and cinnamon and cardamom all filling my nose with spice. I see Brian’s vision, him and me and senators. I know he wants Dev there, too, but he didn’t say for sure that he does. To hold on to the dream, I postpone the moment when I have to address that. “What’s the legislation?”

“You know that we have a lot of Sonoran immigrants here in Chevali, right? Did you know that some of them have same-sex partners, but they can’t get the rights they could get if they walked down the street and married someone of the opposite gender?”

“Of course I know that. I’m not stupid.”

“Well, this legislation wouldn’t allow marriage, but it would allow same-sex relationships to qualify for citizenship for immigrants.”

“In states that have formalized relationships. Which we don’t currently here.”

He shrugs and waves a paw. “It’s been introduced twice into the legislature. Last year it failed by three votes. This year it should pass. This federal legislation will protect future relationships.”

I sigh. “How serious is it? Is it just another thing people are putting up for show that they don’t seriously expect to go anywhere?”

“I expect it to go somewhere.” He leans forward. “I expect it to be a turning point.”

To do something real, to make a difference for millions—well, hundreds. Thousands maybe, eventually. But a real, tangible difference. And I could still work with Dev to do the PSA spot later. “I’m sure I can get away to go to Potomac.”

“That’s great.” He beams and sips his coffee. “I’ll send you my travel info. And you’ll be able to bring your boyfriend along?”

Here it comes. I bite my lip. “When is it?”

“Keep in mind, this is something real. Talking to people who can make a difference. These senators are football fans and they’ll listen to a player. It’s not just parading around in front of a TV, which I know your boyfriend is expert at.”

“Pays better, too.”

His eyes narrow, his smile grows. “
I will bite thee by the ear for that jest
.”

“Don’t waste Shakespeare on that,” I say. “So tell me when this meeting is, and I hope you’re going to say February, because otherwise…”

He shakes his head before I finish. “Second week of January. Congress goes into session that week and they’re already all full up of meetings with oil and finance lobbyists eager to get into the new session. By February they’re already going to have made their decisions on our bill. It’s one of the first ones up.”

I sigh and sip the chai, which is now cool enough to drink. The ginger and cloves sear my tongue, making my eyes water. Brian watches me. “When did you start drinking chai?”

“Oh,” I say, “just in the last couple years. It makes a nice change of pace.” Not strictly true, though I’ve had a couple chais on the road and like them when they’re not quite this harshly spiced. “I don’t think January’s going to work.”

Brian looks steadily at me. “It’s the playoffs,” I say. “In case you hadn’t noticed, if they win today at Kerina, they’re pretty much in the playoffs, and to take him away from the team for a day…”

“I know,” he says. “They might lose a game. All their hopes hinge on the play of an outside linebacker who until recently was taking kickoffs and warming the bench.”

“Every piece counts.”

“Exactly.” He leans forward, and I can smell his skunk scent and the coffee on his breath. That, now, that takes me back to college. “Every piece. If one of these senators is swayed by that meeting, that could be a critical vote. It could change legislation that makes life easier for same-sex immigrants. This bill we’re proposing—”

“How is Dev going to address that argument?” I say. “His grandparents came over from Siberia. I’m a citizen. He doesn’t have anything to do with immigration.”

“Doesn’t matter. He’s famous. He has that innocent…” Brian waves a paw. “He doesn’t come across as a political gay.”

“The way you do.”

He smirks. “I’m not famous.”

I sigh. “If he hadn’t lost at Yerba.” If I hadn’t taken him out to the club, if I hadn’t gotten that leopard for Ty who ended up with Vonni…

“Yes, well,” Brian says. “I can certainly go back and explain to Paula that a football game set back the rights of gay immigrants a couple years. I don’t see any problem with that. Do you?”

The chain of events makes perfect sense to me, but the result doesn’t. “It’s his future at stake,” I say. “I can’t ask him to sacrifice that—”

“Maybe.”

“For a result that isn’t any more certain! To parade him in front of some politicians.”

My voice is getting louder. The ferret behind the counter stops and looks down at us. I take another sip of the chai, getting used to the sting. Or maybe my mouth’s just going numb.

Brian shakes his head. “Tip, what happened?”

“Well, I thought I’d try their chai,” I say. “But these hipster places always make it too strong.”

He smiles, making it a sad one, and he reaches out to touch my paw. I draw it back. “Was it all just talking and meeting cute guys, back there in FLAG? You said I lost my way, a couple months ago. But I’m really working, doing good. This is important work. And what are you doing? Just killing time until you can get another football job?”

I almost tell him about the Yerba job then. “I’m taking care of my family,” I say. “That’s just as important, isn’t it?”

“Tell that to Maria Cortes, who wants to stay here because she loves Harriet Vick.”

“You’ve memorized the names.”

“Or David Thornton, who just wants to live with his partner Rick. They even got a house together. David’s a fox, like you. He’s from Anglia and has lived here for ten years.”

“You know,” I say, “I’m sorry for those people. I really am.” I’m as bad as Dev, reflexively arguing against Brian. Am I arguing what I feel, or just arguing because it’s Brian?

“What about Vince King? Not immigration, but aren’t you fighting for his cause? Why is he more important than all those people who are still alive, whose lives can be changed?”

“That’s not fair. This has nothing to do with him.” And now he has me on the defensive. I’m sure he’s planned this.

He leans forward, but gently, and his voice is soft. “We can do this, Tip. I know you can talk Miski into taking just one day. Imagine the senators charmed by his…by his football presence, and then you explaining to them how important this is, Dev backing it up.”

I shake my head. “If they’re really football fans, they’ll wonder what he’s doing away from his team during the playoffs.”

“That’ll just impress on them how important it is. And it’s just one day.” He leans back and sips his coffee, finishing it, then puts it down and spreads his paws. “You have some time. We aren’t finalizing the meeting until January first. You’ve got two weeks.”

“One day can be huge. You don’t know…” I can’t even pull the “how much a championship would mean” card. It just doesn’t feel right. I abandon logic. There’s no argument I can make to this that satisfies me. “I’m sorry. I don’t need two weeks. I just can’t push him that hard.”

Brian puts down his latte. “This isn’t you. I know you.”

“It’s me.”

He shakes his head as I take another drink of the chai. “There was nobody closer to you for three years. That Wiley Farrel was not someone who would compromise his principles for love.”

“I’m not compromising.” I put the chai down and stare at it. “You just don’t understand—”

“Oh, what?” He almost sneers, and catches himself. “The depth of your love? Spare me the sappy seventies ballads, Tip.”

“I’m not having this argument again,” I say.

“Afraid of losing it? I don’t recall that it was resolved.”

“I just don’t see any point to it. You’re stubborn and you’re not telling me what you really want.”

He arches an eyebrow. “What is that?”

“You want me back.” He starts to protest, but I keep going, keeping my voice to a low hiss. “Not as a boyfriend or whatever, but as a friend. That’s why you’re trying to split up me and Dev.”

“Tip,” he says, “I am not trying to split you up.”

“You’re making this conditional on something ridiculous because you know that’ll drive me away from him.”

He holds up a paw. “It’s not ridiculous. It’s taking a day out of his routine. There’s nothing excessive about it.”

“And you won’t want him to spend time studying for the meeting? Reading up on the legislation and the politicians he’s talking to? Thinking about what he’s going to say, worrying about what he’s going to say?”

For the first time, his expression slips, his eyes widen. He really does know what he’s asking. “I still don’t think it’s too much.”

“Maybe you don’t know football as well as you think you do.”