Out of Position (4 page)

(Dev)

 
Mid-November 2006

I’ve got a secret.

I’ve had it for a couple months now. My teammates knew I had a secret back in early October. So did coach. They still don’t know what it is, and they’ve stopped asking. The school paper started asking me around then, and hasn’t stopped. I haven’t told any of them what it is.

We had our first snowfall yesterday. The snow’s still on the ground as we take the field against Hilltown State. They’ve got this hot wideout, a cheetah named Rex Millen, he’s on pace to score twenty touchdowns this year, in eleven games. Monster year.

It’s cat against cat as we line up. I see him look at me and I know what he’s thinking:
too big, maybe he’s fast but he ain’t my kinda fast, juke past him and blow him away down the field, he’s just lucky, that’s why he’s getting the numbers, but his luck runs out today.
I know he’s thinkin’ that last part ’cause he says it, just as cool as the snow on the ground. “Your luck runs out today.”

I grin back at him. “That’s the only thing gonna be runnin’ today,” I tell him, and I glance up at the stands just like I do before every play.

Halfway up the student section, same seat every time, there’s a fox. She’s wearing a white blouse, maroon skirt, and if I’m lined up on the right side of the field, I can see the intensity of her bright blue eyes. If I look up while I’m on the bench, she’s talking to the ringtail and weasel next to her, or sometimes she’s looking back at me, but it’s more relaxed, more casual, and I might get a smile then. Not when we’re starting a play. She’s watching me, and I look to make sure she’s watching me, and then I line up.

I hear them hike the ball, but it’s a distant sound. What I’m lookin’ for is the motion ahead of me. He fidgets, this one, can’t keep still, except when the play’s about to start. I can see the focus in his eyes, and his tail stops moving. One second, almost exactly. Then I know where he’s going and I beat him there.

I’m allowed to hit him within five yards. I take two steps and bump him, throw off his pattern, then I go where I guess he’s going. If the quarterback’s good, he sees the play is busted and he doesn’t make the throw.

They’ve got a new QB, a big black wolf. He’s good. But he’s a freshman. He sees the busted play in the middle of his release, panics, tries to change direction, loses the ball. Fumble. Geoff, one of the two bulls on our defensive line, drops on it.

Eck is a coyote, my counterpart on the other side of the field. “He’s gonna have to watch that play a couple hundred times,” he says, and we laugh the laugh of guys who’ve been strapped down in front of game film themselves. We sit down on the bench, I look up into the stands, and get a smile.

I don’t make any picks that game. There’s one I coulda had, but it’s late in the game and my paws are tired and it goes off my fingertips. I hold Rex to two catches, twelve yards total, before they give up on throwing it to him. He keeps up the trash talk all game, but by the fourth quarter he’s on the bench and coach is giving some frosh a chance. Coach puts Eck on the rook and me on the other side, but the game’s over at that point anyway.

We’re 7-1 midway through November. That’s pretty good, case you don’t know.

The guys razz me a bit. “Hey, Dev, no picks today, what’sa matter?”

“I felt bad for the kid,” I tell ’em, grinning.

Randy, a big wolf who’s my roommate and our middle linebacker, elbows me. “Maybe you should start comin’ to the Fang with us again.”

They all wonder if that’s my secret, that I don’t go to the meat market on Fridays anymore. Randy thinks he knows, but he hasn’t told anyone, unless you count hints like that one. Hard to keep a secret from your roommate. Not so hard with Randy, maybe, but still hard.

So I give him little hints here and there. Not deliberately, just enough that he can fit together the puzzle in not quite the right way. I hate to admit it, but I’m starting to have fun doin’ it.

Course, when it comes to bein’ sneaky, I’ve got the best teacher.

 
August 2006

I’ve been sitting in Randy’s car for almost an hour. The 32-oz Powerade is all gone; even with the windows down, I’m panting in the heat.

I know the name of the street I’m on, this time. And I know that the house I’m staring at and have been staring at for the last 56 minutes, according to the car’s little LED clock, is the right one. I know a lot more than I did last spring, when I was sitting in this same car on this same street.

What I still don’t know is what the fuck to do.

Two long months at home, on vacation from school, football, and this house. The first week was bad, but it slowly got better, and yesterday when I got back to school, I thought, I don’t need to go back.

But all day yesterday, through orientation, lunch, warm-ups, I kept thinking that it wouldn’t hurt to drive by. Most of the students probably aren’t even back yet. Just to see if the house is still there.

All day yesterday and all day today, I fought the urge, and then, because we have the afternoon off, I asked Randy if I could borrow his car. I drove by the house fifty-seven minutes ago, stopped, and I haven’t moved since. Twice I opened my door, once even put a paw out onto the street, then both times dropped back into the seat and slammed the door. I want to go up to the door, want it with a physical hunger. I want to drive away, to erase this complication from my life. I want, most of all, to be told what I want.

Two minutes later, just under the hour mark, the door of the house opens. The fox in a sleek peach-colored sundress stands in the doorway and smiles down at me. I get shivers all down my spine that make my tail curl, and there’s no longer any doubt. Not with that smile and those blue eyes. My body, for a moment, is no more than a living memory shaped by those chocolate-brown paws.

I’m out of the car, up the front stairs, and standing at the door in no time, looking down into those eyes, and there’s a sparkle in them that sets me tingling all over.

“That’s a new dress, Lee,” I murmur.

“I bought it for you,” says the low, husky voice I’ve heard only in my dreams for two months. I take her slender shoulders in my paws and lean down for a kiss.

I have to close my eyes. The scent, the tongue, the paws sliding around me, the slight shiver in the body as my paws hold tight…

Good for me? Fuck, no.

Just good.

 
Mid-November 2006

I get rid of Randy pretty easily. He’s got things to do, and so do I. I know I’m not exactly inconspicuous as I walk down the street, but I’m relaxed, more confident, and I act like I belong there, just as I’ve been taught to. No school gear, no football jacket, just a six-foot-tall tiger strolling down the street.

I still look around to see if anyone’s watching before I hurdle the steps to the house. In the shade of the porch, I ring the bell, and even though the fox lives on the third floor, I don’t even have to wait for a minute before I’m following that bushy red tail up two flights of stairs. With each step, I get more and more excited, and by the time we get to the top, I’m bouncing on my heels and I get a smile and a husky, “Patience,” as chocolate paws open the door and usher me inside.

We kiss again inside, and those paws trace my midriff, lifting my shirt, diving down my pants without hesitation. I moan as they caress me through my briefs, a throaty growl of a moan that brings a soft chuckle in reply. I keep my paws busy tracing that slim, taut rump, lifting the tail and unfastening the skirt in back.

It falls to the floor with barely a sound. My paws slide over the bare fur under the tail, around the hips, and to the front. Beneath the silky white blouse, the plush white fur comes to a peak at a shapely ridge of white. Below it, a white-furred sac, and above, a hard pink shaft mirroring mine.

I pull him close so I can feel him all against me. He rubs his erection into my leg while his paws trace the length of mine. That’s a big secret. But it’s not my biggest secret.

 
August 2006

This is the moment where I hesitate. It’s been two months, and feeling another cock against me is back to feeling as weird as it did in April. No, maybe not quite that weird, but strange enough to make me hesitate.

He leans his head back and the smile curving back to the corners of his muzzle is as familiar as his scent and the touch of his paws. “What’s the matter?” he taunts me, lightly. “Been picturing me as a vixen for two months?”

“No,” I snap back. “I just…”

Before I know what he’s doing, he’s taken my paw in his and put it right on his shaft. “There you go,” he says, “in case you’d forgotten what it feels like.”

How could I? I just look down at him, without moving my paw. My pads tingle where they touch the warm flesh. And the strangeness is fading as my memory comes back, takes over, pulls me to him again.

“That’s better,” he murmurs, and nuzzles my chest as I start to slide my paw up and down, remembering the feel of him and discovering it anew. It’s nice to get that expression on his muzzle too, the closed eyes and soft, blissful smile. There’s only one expression I like seeing more, and I have a feeling I’ll be seeing it again before too long.

Eventually, he opens his eyes and touches my nipple with his cold nose, then his warm tongue. I shiver, and he nips, tugging the small button and then releasing it as he drops to his knees. The small paw holds me while his warm tongue laps slowly up my length.

This is the part where I have to brace myself against the wall.

He takes me all the way into his muzzle, warmth and bliss pounding in waves against me. Whatever rocky resistance I had to him has long since been worn to sand. At some point, I start making a throaty growl of pleasure. I don’t remember consciously doing it, but I can hear it, and I can tell from the flick of his ears that he can, too.

I’m breathing hard and my tail is lashing all over the place.

He stands up, steps back from where the peach dress is lying on the floor, and lets me look him up and down. I do, hungrily, drinking in the five-feet-and-change body, slender, probably half my weight. All white down the front, his chest puffed out with fur, not muscle. A stomach I could circle with both paws. Russet fur from a distance, but up close it’s three different shades of orange, some as dark as brown, some almost yellow. Reminds me of the leaves in fall.

I never knew another guy could be that gorgeous. Or turn me into a fucking poet.

He wraps one brown paw around my slick shaft and tugs, not too gently pulling me to the bed. I growl a bit and play at resisting before following. His smile says “who are you kidding” without having to let the words pass his lips.

At the bed, he pushes on my chest with one gentle paw. I’ve had two hundred and fifty pounds of wolf push against me and not given up ground. I go down on the bed and lie on my back like a bunny.

He climbs on top of me, straddling my stomach and wagging that soft, long, fluffy tail over my shaft. I put my paws on his hips.

 
Mid-November 2006

His long pink member bobs in front of my nose. Just like diving off the high dive, I make up my mind and move forward before my better judgment can stop me, tongue out, eyes closed. I can smell his musk just fine, and when the tip of my tongue brushes his underside, I can hear the shift in his breathing.

It’s not nearly as bad as I’ve told myself it would be. It’s sort of like licking myself, but smaller, and stronger smelling. I lick again, keeping my momentum now that I’ve gotten started, and I can feel the slightest tremble in his hips as I push my tongue up, letting his shaft drop back against it before I lick up again.

Damn. This is kinda fun.

I feel the whole length, starting at the base and getting a good noseful of his scent in the process. My tongue is big enough to cup his shaft in it, and I do so, rubbing up and down and holding his legs in place ’cause he’s starting to squirm. I give it to him for a bit longer and then open my eyes to look up at him.

His tongue is hanging out of the side of his muzzle and he grins down at me when I stop. “There you go,” he said. “Not so bad, was it?”