Out of Position (5 page)

I grin back. “You tell me.”

“Not too bad. For your first time.” He touches my nose with a fingertip. “It’s all about practice.”

“Yeah, yeah.” I know he’s just teasing. So I squeeze him around the hips and purr, “Speaking of practice, isn’t it about time you practice stretching that tight little hole of yours?”

“If I saw you more than once a week, it wouldn’t be so tight,” he purrs back. For a fox, he purrs like a pro.

“If I saw you more than once a week,” I gasp as he sits back, wiggling his tight little rump a lot more than is really needed to get my aching member into him, “I wouldn’t have enough energy left to play football.”

Warmth surrounds me. The movement of his slinky body on top of me and the tightness gripping my cock, all of it sends shivers through me, making my fur ultra-sensitive to every touch. His tail brushing my legs is a lover’s caress. His paws on my stomach and chest are bliss. And when he whispers something like “I’ll have to test that theory sometime,” and leans over to kiss me, all the words I know are driven out of my head. All I can do is hold his sides, hold him against me, and drive my hips up again and again into that amazing warmth.

Somewhere in there my paw gets wrapped around his shaft, and I’m milking it eagerly. The motion feeds back into my sensations, and I can feel the roar working in my throat as everything just gets better and better. I hold on, wanting it to last, but it slips away, upward and outward, and I roar into his muzzle, feeling his body shake with my passion and his own.

Until last April, I used to say that picking off a pass and returning it for a score was better than sex.

I don’t say that any more.

 
August 2006

“Why don’t you wear panties?” I ask. We’re lying in bed naked, still panting and messy, but uncoupled. His apartment doesn’t have any air conditioning, and even with the windows open, the heat is stifling. I’ve been tracing my paws along the lines of his fur and he’s been painting my stripes with his brown fingers. For the moment, my confusion is gone.

“You want me to?” he parries, his fingers lightly teasing, blue eyes fixed on mine.

“I don’t know,” I say. “I was just asking.”

He studies me for a moment longer, and then grins. “I don’t get off on it,” he said. “It’s just so I can see you in public.”

“You bought a new dress.” My paw is resting on his spent and sticky sheath as I say it. I’m dimly aware that in another life, another me would cut his paw off rather than put it on another guy’s cock. I hope that other me doesn’t remember this moment, if he comes back.

“Do you know how heavy that skirt is? It’s ninety degrees out. I’d die.”

“So you bought a dress just to be able to kiss me at the door?”

“Well,” he says, “would you be rubbing my sheath if I’d answered the door in my t-shirt and Dockers?”

I give him another purposeful rub. “Sure.”

“Sure,” he echoes, and then slides away from me, towards the bathroom. “Want to hop in the shower?”

I watch him stand up and all those thoughts about leaves come back as he smooths his fur. But the shower… we’ve never showered together. He’s never asked.

“No, it’s okay,” I say.

He tilts his muzzle. “You’ll fit,” he says. ‘You’ve showered here before.”

“I know. I just don’t want to.” And because I don’t want to tell him the real reason, I say, “Just leave it.”

Out comes the dreaded arched eyebrow. “So you’ll fuck a guy up the ass, but won’t clean up with him afterwards? Don’t you shower with your football buddies all the time?”

I had forgotten the way he seems to know exactly what I’m thinking and cuts right to it. He should be pre-med, I’ve told him, the way he makes incisions. “Yeah, Doc, and maybe I don’t want to be thinking about this shower in that shower. Okay?”

“Okay, stud,” he says. ‘Stud’ is his name for me when he’s mad at me because I’m being a dumb jock. ‘Doc’ is my name for him when he’s over-analyzing me. The use of the old names from last spring is reassuring and familiar, even though we’re just fuck-buddies.

He shrugs, and walks into the bathroom, swaying his tail behind him and swinging that cute butt back and forth. At the door, he stops and poses and says, in that Lauren Bacollie voice, “If you change your mind, just come on in.”

I’m halfway to the bathroom before I remind myself why I shouldn’t go in. I’m at the door before I actually make myself stop.

 
Two weeks later, late summer breezes that rattle the leaves outside rustle past his blinds and cool the apartment. My fingers mirror their movement inside, through the softness of his fur. He’s lying on his stomach, muzzle turned towards me, paws under the pillow, letting me stroke him. I have the impression that it was a little painful for him this time, but he hasn’t said anything and I haven’t asked.

“I saw you at the game,” I say after a couple minutes.

The corners of his muzzle wrinkle. ‘There’s a reason I wore that outfit and sat in the front row. It still took you two whole quarters to notice.”

It was true; I hadn’t seen him ’til we were running in at halftime. “It was our first game. I know, just preseason, but I was excited.”

“You certainly weren’t concentrating on defense.”

That one stings. “I had a good game.”

“You know,” he says, one blue eye piercing me, “I’ve seen these muscles up close and personal. I know what you can do and when you’re just going through the motions.”

“Going through the motions?”

“Mm-hmm.” His tail sways slowly from side to side. “First play of the second quarter. You let that puma get past you. You could’ve stopped him easy. You were lucky he dropped the ball.”

I open my muzzle to say something, but then I remember the play, and I close it again. He goes on. “You’re not in any danger of losing your job. Your partner, though, what’s his name, Mike? If he doesn’t shape up, that coyote will be starting before October.”

Coach had yelled that at Mike, the other defensive back, but he’d yelled it in the locker room and I haven’t mentioned it. I trace the curve of his spine with a claw, and he shivers. “What else?”

He yawns. “You’re sloppy lining up. Looks like you’re joking with that wolf and you just kind of get close to your spot.”

“So?” I’m starting to freak out a little bit. It’s like I was just fucking my coach.

“So they put you in a spot for a reason. You line up a foot to one side, it throws off your moves.”

“What about the rest of the team?” I’ve got a paw on his butt and I move it back up to his back, not wanting to remember the sex while we’re talking about football.

He blinks, slowly. “I was only watching you. I didn’t know I was supposed to report on the whole team.”

“You know a lot about football.”

Now there’s a definite smile to his muzzle. “I’ve watched guys prance around in tight pants since I was eleven. It’s pretty, but it gets boring if you don’t think about it some.”

“Don’t you like me better out of the tight pants?” He just grins at me. I relax a little. “What does it matter, anyway? Why not just have fun? Weren’t you the one who said we’re all Division II jocks with no sniff of playing professionally?”

His blue eyes meet mine and his ears flick back, then forward. “Well,” he says softly, “I guess I’m not always right.”

“That’s a relief” I say, and he snaps back with something about a higher batting average and I ask him what sport he thinks I play, anyway.

And I begin to glimpse my secret, dimly.

 
October 2006

The phone rings. We got caller ID last month, so I say, “Hi, Mom,” as I pick it up.

“Hi, sweetie,” Mom says. “How are you? Are you nervous?”

“No. It’s just another game.”

“Because we all think it’s just wonderful what you’re doing, but if you don’t play well today, it’s okay.”

I wish our new phone had a cord I could wrap around my paw as I start to pace around the room. “What do you mean, if I don’t play well?”

“Oh, I’m sure you will, sweetie,” she says unconvincingly. “I just don’t want you to feel bad if you don’t.”

“How’s Gregory?” I ask, because I’d rather hear her babble for five minutes about my brother in law school than listen to any more of the excruciating conversation about how I’m going to fail eventually. I get my wish. Then I get to talk to my dad.

“Nice play last couple games,” he says.

“Thanks.”

“Been working out more?”

I’m certainly not telling my parents my secret. I give them the line I give the paper. “Things just started to click.”

“Hm.” There’s a moment’s pause, and then he says, “If you’d played like that in high school, you’d be at North State now.”

“Come on, Dad,” I say, trying to make a joke out of it. “My grades weren’t bad enough for North State.”

He just grunts and says, “Coulda played wherever you want.”

I’m tired of this conversation, too. “How’s the garage?”

I get a couple clipped comments, another few lines with Mom, and then I tell them I need to run off to morning practice. Which I do, but not for another half hour. I sink back into bed and sigh. Aren’t parents supposed to make you feel good?

The phone rings again.

 
It’s my turn to soap now. When I’m done rubbing the shampoo into Lee’s backfur, I lift up his tail. I like the way he shivers when I rub under there, just a tiny twitch. Probably he thinks I don’t notice, or maybe he wants me to think that he thinks I don’t notice. Anyway, it’s cute, so I do it a lot. Three times during this shower alone.

“We’re working really hard on this play,” he says unexpectedly.

“Which one?”

“Square Room,” he says. “It’s a dram-mmmmmmmmma.” I chose that moment to soap up under his tail, and I leave my paw there as he leans back into it. If we hadn’t just spent ourselves half an hour ago, I’d leave it there longer. As it is, I feel a little stirring, and when I reach around to soap between his legs, he’s not fully relaxed either. But it’s been a long day, and we’re both tired.

“It’s about a family of foxes. The father uncovers something in the mother’s past and the family has to work through it.” He helps me rinse, getting me back for my groping with a squeeze of my sheath. “It’s a pretty talky piece. Probably not really your speed.”

“Probably not,” I say agreeably, helping brush the soap from his fur. I feel way too mellow to rise to his bait.

He switches gears as we rub down with towels. “Is Tuesday the day you don’t have practice?”

“Yeah.”

He grins up at me. “Where do you eat lunch?”

“Why?” I know why, I’m just stalling.

He knows that, and snorts. “So I can tell the West Hillman coach where to poison your food before next week’s game. What do you think?”

“I don’t know,” I say slowly.

“It’s not a math problem,” he says.

“I know. Then I could just look up the answer.”

He huffs. “Think about it. I’m going to bed.”

I join him in bed, knowing that whatever he wants, I’ll end up giving him.

 
He sits down across from me in the Maple Hall cafeteria, 12:02 pm on Tuesday. If it weren’t for the blue eyes and the confidence with which he sits down, I might not recognize him: he’s wearing, not a blouse, but a collared shirt that lets only a small puff of his white chest fur show, and his butt, instead of being a suggestive curve under a skirt, is tightly defined by his jeans, leaving very little to my already-exploding imagination.

I’ve never looked at a guy that way in public before. I wonder if people can tell.

“Nice day,” he says, glancing outside where the leaves are just starting to turn, spots of yellow in the green, and the blue sky behind them.

“Yeah,” I say, taking another bite of turkey tetrazini.

“Oh, stop worrying.” He pitches his voice low. “Nobody cares that we’re eating together.”

“What if someone saw me going to your place,” I say, very low, “and then sees me here. And puts it together?”

He wrinkles his nose at the first bite he lifts to his muzzle, pops it in with a faintly disgusted look. “I think you give the students here far too much credit,” he says while chewing. “The brainiacs in my building still think I’m rooming with my sister.”

“Really?”

He nods. “One of them said to me the other day, ‘hey, you know your sister has a big boyfriend who comes over when you’re out.’”

I feel cold worry clamp my stomach. “They saw me?”

“You’re not exactly invisible. Anyway, I told him, ‘she’s my sister, not my girlfriend. She’s a big girl.’ And that was the end of that.” He shrugs and takes another bite. “So chill.”

“Easy for you to say, doc,” I grumble. “You’re not risking anything.”

“I’m risking having a studly boyfriend on the football team.” He tosses off a smile which I don’t register immediately because I can’t fucking believe he just said that out loud, even if he did whisper it.

“Shhh!!” I hiss, panicked.

The smile shifts to one of his cocky grins. “Chill,” he says. “Nobody’s close enough to hear. I know. I have excellent hearing myself.”

“Well, listen to this,” I snarl, aware that fear is giving my voice an edge I don’t necessarily want it to have. “This was a stupid idea and I don’t want to do it again.”

I watch his ears fold back, but he only gives me that shrug and says, “Fine.”

We eat in silence for a bit, and then are interrupted by two young coyote girls who want to know if I’m really on the football team and if I’m really Devlin Miski, who returned an interception for the winning score against St. Francis two weeks ago. Lee mutters something about my four interceptions last week, but they don’t appear to be able to see or hear him, so I nod and smile, and thank them for watching. They ask if I can introduce them to Eck, and I tell them to come on down to the Fang on Friday night if they want to meet him.

“See?” he says as they walk away. “I’m invisible.”

I can’t tell whether he’s pleased about that or not. When he wants to be neutral, he’s very hard to read. “To them,” I say, but for whatever reason, the fear and panic has subsided. “But they’re just girls, after all.”

I know he has a little misanthropic streak, and sure enough, he grins in response. “Looking for a daddy. They saw what they wanted and put the blinders on.”