The Writer
(I consider this a rather extreme case of "write when you are inspired"; I write for entirely different reasons.)
The Writer
Rather than doing his Calculus homework, the otter felt compelled to write.
(Continued from part 10)
Vis'tar sat in the grass. His back hurt. He knew exactly where he was: lost. It's the countryside, he thought, it all looks the same. Navigating? Forget it.
He rolled over, and stood up. There was nothing but a field around him. Perhaps it was a forest once, he thought. But not anymore. He bent over and up to loosen his back. It didn't work very well, but he knew it would have to do. Otherwise, he would be picked up.
He walked quickly toward the road, which wound out to the east. It must lead to the city, but despite the danger, he knew he must go down it. Being canine in the feline city was strange enough. He was more optimistic when a convoy of soliders drove by him, and the driver didn't stop. Perhaps they still didn't know he was a spy, he thought, or maybe one of their own spies. This was the right position for a spy to be in.
He had left at dawn, and got to town before midday. The town wasn't much, just a few larger buildings in addition to the small houses. He walked into the largest, a Tavern, as his stomach grumbled for something. He was served promptly, but only then realized he had no money to pay for it. "How are you going to pay?" asked the waitress, perhaps noticing his tattered pants. "I don't know," he teased, "got any dishes to wash?"
"Eat what you want, then go to the back," she growled. The wolf chose to eat five more bites under such pressure, and then went behind the bar to the back. A group of females were waiting, not one with a stitch of clothing. "Meet your new housemate," she purred, pushing him to his knees. The tallest one, perhaps the most senior, stepped forward, and with her hands, pinched his ear right under the scar. He winced. "Start licking," she growled, as --
That was the last word Kenneth could think of before he heard the door to his apartment close.
"Hi hon," gleefully barked Travis.
Kenneth finished enocding the last letters in his secret cypher before he answered back. "How was class?"
"Except for the calc exam tomorrow, fine," the husky answered with a sigh.
Kenneth shoved his nose in his calculus book, and focused his eyes on an equation without reading it. It was all he could do to keep from glaring at the husky for being an hour early. "Sorry I haven't had time to make dinner," he apologized.
"Forget it," gently replied Travis.
He strode quickly over to the otter, his ears giving his excitement away. "Would you have time for -- a break?" he whispered with a kiss on the back of Kenneth's brown head.
All Kenneth wanted to do was the real work he now had in front of him, but he thought declining would be suspicious. "Sure," he replied, putting as much energy into his voice as he could.
Before he could even stand up, the muscular husky pulled him out of his chair under his arms, and set him down atop his chest on the couch. Kenneth forced himself to smile harder.
"Ready?" he mischeviously asked, licking his lips as a hint. The only answer Travis needed give was to push him from fondling the white spot on his black ear toward something much less furry, and more fun to fondle.
Wanting to get back to work more than anything, the otter went straight to it. He took in Travis' erect cock all at once, as much as his shorter muzzle would let him hold, and began stroking it all over with his tongue as he brought it in and out. Panting behind him, as well as wagging his tail, were the two key signs of the building arousal he was looking for.
He knew Travis wouldn't be long, and was glad of it. It was only two minutes of gentle, continuous attention by the skillfull Kenneth before his lover grabbed Kenneth's head, and while pushing it down for maximum contact, exploded with a groan. Kenneth did his best to suck up the juice Travis gave him; only this taste -- the taste connecting him to so many other wonderful memories -- give him vicarious pleasure, the taste connected to so many memories. Once he had cleaned up Travis, his own cock was erect.
"Your turn, hon?" asked the husky, now quite relaxed compared to before.
"It would be nice, but I've got to study, you know, for the test --"
"Forget it, you don't have to explain," Travis casually replied, rolling Kenneth off of him quite suddenly and getting up.
"Hey!" The otter yelped, as his body was rolled backwards into the arm of the couch. He felt like it almost broke his neck.
"Oh, sorry," replied the dog, already half way to the kitchen to fix dinner.
Kenneth, now that Travis was home, made sure to work on the homework he was supposed to be doing this evening, instead of now. Dinner was fine, and it was wonderful not to have to cook it, but he found it difficult to avoid being in a sour mood.
"Anything wrong?" asked Travis attentively.
"Just worried about the test," Kenneth lied.
***
Loving Travis was easy, Kenneth reflected as he stared at the math test the next day. Living with him, however, was turning to to be more difficult than he thought.
Falling in love first semester and sharing a dorm by the second was tearing him apart. The simple, thoughtful things, and his sensitivity, were wonderful; but the little irritations in his habits were things Kenneth could not overlook, no matter how he tried. If dinner were at its usual time, then he would have time to finish, then study, then eat, then make love. Doing it out of order scrambled his brains, expectations wrong.
So Travis was with many things: unpredictable. Just as a pattern would seem to become set with Kenneth, the husky would break it once; and then, follow it again. He saw it as one thing to have something different every night for dinner -- but another to move his studying between 1 to 5, 5 to 9, and 9 to midnight, depending on what classes he had, and whether he got hungry early.
And it was not only driving Kenneth crazy, but it was killing his math grade. Kenneth realized that this train of thought interrupted his integrals and divided his derivatives, resulting in him writing answers on the page that didn't even follow the work. Re-writing so many things meant he almost didn't even complete the test in the time allowed.
He turned it in, put it out of his mind, and quickly left class to do an errand which was, regarding the previous train of thought, more important: drop off part 8 of Vis'tar The Spy. His imagination for anthropology -- his best subject -- gave him a large reserve of human elements to draw upon for his dreamscape. And his relationship frustrations gave him more than enough desire to abuse and humiliate his paper-made spy in this invented time of brutality and sexual repression.
He was amazed that the publisher liked it at all. It was a tiny magazine, designed specifically to be full of such material, and Kenneth had never yet failed to disappoint. They found reversing the cypher he used trivial with a computer; it was only designed to discourage reading over the shoulder, after all.
The primary drawback to the arrangement was their timeline: they printed every week, and they wanted at least two thousand words from him every time. The second drawback confronted Kenneth today: Mr. Herrington wasn't in, so he slipped it under the door with a note quite plainly asking for an I.O.U.
"Contributing something?" asked a rather soft voice behind him.
He turned away from the door to see a sharp-looking cheatress, who he barely recognized as sitting in the back of math class.
"Yes," replied Kenneth, putting on his standard smile.
"Is it -- graphic?" she purred.
"Depends on your point of view," he replied wittily.
"Well, what is it?"
But Kenneth was not interested in revealing his clever pen-name. "I'd rather not say, if you don't mind," he answered, beginning to walk down the hall.
"Oh come now," she replied silkily, eyes batting, and walk becoming sultry, "you can tell me."
"I'm sorry, I really must leave," he answered, not wanting to start whatever it was she had in mind.
He walking brisquely around the corner, right into Travis, who was heading toward the very same test he completed. "Any pointers?" he asked.
"Not really," replied Kenneth.
"Is it hard?"
Kennth shrugged. "Depends on how good at math you are."
"Well forget it then, I'm terrible."
"I'm sure you'll do better than me," Kenneth warmly reassured, and upon seeing the cheatress still there, reached up and gave Travis a kiss on the cheek to send a clear message.
She seemed to recieve it, and was quite indignant. "Why," she snarled, "are all of you Tail-Tale writers like that!?" and fumed away.
"Tail-Tales?" asked Travis, quite taken aback.
"Nevermind," Kenneth tried to diffuse, but his gentle smile gave him away.
"You're getting published! That's great, hon! I can't wait to read it!" Travis exclaimed.
This information got him a spring in his step as he hustled to Calculus class. Kenneth, meanwhile, didn't even have time to respond. He did the only thing he could do: went home, and tried to forget about it until Travis returned.
He concluded there was nothing he could do about his secret, since Mr. Herrington would never postpone his story, even to let him say "I guess they didn't print it." In other words, even to save his relationship with the one whom he based the main character upon.
After worrying his way through dinner, Travis returned home before he could write away his worries, and so after another mating -- which did improve his mood greatly -- did little but lay there, and suggest they go out to dinner tomorrow.
"Sure, hon. Whatever you want," Travis sighed blissfully.
It was moments like this, Kenneth reflected, that he couldn't give up. But he didn't know how Travis would react to "I'm moving out." And so, he was going to do what he always did: muddled through life, and wrote out his anxieties.
Using the relaxation of orgasm, he tried to go to bed early -- but he still laid there for quite a while before his eyes finally closed.
***
He talked to Mr. Herrington tomorrow, and aside from getting paid, got confirmation from the regal-looking eagle that there was no way to cancel the story. "It's part of a series," he explained. "One story I could pull, but not yours."
Later that day, the presses were run, and Travis walked home carrying a copy. Kenneth's stomach immediately knotted when the dog walked through the door, eyes running through the sea of small print.
"I think they left it out, hon," he replied soberly, "I don't see it."
Kenneth's heart lept for a moment, believing that Mr. Herrington had mercy on him at the last minute. But he was soon disappointed.
As the dog sat down on the couch, he mumbled, "wait a minute." But not a frown, but a smirk crept over his muzzle. "Vis'tar," Travis repeated, making Kenneth flinch across the room as he unscrambled the anagram.
"C'mere," he invited. "C'mere!" he repeated when Kenneth didn't move. The otter, trying to judge the husky's mood, carefuly stepped toward him, expecting to leap back at any moment.
"Oh hon," he sighed, wrapping the otter in his free arm as he read with one hand, "why didn't you tell me!? I mean, if you wanted to play with me more often, you should have only said so!"
"What!?" asked Kenneth, stunned that the words he heard were so distant from his immediate fears.
"Sure, hon, we can play whenever you want! All you had to do," he panted, reaching down to the otter's pink flesh, "was ask."
"No!" he shouted, jumping up, fear gripping him, "that's not it." It was a fear of the next few minutes; he had a solid prediction of how they would occurr.
It was now Travis' turn to be confused. "What?" he asked gently, easily releasing Kenneth as he had stood up.
"It's -- it's not that," whimpered Kenneth, tears being driven to his eyes by what he was now compelled to say.
But the words stuck in his throat instead. "I -- I want --" The greater effort he put into saying them, the more tears were spread across his soft, brown eyes. His muzzle quivered, as he could do nothing but watch Travis become more and more upset and concerned himself.
"Hon?" Travis asked gently, ears indicating his full attention, "what is it?"
"I -- I want to move out!" he finally sobbed, dropping to his knees and breaking down in tears.
Kenneth was looking at the floor through blurry eyes, and so no longer saw the reactions of Travis. But he was reassured when, momentarily, a familar pair of arms wrapped around him. It was enough to make him want to reverse his decision, but he felt it was inevitable.
As his sorrow deepened, he tried with little success to focus on the feeling of the soft, black and white fur brushing his own. It was wonderful; it was familiar, it was something he didn't want to lose. But he was convinced, never the less, that he was about to lose it. It took quite a while before Kenneth raised his head from the chest of the husky, and looked up at him.
Travis was warm, despite the subject matter. "Now why, hon," he whispered, "do you want to move out?"
"It's -- I just want to live alone. Some things you do, they just, I don't know, bother me. I wonder if this is all going too fast, I can't -- " He clenched his teeth, but the feelings and smell of the one he loved made the desire disappear before it could even be expressed. He wanted to see him punished, humiliated, or however he justified to himself such fates dealt to Vis'tar.
But Travis seemed to understand, revealing a side of him that Kenneth rarely saw, but always loved him for. "Is that all? I'm really sorry, hon. What's bothering you?"
With the soft blue eyes looking complacantly back at him, none of Kenneth's examples came to mind. He couldn't help but smile. "I don't know, but things," he tried to assert, determined to win this even if it meant losing Travis. It was pain he could already feel in his chest below his ribcage.
"Okay, things," Travis repeated. "So if you moved out -- then what?" Travis asked, petting Kenneth's soft head, his hariless fingers feeling almost ticklish on Kenneth's soft fur.
It was something the otter hadn't thought of, and felt quite foolish for not taking the time to make a plan. "Well, uh, I guess -- I love you, but -- Maybe go on dates again?" he asked hopefully.
"We can try that, sure," Travis murmured into Kenneth's ear.
"You really don't -- don't mind?" Kenneth asked again.
"Forget it," reassured the husky gently, "all I want is for you to be happy. If you are having trouble, and want to move out, I'll help you."
But it still sounded wrong. "I still love you," Kenneth was forced to add.
"I know, hon. I love you too," Travis whispered. "I just want you to be happy."
Kenneth smiled again, and hugged his mate harder, knowing they weren't going to lose each other.
Before long, they both wound up on the couch, with tears dried. Having their calculus tests behind them, they spent the entire rest of the night discussing where to go on their new first date, where to look for an apartment -- and most importantly, what adventures Vis'tar would find himself in next.
The End.
(version 1.1 -- fixed typos)