Our Last Valentine

Story by Domus Vocis on SoFurry

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#23 of Patreon stories

It's Valentine's Day sometime during the early-to-mid 1980s. In Crossroads City, a mountain lion punk named Travis plans to say his final good-byes to the former love of his life. Happy Valentine's Day, everyone (and sorry for the tears)!


The Motel 9 in Crossroads City had a reputation. For one, some of the more immature punks living in the nearby suburbs liked calling it the 'Motel 69', on account of many things.

For one, the joke made too much sense not to make. Second, the price for a single night made the risk of illicit hookups worth each nickel and quarter, especially when most of the money would be better spent paying for a hustler's ass. I remembered taking my senior prom date--a punk feline like myself--up there into one of the rooms up on the second floor and giving her a fucking good night to remember. She certainly gave me one, but not compared to me and John's first time.

The Motel 9 had few cars parked in the lot but hearing a police siren in the distance did put me on edge a little. Clenching my paws into fists and quickening my pace up the wooden staircase, I ignored the quiet, brooding vixen in tight shorts smoking a drag against the balcony railing. I ignored the enticing smell of weed escaping from one of the rooms, as well as paid little attention to a loud moan coming from Room 21.

No, my attention lay on Room 28.

I exhaled a hesitant sigh.

"Get a grip, you fucker..." I muttered to nobody but myself. A shriveled part of me sought to turn tail back to the Old Rainbow, back to Harley's burly arms as he rode his motorcycle off into the sunset, but I didn't. "You'll regret it for the rest of your miserable life..."

He didn't answer the door after I knocked three times in succession. He didn't yank the door open to pull me into his strong canid arms, let alone offer me a Western-style kiss. John was too cautious for his own good. Rather, he just simply unlocked door with a loud clank, then gave me a courteous nod before quietly inviting me into the motel room. Seeing the heavy bags under his once-bright eyes shone into by pale moonlight creeping inside, the sad smile etched on his muzzle like a jester's mask, it broke my heart.

John closed the door behind us as I awkwardly placed my denim jacket on the nearby hook. His lay discarded on a chair in the corner facing the disused bed. An engagement ring glinted on his left hand. The same one he used to pull me into a hug I reluctantly yet contentedly accepted. That was when a smile crept up my lips.

"Happy Valentine's Day, big guy."

John sniffled into my shoulder, then returned the sad smile to me when he pulled away, holding my arms in his. His deep exhale tickled my whiskers.

Picture this: a punk mountain lion and a Mormon timber wolf, both in their early twenties. The mountain lion's most prized possession were his fangs and a denim jacket with metal spikes and the most garish anarchy pins and embroidered patches imaginable, his thick skull topped off by dirty blonde, unkempt headfur that used to be a wild mohawk.

The punk mountain lion grew up in the foster system, spending his days with the wrong crowds and getting into trouble. Then, he met a timber wolf in high school. They became friends due to circumstances (and the poor-ass school district) forcing them to be in the same classes together. A few years down the line, the timber wolf went to Utah State, meaning they could still hang out while the punk mountain lion made a living bartending between niche establishments.

Then one day...they both realized they'd fallen in love. The punk fell in love with the wolf, but somebody else caught the timber wolf's gaze. Or rather, something else did.

"H-Happy Valentine's Day, Travis..." He spoke uneasily, eyes flicking between the bed and me. "How...How are you?"

"Good." I cleared my throat, and I sat down on the bed. "Harley told me he's ready to leave by either morning or tonight." A scoff and a laugh escaped the back of my trembling throat. "He-He said, and I quote, 'You wanna fuck him, that's fine by me.'"

"Really?" John guffawed as if he hadn't considered it too. "He actually said that?"

I nodded cheekily.

"Yeah, Harley's open-minded." A shrug led me to hugging my elbows. "He's real sweet too. He uh, he understood that you...you were an important part of my life. He said he won't hold it against me if we end up doing anything."

"And you two are..." He paused, "...like, actually happy together?"

Giving up a deep sigh, I couldn't stop myself from forming a smile. The thought of me and Harley starting over in San Amaro, leaving behind the arid city, and making a life together in California. Meanwhile, John planned to sacrifice freedom for stability and getting into Heaven. Or rather, the Latter-Day Saints' version of Heaven. I doubted his ideas for the next great American novel would come to fruition with the life he'd chosen.

"Yeah. We are." I answered. "He's a great guy. There's a motorbike shop that's eager to hire him next week, and he's gonna try to see if the boss knows any joints I could bartend. Turns out there's quite a few available in Cali. One of 'em is a gay bar."

John's ears slightly perked back up. "A gay bar, huh? Like the Old Rainbow?"

"Like the Old Rainbow," I confirmed with a small shrug, "but this one's apparently got a dance floor. An actual dance floor, and from what Harley's boss has told him, it's quite a hangout. You'd...I think you'd like it, dude."

One of his ears perked momentarily, as if he planned to ask, "You think so?"

He didn't though. He couldn't, not anymore. He probably didn't even realize I'd noticed the way he looked at that ring of his on his finger.

The lump in the back of my throat dissipated enough for me to ask, "How...How's Katherine doing?"

A heavy, awkward silence passed over us. Why the fuck did I suddenly decide to mention her? Part of me wanted to cut out my tongue in that instant, but John saved grace.

"She's doing fine. Excited for the wedding and all." He cleared his throat and softly smiled. The sadness shining in his fangs reflected mine. "We ought to...y'know, get on with it. Kathy won't be expecting me 'til morning, but you...you got your thing."

For the first time recently, I had to agree with the wolf, especially without reluctance. The night wasn't going to be young forever. If we were actually going to enjoy ourselves one final time, there wasn't any point in waiting longer.

After turning the television on to the MTV channel, tuning the volume up to an appropriate level as background noise, John set his ring on the nightstand.

The first time for us happened in our mid-teens, when the prospect of getting laid seemed more desperate then. It started off as an awkward cold war between the two of us, silently capturing quick glances of the other in either gym or during an inconspicuous time spent sleeping over at the other's place. Between the days spent attending/skipping classes, spending our allowances on a night to see the latest flick in the movie theater, and sneaking in popular albums to listen to on his dad's record player, our friendship became a battlefield of lust and emotions we'd never experienced in the open.

Ironically, he made the first move. He kissed me as a surprise gift for my seventeenth birthday (his parents confiscated the present he'd planned to give me; a vinyl release of Hotel California. Sadly, they tossed it into the garbage without a second thought) during the latter half of my birthday party, when my large family already went to bed and the other guests wandered back home.

It'd been a quick, passionate kiss in case somebody suddenly burst through the door, but the kiss felt like a glorious eternity. If memory served me correctly, the first thought on my mind was: John's lips taste like Heaven.

They still did, pressed close to mine, his sweet tongue asking for permission to enter my muzzle. I gladly granted him access, melting into his arms. A moan bubbled up my throat. It echoed into a needing purr and eventually led me to my paws travelling further underneath his buttoned-up shirt. Unfastening each button with unsteady fingers, we eventually peeled it off so I could marvel at his chest and biceps again. By the time we shed all our clothes, save for socks, we were already exploring the other's bodies with enough years of experience. We weren't fumbling teens or uncertain college students anymore, experimenting between gropes and enthusiastic strokes.

John never preferred anal. I could go either way, but he found it more thrilling when I used my feline tongue to tease his member out of that thick, well-groomed sheath hanging between his legs. As I inhaled his musk and chuckled upon hearing the wolf whimper when my cold nose touched his tip, causing a small strand of pre to bridge between us, I slipped my tongue into the foreskin. The cock throbbed its way free, followed by a long chorus of moans elicited like music from the first man I ever loved.

"Oh, Trav..." He whimpered between desperate pants, running his fingers through my headfur the same time I fondled his knot free. "Trav, that's it...Oh God!"

I bided my time on him that night. The previous times we'd done this, before the engagement announcement out of the blue, had been calculated. Society and (his) girlfriends restricted the time we spent releasing our carnal desires out of sight. The nights together were planned meticulously, to the point we focused on one sex act over the other. That night though, I hoped to do more than a simple blowjob, handjob, or quick fuck.

We could...do more, and we did.

Once I pushed John close enough to the sexual edge, tapering closely to the point of no chaste return, I pulled my lips away to smile up at him. He wiped drool from his chin, lustfully smiling back. By the time I crawled up his sweaty, stinking chest to bring us into another long kiss, John began rubbing himself against my thigh while possessively caressing my wrists. Our tails swished in tandem over the edge of the mattress.

Our fingers interlaced in nostalgic warmth. An alternative rock band began playing the first chorus. John's erect cock leaked against my stomach, staining the fur, and washing the two of us in thick canine and feline musk. It seemed I was also leaking loads without realizing, had I not been distracted in the parting kiss.

Why did each kiss with him remind me of our first? Why didn't he feel brave enough to leave Crossroads City like me? We could've escaped Utah to go somewhere else, be free and happy with our own kind. He could finish that spectacular novel in a tiny apartment we'd share, walk along a beach, attend one of the parades.

Deep down though, I knew the answer. It stared at me from the nightstand.

We parted for air once again. John licked his jowls, murmuring, "Remember our first time?" A bewildered giggle led to him tilting his head in confusion. Nodding back to him, the wolf pecked my lips and whispered, "I...I love--"

Without giving him a chance to finish that lie, I jammed my tongue back into his maw, and pulled him atop me. Blunt claws dug into the dense fur along his back the more he fought tongue and cock against mine.

The minutes ticked closer to midnight by the time our feverish frotting grew more frantic. I think the previous time we'd done nothing but make out in a motel bed, it'd been the last month before university when John's parents entrusted him to being on his own at the house. They went to a friends' wedding in Arizona, leaving the house to us for an entire weekend. The various ways we committed sodomy would've put his parents in straightjackets, had they known the full extent of our 'friendship'. What a weekend...yeah, what a weekend.

Grinding himself against my less-furry body, marveling at my male form in audible adoration, John trailed kisses up and down my chin. I stroked my paws up and down his lower back. I fondled his right ass cheek the same time he rocked against me. Our combined weight nearly made the mattress' squeaks rise above the music coming from the television box. Yet it didn't distract us from our groaning, moaning, squelching, thrusting movements. We were too lost in each other's union to care.

"Ah! Ah!" I moan into his sweating neck, lapping and nuzzling into his nape. "J-John, I'm about to...to--"

"Mfh! Me too...Me too!"

Our tails thrashed like tentacles. Seconds later, we lay together in a sticky mess after spurting jets of hot cum coated our stomachs, and we realized how much sweat had sunk into the bedding. We'd been so hot and panting in our afterglow, the dingy motel room might as well have been a furnished sauna.

We didn't talk as much after the sex. For one, I did quietly apologize for getting the bedsheets stained to hell and back, leaving him to pull out the spare sheets from a closet as I went to shower. I'd almost expected the big wolf to invite himself in, maybe even let us do a round two. That'd been wishful thinking though.

He decided against it though, since I spent a good ten minutes alone underneath the faucet, glaring at the cheap shower curtain patterned in bright pastels and grime. The weight from before seemed to wash away into the drain, leaving my tanned fur pristine of his sins again.

I dried off my fur with one of the room's pastel towels, then walked out to find the bedding not only changed, but John hunched over it, still without clothing. Or his engagement ring. There it sat, still starring at us from its vantage point, judging us. Judging him.

The two of us already talked about it. We'd already shed the painful tears and hurt shouts at the other. He'd made his choice. He'd chosen stability over us and wanted to spend the rest of his life in Hell before entering Heaven. Without a word, I dressed myself back up and went to the hook to grab my jacket. It was time to go to Harley.

"Travis?"

I paused at the knob when he said my name. The boots I wore suddenly felt like lead.

"What is it, John?" My tone sounded more accusatory than I'd wanted it to be.

The mattress squeaked, followed by shifting that suddenly led to me feeling his arms around my stomach. He hugged me close, his snout burying itself into the back of my neck. It brought me back to the same elation we'd shared earlier, when it felt like our own little world again. It was only when John pulled away that I turned the door handle.

"Good-bye, Trav." He said, sniffling.

The words naturally flowed out, but I dared not to turn back to the wolf. Otherwise, I'd see the pained look in his eyes, which would compel me to stay longer. Much, much longer.

"...good-bye, John. Happy Valentine's Day."

"You too, Trav. You too."

***

The walk from my past to my present felt like an eternity, until the Motel 9 finally disappeared around the corner, and a certain row of bars came into view. Their neon lights drenched the icy sidewalk in technicolor spotlights. The lack of much February snowfall was made up for by an evening windchill that made me hug my arms closer to my body. The tears I shed on my way to the Old Rainbow made me thankful for the jacket.

Ah, the Old Rainbow. One of the only places I'd dearly miss from Crossroads. Plenty of wild, good memories to be found inside. They were the kind of memories I hoped to memorialize amongst the other ones to be discovered elsewhere. Luckily, I didn't have to search for Harley long, as I found him leaning casually against his parked ride a good twenty feet from the inviting entrance. Like me, the large boar wore a leather jacket that did enough to protect us from the cold, only his jacket proudly displayed scars across the petroleum shoulder. There be history on that thing, some of which Harley had been more than eager to share.

The pull-behind cargo trailer latched to Harley's bike had all our things packed under a layer of tightened tarp. In a city like Crossroads in a neighborhood such as where the gay bars were, no junkie or thuggish louse attempted to step near it. Then again, Harley was Harley. With his back turned towards me, it wasn't unmistakable to see that fiery logo of a bovine skull patched on his jacket, the boney nostril facing left westward. As far as I knew, Harley had to be the only out member of the Rawhides in all of Utah, let alone California. The fact the other furs, especially the carnivores heading in and out of the Old Rainbow, steered far from him just waiting for me, showed how much even the other sodomites kept wary.

"Harley." I spoke up over a howl of wind. "Hey, Harley!"

Turning to my direction, a grin crept behind his tusks. "I was expectin' you to be out a little longer..." He mentioned, "Did staying afterward hurt?"

"Yeah..." I couldn't help myself from nodding. "Yeah, it did. Felt like the longer we stayed there, the more it kept on hurting to leave, so I did it first."

"Good for you." He chirped, "The Motel 69's got shitty breakfast service anyway."

Laughing, I stepped forward to peck him on the lips. Followed by a more sensual, meaningful kiss. His breath tasted of recent huffs into a cigarette fresh from the pack. Either the nicotine coursing through his spit already started pumping into my veins, or the boar had a talent for giving me an immediate erection. Whatever the case, I returned the kiss in equal measure.

"Happy Valentine's Day, Harl." I murmured fondly.

He chuckled, "You too, babe. Now c'mon. We better get goin'. I'm fuckin' freezing."

"Same here." I giggled with a swish of my tail.

Without a single beat, the boar sat down on his motorcycle, and I sat down right behind him. Harley's Harley revved to life as he booted away the kickstand, and we sped down the road.

Spring could already be seen making its scenic way to Crossroads, the arid city. Pitiful piles of snow were gradually replaced by sandy slush and the out-of-place Christmas lights. I swiveled my head to catch one more glimpse of my past. It's outline already disappeared over the horizon, and as I squeezed tightly around my boyfriend's stomach, feeling his chuckles vibrate into my wrist, I rested my chin on his shoulder. Together, we stared off into the unknown.