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Longing

Pavement rumbled beneath a pair of bare, digitigrade feet. A pair of gray camo combat pants and a loose-fitting t-shirt flapped in the wind as the longboard picked up momentum on a sudden downslope. As a patch of unpaved walk appeared suddenly, the digits of the right-hand foot dextrously grabbed at the edge of the board, and the foot on the left lowered itself to where its slender heel hung just a little below the other edge. The board drifted over to the curb, and it magically sailed over the rugged terrain with the left-hand wheels rolling smoothly along the curb, a deliberate centimeter from dropping perilously into the gutter.

Digitigrade walkers traditionally held a position of dhimmitude in street-skating. They were assumed to have poor balance, and the ones who belied this belief were treated as exceptions. Mitchell found that it worked to his advantage, though: his feet had a mitt-like quality to them, giving him an advantage as far as controlling his board as long as he was either barefoot or wearing close-fitting glove-socks. Also, he found that he could rest most of his foot flat against the board by hanging his heel down over the edge, and it wasn't as much work as one would think to hold the low-slung posture for long periods.

Mitch was taking his first trip out to the boardwalk in a long time. His parents were both tied up for the weekend, but his younger brother had been shipped off to Paddington to stay with his aunt Gertrude. Although he wasn't the type to go out on the beach itself, he enjoyed the carnival atmosphere that always surrounded the venue. The vendors and the tangled knots of people were a pleasure to watch, and he liked visiting the tacky little shops that were strewn along the waterfront.

However, the visit had been prompted by a strange e-mail. It had been Michelle, asking him to find her at a specific location to the north of the boardwalk, and his queries asking for details had been met with silence. There was a natural outcropping of rock there, and he had been instructed to find his way to a cluster of bushes near the end of it. Therefore, he could not help but feel a little bit invincible as he raced his way down to the waterfront for the rendevous.

There was a nagging voice in his mind trying to tell him something. He had been talking to Michelle a day or so earlier, but he had been too distracted by her cleavage to pay her any attention. He couldn't quite put his finger on why, but he sensed that the conversation and the e-mail were somehow related.

Although the puzzle danced in the back of his mind, it was not a strong enough presence to break him away from the cheer of getting out of the house again. As he came around a corner, he did a simple grind on the waiting bench at a bus stop, and he sailed blithely past an elderly vixen as she tried her best to fix him with a glare. The clouds were silver and white, the sky was blue, the air was warm, and the breeze was cool.

As Mitch began hearing the shrieks of seagulls, the walk became more thickly crowded with various people, most of them travelling in groups and all of them noisy. He passed by a giggling cackle of bikini-clad hyena males, a parade of boisterous elephants dressed for a roll in the mud flats, an especially tall giraffe bull in business attire shouting into his cell phone over the noise, and a dray of extremely loud squirrels all dressed for badmitten. As a pack of lupine youths came weaving toward him on skateboards, apparently not keen on slowing down for a lonely cougar, Mitch ground his own board to a halt and quickly thumbed a ride on a passing golf cart.

"Which way you heading?" asked the otter driving the cart. Like most otters, he seemed a little portly, but he would also be very athletic underneath. His fur was mostly silver, and he was attired in a straw hat, rose-tinted sunglasses, a hawaiian shirt, bermuda shorts and a pair of sandals. He had the distinctive odor of fish on his person.

Mitch grinned and responded, "Oh, we're going in the right direction. I just wanted to get out of the crowds for a while is all. Wherever you intended to stop or turn, that's fine with me."

His benefactor chuckled. "Well, you have the air of someone who is set up for a date," he said. "I'm just saying, my truck is up here, and I could give you a ride if you have someone expecting you. My pleasure and all that."

The young tom thought about that for a moment. "Well, it would be an imposition..."

The hob looked at him in the rear-view. "Miss, I'm just worried about a pretty girl like you walking around here unaccompanied.

Mitch smirked at that. "Yo, I'm a dude," he said, chuckling.

"Ah," the otter said. He drove on for a while, slowing down as the strip got to the point of being so crowded as to actively slow down his progress. There were people everywhere running around with body boards and sundry flotation devices. There was almost too much color, and the body odor of thousands of species filled this part of town. What made the situation even crazier was that some races were all avowed nudists, like leopards; but others had extreme taboos about clothing. There were certain types of deer who preferred to pursue their sexuality in public, involving several members of their herd in a liaison. The beach could be a wild place.

After a long pause, the otter cleared his throat and he asked, "Your family wouldn't be from the Midwest, would they?"

"I think so," Mitch replied, surprised. "How did you guess?"

The otter half-turned his head and grinned at him wickedly. "There was a cougar clan there, before abolition, who liked to keep spotted hyena males as house servants. Those super-effeminate bodies made them appealing as not-entirely-willing bedmates on cold nights, I suppose." He winked slyly. "However," he continued, "this habit led to a few unplanned liaisons between the servants and the resident females, and...well, the rest, you could say, is history."

Mitch blushed hotly. He had seldom ever been insecure about his appearance, but having such a fine point put on it made it suddenly humiliating. He considered asking the hob to stop right then and there, but he thought better of it. "I didn't know that," he said instead. "It sounds interesting."

"Well, it's part of your history, man," said the otter. "But look, I'm sorry I made such a thing of it. It really was not my intent to cause you any embarrassment. I do a lot of reading, and I like to share what I know."

"Thanks," Mitch said bemusedly.

"Don't mention it," the hob said cheerily. Just then, he pulled over into a parking lot, stopping next to a battered-looking, white work-truck with various contractor gear piled-up in the bed. "Hey, you know what?" he said, "you're a good kid." He smiled a large, half-moon smile as he cranked his head back. "My name is Peter Gently. You can call me Mr. Pete or Mr. Gently, depending on how you are with first names. It was nice getting to know you." He reached back to Mitch, extending his ruddy paw.

Mitch shook his hand. "Mitchell...umm...Carver," he said. "I'm Mitchell Carver, species obvious, but just 'Mitch' is okay. Thank you for getting me this far, sir."

The hob tipped his hat and winked. "Look, just ask me anytime you see me around here. I always have time for stuff like this. It's one of the many joys of being self-employed and working on one's own schedule. You have a nice time with your girl, Mr. Mitch."

Mitch hopped off the back of the golf cart as the crazy hob got up and started digging around in his truck, seeming to have forgotten that his erstwhile passenger was even there. He mounted his board and gave the ground a good, hard kick, propelling himself toward the desolate, rocky part of the beach frequented only by odd fishermen and some local wildlife. About a half-mile up the waterfront, Michelle waited for him.