Rock and a Hard Place PREVIEW
Check out this snippet from "Rock and a Hard Place," a story available now in the FANG 4 anthology from Bad Dog Books.
You can find this story in its entirety in FANG 4, which is available through Rabbit Valley Books.
They use you up, like a chain of condoms or a bottle of lube that might become too gummy and discomforting to handle long before it's empty. That's what they were buying, too. At the pharmacy near this upscale gym where I also see them come and go, this place out on the gentrifying fringes of the city where brand new high rise condos spring from the ground around crumbling schools and clinics. They were buying condoms and lube.
I, too, was buying condoms and lube. We eyed each others' goods as they walked out, exchanging a glance. Without paying- swear to God. I was the only one to notice, and they didn't seem too worried that I'd watch them do it.
I stashed my items on a shelf and followed them into the crisp night air, and tailed them as they passed through islands of fluorescent streetlight. They sported the same tight-fitting trunks and tanks they could be seen in at the gym which looked like products of a fabric shortage. They were fixtures at the gym and had made the style fashionable- although it might be more accurate to say the style was infectious. As chatty as the two seemed to be, you'd imagine their opinions- as well as other things- would spread. Not that I was privileged to most of it. The tiger, he stayed exclusively in the weight room, with a certain forwardness of passion that you could see kind of annoyed the raccoon. The tiger never ventured into the fitness room or the pool with the raccoon or myself. He had once earned a certain local fame as a guard on the basketball court, but his aggressive playing style proved a bit too dominating for the hobbyists. His reputation had only just begun to sour when he stopped lacing up his shoes. He remained barefoot in the weightroom and nothing could drag him out until- I always guessed they had a predetermined time- they'd meet in the locker room and make a display of nuzzling their glistening, perfect bodies against each other in the showers. And for all the vanity in the show nobody could pin it quite down as lewd. They certainly didn't seem crass compared to the coyote who'd been tapping his toes in the bathroom stall for the last twenty minutes. Most of the men, when they saw the couple in the showers, stopped and stared with dumb amusement. They'd scan the locker room for a compatriot to share the treat with.
That's actually how I first saw them. An eager look called me over through a pouring fog of blazing steam, and there they were in the shower. They weren't fondling each other. They weren't in the throes of passion. I mean- they were clearly a couple. Was anyone going to complain to the management about a committed pair sharing a showerhead? The tiger scrubbed the raccoon's taut, hewn body with dramatic tenderness, the raccoon coyly swatting away the tiger's more adventurous advances, though I guess eventually he figured those places had to get clean, too. Their cocks hung like great hocks of restaurant meat. The small crowd grew and nobody disliked the scene. The two seemed as if set off by a velvet rope- like a piece in a museum. The guy who called me over leaned next to me and half-whispered, "They treat this place like their harem. And it may as well be. Look at them." The tiger had his beefy arms around the raccoon's fresh-scrubbed body. They seemed to nestle perfectly into one another.
One of the gatherers seemed to try to call their attention, but he was simply trying to stir the thick mist of steam. They wouldn't have seen him anyway, their eyes were welded shut. He held his hand out, as if either directing our eyes through the steam, or to puncture it directly. He whispered to us, and it stuck in my mind for a long time: "If you were them, would you have to fuck anybody twice?"
People spoke of them as a pair, and they may as well have been. Their combined personalities commanded a gravity of permanence, like a memorial flame. A person who saw them together could only see them together. Closer than a couple, even, because they seemed to live a single life, always arriving together and leaving together and splitting only to take to their respective exercises.
Not that they weren't separately social. In the fitness room I often saw the raccoon surrounded by a group of friends, if not admirers, with whom he gossiped constantly. About the tiger, even. Juicy gossip, really. I always had to extend my ears for it, but I got what I could.
But that all seemed natural at the gym. Whoever didn't have a spotting partner found a trainer or cruised the locker room.. When I saw them working as a team to steal extra large condoms at the pharmacy- the effect was much more striking. What had been a guilty indulgence at the gym burned like an addiction once in the rarefied air of the general public. And so I felt myself divined to them.
I was relieved to find them stop for a smoke at a streetlight. The goods had been hidden away, I presumed, and now the raccoon was leaning back against a lightpole as he enjoyed his cigarette. The tiger found some real estate on the pole for himself, and I don't think either saw me as I approached. The raccoon plied the tiger to steal a drag or two, but my interrupting ended the little game.
"Hey-" my voice cracked with meekness. They turned to me so directly, and looked at me so intently, that my jaw dangled on a string. In the moment of my confusion the raccoon butted in-
"You're from the gym!" He pointed his cigarette at me, the confidence in his guess obvious in his face. "He didn't believe me. Tell him. Tell him, you go to that gym on 42nd. You run a lot."
"You're telling him where he works out, now? Did you pay this guy?"
I spit out "no," trying to take the raccoon's side but feeling only as if I were defending myself. "I've seen you two there. You seem like a very nice couple." Complimenting them put me at ease, for some reason, as if I were deflating any possible offense. And they seemed to appreciate the praise, too, so I stammered a few more sincere if awkward tributes.
The tiger especially seemed to beam at this. "You exercise with this guy at the gym?" he asked the raccoon.
"Yeah - we run together," the raccoon answered. "Not so much together, though, I suppose." His glare screwed me down to the sidewalk as smoke curled into the night from his forgotten smoke. "He's a bit shy."
"Is he?" the tiger asked, a tinge of something like hopefulness in his voice. He turned to me. "Don't talk much?"
"I, ah-" I choked on my words. Mostly I was trying to speak through the kind of grin you give the principle when you want him to think an experience has taught you a very valuable lesson. They were some kind of charming, these two guys, you couldn't deny that. They made you at least want to appear to be enjoying yourself, even when your stomach knotted with anxiety and fear. Every word they spoke came out inoffensive, and with the kind of authority that stems from acclimation to control. Their benign teasing tickled me in a funny way. Less like tickling, more like itching. They already had their hands on the scruff of my neck- in the figurative sense. I would have felt horribly insecure if they didn't beam with such open pride at my stammering affection.
Finally, I explained: "I- I tend to keep to myself."
Finding no room for disagreement, the raccoon nodded his head soberly. "Is that so, sweet cheeks?" he asked as he flicked the cigarette away. The streetlight turned on cue, and the raccoon motioned for me to follow them. Of course I did.
The tiger led the way. His domineering person would have made an excellent masthead to clear a path for us, but the sidewalk had been largely abandoned so the three of us walked in public privacy. I knew they were taking me to their place. Where else would they take me? They were taking me back to their place, and we were going to fuck. The flushing of my cheeks- half from cold, half from anxiety- must have served as a beacon of our intentions. I turned my head at every corner, hoping to shine a light on some chance passerby who might either save or console me, since the stone-silent walk through the city did nothing to cure my nerves. We're going back to their place, and they're going to fuck me. I must have said a hundred different ways in my head to try to make it real. They could have been taking me out for ice cream, they really could have. They might have wanted to show me the new library that opened up. They might have wanted someone to talk about their problems with. None of it would have been so surreal, or so unbelievable.
The last few minutes had already been so lewd. I'd cruised them at the pharmacy, I was now realizing. I'd stalked them down the sidewalk. They couldn't have possibly imagined I wanted ice cream. They couldn't have possibly missed that my dick was tenting my pants like the revival had just rolled into town. I slipped a hand in my pocket and tried to control the beast, or at least keep him hidden from view- but neither of the pair ever tried to steal a peek, and no other soul ever materialized on our quiet walk.
"Are you a top or a bottom, squirrel?" the raccoon chased my worries and invited in my insecurities with one question. I didn't answer as immediately, hoping to goad the raccoon into a phrasing that was a little more open-ended. But he didn't repeat the question.
"I'm- I'm a bit of a bottom, I guess."
"But not exclusively?" the tiger butted in now, not turning his head but rather shouting the question so that it could bounce off the brick walls of the apartment buildings to reach my ears.
"Exclusively?" I repeated the word.
"As in-" the raccoon added, "Only." He spoke the word with a grave a finality to it, as if it encompassed something truly vital.
"No-" I answered, considering the question now. "Not- not only. I do what I need to, usually. I'm, you know- I'm nothing if not accommodating." That made them smile, all right. It made the tiger turn around, finally, to share a grin with his boyfriend. They shared something in that glance that made my cock twinge.
"What about you guys?" I asked, feeling as if I were interrupting.
"Exclusive top," the tiger stated like an honorary title.
"Exclusive top," the raccoon agreed.