Drifting
It had been four long years since Tobias had looked forward to a bedtime. He and Dylan had shared a bed for eight, and the first four had been delightful, everything he could've hoped for. Well, okay. The first three had been delightful--two and a half, technically, if you counted the ski trip as the last really delightful time. It had been good for a year or so after that, or at least for eight months, but it had taken almost six months for Tobias to say something about it, which he remembered because it was right after they'd come back from their fourth and last ski trip, standing in the living room with the ski gear still resting against the couch and his tentative words hanging unanswered in the air. Dylan had just mumbled something and gone into the bathroom, leaving Tobias with nothing to do but unpack and remember the cold of the weekend.
So now, because Dylan always stayed up late on the computer, Tobias retired early to their empty bed, made sure his alarm was set, and pressed his face into the pillow, trying not to think about the giant empty space in the bed. It was better than lying next to the inert black panther, thinking about touching him and playing the loop over and over in his mind: his paw reaching out, the shiver of muscle at his touch--because Dylan still slept naked--and then the panther relaxing again, trying to pretend Tobias hadn't touched him. Maybe this time it'd be different, sang a tiny, irrepressible voice in his head, but it had been so long since that voice had been right about anything that it, too, felt like a stuck tape loop, as perky as Tobias's assistant at the office and with as little sense.
Tobias now slept in boxers, his long ringed tail flat between his legs. He usually managed to fall asleep before Dylan came to bed, and his alarm never woke up the panther. Or if it did, Dylan never actually got up while Tobias slid himself out of bed, threw on sweats, and went to the gym.
Gymnasiums in Tobias's home country were very public affairs, some with showers literally open to the changing room. He'd been puzzled when he saw the walled-off areas here, wondering why people who were working so hard to get in shape would be shy about their naked bodies, but now it was specifically because the Steel Body Fitness gym had private shower stalls that Tobias had started going back there. Dylan had a membership too, one of those things they were going to do together, but as far as Tobias knew, Dylan hadn't been to a gym--or done any sort of exercise--in quite a while.
He wasn't particularly fond of exercise either, but he didn't want to show up at work at seven in the morning, and spending two hours in a coffee shop would only take care of part of his morning needs. And yet, he couldn't just show up at the gym and shower, so he'd reluctantly started a limited workout routine, half an hour on the treadmills. And then, looking around at the pine marten huffing away at twice Tobias's speed, at the red wolf straining at the bicep curl, he'd felt ashamed of his indolence and had started setting goals for himself: faster speed, more time. He'd paid for three sessions with Marty, a fox who was one of the trainers, and Marty had given him a set of arm and leg exercises. Tobias still suspected he wasn't working as hard as he could, but he felt better, and when he cut back his lattes to one a day from three at Marty's suggestion, he'd started to lose weight.
Not that Dylan would ever notice, he thought, his paws thumping in time on the speeding treadmill, tail kept carefully up out of the way (once you've stepped on your tail during a run, you always remember to keep it up). Actually, for all Tobias knew, Dylan could've gained twenty pounds. Or lost it. The panther favored loose shirts and baggy jeans, so it was impossible to tell. And he seemed to be eating the same as he always had, to judge from what he got when they went out to dinner (which they still did three or four times a week).
But Tobias had had to buy some new pants. He'd dragged Dylan shopping, and Dylan had helped him pick out the new wardrobe without once commenting on why he needed it. "These'd look good on you," he'd said, as if he were picking out a color of house paint. Which, in its own way, had a nice comforting domesticity to it, and Tobias wouldn't have minded it at all if it'd been accompanied by a wink, or even just by the knowledge that that night, or the next, or maybe the next, Dylan might be watching him take those pants off with lustful eyes. Tobias would've settled for affectionate eyes, even.
There was no use dwelling on it. It was what it was. Tobias had moved to Riviera knowing only Dylan, and when things were going well, he hadn't bothered to make friends of his own. When things went bad, he'd made a few attempts to connect with co-workers, or friends of Dylan he got along well with, but inevitably he found himself wanting to complain about his relationship, and he didn't like himself when he was complaining. Besides, it felt disloyal to Dylan, as if he were giving up. So he remained cordial with his co-workers, saw Dylan's friends with Dylan, and ignored the few times people approached him at the gym.
And when he had finished his workout, his body pleasantly warm and sweaty, he stripped down in the changing room and took his shampoo into the private shower stall. There, finally, he let himself long for the Dylan he'd fallen in love with, his own black paw becoming the panther's as he lovingly soaped up his member, which now started to get hard just from the sight of the shower stall. He drew his paw along its length, up and down, keeping his eyes closed. Today, the slickness was just shampoo, not a muzzle or another slickness. They'd played in the shower before. Shampoo was enough.
He closed his eyes, familiar sensations flooding through him as the water soaked into his fur, coursing down his body. He thrust his head back, letting the water run over his muzzle as his legs twitched, and then he had to brace himself with his free paw against the stall of the shower wall. Oh, God, Dylan, yes. His paw pumped faster. The rush of water in his ears drowned out everything else, the smell of the shampoo strong and soothing.
His body shuddered and tensed, and his paw slowed just a bit, prolonging it. Not too long, he told himself, but he couldn't help holding back, while his body cried out for release. Just one more stroke along his tingling shaft, and another, and another...
He gasped, getting water in his mouth. His body insisted, and finally he could deny it no longer. Stroke, and stroke, and stroke, stroke, strokestrokestrokestroke and...
"Mmmf!" He kept his muzzle clenched, feeling the warmth of his seed briefly on his paw before the water washed it away. His body convulsed again and again, emptying his longing and pain in thick white spurts onto his paw, and the water carried it away down the drain.
Then it was time for a long, thorough scrub, long enough that his erection had time to subside. Long enough for him to reflect on how pathetic he was, jerking off at the local gym because he didn't want his boyfriend to smell his come in their shower at home. Too shy, too afraid to break out of his rut. He made sure all the thick white mass was cleaned off the tile floor, rubbing around with a bit of shampoo to be sure, and then rinsed himself off. He turned the faucet to shut off the water and composed himself, shedding all the self-loathing despair, leaving only the nagging little knowledge that he would be right back here in twenty-four hours.
Five minutes in the full-body dryer left his beige fur fluffy. He turned around to give his tail a few extra minutes, while he brushed the rest of his body fur out, thinking of nothing in particular. And he dressed for work, as he did every day, and walked out of the locker room.
Only today, as he was walking out, he noticed an older coyote glaring at him. And Marty, in his "Steel Body Staff" tank top, started walking purposefully toward Tobias as the lemur crossed the main floor of the gym.
Tobias felt his stomach sink. Keep calm, it's probably not what you think. He just wants to ask you about doing more sessions. But although Marty did occasionally approach him to ask about that, the fox's dark muzzle was serious now, his eyes not sparkling.
"Hey, Tobias," Marty said. Before Tobias could respond, he said, "Mind stepping over into the office for a second?"
Marty always called him "Tobe." Tobias fought the pressure in his throat and nodded, following the fox across the floor. He looked morosely at the big glass windows. Maybe a car would careen out of control into one of them. Or maybe a political riot would break out, though admittedly even in his home country that only happened every twenty years or so, and here in Riviera they were going on fifty years since the last one.
The gym remained intact as Marty gestured him to one of the stiff office-supply chairs and seated himself on the other side of the desk. The fox's ears were back, and he didn't look at Tobias as he took a breath. "So, look, do you know what this is about?"
Tobias shook his head without even thinking about it. That was another strange thing about this country: if Marty'd just clapped him on the shoulder and said, "Hey, quit jerking off in the shower, okay?" it would have been a lot easier. But the fox's sympathetic shame on Tobias's part just made Tobias feel it more acutely.
Marty took another breath. His paw rested on a binder on the desk, and his eyes kept flicking to the computer screen. The spine on the binder was angled so Tobias could just barely read the title: "Steel Body Fitness Member Conduct Rules." He spent a moment thinking about why a public gym needed an inch-thick stack of paper telling people how to behave in public before realizing with a guilty start that it was because of people like him.
"There's some stuff that you can't do in the showers," the fox said, without looking at him. "Listen, I get the whole gym thing, y'know. But please just wait 'til you get home." And that wasn't so bad, not by itself, until he went on. "A couple of the other members have complained."
Tobias opened his mouth to reply, but his mind jumped ahead to the fact that not only Marty, but other people--the older coyote who'd given him the stink-eye on his way out today, probably--knew about his jerking off. And that meant that they probably knew how unfulfilling his relationship was and therefore how much of a failure he himself was. None of this registered consciously, but overwhelmed him in a hot rush. "S-sorry," he choked out, squeezing his eyes shut and pressing a paw to his face.
"Hey...hey." Marty's voice had lost the clinical detachment and regained its warmth. He was kneeling beside Tobias's chair a moment later, the warmth of his body and his smell at once reassuring and a reminder of humiliation.
"I'm okay," Tobias said in a small voice.
Marty rested a paw on his knee. "It's no big deal," he said. "Look, we catch guys every other week. I just have to give you a warning not to do it again. It's no big deal," he repeated.
"I know," Tobias said, struggling to get himself under control. "Sorry. I w-won't do it again."
Marty lifted his paw. "Anything you want to talk about?"
"No! I'm fine." Tobias rubbed the fur around his eyes. "I'll be fine."
Any more sympathy from Marty might be too much. Fortunately, the fox stood up and leaned against the desk. When Tobias raised his head, he was looking into a calm smile. The sparkle had returned, at least a little, to the fox's dark eyes. "Hey, do you work nearby? You said something about Crick Co.?"
Tobias nodded. "Down on High, just off 890."
Marty walked back around the desk. "That Victorino's Pizza is around there, isn't it? I like their thin-crust. I might head over there for lunch once I get out of here. Around one."
"I won't do it again, Marty," Tobias said. "I promise." He stood with one more long sniff and waited to see if the fox would say anything else, but Marty just waved. Tobias hurried out of the office.
All the way to work, he regretted moving to Riviera. Back home, things were simpler. People just talked, and the things you didn't talk about, you didn't talk about. You didn't allude to them with your ears down as if they were a piece of garbage. And back home, he had family and friends--well, not so many since he'd moved to the New World.
At least here, if he didn't have friends other than Dylan, he had a comfortable routine. When the questions got to be too loud, he could just lower his head and lose himself in his life. Such as it was. He nodded to his co-workers and settled himself into his cubicle, but when he called up the article he was supposed to review, he just stared without seeing the words. The morning's humiliation, on top of what he'd come to view as the wreck of his life, gnawed at him. How would the raccoon in the next cube react if Tobias asked him for relationship advice over morning coffee? For that matter, what kind of relationship was the raccoon even in? Tobias didn't know whether he was married or dating, gay or straight.
The bat-eared fox who worked on the other side of him, she was married. He heard her talking to her husband on the phone, and she had to leave to pick up kids about once a week. But he couldn't talk to her. He shook his head and tried to read through the article again, but he kept having to remind himself that he couldn't talk to anyone, didn't want to talk to anyone.
He'd only gotten through half the article when he realized he was starving. Guiltily, he looked up and saw that it was one o'clock already. He'd have to do better this afternoon, but he needed food now.
So he wandered down to the street, and stopped outside Victorino's Pizza. He needed someone to talk to more than he needed food, but could he bring himself to talk to Marty? He stared in the door at the slices of pizza, and then at the sandwich shop next door. It'd be easy to go have a sandwich, keep an eye on the street, and if Marty showed up, he could make a decision then. It'd be easier to keep his head down.
Or he could just make the decision now. He was tired of not talking. He'd been not talking for months, years. And he didn't have to talk to Marty, not if he didn't feel like it. But as he inhaled the aroma of cooking dough and tomato sauce, letting the door swing shut behind him, he rather thought he would.
"So how long have you been in Riviera?"
Marty'd strolled in at quarter past and sat down at Tobias's table just as naturally as if he'd made an appointment, two slices of Hawaiian pizza on his plate. And his first question hadn't been what Tobias was expecting.
The lemur found it easier to answer because it was so impersonal, unrelated to everything else that had happened. "Eight years last March."
Marty nodded, munching his pizza. "Did you move here for someone?"
"No." He said it automatically and then felt ashamed. He took the scrap of crust he had left and chewed on it.
"I did." Tobias looked up at the cross fox's wry smile. Marty nodded once. "Grew up in the south on a farm. Went to the big city every month. Clubbing, drinking, having fun. Met a lion there." He leaned back and took a breath, gesturing with the paw that held the slice of pizza. "He was exotic, he was beautiful, and he was into me. Told me if I came to Riviera with him, he'd take care of me."
He took another bite. Tobias leaned forward. "I guess he didn't?"
Marty chewed, taking his time. "He did, for a while," he said, once he'd swallowed. "Then I got boring."
"I'm sorry," Tobias said.
Marty waved him off. "It was a few years ago. I decided to stick around, joined the gym, started training there last year. You were one of my first trainees, did you know that?"
Tobias grinned, spontaneously. The fox was wearing a tight t-shirt that mashed down his fur in muscular contours. It was hard to imagine that he hadn't been always a trainer at the gym. "You never told me."
"You remember what you said when I asked you why you joined the gym?"
Tobias nodded. "I just wanted to get in shape." But the question recalled to him that Dylan had joined with him, making his smile falter.
Marty pointed a finger at him. "Exactly. Done a good job of that, too. You want to hear a secret, though?" He took another bite of pizza and chewed as Tobias nodded. "That's not the real answer. Everyone comes to the gym to get in shape. What we don't ask people is why they want to get in shape."
"Oh." Tobias's ears drooped. He waited for the question to come, but Marty just finished off the first slice of pizza. He didn't say anything else until he'd taken a drink, and then he smiled.
"So what do you do at Crick?"
"Quality assurance," Tobias said. "I review the scientific reports before they go out."
"Wow, you're a scientist?"
"Not really." Tobias smiled, Dylan receding from his mind. "I had some science training but I never finished my degree. I mostly proof them to make sure all the tables match the numbers and the names are all spelled right, stuff like that."
"What happens if you mess up?"
"Nothing, really. Nobody reads them. We just release them to make sure people remember our name. Kinda pathetic." The fox's dark muzzle was welcoming, smiling. Tobias ventured a question. "Do you do the training full-time?"
Marty shook his head. "Part time, and I do odd jobs for a carpenter when he needs me. But it pays the rent."
By the time Tobias had to go back to work, to his astonishment, the subject of him being caught at the gym hadn't even come up. But as they got up, Marty eyed the menu. "There's a lot of good-looking pizzas here," he said. "Might come back here for lunch. I train Monday-Wednesday-Friday."
Tobias smiled and clasped the fox's offered paw. "Maybe I'll see you," he said.
He found himself smiling as he walked back up to work.
When he got home, Dylan was at the game console playing Streets of War 3. "Hey," he said as Tobias closed the door. "How was your day?"
Tobias said, "Pretty good" before remembering that he'd been warned at the gym for masturbating in the shower.
"Cool. Want to grab some Chinese when I finish this level?"
"Sure," he said, heading into the bedroom to drop his stuff off. He looked down at the bed and then out at Dylan, and walked slowly back out. "Dylan?"
"Just a sec." The panther kept shooting down terrorists, peeking out of windows and hiding behind barricades.
"What's going on?" Tobias's good mood was gone. He could barely remember what it had been like talking to Marty, making a friend.
"Uh...I'm trying to clear Manchester of terrorists."
"No, I mean..." He glanced back at the bed again. "Is everything okay?"
Dylan killed two terrorist weasels and paused the game. "Fine," he said, but after eight years Tobias knew the guarded look, the half-back ears, and the twitch in the panther's tail that he could never quite disguise, that meant he was tense about something. And he didn't want to talk about it.
Because it doesn't feel fine to me, Tobias wanted to say, but Dylan's expression discouraged him. "All right," he said. "I'll call ahead for the Chinese."
The Chinese food was good, but once it was gone, Dylan went back to his computer. Tobias took over the video game console, and then went to bed, pressing his face into the pillow and wondering if anything would ever change.
In the morning, he almost did opt to sit for two hours in a coffee shop. But then he thought, if I stop going to the gym now, I'll never go back. That prospect filled him with a strange hollowness. So he walked in again, ran on the treadmill, and when he was done, stepped into the shower and did nothing but wash.
Walking out, to the older coyote's narrowed eyes, Tobias gave an innocent smile, bouncing his ringed tail behind him. The smile persisted most of the way to work, and when he went to lunch, even though he didn't go to Victorino's, he got a warm feeling when he walked by it.
And on Friday, when he did go to Victorino's, Marty was already there, relaxing in a corner booth. Tobias picked up two slices of plain cheese and went to sit with him.
"How's work?" Marty started, and they talked about people at the gym and scientific reports, until it was time for Tobias to go. Marty clasped his paw when they stood and said, "Have a nice weekend."
And the first thing he asked on Monday was, "How was the weekend?"
"We went to dinner and saw a movie. I played some video games," Tobias said. "How about you?"
"Did some carpentry work. Helped build a table. Went out to a club, got laid."
He said it casually, the slice of alfredo pizza halfway to his muzzle, but his eyes watched Tobias keenly. Tobias forced himself to be casual as well, chewing the rest of his pepperoni and swallowing before saying, "Oh yeah?"
Marty dipped his muzzle in a nod, ears flicking. "You ever go to clubs?"
"Not really my scene." Tobias shook his head, staring down at his pizza.
"Well, I admit the guy wasn't all that hot stuff, but it's a good way to blow a load once in a while." When Tobias looked up, Marty'd put the pizza down. "I mean, works for me."
"I dunno. My boyfriend's not really into that."
"What do you guys do together?"
"Oh, we play video games sometimes. We used to, anyway. Now we mostly watch movies and TV. Sometimes at the same time."
"What video games?"
And they talked about video games, and left the subject of Dylan for that day.
It was sausage and mushroom pizza on Wednesday, and only a couple bites into his slice, Tobias took a breath and looked across the plastic table at the fox. "It's been a while since things were really good with me and Dylan," he said, and then stopped.
Marty just nodded his long muzzle, ears perking slightly. "What changed?"
Tobias put the pizza down. "I don't know," he said. "It must be something I did, but..."
When he didn't go on, Marty raised an eyebrow. "You haven't talked about it?"
"I try." Tobias rested a paw on the table and looked at his fingers tapping the plastic. "But he just...doesn't talk."
"At all?"
Tobias sighed. "When my father threw me out, y'know, he said, 'If you won't carry on the family, you are no longer part of it.' And that was it. There was nothing to talk about."
"Tobe, that's not really a model you want your boyfriends to follow. Don't go Oedipal."
"Edible?"
Marty grinned. "Don't look for your father in your boyfriend."
Tobias sighed. "We like the same games, movies...relationships are so hard."
Marty shoved the remaining slice of pizza into his muzzle. "Mmm. 'S'why I don't bother with 'em. You got friends to do all that stuff with, and you can always find people to do the..."
Tobias looked curiously at Marty, who paused and then went on. "The everything else." He waved a paw. "I get on by myself pretty good. Not saying that's what you should do, just saying that works for me. So how about you come out to a club Friday night?"
"I, uh, what?" Tobias flicked his ears up, wondering if he'd missed a linking sentence somewhere.
"You know, dancing, drinking, bright lights, lots of hot guys?"
"Oh, it's not really my thing." Tobias nibbled on his crust.
"Ah, you've tried it already."
He put the crust down and took a drink. Marty waited. "Well. No."
"Look, I'm not saying you have to hook up or anything. It's a great way to burn calories. More fun than the treadmill."
"I'd have to ask."
Marty brushed crumbs from his whiskers, his smile broader. "So ask."
Of course, it wasn't that easy. Thursday night, Tobias realized he wasn't going to have much more chance to ask Dylan if he wanted to go Friday, so as he was getting ready for bed, he rehearsed what he was going to say in his mind. For all that helped; it still came out awkward as he said it.
"Hey, I met this guy at the gym, and he wants to take me to a club tomorrow night. If that's okay."
Dylan looked up from the computer. "What club?"
"I...don't know. I mean, he didn't specify."
Dylan tilted his head, ears flicking. "You don't have to ask me. If you want to go, go."
Impulsively, Tobias said, "You want to come?"
The panther shook his head slowly. "I got stuff to do here. Not really into the loud music and stuff, you know."
"Okay." Tobias paused. "I might...I might be out pretty late."
"Okay. You want me to wait up?"
"Oh, no. Well, I mean, if you want..." He trailed off. He wanted to say, "what for?" but that seemed rude, and Dylan was just being pleasant.
The panther shrugged. "If I'm up, I guess." He turned back to his computer, and Tobias thought that was it, but a couple minutes later, Dylan said, "I didn't know you were into dancing."
"Oh, yeah." Tobias looked up from his game. "Used to do it back home."
"You had clubs in Terrian?"
Dylan still wasn't looking at him, but Tobias shook his head anyway. "No, just with the family, you know? All of us together."
"Mm." Dylan's tail twitched. Tobias waited for him to say something, and finally he did. "Let me know how it is."
Tobias sighed. "Yeah," he said. "I will."
There wasn't an easy way to bring up the possibility of doing more than dancing, so Tobias just told himself that he wasn't intending to "hook up," though it was hard to stop his daydreams all through Friday. And when he met Marty outside Splitz, the music loud enough that it was hard to talk even in the street, he couldn't take his eyes from the dark-shouldered fox's light white vest, open to show off his fluffy chest ruff, and the tight black shorts, cut high enough that Tobias could see the bottom of a little triangle of white fur on the inner thigh.
"You wear more clothes than that to the gym," he couldn't help saying as they stood in line.
Marty grinned. "If you want to come back, I'll have to take you shopping."
Tobias fingered his t-shirt, looked down at the jeans. "Is this bad?"
"Nah, if you're not looking to hook up. You'll get pretty warm, so just remember to drink a lot of water. But you should be doing that anyway."
The bouncer, a six-and-a-half foot tall tiger, watched the gum-chewing vixen at the entrance take their money and smear something invisible on their wrist fur. Marty was already bouncing on the balls of his feet, his tail switching in time to the music as they walked in. Tobias's long tail, too, undulated in time with the music, creating waves along it that distracted Marty as he turned to ask Tobias something.
"That's cool," he said, snaking his arms to try to imitate the motion.
Tobias stopped. He looked around, but didn't see anyone else in the club who had as long a tail. All the other dancers just seemed to be hopping and bouncing, with short, fluffy tails. Marty's was longer than anyone else's--no, wait, there was a cougar, but he was facing Tobias, his tail hidden from view.
"Hey," Marty said, now hopping from one foot to the other and clapping his paws together. "First rule of the club is don't worry what other people think of you. Unless you're trying to hook up, but you're not, so what do you care? Just let yourself go. Come on, I'll help."
Still bouncing, he dragged Tobias over to the bar, bathed in purple light, where a white ferret's glowing fur showed Tobias that the light was probably a UV. "Two Steamboats," Marty said to the ferret, holding up two fingers.
The ferret gave him a thumbs-up and continued serving the pair of bears standing beside them. Marty closed his eyes briefly, swinging his hips and still clapping his paws. "What's a Steamboat?" Tobias asked.
"Come on, feel the beat," Marty said. "You'll like the Steamboat. It's fruity."
Tobias took a breath. Back home, growing up, they used to dance a lot, but the dances people were doing here were different. They were more jerky, except for a few who were dancing fluidly with glowing wristbands. He started tapping his foot to the throbbing beat, and let his body sway ever so gently from side to side.
If he just focused on the beat, he could almost imagine his father pounding on the porch, his brother and the families next door dancing off the Sunday pot luck. He hadn't thought of home in years, mostly because of the way he'd left it, and remembering the feeling of dancing brought back a startling liberty with it. He curled his tail around the bar rail, and then uncurled it, letting it sway back and forth. Both feet got into it, and just then, the glowing white ferret plunked down two glasses on the bar.
"I got this one," Marty said, "you get the next."
"Deal." Tobias clinked his glass against Marty's and brought it to his nose while the fox drank. He caught the flavor of banana, strongly, over the familiar smell of rum. Orange and cherry followed them when he took a gulp, and then the rum overwhelmed them all. "Wow," he said, looking down.
Marty'd already finished his. "No hurry," he said, "but finish up so we can go dance."
Tobias looked again at the drink and then at the fox. He gave him a quick grin and brought the glass to his mouth.
The dance floor was a wild mass of chaos, a hundred different kinds of musk and flashing lights of every color. Marty let go of Tobias's paw at what seemed like a random spot on the floor and started swinging his hips again, more aggressively than he had at the bar. Tobias looked around and saw as many different dance styles as people, and almost as many different kinds of dress. Next to them were two female pine martens, spandex tops stretched tightly across their ample chests, with matching hip-huggers shimmering under the rainbow lights. They slapped paws while dancing, as if their matching outfits weren't enough to show they were together. To his other side, a white tiger, almost a photo-negative of Dylan, was dancing so jerkily that Tobias thought at first he must be completely drunk, until he pulled out a phone and tapped out a text message with more coordination than any drunk person could manage. The phone wasn't the only conspicuous bulge in his shorts when he slid it back in place.
"Hey." Marty punched him on the shoulder. "You can look, just don't stare." He had to yell over the music. "Have fun dancing."
"Right." Tobias felt a warmth in his cheeks and a different warmth in his stomach, where the drink was sitting very comfortably. The former faded while the other spread to his legs and arms, and since nobody seemed to notice he was staring or even care what he was doing, he started to dance. "Hey," he called to Marty, and waved at his nose. "Don't the smells bother you?"
Marty's smile widened. He just curled his tongue around his lips and lifted his muzzle, inhaling visibly. Tobias laughed. It didn't bother him, but he wondered what the fox and his sensitive nose made of it. He must like it, because he looked very much in his element.
Once it was clear Tobias was having fun, he expected Marty to move away and circulate, but the fox seemed happy staying where he was. Other dancers flowed around them, but Tobias didn't stare overtly, except at the striking arctic fox, moving with serpentine grace, whose only concession to propriety was a small gold pouch that strained to enclose his sheath. Tobias couldn't help staring at his abs and legs, rippling under short shaved fur, but it didn't seem to matter, because the fox was traveling in a small cloud of staring dancers, male and female both. Tobias turned back to Marty and saw the fox grinning. "Don't worry," Marty shouted over the music. "Nobody else can look like that."
"Too flashy for me," Tobias responded, but that wasn't true for everyone. In the short time he was near them, Tobias saw a black panther and a large tigress both dance their way up to the white fox, gain his attention for a few seconds, and then get left behind as he danced on. He shook his head and grinned, clapping his paws together to the beat and hopping more vigorously, more carefree in the certainty that nobody within twenty feet of the arctic fox was looking at anyone else.
"You look fine," Marty said. Tobias gave the dark-maned fox a thumbs-up to show that he appreciated the reassurance. Marty himself looked pretty good. He too shaved close on his arms and stomach (though not as close as the arctic fox), but left his shoulders and the mane on the back of his neck long and fluffy. Tobias wondered why he hadn't noticed the fox's rear before, or the way his hips moved invitingly, or why he hadn't appreciated the power in those paws when Marty'd helped him with his exercises months ago.
Somewhere in between his second and third Steamboat, Tobias realized that he was going to go home with Marty and have sex. The realization was as liberating as the passage of the arctic fox had been to his dancing--with the outcome of the night settled, he didn't have to worry about it. He could just let himself go. The memories of home faded, the dance floor and club becoming its own experience, allowing Tobias to get lost in the music. After his fourth drink, his body felt tingly, aching for a touch, so he rubbed his paws along his sides. And that felt good, so he rubbed them down his thighs, too. Marty was echoing his dancing, and perhaps the music had slowed, or Tobias's perceptions had speeded up, because the fox seemed to be swaying rather than swinging, stepping rather than hopping.
"Another one?" Tobias yelled, pointing at the bar.
Marty shook his head and pointed at the exit. Tobias's tail shivered, his heart skipping a beat. The warmth of four drinks all poured into his groin. He nodded.
They made their way through the crowd of dancers, out into the dark street. Marty was panting heavily, and Tobias could feel the stickiness of sweat all through his fur. "You're lucky," Marty gasped. "God, can't close my mouth." His tongue was dripping.
"Good," Tobias said, and before he could change his mind, he stepped up to Marty and kissed him.
He'd grabbed the fox's muzzle and planted his mouth across the open lips, and Marty responded immediately. He tasted like orange and cherry, and rum, and fox. Different from Dylan, warmer and more exotic. And when he pulled the fox to him, he felt the hardness of his arousal, something else he hadn't felt for years. Marty's paws slid down and cupped Tobias's rear, tongue flicking against the lemur's. Tobias's heart raced. His tail swung around to brush the back of Marty's legs.
Then the fox pulled away and took a step back, resting a paw on Tobias's shoulder. He smacked his lips. "Hey," he said, his voice muffled by the residue of the club music in Tobias's ears. "Let's get you something to drink."
That wasn't quite the response Tobias had expected. He paused and then nodded, curling his tail down by his legs. He wasn't staggering, he noticed, so he wasn't that drunk. Sure, he was drunk, but the world wasn't spinning, and all in all, it just felt very pleasant and free. Marty's rejection, though, had started to let nagging worries creep in. He started to apologize, but Marty was smiling and walking along with a springy step, so there didn't seem to be a need for it.
Marty led him to a gas station, where he grabbed a couple huge bottles of Powerade and handed one to Tobias. "Tastes like crap, but it's good for you," he said. "Hangover's worse if you've been dancing." He downed a good quarter of his bottle in one long drink, and when he set it down, he wasn't panting so hard. "Hate it when my mouth's all sweaty."
Tobias took a drink, and it really did feel good, even though the night air was cooling him down considerably. His cock still felt hot. "It wasn't so bad," he said boldly.
Marty's ears flicked. "You have a good time tonight?"
"Yeah." Tobias took another drink.
"Good." Marty clapped him on the shoulder. "Come on, I'll walk you to the bus."
"No, I drove." Tobias slapped his pocket for the car keys.
Marty shook his head. "You ain't driving like that."
"I'm fine," Tobias insisted.
"Do I have to take your keys?"
"Okay." Tobias leaned closer. "How close is your place?"
Marty laughed. "You clear this with your boyfriend?"
"It's none of his business," Tobias said. "If he wanted me, he could touch me once in a while."
He was surprised at how easily the words came out. Marty's eyes softened. "Come on, there's a diner not too far. Let's get some coffee."
Okay, so maybe he wasn't going to have sex with Marty tonight. But this might actually be better. "Hell yes," Tobias said.
The diner was called "Grant's," and it smelled like all 24-hour diners smelled, of eggs and toast with an undertone of deli meat. They sat away from the few other patrons, shared a plate of fries with coffee, and Tobias told Marty about Dylan. How things had been so good when he'd moved from the tropical country of Terrian; how Dylan had been there for him, filling the void left by his family; how they'd slowly settled into a rut and slowly just stopped having sex.
"How long?"
"Oh..." Tobias counted backwards in his head. "Three years? There was one night when we tried, but he wasn't really into it." God, he'd almost forgotten about that night. It had been so awkward, and afterwards he'd felt so ashamed of pressuring Dylan into the blow job that he'd lain awake the rest of the night. Now, with the buzz of alcohol in his mind, it seemed as though it had happened to someone else.
"Years?" Marty's ears went flat. "Oh, Tobe. That's not right."
"That's why I was going to the gym," Tobias said, emboldened by the four Steamboats.
"'Coming' in the gym was the problem."
It took Tobias a second to realize that Marty was making a joke. The humor broke through the absurdity of it, making him grin, which made Marty smile in return. "I know, it was stupid, I just..."
"Nah, to be honest, I figured. I mean, there must be something going on at home if you had to jerk off in the showers there. Either that or you're just so turned on by muscles that you couldn't hold it in, but you don't really seem like that type."
"I like some muscles." Tobias ignored the stare from the jaguar two tables over and looked pointedly at Marty's shoulder.
"Is your boyfriend in shape?"
He waved a paw. "He stopped going to the gym years ago." But the mention of Dylan brought back some tension, killing the relaxation the alcohol had brought. Or maybe that was the coffee. He wanted another drink from the bar, but all he had was the coffee, so he took another drink.
Marty lifted his coffee cup as well. "Why don't you just DTMFA?"
"Sorry?"
"Dump the motherfucker already."
Tobias inhaled the smell of his coffee. It was weak and crappy, but right now it was just perfect. "Because...well, where would I go?"
Marty shrugged. "Anywhere's better, right?"
"Well..." Tobias looked out the window at the street. It was one in the morning, and still people were walking by: a bear couple, a porcupine. "It's not that bad. I mean, he was cool with me going out tonight. We both like video games and stuff. If we could just get the sex thing sorted out."
Marty rubbed his muzzle. "You think he'd be okay with you messing around with other people?"
"What, like cheating on him?"
The fox's dark shoulders shrugged. "If you ask him first, is it cheating?"
"I don't know..."
"Well, if you're not getting what you want from him, he can't expect you to just go without, can he?"
Of course, that was exactly what Dylan had been doing. Or had he? "He's not like that." Tobias looked into Marty's eyes. "I mean, he was willing to try, but it was just so...ugh."
"He doesn't have to say it out loud," Marty said. "He can make it uncomfortable for you. And it sounds like he is."
"Yeah, but he doesn't mean it...I don't think." Under Marty's gaze, Tobias rubbed the black mask over his eyes and sighed.
"I'm not coming on to you," Marty said. "I told you, I'm not into the whole relationship thing. But I hate to see a friend unhappy. Haven't any of your other friends told you that?"
"Most of my other friends are Dylan's friends," Tobias said. "I can't really talk to them about him."
Marty exhaled and leaned across the table. "At least," he said, "you should talk to him. Don't let him shut you down. He owes you that."
Between the coffee and the Powerade, and the time elapsed, Tobias wasn't even buzzed any more when he walked in the door of their apartment at quarter to three in the morning. He realized as he saw the blue glow of Dylan's computer screen that he had no idea when Dylan regularly went to bed any more. Had the panther just stayed up for him or not? He wasn't anywhere to be seen.
Tobias locked the door behind him and stood looking at the empty living room. Maybe Dylan was out, had taken advantage of Tobias's absence to go to a friend's house for a movie night. Or maybe he'd run out for a quick fast food fix, which was more likely since he'd left his computer on.
The toilet flushed. Or, Tobias thought, maybe he was just using the bathroom. He waited in the living room as Dylan came down the hall, ears and muzzle up. "Thought I heard the door," he said. "How was it?"
"Pretty good." Tobias stifled a yawn. "I'm gonna head to bed. You?"
Dylan's eyes slid away from his. He gestured at the computer. "I'm kinda in the middle of something."
Tobias sighed. "Okay." He walked slowly toward the hallway, then stopped and turned around. "How about if I stay up for a bit?"
Dylan was already seated at his desk. He shrugged. "Sure."
"I mean," Tobias said, "can we talk for a bit?"
He saw the panther's shoulders slump. Dylan spun his chair around and settled his paws in his lap, his tail curled around the base of his chair. "What's up?"
Tobias flopped down in the small loveseat, draping his tail along the cushions and his arm over the armrest. "Are you bored with me?"
Dylan dropped his head. "No," he said.
Tobias waited for more, but the panther stayed silent. "Because, I mean, you haven't touched me in like, ages."
"I know."
The silence between them took an effort to break, like getting up out of a warm, comfortable bed. "So what happened?"
"I'm sorry," Dylan said, slumped over in his chair.
I should never have started this, Tobias thought. I should've just told Marty I'd already talked it over. Wouldn't everyone be happier that way? I could be lying in bed with him right now, spent, his come all over my paws, maybe in my mouth, and mine on him. Or I could be walking home with the memory of him. Why am I dragging poor Dylan through all this? He started to turn away, and then remembered Marty's injunction. One last try, Tobias thought. "I just want to know if it's something I did," he said.
That didn't come out quite as he'd intended, but it did at least provoke a response. Dylan shook his head. "It's not you. It's me."
Tobias had seen enough TV to be wary of that one. "What do you mean, it's you?"
"It's just me, okay? It's my problem."
"Are you breaking up with me?"
Now Dylan lifted his head. "No! Wh--do you want to break up?"
He was staring, close to tears now. Tobias felt answering tears in his throat. "No. I mean, not if you don't want to."
Dylan shook his head, lowering it again. "You seemed so understanding about it... I thought you'd have said something. I could tell you weren't doing anything on your own."
Not here, at least. Tobias looked away from Dylan, to the curtains drawn over the window. He thought about Marty again, about the fox's tongue dancing with his own, the warm heat of his erection. He shifted his weight on the cushion. "If I were doing something...somewhere else? Would you want to know?"
This silence wasn't a comfortable chair. This was the mother of all awkward silences. Dylan cleared his throat and started to talk, then stopped again. "I don't know," he said.
"Would you care?"
"Sure." He replied quickly that time, making Tobias perk his ears up. Dylan looked at him. "I mean, I want you to be happy."
Tobias leaned back into the loveseat, exhaling. He let the silence wash over them, and then stood. "Okay," he said. "Look, if you want to come to bed, we don't have to do anything. Maybe just curl up together?"
Dylan nodded. "Let me just shut this down."
In bed, the panther comfortably next to him, Tobias relaxed and looked up at the ceiling. His tail rested over Dylan's stomach, their paws just touching. And he didn't have to worry about what Dylan wanted, and he didn't have to worry about when and where he was going to get off. His cock was full of warm arousal, but it wasn't Dylan's unavailable paw he needed.
He saw Dylan's nose twitch. The panther took a breath. "If you're doing...something...somewhere else."
Tobias waited. Dylan's tail brushed his. "God," Dylan said, "this is so stupid. I wish..." He stopped again.
There was nothing Tobias could say that would help. He stayed quiet, letting Dylan work it out in his head. "If you're happy," he said, "with me..."
Tobias held his breath. Dylan exhaled. "If you're gonna stay here...with me...then I don't wanna know what else you have to do to be happy."
Staring at the ceiling, Tobias breathed out slowly. He nodded, and squeezed his boyfriend's paw, and then he closed his eyes.