Gold Standard

by Kyell Gold

  The fox smiled and stroked his cheek. “You’re unbelievably sweet, you know that?” He kissed Kory’s nose. “You want to know a secret?”

  Kory nodded. “Mm-hmm. If it’s about you.”

  Samaki’s ears folded slightly back. “Um, that night we went to the movie.I took you through the dark street on purpose so I could hold your paw.”

  Kory giggled. “I bribed my brother to stay out late so my mom wouldn’t pick me up and I could stay over.”

  “Really?” Samaki laughed. “That’s cute.”

  “Then I didn’t do anything.” Kory sighed.

  Samaki nodded. “We had a nice night anyway. And you weren’t ready then. I’m glad you are now.”

  “Me too.”

  After another kiss, Samaki said, “I should tell you one more thing.”

  Kory nodded. The fox looked up at the ceiling stars, and Kory felt his tension. Before the otter could ask about it, the fox recited slowly, “Scarlet the passion, the color of my heart.”

  The otter stared at him. “Coral a sunset, God’s work of art.” Samaki went on, and looked down into Kory’s eyes.

  “Oh, no,” Kory moaned, a different tone from his moans of a few minutes ago. “Where did you read that?”

  “The paper.” Samaki pulled back the pillow Kory was trying to cover his face with. “Oh, come on. It’s really good.”

  “How long ago did you read it?” The hot flush of embarrassment was fading, very slowly.

  “When it came out. What’s the matter? It really was good.” The fox’s paw brushed his cheek tenderly.

  Kory sighed. “My English teacher posted it in the hallway of our school. I got teased for it for weeks, and my.the girl I was dating said why didn’t I ever write anything like that for her, and, well, that was Jenny, you remember.”

  “Oh.” Samaki rested a paw on his shoulder. “Well.I’m not that upset about you not having a girlfriend.”

  “I guess that worked out okay,” Kory admitted.

  “And.to tell you the truth.that’s why I was at the pool that day.” Kory felt the motion as the fox’s ears flicked.

  “Huh?”

  “I read about you in the paper and the poem really touched me. I wanted to meet the otter my age who could write like that. I kinda had a crush on you, I guess, without even meeting you.”

  The warm embarrassment was returning. “Me?”

  “Heck, yeah. I cut the poem out and put it up on my wall.” He licked Kory on the nose. “But I hid it before you came over.”

  “So you were hoping to meet me at the municipal pool?”

  “Nah.” Samaki laughed, and Kory felt the vibrations in his own stomach, and couldn’t help giggling along. “I was just trying to practice so I could be a good enough swimmer that when I went over to Caspian, I wouldn’t embarrass myself. I’m glad I didn’t know you have an indoor pool, or I probably wouldn’t have even tried that.”

  “Wow. Well.I’m glad you did,” Kory said. “Really glad.”

  Samaki paused for a moment, and then said, “Want to hear something kinda silly?”

  Kory smiled. “Only if it’s from you.”

  The fox nuzzled him. “When I read the poem, there was a note of.of something behind it, of longing, or searching.and I thought, uh.”

  Kory poked him in the hip, tickling gently. “Go on.”

  Samaki squirmed and giggled. “I thought, he’s looking for me. I felt like you sent that poem out into the world to find me, and I had to find my way to you.”

  Something was making it hard for Kory to talk, all of a sudden. “Maybe.maybe I did,” he said, swallowing. He stroked his paw down the curve of the fox’s back, over the swell of his rear, and pulled his tail up to bury his fingers in. “I didn’t know I was doing it.”

  “That’s okay,” the fox whispered. “I did.”

  “I fell for you back at the pool, you know,” Kory said. “When you laughed at my joke, and then walked out of the dryers, so pretty, so handsome.I just didn’t realize it for a while.”

  Samaki smiled and kissed him. “It’s not easy. But I’m glad you did.”

  “Oh, me too.” They kissed, more warmly, and Kory felt the stirrings of interest awaken again. The fur between them was all matted and sticky, so when they parted, panting, he said, “Maybe we should clean up a bit?”

  They scampered to the bathroom, naked, Kory looking around to make sure his mother and Nick weren’t making a mid-night visit. In the shower, they cleaned up with soap, and in the process of cleaning, found that the soap was quite nice between paws and the parts they were trying to clean, and ended up kissing, and then presently they managed to get themselves sticky again, so they had to clean up all over, panting and leaning on each other and giggling giddily.

  Back in Kory’s bed, they snuggled up close, exhausted and happy. Kory found that his muzzle fit nicely into the curve between the taller fox’s neck and shoulder, and Samaki seemed to like curling his tail around Kory’s. They whispered goodnights to each other, nuzzled and yawned, and Kory drifted off to sleep with the feeling that he was floating, insulated from the world and borne up by something much more buoyant than mere water.

  In Between

  Following “Waterways” was a challenge. But I had written this story about a football-playing tiger and a gay activist fox, inspired by a single scene that I thought up while in the shower (the final scene in this story). I wanted to know how they’d gotten to that doorway, how they’d said those words to each other. And so Dev and Lee were born.

  “In Between” was released in advance of the novel “Out of Position,” in which it is the first of five parts. In 2008, it won the Ursa Major award for Best Short Fiction as a standalone story. I still quite like its visceral tone, which is hard to sustain and did not translate to the whole novel. Dev and Lee have rivaled Kory and Samaki for popularity, and I have found their relationship a nearly endless source of inspiration. I am a sports fan, not only of the competition itself, but of the semi-fantastical world it creates for the players. Throw in a gay relationship, and you can see how I’ve written two books and have two more planned as of this writing (2011).

  I have also included the second part of “Out of Position” following this story, where I will talk more about the novel. But for now, meet Devlin Miski and Wiley Farrel.

  [return to TOC]

  April 2006

  I spot her just after midnight.

  I’m hanging out with the guys down at the Fang, drinking, laughing, joking, eyeing the cuties. Everyone knows the team goes there to drink every Friday night, so the ladies set themselves up down at the end of the bar. We look, we pick, we take what we want. Forester U. isn’t a big football school, but there are always a few girls ready and willing for any jock that comes along.

  I don’t know how long she’s been at the bar, but she’s not giggling with the tigress who’s been trying to catch my eye for an hour, and she didn’t come back from the ladies’ room with the sweet-looking bitch who just left with my bud Randy. She’s in between the girls and boys, sitting in her own little world, and the thing of it is, the thing that gets me about her, is that she doesn’t seem to mind. She inhabits her world, fills it, and doesn’t need the rest of us.

  The squirrel beside her keeps shooting looks from under her painted eyelids from one group to the other, jealous of the pretty girls, desperate for a date. But the little vixen is different. She ignores everyone as she sips something colorless from a tall, thin glass, tipping it expertly into her narrow russet muzzle. Chocolate ears swallow the dim light, but occasionally I can see the white insides as they flick back and forth. I know she’s listening to both groups, and now that I’m watching more closely, I can see the small curve of her smile.

  “Hey. Hey! Dev?”

  I snap back to Mike, the cougar who plays opposite me in the secondary. “Huh?”

  “I said, are you gonna go with that one or not?” He jerks a thumb towards the tigress, with all the subtlety of a
fawn-colored brick.

  I look again at the vixen. She’s wearing a plain white blouse, offset with a gold bracelet on one arm. Maroon skirt. Long, flowing, russet tail. “No.”

  “All right, I’m gonna go for it.” He grabs my extended paw and shook it. “Seeya tomorrow.”

  “Yeah.” I’m left with Jason and Eck, a wolf and coyote who back up our positions and the wideouts. They’re looking at the fox, too, and then at me.

  I was never much for foxes, to be honest. Little things, and they’re always trying to outsmart you. Most of them think they’re so fucking clever if they get you to say something stupid. Yeah, they’re pretty, and they know it, but they’re more trouble than they’re worth.

  The tigress takes another look at me, but my disinterest must be obvious, because she takes off with Mike.

  Eck clears his throat. “Hey, uh, I was thinking about going for that fox.”

  “That’s nice,” I say, getting up. “You keep thinking about that.”

  Their mutters die down behind me as I walk up to the bar. The squirrel perks up for one hopeful moment, until I park myself on the other side of the vixen, then she slumps down again. I could give a shit.

  Up close, the vixen is still striking, not one hair out of place. She pretends not to notice me at first, but I’ve timed it pretty well; she’s just finishing her drink. “Buy you another?” I rumble.

  She turns to me now, and her eyes are bright and blue. Contacts, I think, but god, they’re gorgeous. So is the curve of her smile. “Actually,” she says, in a low, husky voice that reminds me of Lauren Bacollie, “I’m about finished here. I was just going to head home.”

  “Oh.” I can’t tell whether this is a brush-off or not. Any other girl, I’d come right back with, “How about I join you?” but for some reason I’m hesitating here.

  She looks straight ahead, so I can only see one eye. “This is the part where you offer to walk me home.”

  That voice is turning me on something fierce. “So, can I walk you home?”

  She shrugs. “I know my own way, and I’m not drunk.”

  Damn foxes. Goddamn them. I’m about to walk away in disgust when I see that there’s a sparkle in her eyes, a challenge, and maybe, just maybe, this time it’ll be worth the trouble. “Yeah,” I say, “But it’s late, and dark. All kinds of unsavory people hanging around. I wouldn’t want you to get assaulted.”

  “You don’t think I can take care of myself?” Her chocolate-brown paw plays with the matchbook on the counter, nimbly threading it between her fingers. I imagine those fingers engaged in other activities and feel myself getting hard.

  “I’m sure you can,” I say, “but wouldn’t it be more pleasant to let me take care of you?” I work in a subtle double meaning there.

  She hesitates. I decide to play a little of her own game with her, since she’s obviously interested by now. “But, if you’d rather fly solo tonight.” I pretend to get up.

  She lets me get to my feet, even lets me get partway to the door. I hear her behind me as I’m passing the big jukebox at the front that’s only there for show. “Well,” she says, “if you’re going to be leaving anyway.”

  I turn and see her leaning on the jukebox, small red purse over one arm, that satisfied grin on her muzzle. I offer my left arm, and she takes it, touching me for the first time.

  Her arm is light but strong, and it feels good in mine. She barely comes up to my chest, but as we walk out of the place, I have the odd feeling that I am just an orange-and-black striped accessory, like the purse she has shifted to her other arm.

  She lives in a run-down row house off campus, without a number or a mailbox, the kind where there are six rooms and twelve students and two bathrooms. She unlocks the door and flicks her tail, waiting for me to make the next move.

  “Well…you’re home.” I look at the paint flaking off the door frame.

  She gives me one of those smiles. “Are you going to ask me for a thank you for the escort?”

  If I do, she’ll drag me into one of those games again. So I don’t ask.

  Her muzzle is soft and sweet, and she doesn’t resist my tongue. I reach down to hold her shoulders, and she wraps her arms around my waist. I respond to the soft brush of her tail against my legs by wrapping mine around hers, keeping her in my embrace.

  “So you were only drinking water,” I say when we part, panting.

  She just smiles again and slides one of those delicate, able paws down my stomach, and doesn’t stop when she reaches the throbbing hard-on below it. “I think you’d better come inside.”

  I can’t say anything. I just follow her.

  She leads me up two flights of stairs, that bushy tail bobbing enticingly in front of me. I want to take the stairs two at a time, three at a time, but she’s walking slowly, her paws padding up the stairs. And it’s here, in the close, empty space of the hallway, that I first notice something odd about her scent. She’s tried to make it masculine, adding some kind of musk to her natural feminine musk and resulting in something in between.

  That doesn’t bother me. I’ve always liked the girls who can throw a ball and read a book, and a lot of them use touches of masculine scent to distinguish them from the bubbleheads who are mostly good for fucking and looking pretty. I already know she isn’t one of those types.

  Her apartment is clean and tidy, a big studio with a partly separate kitchen. I barely have time to register the posters of the swimsuit-clad male fox and the Beatles before she shuts the door and sets her purse on the small stand next to it.

  “Now,” she says, “I believe I was saying ‘thank you.’”

  We kiss again, a deep kiss, an amazing kiss. Her tongue winds around mine, her stomach rubs up and down against my hard-on until I whimper against her. I can’t help myself.

  She breaks the kiss and smiles at me, almost purring. “Poor kitty,” she says. “Let me give you a paw.”

  Some noise escapes my throat, but I’m not sure what. She’s got my pants open and down, and my boxers follow soon after. I can feel the stickiness on the inside as she takes them down. I’m leaking like a dorm radiator.

  She applies both paws to it, trailing soft fingerpads down my whole length, claws teasing through the fur that covers my balls, tickling behind my sac and then around my thighs. She seems to have more than ten fingers. I can’t separate out the sensations. When I force out another moan, she takes hold of my cock and tugs. “Let’s go to bed,” she says in that husky voice, and at that moment she could tell me to jump out the window and I’d be halfway to the ground before I realized anything was wrong.

  Her bed is a couch that unfolds to a sleeper. She sits me on the edge and kneels between my legs, stroking me with both paws, but not firmly enough to move me along, just enough to arouse and tease. My tail thrashes against the sofa in search of something to wrap around. My paws grab her shoulders. And I see that slender muzzle move forward, the small pink tongue meeting my huge pink shaft, and the thrill is electric as she laps up the drips from my tip. Lots of girls don’t like that; they’ll jerk you off or let you screw ‘em, but they don’t want to do any licking, or oh god she takes me all the way into her mouth and I’m shuddering on the bed, it’s so good.

  She licks around with that soft tongue, sliding up and down and adding some suction, and my legs start to stamp the floor. I can’t take much more of this, but I want to be inside her, want her against me. But I can’t make her stop.

  Finally, with an effort, I push her shoulders away. Her eyes meet mine, and I feel like she knows what I’m going to do even before I reach down and lift her onto the bed, straddling me. I scoot back so she can get her knees down around me and try to press her down onto my cock, but she resists for the first time.

  I can’t take my eyes from hers. There’s a light in them and a smile on her muzzle. She must still have panties on. I slide a paw under the skirt and take my time, tracing claws up her thighs and legs, and then the outside of her hips.

 
She’s not wearing panties.

  I bring my paws in to her sex, heart beating, dick as anxious as the rest of me. And my fingers, expecting a slit, touch a furry pouch.

  I stare at her. She’s grinning now, one of those fox grins. I move my paw up and find a sheath and a very hard cock.

  “Christ!” I swear and try to scoot back on the bed, but she—he—follows me and leans both paws on my shoulders.

  “Come on, gorgeous,” he says, his nose an inch from mine. “We’re having such a nice time. I’ll still let you fuck me.”

  His eyes hold me. I’m lying in bed with my paw on some other guy’s cock, frozen. And then he leans down and kisses me, and it’s every bit as good as before, and my mind is screaming, Get the fuck out of there! but my dick is saying Get the fuck in there!

  There’s no contest, really. Not at this stage, not when his tongue is melting my mouth and short-circuiting my brain. And when he pulls back and kisses my nose and says, “Nobody ever has to know,” I just nod mutely.

  He grabs a tube of something and smears it behind him, under his tail. I can smell it faintly, something arousing. I’m still holding his cock and he’s wriggling in my paw. Then he takes mine in his paw, his delicate, strong paws, and seats me under his tail, and I slide into him, and fireworks go off in front of my eyes.

  I’m barely aware of thrusting back and forth into him. His lithe body squirms back and forth over mine, humping into my paw as he leans forward to kiss me again. I bring my legs up so I can get all the way into him, and for the first time he makes a noise of passion too, a squeaky moan into my mouth, his paws wrapping around me as we buck together in passion. All I can think about is pumping my hips into that tight, warm, slick space, and holding the fox as I yowl in climax, breaking free of our kiss as I spurt long and hard into him, my whole body tight and shuddering, an orgasm like I can’t remember having ever.

  I think I pass out for a minute. I am sprawled on the bed, still locked tight inside him, and my paw is still wrapped around his shaft, wet and sticky. Neither of us is moving. I open my eyes and see bright blue looking back. “You all right, gorgeous?” He’s got that amused smile on him.