Echoes
Page 4
His horsey ears swivel back, but his voice has lost its edge. “And if we ain’t?”
“Then I tie your nose to your tail and roll you down Skull Creek Gulch.” I smile down at him. “Comprende?”
A grumble of agreement.
“Glad to see you’re a good sport after all.” I resist the urge to goad him. Much. Blake follows me out of the saloon as the cat mewls into the chorus of “My Flabby Tabby Mistress.”
“Handled that well.” His wing rests on my shoulder as we walk onto the porch of the City Office. Street’s empty. Sand and heat are the only things that linger this time of day. His gold eyes glint at me. “Though a trifle unorthodox.”
Ears up, chest out, I wiggle the paw that picked my own pocket. “I fancied it up for your sake.”
His wing thumbs squeeze my shoulder. “Have you given any thought to becoming a real deputy?”
I tug down the brim of my hat, using my whiskey voice. “You given any thought to a life a’ crime?”
“Touché.”
“Stop makin’ up words, sheriff.” I shake my head. “Nobody understands what yer sayin’.”
“That’s a perfectly valid— Oh.”
I smile, all sweet-like.
His ears flatten. “If I wanted sass, I have foxes aplenty.”
“And not a one like me.”
A frown sours his fruit bat muzzle. “Don’t I know it…”
The door creaks open, letting out a gust of bloodhound.
“Deputy?”
“Howdy, Sheriff.” A slow nod, then the dog jostles a beaded bag onto his shoulder. “Reckon I’ll head off for the evenin’. Got some business with the ‘yotes tonight.”
“Oh?” Blake scratches an ear, baffled in the noonday sun. “I didn’t remember you mentioning...”
“Came up sudden-like.”
I smile. “Think you’d better give the hound his leave, Sheriff. In fact, as sheriff myself, I order him to go. For the sake a’ the town.”
“Six, you’re only sheriff provis—”
“Alright, then. Ah may be late in the mornin’ too, just so you’re aware.” He tips his hat. “You folks have a right pleasant night.”
The dog and I trade conspiring glances, then he shuffles down the road with the slightest of wags. Dust swirls after his steps in pale puffs, the air rippling with heat.
Blake squints after his deputy. For a bat, he doesn’t seem to mind the day. Has a couple hats, but he tends to lose them—what with his habit of flying and all. “Harding’s not the type to just take off like that.”
“Well...” My paw closes on his vest, dragging him inside the office. I shut the door after him, in case any prying eyes do brave this heat. “Let me show ya the type ah am...” In the cool shadows, I drop my ears and gaze down at my lawbat.
A nervous chuckle. “Right in the middle of the day?” He nuzzles the tip of one ear, then the other.
I breathe into his ear, hoping he’ll take to that. I always do. “Sun ain’t the only heat you’d better mind today.”
He gets on his tiptoes and kisses me. “Your radiance, madam, outshines it a thousandfold.”
I haven’t the first clue on what to say to that, so I kiss him back. My arms wrap him up, paws surveying up his wings, under his vest, along his back. All the while, his tongue’s dancing across and around mine, robbing me of my wits. We’re soon leaning against the wall, muzzle to muzzle, hip to hip. Being taller, I bend my knees a little to hunch against him, obliged as I am to the tingle between my thighs.
Breaking the kiss, he nestles his head under my chin. His wings rub the curve of my muscled bunny rump, groping on my fluffy tail.
I keep up my soft thrusts. “Yer sure panting, lawbat.” My paws slide down the front of his vest, undoing buttons all the way. “We’d best get you outta these clothes.”
His ears dip, shy-like. “Right here?”
“Reckon this is a fine place.” I flash him a grin and bury my paws in his trousers.
The consternation in his eyes fades like stars at dawn, outshone by pleasure as I jerk the loose skin of his sheath. His naked flesh runs smooth, hot, silky in my paws. He moans. Sometime around my stroking down to his sac, his trousers run short of room, so I do the polite thing and undo his fly. In what’s becoming a familiar and welcome sight, his pink shaft meets the daylight, still mostly hidden in its chocolate sheath. I stroke the sheath with one paw, teasing at the emerging head with the other. He shudders and, about halfway stiff, he melts like butter against me.
After a spell, I figure this’ll be easier from my knees. From down here, his scent runs richer, closer. I feel a rush of nerves and delight at the scandalous moment we’re in, the state I can put an upstanding lawbat into with just a touch of my paws. I can feel his heartbeat along the smooth skin of his cock.
He’s hard now, his sheath stretched somewhat taut around the shaft. I used to think it looked like a pony’s, but, upon further examination, his looks far prettier. More delicate. Matches the rest of him. I rub it against the soft fur of my cheek.
Blake gasps.
“Good?” I look up, cradling him with care in both paws.
His voice fades to a murmur even as his eyes glimmer down on me. “Yes.”
“Good.” I notice a glimmer of liquid at his tip and kiss it away. He fancies most things I do to him, but I was a tad rough on him the first time, so I still like to watch his face to be sure. What’s more, it’s an interesting angle to have on the lawbat: one of the rare moments he can look down to me. I kiss down the folds of his sheath, then back to his tip, all the while meeting his eyes. Heat rises in my ears, though, and my gaze shifts to the task at hand.
I stroke the sheriff faster, my fingertips skimming over the surface. Now and again, I let my paws do their reloading tricks on his tip, though I know this weapon’s already loaded.
“Mmmmmm, Six...” His wing cups my cheek. “H-hold on a minute.”
I watch him, wondering if I did something or didn’t.
He steps sideways, and I let him slip from my grasp, then let him take my paw. “Come on. I want to show you something.”
We scamper back to his bedroom. Good thing he had my paw; I’m liable to run into a wall with his pink shaft bobbing around like that.
“You may need to...” His ears drop as he grapples with stammers. “Your trousers might interfere.”
I can’t say shucking my pants with Blake sounds like a bad idea, so I kick out of my boots, then slide off everything below my gunbelt.
Blake hops, hooks his wing thumbs into the rafter, then flips over so he’s dangling from his hind paws. His cock sways at eye level. Looks at me as if that’s normal. “Sit down on the bed.”
“Ah see what yer up to, lawbat.” I bounce onto the mattress, only to find, for the first time since I hit my head on a fox’s doorway, that I’m not tall enough. I can lick the tip of his member, but I’ll have to bounce up to lick the shaft. I stick out my tongue, balancing him on it for a moment, then happen upon an idea. Inspired, I grab both his pillows, stack them, and plant my fluffy tail on top.
I turn and get a spot more of his slickness on my nose, which twitches at the heat-then-cool of it. Blake smiles up at me from my lap and grips my tail. I giggle and wipe the fluid away, though his musk clings close, riling me something fierce. I start stroking on my lawbat, who’s only softened a little from our new arrangement. I lick up the side, tonguing the soft folds of his sheath—
I squeak.
With a mischievous look, Blake’s tilted his head sideways and against my slit. His pretty muzzle finds its way between my legs. Kisses and licks run from my clit downward, causing me to shift my legs wider. His breath breezes hot through my fur. His tongue dances over my naked lips, then darts into me, drawing nectar from what I can assure is a juicy area.
With all the commotion in my loins, seems I’ve forgotten my end of the deal. I get back to stroking him. I take his tip into my mouth real gentle-like, giving clumsy licks to that elegant, naked pommel of flesh. Meanwhile, his balls bounce against the top of my paw as I jerk his tight sheath, warm and velvet-soft.
His body tenses against me as he starts licking with desperate eagerness.
The rafter creaks as his feet dig into it. His cock swells in my mouth.
I tremble, a hare’s breath from going off, giving a frantic suckle.
The first gush of salty bat seed sprays my tongue.
I squeal around his cock, clutching him close.
Another gush—thick and sweet—spilling out.
His tongue whips, clit to depths, wild.
Hot seed races down my cheek.
My feet beat on the floor.
Thighs tighten on him.
Eyes roll back.
“Jordan!”
I plummet into orgasm, thrusting rapid-fire against his muzzle, my entire passage clenching on his dancing tongue, needing him ever deeper, ever closer, ever in my arms, no matter how big of fools we are, I can’t help but holler as the passion rises through me like my whole soul’s blooming into being. He sprays another spurt, which lands on my breasts, though by the sound his lips are making against mine, I’m giving him a run for his money. My toes curl and I’m aware of the fur between them getting flattened, just as I’m aware of the softness of the pillows and the desperately true feeling of having him in my arms. A few more clenches and I’m spent, shuddering in aftershocks. His breath tingles against my tender lips. Light-headed, I feel the world start to tip forward, but Jordan’s there to catch me and ease me down with his wings.
On my back, I pant up at him. Still on the rafter, the last drips of his semen fall on my thighs. He’s swinging front to back, no doubt from my wild movements. I reach up. He swings forward and takes my paw. We stay like that for a moment, fingers woven with wing thumbs, then I nod to the empty half of the bed. He smiles and slips from the rafter and into my arms.
Sun’s lower now, and the heat’s died down. My muzzle traces up his naked chest. Here I am: back in bed, middle of the afternoon, and not complaining.
He rolls to one side and pulls something from his nightstand. “I’ve been saving these for a special occasion.” The tin shines in his wing thumbs. “I’d say this constitutes one.” He wrestles with the tin some, but, just as I reach to do it for him, the top pops open.
A wondrous scent blooms forth. Exotic and familiar, it draws me back to another life, one I crossed a country to escape.
I take one of the little dark chunks. Pressed into little bricks, they’re just the least bit tacky from heat. My fur sticks as if it knows how much I want them. “Genuine dates?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He perks up with pride. “From Arabia and everything.”
Holding it in my claws, I wiggle my nose closer to the sweet scent. “How’d you lay wing on them?”
“My aunt mailed them here for Yuletide.” His fluffy chest puffs with pride.
I chuckle on the notion of a whole family of lawbats divvying up perfect, law-abiding slices of fruitcake. “That was right thoughtful a’ her.” I sneak another morsel from the tin, holding it up to the light so the little bits of sugar twinkle. I put a little bite into it and the smile I give to Blake. “She know you’re sharin’ ‘em with a tall, trousered bunny in bed?”
His kiss breezes gentle across my lips. “I could introduce you.”
I eat the rest of the date, letting the syrupy results mingle with the lingering taste of Blake. “Awful good, lawbat. You gonna make me finish ‘em all by mah lonesome?”
His wing drapes over my hip. “Maybe I wanted the sweetest thing from one desert to try the sweetest from another.”
“Maybe ah’m sweet enough already.” I pluck another one from the tin, using my claws so as not to get my white fur dirty. Grandma’d be pleased by my etiquette, though maybe not by my being in and out of trousers all day. I drag the date across Blake’s lips, all teasing-like.
That talented tongue snakes out from his grin, plucking the date from between my fingers. I giggle as he kisses the sugar from my fur.
The lawbat cottons to my idea, it seems. All grace and care, he’s pulling another date from the tin. The smell wiggles my nose. Opening my muzzle, I let him place it on my tongue. Tastes sweet as sugar, but feels dry as desert. I reach for my canteen—a bunny needs more than sweetness to get by. Yet here I lay, falling like a star in the dark of his wings.
I tell myself this delicate moment can last, that he’ll say what I need to hear, the one thing liable to keep me. The dates vanish without words. I cuddle my whole body up against him, save for my ears, which lay listening, teased by his every breath.
A knock at the front door breaks our revelry. “Hello? Sheriff Blake?” The voice is high and light, clearly a young woman.
Both our ears pop up. Blake fumbles about on the bed, tangled in the sheets. Even with me in his life, he spends most of his nights dangling from the rafters. “Just a moment!”
I shake off a sudden tension. Usually, when folk come flying into a room unannounced, my guns practically jump into my paws. Maybe it’s lessened with only the one? Composing myself, I swallow the last of the date flavor, now cloying from the shock of the interruption. I hop off the bed and into my shirt and trousers. A couple cinches and my belt and gunbelt. I tug my hat down my ears with a look to my lover. Lawbat’s still doing a lopsided flutter into his vest when I’m fully decent. So I open the door and slip into the hallway.
At the front door, framed by the ember glow of evening, stands a collie. After an instant, I recognize her: the barkeep’s daughter. Not used to seeing her outside the store room of the local saloon. She’s a thin and fluffy thing, with deliberate motions covering a buzz of energy. She lifts floppy ears at me. “Oh! Mr. Shooter! I didn’t think to see you here.”
“Just had a little business with the good sheriff.” I grin in a wheedling way and lean against a wall. Good thing I have a fine poker face. “What’s brings your pretty self by?”
She yaps with surprise, silk tail taking a demure drop. “Two ferrets are having a terrible argument outside the saloon. Father said to get the law involved, on account of all the biting last time.”
Blake emerges from the bedroom.
I nod his way. “Trouble in the ferret quarter.”
Blake sits up, like nothing scandalous was occurring. “Another tinsel dispute?”
Her fluffy paws flutter like exotic moths. “It’s something about an heirloom watch.”
He straighten an inch or so taller. “I’ll handle it.”
“Nah, lawbat. Let me untangle the polecats.”
“You sure?”
“Gotta earn mah keep as your fellow sheriff.” Herded by the collie, I duck out the door and scamper down dusty streets to the bar.
Outside the saloon, I pat the taller ferret on the back as he climbs aboard the stagecoach. “So glad we could settle this little quarrel.”
“You’re lucky I have business to see too, young hob!” He bends backward over my paw, snapping at the other party in the dispute. “Thievery is unbecoming habit in a ferret.”
The smaller, scruffier ferret winces and minces. “But! But it wasn’t yours—”
I hush the boy with a stern glance. This close to solving matters, I don’t need more blabber and blubber. I murmur amiable assurances to the ferret in the br
ight-buttoned suit as I thread him into the stagecoach.
Paying me no heed, he brandishes a strip of paper. “Well, I have a receipt, so it’s mine.”
With a polite shove to the back of his exceptionally long waistcoat, I wrangle the polecat into the cab and shut the door. Best to get this trouble out of Blake’s town presently. I hop to the front and slip the coach driver a fiver. “Get him to his train on time.”
The plump prairie dog perks straight up with a chatter and a salute. “Yes, sir!” Scarcely waiting for me to get clear, he snaps the reins and stirs the ponies to a canter. In a matter of moments, the whole affair rattles off in a cloud of dust.
I watch him go with a smile. Double-stitched that tear in the fabric of society. Doubt even the lawbat couldn’t have done it better. I turn to see the younger ferret slumped halfway to the ground with dejection.
The instant I touch the watch, whispers tease just at the edge of my hearing. Just like when I first examined it, I’m struck by an odd compulsion to tell the younger ferret to straighten his whiskers and brush his hat. The watch is about average, as echoes run. But even a quiet echo’s enough to make something a treasured heirloom. The unearthly whisper between the ticks urge me toward the scruffy ferret. They silence only when I drop it in his paws.
The kit’s sorrow is scattered in a burst of joy. He clutches the antique pocket watch to his chest. Words catch in his throat, at last tumbling out as a grateful chitter.
I tousle his ears. “Keep better track a’ yer grandfather’s favorite watch.”
“How’d you know...?” He blinks, studying me. Even with perked-straight posture, he scarcely comes up to my chest.
“A bunny hears things.” I toss an ear over my shoulder to make the point. “Now skedaddle.” I tilt my head toward the nightly rabble and revelers gathering at the saloon. “Getting late out here.”
He give a sweet little nod and scrambles off. Does my heart good to see him done right by. World sure wasn’t doing right by me at that age.
Smiling, I watch the kit scamper off. Hardly any challenge in picking pockets when the plunder helps you steal it. I start on a strut back to the City Office. Blake makes this sheriffing business out to be troublesome, but he’s of an overcomplicating bend. A rider comes trotting into town the way the carriage went, and for a moment, I worry it’s the business ferret coming back. But then I recognize the ample ears and sad eyes of Blake’s bloodhound deputy.