Café Desgrais
By: Rufus Quintin
The patrons of Café Desgrais were perhaps more raucous than usual, he thought, holding an inelegant chalice of Petit Orval to his lips. It was a shame, he thought, that only one such establishment existed in all of Namur. Sometimes, he wished, sipping a delicate amount of the amber ale, he could leave Wallonia for Paris, Berlin, or Brussels. Oh how he hated Café Desgrais, he reminded himself, maintaining an air of collected ambivalence, sitting as accustomed at his wobbly twice-repaired table beside a faded tapestry depicting de Bles Paysage avec l'incendie de Sodome. As he half observed a clearly inebriated bear wail a bawdy retelling of Orestes and Pylades in a slurred tenor complete with libertine revisions over the tune of his accompanying musicians, he reminded himself that life has a way of robbing oneself of ones wishes. 
He scanned the mostly male clientele of Café Desgrais through the pungent tobacco haze with an acquired sense of disinterest. Familiar faces, some all too familiar, emerged from the entanglement of pallor and half-shadow. Obscurity, which by the proprietors own admission, existed to ensure that a certain level of anonymity remained even among the small and specific circle of regulars. A provision that had long since proven itself ineffectual, he thought, aware of the furtive stares evaluating him or vying to reconstruct a beleaguered memory through intoxicated observation. The only female present, a cervine waitress by the name of Annette, hastened through the small establishment skillfully exchanging empty flutes and tulips, paused beside his table and placed a second ugly chalice upon it. “From the man from table two,” she reported, nodding casually back at a figure he had tried not to recognize, a badger that answered to the name Maurice Delcroix.  
“Send it back,” he said unheard, towards the doe who had already turned away, leaving him with the unwanted, gifted beverage. The badger across the room subtly raised a paw from the tabletop, nodding from out of his unlit corner through the veil of omnipresent tobacco smoke. He felt compelled to return the gesture, which he did, leaving the fresh chalice of beer untouched. Thankfully, the bear concluded his butchered ballad with a broad slap of his paw on his nearest table, startling its inhabitants, rattling both nerves and glassware. The bear stumbled toward the bar where he all but fell onto an open stool which creaked audible into every corner of the room, and demanded a beer that had been promised to him. The musicians, an elderly hare accordionist whom of all people he could tolerate the most, lit a cigarette with a flash of a match that illuminated his bent whiskers and graying facial fur while a black feline guitarist whom he had seen there but twice and never spoken to, sat as disinterested as he himself. 
The chatter the intoxicated bear suppressed resumed during the subsequent interlude, bringing an abrupt end to the anticipated placidity. Voices quickly rose over one another muting the clink of glass and resonance of laughter in various stages of sobriety. The bear most of all seemed to take delight pouring yard after yard of ale into his muzzle, consuming quantities that would have moved a trappist to ire. He felt the disgust the bear did not, he thought, suddenly revolted by the beer he nursed and regarding the untouched chalice before him with even greater aversion. He perceived himself uttering a whispered curse on Namur, wishing the fire and crashing wave depicted on the tapestry beside him upon the city it so closely resembled.
The lapine musician heaved his instrument on his knee and cast the orange ember of his cigarette onto the ground where it smoldered an additional mark into the floorboards. The hare began to play. The ambient cacophony diminished out of necessity or respect, allowing the hare to perform his piece, a melancholy number and a waltz no doubt, which by its third measure sounded uncannily familiar. The progression of notes in triple signature ebbed at the tendrils of memory. Café Desgrais was all too full of memory, he thought, aware of a peculiar sensation of loss that threatened, for a moment, to destabilize his outward stoicism. He admired the hare long before time grayed both their bodies.  
He observed the hare from within the fluid bustle of Café Desgrais, amidst the constant ripple of movement and lusterless colors. Sound and smoke, he recalled, producing a black enameled case from which he drew a cigarette. A flash of flame lit his features. He saw the badger Delcroix stand up and wade toward him through the dense arrangement of tables and patrons as the light impression on his retina faded. He watched the badger place his paw on shoulders as he passed, excusing his disturbance with an apparent caress. Maurice Delcroix took the adjacent seat at his table without the slightest utterance. The badger reclined and smiled, resting his paws on his lap in a neat gesture. He remembered that all too familiar smile and hated how it eroded his contempt. 
“How long has it been, Mr. Gérard,” said Maurice Delcroix, leaning forward as to speak over the ambient sound and music, “since you last came to Café Desgrais?”
He watched the badger and inhaled deeply from his cigarette, his grayed vulpine features remaining inexpressive. The badger reached out for the untouched chalice of gifted beer. He took a sip and returned it to the tabletop.  
“You have become somewhat of a rarity around here,” the badger continued, “just last Thursday I was speaking with Annette about you. She claims to have seen you six months ago, but I couldn’t believe it.”
“Eight months,” he said, contributing exhaled tobacco smoke into the surrounding wisps of fume. 
The badger’s eyebrows rose, he blinked, “I’ll be the one to inform you that you have been missed and not just by me. Do you remember Klaas Demkje? Or Simon Dupont? They were both among those who asked about you. You have been the subject of many a conversation.”
 “Is that so?” he said.
“Indeed,” said the badger, returning the chalice of beer near his muzzle, “it was strange, especially for the first few months, to not have you around. There were some who believed that you left town, as you so often promised, but others claimed to have seen your shop open.”
“So it is,” he said.
“That’s what I argued, in fact, I’ve walked by many times,” said the badger between generous sips, “I was often curious enough to drop in and check in on you, but for reasons I cannot express, I hesitated.”
He nodded.
“I believe you found a distraction, a lengthy one as it where, that took you away from us.  It happens so often you see; people find their distractions here and there, perhaps even here. But they come back, as have you, André.”
“Is that so?” 
“Excuse me, but would you mind if I took one of your cigarettes, I seem to have exhausted my supply,” said the badger, patting his vest pocket.
He sighed and placed his enameled cigarette case on the table and pushed it in the badger’s direction. The badger ignited the one he withdrew with his own match.
“As you know and as I regret,” the badger said, smoking, “despite my greatest efforts I still am haunted by envy now and then. But let’s not call it that, let’s just say its curiosity that impels me to ask you just who your distraction was?” 
André covered his face with his paw.  He held the bridge of his muzzle and obscured his closed eyes. A sigh went unheard amidst the din. He spoke, “I do recall your envy, but not your regret.  I hoped that after all, you would have learned regret. Tell me, how many distractions have you been through since we last spoke? Is there no one left in Namur to help you entertain your pleasures? Is that why you sought me out? I’m afraid I’m not the distraction I once was.” He removed his paw from his face and looked at the badger. Dim amber light reflected off stray follicles of gray fur outlining his eyes and dotting his vulpine muzzle. “Maurice,” he said, ashing his cigarette, “we can’t keep doing this to each other.”
The badger consumed the beer in a single sip. He held the emptied chalice up to the light and eyed the layers of foam residue inside the glass vessel. “What a waste,” he said, returning the empty glass to the tabletop. “One should not squander beer of this quality.” He sat without speaking a minute or two, making intermittent eye contact while finishing his bummed cigarette. The badger then stood and pushed the chair against the table. “It was good to see you again, André. I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you too,” said André, watching the badger turn and vanish into the anonymous assemblage of patrons and spectators, reassuming his quiet role among them. 
“Annette,” André said to the doe as she gracefully strode by his corner, “I’ll have another drink, a strong one this time.”
“The usual,” she said without stopping, smiling as she went.
André sank into his wooden seat, resisting the faculties of recollection. He heard countless voices compete for eminence. Rumors, anecdotes, complaints, quandaries, confessions, retold memories and lies circulated in the writhing heterogeneity of sound. Incomplete fragments of communication thrust into audibility according to the whim of chance. Promises of intimacy, breaths expressing traces of everyday life, and laugher reached his ears each with a personal message unintended for him. Life, he thought, observing a paw slide across the surface of his neighbors table to touch the idle fingers of its companion, resided in detail. How little changed, he thought, extinguishing his cigarette in a plain glass ashtray. He sighed, perceiving the confluent scent of oak, beer, and tobacco resin, wishing himself if but for a moment into his past. At least there was memory here, he thought, where shame, pain, and pride seemed a little more innocent.  
André watched the hare conclude his waltz and transition into a livelier piece that too conveyed an unsettling familiarity. The bear, who had sat dormant intoxicating himself at the narrow bar, lurched off his stool, knocking it over in the process. Heads turned, took notice, and dismissed the occurrence. The bear, regrettably, began to sing once again, a Russian chanson popular in Parisian cabarets. Though he was unsure if this is what the bear sang, or merely what he recognized as such. He assumed the later, welcoming the beer Annette delivered.
Above the voices, the music, and the bear’s guttural song, a delicate tassel of bass bells chimed. Few took notice, or turned with instinctive apprehension toward the door to appraise the sound and sight of a newcomer. The vague outline of a stag manifested itself, stepping into Café Desgrais with tepid resolution. The stag strode into the smoke, warmth, and pale yellow light and scanned the patrons as if expecting a rendezvous. Unlike the errant Flâneur who would on occasion stroll in, only to retrace their steps the moment they became aware of their present company, the stag remained steadfast. André perceived the newcomer from his vantage through the distortion of mild inebriation. 
The faculties of memory actuated to the most eerie degree. Uncanny qualities of familiarity appeared to make up the stag’s profile.  One fact became certain; the stag wore an indigo broadcloth frock with golden trim, brocade lining and large brass buttons. It was without a doubt his work. He recognized the garment immediately, the shock approached terror. Few fears could move him to panic, he thought sinking into his seat, other than recognition by a client in Café Desgrais. He watched the stag orient himself in the periphery of his vision, hoping his anonymity would not again be transgressed. 
The stag experienced the growing attention of patrons as he stood searching. Several muzzles turned away from the still singing bear to behold the tall buck stand proudly in his dashing blue coat, his antlers inches away from scratching the low coffered ceiling. Annette, carrying a tray full of full beer glasses, smiled at the stag as she passed. A wolf and his companion offered the stag an invitation of company, to which the stag responded with only with a curious flick of an eyebrow and brash muteness. 
André dared glance over in the stag’s direction. The buck’s large auburn eyes fell upon him that instant.  The brutal placidity in his gaze appeared augmented by the reflective glint of amber light. André demurred, but his presence was already betrayed. The stag approached him, weaving between tables, dismissing the hails of other patrons. He paused and spoke, “you are André Gérard, are you not?”
André nodded. 
“I was told I would find you here,” the stag said looking over his shoulder at the bear who concluded his chanson to broken applause, “you keep interesting company.”
Trembling, he reached for his cigarette case. 
“I’m not here to judge your associations,” he said, “I merely wish to speak to you. May I sit?”
 André nodded again, having difficulty striking his match. He looked erratically between his matchbox and the buck who unbuttoned his indigo coat and draped it on the chair he subsequently took seat in. The buck sat, producing a filigree tobacco case of his own filled with fine gilt tipped cigarettes. “I must first apologize,” he said.
“For what,” said André?
“That I did not seek you out at your shop,” the stag said, bringing a match to flare, “I have reasons for being indisposed during your hours.”
“I see,” he said, lighting his own cigarette. “I assume you wish to conduct business then?”
“As I said, I apologize from drawing away from your leisure. My name as you may remember is Felix d’Luminaux, this coat is of your craft.”
“I’ve ceased taking in leisure since well before you arrived,” said André in a tone that derided his outward ambivalence. “May I ask what manner of business you wish to discuss?”
“I will keep this simple. I am traveling to London and I require garments according to their newest custom. Of all tailors in Namur, you are reputed the best at anticipating their mode.”
“Please sir, do me no flattery. It’s not so much a matter of anticipating as it is retrospection.” 
“There is another matter,” he said, flagging Annette. “How soon can you begin?”
“Ideally,” the vulpine spoke, “next month, at the soonest.”
“That won’t do,” replied the stag in a curt tone of voice.
“Well, given the backlog of clients, I am afraid…”
“Name your price.”
“There are other tailors.”
“No, they won’t do.”
André sighed and fell silent, alternatingly sipping from his beer and inhaling from his cigarette. Annette arrived, and to his surprise, the stag ordered a round of rare stock.
“Very well,” he said, “I suppose I can fit you in. We can start tomorrow, I believe I still have your measurements on file, but I will require…”
“How about tonight?”
“Excuse me?” 
“Tonight.”
André opened his mouth in arrested protest. The sheer thought was absurd, he was in no condition to do fine work. Yet perhaps it was his alcohol mellowed faculties of judgment or, perhaps ambition that inspired him t o acquiesce. He admired how the stag carried himself, he thought, the stag would look splendid in his handicraft. It pleased him to work with Misure d’Luminaux, he remembered.    “Tonight then,” he said.
“Very well,” said the stag, and smiled.  
Annette brought the beers Misure d’Luminaux ordered in elegant flutes, she referred to the stag in polite form and curtsied briskly upon departure. 
“This is not such a bad pub,” the stag said, taking a sip of his beer, “how about another beer?”
 André felt compelled to agree.
“So what brings you here,” the stag said.
 André hesitated. 
“Aside from the obvious, Mr. Gérard. I ask because it’s clear you hate it here, yet this is where I found you,” said the stag, exhaling a wisp of fragrant smoke from his perfumed cigarette. 
“Aside from the obvious?  And, yes I hate it here.”
“Then why do you come here?”
André stroked his graying chin-fur. He looked around, past the stag at the jovial populace engaged in practiced courtship rituals and even more practiced insobriety. At the bear, babbling incoherently as four gentlemen dragged him out the front door. “I suppose its safety,” he said in earnest, “or maybe nostalgia, or most likely an intricate fusion of both.”
“I see,” the stag uttered, taking a long slow sip from his expensive beer. 
“Nostalgia, they say,” he said, “or so a Greek friend told me, means the pain from an old wound. Part of its sensation is real, a manifestation of experience. The other is imaginary, a manifestation of memory. The wound has long since healed, but the pain remains as if the agent wills it into existence, as if that pain were so pleasant, it should be kept alive. The feeling determines us, but also deceives us, and tricks us into solipsistic melancholy.”
“Such is life.” The stag concluded, averting his gaze in contemplation.
André sat wordlessly; he drank out his beer and placed the empty chalice on the table, taking up the second beverage that the stag had ordered him, a glass with an imprinted crown and star. For some reason he felt compelled to toast the stag, offering to clink glasses, which occurred with much confusion. 
“What was that toast for?” asked the stag.
 “Old wounds,” the vulpine blurted, visibly embarrassed.
“To old wounds,” the stag reiterated. They clinked again and drank. The stag turned and watched the thinning populace of Café Desgrais, numerous couples and several groups remained. “You are probably wondering why I had to seek you out tonight,” he said, dropping the polite form. “Why I presumably went through great length and several unfamiliar sources to find you here.” 
The colloquial “you” he uttered seemed strange coming from the buck, he thought, reaffirming his attention on his companion. “You’re right,” the vulpine said, “that question has yet to be addressed.”
“Mentioning my imminent departure for London would not suffice,” he said, “I’m sure you have worked for many people on short notice. The truth is I admire your work. It has earned me considerable prestige.”  
“Is that so,” said André, succumbing to bashfulness he carefully circumscribed.
“I’m glad I found you here,” the buck said in his deep voice, “your friendship would be valuable. May I count on it?”
“If you would forgive me,” André said, sticking to the formal voice, “I’ve made the mistake of granting friendship too easily in my younger days. Friendship, especially in familiar circles, can all too easily be granted and rescinded without the slightest of investigation. I’ve taught myself to set conditions for friendship. I won’t grant you friendship, though I will grant you the opportunity to earn it. That is a privilege I seldom bestow.”
“Very well,” he said, “let us begin by speaking colloquially.”
André agreed.
“Why do you sit alone, if you don’t mind me asking?” 
“It’s a long story.”
“Tell it, if you please.”
“I’m afraid it’s very personal and scandalous at best. I will summarize by telling you that I sit here alone, by choice. My story is how I came to that choice.”
The stag nodded and brought his glass to his lips. 
“Why is it that you seek my friendship anyway? Isn’t friendship reserved for ones station?” said André for the first time resorting to the informal voice.
The stag looked pensively into his half empty glass, swirling the dark liquid within. His regal appearance seemed stricken as if by an invisible force as he hesitated. He spoke as much to his beer as he did to André as he said, speaking rhetorically. “We are social beings are we not? I have always felt drawn to beauty. Some would call it a vice, a defect liable to compel one into contemptuous behavior. But no, I believe there is a utility in beauty more formidable than any virtue. A complex relationship between master, object, and spectator that brings us together to share in the happiness that beauty creates. You, sir, André are an artist whose work has given me unsayable happiness.” The stag consumed the remainder of the glass, setting it down on the table in a careless gesture. 
Annette interrupted, informing them that last call was being served. The stag pointed at his glass and nodded. Annette took notice and looked at André. André waved his paw over his glass and shook his head. Annette made off. 
Their attention turned to a younger couple engulfed by boisterous laughter. The wolf and his effeminate sight hound companion stood up from their table, they donned their winter coats reluctant to aver their gaze from one another. Beaming placidity accompanied their features beside the obvious affects of anticipation. They left side by side with an arm around each other’s waists. Laughter could be heard from behind the gilt lettering of the front windowpane. 
“Young love?” the stag asked.
 André nodded. “Does it bother you?”
“I’ve never felt bothered by love, as strange as the love may be.”
“That’s a sentiment unusual for the patrician class.”
The stag nodded, in concurrence but offered no verbal reply. 
Annette brought the stag his second beer. He instructed her to charge him for André’s bill and handed her a stack of franc coins. She curtsied again, smiled, and departed according to her accustomed swift nature. 
“We ought to leave if work is to be done tonight,” said André, still nursing his black beer. 
“In a moment,” said the stag, “I’ll make short work of this.”
He did, never losing his elegance. How endearing, the vulpine thought, watching the stag maintain his etiquette even under the duress of time.  André brought his glass to smiling lips, startling him. They set their empty glasses down upon the table in nearly the same moment. They nodded at one another and wordlessly stood, or rather attempted to stand. André braced himself upon the wobbly table, causing an audible rattle of glass. The buck smiled, lifting the indigo coat with brass buttons and throwing over his shoulders, cloaking the pristine white of his starched shirt and formal black vest, a fine silken shawl around his broad neck. His clothing fit as if poured on. Of course it had been made for him, André thought. They sauntered into the night, leaving Café Desgrais with the last guests. 
They left, leaving footprints in a thin film of snow. Tiny flakes fell through the halos of light cast by the gas lamps of Rue Mazy. “My shop isn’t far from here. It’s right across the Meuse,” said André, “just a few minutes’ walk.”
“I know,” said the buck in a low tone, vapor exhaling from his mouth as he spoke.
The command in his voice startled André to the core. Yet comfort characterized his tone, he thought, feeling the warmth of intoxication rush through his cheeks. The stag’s voice expressed regality that, in fact, complemented his presence like something that one cannot acquire. He appreciated the stag more than had regarded anyone in ages, he thought, feeling youthful giddiness that seldom preceded work and could not alone attribute to the effects of alcohol. Anticipation, he thought, or perhaps just a learned sensation. An echo of memory evoked by the intoxicated walk home with a companion, he thought. 
The flocks of snow grew larger and denser as they reached André’s shop, falling past the wooden sign that hung above the store front depicting his name and profession in two languages. Gilt lettering accomplished the same across the windowpane, lit from within by a sole gas sconce kept permanently aflame. 
“Pardon me,” said André as he and the buck entered the anteroom to his shop, stamping off his boots on an iron grate and shedding himself of his coat. “I’ll be with you in a minute,” he said, stepping ahead of the stag into the disorder of his workshop, “I’m sorry, but I’ll need to straighten a few things up.  André upturned numerous utensils and scoured his desk for the required tools, tracking down his notebook, a slab of graphite, his measuring tape and apron. He also located his bifocals, which he detested, considering them unfit for a fox to wear. 
The stag nodded, left behind the glass partition to the anteroom. In the meanwhile, André hastily attempted to organize the myriad bolts of fabric and swatches in the brief moments prior to the stag’s emergence. André then directed him into one of the two spacious partitions of opaque white canvas, into the partition with a slender-waisted, male-formed tailor’s mannequin. The meager partition also contained an old fashioned divan of Arabic fabric, mirrors, a coat-rack and an oriental lattice. 
“Please, make yourself ready,” said André, ushering the way with a gesture.
The stag nodded and paused for a moment. ”Are you all right,” he asked, watching the out of breath vulpine rush to fuel the green tiled, built in cockle-stove. 
“What’s that?” he said, pointing his ears up from behind the stove plate. “I’ll be fine.” 
Concealing his loss of breath, he joined the stag behind the partition, drawing the canvas curtain shut behind him. The stag began to undress as he entered. He leaned against a sideboard, feeling the world spin. He drank too much, he realized, disguising the outward show of intoxication. He turned, betraying the privacy he normally allotted his clients and indulged himself with the sight of the disrobing buck. The stag cast aside his ascot tie, hanging it with indifference on the nearby rack. His fingers uncoupled the buttons of his vest and wing collared shirt, which he too draped beside his tie. Each garment bore the label of a far more prominent tailor than himself, he observed, inspecting the accumulating wardrobe. The buck donned the superb handicraft of Paris, Milan, and Brussels’ most prolific clothiers. Each hem and pleat appeared flawless down to the last stich, the fabric peerless in quality. Why then the urgency to commission a petty provincial outfitter to stitch rags into clothing, he thought. 
As André watched Misure d’Luminaux step out of his trousers, he admitted to himself that he enjoyed experiencing the stag undress more than he should have. The role of the voyeur did not suit him, he thought, yet finding the prospect of averting his gaze undesirable. The stag soon stood before the vulpine stripped down to his linens. He stepped upon a low wooden platform as André fumbled with his equipment. “Please,” he said, “describe for me what you wish as I take your measurements.” 
“My wardrobe has fallen behind the mode of continental Europe,” he said. “A new century brings new customs.”  
 André nodded, peering with upturned chin through the lower lens of his bifocals, draping his linen measuring tape around the stag’s neck as he spoke. 
“How quickly customs change,” he continued in a wishful tone of voice, his large brown eyes turning upward like the depiction of St. Sebastian on the altar of St. Aubin’s Cathedral. “I’ll require two more linen shirts with modern winged collars. A dark suit, preferably black or mouse gray, with narrow pleat. A golf suit with patch-pockets and a new coat. While the frock coat you made is a thing of beauty, but it can no longer win me any esteem in circles I stride in. If you would make me a lounge coat of dark fabric, like Baron d'Udekem has been seen to wear, that would suit me well in London.”
“Yes sir,” said André as he slung the tape around the stag’s chest, measuring his torso down to his waist, scrawling down what would turn out to be barely legible numbers and instructions. “You will want simple fabric, few patterns or elaborate stitch work,” he said. “The English have entered; or rather have reentered an era of austere practicality. Tidy cuts, elegant fabrics, less is more.”
“Indeed,” said the stag, raising his arm and adjusting his posture.
“What takes you to London, sir?” said André.
“In short, business. I would tell you more, but if I started in on it, I would deluge you in more facts than you are interested in. I will be in London for two weeks, then up to Edinburgh and over to Liverpool.”
“I see,” said André, nonplussed. 
“Between you and I, it will be good to get away from the family.”
“You have family?” he asked, stepping back to record measurements.
“Indeed, but I’ve said too much as it is.”
“Is that so?”
“One marries for opportunity, one procreates out of necessity. Little more needs be said about that.”
André sighed, and said, “wise words.”
“It sounds as if you have experience in that regard.”
The vulpine sank to his knees, emitting little more than affirmative hum and held his tape along the buck’s outer thigh.
“So you have a spouse then?” asked the buck.
André, moving to measure the buck’s stride, felt his attention grabbed by the buck’s gender neutral choice of term. “No,” he uttered in a meek voice, as if he had never been asked the question before and were uncertain of the correct answer. He held the end of the measuring tape at the buck’s ankle and moved to measure his gate. He felt the cloth tape slide beneath his paw-pads and saw the numbers slip through his fingers. He cursed his intoxication as he brushed the buck’s maleness with the back of his paw, an error he had promised to avoid. He felt shame course through him as he corrected himself. 
The buck grabbed his wrist. He dropped the measuring tape which fell to the floor in an elegant tangle. André jumped, startled by the buck’s sudden action. “So sorry!” he blurted. “Pardon me! That was an accident!”
Still, the buck did not let go. Instead he applied André’s paw to his maleness. André inhaled sharply and slowly brought his gaze upward from the fallen tape.  Up his arm toward where his paw held pressed against cervine intimacy and up to the buck’s expression. Severity greeted him. The buck maintained his regal appearance even in his modest linens. He stood, dominant, upon his platform, looking down at the servile vulpine who kneeled ashamed at his feet. 
“Excuse me,” André uttered, “What are you doing?”
“I thought you wanted to… I don’t mind.” 
The vulpine got to his feet and took several steps back. The buck let go of his paw and stepped down off the platform. “Why did you let me in so late if you didn’t want to?”
The vulpine staggered and pulled off his bifocals, staring sternly at the buck with an anger that outshone his fear. “Because you asked me to work for you!” he nearly shouted. “This is not how we do this.”
“Please,” said the buck, stepping toward André, who ran out of room to back up. “Calm down. This is just a misunderstanding. I thought you wanted to be with me?”
“This is not how we show it!” he barked, bumping against the oak sideboard behind him.
“But you want to?” asked the buck, who stepped closer to André and placed his paws around his waist. André felt his body tense and fell silent. He looked down at the scant space between them. 
“Trust me,” he said, “no one will find out. I already know your secret and it’s safe with me. Believe me, I feel this way too.”
André remained silent, his body tense and distant.  
The buck brought his muzzle close to the vulpine’s and nuzzled his whiskers in a comforting gesture. “Please,” he whispered.
André turned toward the buck. He gazed back at him with his head turned obliquely. The stag looked at him through a large auburn eye. The nobility he expressed seemed turned to gentleness. What he saw did not appear as a being of a higher cast, but a peer in desperation. He saw the buck turn toward him. He saw his whiskers and the short brown fur of his muzzle distinct detail. In full awareness, despite the effects of alcohol, the vulpine watched the buck’s muzzle approach his in a slow sequence of moments. He felt cervine lips touch his own in a gentle kiss. André acquiesced.
The buck slid his arms around André’s waist and drew him closer toward his body. André, succumb to the alcoholic spin that seemed to envelope his body, followed his lead with indifference.  The noxious vapors of intoxication sublimated fear, anxiety, and shame, rendering apprehension the vainest ambivalence. He felt tired of resisting, he thought, feeling the buck’s lips pressed upon his. Did he even try and resist, he asked himself, moving his paw to the thinly clad waist of the buck, feeling the buck move his hands down past his belt beneath his tail. Or did his every action or inaction enable a great insinuation with forgone conclusion willed through coercion and manipulation, he thought, unlatching the tail-button to allow the bucks linen undergarments to fall from his hips. 
André tilted his head and permitted the kiss to deepen, feeling little more than the sensation of lips on lips and the occasional lap of tongue. His paws commenced their practiced course from around the buck’s hips, around the curvature of the cervine rear, caressing bared cheek and crevice beneath a twitching tuft of tail. His humbly downturned ears perceived the unlatching flick of the button on his tail-strap. The buck slid his paws around André’s loosened waistline and repeated the action between them, along the line of buttons comprising his fly. He felt the stag’s fingers slide through his coarse pubic fur and envelop his maleness in a rather salacious grasp that sought to extol the sensations of physical pleasure. In that regard, the buck achieved success.
The buck allowed the vulpine’s trousers to slip from his waist and fall to his foot-paws. A tug and some eager cajoling saw his drawstring undergarments follow the same course, exposing his intimacy to the unmitigated sight and grasp of a practical stranger. The fox stood bare-bottomed beside the equally denuded stag, who celebrated the recent liberation from clothing with keen enthusiasm of touch. André felt the yearning contact and curl of fingers through his fur and upon his flesh, as if convective embrace could convey exhilaration itself through fingertips and fur. The unfamiliar paws coursed over his body leaving furrows where they passed, mimicking the proximity and caress of a lover, sending deceiving shivers down his spine and causing the involuntary twitch of muscles revealed through trembling patches of fur.
The visitor’s strange paws repeatedly caressed his intimacy with fervor that resembling scientific curiosity, he thought, as his sheath, crevice and tail received recurrent caress. A gasp escaped André’s muzzle as a sobering sensation shot though his body, as though a hollow spot appeared deep within. He parted the kiss to gaze down between their bodies; his pink cock-tip emerged from his sheath and furrowed the bucks tawny fur beside his companion’s equally visible arousal. The buck deposited uncountable kisses on his muzzle, cheek, and ears as André, eyes averted, fought to dismiss the sensation of shame that came with his arousal. The desire for physical pleasure accompanied its appearance. 
The buck, noticing the emergence of vulpine maleness, took hold of André’s sheath, concealing the exposed flesh in the clasp of a warm paw. With his arm around the fox, he stepped back onto the platform, guiding them both out of the fallen pile of garments. André obediently followed the tug and gentle guidance, finding himself kneeling before the bucks peeking maleness. A paw rested on his scalp tousling his head-fur, stroking his flattened ears. André gazed upward at the buck with wide, glassed over eyes. The buck met his gaze with a smile expressing undue familiarity, while unbuttoning his linen shirt.
The paw resting on his scalp soon became nudging force that brought the vulpine’s whiskered muzzle in contact with the bucks maleness. The musk of cervine masculinity entered André’s nostrils and embossed itself in the collection of impressed olfactory memories residing in the corners of his mind. How unlike any of his companions, he thought, cycling through his sexual history invoked by the scent. He never loved a stag before, he realized, feeling the warmth of maleness and the prickle of pubic fur on his muzzle. Shades of amber-lit white, copper and tawny passed before his eyes in a muted blur. The peculiar outline of d’Luminaux’s sheath and arousal poised perceptibly close, vague in myopic distortion, yet readily tangible. 
André endured the gentle caress ruffling his head-fur, continuous but for the moment in which the buck rid himself of his shirt, which fell to the ground behind him. The slender buck looked onward, standing naked, emitting occasional gasps through parted lips. The narrow, pink cervine arousal slid from its sheath to take its sizeable tapered form. The fox, engaged in a formulaic approach to his task, attended each of the buck’s orbs to satisfaction and lapped up the furry sheath until his lips and tongue made contact with bare flesh of maleness. The familiar taste of pubic fur and arousal distinguished by the unique cervine modality surpassed all other perceptions. 
What form does a recurrent memory take, he thought, curling his fingertips into the fur of the stag’s rear cheeks? Is it an emotion, he thought, sliding his tongue along the bucks length? Or both, he thought, permitting the cock-tip past his lips into the warmth of his muzzle. The pain is there, he thought, but so is the pleasure. One strives for both, he decided, permitting the foreign length to fill his mouth along his tongue. He recognized the taste, the scent of pubic fur that greeted his nose as it buried into the bucks pubic fur, and remembered enjoying it. What a strange sensation eliciting itself, he thought. 
 A thrust sent the cervine arousal through André’s pinched lips, deep into the vulpine muzzle. A muffled moan became audible through the perfect silence. A teasing lick, a flex of fingers into sub-tail curvature invited repeated movement. Strong, defined muscles flexed beneath canid paw-pads in an instinctual, almost mechanical movement not unlike behemoth machinery. Gentle caress became compulsory persuasion. Coaxing urge begot urgency.
Gas light shone upon André’s copper fur, disclosing the subtle quiver of closed eyelids and disarray of mused head-fur. Glistening arousal vanished into slender muzzle, immersed in practiced action.  Saliva matted white chin-fur and seeped into the fur of sheath. Vulpine paws left furrows upon the stag’s rear, perceiving the presence of muscle beneath the sheen of auburn fur. The unmistakable sound of wet flesh on wet flesh broke the silence. An occasional shudder superseded the tone. 
d’Luminaux’s paw issued tender command as he rested it on André’s scalp. Soft caress rewarded obedience, a wordless gesture ordered correction. He swept his fingers in telling slowness over André’s demure features and brought them beside his cheek. The featureless length of cervine arousal slid smoothly across André’s lips and through the cradle of his tongue. André tilted his head in response to, but also in anticipation of demand. Fluid movement of tongue applied his knowledge of intimate anatomy which seemed common to all species. He allowed his tongue to flick around shaft and tip in unpracticed exploration. Curious, he thought, experiencing the pleasant ache of arousal, how unique this buck tastes.
As the pungent flavor of cervine pre distinguished itself within André’s muzzle, a guiding touch dismissed his actions, just as the longing to experience deer cum arose. The buck withdrew his maleness from the fox’s lips, leaving his muzzle gapping, his whiskers and fur matted with moisture. André beheld the glistening arousal with an unuttered whimper. He panted, his breath buffeting a string of pre and saliva linking his lips to the pointed cock-tip. His eyes followed the buck’s torso upward, toward his severe antlered outline, patrician even in nudity. 
“That will do,” he whispered, further disordering André’s head-fur, running fingers through the tufts between his ears. “Come,” he said softly, bringing the paw to his chin, issuing guiding touch, leading him to his feet. He stood, staggering with aching knees as he obeyed the suggestion. The buck met his weary lips in a quick semblance of a kiss, smiled, and nodded in the direction of the decorative divan. André looked back over his shoulder, hesitant. The buck smiled. André nodded. 
They inched closer to the divan. d’Luminaux wrapped his arms around the partially clothed fox’s body, stepping in close behind him. His slid his paws up under the loosely hanging shirt and vest, gliding fingers through white vulpine chest and belly-fur. Slick cervine maleness pressed against André’s tail. He felt its warmth and firmness through his fur, anticipating with due reservation the fated and familiar sequence of actions. 
The buck, applying soft kisses and nuzzles to the foxes neck and cheek, brought André closer to the old divan. A gentle push bent him over onto the furnishing, an antique, somewhat worn biedermeier divan. He braced himself, curling his fingers into the dusty oriental fabric, feeling the imprint of embroidered floral patterns though his paw-pads. The buck eagerly caressed his male form, sweeping his paws across belly and hips, taking hold of dangling orbs and white furred sheath and the vulpine arousal standing erect in perfect firmness. The lascivious grasp and subsequent stroke elicited a guttural gasp. d’Luminaux smiled. 
 The buck leaned back, presumably admiring the product of his calculated persistence, a fox huddled over in a state well beyond what which may be characterized as suggestive presentation. The stag lifted the white tufted copper-tone tail that provided the last shroud of cover and inspected the exposed appearance of vulpine intimacy. André felt his cheeks flush with shame, averting his eyes, sensing the buck’s gaze fall upon the bare flesh of his tail-hole and the duel orbs of vulpine masculinity. He felt a single paw-pad trace the grove of his crevice from tale-base to furry pouch, circling over the wrinkled skin of utmost intimacy. The bare spot became dampened with saliva or pre or some unseen substance comprised of neither or both. Certain was the buck took his time with his pleasures. 
André swallowed of pre and saliva, shamefully admitting anticipation. He opened his eyes, looking beneath him past the chromatic blur of loosely draped fabric comprising his vest and shit, observing his vulpine arousal. Duel lobes of knot and tapered upturned tip hung fully emerged from his sheath. A drop of canid pre-cum clung by a thread to his pee-slit, dripping to the floor, seeping into the carpet under his observation.  With ears lowered he turned over his shoulder, apparent unease belied the youthful exhilaration of immanent coitus. 
An apprehensive glance fell upon the buck, positioning himself behind the copper-furred tail. Idle caress, a calming gesture, smoothed out ruffled fur as if to ease disquiet. Cervine arousal neared vulpine intimacy. Body heat transferred with body heat through the contact of illicit anatomy. André stiffened and shuddered, huffing a sublimating gasp toward the dusty old divan. The buck emitted a satisfying sigh, bracing himself on the foxes curved rear. A preoccupied instant of silence succeeded.  
The featureless tip of d’Luminaux cock slowly slipped into the slit of André’s intimate passage. The slender tip easily found the slick opening and drove apart the wrinkly flesh, spreading it with the progressively increasing girth, finding sleek billowy warmth of the older fox’s body past the vain embrace of tail-ring. André silently endured the entry of his companion’s maleness. His claws punctured the biedermeier divan as his body accommodated the long shaft. A meek moan interrupted the almost reverent quiet as André felt the stags sheath and balls press against his cheeks inevitably concluding the motion. The delightful, almost forgotten, sensations of surrender greeted him to their fullest extent, enveloping his body in the strange tingling that spread along his spine into his fingertips. 
The stag, with the white tuft of his tail oscillating behind him, paused after the final inch of his arousal disappeared into the fox.  d’Luminaux patted and caressed the supple curvature of the old fox’s rear, along the transition of white and copper fur. A smile went unperceived as André, coping with the myriad sensations, panted into the burgundy upholstery. André nearly resisted a whimper as his body adjusted to the deer’s anatomy within him, feeling the tapered shape spread apart his intimate passage and obstruct the quiver of his tail-hole at its base. It’s been too long, he thought, experiencing the strange in-betweeness of discomfort and pleasure. 
A convulsion of hips sent the tapered tip even deeper into the fox’s body. André moaned, clearer than before, as his tail-ring stretched and foreign sheath ground into his crevice. The buck accompanied the fox with an utterance of his own, a blissful sigh, expressive of unfathomable satisfaction. An urge or inclinations of the most elicit variety, harbored for unknowable duration finally satisfied in a clandestine transgression. It’s not just you this time, he thought of himself, you’re part of his taboo now.
A thrust became a repetitive sequence. The stag’s cock easily slid through the quivering vulpine tail-hole, its smooth ridge-less length parting and displacing André’s slick intimacy. The buck knew no relent, utilizing the frictionlessness to set a rigorous pace. André emitted muffled tones, soft moans and occasional whimpers, silently comparing the dimensions of the buck’s cock with previous companions, seeking association with a more familiar species.  The yearning throbs of his own arousal and the pleasurable sensations emanating from his intimate passage cut short too exhaustive of a comparison. 
André brought forth his muzzle and peered back over his shoulder, bracing himself against the continuous barrage of thrusts heaving his entire body forward, along the length of the divan. d’Luminaux seemed fully preoccupied in his task, salaciously observing his own arousal vanish into the body of his companion. Only after a moment did their eyes meet. The buck seemed to request consent, long after he irrevocably began his transgression, to which André replied with a rather lustful nod. The action seemed to encourage d’Luminaux, his fingers dug into André’s rump, the deer leaned into his thrusts seeking depth or the most agreeable sensation, or both. 
The fox, humbly braced upon on the biedermeier divan, noticed a broad trail of pre seeping into the fabric. Burgundy fabric appeared a dark crimson wetted with viscous canid product. André felt his arousal ache deep into the flesh of his body, restraining ages of repressed pleasure. Indefinite self-imposed chastity produced erotic urgency of indescribable severity. His fox-hood pulsed, ignored by touch and teasing exploration nevertheless emitting ample vulpine pre. He considered pleasuring himself, but resisted, opting to see to the stag’s pleasure first. 
The stag certainly wasn’t taking his time, he thought, feeling the stag’s arousal throb tellingly within him, envisioning deer-pre seeping his bowels. André watched the austere surrounding of the partition rock back and forth in an alcohol assisted blur, his body thrust forward against the repetitive slam of hips against rump. He questioned the eagerness with which he guided his body’s rebound along the cervine arousal, consistently returning to the buck’s hips with matching force. Selfish need permitted the married buck’s entry, licentious desire urged his maleness as deep as his intimate passage would allow, and taboo lustfulness willed climax through the practiced fluctuation of muscle and tail-ring. He deserved what he received, he thought, uttering a vocal moan.
d’Luminaux panted, shuddering with erotic sighs unique to coitus. A rare lapse in dignity accompanied the guttural utterances, as the buck, hunched over his male companion, gave in to his forbidden craving and bred the fox with his fertile seed.  Irregular thrusts rode the tantalizing constrictions of André’s pre-slick tail-hole. The buck arrested the rhythmic motions; the grip on the fox’s hips tightened and forcefully pulled him into the last series of disconnected advances. André vented a wide-eyed gasp, expressive of conflicting pleasure and ache, irrevocably receiving quantities of thick cervine essence. A shudder coursed along his spine and through his braced limbs, perceiving them pulsing transfer of cum into his body, realizing that he had been claimed by yet another male. 
Grip relented. Aching fingers withdrew from pierced fabric. Duel inflections of labored panting comprised the only sound. Musk of sex and masculinity trumped the dry scent of dust. A caress swept over copper-furred rump, padded fingers combed tail-fur. It was over, André thought, aware of the accursed encroach of sobriety. He had surrendered himself too easily again, he thought, bred for pleasure by an unfamiliar stag. 
The duty of tenderness concluded, the stag slowly withdrew his slick shaft from André’s body. d’Luminaux’s shaft slipped from the pre-slick passage, leaving the slit to André’s intimate passage gapping. The shock of severance supplanted the blissful ache of union. The withdrawn heat of the buck’s arousal left André’s intimacy exposed and cool.  A minute trickle of white deer-cum escaped the aperture of vulpine tail-hole and flowed down the bare wrinkled flesh, seeping into white fur of the fox’s discreet regions. The buck looked on out of indecency or self-satisfaction, brushing aside André’s tail. “Good fox,” he whispered, driving home the sensation of shame. 
The fox stayed put, collecting himself as the buck sorted out the fallen pieces of clothing. The glistening point of his arousal slowly returned into its sheath as he picked up his discarded undergarments. d’Luminaux wordlessly ordered his attire and slipped on his linens, terminating his nudity. He stood in front of the present mirror, eyeing the fox lying prone on the divan in its reflection, as if the original pretense of their meeting were concluded. He took his time neatly dressing himself, yielding only as he appeared as pristine as when he entered. 
He slipped his arms into the brass buttoned indigo frock and turned to the fox, who just then brought himself upright, revealing the still firm vulpine arousal. d’Luminaux averted his eyes as if with respect.  André tapped for his bifocals left on the nearby sideboard and set them on his muzzle. “Thank you Mr. Gérard, for seeing me at this hour. Your hospitality is much appreciated and shall be remembered.” 
André nodded while the stag produced a white envelope from his breast pocket. 
d’Luminaux delicately placed the envelope on the opposite end of the sideboard and pushed it mere inches in the fox’s direction. “In here you will find payment in full for the requested garments, and bonus for assuring expediency. I hope you will find this to your satisfaction.”
André stared expectantly, awaiting the predictable yet displeasing conclusion of the evening. He remained wordless save for the expressive of longing apparent on his graying features. No appeal could prolong his stay, he thought, as his past had taught him. “Yes sir,” he uttered meekly, compelled to speak by the prolonged silence, “I’ll see to it you have these soon.”
“I’ll send for them,” said d’Luminaux in a single breath. “Thank you.”
The buck stood in his place for a moment, half expecting a reply, half obliged to say more. His auburn eyes remained steadfastly affixed on the old copper fox and his weary graying features. He then turned and left without further words. A tassel of brass bells rang. A draft of cold followed. The soft sound of crushed snow vanished into the distance. André remained with the meager remnant of intoxication and far vaster soberness. His body ached with the aftereffects of coitus. Tail-hole, joints, muzzle all felt sore and weary. His arousal too diminished while the illicit ache remained, reminding him of his gender and his past. He lay, partially clad, sensing the gradual seep of the buck’s seed into his body. Perhaps hours passed before he inclined to move.
Perhaps in the moments before dawn, André got to his feet and began to collect his clothing. He noticed the white paper envelope lying upon the sideboard, it felt heavy. He opened it and poured several franc coins into his paw. André counted several gilt 25 franc coins comprising well over double the value of the requested clothing. He clenched his paw and trembled, inhaling sharply. He cast the paw-full of coins across the workshop with every ounce of his might. Coins bounced and rattled off the wall and furniture, clattered about, jangling on the floorboards until they fell silent. André staggered back, nearly falling back onto the pre-stained divan, shaking with a confluence of emotion. Damn it, he thought, cursing all of Namur. Damn Café Desgrais. 
 Café Desgrais © Rufus