Once again, Reece found himself out in the woods trying to shake the early-morning chill from his fur.  It hung in the air, coating the crisp brilliant oranges and yellows of the birch canopy.  It sank through his paltry coat right down to the skin.  Once again, like a crazy person, he’d gone out hunting on the first day of the season, before his winter coat had even started to grow in.  But it was worth it, for the potential spoils, if not the special side perks.

The ridgeline overlooking the valley always had a gorgeous view this time of year, and this morning was no exception.  Reece was sheltered from the wind where he crouched, his thighs on fire, but he could see the breeze whipping the frost off the trees down below into a gentle ballet of the promise of winter.  The coyote suspected it would be a hard one this year, but not for him.  Suburbia offered a unique immunity.

Suburbia, however, did not offer such a view as he had right now, carefully centered in the telescopic sight mounted atop his Remington.  The doe was bent over at the waist, hands cupped and drawing water from the stream that ran the length of the valley.  She brought it to her lips and lapped, tendrils of steam rising from her nostrils as it rose from the rest of her warming body.  Wherever she’d slept the previous night, it had been frosty.  Wherever the dappled sunlight struck her, she was dripping.

And not just there.  He moved the sight farther down.

“Sorry, Julia.”  Reece uttered the useless apology to his wife every time he came out here.  It was no indictment of Julia’s attractiveness or her prowess in bed—she was more than adequate—but the access to the rawness of the ferals pulled the coyote out of bed just as easily as bringing home another trophy.  It had started back when his father had introduced him to hunting, and as he’d grown his initial confusion had naturally turned to attraction.  

Like he would have told anyone, anyway.  No, he was fine to keep it a secret.  That was where it would stay.  He peered through the sight, his camo pants already tight.

The doe’s backside formed an almost-perfect heart, with its little fluff of tail as a crown.  It left nothing to the imagination, especially the obvious fact that she was in heat.  By the looks of her, she’d birthed a fawn already, maybe two. She couldn’t be more than a couple years past maturity, but the bucks had already claimed her.  No wonder, that.  She stood and turned, trading one delicious view for another.  Reece resisted shifting position and possibly scaring her off.  

“What a pity,” the coyote breathed.  He licked his lips.  “Why do you stay out here?”  

One thing he still hadn’t figured out in all his years of hunting was why people went feral in the first place.  He’d asked his father when he was fifteen, motivated more by hormones than curiosity.  Through visible discomfort had come some vague answer about some feeling more connected to the nature from which all things come, and upon further prodding a curt, “Just because they like it, I guess.”  

His father, too, had acted different when they took their hunting trips.  It wasn’t until years later, after Reece realized his affinity for feral voyeurism, that he connected the dots.  Dad’s home life had been perfect, just as Reece’s was now, but for this one harmless vice.  His mother had never known, and neither would his wife.  Julia was happy, at home and in bed, and Beth saw a good relationship between her parents.

A little vicarious spying was unavoidable when he hunted.  And really, it was a few times a year.  The coyote had coworkers back at the honkytonk where he tended bar that had committed far greater acts of infidelity.  For God’s sake, they had girls dancing nightly, and the males around the place didn’t have much in the way of morals to begin with.  That said, Reece could ogle all he wanted to.  He just didn’t dip his wick.

Not that it would be that hard out here in the lawlessness.  The ferals knew that, in exchange for abstaining from modern society, they were subject to society’s laws regarding nature.  This included hunting season, and by and large, they were okay with it.  Ferals could make a game of it, hide, or put on clothes to blend in until the season ended.  Hunters could choose to hunt only four-leggers if their morals or ethics gave them trouble.  It was largely a non-issue, with the exception of fringe groups on each side making crazy every so often.  

It had been done before; he’d heard the stories.  Hunter goes out, tracks down some prey, and exchanges sex for sparing a life.  Every year something would happen, something would make the news, and it would melt away into the gigantic grey area that was the “untouchable” wild.  Next year comes, rinse and repeat.  It wasn’t like Julia wasn’t putting out at home; far from it.  It was just the allure of “strange,” the allure of “wild,” and that smell.

The coyote couldn’t help but get a nose full of estrus, being downwind.  It was a wonder anyone bagged anything at all during mating season.  Then again, not everyone had a secret taste for wild deer beyond putting food on the table or a trophy on the wall.

Reece already had a trophy in his living room:  a nicely-racked specimen he’d downed with a recurve during bow season one year.  Its taxidermied hands held the arrow that had killed it, mounted just below its head.  He had a knack for the larger bucks, even with does more plentiful and easier to kill.  It was one of those masculine things too:  your friends look up to you if you kill something male, some weird status symbol in these parts.  

This doe would likely be an easy kill.  She seemed to be taking her time at the stream, as if she knew he was watching her.  But he was downwind, so that was impossible.  

“If you only knew about the knot, baby,” he cooed under his breath.  “Rather than these thin-dicked ruts out here.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” said a deep voice from behind.  “It might be incorrect.”  Reece twisted around so fast he tweaked his back, but the twinge of pain was mild compared with the sudden roiling of his guts.  The faraway rustle of water and foliage signified the doe’s escape, but that was the least of the coyote’s troubles now.

The buck loomed over his cowering form, and likely bested him by a good few inches were they to stand side by side.  His arms were crossed over a well-defined chest, which was just one of the well-defined things about him.  If a superlative were required, “godlike” would fit.  He’d obviously been feral for a while, the rigors and labor of natural living having sculpted every inch of him.  He was a twelve-pointer, and skilled with the weaponry, judging by the nicks and cuts here and there along the rack.  The crux of his malehood proudly kissed the cool air, but whether from the doe’s scent or from something else, Reece wasn’t sure.

He became aware, however, that he’d just pissed himself a little.  Not much, but enough.  “I was just—”

“Save it,” said the buck, rolling his eyes.  Even that was impressive.  They were an intense green that looked out of place amid all the warm fall colors.  “Should I kill you now, or draw it out?”  

Reece thought about the rifle, still in his paw.  He thought about why he hadn’t aimed and fired as soon as he’d seen the buck.  He thought about getting the drop, about how long it would take to bring the gun around and just shoot blindly.  And in the split second he thought about all this, the buck knelt and ripped it from his grasp.  

“Oh God please no.”  The words melted into a whine.  His tail tried to tuck itself out of existence.  

Emptying the clip with the skill of a marksman, the buck threw the ammo past the coyote and over the side of the cliff.  Then he threw the rifle.  Then he knelt down next to Reece, his prodigious package preceding him.  “You’ve got to be the dumbest hunter I’ve ever seen,” he chuckled.  “Did you really have no idea that this is one of my scent rubs?”  Those antlers, some of them fine, dangerous points, hovered inches from Reece’s muzzle.

He sniffed, and over the scent of his urine and fear he could smell it now.  It was the doe who’d thrown him off.  She’d been bathed in his scent, and the wind had all but masked the more immediate smell of male musk.  The doe was his.  He was dead.

The buck continued.  “It’s not that amazing, really.  You reek of cigarettes.  No wonder your nose is useless.”  Reece considered defending the fact that he only worked at a bar and didn’t partake, but thought better of it.  Instead, he just said something else stupid.

“I have a family.”

“I don’t give a shit.”  A thick-nailed hand closed around his neck, pinning him to the tree against which he lay.

“Oh, my God.”

“My only god is Mother Nature.  Your god is useless out here.”  He scoffed, pulling away to sit with a crunch on the bed of leaves.  Reece didn’t dare move, but he was glad to be able to breathe again.  “You’re all the same.  It’s hilarious.  Vapid, unfulfilled shells of people whose only entertainment is shooting those who’ve seen the light.”  How long had this guy been out here?  He was too well-spoken to have drunk the entire pitcher of Kool-aid.   “Well, your first mistake was coming out in the first place.  Your second was trespassing on my territory to do it.  I think I’ll make your death nice and slow.  I was bored, anyway.”

“You don’t have to kill me,” Reece offered.  Now that he was in this position, though, he realized he kind of deserved whatever he got for being so stupid as to get caught by a buck in season who smelled to high heaven of hormones.

The buck quirked an eyebrow.  “Is that so?  You were eying something that belongs to me.”  He got up onto all fours, bringing his muzzle right next to the coyote’s, close enough to tickle his whisker beds.  “Anything that wanders into my territory does so for one of two reasons:  they either want to test their mettle against mine to take my property, or they want to be bred by me.”

Reece’s ears flattened so much that he almost didn’t hear what came next.

“I’m just a stupid woodland creature, so I can’t tell the difference.  You know what I mean?”  He smiled, drawing a hand down his sheath and sending a cloud of musk up to Reece’s nose.  “I’d been tracking my girl all morning until I smelled you up here on the hill.  She was making a game of it, too.  She’s in heat, you know.”

“I know.”

“Were you trying to make me a cuckold, friend?  Because mating without the risk of fawns can be attractive to a doe in heat.  Species doesn’t matter as much, suddenly.  It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve lost a doe to an outsider.”

“I wouldn’t—”

“They take them to the city and put clothes on them and act like species doesn’t even matter.  I used to be an accountant.  I woke up.”  The buck paused, the shadow of his expression clearing into something less sinister.  “But what do I know?  I’m just a stupid animal.”

Reece decided to just not answer in any way, shape or form.  

“And, being a stupid animal, I’m naturally angry that you interrupted my pursuit this morning.  Now I’m all worked up with no place to put it.  Oh, wait, maybe not.”  Fingers scratched under the coyote’s chin, the intent not nearly as well-meaning as the action.  “You don’t smell like a rival buck, so you must be a doe.  I can’t tell the difference, remember?”

The grip on his throat moved around to become a grip on his neck.  And the buck pulled, God dammit, he pulled on the scruff just enough to force his nose up against the thick semi-hard fuzz of his sheath.  The musk was ten times stronger, and it was ridiculous that Reece hadn’t noticed the scent rub.  He tried pushing away, but gently, and got a harder tug for his trouble.  Fluid smeared across his nose.  His stomach turned.  His sheath filled.

He was not supposed to be having this boner.

“You can try to fight if you want to.  That’s a favorite quality of mine.  When they fight harder but they secretly want me even more.”  Reece watched the three inches in front of his face turn to five, then seven.  “Usually they end up being the wild ones.  Never got that shit at home.”

Sorry, bud.  Though that little egoist voice in the back of the coyote’s head needed to learn to shup up if it knew what was good for it.  At least the thought never made it to his lips, which now almost kissed the flesh of the buck’s length.  He wasn’t going to get out of it.  There had been no promise of sparing Reece’s life even if he went through with it, but he had to hedge his bets.  

“I’m not gay.”  And after all that introspection, those were the words that came out of his mouth.

“No such thing out here,” the buck replied.  “You fuck or be fucked, and nobody cares what junk you have.  You need me to motivate you or something?”  He yanked Reece to standing by his scruff, the ancient pack mentality forcing him to comply at the feeling, before pinning him against the tree.  Drawing up underneath his head, the buck pressed his rack to the coyote just hard enough to elicit no less than seven pinpricks of pain from his throat to his dick, even through his thick camo.  

“Ow,” was all Reece could say without breathing.  He was afraid of puncturing a lung.

“If I rammed you into this tree, it would take you a good ten minutes to bleed out.  Just so you know.”

“Okay.  I get it.”

“You gonna suck my dick now?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.”  When the buck released, he collapsed onto his knees, gasping not from lack of air but from unbridled terror.  He was alive.  He could be dead right now.  It wasn’t fair, but it was life.  
And Reece knew what they said about life.  Suddenly he was glad this day would stay in the woods forever.  The guys back at the honkytonk would never let him live it down.  Hell, some of them might never speak to him again.

Just as the buck stepped up and skinned his sheath to the base to smear a runnel of pre across his lips, Reece thought I’m going to have to find a way to get this smell off of me before Julia notices.  He’d have to bathe in the creek, down where the doe had been.  How ironic.  But it wouldn’t get the smell of cervine off his surplus-store clothes.

The lack of a “big moment” as the head pried his lips apart surprised Reece the most.  Whatever he’d been expecting—ultimate humiliation, vomitous disgust, immediate slutdom—never happened.  Buck-scent exploded on his tongue, a distillation of the musk in his captor’s hair.  The skin slid easily, aided by copious leakage.  Reece thought to curl his lips over his teeth a second before the buck shoved all the way into his throat.  

His stomach lurched and rebelled.  His fist pounded on the buck, who withdrew just in time to avoid a crotch full of bile.  It thankfully ended up on the ground, barely missing his knees.  Bent double, the coyote supported himself with one paw, the other flailing blindly to ward off the coming attack.

But it never came.  Instead the buck waited patiently for him to quit retching before asking, “Are you done?  Can we continue?”  Reece looked up, panting, to see a look of consternation he wouldn’t have respected back in civilization.  Now he couldn’t afford to.  The buck’s cock hadn’t flagged a bit.  “Because you have another hole that won’t throw up on me.”

Don’t be so sure.  “Okay.  I’m sorry.”  And there was the humiliation.  And with it, the emergence of his own boner, even weirder than before.  

“Apology accepted.  Try again.”  The tip bumped against his nose, and this time the buck let Reece take his time, getting to know the contours and size of it, until his nostrils were buried in the bunched-up hair of the creamy sheath.  He felt the tickle, but kept it in check.  The buck actually grunted.  “There you go.  Kind of a trial by fire for your first dick, but what’re you gonna do.”

Reece decided not to elucidate about that one time in college with his best friend.  That had ended up in double whiskey-dicks anyway.

The ensuing silence felt as awkward as Reece thought he looked.  He tried to imagine the scene as an outsider:  coyote hunter face-first between the legs of a wild buck, desperately trying to work his way around a cock that was too big for his muzzle.  Like a straight guy.  With a boner.  Once he got a good look in his head, he opened his eyes.  He didn’t even know he’d closed them.

“Having fun?” asked the buck, wearing a slightly lopsided grin.  Could he actually be doing it right?  Another shot of pre into his throat certainly made a strong case.

“What do you think?”

A scoff.  “Judging by your scent, yes, in fact.  You sure you haven’t done this before?”

“You never asked.”

“Have you?”

“No.”  It was basically the truth.  Kind of.  

“Well, you should,” the buck muttered, the closest thing to a compliment that Reece would likely get.  His throat was full again before he could make any kind of response, and the moment passed.  Reece held still while he got his face fucked for a few minutes, saying nothing.  The buck seemed less forceful now that he was getting what he wanted, and the threat of death-by-antlers diminished somewhat.  Perhaps, if the coyote did a good enough job, he might get home in one piece, and without holes.  Then the buck faltered, exhaling raggedly.  “Do something with your paws, for God’s sake.  Play with my balls or something.”

Reece reached for the big sac but came up empty-pawed.  The buck pulled out and shoved him, hard, back against the tree so that his legs shot out and he pinched his tail under his ass.  His face was still full of deer junk, only now the buck had ahold of the tree for better leverage.  Unceremoniously, the cock occupied his mouth again, this time with more measured thrusts.  At least this way, Reece could use his arms without worrying about his legs going to sleep.

It also allowed his own bits to shift around to a more comfortable position.  Not that the buck had to know that.

With his head against the tree trunk, the coyote let the buck do the work.  For the first time he could get a good look at the mechanics of the cervine body.  The dick was sizable, proudly hard and going through the typical motions; it wasn’t even that special anymore.  Putting his junk to shame, the buck’s scrotum hung low and fat with the rut, something that didn’t exist in the city.  

He knew, from his prior hunts, that Mother Nature was stubborn in giving up her habits.  Like a houseful of women synchronizing their periods, two-leggers who went feral eventually cycled up into the natural mating season.  They also swelled in all the right places, looking either weirder or sexier depending on the viewer.  Reece entertained the thought that the massive organs he rolled around with his fingers made the buck sexier, and found it not that off-putting.  Which, in itself, was off-putting.  

Instead of pounding him into the tree, like he expected, the buck settled into a slow, deliberate rhythm, soon punctuated by the effort and then quivering of his thighs.  Reece pulled on the loose skin between his pads, using his free paw to trace the hard curve of the oblique where the cream melted into the tawny.  He hoped it would get the guy off, because he wanted to leave.  He wanted to stay alive, and he wanted to give his sore jaw a rest.  He also wanted to take care of his hardon.  

The buck grunted, stamped a hoof and went still.  “Fuck me!  Every time!”  His cock bobbed gently with his heartbeat, dripping in time.  Some of it ran down Reece’s chin, making him feel oddly vulpine, though he knew that was a stereotype.  “Sorry bud, it’s just not your day.”

“Huh?”

“Turn around and lose the pants.  Before I lose this thing.  It won’t take long.”  The buck circled a downward finger to solidify his point.  His face was dead serious.  

“I-I can’t do that,” Reece tried.

“Sure you can,” the buck countered.  “Everybody can.  It’s an asshole; they’re all stretchy.  Unless you have really good life insurance.  Your family might thank you.”  He didn’t need antlers to make a convincing point.  Reece went for a pant let, but a hoof kicked away his paw.  “Just pull ‘em down, I don’t have time for this shit.  I’m getting hungry.”

“Okay, okay.”  Reece thought he’d never hear the words come out of his mouth, for multiple reasons:  “I don’t have any lube.”

“I have spit.  Shut up.”

The buck watched him, one hand massaging his erection.  Reece undid his belt and fly, turning around to pull his pants and thermal bottoms down to his knees.  

“I know you’re hard, so just quit now.  On your elbows.”  

He felt the whoosh of air as the buck knelt behind him, even as he shifted to find a suitable position.  Under the carpet of leaves, twigs and rocks pricked into his forearms and even his knees, padded as they were by his pushed-down clothing.  Suddenly his cock was gripped and pulled back, stroked softly, the buck’s fingers a not-unwelcome change from Julia’s paws.  The soft, short hair and thick nails sent chills between his legs.

The buck’s words smiled.  “It’s fine if you like it.  We don’t judge out here.  It’s not gay.”

“I got no problem with gay people.”

Pressure under his tail.  “Never said you did.  Lift.”  

Reece lifted, and the buck curled it the rest of the way, husky-style, over his back.  Cold air turned to warm breath over his hole, and he clenched reflexively.  

“You want it.”

“Think again.”

“Nah.”  And then the buck snorted, hawking back and spitting a thick gob of slickness the coyote didn’t want to know about.  He thumbed it in roughly, making Reece thankful for the blunt fingers instead of claws.  “You’ll want it eventually.”  

Not likely, he thought.  Then, alarmingly, I hope not.  He didn’t have time for much else:  after a noise he’d never expected to hear from a cervine, his world exploded into pink stars that fell in lines behind his eyelids.  The pain wasn’t really pain, as much as it was a sudden searing-hot invasion his body was not ready for.  The one dick he’d sucked before—even the buck’s prodigious member today—could not have prepared him for anything like this.

He squelched the scream before it left his throat, just barely.  It wouldn’t have mattered out here in the woods, but he didn’t want to give the buck any reason not to let him live at the end of all this.  Though right now, he didn’t feel much like living.

“Been a while,” the cervine muttered.

Reece grunted and swallowed back a whine.  “Like never.”

“Not you, me.  I’d almost forgotten how tight a guy’s ass could get.  Women just don’t feel the same, either hole.”  Instead of taking him forcefully, the buck stayed slow, enjoying getting lost in the feeling the coyote wished he could share.  The sting had started to settle into a throbbing heat anyway, but it was still far from good.  

Dick waggling underneath his belly, he thought absurdly, Julia, this is for you.  All for you, babe.  He would come in the door tonight with empty paws, but he would come in and be with her and his daughter, and they would sit down to a meal and talk about their days.  But not until he’d had a thorough shower with the strongest scent-masker he could pick up on the way home.  Maybe even before.  He could stop by one of those seedy motels on that one road and pay for a couple hours—

The buck bottomed out, mashing his prostate and making him feel like pissing.  All that came out was more pre, wasted on the forest floor.  Reece became aware of wanting desperately to tie with something, and then he noticed the doe watching them from twenty yards away or so.  

Hid partially but ineffectively by the twin trunks of a birch tree, she peered at them with her doe eyes, quick-blinking and interested.  She had one hand between her legs, absently fingering her sex.  She looked curious more than anything, but content to stay put.  Reece watched her for about half a minute, transfixed by his former prey now preying upon him.  Then he realized he was feeling pretty good now, and he imagined it was Julia there behind the tree instead of the doe, and he was ashamed and immensely turned on.

He wondered if Julia might be amenable to bringing another guy into the bedroom.  Maybe she might enjoy watching her husband get plowed in their marital bed.

Maybe he might enjoy watching a stranger breed her with non-canine seed.  

Maybe the dick in his ass was making him delirious.

“There we go.  Just needed a little encouragement.  I don’t mind if you make noise.”  Reece didn’t know he’d been making noise.  He didn’t want to make noise.  That would mean he liked it.  

But he did like it.  Damned if he didn’t.  

“Did you see our audience?” the buck whispered, as if he were afraid of scaring off the doe who so obviously wanted to be a part of the action.  Reece could only nod, and moan (completely conscious of it this time) when his tail got yanked up and his ass spread wide.  He felt like a whore.  And he still liked it.

The whole thing was very conflicting:  the buck would bang the hell out of him and it would get painful, jamming his prostate into places it wasn’t meant to go, but then it would slow down and become almost gentle, the mild taper of the cervine’s cock easier to take the longer they went.  Several times the buck swore under his breath.  He might be getting a cramp, or tired, though both seemed unlikely given his fit build.  

Eventually Reece’s paw tried to find its way between his legs, and while the balls-against-balls thing was hot, he wanted to come in the worst way.  If he did it too soon, there was no telling how he’d feel.  Was that even allowed?  Several tries only made him unstable, and after he almost fell onto his chin he got a rough smack on one thigh.

“Keep fucking still.  I’m going to make sure you feel it.”  Reece propped himself back up, feeling it plenty.  The buck was getting erratic with his rhythm; the coyote felt the gradual swelling and found it more pleasant to be stretched than to be pounded into submission.  But instead of the rough climax he expected, the buck almost stopped, withdrawing and using Reece’s outer ring to massage his tip.  With a cry so breathy it sounded desperate, he thrust home and held them both still, leaning over for the scruff again.

Reece couldn’t breathe.  His neck hurt terribly, but it sent shivers down to his upturned tail.  The buck had promised, and delivered:  powerful jets of heat splattering against his insides, at least ten of them, and not a single drop spilling out.  He’d read about it in porn, but never expected it to be real.  It made him feel like he was glowing.  

When the buck’s fist closed around his cock and started jerking, it was over.  His orgasm washed over him in several long, undulating waves that made him utter noises he never would have made in bed with Julia.  He was faintly aware of it hitting one wrist, but he was too suffused by the onset of afterglow to care.

For the next few minutes he could only listen as the buck’s breathing slowly regulated, and both of their hearts calmed down.  The doe had gone, perhaps feeling spurned that a lowly predator had received the seed she had sought.  When the buck erected and pulled away, a soft splash accompanied his withdrawal.  Reece just couldn’t keep it all in.

He allowed himself to collapse face-first into the leaves, immediately aware of the cum smeared across his cheek from where he’d shot the tree.  He couldn’t think about how much he’d enjoyed the sex.  He was still too blown away by the feeling.  

The buck shuffled behind him, softly trampling around.  “Hey.  Look at me.”  Reece lifted his head and was met with the splash of hot urine across his muzzle.  He inhaled it, he choked on it, and he even swallowed some of it.  It was a tincture of his musk, bitter and sharp on his nose and tongue.  

“Oh, ffffuck…” snorted the cervine.  The stream soaked Reece’s clothes, his nude waist, all the way down to his feet.  The whole time, he wondered why he didn’t feel as ashamed as he knew he should.  And that made him ashamed.

Suddenly there was a lot more going on in his psyche than he knew what to do with.  Maybe it would go away after a good fuck with Julia.

The stream slowed to a trickle, then stopped.  Grabbing his neck again, the buck used the dry side of the coyote’s muzzle as a napkin.  Pushed him down again.  Stood tall.  “You can stay or go, I don’t give a shit.  But if you’re going to stick around, don’t go aiming your little toy at me or my girls again.  We can smell you a mile away, even without the piss.”

Reece licked his lips, absently savoring the taste of his humiliation.  He met the intense eyes, saw the fire in them, and looked away when the buck turned to leave.  Five steps without a look back, then ten.  By fifteen he’d stopped, wavering on his hooves, echoes of the report bouncing around the valley like a rogue racquetball.  A thin red line crawled its way down his back, flicked off by the twitching tail, and only then did the buck sink to his knees.

The coyote threw the revolver, barrel still smoking, to the ground and kicked his pants over his ankle holster, shuffling half-naked over to where the buck knelt, now oddly slumped.  He caught him in his arms, easing him down into his lap.  Clutching at the neat little hole in his chest, the buck coughed up a thick gout of blood.  

“Damn,” he managed.  “I’m a dumb son of a bitch.”

“I forgot about it til I felt it on my calf.  It was cold after you pissed on it.”  

The buck gave a half-smile, wry and weak.  He tried to cough again, lurched, and a river of blood oozed out the edge of his mouth and down his neck.  “Nothing personal…you understand.”

“Totally,” Reece replied.  “You know how it goes.  Laws of nature and all.”  The buck nodded, but he didn’t buy it.  

“We’re more than even.”

“You’re not the biggest buck I’ve bagged, but you’re the most memorable.  And…”  He hesitated, sounding it out in his head.  “If your dick is any indication…my family’s gonna love the venison tonight.”

Staring into space, his eyes fixed, the buck rattled rather than laughed.  “No, man.  Age me or something.  Marinate that shit.  At least do me good.  I mean, look at this lean meat.”  He tried to flex and failed to move at all.

“Don’t fight it,” Reece almost giggled, as if they were sharing some kind of bromantic moment.  

“Who’s fighting?”  The buck smiled, or at least that’s what he was going for.  His lips only trembled a bit.  He hitched a couple times, then whispered, “Was it worth it?”

“Yes.”  Reece didn’t know what the buck meant by the question, but he knew the answer.  It came quickly and easily.  So did the kiss he planted on the buck’s lips, gaining a few precious seconds of reciprocity before the rubbery lips and tongue fell still.

The blood was delicious, as it was meant to be.

10/7-10/22/13