By Touch - Part 3

He groans a bit as my paw pads tease up beneath his tail, and arches his back, pressing his still quite filled-out erection against my own.  “I have to admit,” he huffs softly, “I’d been hoping to be filled there, at least once tonight.”
	That prompts a groan from me, as well, although mine is more one of frustration.  “Rules are rules,” I eventually manage to say, reminding myself again why I gave myself these restrictions in the first place.  It’s not that I never want to be with another man that way again, it’s just . . . .
	I can’t give myself to someone half-way.  And it hurts in ways I can’t handle, to face that kind of rejection again.  When it comes to my body, I’ve always had a pretty high threshold for pain.  But, my heart is . . . a lot more fragile.
	It might seem ridiculous to some, to hold so much significance for one physical act.  But, it’s just something I had to learn about myself, over time. 
	“Desk drawer,” I mutter to him, my nose pushing up through his neck scruff, which despite his summer shedding is still plenty thick enough for me to bury my muzzle in.  I can feel him tilt his head in a questioning sort of way, but his body slowly straightens up and leans, and I keep my paws roaming while he reaches over.
	This time I don’t baby him through the motions, I just let him find his way.  I saw him running his hands over the furniture as he walked the room, I know he has a vague idea where the desk is.  I hear the creak of him finding the drawer eventually, and start nibbling my way down his neck and collarbone.
	He drags in a sharp breath, tilting back his head before querying, “What am I looking for?”
	“Small glass jar,” I say.  “It’s probably-“
	He laughs suddenly, and I pull back from his neck to look at what’s amused him so.  He seems to have found the little stoppered jar, and is running his fingers over it as it rests in his palm.  “What?” I ask, bemused.
	“I recognize the jar,” he snorts out a quick laugh.  “It has distinctive ridges.  I know the man in town who sells these.  I’ve bought some myself, recently.”
	“Oh,” I give a lopsided smile.  “Yes, well, I suppose he’s probably one of only a few merchants that specialize in . . . anything like that.”
	“Close personal acquaintance of yours, I take it?”  He asks with a knowing arch of one eyebrow.
	I give a helpless shrug.  “I stopped paying a long time ago, if that makes you feel any better about it.  And he doesn’t charge me for the oil either, if I, ah . . . visit . . . every now and then.”
	“Ransom would be so jealous of you,” the fox just about bursts out laughing.  “Are you serious?  The man gives you free oil if you visit?  Don’t people like that generally charge for visits?”
	“He said he was starting to miss me,” I explain, using my best ‘honest’ tone.  Even when I’m telling the truth sometimes, people don’t believe me.  I have to work actively at sounding like I’m not lying.  Johannes says it’s a problem I’ve picked up from Reed, as though lying were an illness you could catch.  To be fair, if it were, he’d have it.  He has everything else.  “I don’t know . . . I suppose I have a way about me,” I sigh.  “I don’t do it on purpose.”
	“I think that’s why you have a way about you,” the fox is all but giggling now, his hips wiggling atop mine.  “There’s something to be said for confidence like yours.  It’s alluring, seeing a man so certain of himself that he doesn’t have to puff his chest out like a peacock and pick fights every damn day.”
	“You can’t-“ I begin.
	“I can hear the smirk in your voice,” he says with a half-smile of his own.  “I don’t have to see you.  You’re the sort of man who pulls others in without trying.  My lover’s more the sort who pushes everyone away by trying too hard.  To be tough, strong, protective, you know.  Overprotective, most of the time.”
	“He’s done better than I have,” I point out, running my roughened palm up over his hip, and extending my other to take the bottle from him.  
	“I refuse to believe a man who sells himself in the back room of a tavern is the best you could do if you really tried,” the fox says.  “Are things really that bad in your country?”
	“They really are,” I say, trying to keep my tone placid, but judging by the wilt in the fox’s ears, he picked up on some of the residual sadness in my statement.  “Same religion maybe, but . . . it might be easier in the vast lands of Carvecia simply because people have so much distance between one another,” I attempt to explain.  “In Amuresca, I’ve found no reprieve on any rung of the ladder, from the bottom on up.  With money, you can cover up dalliances here and there, but a lover would get found out eventually.  Servants talk.  I have an amazing wife who understands, but I’d be putting her and my family’s reputation in danger.”
	“It’s definitely a lot easier when you can just disappear into the mountains for a few months at a stretch,” he murmurs.  
	“That sounds amazing,” I sigh.  “Why didn’t I think of that?”
	“It’s not an easy life,” he smiles a bit, despite himself.  “But I’d be completely happy with it, if. . . .”  He goes silent a beat.  
	“If?”  I quirk my head.
	“If I were enough for him,” he says at length, with a sigh.
	I feel a twinge of jealousy strong enough to almost overpower my reason in that moment, and make me question whether or not this dalliance could turn into an opportunity.  But some of that is my competitive spirit, I’m sure.  Wanting to show this other man just how goddamn lucky he is, and just how quickly someone more loyal-hearted could take it away from him.
	But the fox is clearly in love, and I remember what that felt like.  And we’re worlds apart, cultures apart, two ships passing in the night, as they say.  And no matter how much he seems to believe I’m this prize of a man oozing with confidence and certainty in myself, it’s only because he doesn’t understand my situation.  He doesn’t know I have absolutely nothing to give anyone, except heartache when the inevitable comes. 
	I’m not at a point in my life where bringing anyone else along for the ride would be kind, or even morally right, especially if it were someone I truly cared about.  That ship sailed long ago. 
	“Well,” I say, chasing away those thoughts and focusing on the present, however fleeting it might be, instead.  I’ve already moved both my hands around behind his back, pouring some of the oil into my palm and slicking it up my fingers.  “I’d be honored to show your ne’er-do-well man how worried he should be.”
	When I press my fingers up beneath his tail, he seems somewhat prepared for it, but he still gives this short little gasp that makes my spine tingle.  It’s been awhile since I’ve heard that sound.
	His tail bobs and twitches as I sink first one, then another inside him to the knuckle.  The oil makes it easier, of course, but he’s also just not fighting me.  Despite our difference in size, he handles it well, although he’s breathing faster now.  
	Insistently, I begin to tug his hips further up my body.  He acquiesces willingly, as he has to just about everything I’ve wanted from him, and soon his chubby little cock is bobbing right in front of my nose.  He must know where I’m going with this, because he groans before I even get my muzzle around him, presumably in anticipation.
	I chuckle at his eagerness, and dive right in.  I’ve never been one to be tentative about having a dick in my mouth, I’ll be honest.  It’s just about one of my favorite things.
	I’m able to take him full to the hilt without much issue, and I make sure to take my time dragging my muzzle back up, feeling his pulse on my tongue.  This time I get more than a sigh from him, the moan the little creature gives is almost begging – and definitely encouraging.  
	Not that I need the encouragement.  I might not be as confident about finding love as the fox thinks, but I am very confident about my skills in this.
	I move my fingers inside him as slowly and carefully as I’m moving my muzzle, changing the angle of both every now and then, searching for the places that’ll make him buckle.  A new lover’s a new voyage, uncharted and unexplored.  I’m not afraid of the challenge, or worried I won’t find my way.  I’m excited.
	Ever since the years I’d spent with Klaus, I’ve kept my claws blunt.  So, I’m able to explore a bit, and curl my touch inside him, rubbing up along the places that seem to make him jolt and jump.  Before long, I’ve found what I’m looking for, and I can taste my success on my tongue, leaking out of him.  He gives an intense moan, his little body straining and pressing back against my touch.  
	I start to move my muzzle faster, actively sucking at his tip each time I drag upwards.  My tongue is never still, cupping his cock and applying pressure.  I feel his own paws coming up hesitantly near my ears, settling instead along my neck, his fingers digging into my fur.  
	I lift my eyes to his, even though I know he can’t see me.  I know he’ll know I’m looking at him.  I let his cock pop out from my muzzle with a short lick, and rumble a quiet, “Go ahead.”
	Given permission, he moves his small hands up over my ears, and right beneath them, holding me there as I take him back in my muzzle.  When I set back to work again, he gives a breathless moan, his fingers rubbing up along the soft edge of my ears, then back down, feeling the curve of my jaw as I move.  He’s hardly the first man who’s ever wanted to play with my ears while I did this.
	His body begins to shiver as I increase my pace, and I can tell by the way he’s tensing when he’s about to come undone.  I can feel his knot slipping out past his sheath, and I’m not a bit daunted.  I work my muzzle down those final two inches, just it emerges completely, and swallow around him, sucking at him in one long, slow motion from his base to his tip.  He stiffens and clenches, crying out as he pours down my throat.  
	For such a small fox, he gives me quite a lot to swallow.  His hands grip the back of my head, and to my surprise, hold me there.  Not that I had any plans on pulling away . . . or that he could overpower me if I wanted to.
	I fight the urge to chuckle, especially considering my mouth’s full.  Just goes to show, you never really know someone until you’re in bed with them.
	When he eventually ‘lets’ me move my head, I lick him clean on the way up, smirking up at him.  He mostly looks overwhelmed, his small chest heaving as he comes down.  I move both hands back up along his hips, and turn us both to the side, letting him keep his legs entangled around mine.  
	I’m still hard as a rock and the smell of his arousal, and the taste of him in my mouth is not helping.  He opens his eyes after a bit of time spent recovering, and if possible, he looks even more hazy-eyed than usual.
	“I don’t . . . get to enjoy that, often,” he says, as if he needs to apologize.  “Hope I wasn’t too . . . pushy.”
	“That’s one of the benefits of being with a stranger,” I wink.  “We get to be someone else for a while.”
	In my case, of course, being anyone but myself when I was with a man was all but essential, for my own safety and my family’s name.  But for the fox, I think this whole thing was more about asserting himself.  In more ways than one.
	“Is there anything you . . .” He pauses, coyly running one of his own claws up my chest, “. . . don’t get to enjoy, often?”
	I eye his own claws, sharp like most of the tribes prefer to keep theirs.  So that’s out.
	He’s got a cute little muzzle, though.  And as much as I’ve enjoyed being inside it, there are other uses it could be put to.
	“Yeah,” I grin.  “I can think of one thing.”
	So, long story short, that’s how I end up on all fours on the edge of the bed, with the fox’s narrow muzzle right where I want it . . . beneath my tail.  And he’s more than happy to oblige, and none-too-squeamish about it, either.  I have to brace myself against the wall near the daybed as his small, molten tongue circles and occasionally presses up inside me, pulling a helpless groan from my muzzle.  
	I’ve never really enjoyed being mounted by another man, not even one I loved.  Being touched beneath my tail had always been a bit of a sore spot for me, considering some of the unfortunate experiences I’d had in the past.  But being touched so gently, and without any shame, makes me feel relieved, somehow.  Like scratching a lifelong itch.
	Not to mention, it feels amazing.  And it’s not something all men are willing to do.
	His paws both easily fit between my legs, one of them rubbing and cupping my balls, the other circled around my hip to stroke my cock, a bit awkwardly.  I can’t blame him for that, or for the fact that he’s having trouble keeping up a good rhythm.  My length barely fits in his paw, for one, and he’s also more than a bit distracted.
	I close my own paw around his, and he seems to get the point, moving his hand away and using it to hold himself up instead, as I set to work where he left off.  My own grip on myself is far more tried and true, and he’s doing more than enough on his end.  
	I know I can ride this out awhile, and I do.  Perhaps it’s a bit selfish, considering how quickly he surrendered for me, but I’m intent on enjoying this for as long as my body can stand it, and that proves to be quite some time.  Bless the fox, he doesn’t get discouraged at all, only increases his efforts as time passes, and the long denial of cresting the final wave only makes it that much more intense when, at length, I allow myself to come.
	Blunt claws or no, I dig the hand I’ve braced against the wall into the wood as I climax, my back arching into my own paw.  The arctic fox’s careful ministrations draw out the whole thing long past the point where I can barely stand it anymore, and eventually I have to gasp at him for relief.  He slowly slips his paw from my balls with one final, gentle squeeze, and a satisfied ‘hmnnnh’.
	I slump to my side and lean my back against the wall, settling in a very undignified, splayed position as I bask in the aftermath.  At some point he settles down in my lap, leaning gently against me, and I loop an arm around him, exhaustedly.
	“Fuck,” I mutter, falling back into my peasant-speak in moments like this.
	“Yep,” he agrees, with a satisfied sigh.
	I’m not sure how long we just lie there, relaxing.  It’s fully night by now, and the candle’s burning low, but it’s probably still too early to sleep.  I’m not even sure if he plans to spend the whole night.  I guess it doesn’t matter for him whether or not he finds his way home in the dark.  Wherever ‘home’ is for him here.
	Eventually though, something does occur to me.  Something I’d meant to do earlier.
	“You clearly bathed before you came here,” I mutter lazily.
	“As did you,” he smirks up at me, nuzzling in against my chest.  “Thanks for that, by the way.”
	“I wouldn’t subject you to dirty sailor dog bits,” I assure him.  “I’d have to know you a lot better before I abused you that way.”
	“I doubt it’d be any worse than dirty coyote bits.”  He tips his ears up towards me.  “What’s your point?”
	“Have you eaten?”  I ask.  “I wasn’t . . . entirely sure how to prepare for your arrival, being as I wasn’t certain what your intentions were, but I thought I should at least try to be hospitable and have something ready for a normal visit, in case that’s all it was.”
	“I had dinner at the inn we’re staying at,” he assures me.  “Comes with our rooming cost, and the innkeep’s wife is a decent cook.”
	“Just dinner?”
	Now he turns to quirk his muzzle at me.  “What else would there be?”
	I give him a light push, and he slowly sits up, letting me to my unsteady feet.  I briefly glance down at my discarded clothing, then think the better of it, stretching out my tail a bit and striding across the room.  I can be nude in my own damn house if I want to, decency be-damned.  
	“Stay put,” I tell him.  “I won’t be but a moment.”
	He gives me an odd look as I head downstairs, but simply gets comfortable on my daybed.  He’s still there when I return, hip cocked slightly as he lies on his side, his tail flicking about idly.  I stop to admire for just a few moments at the way the waning candlelight catches on his remaining white fur, and how his markings trace the contours of his body.
	He sniffs, his ears perking.  I can tell immediately that he’s intrigued, but uncertain.
	“What is that?”  He asks, bemused.  “It smells. . . . “
	I hand him the plate I brought up from downstairs.  There are two forks on it, as well, but I’m honestly not even certain if he’s going to use one.  Do tribals use silverware?
	“Rare delicacy even for me,” I say as I sit beside him again.  “Not that it’s terribly expensive, just . . . a good way to expand your waistcoat, if you know what I mean.  But my wife used to say it’s the only right way to greet company.  Oh, and there’s tea downstairs, too.  Water’s boiling.”
	“Alright, the suspense is killing me,” the fox growls impatiently, sniffing the plate again.  “What is it?”
	“Cake,” I reply, chuckling.  “Uh, like bread, but sweeter-“
	“I know what cake is!” He insists, suddenly seeming a whole lot more excited.  And to answer one of my questions from earlier, he picks up the fork, which he’d been ghosting his hand over.  “And it is terribly expensive, at least where I come from.  I’ve only had it once before, when we were celebrating a really lucrative trapping year.”
	“It’s coconut cake,” I inform him, as he spears a piece.  “Probably not what you had before, but it’s one of the most easy-to-find ingredients in the colony.”
	He’s already eating it before I can explain.  But judging by the way his tail is suddenly furiously wagging, he approves.  I smile a bit and take up the other fork, and we share the piece.  The woman at the bakery gave me a pretty monstrous portion, likely because she recognized who I was, and I’m not looking to over-indulge anyway.  It’s clear that for the fox, this is a real rarity.  
	“You sure you’re not looking to whisk any foxes away?”  He asks after swallowing a mouthful of cake, his expression absolutely enthralled.
	I smirk, and lean down to lick the corner of his muzzle, lingering for just a few moments before pulling up and smiling more genuinely down at him.  Even if he can’t see me, I know he’ll know.
	“If your man doesn’t shape up, you know where I’ll be,” I say.  “But honestly . . . if he doesn’t see what he has in you, he’s a fool.”

	“Hold on with both hands!”  I shout over my shoulder in the coyote's direction, as I leave him where he fell, bleeding in the dirt.  I’m bleeding too, though . . . Puck was right.  His lover was definitely a scrapper. 
I stop and turn a moment.  “Fate is cruel,” I tell him.  “Death comes for all of us eventually, and a grave's a bad place to realize you wanted everything to have gone differently.”
I hope he listens, but at this point, I’ve done all I can do.  And to be honest, it’s hard to give the man sound advice when I know how undeserving he’s been of the fox’s affections.  We talked a lot that night, before he inevitably crept off in the morning hours.  He clearly wanted someone to talk to, and I didn’t mind lending an ear.  It was almost a relief to know someone else’s love life had been as tumultuous as my own.
The bobcat woman is at her friend’s side, and the arctic fox is joining him too, his attention now entirely on his lover.  I have to keep reminding myself that this is the way it should be.  The desired outcome.  The coyote even looks like he’s ready to talk, but I turn my ears away from whatever they’re saying, because it’s no longer my business.
Johannes moves up beside me as I head back towards the lodge.
“Dare I ask?” He mutters as he hands me my coat again.  I continue dabbing my nose with the remains of my cravat, and spit out some blood.  Nasty right hook.
“Eh,” I reply as noncommittally as I can, “It’s about as sordid and sinful as you’re imagining.  My soul is just slightly more damned than it was yesterday . . . I acted in an irresponsible and reckless manner, I should be disgusted with myself . . . etcetera.”
His ears tip back and he gives an uncharacteristic, nervous-sounding throat-clearing noise at that.  “I think you’re being too hard on yourself, sir,” he assures me.  “A dalliance here or there is . . . understandable.  We’re under a lot of stress, and there are worse ways for a man to . . . clear his head.  God forgives the occasional trespass.”
He has to stop at that point, because I’ve stopped, purely to pick my jaw up off the floor.  He looks at me expectantly for a few moments.
“Are you getting soft on me, Johannes?”  I ask, around a disbelieving laugh.
He narrows his eyes, and just like that, the glare has returned.  “I said the ‘occasional trespass’, sir,” he mutters.  “Don’t take those words as carte blanche to buy every man for sale in whatever port we end up in next.”
“I just may,” I smirk.  “Since you’re being so understanding, all of a sudden.  I’m far more afraid of your wrath than God’s, you know.”
He gives a disgusted noise, and walks on, not bothering to turn to face me as he mutters, “Must every word from your mouth be blasphemy?  Honestly sir, I try to be understanding.  I really do.  I know you’re a good man.  But you make it very, very hard.”
“So did he,” I smirk, sauntering up beside him.
“And just like that, my forgiveness is gone,” the wolfhound growls.  “Also my faith in your intellect, sir . . . because that is one of the most childish, tired old wharf jokes out there.”
“I thought it might be new to you.”
“I may have been raised in a church, sir,” he says.  “But I’m still a sailor.”
I glance back at the group of them, the three travelers whose lives only vaguely came to intertwine with my own, of late.  They’re speaking together, fervently in the case of the fox and the coyote, and I can see the bond between them, even from a distance.  It isn’t just about what the two men mean to one another, I realize in that instant.  They’re all close as kin to one another.  Like family.
I glance back at Johannes, and briefly reflect on my own family, an ocean away.  I may never see them again, this war could take us all . . . but they’re there.  My wife and my children love me, and so does the friend walking at my side.  If my chance to find love like the fox has is gone, so be it.  I’m not alone in the world.
And who knows what’s to come?  Life isn’t over until it’s over.