{"id":123,"date":"2010-10-06T00:49:43","date_gmt":"2010-10-05T22:49:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/furry-tales.net\/vixenscratch\/?p=123"},"modified":"2011-02-03T13:21:47","modified_gmt":"2011-02-03T12:21:47","slug":"a-rat-bastard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/furry-tales.net\/vixenscratch\/?p=123","title":{"rendered":"A Rat Bastard"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>People don&#8217;t know me, they assume I&#8217;m some don&#8217;t-give-a-damn punk. It&#8217;s the hair, the piercings, and maybe a little bit the clothes. I don&#8217;t dress in ripped band shirts and jeans full of safety pins, but it <em>is<\/em> enough I have to change when I get to school. I don&#8217;t really mind; in high school it kept people off my back. Certainly wasn&#8217;t my impressive physique; I&#8217;m a scrawny son-of-a-bitch and daylight isn&#8217;t too kind on rat fur at the best of times.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->Club lighting is a whole other matter. I\u00a0can make myself look fucking awesome in a club.\u00a0I drop by one of the clubs, usually All Stripes, about two or three times in a week, unless I got a project due or there&#8217;s midterms or finals or I&#8217;m picking up double shifts volunteering at the shelter clinic or something. When that&#8217;s going down I&#8217;m not going to risk losing a scholarship or a patient for <em>partying.<\/em> I ain&#8217;t that kind of guy. When it&#8217;s not All Stripes, it&#8217;s usually one of the gay clubs downtown; The Pink Pony or Carson&#8217;s. But most of the time, it&#8217;s Stripes. And not just because I can get away with picking someone up and riding them in one of the side rooms.<\/p>\n<p>I was there last a couple days ago. Ran into this <em>sweet<\/em> raccoon on the dance floor, and, you know how it is. If I&#8217;d let that chance slide, I wouldn&#8217;t have gotten it out of my head for <em>months<\/em>. So when he&#8217;d had enough of the dancing, we got us some drinks, and we went off to one of the side rooms \u2014 just people I knew in there, nobody who&#8217;d give a damn and certainly nobody who&#8217;d make a fuss \u2014 and we talked. He was so nervous that whole time, but damn, the gleam in his eyes. He said he don&#8217;t come round there often, and I can well believe that.<\/p>\n<p>Somewhere in all that talking, I came on to him, and he was all for. I mean, we spent probably at least a half-hour just talking, me leaning against him and breathing in his Good Boy cologne, before I even started undoing his fly. The look on his face when I got his cock out was to die for, and the look when I grabbed it with a handful of Slyck gel was even better. Makes me wish I&#8217;d seen his face when I got on his lap, but I ain&#8217;t gonna put my back to the door if I&#8217;m not with some guy I know can keep an eye on it himself. This guy? Wouldn&#8217;t have noticed a herd of elephants stomping in.<\/p>\n<p>It does make me tempted to find him again, not that I know where I&#8217;d start looking. Fucking college town, has to be at least a few thousand guys to go through, and all I&#8217;ve got is his species and first name. Richard. Not exactly something you&#8217;d expect to be able to look up in the phone book.\u00a0Way to be a fucking dumbass, Nathaniel; you&#8217;ve done this casual sex thing a hundred times before, and you <em>still<\/em> go and fall for the mystery raccoon who seemingly came out of nowhere. All that&#8217;s left to do, then, is sit here, eating your lunch and&#8230; sulking&#8230; over&#8230; Damn.<\/p>\n<p>Whether it&#8217;s fate or coincidence or the will of God or whatever, I know that <em>definitely<\/em> is Richard walking down the street outside. He&#8217;s fingering that silver cross he wears, just like he did that night, and he looks&#8230; distraught. I have like half my club sandwich left, and it&#8217;s really too expensive to just leave it here, but if I stay to finish it he&#8217;s probably going to disappear again. Well, fuck that; I wrap the sandwich in a napkin and cram it in my pocket, leave a too-big bill on the table, and am out the door. So what if I have to eat instant noodles for the rest of the week?<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Hey, Richard, wait up!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He does stop, and turns, and looks up. But that&#8217;s not the look I wanted to see on his face; he looks like something between a deer in headlights and a child caught doing something a step up from having his hand in the cookie jar. Is it seeing <em>me<\/em> that makes him look like someone just found him with, I don&#8217;t know, the family dog? And the way he clutches that cross; I&#8217;m almost expecting the metal to warp in his hand. His voice shakes so much I can barely make it out.\u00a0&#8220;Leave me alone.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s my turn to stop dead in my tracks, ears folding back, whiskers drooping. He&#8217;s even more gorgeous out here; the sunlight that&#8217;s so unkind on me\u00a0practically turns his fur silver. I know he&#8217;s younger than me, but damn it, he makes me feel like I&#8217;m back in junior high. &#8220;I&#8230; I enjoyed the other night. I was hoping&#8230;&#8221; Hoping we could do that again, somewhere that doesn&#8217;t call for so much vigilance, somewhere like my pad, so I can see his face as he sinks into me&#8230; I can&#8217;t really say that across the ten feet separating us, out on a public sidewalk, though.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8230;&#8221; His face twists up, and his ears twitch just so. I can tell he&#8217;s lying before he even speaks. He&#8217;s a pretty shitty liar.\u00a0&#8220;I didn&#8217;t.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It still hurts. Twists like a fucking knife in my chest, that&#8217;s what. Put me on a slab and dissect me, and you&#8217;ll find my heart already bleeding, the whole nine yards. &#8220;Richard, I&#8230; please&#8230; can we just talk?&#8221; I sound like some girl from some sobby chick-flick, but that&#8217;s fair. That&#8217;s what I <em>feel<\/em> like.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t want to talk to you.&#8221; That sounds sincere, however. I have to wonder if he wasn&#8217;t just lying to me, but to himself.\u00a0&#8220;You&#8217;ll just talk me into&#8230; It&#8217;s wrong! Don&#8217;t you see that?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>His eyes seek the blackened silver chain disappearing into my shirt, and I oblige, without thinking, by pulling it out. Had that crucifix since I was baptized, but I never believed anything other than God being cool with me being gay. Neither did my parents. I&#8217;m not even really actively religious, we prayed at the dinner table on Sundays and holidays growing up\u00a0and that&#8217;s it,\u00a0but that thing&#8217;s just, you know, part of who I am. &#8220;I&#8217;m sorry, Richard. I really don&#8217;t.&#8221; Something&#8217;s churning in my gut, now, the kind of anxiety you get when you realize you might&#8217;ve\u00a0fucked up <em>bad<\/em> this time. &#8220;Look, you really don&#8217;t want to be having this conversation in the middle of the street, do you? I&#8217;ll walk with you for a bit and we can talk about it; where are you going?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Church,&#8221; he spits, his ears flattening. &#8220;Apologize to Him. I won&#8217;t let you talk me out of that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Oh, yes. You fucked up <em>big time<\/em> this time, Nathaniel. &#8220;I&#8217;m&#8230; sorry.&#8221; Aren&#8217;t those the two emptiest words you ever heard? Even <em>I<\/em> am not sure I mean them. I do, and I don&#8217;t. I&#8217;m so sorry I apparently crossed a line without knowing it, that night, it makes me feel sick to my stomach. I usually have a good feel for these things; I would never intentionally talk anyone into anything like that. But I&#8217;m not sorry I rode his lap, and I suspect some part of him isn&#8217;t, either, because it really was great.<\/p>\n<p>Why didn&#8217;t he say anything, if he changed his mind? I would&#8217;ve stopped; I have before.<\/p>\n<p>But it&#8217;s not that easy, and I know that. Did he know I would&#8217;ve stopped? <em>Could<\/em> he really ask me to stop, as I was stroking his cock? I can&#8217;t blame him for this, so the only person left to blame is myself. I really should&#8217;ve missed the chance.<\/p>\n<p>At least then, I could&#8217;ve enjoyed the what-if.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>People don&#8217;t know me, they assume I&#8217;m some don&#8217;t-give-a-damn punk. It&#8217;s the hair, the piercings, and maybe a little bit the clothes. I don&#8217;t dress in ripped band shirts and jeans full of safety pins, but it is enough I have to change when I get to school. I don&#8217;t really mind; in high school <a href=\"https:\/\/furry-tales.net\/vixenscratch\/?p=123#more-'\" class=\"more-link\">more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[7,8,55,56],"class_list":["post-123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-i-c-q","tag-adult","tag-mm","tag-nathaniel-johnson","tag-richard-slade"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/furry-tales.net\/vixenscratch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/furry-tales.net\/vixenscratch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/furry-tales.net\/vixenscratch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/furry-tales.net\/vixenscratch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/furry-tales.net\/vixenscratch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=123"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/furry-tales.net\/vixenscratch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":124,"href":"https:\/\/furry-tales.net\/vixenscratch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123\/revisions\/124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/furry-tales.net\/vixenscratch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/furry-tales.net\/vixenscratch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/furry-tales.net\/vixenscratch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}