Cynocephalae Eleutherius ("The Posstitute")
Thanks to MightyPH, for his character Duke.

An evening in early Spring. The bitter cold of Winter has gone, but the cool and the damp and the gray weigh upon your world in its place. Gone too, for the time being, is the last light of day.
You find yourself, as is often the case, in a quite disreputable part of town. Desperate for refuge from the steady and cold, but mercifully whisper-light drizzle as the glow of all the signs bounces off the saturated streets and hangs in the air suspended among the fine drops. You duck into an establishment you'd typically consider too fine for your line of work, at least going by the name. Cynocephalae Eleutherius?

You're a journalist, working for The Bond - a highly popular and nationally relevant publication that focuses on the social issues and relationships between humans and anthros, animal-people. Charitably called the Familiarist Community, and formerly uncharitably or increasingly facetiously, Crossers.
You've got a pretty good deal, too, after some particularly well received work about anthros finding love and acceptance in the face of serious disability, and a viral hit digging into the sordid details about how a mouse anthro managed to make his relationship with his human boyfriend work, despite the size difference. Among plenty more. You're just about royalty at The Bond, and it's more than clear. Your contract, in addition to compensation that most in your field would kill for, and access to discretionary funds, to help make private lives a little less private. It also guarantees only your work will be published as Anonymous, as ironically, it's become your identity, as the readers love the aspect of hearkening back to less accepting times with such scandalous content.

Inside, Cynocephalae Eleutherius, or "The Cy" as the prominent branding seems to be proud to call itself, doesn't live up to the image the Latin name conjured in your head. It's a pretty plain bar, certainly, it would be out of place around here if it weren't for the kitschy decorations that play up the Crosser angle, most of which you've seen a million times around here. And from the looks of the clientele, it's clearly on the gay side of things.

Naturally, you had been aware of this place and the history it had accumulated as a canine separatist watering house, turned civil rights hub, turned sterile tourist attraction, turned shuttered derelict. But you had avoided it on the assumption that all its best stories were long past by the time you were around to write, and that its reopening was simply a gimmick that would be as sterile, if not more so than it was before it went under in the first place.

First of all, you had no reason to suspect that a place which had first come to prominence as a haven for canines in taboo straight relationships with humans would either see so many species represented, or as far as you could see, no women would be counted among its patrons. Both make sense, Sure. Obviously such a place would open up to more than just canines, and it's entirely possible you've come in on a gay-oriented night by chance.

But it's also immediately clear that despite the pedigree of the venue and its being at capacity, this isn't a tourist trap or gimmick. They're not playing the reputation up and they're not even selling absurd drinks at an egregious markup. If anything, the place is remarkably understated. Sure, it's bigger than most of the bars and clubs nearby thanks to the expansions it's had over the years, but other than that it's just about the safest and most typical a Familiarist bar gets. Gently raunchy decorations with tired jokes and colorful lights. Faded affirmations and slogans from when it had to be an "eminently respectable place."

But despite that, the bar is full and vibrant. No one's distracted by the weight of history. Humans and anthros joking and laughing, flirting, buying each other drinks, playing games and making bets. But in a corner alcove, as far from the front door as possible behind a curtain of beads, you can tell there's a figure. Maybe human, maybe anthro. Who's sitting idly, alone, among all the energy and enthusiasm.
Maybe it's the new ownership keeping an eye on things without drawing attention. Maybe it's just a prank set up for overeager first timers to make fools of themselves in front of the rest of the bar in good fun. But maybe it's a good story waiting to be teased out?

Fully expecting the obscured figure in the suspiciously dark, enclosed alcove in an otherwise bright and open bar to be the kind of gimmick that sets off an alarm when you pull aside the curtain to find a mannequin and a sign calling you a nosy pervert or something, for the whole place to have a laugh at. that'll at least get the other patrons sympathetic to your presence here, which might help you squeeze a story of your typical caliber out of a venue the entire community and even the other authors at The Bond in particular have covered from top to bottom.

But as you approach, it's clearly not a gimmick, there's a camera over the alcove, which is evidently a recent addition, and a clear, confident, masculine voice, but without a hint of harshness reaches right through you from behind the curtain. "You got business or a recommendation? Or are you just new here and don't know what's good for you? Sure looks like it."

You respond, "Uh, all three, I think. I couldn't help but notice your arrangement over here, I'm a journalist with The Bond, by the way, I was hoping to find something interesting here, and I haven't seen anything like this in any of the other bars around here, so maybe there's a little blood left to be squeezed from this particular stone after all."

The man behind the curtain is confused. "Hehh? That's only two. Who recommended you? I didn't have any scheduled engagements tonight, last I checked."

Well, "The Cy's" reputation precedes it, of course.

He laughs, "I meant a recommendation for me, not the damn bar, ya jag."
"Guess I gave up the game already, I might as well talk your ear off as ya wish. I could use fresh company for once. I'll have to scoot'cha back out if the situation calls for it though, unless you can beat the going rate. My time is money, after all. Come on in."

And as you pull aside the curtain, holy shit. This guy is as beautiful as he is strange. Like a Snow Leopard, but... stretched. Perfectly clear, ice blue eyes were the first to strike you, pointy black ears contrasting a grayish-beige face leading to a long, white muzzle with long, crooked, scruffy whiskers. A spray of coarse white hair falls over his face and continues down his back as it becomes softer and takes on the same grayish tone, but with streaks of coarse white spread throughout. He's wearing a soft orange sweater, the sleeves and waist are rolled up giving it an undulating, scrunched appearance drawing attention to his belly... and no pants. Yeah, this is a story alright.

"The subtle half's Opossum. Mum's contribution, believe it or not. Yes, shotgun wedding. Healthy marriage, actually, last I knew. This isn't their fault. Getting all of that out of the way first. Standard procedure with the Joh- Clients these days, actually." "Call me Duke. For now I'll let'cha wonder whether that's an alias, nickname, or my real name."

You hand Duke your business card, when you first had these designed, you almost understood where the characters in American Psycho were coming from. Your name's on there, but it's small compared to the branding for The Bond, and of course "Anonymous" in nice embossed, shiny emerald green text.

Duke wasn't expecting that. "Anonymous? That's you? Just you? The ownership here are big fans, I swear he keeps your print edition viable. Distributes 'em for free to patrons. Has been as long as The Bond's been in print, except during the hiatus before Danny took over, obviously." "You've written about some acquaintances of mine. Small world. Though I guess in this community there's bound to be some overlap, huh? I guess you do come recommended after all."

You get to questions. "So Duke, can you give me a rundown of your situation first, easy stuff. Age, how long you've been doing this, how your life's going, that sort of thing."

Duke answers, "Well, I'm 27, I've been doing this for a little under nine years now. Been homeless for about twelve. And, off the record, The Cy has been accommodating me and my work in rough weather and covering my ass for almost exactly two years at this point, since about a month before Danny's relaunch, this was his idea, he wanted to help me actually make something of myself. At first the plan was all above board, for a couple months, I was just a male stripper."

"But it just couldn't make enough money, not in a place like this. People come here to find each other, not ogle something they'll never get and fling bills on a stage. This isn't Saanvi's for God's sake. It can't be, and it shouldn't be. And to be perfectly honest, as fucked up as it sounds, it felt dirtier and more hollow than my current line of work."

You ask for clarification, "Couldn't make enough money? How? You're more or less living here, right?"

"I'm up to the brow whiskers in debt. Somewhere around 18 grand. Bad choices, predatory car loan from a shady lot, I still use the credit card my parents got me before I had to clear out. I can't even fuckin' default or declare bankruptcy because I can't afford the lawyer, and even if I just stopped paying and let it go, I'd never make it back. Officially, I have no income, no fixed address, and I'd never be able to get credit ever again."

"Even without rent, and the vast majority of my meals paid for, the "upmarket fare" and intermittent work still aren't enough. The interest is killing me. I don't even have a single pair of pants that goes with this sweater, and I can't charge what I need to stay afloat looking like a slob. I've tried."

As dire as Duke's situation is, you have an idea. "Listen Duke, I think The Bond and I can help you out here. When we publish your story, we can ask the readers to donate to get you out of trouble, out of this life. With my discretionary funds, that should be enough for you to at least refinance and get ahead of the interest and pay your debt down. I hope I'm not being too forward in saying this, but you're too special to be living like this. My jaw just about hit the floor when I moved that curtain. You're a beautiful specimen who can't possibly deserve such rotten luck."

A smile creeps across Duke's face, and after a moment of obvious struggle, he can't contain his laughter. "Ahh, oh man. The crick must be stocked, cause I keep fucking catching them." "ZZZPT," as he motions a rod and reel. "I'm sorry, that's not nice. I tend to have that effect on people, it's a big contributor to my self-esteem, I have to admit." "It usually takes more than one session and at least a couple sales of what can't be bought to get there though."
"If we're going there already, you're not half bad yourself, 'Anon.' You mind if I call you that?
"Fuck saying the whole word, it doesn't feel like a name. 'Anon's' an old-timey exclamation of some sort, isn't it? A real word?"

"Anyway, no. I can't accept charity to get out of this. I couldn't live with myself if I did. I'd sooner go crawling back to my parents for help, roll those dice, or just fucking curl up and die, equally miserable, before I'd take charity. Let's just say I have a bad relationship to the concept and leave it at that for now."
"Later comes when I trust you've got the interests of this establishment and myself in mind. So to speak. This is all the time and information you'll get out of me for free, and I don't sell words. Next time you're here, you're no different from anyone else, if that's not okay with you, unfortunately we're done. Which would be a real shame."

As you leave The Cy, you find the rain has stopped and the first hint of warmth is blowing in on the breeze, and the whole way home you're caught between feeling like a fool for how quickly you let yourself get personally invested in Duke, how much he got into your heart in such a short time, and how right it felt for that to happen, how hard it was to keep him out of your heart.
You've done this for years, and covered both the heartwarming and the raunchy, the noble and the lewd, straight and gay. Those who'd prefer to be called Familiarists and those who think the term Crosser suits them just fine. And it's always been possible for you to keep some distance from the people you write about. Sure, sometimes you'd get to thinking of some of them as friends and be thankful you're not the kind of journalist who's expected to be impartial, but you'd never get ahead of yourself and speak for your employer or offer the people you're writing about a say in what gets printed. Especially not when you didn't even know they existed a couple hours ago.

How did this happen? Was Duke's story that sad that your heart couldn't help but soften? Are you just subconsciously so sexually -and romantically- frustrated from your line of work that a pretty face, shapely ass and a juicy sheath and balls, all attached to a charming personality left you acting foolish? Whatever it is, you definitely have a story and it'll definitely be ready and in award-winning shape especially quickly, because you're more motivated than you can remember ever being, getting the greenlight tomorrow will be the hard part by comparison.

Once you get home, your mind is off of it all as you wind down and finish up the last few things you need to do for the day, you almost laugh at yourself for letting it get into your head. But just as you think you're clear and lay down to get some sleep, another laugh, someone else's, echoes from a direction you can't pick out, a direction that might not even exist.

It's Duke's voice, and that laughter doesn't relent until you finally surrender and let visions of him - in poses you've never even seen, and words you've never heard out of him swim through your mind. "Oh, hey. Look who's back. I knew you couldn't resist." "Why didn't you pull out your wallet and spend every last cent on as much as it could buy? You know I wanted it too." "You can save me, Anon. I'm just too proud to admit it. Please, help me. I'll love you forever." All of them and more build up into a cacophony and the words themselves stop making sense. You grip the bed and writhe, pushed to the point that all the stimulation is hard to distinguish from pain. Your eyes slam open, you find yourself in a cold sweat, and you wonder. What did Duke do to you?

Or maybe just what the Hell it is that you've done to yourself?

The next day, on much less sleep than you had planned to get, you have to pitch the story about Duke to your human boss, Tim, and the editor, a bovine woman named Miranda (She is NOT a COW.)
Trying to keep things only as specific as needed, on the assumption that The Bond doesn't want negative attention on a longtime partner, or alternatively, doesn't want you blowing the lid on something they already know about and want to keep under wraps.
You explain that you happened upon a potential story in the Familiarist bar scene last night, an upscale place has made room for prostitution.
Tim sighs, and gives a glance to Miranda. Shit, they're bracing for something they don't want to hear?
You try to get ahead of the problem and clarify that you were able to get some insight on the situation, just by asking questions. Your reputation, and the reputation of The Bond are definitely paying off in that regard. We've got to cover the uncomfortable stuff too, right? There's already enough for one article, not a big story, but something worth the space it'll take up for sure.

Tim justifies his response, "Oh, no. There's no problem, son. You're fine, we definitely want the story, we know exactly who and where you're talking about, It's just that we already had the story on our radar and were saving it for a tight quarter and a writer we felt deserved a slam dunk. But we're not going to turn down a winner any time of year, and we're not going to tell you which stories you can and can't write, you do too much good work for us.

Miranda elaborates, "Of course we knew, The Cy has been a close partner to us here at The Bond for longer than anyone in this room has been here."
Tim interjects, "Technically that's not true, there was nothing in writing until my second year here. They were buying up the majority our copies for a few years before that, but we weren't giving them a discount."

You establish that Duke is resistant to sharing more information without money changing hands and services being rendered and is not interested in charity from The Bond, its employees, or its readers.

"We can work with that, believe it or not. We've got anthro employees who need a way to break out. They might have an easier time gaining Duke's trust." Miranda suggests.

No, you can figure something out for yourself, you already hit it off so well with Duke already, after all. He was a joy to work with, you'd hate to have to find yourself something else to work on.

"Oh really?" Miranda smirks. "I don't think I've ever seen you so motivated about a story, Mr. Anonymous."
Tim doesn't even try to hide his smile. "Well, we can't encourage you to break the law. But maybe raising your discretionary funds and issuing them in cash could help change our subject's mind." Tim's expression becomes serious, "And maybe by the time it's all said and done, kid. You won't be one of the few odd ones out around here."

"Now that the business matters are out of the way, and while we're all here, let's discuss the angle you're going to take on this story. Just so we're all on the same page and we don't have any surprises like the size mismatch piece."
Tim glares over at Miranda, and she immediately defends herself.
"Hey, that story worked out great. There's a reason we don't attach a name to these stories. The audience wants a little bit of the risque these days. Cutesy romance and evasive language wouldn't have been such a hit. We all know you can find all the vulgar details of that stuff on the internet. But people turn to us because we get down to how people are actually living their lives, both without fetishistic exaggeration or gratuitousness and without pretending everything's holding hands and pecks on the cheek. We cut through the gimmicks. It's perfectly valid and respectable way to tell a story." Miranda is becoming impatient, and has never liked being accused of sensationalizing for the sake of sensationalizing. "Ugh, anyway, let's get on with the pitch already."

It looks like this is going to be a story that persists for at least a few issues, but you never know, something could go wrong, Duke could get himself kicked out of The Cy, or the law could catch a whiff of what they're doing and the whole thing'll be blown, especially after you draw attention to all of this. You know for sure prostitution is happening in the seedier places, you've seen it before, while you were covering such places for other stories. But the fact that The Cy is sticking its neck out for one guy is too big of a part of the story to just obfuscate.

Do you admit it's a respectable place and encourage the rumor mill at the risk of it actually making the right guess? You can't do that. You'd be just short of implicating The Bond itself with how entangled it is to The Cy. And it's not exactly unlikely the connection would be made. The Cy is a popular place and if people are on the lookout, they're going to start speculating on Duke's "office," regardless of how the owner or the staff justify it. So you're going to have to toss out the "prostitution where you'd least expect it" angle and pretend it's some no name, red-light dive.

Then, there are the matters relating to Duke's identity. An "unnamed, male Snow Leopard-Opossum hybrid," even in a city this big, might still only refer to Duke, and he'll get picked out because of that, and even if it doesn't - that's a small number of innocent people who would get caught in the commotion as you'd never seen nor heard of one before Duke.
If you call him just an Opossum, you'll be accused of sensationalizing a disadvantaged person and community by validating a stereotype. So Snow Leopard it has to be.

Miranda remarks, "Are you sure you're not being overly cautious? We won't have much of a story if all these guardrails are up and you can't manage to tease something great out of Duke."

This offends Tim. "Ethics come first here, Mrs. Burton. You know that. We have a responsibility to the people this publication serves. I know we've both been holding onto this story, but as far as our "Anonymous Contributor" here is concerned, he wandered in on a curious situation that might not be the right thing to cover. That's the kind of character I'm proud to staff this publication with, and it's the kind of character the old guard would have been proud of too."
Tim would know, he worked under the founders of The Bond. He earned his way to the top, and is completely committed to the mission of supporting the world where humans and anthros overlap.
"I'd rather have no story at all than one that hurts the reputations of our work, our partners, or our audience and community. If there's something we can print, that's great, it'll do good for everyone to bring compassionate attention and the power of a personal struggle to an issue that doesn't get discussed enough, but if it doesn't work out, we're not desperate Miranda. It'll be fine. Go ahead and get started on what you can, if it takes another interview or two to get something to work with, that's completely acceptable. We'll talk about this again as it develops."

Miranda concedes, "Of course, sir. I apologize, my instincts from tabloid work can be hard to suppress when a story's too exciting." Hard to supress is an understatement, and you know first hand that with Miranda Burton 'too exciting' can sometimes mean 'anything worth covering at all' "I'll need something to run by the rest of my team before we decide whether or not to continue, though."

You put together the best summary you can muster of the information you have. The words come to you easily as you're especially motivated and invested.

Somewhere, in a shady place, a public house of ill repute, that yet turns a blind eye to him out of compassion. In a darkened corner sits "Baron" a Snow Leopard left with no choice but to ply the primordial trade, half his life spent on the street, a third of it spent debasing himself just to barely survive, wracked with debt and personal issues he keeps close to his chest. He feels he has a moral or personal obligation to refuse charity and will accept no unconditional help. His character, his heart, they are good. He's not caught up in drugs or alcohol or any more of a hedonist than the reader may consider themselves. Just tragically down on his luck, just waiting to climb his way back up. And if you can help it, yourself and The Bond are determined to help make that happen without forcing him to compromise. You don't quite know how yet, but you hope he's willing to open himself up in a way he isn't presently used to, so you can help in the only way he's left available to you. A call for compassion, to the audience of The Bond, and maybe even the wider world, too.

You submit your work, and you're left waiting for a while as it must be controversial for some reason or another. But the green light comes down and you're cleared to head back to Cynocephalae Eleutherius for a second interview session, and they've handed you an unconditional $200 in discretionary cash, per session, for as long as the interviews stay productive. That's four times the money you're usually allocated in a month to get the shy or the busy talking and it's usually in the form of a handful $10 gift cards for gas and fast food.
This is a bigger sign of trust than you've ever gotten out of your employer, and that's not for some marked lack of trust up to this point either. You can't let everyone down, it seems like they're all in your corner this time, and it would be a shame to waste that resounding and unanimous support.

With your preliminary work done, you get everything in order for your next interview session with Duke, and more. You know what's coming and the parts of you that are excited for it are definitely not winning out over the parts of you that have moral objections and fears of consequences for all involved should something go wrong enough. And most of all, you just feel bad that someone as beautiful as Duke has had to do this so much in his life.
You return to The Cy under much nicer conditions, getting there is not as wet or cold as it was the other day, which is nice.
When you get inside, it's just as packed as it was last time, and you're beginning to suspect you weren't just here on a themed night. This is definitely a gay-oriented establishment. And while you obviously can't tell for sure, it doesn't seem to be a place for quick hookups either. You recognize some of the same standout anthros as before. A big Rhino with a distinctive scar on his arm, a lop eared rabbit with a cute pattern on his ear, and several more. But they're not paired off, and not all of them are even interacting with humans at the moment. The Cy is a normal bar that happens to cater to gay humans and anthros looking to mingle with each other. Which makes it all the stranger that they've got a bespoke setup for a prostitute just sitting in a corner. You decide you don't want to risk getting pointed out for beelining back to Duke, if he's an open secret, and you don't want anyone wondering what you're doing if he's not. So you observe the crowd for a while, and notice another patron dip into Duke's alcove. Looks like you'll be waiting.

Conveniently, there's a Golden Retriever in a polo and slacks watching the bar and the floor. That should be Danny, and it would probably be good to get his side of the story about the situation, if he's even willing to talk about it during operating hours.
He notices you approaching surprisingly quickly "Hey bud! Can I help you with something? I'd usually have to ask you to find one of the other staff, but I've got time right now." You get as far as telling him you're with The Bond before he responds. "You're the one covering our "Tenant," right? Great kid, eh, maybe not so much "kid" anymore. Either way, we're doing everything he'll let us do for him. I guess he's busy, but I can answer some questions for you, make sure you're not wasting your time."

He has a point, and you get to asking while he's answering. "This is a pretty unusual arrangement, how exactly did this come about?"
Danny answers, "Would you believe it, Duke was living in a sad little tarp tent next to the storage units on the side of the building. This was when I was just getting ready to take over the business. My uncle had just finished paying off the back taxes so I could get this place running again. Trusted I could make it work where he didn't. The original market for this place, straight canines and humans, had dried up. They go to normal bars or just meet online now. My uncle tried to play up the historical aspect to salvage it. Didn't work out, but that's beside the point. Duke was here, down on his luck, a singular specimen and didn't fall into most of the typical pitfalls of those in his situation. We tried to set him up as a dancer, but there wasn't enough demand. We had already set up the private space though, so we just let him stick around. We consider it giving back to the community. Oh, uh... not in the way that sounds. Haha." Danny is clearly embarrassed by that 'mistake,' even though you hadn't noticed anything wrong with it.

You reassure Danny, "Don't worry about it, the story's not using real names, and we're not implicating your business in anything untoward. We're not a tabloid. Even if you did mean something else by that, it wouldn't make it to print. And that's not just because you happen to be good for The Bond. We'd do the same for anyone else."

He insists, "Either way, I meant it. We don't have an ulterior motive in this. We tried to do more for Duke, but he won't take anything he hasn't earned. It was a whole thing getting him to accept the room here at all. He's only inside when he has an arrangement or the weather's too bad to tolerate." Danny looks past you, over your shoulder, and you turn to look too. "Shoot, the bar's getting swamped, I should probably be helping with some orders right now. If you've gotten everything out of me you needed?" Actually, yeah. Danny's been pretty helpful, so you let him go.

Good timing, too. Duke's "client" is just shuffling back out. You consider stopping him and getting his comment. For a moment, then you think better of it. He's probably trying to go unnoticed, given the whole "massively illegal conduct" thing. Not to mention it's just embarrassing to come into a place like this and settle for paying for something that could be earned the right way, right here, with a little patience. You make a mental note to ask if Duke usually gets repeats or just sets up his clients elsewhere. Or maybe he's just that good.

Once the client's out of the picture, you finally approach Duke's "office." As you do, you hear a "thunk" and the sound of wood sliding against wood. Strange. Duke has already seen you on the camera and clearly wasn't expecting you so soon. "Oh hey, It's the "Anonymous Author" from The Bond! I was hoping you'd be back. It was nice talking to you. It's a mess back here though, so unless you're up for that, you're gonna have to give me a minute to redd up."
Great. More waiting. You shouldn't complain though. Your employer's paying top dollar for you to get your dick handled, and you didn't even have to pretend it was for something else, and you're still getting your normal pay on top of that, too. You aren't waiting long in any case as he only took a few minutes to get everything in order. And you hear the wooden sound again. "Alright, I'm ready for ya. Come on in."
However, you barely get seated before Duke admits his suspicion, "So, just making sure, I know given the circumstances this is unlikely, but are you here trying to give me - or the nice people graciously giving me a place to stay - a hard time? Cracking down. Maybe intending to write unfortunate things?"

Of course not. Hurting The Cy would hurt The Bond. And even beyond that, you doubt the audience The Bond has cultivated would be happy to know you caused the most important establishment in the community, that's only just gotten back on its feet - or paws as the case may be - to be shut down again. Or that you kicked a guy just as far down on his luck as he could possibly be, while he was down. That wouldn't go over well either. And honestly, if you were trying to incriminate people, what he's already told you plus the information Danny volunteered would probably have been more than enough to cause trouble.

"Alright, Fair enough." He says, as he bends over to the wall and slides a hidden panel out of the way. Revealing a tunnel or crawlspace of some kind. "You probably already know this, but this used to be the secret escape route from back when this place was liable to be raided. It connects to one of the storage units on the side of the building, where I've been conducting a lot of my business these days. Eventually, it ended up as a gimmick and they'd make a big deal out of it every anniversary and show people around. Officially, Danny didn't like that and wanted this place to stand on its own, so he 'discontinued the tunnel and converted the other side into an apartment.' It was just a cover so I could live in there for a while. I was even paying a little bit of rent. But doing things above board wasn't even covering my interest payments after the initial enthusiasm wore off. And if I wasn't going to be doing things the right way, it was probably smart to keep it off the record going forward, so I'm only back there when I have work now. That's a freebie, 'cause it mostly wasn't about me. Anymore'll cost ya."

Duke smiles and motions you through. It's really more of a weirdly shaped door than a tunnel, because the room's right on the other side, but it's not much of one. Uninsulated walls of the same old faded brick as the exterior of the building. A single light in a bare-minimum fixture that clearly wasn't original to the building, even as old as it obviously was - and an old cast iron basin with a simple spigot. But there's at least a king bed with a decent enough looking mattress, though you suspect it's not as innocent as it looks. Other than that, there's not much in here aside from a chair which looks a lot like it belonged to a dining room set that it's long since been separated from and a flimsy folding table you'd see at a family gathering like a Christmas party or something.
Duke paid rent for this at some point? Then again, he wasn't in any position to be picky. And you supposed much worse existed somewhere in the world.

Duke takes off his sweater and sits down on the mattress, he's in surprisingly good shape. From the waist up he's lean and there's just a slight hint of tone. Not exactly muscular, but he's definitely not delicate or weak, despite the long hair and pretty face, and the admittedly impressive ass you've been trying - and occasionally failing - to politely ignore up to this point. Thick, dark fur goes from just below his shoulders to just before the elbow, giving way to finer, velvet like fur that resembles long fingerless gloves. His striped tail, luxurious and fluffy, is as at least as long as his leg, and could credibly be slightly longer if you actually bothered to measure.

Duke laughs, "You're staring holes through me here, and you're still trying to play the gentleman averting his eyes? Just go ahead and look, bud." He spreads his legs a little bit wider and brushes the soft pubic fluff out of the way.
And... honestly, you're a little bit disappointed. He has a humanoid dick and it isn't even especially big. The foreskin is nice though, tight and silky, the same gray color as most of him. The pink head just barely pokes through.
Duke can tell your jaw isn't exactly dropping, "Oh, you actually care? Don't get many of those. Don't worry. I'm a grower, makes it all the way to five. Unfortunately, if you were hoping for "special features," nope. When I got the talk, my dad told me I was lucky, I wouldn't scare off any girlfriends. I can only assume he was speaking from experience, or something like that."

It looks like the interview's going to have to wait until after you incriminate yourself. You ask, "So. How is this going to work?"
"Oh, uh, sorry, I usually rattle off the 'wine list' first thing. I forgot I never told you." Duke admits. "The quick stuff I usually do back in the booth, handies and feet stuff under the table for 20 and 40, respectively. The curtain's enough to make getting caught unlikely, and that's about all I'll do for new clients. But since we're already back here, and I trust you a hell of a lot more than the average guy on account of your reputation, I'll let you skip to the fun stuff. Unfortunately for you, I've already had an unusually successful night, and it wouldn't be smart for me to keep pushing it. You can get the "Bravo Juliet" for a hundred, if you want. That's with a little bit of a discount for the inconvenience."

You interject, "Bravo Juliet? You have family in the military or something, Duke?"

"Yeah, actually, Pap-Pap was Air Force. He tried his best to get me interested in doing the same. But that's not why I call it that. The joke is that it's what you'll be saying when I'm through with you. I can't claim credit on that, it came from one of them old chain e-mails. Dirty old bastard thought it was the funniest thing in the world and would repeat the joke any chance he got like it was his idea. He probably still does, knowing him."

Duke pauses, you can't tell if he's waiting for you to say something or if he's just trying to think of what to say next himself. "Oop, you almost got me talking your ear off. You're too damn easy to talk to, or I'm just too fuckin' starved for people who care. I guess there's a reason you're a professional nebnose, digging into people's private lives..."

"...Or. Maybe I just needed an excuse to talk about all of this myself." He adds, under his breath.
Realizing just how vulnerable he's made himself, not to mention showing some rough edges he hadn't meant to yet, Duke clears his throat and resumes suppressing his natural dialect. "I mean it this time, you're not getting any more out of me unless we do business first. This is your last chance to back out. No judgement."

It surprises you just how hard Duke is trying to convince you out of paying him for sexual favors, given that he seems to have arbitrarily permitted himself no other options in life. You wonder aloud, "Do you do this to everyone, Duke? I'd think you'd have an easier time digging yourself out of that hole you're in if you'd let impulse purchases be impulse purchases, so to speak."

Duke refuses to respond.

You're sure about this, you pull five of your $20s out of your wallet. "No. I'm not backing out. I want you to do this. And I'll tell you the truth, it's not just for the story. I was sure about this when I walked in the door. I was sure about this from the moment I left the office. I was sure about this when I pitched your story today. I was sure when I woke up this morning. I was sure as I was walking out the door the last time you saw me. The last time I wasn't sure Duke, was before you turned down the crowdfunding idea. And even then, I admit. I was absolutely considering it. I'd be surprised if you didn't already know that when I was immediately willing to go to bat for you after speaking to you for all of five minutes. Hell, if you insist on me embarrassing myself, I could go into detail about all the things that flashed through my head out of some dark corner as soon as I laid eyes on you. As soon as I knew the deal, some irrational part of me wanted to rip my wallet open and hand you everything I had, even the fucking grocery points card, to take as much as you were offering. Is that confident enough for you, Duke?"

Your honesty and graphic detail have surprised him. "Uh, yeah. A normal 'yes' would have been plenty, but I can't say that didn't stir something in me. I can already tell you're going to be a fun one, "Anon." I had a buddy look that up for me, by the way. It turns out it just means "Hurry up." Which is appropriate, because you need to fuckin' hurry up and get those pants off. 'Cause you've managed to make this personal for me."

You undo your belt and sit in the chair. Duke's so tall that kneeling won't be enough.
Duke tugs down your pants to find you already rock hard, "Oh, thank God. There's no catch just yet."
What does he mean by that? "You're just checking so many boxes for me right now, I thought there had to be a catch. You wouldn't have much, or you'd have such a monster, I'd have to prepare for it like I did back when I worked those anthro dance clubs. The second horse made it clear I was gonna have to stick to humans if I wanted to survive. Anyway, tail or no tail?"

Tail, you guess. You do like his tail. Nothing he can do with it to ruin this, right?

Duke's tail bends up and swishes along your face and pokes you in the chest as he kneels to meet your dick. His long, flat, wet tongue lolls out of his open mouth to show you what you're in for. He actually has more tongue than you have length, so the tip of his tongue folds on itself against your balls.
Duke has impressive control over his tongue, as he manages to slicken everything you've got without actually taking even a little bit into his mouth. He folds and curls around you in ways you didn't even think were possible, and his tail resumes its assault, poking, prodding and caressing you as if it had a mind of its own. It's a two front campaign of stimulation, and even though you know just this would never take you over the edge, you know for sure you've had actual orgasms that didn't feel as good as this does right now.

Duke finally relents on the lingual ministrations and graciously grants you access to his mouth.
His mouth is as long and narrow as it looks. You're as far in as you can go, and you can tell you're nowhere close to Duke's throat. You don't have as much clearance to his teeth on either side though, which has you momentarily concerned before the suction draws his immaculately soft cheeks in to provide a barrier in conjunction with his tongue wrapping around the bottom of your shaft.
His icy blue eyes make contact with yours, and for a split second you feel like something is wrong, before that feeling is distracted away by another caress of Duke's tail and he begins to move.

What Duke's achieving is almost entirely unknown to you. You've had "real" sex that wasn't so powerful. It makes sense this beats the only girlfriend you've ever had, you were really only going through the motions with her.
You were gay and didn't realize it at the time. What's really a shock is that this is knocking on the experience that did make you realize it. That matchmaking service you covered knew you better than you knew yourself. Hell of a demo, until now, you always thought it was too bad the sweet tiger guy wasn't looking for a relationship.

Duke seems to be, honest to God, tuned into exactly what you're feeling somehow. He knows exactly when to slow down and when to use his tail to distract you in order to prolong the experience. It shouldn't surprise you, he's been doing this his whole adult life. But even that doesn't seem like long enough to explain how he's so perfect.

He finally relents with the tail distractions, and takes up a speed and rhythm that can actually grant you relief. In keeping with everything else about Duke, it's nearly transcendental. Your body gives Duke as much as it can, and what feels like more, he sucks you clean and pulls back to open his mouth and show you his handiwork. Which, as expected, he swallows without complaint. You hadn't noticed, but evidently, Duke was getting something out of this too, as evidenced by his sticky hand and the modest glob of his own exhalation on the floor in front of him.

In a wavering, breathless voice, "Hey, you wouldn't happen to be the kind of guy to get your kicks outta kissing me through the taste of your own cum, would 'ya? That sounds pretty good to me right now, but no pressure."

Honestly, that sounds pretty good to you too, "Yeah, that's no problem. I'm up for that."
Duke stands up, and in the process you get a look at his mostly-erect cock, still oozing and dribbling onto the floor in a lewd and vulgar display. He's definitely a grower, but there's no chance he's only five inches or less. He was selling himself short. Duke grabs your face and bends down to kiss you. It takes some effort, but you both find a position that's agreeable to both of you. And once you do, you realize just how special this all is. The unmatched geometry of your mouths all but forces you into a passive role as your tongue can do almost nothing compared to Duke's. He gets impunity to explore every surface of your mouth with his dexterous tongue and you're all but pinned in place in comparison. You don't hate it.

Under normal circumstances, you'd have reservations about doing that with someone you don't know well. But under normal circumstances you'd have reservations about letting a guy you only just met for the first time a couple days ago suck your dick in the first place. Under normal circumstances you'd never pay for that even if the former were the case somehow. What was different with Duke that it took so little to get you to act so far out of character? Was he really just that hot that
Right now, you'd do almost anything for Duke, you're thinking of just opening your home up to him unconditionally, maybe have him live with you. The thought crosses your mind of taking out a large enough personal loan to pay off Duke's debt and set him on the right path. You want to be his hero. But maybe you should start out smaller. Maybe you should more concerned with cutting more sodium out of your diet if this is something you'll be doing regularly.

Duke breaks the kiss, and you take the opportunity to mention the other half of the money. "I actually have $200 here. I was planning on spending all of it tonight, but I'm going to hazard a guess and say you're probably not interested in taking a 100% tip, right?"

"You'd be right." Duke answers. "But since we're going to be doing a bunch of talking anyways, and I get the feeling you'll insist on doing something for me, why don't we take this somewhere else besides this miserable little shoebox. There's a 24 hour diner not too far from here. It's been years since I've had a good old American breakfast and it would be nice to get the chance without setting myself back. Over the years, I've been wined and dined and put up in decent hotel rooms a few times. But more than anything, I'd be happy to get in spitting distance of normal for once to know if I even have a place in "normal." to get back to. But I couldn't just admit that to most of the guys I deal with. I worry a lot of them would go away if they knew where I came from and that I'm not quite the kind of person I usually carry myself as. I'm not the refined and sultry urbanite you might have initially mistaken me for. What I am is a native of one of those million old dead factory towns in the middle of Nowhere, Pennsylvania. A particular kind of hick-at-heart. And damn it. I think it would do me a lot of good to stop fighting that for at least a little while. I already know you're protecting my identity in your work, so I trust you not to go and kill the illusion on me by blabbing about it where you shouldn't."

"Give me a minute to get cleaned up, then we'll head out, okay?" Duke goes over to the basin, it's supplied by what looks like an outdoor spigot, and as he turns it on, it sounds for a moment like the entire wall it's attached to groans from the pressure. He definitely does not get hot water in here.

Duke tosses you a damp rag, "Just in case you need it, Anon. And if it's not a problem, would you mind getting that mess I left over there?"
You wipe most of Duke's spit off of yourself, then fix your pants and do as he asked.

Duke finishes cleaning himself and takes a suitcase that was tucked out of the way on the other side of the room. He sets the suitcase on the bed and opens it to retrieve a pair of old weathered jeans and a plain black hoodie you can't see fitting him properly. He neatly folds up the sweater he was wearing earlier and puts it away.

It might just be the bias of novelty because you've never actually seen him wearing pants at all until now, but the jeans really suit his figure and fit well.
The same can't be said for the hoodie. It fits his torso and arms well, but the hood has absolutely no chance of being functional on account of his long neck.

You leave the storage unit through the actual door, out into the alley to the side of the bar. And Duke's demeanor changes immediately. His typically confident posture replaced with a slightly hunched, almost nervous one. Maybe he's just not interested in being seen, There's almost no chance he wouldn't be at risk of being called out if someone did see him leaving a secluded place with you. "That diner I was talk'n about is just a couple'a streets over, Anon. Let's go." You don't know if you're just paying closer attention, but it sounds like he's even speaking differently. The vowel in "Anon" definitely sounded more like an "ah" this time instead of an "o" like the other times he said it. That's something you probably wouldn't have noticed if it wasn't for the fact that he brought attention to the word and seems to be remarkably committed to calling you that, even though your name was also on that business card you gave him. You've noticed a few things Duke's said that sounded strange, or that you hadn't heard before. But this is different.

It's still cold and wet outside, so you both hurry over to the diner. It turns out it's actually a small local place, and not a chain, which is a nice surprise.

You get inside and get seated. This is clearly the kind of establishment that's just barely keeping its doors open. Discolored ceiling tiles stained by leaks in the roof. The vinyl cushions of the booths starting to show cracks. That sort of thing.

It doesn't take long before your server, an older pheasant lady whose name tag reads "Patty" hands you your menus and asks for your drink orders. You order an orange juice and a water, and Duke orders himself a coffee. Patty asks, "You two just clear out of one of the bars around here? Trying to mitigate some of the consequences? We used to get a lot of that, not so much anymore." You explain, "Nope, as much fun as that would be, and we did, in fact come from a bar, I'm kind of working right now. I'm a journalist, and I'm working on a story about Duke here. That's not going to be too much of a disruption for you, is it?
Patty clearly believes that answer should be obvious, looking totally unamused. "Does it look like it would be a problem? I guess I should be glad you bothered to ask at all. Now, do y'all know what you're having, or do you need a minute? You consider looking over the menu, but Duke already knows what he wants, and blurts it out. "Country fried steak and eggs, dippy, with an order of hash browns, please." Patty doesn't understand that, "Dippy? I'm sorry, but I don't know what that means, and I doubt the cook will either." Duke corrects himself, "Oh, sorry, I forgot most places don't call'm that. Over easy, please." As for you, you decide you might as well hold yourself accountable to that thought you had earlier and settle for an omelet with mushrooms, onions and peppers.

"Alright, Anon. Where'dja wanna start? Maybe I should just start from the beginning, right?" You weren't just hearing things. It's like a switch has flipped, as soon as you walked out that door, Duke stopped holding back his natural dialect.
Getting to know more about his background couldn't hurt, even if it wouldn't be something suitable to print on its own. "Sure, that's fine. If I recall correctly, you said you've been on the street for about 12 years, right Duke? That means you must have been about 15 when this started. How exactly did that happen, and what was that like for you?"

Duke sighs, "There's a whole mess there I ain't comfortable talking about. Let's just say something happened that I knew would be a drag on my social life and I wasn't interested in seeing how my family would respond to it, neither. And we'll just leave that be that for now." Duke sits back in the booth. "Outside of that, there's nothing too remarkable, typical middle class upbringing, only child. Dad was an electrician, Mom supplemented that with a job at the local credit union. Told you some of this already, but Pap - that's my grandfather on my mother's side - was a big part of my life. Fishing every summer, dragged me hunting a few winters, wasn't big on sitting out in the cold, and it didn't help that I was losing a day off from school for all of that, first day of Deer Season's actually a state holiday in PA, in case you didn't know. If it were just the shooting part, I'd have loved it. I always liked going to the range. But making me sit still for hours was already a big ask, and the cold just put it out of the question."

Duke glossed over his parents. "Did you have a little bit of a rough relationship with your parents, Duke? It sounds like you really preferred your grandfather."

Duke's eyes widen as he realizes he's giving you the wrong idea. "Neh-neh, it wasn't like that. Both my parents were good to me, but I just don't think there's anything to talk about with them. Both of them supported my interests and ambitions and helped me work through hard times. I have no complaints at all. Believe me, I've missed them a lot. But I guess you're right, I might miss Pap just that little bit more. He's the only grandparent I really had, practically speaking. We lost Gram to cancer when I was just little, and my Dad's parents were fine, but they were both busy people who lived on the other side of the country, so I only really saw them on holidays every few years. Almost all my memories of them are short phone calls. They felt more like distant family acquaintances than actual family to me."

The server brings your food just as Duke finishes his thought. Duke immediately places the eggs on top of the hash browns, breaks one of the yolks and dips a slice of his steak into it. You've never thought of that before. It seems like a pretty clever idea, and it illustrates the utility of the term "dippy," too.

"Ugh," Duke swallows the first bite of his food. "I dunno what I was expecting, it's nice to finally get the chance to have this stuff again, but I thought I'd have a stronger reaction. Maybe "normal" isn't as far out of my reach as I thought. Maybe the last decade hasn't changed me as much as I thought it did." You swear you see Duke's eyes brighten as he says that. Even as beautiful as they already were. You realize that what you saw earlier in the storage unit was the opposite. There's a slow tragedy happening here. Most of the minute details of which you'll never know. You're not sure how to feel about that yet, but you don't like it.

Duke resumes his story over the meal. "So, that's the background stuff done with. As for how I ended up here and what's gone down in between, I was put in a position where I only had maybe a week before something was going to come down that was gonna change how people would treat me, they would know stuff I didn't want them to know and assume things about me that wouldn't be true. And I knew I wouldn't have a future at home. I told a friend's older brother who was just about to move here for college what happened and what I was scared of, and convinced him to help me get outta there before the bomb dropped. I left a note for my parents to find explaining things and we left the next day.
Holy shit. I'm just now realizing that finding that note after I didn't come home must've scared the hell out of my parents."

"The first year, I thought I'd just wait things out, then go home once the fallout had settled and everyone had moved on. I was mostly relying on my buddy's brother. About a year after I ran off, I mailed a letter home, with a PO Box as a return address so they wouldn't have a lead on where to find me. I told them how things were going and assured them I was OK, and they actually sent a letter back. Obviously, my parents were angry and everything I was afraid would happen, did. They knew what happened, and it felt like they were even blaming me for it. They were demanding I come home as soon as possible, we went back and forth for a few weeks before they finally decided I wasn't going to change my mind and they sent me an envelope with a thousand dollars and everything I'd need to get myself set up. Y'know, Birth Certificate, Social Security card, a second copy of my shitty credit-builder card. That stuff. I spent all of $200 of that money, then once I got a job, the first thing I did was replace that $200. They'll get all of their money back the day I can face them again. I promised that. That includes everything they've sent since then, too."

It sounds to you like Duke lived in a pretty backward place and got caught up in a scandal for being gay, and maybe even a familiarist. "Why are you being so evasive about whatever started all of this, Duke? If there's anyone you can trust with familiarist social issues. it's us."

Duke looks anxious, "That's not what happened. It wasn't that simple, but I might as well tell you, you're on the right track."

With your interjection resolved, Duke goes on with his story "They actually still send me money a few times a year. To be honest, I already have more than enough of their cash on hand now to pay down almost all of my debt. But, like I said, it would kill me to accept defeat here and get bailed out of a mess I created for myself. It don't feel right to take their clean money and pay it back with my dirty money. It was hard enough convincing myself to accept it when I was working a real job."

That raises an obvious question. "How exactly did you go from working a "real job" to where you are now, Duke? And where did the debt come in?"

"I was getting there anyway. And they're related, too." Duke assures you. "From 16 to 18 I was getting a lot of help from that friend's brother I mentioned, Ben. Guy was really looking out for me. But I was getting to be a little puke, I can't lie. I was already making an awful fool of myself however a fake ID would let me - and I could manage to afford. I was frequenting the kinds of places full of flashing lights, loud music, alcohol, drugs and unscrupulous anthros looking for any kind of stimulation on offer. I even put together this desperate, crass little outfit I still wear sometimes because it's so effective with the right crowd. It, and my ignorant horny bullshit, were so effective, it put me on the radar of some rough guys who insisted I could be making money instead of spending it. Of course. I knew what was going on, and I definitely knew better. I didn't bite. I wasn't that dumb."

Duke shifts in his seat and leans towards you slightly. "But, that didn't last long. Ben had a serious family emergency back home, and he decided he had no choice but to move back for at least a while. So my choices were to go with him to face the consequences of my actions and give up what I thought at the time was the life I wanted, or, stay behind and fend for myself. I think he eventually ended up transferring somewhere else after that problem but by then I don't think he would've been happy with how things had turned out for me in the meantime even if he did come back. In specific, what had happened in the meantime was that I was left with no way to get to work."

Duke drags his hand down his face and groans. "That's when I made the big mistake. Just barely 19. No credit, relatively weak income, no fixed address. And what does my dumb ass go and do? I decide my best course of action is to "solve" both of my new problems at once by buying myself a car I would be comfortable living out of. I go to one of them no name budget lots. They have an allegedly fresh off lease crossover hatchback. Stowing rear seats, enough to make room for an air mattress. Highest trim level, the good speakers, all the fancy stuff, and the guy is telling me I can have it for less than the 2017 base model of the same car, If I take out the loan from their guy, I could get it for $22,280 in total."

Duke explains, "Now, I was actually in an almost decent spot at the time, so I thought I'd just about be able to pay that down pretty quickly.
I lucked out and ended up as the overnight manager at a gas station, so I was making a good bit. The manager I was under at first eventually realized I had my act together and got me doing most of his work for him, so he could dick around on his phone all night. I put up with it because I didn't know if I could find another overnight job, so I wouldn't have to worry about not being able to use Ben's car. Fast forward, and my manager gets caught slacking, they fire him and promote me in his place because I was doing most'a his job anyway. I know it don't usually work out like that. But I guess they liked me."

Patty returns to check on you. "You two need anything else? Any refills?"
You're both finished with your meals. You ask for the check, but Duke does actually want something. "Uh, yeah. Could I get a warm-up on my coffee, please?" Patty raises an eyebrow but takes Duke's half full mug. She comes back with your check, and Duke's coffee, reheated in the microwave. He clearly finds it amusing. It must be another one of his colloquialisms that didn't get across.

You resume the conversation, "What happened with the car, Duke?"

Duke gets back on track, "Oh, right. I wasn't paying great attention and didn't realize the interest rate on the loan was 16 fuckin' percent per year, paid monthly, so about $300 a month in interest alone, without even touching the principle. And I'd be stuck with a couple thousand dollar fee if I backed out or couldn't pay. And I'd be back at square one worse off than I started. I could tread water with that, for the moment, and thought I'd be able to find something better now that I wasn't constrained by anyone else's schedule. ...Except I fuckin' didn't, of course not. And that's what made that proposition I'd gotten actually sound like a good idea, and it wasn't awful at first. I was basically getting paid to do what I had been doing for free, albeit with a lot less freedom in my choice of partners. I convinced myself I actually liked that, that I was just letting what other people thought of me be tossed aside. I actually managed to pay down a few thousand of the principle that way. But after a couple years, the leash on me started getting shorter and shorter, and the cut I was getting to keep kept getting smaller and smaller. I was being set up with guys with more "extreme tastes" and some my body could barely handle. I would get shortchanged, and be treated roughly if not outright battered."

Duke is clearly getting emotional and is starting to struggle to speak. He might even be tearing up.
"And some of these guys would get possessive. This huge horse guy arranged for me to meet him at what must have been his own house. He wasn't violent, but he was way too much for me to handle. He paid for me to stay overnight, and while I was asleep, he snuck out and fucked up my car so I wouldn't leave. Engine blown up, no clue what he did to the transmission, but it was fucked, too. Whole thing was unsalvageable, and I was still on the hook for it. I ended up... h-having to limp away to the police... and sell everyone involved out..." Duke covers his eyes with his hand before you can see him lose his composure. "...Ah, shit. I didn't think this still bothered me so much. God dammit to Hell."

You feel like this should be all for tonight. Duke's given you plenty. More than he realizes, you think. "It's okay, Duke. If you want, we can finish up here and come back to this topic when you're ready, some other day."

Duke lowers his hand and stares off into space as occasional tears fall from his eyes. He doesn't respond to you. This goes on for a few minutes, at least, before Duke finally decides to speak. "...Yeah. I think... I'm done. Let's get out of here. I'm gonna- I'm tired."

You set your cash down with the receipt, tipping over 50%, and you still have another $20 left.

You leave the restaurant with Duke in silence. But once you're outside, Duke feels compelled to ask. "Do you mind walking back to The Cy with me? I'd really appreciate another few minutes of not being alone with my thoughts right now." You're glad to do that for him. Duke sticks closer to you on the way back than he did on the way over, and neither of you is in any hurry.

When you get back to the storage unit - his room, Duke suddenly hugs you. "Thank you. Damn it, thank you. Just talking to you has made me remember what it's like to have feelings at all, particularly good ones. And even the ones I was thinking were bad, well, maybe they're the ones I needed to address."

You pull out the last $20. "I should at least give you this. If I don't go through it all, there's a good chance I won't get as much next time. If you need to, think of it as a bonus for putting you through all of that, Duke"

"You know I can't do that. ...But. If you want, I can take it, and we'll call it a discount on completing "The date experience." You've already had the fun part and we've shared a meal. Granted, it was in the wrong order and we didn't exactly go to the typical place, but I'd say all you're missing now is us falling asleep in each other's arms, so to speak. Oh, and I'm usually the one who'd be in your house or hotel room. But I guess we'll just say that's where the discount comes in, right? Besides, you walked here, didn't you? Do you really want to walk all the way back when it's this miserable out, this late, in this part of town?"

Duke's trying really hard. You don't know know exactly what his angle is here. Is he actually concerned for your safety? Is he just trying to justify taking your last $20 without calling it charity? Is he actually into you, and doesn't feel comfortable admitting it outright?
Or. Is he getting caught up in his emotions and attaching himself to the first person who's even pretended to actually give a shit in a long time? Is doing this a good idea? Would that be taking advantage of him? Is writing this story at all - taking advantage of him?
And, you realize, he's back to hiding his natural voice. He's selling himself to you again.

Since he's being very insistent where he was being resistant before, and seeing as he does have a point, you really don't want to walk all that way right now, and that if you really are taking advantage of him, just sleeping in the same bed tonight is nothing compared to having already paid him to suck your dick. You decide to make the deal this time. You'll leave the decisions for whether all of this is right or wrong for tomorrow and perhaps further on. Right now, Duke wants you close to him, and right now, you don't think it matters why. "Alright, I get your point. It can't hurt, but just so you know, Duke, you don't need to hide who you really are from me. I honestly kind of prefer it. It feels more real, and I think it's actually pretty charming when your "hick-at-heart" shows his face."

Duke smiles and lifts the door and you both go inside. He immediately begins taking off the hoodie and jeans, as is typical for anthros, extra layers plus the fur can be too warm for them, even in cooler weather. And, not wanting to deal with the buttons and your belt and such, you follow suit as much as you're comfortable doing. As you lay in the bed, you notice it's much nicer than you were expecting, it's a good quality mattress.

Duke tells you how this is going to work. "I'm gonna slowly get cuddlier with you and let'cha have time to decide where your boundaries are here. Tell me if I'm getting too close and I'll stop where you want me to."

Duke progresses from no contact, to just a little bit to a bit more. and you're enjoying it all, so you let him proceed all the way to embracing you intensely. He's nuzzled into your shoulder and seems to be enjoying this himself. You swear you can feel and hear him purring, but you're not even sure he should be able to, as you thought leopards were the kind of cats who roar rather than purr. But clearly, it must be the case, for Duke and his particular hybrid biology at least, so you choose to just accept it and enjoy it, because it really is pleasant. This really does feel special to you, and you already don't regret this choice.

The next morning you're briefly confused as you've woken up in a strange place. But you quickly remember what had taken place the previous night. The same apprehension that had come over you before strikes again, all at once. Why did you do this? Is physical attraction really getting the better of your reason? Are you exploiting your affiliation and reputation and emotionally manipulating someone for your own gratification and comfort already? How could you feel so comfortable about this last night? Duke doesn't know anything about you at all, and yet he's so eager for your company. And for as much as he's let you in on, you don't think you can really say you know exactly who he really is yet either. You think he's a sweet guy with a heart of gold and remarkable commitment to his principles, you know roughly where he's from, you know some of the hardships he's been through and the conditions he lives under.

But there's so much more to a person than all of that. You don't know who he is when sex and money aren't involved.

And Duke, he knows absolutely nothing about you besides your name and occupation, and you suspect he didn't even pay much mind to your name.

Even now, as he's still squeezing you tightly in his sleep, you can't help but feel like something is wrong here.

Is Duke just desperate to have you around because you represent an opportunity for catharsis and self reflection that he's denied himself for years? Is he mistaking those feelings for actually liking you? Is it right to be letting that happen if it's making him feel better? Does he actually want to be doing this with you, or does he simply know nothing else at this point? Maybe you do regret this.

You saw the difference in his eyes. You saw what you thought was a tragic, unspoken sadness in Duke's eyes last night, and you saw what simple joys looked like in those ice blue eyes as well. You're not so sure about this story anymore. You'll need to have a discussion about that at the office.

Duke begins to stir himself. His eyes open and fix upon you. He gives you a warm, gentle smile and pulls himself closer to you, nuzzling his long face into your neck. "You know, I don't think I've gotten sleep this good in years, Anon. I don't know if that's because of you or the clear mind you helped me find for myself, but I think you're different. Most of the time I'm in a situation like this, it feels like a chore. It's true. A low effort way to tease out a little bit extra from my most eager clients, and it doesn't hurt that it usually comes with a night in a decent hotel room and a nice meal instead of what I'm usually stuck with. But this. I wanted this for myself, I think I would have tried to come up with an excuse for this even if you didn't have any cash left. You've done more for me already than I can put into words. Thank you, again. I know I already went through all of that last night, but I feel like I can't say it enough."

He's not exactly assuaging your concerns that he's getting too attached too quickly, for the wrong reasons. You think it would be smart to create some distance for now, and give Duke some time to think about how he feels, too. "I'm glad to hear all that, Duke. And I'm glad to help you out. But unfortunately, I don't think it would be responsible for me to do this too frequently. I don't know if the money's there for it, for one thing, and I've got other things I'm responsible for at The Bond as well. I don't think I'd get away with putting them aside to focus on your story alone, at least not yet."

"We haven't even published the first piece and we don't know how the audience will respond. Tell you what, since I've proven you can trust me and The Cy's not going to get implicated, why don't we arrange another meeting somewhere else, on more polite terms, during the day. We'll talk about less heavy stuff. No pressure, no implications. I guess you're a coffee guy, so I'll give you the address of this nice little coffee shop I use for a lot of interviews. Great place. Oh, and my phone number, too. Personal, not office phone."

Duke seems slightly disappointed, "Alright. I understand. But I'm not telling you anything too important that way, you'd better understand that yourself. If you want anything substantial. It's going to cost you and you know exactly what you're going to have to buy to get it, that's not going to change. Is a week from now at 8 AM going to work for you, Anon?"

There's no reason it won't. You get up and quickly get dressed. then you jot down your number, the address and "8 AM" on a back page of the notebook you've been writing everything down in, then tear out the page to give it to Duke. You wait for Duke to get dressed too, and make sure he's doing okay before you leave.

After Duke closes the garage door behind you, it hits you. You've gotten yourself into a situation you wouldn't have even been able to conceive of a few years ago. You might be struggling between doing the right thing and what personally sounds good to you and not even realize it properly yet. You might come to view this as a black mark on your character in the future, and it might end up in breaking the heart of a wonderful guy who's already been through more than enough without you giving him false hope, then dashing it. Or worse. Compromising on the things you consider important and taking advantage of that wonderful guy's vulnerability and desperation.

You don't have to be in the office today, which doesn't mean your attention is off the story. However this ends up going, you've got to at least get a single article out of it, and that means putting in the effort to validate everything Duke's told you and see if you can't find any more information about him and what happened to him. He's given you more than enough to get started on your own research.
You get home, and take a shower to gather your thoughts, still conflicted as they are. Is it really taking advantage of Duke if you're actively considering his feelings and needs, and he seems to be really grateful for your attention? He's not some kid who's just started doing this, and it's clear he was willing to stand up for himself in a situation he couldn't tolerate.

But it did take almost getting abducted to do it, and you're not exactly sure where the emotions started and ended in regards to "selling everyone out."
That kind of language suggests he might feel like he betrayed people he didn't want to. But maybe it wasn't the "selling out" part that bothered him. Maybe the whole experience was just a rough memory, and he'd do it all over again if you put him back there.
But you can't know that. Duke might be more vulnerable than he seems, and he's clearly emotionally isolated from others, even those who want to help him.
...What if? What if you remind Duke of someone who got into his head and abused him before? It wouldn't be right to let him get attached to you, at least not like this, if that's the case.

You need to know what happened to Duke.

You get out of the shower and get dressed, and you immediately head to your computer.

You know roughly where Duke is from. The western third of Pennsylvania, Most likely well south of Erie, and he's not from a major suburb or Pittsburgh itself. That's a narrow enough triangle that you can feasibly search all the local newspapers' websites for information, and you have a pretty narrow date range, too. He told you how old he was at the time all of this became a big deal, which means you can safely assume you'll find what you're looking for somewhere between 2012 and 2014.
It also doesn't hurt that Duke is a pretty rare kind of hybrid, even in a major city, you wouldn't be surprised if he was one of only a few. So in a small town, he would almost certainly be the only Opossum-Snow Leopard. But Duke was a minor at the time, so his species wouldn't have been revealed in any articles about a scandal or crime.

The big problem is that there are definitely multiple newspapers to comb through in that area, and given the time period, it's entirely possible that the story was run in a publication that's shut down since then. At least you can trust that if they're still operating, a story from around 2013 would probably be accessible online.

Most of the papers have expanded or consolidated into serving multiple communities or entire counties, so you're not going to have to pick through dozens, at least. That's a big problem when you have to go through archived OCR'd papers from years ago. But it won't be here. You'll start with the publication with the largest reach, and work your way down.
But what exactly do you think would be big enough for Duke to liken it to a bomb dropping? What would be big enough for a 15 year old to convince an adult it would be best for him to be well out of town when the news hits, and to willingly take the risk of being criminally charged? You suspect it involves sexual abuse, but you'll cover all your bases.

Searching for incidents of harassment of anthro minors, bullying scandals and Familiarist social activism among Duke's demographic in the relevant period doesn't turn up anything more than awareness pieces and incidents you can't possibly see escalating so far. And there are a surprising number of hits, too, so even if your answer was among them somewhere, it might take quite a while to find it. You don't have much hope for that though, so you move on to what you had feared was the case. The number of sex abuse articles is still surprisingly large, but most of them seem to be family related and the accused are humans and anthros you can rule out for not being Oppossums or Snow Leopards, and considering Duke has had nothing bad to say about his family, you're confident that's not the right direction even if they were.

But. In the "Conemaugh Regional Adjudicator-Vindicator," you find something. A human, Michael S. Byford, The operator of a "Family Link, LLC" and pastor of an associated church of the same name in a town called Anthracite, Pennsylvania, was arrested and charged with a large number of counts of sexual misconduct with minors, along with several other major members of his church. That's definitely big enough. You follow the thread, and find that Byford was accused of grooming minors, mostly anthro boys, and some humans as well. He and his associates were accused of seeking out vulnerable kids struggling with their feelings and sexualities.

The organization exploited their reputation as a charitable and deeply community involved Christian organization with family focused values to entice the kids onboard without drawing too much suspicion from their parents. Then they would socially engineer the kids into sexual acts with them. As well, they made concerted efforts to coach plausible deniability in and implicate those kids as being willful participants by having them set up "private" but personally identifying and explicit internet presences tailored to lend credence to the idea that the adults had been enticed by the minors. Which is strange, because it seems like it wouldn't have done them any good at best. It was just another vector for getting caught, and the law would be no more lenient on them even if it really had been the minors initiating the contact.

Was Duke one of these kids? It's the biggest likely candidate of a story in the area, and you can certainly see how Duke would be so afraid of all the questioning and negative aspersions that would come with having been caught up in that church once the news hit. It would essentially out him, and provoke assertions that he was groomed into being a gay familiarist. And who knows how it would change how his peers and family would see him?

You go back a few editions, and as much as you don't want to see it. You find a missing child notice in the edition four days prior to the one with the Family Link story. For an "Abraham Duke Bouchet." 15 years old. Opossum-Snow Leopard hybrid. Blue eyes. Last seen at a friend's house.
Oh God. It looks like you've found him.
But to be sure, you look for other references to "Abraham Bouchet," "Abe Bouchet," and "Duke Bouchet." It's entirely possible that this is a crazy coincidence and your Duke is from somewhere else entirely.

Unfortunately, that's not the case. You find an article from several years earlier, about Duke Bouchet winning a regional science fair that had a $10,000 educational grant as the grand prize. It has a picture attached. Obviously he's much smaller. But he has the same light blue eyes and the same long hair with coarse white streaks. It's definitely Duke.
You feel terrible for him. And maybe. Maybe you were right to be concerned about someone else's emotional manipulation rearing its head.

You can't exactly relax after discovering all of that. But it's all in the past and there's nothing you can do about it now. It seems like the people responsible did actually face consequences for it, and as far as you can tell, they continue to. You might as well write more while the ideas are fresh in your head and you haven't yet decided on where you're going to let the story end.

"Baron" is subjected to hardships from all sides. He's no stranger to abuse and mistreatment, having endured the full spectrum of trespasses against his person and his dignity in his time. Like many in his line of work, he has been battered, cheated and obsessed over. Like them all, money is what motivates him to this course of action. But unlike so many of them, Baron is not burdened by the specter of addiction. This is his way, not because of a desperation for some substance and an inability to hold typical employment for it. This is his way because he has no other options. He never even graduated high school, he has no way to get enough money and time to even manage a GED, let alone more lucrative skills. A large debt at an exorbitant interest rate leaves him spinning his wheels. He can neither move forward, nor stop for even a moment lest he fall back and never recover.

At a vulnerable age, he was forced away from his family, who had never done him wrong, by an unspoken shame he dares not divulge. The ignorance of youth and his eagerness to indulge his tastes induced him to poor choices, many in service of the ones which had come before. All of them culminate in a tragedy in tensegrity.
Were Baron to simply give up, he would be swallowed by debt and have nothing to his name and no way to build anything new to rise again.
Were he to insist upon finding another way, to put in the time and effort to prove he's worthy of more, his debt would accumulate quickly while he was making an earnest effort and any hypothetical improvement which is available to a man such as he, would be fully outstripped by the pace of the accumulation of his debt. He only stands to lose
He may not rely on the charity of others, because his faith in the notion of charity itself has become so fundamentally shaken that he will not permit himself to take it.

But it must not be forgotten that there is a man beneath the tragedy. A truly vibrant person with a heart of gold doing his best to get by and never compromising on his beliefs in the face of ever narrowing options. He has come a long way to simply settle here in his ignoble state, but no way forward exists for him. and he's running out of time in which even treading water in this way will continue to remain viable. After the fashion of a crashing plane he guides an inevitable mess toward the ground in hopes that things will suddenly improve around him and that the solution will avail itself in time. For now, even small things interest and excite Baron. Things which we take for granted, but which he has not had the privilege of contact with in a long time.

It is perhaps not pity which should come upon you in knowing this. Baron is in fact displaying a great degree of character and nobility. But in some sense it's irrational and petty. This Snow Leopard should know not to fight a losing battle and to take the lifeline he's given, to find some other way to square that conflict within himself away on some other, better day. But perhaps he has a moral cause to deny his reason. Perhaps he has been wronged in such a way that anything less than his current methods might be viewed as surrender to those who had hurt him. Perhaps his heart demands a moral victory that would be denied to him through any rational means. He may want to go down as someone who went down fighting, without even considering to pick up the weapons of his great enemy.

You feel confident in that summary. The flowery language and supposedly even handed interpretation always go over well. You almost always get positive feedback as a result. Is it pretentious in some capacity? Sure, but in a world of listicles and AI generated content and nonsense dating advice, work that's intentionally different is welcome.

With that done, you should be able to put the story about Duke aside for now and allow yourself some distance before you have to come back to it. Maybe you'll have a different perspective by the next time you talk to him. Or at least you'll have settled on a single way to feel.
Dedicating all your mental energy to Duke has only made things worse for you. Part of you wishes you would have just accepted what he was offering to you, without worrying about any of the philosophical implications or what's strictly good for him. Part of you, the same part that's been nagging you since you first laid eyes upon him, just wants you to do everything in your power to solve Duke's problems for him. To see such gratitude and admiration from him that his loyalty is to you above all else, to have him for yourself and yourself alone. You want to see him happy and and at peace with himself, part of you thinks you can give it to him, and part of you fears he'll never have it while you're in the picture. You want nothing more than to go back to that last moment where the comfort and intimacy were more important than anything else.

The rest of your day is uneventful. Your concerns do creep back in, but you don't let yourself dwell on them. You've never felt your own thoughts and emotions nagging at you like this before. You can't really enjoy your free time. Even while you do your grocery shopping for the week, you find yourself getting distracted. Later, you try to put your attention on other things, watch a movie, play a game, do some reading, and all of that kind of helps, but it's still not quite enough. If this is how things are going to be this week, it's going to drive you crazy.

When you finally go to bed for the night, you expect to find some comfort in the fact that you'll be sleeping in your own bed again. And in some sense there is. But more than that, there's an inexplicable coldness and alienation that makes it hard to relax.

What the Hell is happening to you?

Thankfully, the next few days are taken up by other responsibilities you hold at work, and by other smaller stories that get published under your real name. All of it makes for a better distraction from what's bothering you. It doesn't do much good once you get home, but at least while you're working, you don't feel like you're losing your mind. Maybe if you drop the story about Duke and let him go, this will all go away in time? Maybe you're not cut out for stories that demand too much emotional investment out of you.

It doesn't last. You do have to face the story again. You have another meeting with your boss and editor. It's a good thing you had what you were going to submit ready days ago.

You're called to Tim's office, and Miranda arrives just after you do. Once you're seated, Tim asks how the story is progressing. "So. How are things working out with our priority subject? Have you managed to get anywhere with him yet, or is he still keeping things close to his chest?" They weren't expecting Duke to be so cooperative. You answer truthfully. "Duke has actually been extremely forthcoming, I've actually gotten a lot out of one interview, maybe even enough that we can have something to publish without needing to pry any further, he's already told me just about everything relevant about how he got into his predicament, and has gone into quite a bit of detail on a lot of it. It seems like he's been waiting for someone he feels like he can open up to. But that's where my ethical concerns come in."

Tim stops you there, "All three of us here know what's going on, son. You don't need to be evasive about it. It's fine if that's what it takes to get the story. It's either you or someone else, and we might as well go with the option that lets us all benefit from it, and lets us know people with their hearts in the right place are in the loop."

You explain the situation. "If that were the only issue, it wouldn't be a problem. Frankly, I'd be eager to continue if that were all. But I have some concerns about Duke's enthusiasm for me despite his lack of familiarity. I did some research on my own time, and I've found some strong evidence that Duke might have some baggage that's playing into how he's treating me. He was seriously abused as a teenager, by a human it seems like he trusted a lot."

Miranda asks the obvious questions, "What exactly did you find? How did you find it? And how do you know for sure that he was involved?"

You elaborate. "Duke had given me enough crumbs to follow that I could feasibly run through archives of local newspapers from his native neck of the woods. I had a time frame, I knew it had to be something big enough that he'd feel the need to avoid the fallout entirely, and I knew I'd find evidence of his parents trying to find him. All I didn't know was whether I could find hard evidence he was from the area a given paper served, and I didn't know for sure that he would be the only Opossum-Snow Leopard in the area. But it turns out I didn't have to worry about that, because there happened to be photographic evidence from a few years earlier that the most likely candidate I found was actually him. His full name's Abraham Duke Bouchet, and he's from a small former manufacturing town called Anthracite, PA. He got caught up in an exploitation ring using a church as its cover."

Tim doesn't understand why that's bothering you. "How exactly does that present an ethical conflict for you? It's tragic and unpleasant, but you had nothing to do with any of it. Are you trying to imply that Duke can't properly consent just because a human is involved, or something to that effect? I don't think there's anything to worry about there. It was almost 15 years ago, and Duke isn't some impressionable kid, he's squarely an adult who can make his own choices. In fact, he seems to take his boundaries very seriously and I don't think he'd do something he was uncomfortable with at this point."

You clarify on the basis of your experiences. "Normally, I'd agree with you, sir. But I've had all of two conversations with Duke, and told him next to nothing about myself, but he's already clearly heavily invested and making exceptions just to be close to me. He went from strongly discouraging me from engaging with him at all to grasping for excuses to spend more time with me and claiming I've done things for him that no one else has done. I'm sure you can see where the concern is coming from, he got attached to me on shockingly little. I've got another - entirely above board - meeting scheduled with him tomorrow morning, But that's it, for the moment."

Tim inhales through his teeth, "Now, I don't personally know anything about how things work in your community, so forgive me if I'm mistaken, but isn't it the rule rather than the exception for you that encounters happen quickly, without much familiarity?"

Miranda is about to interrupt, but Tim preempts her. "Please, Mrs. Burton, there's no way to avoid it in a story of this nature, and I believe it's relevant. You know there's nothing malicious or prying in that question, I've gladly been accommodating to gay familiarists as they make up more and more of the audience, I know we're losing the heterosexual market because the mainstream is finally serving us. I'm glad to help the people who actually need the support."

Tim resumes his original line of questioning. "How can you be sure Duke doesn't just think he's finally found what he actually wants in you? He's done this a long time, and again, I'm inclined to believe he knows where his boundaries lie. His past doesn't need to define him. I encourage you to continue, but I can't force you, if it's still making you uncomfortable despite my assurances."

Tim makes a good point. You really can't tell at this stage whether Duke's enthusiasm is legitimate, or whether it's the product of something you don't want to exploit. You won't be hurting Duke just by actually getting to know each other, and you can always just stop conducting interviews if you feel like things are getting unhealthy, for either of you. You just need to be vigilant.

Satisfied with that, you move on to the actual intent of the meeting. Tim has no complaints about the main body of the piece, but is concerned the introduction you wrote for it won't be approachable. You did overdo it a little bit, but that's not going to be hard to fix.
Miranda thinks there isn't enough energy in the piece, and it could benefit from more descriptive language and a more experience-driven perspective rather than simply being an account of the difficulties Duke has faced. She would like the story to be a little bit more personal. But that risks coming across as sensationalist and exploitative, and it might even risk hinting at Duke's identity. Something identifying might slip through if you were to go into too much detail. You're just as committed to keeping the piece respectful and considerate as you were when you started, and that's not going to change.

Sure, you were willing to go into more detail when the story called for it and you had consent to do so from the people involved, but this isn't a story about the specifics of what Duke's doing. You don't think talking about Duke's appearance or the minutiae of the sexual experience with him even serves the same goal. The purpose of writing about Duke is to shine some light on an unfortunate side of the community. Not to romanticize it.

Miranda insists it's possible to reconcile both. "We don't need to romanticize it. I just think more detail will help readers get invested. That's all. I'm sure you'd be able to keep things respectful and dignified."

It's nice that she has so much faith in you, but you don't think anyone could manage that. You'd basically be conjuring up a fictitious person and run the risk of having anyone of a vaguely similar description getting caught up in undue suspicion. You can't do it. But you know that won't stop her from trying to find new ways to justify or re-contextualize it.
Miranda always does this. Most of the time it's helpful, but in this particular case, it's really getting on your nerves. "Look, I'm sorry Miranda, I get where you're coming from and I'm not accusing you of anything, but it's just not an option. We have a responsibility to the people we serve. It won't do anyone any good if we start pretending like there's a side to this that's fun or aspirational. There's nothing good about what Duke's found himself trapped in. We can't treat him as some sultry master of a forbidden craft, and we can't even risk the piece coming off that way. People will absolutely take the wrong message from it."

Miranda insists. "But it's so impersonal the way it is now. I don't think anything else you've written for us as Anonymous has ever been so reserved and shy to touch on the lewder aspects. You've written an entire piece on how a specific couple have unconventional sex, for God's sake. Where is all this apprehension coming from all of a sudden?"

That's obviously different. "That started out as a respectful piece about how a mouse and his human partner make their relationship work. They're the ones who suggested pivoting it to the sexual aspect. I had their enthusiastic consent, and I felt like it served a very practical purpose in setting an example for small anthros of all species, that they can pursue whoever they want, and worry about the 'logistical' problems when they come up. I didn't just write that article because I thought it would get people talking. ...And as for apprehension. We both know that if there was any apprehension in the first place, we wouldn't even be having this discussion right now. If Duke asks me to write about something in particular, I'd have no problem doing that. But it seems like he doesn't want me to write about what he's actually doing. If anything, it seems like he's only doing it because it's his only practical option at this point."

You don't have much more to say at this point. You'd like to have time to process everything and make a decision about what you'll be doing tomorrow. "Do you have any comments about the actual copy of the piece, or are we done?"

Miranda backs off. "Uh, no. As usual, you make that part of my job easy."

The meeting concludes and Tim reiterates the goals. Make the introduction more approachable, and decide whether or not to proceed with further interviews following the one scheduled for tomorrow.

It doesn't take much to finish the first piece, and it gets the green light to get published in the next edition, two days from now.

So, how DO you feel about Duke? Well, right now, more than anything else, you just want to see him again. Just being around him made you feel good. You want to see that same gratitude and optimism in his eyes you saw before. And you want to do everything in your power to make it permanent. You long for the indescribable warmth he gave you, that washed away all your concerns and represented a profound, shared comfort. All your apprehensions are caused by a fear that those things just aren't possible. But you'll never know for sure unless you persist.

You have to go see him again. If you leave now, and drive there instead of walking like usual, you could get to The Cy before it even opens, and there won't be any chance for Duke to be occupied. You didn't request the funds this time, so it'll have to come out of your own pocket, but that's fine.

You make it to The Cy early, and you're surprised to see a small crowd already waiting to get in. You doubt it was like this before the place changed hands. It makes it all the more strange and noble that Danny was willing to risk his business's hard-reclaimed reputation for a guy he found living under a tarp on his property.

Inside, you don't even bother trying to be inconspicuous. You head straight back to Duke's alcove. You don't care if anyone who happens to know the score thinks less of you for being too eager. Or maybe just gets a laugh out of it, which is definitely the more likely scenario given the venue.

Duke is either preoccupied or simply not expecting traffic this soon after opening, He wasn't watching the feed from the camera yet. You have to announce your presence. "You back there, Duke? I decided to come in on my own time."

Duke's voice issues from behind the curtain. "Yeah, sorry. Give me a minute,. I've got a really annoying mat on my side that I didn't catch earlier. I'm trying to brush it out..." Duke trails off. You pick out the sound of brush struggling against fur, now that you know it's there. "Oh, it's you, Anon!" Duke seems excited to see you. "I wasn't expecting to see you tonight. Did I hear you wrong last week, or did something happen? I thought we were supposed to meet somewhere else tomorrow morning. But I sure won't complain about getting to see more of you. Come in."

You pull aside the curtain and sit down in the booth. You explain the situation "Nothing's wrong, Duke. We're even moving forward with your story. I suppose I should ask you where the line is in terms of what you're comfortable with us putting into print. My editor would really like to open the story up to the more explicit and personal elements. More about you and the specifics of what you do, less about your experiences and the impact of all of this on your life and place in society, would that be a problem for you? Counterproductive to your goals in any way, anything like that?"

Duke smirks slightly. "First of all, I know you didn't come here just to ask me that, Anon. You could have asked that tomorrow morning just as easily. But to answer the question at hand, you can write any damn thing you want. That is, as long as you're not making it obvious who I am or that this fine establishment in particular is implicated in it. Talk about how hot you think I am, if you want. I already know you couldn't hide that. Talk about what I did to you. Hopefully what I'm going to continue doing to you, too."

Duke reaches across the table, touches your face and makes you look into his eyes. "I'm nowhere near delicate or sensitive, and I don't do this stuff because I find it beautiful or liberating or demanding of respect. Nothing like that. I have no love or passion for 'the craft.' I do this because circumstances have left me no other choices I could live with. I'd leave it behind the second I got the chance and I'd say good riddance to it. Maybe there was a time when I thought differently, but that hasn't been the case for the vast majority of my time ln this line of work. Romanticize it, demonize it, take no position on it at all. I don't give a shit anymore. With that out of the way... What are you really here for, Anon? Be honest."

You had no intention of playing coy or pretending like you weren't here for intimacy. "Since you asked me to be honest, I will be. The whole experience with you has been killing me all week. You got me good, Duke. And that 'Bravo Juliet" of yours wasn't even the worst of it. Seeing that other side of you, the joy you took in simple things and the prospect of normalcy, and some shades of the person you really are outside of this place. All of that stirred something in me. Then seeing the genuine gratitude and and just how much it helped you to let all of your weariness out on me. I knew I was feeling something. Never in my life have I felt as good or at such peace as I did falling asleep with you, Duke. I need to know, are you just that good at your job, or is there something more to this? How do you feel about me? Where do we stand? If it's where I hope it is, I'd really like for both of us to get to actually know each other. And of course, failing that, I'll gladly take the next best thing."

Duke laughs. "Geez-o-man. you're such a dork. You're lucky I happen to like that - a lot. Rest assured, you're a strong 'get to' not a 'have to.' I wasn't just flattering you when I said you 'weren't bad yourself' You're exactly my type, Anon, and you seem like a sweet, honest, responsible guy I wouldn't mind actually getting to know. Most of the guys I deal with are nothing special, they don't do anything for me, but cash is cash. But you? At another point in my life, if it were possible for us to be running in the same circles, I might have propositioned you myself, without the implication of money changing hands. So yeah, preliminarily, I'll go ahead and say there just might be 'something more.' Or at least, I'm eager to find out."

Duke leans forward and rests his head in his hands, giving you a deliberate sultry look. "So. I get the feeling I know what you're here for, Anon. You got here early so no one else could get to me first, didn't you?"

He must think you already want to escalate things. To penetration. You're not quite comfortable with that yet. It feels like it would be too fast. You should set the record straight. "Believe it or not, no. I don't feel like I've earned it yet, Duke. I was hoping I could buy out all your time tonight and we could get to know each other better. Have a nice time together, let you sleep in a clean bed in a warm house instead of your sad little storage unit for once. I know that's probably not agreeable to your rules, so I'll let you decide how you want to cap it off."

Duke raises a wild whiskered eyebrow and smiles. "Trying to play the gentleman, are you? Sure, I'd like that. I wouldn't dare take you up on that offer if you were anyone else, I've been burned by shit like that before, as I said last time. But I like you, I think you're hot, and you've managed to earn my trust remarkably quickly, so I'll make an exception and hope you haven't been hiding your true colors so far. Unfortunately, there's a lot of opportunity cost there, on a good night, I can earn a couple hundred, easy. On a Friday like tonight, I might even make it to three or four hundred. That doesn't happen too often, of course, but I'd hate to be "out of the office" if this turns out to be one of those good nights."

You're willing to do whatever it takes, and you'd help Duke unconditionally, if he'd just let you. "What, you want $450, $500? Done. Gladly."

Duke must have been expecting you to negotiate, or at least hesitate a bit, because he's clearly flustered. "Oh, uh... I didn't think- You can just do that? You get paid that well as a journalist?"

No, you don't. "Nope. Frankly, I feel like I'm making a stupid choice here, but since it's for you, Duke. I'll weather whatever consequences come of it. I couldn't do this all the time, but it's not going to hurt to splurge once."

Okay, maybe more than once, but you can't let him know that. You can't look TOO eager, right? You're already pushing it as it is.

Duke is apprehensive. "Damn. Are you sure? It wouldn't be smart of me to try to change your mind, but I can't say I'm not worried you're being a little impulsive here, Anon."

It might mean you'd have to do some creative budgeting if you had to suddenly replace an appliance or something, but dropping $500 on Duke isn't going to put a wrinkle in paying your bills for the month, and you're not going to struggle for it. "I'm sure. It can't hurt to help you start getting ahead on that debt. If you manage to pay it down a little bit, even just by $250, that's something like another $40 off your interest payment isn't it?"

Duke is clearly caught off guard by your consideration and willingness to help. "Haha, well. Now you can't take it back. To tell you the truth, I would have done it for another $200, like last time. $300, maybe. That's what I usually charge. I'd rather have the sure thing than play the odds. God knows they don't come up in my favor often enough."

Before you can even respond, Duke leans over and slides the wall panel out. "Give me a second. I just need to get pants on, then we'll get the Hell out of here."

It doesn't even take Duke 30 seconds, and he's already back. "So, do you want to dip out the back again? You want to go out the front and I'll go around and meet you? Just say fuck it and both of us leave out the front? Do you want to make a a show out of it and walk out of here with me on your arm? I wouldn't mind that, if you're not too shy."

Normally, you would be too shy for that. But because Duke all but asked you to do it, and you think it might go a long way towards showing Duke your character, why not? The worst that could happen is some good humored joking, depending on how much of an open secret Duke's presence is.

Duke turns off the camera system and checks the wall panel one last time, then stands up and steps through the curtain. You follow him. The switch for the camera also controls the light pointing at the alcove, because that's off too. You guess that's how Duke signals to potential clients whether he's available or not. You hadn't noticed before. The other client you saw didn't go into the storage unit at all. You recall Duke saying that was the way things went for the quick stuff.

Duke clings to your arm in the fashion of a proud and jealous girlfriend or groupie, or something of that nature. He's making a show of it in any case. His long striped tail is curled around you, spiraling up your body, the tip swishes back and forth errantly across your chest.

You're not sure it's really suited to him and his actual personality, but you have no reason not to take his word that he's fond of it. Most of the other patrons at The Cy don't even take notice. But a couple jokingly congratulate you, and a small cluster near the door give gentle, presumably sarcastic applause. You wonder if any of them are just giving you a hard time for buying Duke's services, or if they genuinely think you're both just fellow patrons who happened to hit it off.

Either way, you're not as embarrassed as you thought you might be. It kind of felt good. It helps that having a such a handsome companion as Duke at your side is a huge confidence booster.

"So, what's on the agenda for tonight, Big Spender? Hotel? Restaurant?" Duke asks as you leave the bar.

You answer. "Not unless you insist, Duke. I was hoping to get to know your mind a lot more than your body. I thought it would be nice to just bring you back to my place, I'll make dinner for us both, and we'll watch a movie or something. Then see where things go from there."

"Hey, I got no complaints about that. Sounds great, actually. Provided 'where things go from there' means what I think it does, obviously." Duke stipulates. "I guess you must live pretty close by then, huh?

"I don't." You clarify. "I drove here this time. By the way, you're okay with cars, right?"

"Uh, yeah. Why wouldn't I be? Just because car shit is the reason I'm in this situation, it doesn't mean I hate them." Duke answers.

You elaborate. "I know that's a weird thing to ask. But believe it or not, I've had the issue come up before. With most of our stories, we like to include nice professional pictures of the subject. So I end up driving some of them to and from our office. One of them had a minor panic attack just at the thought of being in a car, and the other was barely any better. So I just like to make sure."

Duke assures you as you get in the car. "Well, you're not going to have to worry about that. In fact, I'm more worried about how you'll feel about this when I finally find the words to tell you about what happened to me. I really do want to tell you, you deserve to know. And damn it, I think it would help to talk about it with someone, actually try to start moving on, but I'm worried admitting it will blow this for me. I want you around, Anon. I like you. I like being able to say that for once. It's like a weight is lifted off my shoulders. And I don't want my stupid fucked up past, what other people have done to me, to kill what feels like the first chance I have to finally force this mess to leave me go."

Shit. He's hinting at the abuse already? You figured it would take much more for him to open up. How do you play this?

Do you tell Duke the truth and admit you already pried into his personal life before he was ready? You don't know how he'd handle that. But that's just how journalism works. Maybe he'd understand. Do you make something up and pretend like you're personally familiar with the region he comes from, and you happened to hear about the Family Link scandal, and act like he gave you enough to put the pieces together? Do you just take the risk and try not to tip your hand at all?

You drive in silence for a few minutes to give Duke a chance to gather his thoughts and continue if he wants, but he seems to take your lack of comment the wrong way, "Shit. I shouldn'ta dropped that on you and killed the mood, huh? I promise I didn't kill someone or anything like that. I'm just scared you won't like the truth. It wasn't pretty and I still feel awful about how I handled it. That's all. I'm sorry."

He has nothing to be sorry for. "Oh, no. Duke, I was just giving you a chance to talk. Believe me, there aren't many things you could say to put me off. I mean it. Be it a scandal, dumb mistake, controversial relationship, crime of opportunity, crime of passion or otherwise. I like you too, Duke. I know you're a good guy and I know you know exactly what you want out of life. Nothing can change that, and nothing can put who you really are inside into question."

"What if I told you..." Duke pauses, unsure of whether to continue. "...It was a little bit of all of those? Does that change anything?"

You double down. "I just told you it doesn't. When I say nothing, I mean nothing, Duke. Our emotions and the ways other people can play with them can make us do foolish things, and grief and loneliness can be some of the most vulnerable of those emotions, especially as young as you would have been back then. I can't possibly hold anything against you. And if and when you decide you're ready to talk about it, even if that's long after we've run the rest of your story to its logical conclusion and need to move on. Even if it's just as your friend, I'll still be proud to be your outlet for it, if you'd want me to be. Whatever 'it' is. I'd make time for you as soon as you called."

Duke inhales sharply. Your eyes are on the road, you can't see his face or what he's doing. "Yeah. I'll ju- I might- I'll hold'ja to that, Anon. I promise. The way things are going, it might be closer than you think."

Once you're sure Duke doesn't have any more to add. You change the subject. "I don't keep snacks at home, by the way. But I can stop at a gas station and I'll let you pick out a few for the movie, if you want."

"Eh, nah. I sort of hate the gas stations yinz have here. Guess I was always spoiled with how much better both of the major options were back home. You could order real fucking food, as terrible as it is for you. Not that plastic-wrapped-emergency-room-visit crap, sitting for who knows how long in a dirty old warmer case." Well, he's certainly opinionated for someone who's been homeless for half of his life.

"Ah, what the Hell. why not. I guess a bag of chips ain't gonna be no different from the one you'd buy at a normal store. 'Cept more expensive. There's that." Duke pauses for a second and lets out an exasperated sigh. Ugh, shit. Bleh. I'm sorry, I shouldn't be talking like that. You're not paying top dollar for me just to sound like a jackass."

If him letting the Yinzer dialect out means he's more relaxed around you, it's very welcome. And you find it charming anyway. "Don't worry about it Duke. Be yourself. I'd rather get to know you than some kind of façade you've put up. That doesn't help either of us. I'm already sold."

Duke doesn't believe you. "Oh yeah. I'm real sure you would have been even quicker to pull that curtain back if you had heard me say 'Ey! Fuckface. You ou' 'ere lookin' t'git yer dick sucked? from behind it." Exaggerating the accent even more, to the point it strains intelligibility.

He has a point. You probably would have written it off as a prank if that was what you heard, but you know better than to entertain such an exaggeration. "That's not what you sound like. Duke. And you're not perfect at hiding it anyway. I could tell there was some kind of twang or another in there immediately. I already told you last week it doesn't bother me one bit. You reiterate as you pull into the gas station and park.

Duke laughs as he opens his door. "O-ho! You've just opened up the floodgates then, fucker. We'll see how long it takes for you to regret it."

This is good. He's opening up to you more. "Where's all this extra profanity coming from? I like the energy." You respond as you step out of the car yourself.

"What'd'ja expect when my options for male role models were an electrician and a guy who gladly flew the most boring plane in the whole Air Force? I didn't get much of a chance to be a little bitch." Duke explains.

You enter the convenience store, holding the door for Duke. You're not sure if he's embarrassed or flattered by the gesture but you can tell by the way he lowers his head and hurries through it got under his skin somehow. And you can tell he's trying to hide whatever it is he's feeling about it.
It doesn't last long, as he's taken by a sudden enthusiasm. "Oh hey! The stupid slushie machine's actually working t'night. I swear, they're always fine when you don't give a shit, but as soon as you want one, they're defrostin' or whatever. At the store I worked at, if it wasn't the normal cycle, it was usually because some jagoff came in with a huge travel mug and filled the whole thing up so the vessel had to refill with warm syrup and refreeze" Duke shuffles over to the dispenser more quickly than you've ever seen him move, not that you have particularly extensive experience with that. "Oh, uh, grab a thing of whatever kinda chips you want, we'll split'm, and I'm not picky. You grab a sufficiently fancy looking brand of sour cream and onion chips and head to the counter, after a brief moment, Duke joins you with a jumbo cup filled all the way to the top of the dome lid, slurping the excess that rises out of the cup as it melts from the heat in his hand. Did he really have to fill it that full? He'd better not spill that shit in your car.

Duke notices the disapproval in your eyes. "What, you want some? I don't got cooties or nothin'. He lowers his voice to remark under his breath. "Even if I did, we already crossed that bridge." Returning to normal volume, "I didn't take you for a germaphobe, Anon."

You're not. "I just don't want any of that sticky stuff on my seats, be careful, or I'll have you clean it up yourself."
You immediately realize the unintended innuendo in what you just said and brace for whatever smart comment is coming.

"Ahh, you wanna put me in a compromising position, don'cha?" That's not what you were expecting, but you can run with it. "Yeah, hunched over with the shop-vac and upholstery cleaner." Duke laughs at your quick and unbothered response.

You pay and return to the car. Duke clearly took your words to heart, because he grabbed a handful of napkins to wrap around the cup. "Hang on, didn't you say it was a dick move to empty the machine like that?"
Duke smiles. "I did, but fuck'm anyway. I'm doing them a favor, if y'think about it, this shit is almost 500 calories of pure poison and sketchy food coloring. I can handle it. Some poor guy with no impulse control is gonna walk out of there mildly disappointed, but very slightly healthier for it."

For as abrasive as he is, you're enjoying the real Duke. You're already feeling chemistry with him where there was just attraction before. You can tell just how much he wasn't made for the life he's found himself in. You hope you're resonating with him at least half as well as he is with you.

Resonating. With traffic, you have about another ten minutes to go. You might as well poke at Duke's taste in music. "We have a little while to go, Duke. you want me to put on some music? What do you like?"
"Oh, whatever you usually play. As long as it's not the same old stuff I hear on the playlist and jukebox every day at The Cy." Duke answers, unhelpfully. You aren't familiar at all with what The Cy usually plays.
At the next red light, you hand Duke your phone and switch the audio system to Bluetooth. "You know what? Just go ahead and pull up whatever you like on Spotify. I can't read your mind ...yet."

"Shit. you're putting me on the spot. All I can think of is the old guy stuff Pap had on tape in the glovebox of the S10. You mind Three Dog Night, Ten Years After?" Duke asks, worried you'll shoot it down.

You've at least heard of Three Dog Night, so you tell him to go with that. And evidently that tape was well loved, as Duke pulls up a song and is immediately singing along.

"Well, I never been to Spain. But I kind of like the music. Say the ladies are insane there, and they sure know how to use it. They don't abuse it, I can't refuse it."

Duke doesn't exactly have overflowing talent, but he can actually hold a tune. He's not doing a bad job. You suspect at this point that he doesn't grant himself many opportunities to relax and be himself like this. You think you're doing him a lot of good by letting him get out of the shell he's built.
The song goes around a couple times and you catch on to the lyrics of the chorus in time to join him for the last one. You're not any better than him, at a stretch, but you don't think it matters. He's starved for camaraderie and real closeness. You know he's been alone and dealing with trauma for a long time. Opening yourself up to Duke is just as important to him as Duke opening himself up to you.

"WELL I NEVER BEEN TO HEA~VEN! BUT I BEEN TO OKLAHOMA. OH, THEY TELL ME I WAS BORN THE~RE, BUT I REALLY DON'T REMEM~BER! IN OKLAHOMA. NOT ARIZONA. WHAT DOES IT MATTER? WHAT DOES IT MAT~TER?"

As the next song starts, you reflect on the situation. To be honest, the more you learn about Duke's "Pap" and especially the relationship they had, the more you wonder how anyone could have set Duke astray, how a kid with as much love in his heart, and support from at least one family member he trusted and loved so dearly, could feel so aimless that he turned to the guidance of such terrible people. Duke clearly thinks the world of his grandfather, and as far as you can tell, there couldn't have been a falling out. Whatever he was going through, matters of his heart or otherwise shouldn't have been so hard on Duke that he couldn't confide in someone like that, instead of burying it or having it be exploited or something like that. That's the mystery, where did that Michael Byford, or at least his people, come in? How? You're pretty sure you understand something close to what happened, but you have no clue where the opportunity could have come from.

You pull into your driveway as Duke whistles, in a way that's either sarcastic or condescending. "Wow, an actual house. I thought'ya said you wern't that well off? How does a journalist for a little 'special interest publication' afford this?"
"Just barely" you answer. "My parents sold it to me when I got my current position at The Bond, for next to nothing. They decided to move down to the Gulf for better weather. They bought it cheap themselves, back in 2009. Between property taxes, maintenance and insurance, and every other expense, I haven't had the opportunity to save much. It's just an old duplex converted into a single dwelling. The garage isn't even attached, it's behind the house, across the alley."

Duke clearly takes issue with your justification. "What's with you, talking like some old fucker who's been coasting for the last 20 years?" He continues "Yeah, but you own a house, at all. Pro'lly paid off, right? Who cares if the garage is attached or not? A lotta people would be happy with just having a closer parking space to their apartment, or maybe one of them... Whatever the Hell they're called - Carports."

Duke's interjection didn't let you finish. "I know, I'm not struggling by any means and I didn't mean to sound like I thought I was. I do know how lucky I am. If it were really that vexatious to me, I'd sell it, invest most of the money and find somewhere cheaper. That would probably be the smart thing to do, but I've lived here for most of my life and I like it. And if I went through with all the headache that comes with that, I'd still end up with less than I started with in exchange for a little extra disposable income. I just don't think it's worth it."

You let Duke out in front of the house. "Y'know, I was just scared I had you wrong the whole time. It's good to know your head isn't actually up your ass. Thank God I don't have to reevaluate my feelings already. I'm not up for that tonight. And, y'know what? That was kinda my fault for getting upset before you even finished. I'm sorry."
You park and hurry over to make sure Duke isn't waiting long for you to unlock the door, the weather is improving, but it's still not exactly pleasant to be standing around outside.

You give Duke a rundown of the house.

There's a small entrance room you can't do much with, because the stairs are on the right and the doorway to the rest of the ground floor is right next to them, leaving next to no space for anything. Through the doorway is your dining room, also bisected by the path through the house. Behind that are your kitchen on the right and your living room on the left. The ground floor bathroom is attached to the living room. At the top of the stairs is your office, to the left of that is the upper floor bathroom, and last, all the way to the left is the bedroom.
You've never quite understood how it must have been laid out for two separate families to be sharing what little space there is in here, especially with extra walls between them, you suspect it was never actually a duplex, but your parents just called it one anyway, for some reason. Or, maybe people really were packed in here like sardines and some or all of what you've always known as closet space was actually bedrooms.

You decide to get dinner out of the way first and instruct Duke to make himself comfortable while you're busy. "Go ahead and find something you're comfortable watching on your own, Duke, it's going to be about 30 minutes."

You happen to have a couple salmon filets and some broccoli in your fridge, with some brown rice and an quick sauce, It'll make a nice meal. And you might convince Duke you actually planned this.

You put the rice in the cooker and leave it to get a head start for a few minutes. You take the opportunity to see how Duke's settling, it seems like he hasn't found anything he'd like to watch yet. "You need anything, Duke? I know you have that big drink, but there's bottled water, tea, juice and energy drinks in the mini fridge in the dining room, if you want them. You'd be surprised how much more receptive guests are to hospitality and how much more comfortable they get when you have something like that set up."

"D'you really get so many guests that you needed to come up with that?" Duke enquires. "It does seem like a smart idea, though."

"Oh yeah." you answer. "A lot of times, if it's more convenient for people I'm interviewing than the office or some neutral location, I have them meet me here. I noticed a lot of them would come in with a bottle of water or some other drink, sometimes nothing at all, and if I offered them something out of my fridge, they'd be hesitant to take it even if we were deep into an interview. In my experience, people tend to start getting uncomfortable or rushing through things a lot sooner when they're talking a lot without something to drink. But they don't like to impose. So I figured why not make it feel less like they're in someone's house, and make it clear I'm not just offering it to be polite, or giving something explicitly of my own away for their sake. Put it there specifically to be offered freely. And it worked extremely well."
You end the digression and get back to the point "Are you having trouble finding what you want on TV? Even if it's something you have to rent, just go ahead. My card info is already on there."

"Nah, it's not that. There's plenty here." Duke explains. "I'm just a little overwhelmed. I ain't exactly caught up on shit. It's been... What, like five years? Since I last had the chance to just sit down and watch something on an actual TV. I've mostly been getting by on YouTube and downloaded shows on my shitty old phone in my free time, it's not great." After a few more seconds of skimming, Duke finds something he's interested in. "Oh hey, I think I remember this one. I wanted to go see it, before I left home. I never got the chance since."

It's a historical drama about the period of human-anthro integration. The first canine to be part of a human police force. You've never seen it either, but it looks interesting. "Maybe we should save that for after dinner and watch it together?"

"Yeah, that sounds good." Duke agrees. "I'll just find some mindless garbage to watch so you can get back to the food."

You head back over to the kitchen and focus your attention on the (slightly) more involved tasks. It ultimately turns out nicer than you thought you were capable of. And you even put some effort into making it presentable.

You ask Duke to pause what he's watching and direct him to join you in the dining room.
He's impressed with what you've done "Wow, You're going above and beyond just for me, huh?"
You really aren't, your first priorities were limiting the number of steps and ways to mess it up., and minimizing the cleanup afterward.
Duke insists, "Come on, don't downplay it. It's salmon made all fancy. Put on the plate fancy too."
"It's not that fancy." You stand your ground. "This salmon was on sale, but other than that, I do something like this most of the time I cook for myself. Some kind of fast cooking protein, a vegetable, and something starchy. It's the sweet spot between quick, easy, not terrible for you, and actually good. All I did differently this time was put a couple more seconds of care into how it all went on the plate."

Duke's background must be rearing its head as he takes his first bites. "Like Hell it's not. The kind of home cooking I grew up on was a crock-pot roast with carrots and potatoes in gravy made from a mix that came out of a damn pouch. Or frozen pierogis and canned green beans. Or minced up liver blasted with onion and garlic powder and pepper stuffed into pasta shells and baked. Compared to that, this is like some kind of "hot quiz-een" or however the fuck they pronounce it. I do miss those damn liver dumplings, even though my friends thought I was a weirdo for liking them. It got to the point I couldn't have anyone over if we were having them. It always lead to trouble."

Hey, that's a good excuse to start asking questions about where he's from, get him to start letting his guard down. "Oh, did you have a lot of friends before things went wrong? That must have made it even harder on you."

Duke's snout wrinkles slightly as he contends with his gut reaction to the subject. "I wasn't popular at all, really. I was mostly friends with the other sensitive dorks who cared too much about one thing or another, but that's what you get in such a small town. It might as well be Kentucky or West Virginia, even though it's less than an hour away from the city. And it really did feel like that. There were maybe eight gays at my high school total, including lesbians. And none of us had any chance of knowing it or bonding over it, I didn't know how to feel about it, and even if the others did, they sure weren't willing to put themselves out there. It wasn't like we'd get a dangerous kind of harassment over it, but we'd inevitably end up the butt of jokes that would get tired really quickly, and I imagine we all knew it. I didn't stand to gain anything by admitting it anyway, none of the human guys were my type, as little as I understood it at the time, and even if they were my type, I had no reason to think I'd get anywhere with them."

That couldn't have been easy, you're starting to have suspicions about how Byford came into the picture, and they're coming alongside a significant sense of dread. You decide to keep pulling the thread. "What, was it Amish country?"

Duke clarifies. "Not exactly. Sure, if you drive long enough down dirt roads you'll find a few, but that's anywhere in Pennsylvania. You could be coming back down from Erie on 79 and make a couple'a wrong turns and end up feeling like you're 200 miles from the interstate, not 2. Hell, go to any Walmart in a town that's even slightly out of the way on the right day of the month and you'll see an Amish family who had someone drive them in for the stuff they can't grow or sew themselves. But I digress."

Duke continues, "Naw, I grew up in a place where every other billboard was some kind of fundamentalist Christian message or another. I remember this one, there were rumors at school that they took a screenshot of guys kissing from actual gay porn and put it in black and white, and slapped a big stupid red 'no' symbol over top of it and put a bible quote and citation next to it. Like one of them motivational posters n'at."

You challenge the assumption baked into that statement. "That doesn't mean the prevailing sentiment was against you Duke. All it means is that those organizations were the only ones who thought the billboard space in those locations was worth the price they were charging for it, or they owned the company that managed them, or something of that nature."

Duke explains his intent, "I didn't think for a second the other kids in school were that bad, or that it was any major problem for me. Outside of the fact that it feels bad to be reminded that there are people I'd never be able to make my case to, it didn't bother me much."

"Honestly, the biggest struggle for me at the time wasn't other people. It was me. I was told all my life that at some point a switch would flip and I'd start liking girls. It never did, but I thought I was just behind the curve. I was just sitting around waitin' for it to happen. Meanwhile I'd get these urges, I'd be talking to a friend, classmate or teacher, and boom, out of nowhere, I'd get a feeling that told me "You really want to just grab this guy and kiss him."

Obviously, I just chalked that up to intrusive thoughts, but it kept happening, and getting more and more frequent and more and more extreme. It was getting to the point where when they happened, other people could tell somethin' was up, even if they had no clue what. And the whole time I was getting torn up by all those thoughts because I 'knew' I wasn't gay. I didn't act the way I thought gay people did, and I didn't feel the way I thought gay people should. And part of me was scared that if I surrendered to those urges, I'd turn into a completely different person. I didn't want that at all."

Duke pauses for a moment, as if he's realizing something. "But look at where I am now, and where I was when this all started. From the outside looking in, I bet most people would say I did turn into that person. But I don't feel like that's true. I'm no stereotype or sexual hedonist now, and even back when I was running the clubs looking for dick for its own sake, let's just say I was going against my own feelings and judgements and trying to be someone I wasn't. I felt like it was what I was supposed to be doing, that it was the only valid way to be gay. That if I really got used to it, I'd stop feeling like something was missing, and I'd be happy. But that was never the truth.

Duke moves on to the present, "And who I am now, what I'm doing, I got no love for it left. What I really want is to have a real relationship, I want to seriously love someone who seriously loves me, capital L Love. A'course sex is part of that. But on its own, anymore, it just drains me. Emotionally, once the moment has passed. Sure, most of the time, I'll pop, and sometimes, the guy I'm with will even go above and beyond because he wants to see me enjoying it because he's into that. But then, there's nothing more to it, and I swear it's never as good as it could be. Usually there's... I d'know, a coldness to it? Some obscure sadness I don't have the words for.
I never really got the chance to know what a real, healthy relationship was supposed to be like. Early on, I got somewhere close to it a couple times, but it never worked out."

89
He takes a deep breath.
"The truth is that I was in a terrible place emotionally the first time you showed up at The Cy. I was totally done, I had just about given up on getting back to normal and made peace with the fact that I'd never be satisfied with what I was doing and I'd have to just live with how bad it could make me feel on some days..." Duke trails off for a moment. "I'm gettin' into the weeds here. I keep going down this road and I'll start giving up hints to shit I ain't quite ready to get off my chest yet. And I wanna do that the right way, on my own terms."

You reassure him. "I already told you. Nothing you can tell me is going to change my mind about seeing you, Duke. Nothing can change my feelings about you at this point. I know anything you could tell me about yourself is going to represent some lapse in your judgement that you regret deeply and doesn't reflect on your character as a person. And, to be honest, I'm already starting to paint a picture in my head."

The same emotional response as before washes over Duke again, his snout wrinkles as he cringes. "Shit. I might as well at least tell you whether you're barking up the right tree or not. Worst case scenario, you'll be totally off base and I'll just shoot it down, and we'll be back to where we started. Best case, you might get some things right, and it'll make finding the right words easier later, give me something to jump off of instead of having the stuff that bothers me most come out of my own mouth. Go ahead, shoot."

You need to be careful here. You know the broad strokes of the truth, but you can't get too close, or else Duke might get suspicious. "I'm getting the impression that someone preyed on your insecurities and betrayed you at that vulnerable time in your life. And I wouldn't be surprised if that was some kind of trusted authority figure, like a teacher, or maybe you were working a part time job to earn your own spending money, and it was an older coworker or your boss. And judging by the fact that it's clear you prefer humans, and you've told me nothing but bad stories about anthros, it's probably safe to assume he was a human."

To your surprise, Duke is amused, you didn't even consider he could react like this. "Holy shit. I know you're a journalist, but I didn't think you were that kind. You're like some kind of detective, picking out things I didn't even realize I was tellin' ya."

He validates your assessment. "You're actually pretty damn close, Anon. You're missing one big piece of the puzzle, and the small details arn't correct. But yeah. It was something like that. A real fuckin' monster swooped in and took advantage of a confused hormonal teenager who didn't understand his feelings. Told me whatever I needed to hear to believe there was something secret and special between us, and that it wasn't really all that wrong. That I was very mature, and just getting a head start, and the rest of the world was wrong for declaring what we had illegal. All that typical groomer bullshit. The other big piece is what really hurts me, and what I still can't bring myself to admit to you. I just still don't know if 'nothing' really means nothing with you. Now, let's be done with all this nonsense about me, for now. And get back to what I was trying to get to this whole time. About how I feel about you."

Duke switches gears. "Anyways, when I saw you shuffling over to the booth, I knew you had no business with me, and I wasn't happy you were pokin' around despite that. I figured you were just some nervous goober there because you heard some rumor or another about me. That happens sometimes. I was thinking I'd scare you off. But it didn't work, because you really did just want to talk. I didn't have any reason to say no. It was a slow night and I'd just be sitting there anyway. If nothing else I'd kill the time. But then you go and stir a whole bunch of feelings I had written off years ago without even trying. You tried to do some good without an ulterior motive, y'made me laugh, and you gave me a chance to talk to someone on the same level. Usually there's some kind of imbalance. If I'm talking to Danny or someone else working at The Cy, I'm beneath them. It's their hospitality that carries me. And they have no obligation to do it. If I'm talking to a client, they've paid me for something and that's the priority."

You know where this is going. "Ah. I didn't want anything out of you, and I wasn't a reminder of the few concessions in your principles you make just to survive."

"There was that, but you were quick to be selfless and use your influence for my benefit without expecting anything in return. I found you really charming immediately, you didn't try to play it cool for even a second. You said what you thought as soon as it came to mind, and you definitely weren't afraid of making a fool of yourself. You were the first time I've felt that real spark of attraction in fucking years, Anon. I started laughing after you said all that cute flowery shit about me because I didn't know it was possible for me to ever feel that way again. I wasn't ready for it. I had to play it off and came up with the most awkward shit I've ever said in my life. That stupid fishing analogy, and my accent even slipped. It wasn't even true, by the way. I don't think I've ever had someone come up to me and go on at length about how hot they think I am. Obviously, they do think that, because I am. And they pay well for my services. But they're usually... Laconic? Is that the word for it? Terse? They don't talk much, for the most part. I guess you only get the shy guys when you're working in a place where even the littlist bit of extroversion can land someone a hookup. ...But you, you weren't that. And the whole time I was talking to you in that diner, that spark kept getting bigger and brighter. And even if you didn't have any cash left at the end of the night, I would have found some reason to spend the night with you. I didn't want you to go away. I was even making peace with the idea I'd come here with you, even though it had been a hard no, since that crazy fucker of a horse proved how bad it could get. Just so I wouldn't have to let that feeling end yet. For the first time in a long time I felt free again. And you have no idea how happy it made me that you let me hold you like that."

"Actually, I think I do, Duke, you were purring so loud I thought you were going to vibrate straight through me like Radical Larry." You joke.
"What?"
"It's a stupid old internet joke. Sometimes I forget how obscure stuff like that is to most people."
"Okay, given your track record, I'm sure I'd be laughing my ass off if I did get it. So we'll just pretend I did. Ha Ha."

With that awkward moment out of the way, you ask Duke what he thinks about how tonight has gone so far.

"It's been nice. Just doing normal shit with you feels like it's digging me out of the hole I've found myself in, one step at a time. I'm sure it'll be nice to watch a movie with you, too. And I can't wait to get some sexual gratification from someone I'm actually emotionally invested in."

That sounds suspicious. "From me? Look, I'm open to a lot of things, Duke, and you'll be the one choosing what we do, but I hope you weren't expecting to top. I'm not that kind of guy. Sometimes I do wonder what it's like for you guys who enjoy it, but I just don't have any real interest in bottoming. Anything else, that isn't an extreme fetish, is provisionally on the table, but that's where the line is drawn for me."

"Well, y'don't need to worry about that." Duke clarifies. "I'm a total bottom. I'll top if a client really wants me to. But it just isn't all that much better than jerking off for me, and I don't really see the point 'cause of that. Why go to all that effort of seeking someone out if you can get 90% of the payout for no effort at all? Being fucked is special. It has its own feeling that y'can't get any other way. I'd always choose that if I'm given a choice. Of course, if you were to ever change your mind, or that curiosity ever becomes something you want to act on, I'd be happy to let you in on what's so great about it. As long as you give as good as you get."

You doubt that's going to happen, but you appreciate the flexibility in a conceptual sense.

Duke finishes his plate, and you're quick to offer him more, if he wants it. "There's plenty more broccoli and rice in the kitchen. Please, have as much of it as you want, you're not imposing on me at all if you do."

"That's no problem, Anon, I'm not that kind of guy." Duke admits. "I grew up around too many people who'd go back'n'forth with the whole 'please, take this' 'I can't, you keep it' thing. I can't stand it.
That said, I think I'm good anyway. I've never had a 'specially big appetite for most things. Brussels sprouts done the right way, like in one of them steakhouses where they season 'em good and char the fuck out of 'em, I could eat so many of those, I'd get sick. And I'd usually end up eating a lot of halu- uh, cabbage 'n noodles when we went to the fair, but that was probably because we only went to one or two days, and I didn't get it anywhere else. I always liked those kinds'a vegetables, and I never had any clue why the other kids hated'm so much. They were always better than lettuce and onions and stuff like that. Just another reason I didn't fit in. I was a little nerd. Who looked weird. Who everyone knew was an accident. Who had all kinds'a weird rumors floating around about me. On top of all of that, I was the odd one out in mundane ways like that too. I was never bullied, but I could tell no one knew how to deal with me, and I guess that might have been my fault for not trying to make myself a presence and just pretending like I was content being the shy kid in the background."

This is turning into another one sided venting session from Duke, but this isn't an interview this time, and you promised him you'd let him know more about yourself.
"I know a little bit of what you're talking about, Duke. I wasn't terribly social in school either. I read a lot, was always writing little stories and keeping a journal. I probably would have tried to become an author of some kind, that's what I really wanted to be for a long time.
But there was always this friend of mine, his name was Wally. Gray tabby, white countershading, most unassuming cat anthro you could imagine. Small, fragile kid, even in high school. Bad anxiety. And I feel bad saying it, but I wouldn't be surprised if he was a little slow, too. But we got along well, I usually helped him understand stuff he wasn't quite grasping in English class and a couple other subjects I was decent at. And he really enjoyed the stuff I wrote."

Wally played a big part in how you realized you wanted to be a journalist.
"But the thing was, the other human kids would give him grief, for being such an easy target, and it only kept getting worse the older we got. By the time we were in high school it was outright harassment and hostile stereotyping, and that all came about because he expressed a little too much interest in a human classmate in 9th grade, a girl named Grace. And the truth was that Wally was a little too persistent, because he didn't know better, but once she drew a hard line in the sand, he did give up. Grace and her family suddenly moved away for some unrelated reason that summer, I didn't know why until later, but by the time we were back in school for 10th grade, a million different versions of the same rumor that Wally had gone too far and harassed or assaulted her, or even worse, were floating around the whole school"

"Wally couldn't make it between classes without someone yelling insults at him, from a "crosser pervert" to a rapist. The other anthro students weren't defending Wally, because they believed some version of the rumors was true, too, and they thought he was setting a bad example and deserved to face the consequences of his own actions."

He had no one else in his corner. "And the efforts the school was making to dispel the rumors weren't working, the human students broadly wrote it off as preferential treatment because he was an anthro 'who needed to be covered for.' And the anthros either didn't want to risk getting themselves on the wrong side of the issue, or were simply unwilling to escalate the situation. Wally's older brother, Bud, tried to stand up for him, but the rest of the anthro community talked him out of it, because they didn't want the situation to turn into a bigger conflict."

That's where your part came in. "I really wasn't happy with the way things were going, and I knew for sure that none of the rumors were true. Wally never even had the opportunity to do any of that, he lived close by, just down the street here. Neither of us even knew where that girl lived, and neither of us had ever seen Grace around the neighborhood. She lived somewhere else. I don't know where. And I can guarantee you, Wally's parents weren't dropping him off anywhere to go do whatever he wanted on a whim."

You decided to go to bat for your friend, because no anthros could, and no other humans were willing to. "I went around asking each of the other human students which version of the story they heard, and who they heard it from. I'd write that down in a journal, then ask that person the same thing, until I got as far up the chain as I could reach, then start over with someone who had a different version of the story. Eventually, that made a graph. And it turned out the rape version was the original! It came from a Senior, who had only said it as an off-color joke because he thought Wally was 'kind of a creep.' Then three of his friends, assuming something like that was actually true, even if it wasn't actually rape, went on to spread the rumor through the rest of the school, the telephone game and the natural tendency for exaggeration and just making shit up were what lead to so many different versions."

You explain what happened next.
"I wrote a pamphlet outlining exactly what happened and spread copies around, but that didn't do much. So I went to the administration with it to see if they could do anything with that information, they really couldn't. But it was enough to convince them it was necessary to call the girl's family, thank God this didn't happen before everyone had cell phones, or else that might have been impossible. They managed to convince Grace to record a video for them to play at a special assembly, explaining the situation. How yes, Wally had been a little bit forward with her, and kind of pushy too, but that it was all relatively polite and respectful, and once she told him to stop, it ended. That she had moved away because her dad got a promotion, and nothing else prompted it. And even insisted that she and Wally had never even met outside of school, to her recollection."

Duke has been fully invested in your story the whole time, listening with rapt attention. "Wow. I'm guessing life didn't just go back to normal immediately after that though. Right? I can see why going through all'a'at and feeling good about it gave you the itch to do it professionally.

He's right on both counts, it's why you decided to get your degree in journalism, and why you eventually ended up with The Bond. And life absolutely didn't go back to normal, either. "Yep. Some of the humans never gave it up but the majority did, and with the benefit of strong proof in his favor, there were human and anthro students both defending Wally whenever it came up, but the stain never totally went away. He ended up moving away after high school, got into carpentry and got himself a decent job. I still keep in touch with him, he owns his own business and has a wife and kid now. I'm really glad it turned out well for him. Sometimes, I guess it hits him and he still sends me "thank you" messages for it all, and it's been years."

You continue, "Since then, discrimination like that has gone way down in general, and by the time I was at The Bond, most of the sticking points left were about the minutia in interspecies relationships, and of course, the whole hybrid thing, which I don't need to explain to you of all people, Duke. but I was happy to do my part in helping people get over their qualms about them. It's one of the last steps we have to get over, and I'm not totally sure we'll ever get there a hundred percent, but at least that means job security for me, and my coworkers, and it's definitely no reason to stop trying, even though some people at The Bond sure would like to turn it into another listicle hellhole for anthros to learn "How to Grapefruit Your Human" and other asinine shit like that."

This has been a regular point of concern and anxiety for you, you don't want The Bond to change or water down its mission for greater commercial success. "To tell you the truth, I'm really scared of what's going to happen when my boss, Tim finally decides to step away. He and his wife have maybe 15 good years left together and there's a serious chance one of them is going to have to spend at least a few of them without the other. He's a great boss who's always looking out for all of us, but I know he can't do it forever and it doesn't look like there's anyone in the pipeline to keep business going as usual after he decides he's done."

Surprisingly, Duke has an opinion on the matter. "I don't know nothin' about it, but it sounds like that might be a reason for you to get your ass in gear and see what you can do about it. If he's such a good guy, maybe if you drop the right hints, and have the aptitude for it, he'll put you on the fast track to a promotion to a position where you can fight whatever might be coming along in your future?"

That sounds a little ridiculous. "What? Like expecting him to train me to take over the paper, out of the goodness of his heart? I don't have a business degree, Duke. I don't know much about operating a business at all."

"Maybe he never did, neither." Duke suggests "It don't seem like having a business degree and making the kinds'a decisions that keep everybody happy go together all that often anymore. I met him once, before The Cy's grand reopening, whenever we were still planning on doing things above-board. He was a journalist himself, at one point, who worked his way up, isn't he? All I'm saying is that it can't hurt to ask questions, right?, and you may not know Business, but you sure as hell do know THE business, s'far as I can tell. And maybe that's better than some outsider in a suit making a cookie-cutter sham doing things the exact same way as everyone else, as soon the people who care are forced to check out. If those people buy The Bond, the print edition's going away, the deal with The Cy is over and it's probably going to be gutted for anything valuable before dying, a shell of its former self. 'Least if you fuck it up, you were actually trying, and you went out fighting for what you believed in. In either of those bad endings, you're still going to be able to limp off somewhere else and recover. But in one of them, you never had a chance for things to go right. In the other, it'll be up to you."

Duke stands up out of his seat and stretches. "Ah, what the hell am I saying. I'm just some lost cause man-whore suckin' dick, just to tread water for my own dumbass mistakes. What could I know?" You're almost overwhelmed by how unserious and sarcastic that statement was.
Duke picks up his plate and carries it into the kitchen. He raises his voice from around the corner. "Now, get in here and let's finally put that damn movie on, Anon."

Duke waits for you to take your preferred seat on the couch, before intentionally settling down as close to you as he can. Somehow, you had forgotten he was here for that, and that you're going to be out $500 when everything is said and done. "You don't need to play the role here, Duke. Make yourself comfortable."

"What, you don't want me hangin' off'a you? I can't believe that. You're just playin' the nice guy, ain'tcha?" A smug, toothy expression comes over Duke's whiskered face. "Well, what if that's how I happen to be most comfortable?" He asks, in the poutiest, most exaggerated voice he can conjure.

"In that case." You reply, "I guess I have no choice." As you give him a warm smile. You really did just want him to make the choice himself instead of feeling obligated. But it doesn't hurt to play the cards he gave you. "It's just that I've been enjoying hanging out with you, just as guys. I want you to be yourself. I don't want the face you put on for other guys."

"Aw, bullshit. Who says..." Duke nuzzles his long face into your neck. "...This ain't the way guys should hang out?"
A lot of people, actually, but that's beside the point. "Not me" you admit. "But I'd say you're doing a great job, however you choose to get under my skin." You reciprocate his intimacy and reach down to scratch at the base of his tail. A trick you learned from your brief, enlightening encounter with the tiger.

As expected, it's like a shock shoots through Duke's body. "Fuck. You know the secret, huh? Then y'know it's the shortcut to gettin' me all worked up, real quick, and it ain't no fun being hard in jeans, especially when I don't got any underwear on."

Things are escalating quickly, but you can't say you object, as much as it's driving your plan off the rails. "You want to skip the movie so I can take care of that for you?"

"That depends, Anon. This is actually a good opportunity to indulge an obscure little fetish a'mine. If you're up for it." What could Duke possibly be suggesting? What kind of fetish has any bearing on whether or not you watch a movie. You have a couple guesses, but they're nothing you'd call obscure.

"It's not that weird." Duke assures you. "If you're cool with it, I'm gonna whip out my dick, and you're gonna jerk me off, but I'll have you stop at the last possible second so I still cum, but there's no follow through and I don't really get the climax. It's a really awful, frustrating feeling. And I'll assume you're wonderin' why I'd want that, and what else there is to it. And the answer to that is, it makes the next real one so much fuckin' better you wouldn't believe it. I fuckin' love the anticipation."

Okay, you can see the appeal in that. "Why don't you just ask your clients to do that when you're in the mood? How is it all that special?"

"It's not exactly the kind of thing I have the chance to get into with clients. I'm not getting anything out of most of 'em, and of the ones I do, it's more of an incidental thing. They're not really too concerned about me having a good time. And the two or three who do, they're not sticking around for another session in an hour just to satisfy a weird fetish for me. So I'd really appreciate if you'd do that for me. You've already done so many other little things to fix my broken-ass soul already, and I wouldn't mind another one here."

You don't see any reason why you shouldn't. "Hell yeah, I'll do that, it actually sounds cute." You put a hand on his face and brush it over the top of his head and down the back of his neck. "As long as you do one thing for me yourself, Duke. Don't ever call yourself 'broken.' You don't deserve that, and it isn't nearly true. Nothing you've said bothers me more."

Duke groans. "Come on, we're both starting to think with our dicks here, and you go and get sappy on me?"

"Hey, you started it, Duke." You contest. "'Broken-ass soul?' Really? You're lucky you don't have a poet's heart for self-deprecation, because self-deprecation doesn't fit you. Hell of a mouth, though. In both senses, I'm finding."

You turn your attention back to the task at hand. "Get that thing out already. It's going to be doing a lot more than just thinking for you in a few seconds."

To your surprise and amazement, Duke twists his body, undoes his belt and casts off his jeans in a single swift motion, without even standing up. It must be second nature to him. He seems eager to test your mettle. "Sure, let's see what you can do."

Duke turns, leans back against the armrest of the couch and spreads his legs. This is the first clear look you've gotten at him while he's at full mast. There's no way his cock is five inches like he said. Four and a quarter, maybe. But the proportions are good, it's neither too wide or too narrow for the length he does have. No significant curvature, and as before, the silky, tight foreskin hugs it in an extremely appealing way as the head just barely peeks through. It might not be very impressive, but you do have to admit. It is pretty, just like the rest of him.

And you also get an eye on his hole. Given his track record, you were expecting something else, but somehow. It looks to be in remarkably good shape. Nowhere near virginal, but it's also nowhere near as bad as you might have feared, given the things he's told you. Either that's a benefit of the feline anatomy and the margin of "extra cushion" he gets, or Duke's been very aware of his limits and responsible with his body for a long time. It could be both for all you know.

Your feelings must be evident on your face, because Duke feels the need to remark. "That's what I like to see. It looks like we'll both be having trouble paying attention to the movie. ...Unless you've changed your mind? Maybe now that you see what you're in for, you don't wanna wait? I think I might be gettin' a little impatient myself."

You're interested in seeing how this goes, and if it's really going to make Duke's night that much better, it would be wrong not to commit to it.

"No, I said I'd do it. I'm seriously curious about it now, too. But I'm willing to do this however you'd most prefer. We can save the fetish thing for another time if you want."

Duke clearly doesn't want that. "Neh-neh. I absolutely fuckin' do want the ruined orgasm thing. I just didn't wanna fuck up the pace'a things if you were getting too eager. Y'got that look in your eye that usually means you're a few seconds away from just goin' at it like a wildman."

He sits up, and scoots over, wrapping his arm around you so his hand's resting on your shoulder. "I doubt I need to walk you through how to do this. But you do need to know the signal. As soon as I give you two quick squeezes on this shoulder, your hand is outta' there. And I mean it. Don't finish the motion first, don't try to be cute or fancy with it. Treat it like you touched a hot stove."

Duke sticks two fingers of his free hand into his mouth and makes an elaborate and surprisingly lewd show of getting them good and slick. Licking them sensually, letting a trail dangle between them and his mouth as he pulls them away and even does that thing where he makes a V with them that frames his tongue.

Once he's decided he's done with the theatrics, he gives himself a few strokes to transfer the wetness. "There ya have it. I'm all yours. Oh, and if I start gettin' a little dry, just go ahead and add some'a your own."

"You know, I have real lube upstairs, I could have ran and got it for you." You remark.

"Ehh, I figured y'did. Y'don't seem like the kind of guy who'd buy my time, then turn out to be unprepared. I just wanted to make a show of it. Ain't I allowed to have a little fun?"

This is it. But for some reason you feel a little hesitant, and you can't quite place why. But whatever it was, it goes away as soon as Duke responds to your touch with such intensity and an uncharacteristically effete gasp. If you didn't know better, you'd think he was a virgin who's never been touched before.

Duke is definitely a little embarrassed. "Ah, sorry. I'm pretty sensitive. I've always been a pretty quick shot, 's'another reason I don't top. No good at it. Keep goin'."

You tentatively give him a couple tugs, and realize how nice he feels in your hand. The skin is perfect, it might just be the softest part of him, pending what you'll be doing later. It moves with you, without sticking or bunching up. You can feel Duke's heart beating, and every time you change direction his dick twitches, pulses or jumps in some novel way. You speed up, and turn your attention to his face.

All of Duke's willpower and energy are obviously being focused into lasting as long as possible, and keeping his cool for as long as he can. He's biting his tongue as it slightly peeks out of the side of his mouth and staring forward blankly, almost seeming to look through you as you make eye contact.

You finally go full speed, and it manages to make Duke inhale sharply through his clenched teeth. You hear the claws on his feet stick into the carpet. He's starting to lose control.

Considering Duke seems to have a thing for playing with anticipation, you take the initiative and stop early to let him cool down for a few seconds. "Even if you are a quick shot, that doesn't mean I can't work around it. I'm getting my money's worth, pretty boy."

It seems like that pushes Duke's buttons, he can't keep himself quiet anymore and releases a frustrated grunt. "Holy fuck... I didn't take you... for a natural. You're way too sweet of a guy to have the talent for this. You check a couple more boxes, I might have no choice but to swa- no choice but to give you a discount, so we can do this more often. Yeah."

He was about to say something else there. "Duke, I heard that. Were you about to say 'swallow my pride and...? I already told you, more than once you don't need to be so evasive. For someone who's spent a long time on the wrong side of the law, you're really bad at it."

"Damn it." Duke knows he can't keep this up. "Now I really have no choice. Look, I guess I'm gonna have to tell you everything sooner rather than later, but I want to experience everything you've got to give me before there's any chance your heart won't be in it. I know it's selfish but-"

You interrupt him. "I understand, Duke. It's not selfish at all. You want to make it through this date first. All the sex means nothing to you at this point without romance behind it, and you'd settle for just one perfect night if you really had to. Is that it? I keep telling you it won't change, no matter what you say. But you just have to be..."

You grab Duke's dick and lean in close to his face. "A stubborn..." You give it a stroke "Little..." And a couple more, Duke's nose wrinkles. "RAT."
He missed the voluntary signal, but you're able to tell he's ready without it.

As you pull your hand away, Duke cums with surprising force, and impressive volume. And he whimpers miserably as he does so.
Unfortunately, that means it went directly onto the carpet, but you're going to worry about that later. For now, you're just glad you did such a good job.

"But it's okay, Duke. You're MY stubborn little rat. It's not your fault, and I'm going to do everything you'll let me do to set your life right." You doubt he registered any of that, he's still bucking his hips and whining. To help him come back to his senses, you scratch gently behind one of his black, pointy ears.

Duke finally manages to speak through a wavering voice "God. Damn. I think the payoff from that is gonna stop my heart or somethin' whenever we get to it." He glances down and notices the arc of stains quickly setting in to the carpet. "Oh fuck. We shouldn't have done this out here. I wasn't thinking. You got some spray for that? I'll get down there and get it out myself."

It's not his problem, it's yours. And it really won't be too much of a hassle. "It's fine, Let it go for now, we'll watch the movie and I'll get it with the carpet scrubber before we head upstairs for the night."

Duke expresses some relief at your muted reaction. "Oh, good. I was worried I fucked up by gettin' ahead of myself. You sure it's not a big deal? It was always a big hassle when I spilled anything and my parents had to get the carpet shampooer out. Then any time they did use it they made sure to get every carpeted floor in the house while they were at it. Is mixing the chemicals and settin' it up a pain in the ass or something?

What the Hell is he talking about? "What? No. You just fill it with water and the detergent, plug it in and use it like a vacuum cleaner. There's nothing too involved about it. I think they might have made a scene of it just so you'd be more careful instead of spilling stuff all the time."

"Ooh, smart. The little puke I could be at times, I would have absolutely stopped giving a shit if I knew they could just fix it. I was always dropping cereal and stuff like that everywhere, because I knew they'd just get it eventually with the sweeper. Stopped doing that by the time I was ten, though. I guess they forgot to clear that up.

It never occurred to you how many mundane things Duke never had a chance to learn. In some ways he's still that teenager who ran away, isn't he? The good news is that there can't be that much he's missed out on. He was about 15 when he ran off.

Duke shuffles over to the bathroom "I'll just get myself cleaned up so I don't drip anywhere else."

While he does so, you pull up the movie "Cy: Tooth and Claw, Shoulder to Shoulder"
"A powerful story of respect and dignity in a time of great prejudice. Inspired by real historical events. Cyrus Baldwin is the first canine to become an officer on a human dominated police force. He proves his mettle and makes the case for his kind in the face of exceptional circumstances."

Neat, historical fiction. Given your background, you know the real history very well, and it wasn't like this. But if this is done well, it could be interesting nonetheless. What does bother you is the fact that they went for the low hanging fruit and called both the movie and the protagonist, Cy. Either they're tremendous hacks, or they simply consider subtlety and subtext to be cowardly, it remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, Duke has finished in the bathroom and makes his way back over to the couch. He sits down beside you and makes no effort to retrieve his pants.