Rutting Season

"Oh my! That's lovely!"

"Glad you think so," he said, his smoke dwindling in his hand.

I am gonna fuck all the poetry out you... She actually gasped aloud at this intrusive thought. She didn't expect such an impulse to jump into her mind like that. But really it had, and really it gave her something to think about, no matter how dismissive she tried to be about it.

"Goodness," she said, trying to cover up her underlying feelings. "I'm suddenly feeling a snack. Do you think we can eat together at the cafe? Please?"

"Of course."

They left the spot. By the time they crossed under the gate, she realized there was what felt like a fire between her legs, weakening as they got further and further away from the moment he recited Shakespeare to her. At nineteen, with how little experience she had had, it could be said confidently that no man had ever ignited such a flame to that degree. She shyly crossed her legs carefully as they walked, but the fear of being inappropriate took over, and she straightened her gait. She was confused as what to do with her thoughts, which all told her she should pounce on him like a cheetah in heat. She wasn't ravenous anymore, but the thought of devouring something really appealed to her in a primordial feed-fuck-fight kinda way. The whole walk to the cafe was intense for her, though silent between them.

They didn't exchange words until he held the door open for her. She thanked him, and they went inside. There wasn't much of a wait, and Arabella wasn't hungry so much for food and hadn't been, but she needed something on her stomach, so she bought an all cane sugar Coke and a small order of fries with cheese sauce.

He got a simple hamburger. He loved onion and pickles, but he he refused the toppings. He felt something in the air that told him to keep his breath fresh.

They sat down on a table outside and a bad feeling came over him. He never was good at having a meal with someone. He didn't exactly know what to do, and he couldn't understand why, but really it was due to his condition, pertaining specifically to social cues. Having not known the girl so much, he reasoned with himself to play it super cool, and just eat there without saying much. Who knows what could come out of his mouth when he was this nervous.

"You okay?" she asked, not knowing it was a loaded question. "Your eyes look sad."

He avoided her intrigue, pretending he didn't hear her. "I don't know what color my eyes are m'dear."

"They're green," she said, overlooking her own concern. "Like a moray eel's body."

She wondered if he didn't look into his own reflection. She heard that people with his illness didn't exactly do such a thing. In this case, she was right. After all, the sunglasses he wore prevented her from catching this earlier, but she still had a notion.

"They're the color of an eel?"

"Yeah," she said between fries. "A long fantabulous moray eel," and she smiled at him.

He thought about it for a moment. Then he smiled too.

"You're like me. You have a connection with animals," he remarked.

"I do?" she asked, confused.

"The magpie," he said.

"Oh!" and she looked up, meeting those reflective sunglasses. "Yeah. He likes almost everyone."

"It's still a connection," he said, his eyes falling south of her face momentarily. "You have something on your collar," he told her.

"Oh," and she couldn't see it. And even if she could, she didn't want to get it herself. It was probably nacho cheese, which wasn't exactly very sexy to her, but she would take what she could get. "Can you get it for me?"

She felt his touch when he pulled on the lace around her throat. He did it several times, tugging lightly, as to scrape off the cheese. He slung his hand down towards the ground and wiped off his fingers on a napkin.

"Thank you," she said.

She wanted him to pull the collar apart. She was wearing a corset under her dress, and this she just had an urge to wear earlier, back at home. They were both looking at one another up and down so to speak, but no one had made any moves. But they were prepared. Who knows what their expectations were. Their minds were both halfway wild, because of different reasons, but it was showing. The girls eyes darted everywhere as she ate, looking for something to dull her desires. The man finished his meal and he sat up to throw it away. Kids played loudly on the playground around the cafe.

"Can you show me how to speak to him?" Tobias asked, returning to the table.

"The bird?" she almost couldn't remember what he was speaking of.

"Yea," he replied, softly, eyeing the children.

One of them screamed unnecessarily. "Ugh," he said.

"I know. I don't enjoy them either." So they left.

It was still early, and the birdhouse wasn't but a turn away from the eatery. The magpie was right inside the exit door, respectively next to the owls.

"See, he likes you," she told him.

The bird fluttered and pecked at his fingers, chirping.

"I wish I had kept a fry for him..." the girl said.

"I wish he had a mate," the man noticed aloud.

"Yea, he's all alone in here. No wonder he likes people. He's lonely."

Tobias again thought of when he was younger, when adults would come to his house and whisper about him to his mother, about how isolated and weird he was.

"I can relate," Tobias said absently.

"Do you live alone?" Arabella asked hopefully.

"I do," he said. "In a run down fixer upper in Frayser."

"I live in Frayser too," she said. It wasn't the best part of town.

Tobias wondered if they counted the same gunshots like stars. "Do you like it?" he dared to ask.

"I don't like the rats. My house is clean but they came in from the burnt house uphill. The whole street probably has them, but I don't talk to the neighbors."

Neither did he, but he actually knew the house she was speaking of. That was a neighborhood over. He bought weed from a guy across the street. The burnt house was an eyesore, and he had sort of watched it burn. Now apparently it was a hub for pests. What a shame. "I live by there," he said.

But neither of them followed up on this. They were keeping their union within the bounds of the zoo for now.

"I don't live with anyone either," she just said instead. "I used to have a boyfriend, a fiancé even, but that was in high school. I've since parted ways with him, and nearly everyone who I used to talk to."

So she was lonely. She could very well understand. The boredom. The wonder. Of how it came down to this. No friends, estranged family, no networks. Just a drug dealer, and a mother too involved in her own life states and states away. Suddenly, when he looked at her under the shade of her umbrella, there was a newfound tenderness there. He seemed in solidarity with someone. And this was how he started to want her.

But no matter how many animals they visited, and no matter how much they talked, intimacy never came to a physical level that day. When the zoo closed, they sat outside, so used to a standoffish nature in themselves, they couldn't light the fire that was sparking.

Knowing that nothing was going to happen this time without being rash, the girl just looked at him and spoke words to him while he smoked.

"Before I go, can I have one of those?"

"Sure," he said, offering his pack.

"Can you light it?"

There wasn't any wind. The last thing that was exchanged between them was this: After he lit the cigarette curiously between his lips as the girl watched, she took it from his hand and her mouth lovingly sealed around the filter. He had his eyes on her the whole time. She took a noticeably succulent drag and the smoke poured out of her lungs like an incense burner. It was alluring to him, as she intended.

She bid him farewell, and her shoes on the asphalt haunted him. He didn't want to have expectations, but he wanted her to come back. He wanted Wednesday to be here the moment she stepped away. He wanted those lips that so eagerly sucked down the poison of his smoke. He sat there for almost an hour just dwelling on this. He didn't want to go home. At least this spot and the vicinity was infused with memories. Ten seconds couldn't go by without her brushing his thoughts, especially her sultry goodbye. On the way home, he listened to music about new love.

They both tried to kill their hopes, but their dreams were hyper focused on a reunion. Wanting turned into longing, longing into yearning, and that led to frustration. When they looked at the time and date it was always so far away from midnight, the turning of the next day, and so distant in the week from the middle. It wasn't fun. The man didn't talk much to customers, and didn't even care for tips. The girl felt an inner monologue going in her head while she took calls at the center.

But eventually, as all weeks do, time landed on Wednesday, and they were both off work. Tobias and Arabella hadn't been so excited to go somewhere since their mamas took them to Disneyland. The girl arrived at the zoo two hours in advance of the official opening time. But already the parking lot spaces were slowly filling in. If you had a zoo pass, you could get in without waiting the two hours, and that was exactly what the girl planned to do. Wednesday was free day, but the rules still applied. She had a feeling he had a pass, even though she neglected to inquire the other day, but she was ready. She was going to search for him, and dadgummit she was at least going to obtain his phone number.

She paid the seventy five dollars, and the lady informed her this gave her free entries for a year. She listened with one ear, nodding as she was informed. Then she stepped inside the barely populated zoo. He wasn't by the wishing pond, or the small creek that children played in. The cafe was closed still, and there was no one soliciting the magpie. The dumb old pandas were stuffing their faces with bamboo, and the otters weren't even in the exhibit today. The tiger was making his rounds around his enclosed jungle, and Tobias wasn't in cat country inhaling his breath behind the glass.

She started to get worried. She was an hour into her visit, and there wasn't even a fresh cigarette butt to be found on the ground to give him away. But then she remembered one last place before she would start going around in circles, which dreaded her.

She went around to the flamingos and took that turn to the hippos. She cautiously walked the path, and her expectations were dangerously high. If they plummeted, she almost would just like to go back home. There would be no other reason to stay. She'd be devastated, she knew, for that was another week, another period of loneliness.

But she wouldn't have to endure it.

Her heart nearly stopped, she almost needed an inhaler herself, for there he was. The light blue of his shirt popping in the shadows. Normally she wouldn't think along these lines, but she did think he looked angelic up there, hiding up the stairs. She didn't want to startle him. Luckily he looked over at her before she took the final steps. At last, time was thwarted.

When she approached him, she had trouble believing it. Never had anything aligned so perfect, had something been so worth it, and little did she know these were premonitions.

"I'm writing you a poem--" he began to say.

But she crouched down, putting her umbrella on the wooden floor of the platform.

"It's really you."

"Yes."

"Can I kiss you?"

"Also yes."

It was a momentary relief from longing. The morning sun made their bodies a passionate silhouette against the horizon. A woman searching for all the details of a man's lips, smooching his face lovingly. She wanted him to know he was wanted somewhere. Maybe he didn't feel that way anywhere else, and he didn't. But right then, as wildly as she kissed him, he knew and felt like he belonged there. He decided then to stay forever, if she would let him.

He let her kiss him until his lips made a run for her beautiful throat, a cascade of smooth, perfect skin. She clutched him, wanting, by the hair, softly but feverishly stroking his curls and pulling off his hat. He pulled her away and looked up at her, at the register of them taking off clothes.

"Is this what you want?" he asked.

"Yes. I want you. Can we--? Now?"

"Mhm," he consented.

She kissed him again graciously. And together they pushed and pulled again, her lips leaving his, and his lips returning, until their tongues were in each others mouths, going as deep as they could. His teeth were polished, his tongue was warm and liked to slow dance around hers, and his smell was of mint and tobacco. All of this she learned.

When she reached for the belt tying his pants up, he resisted. "Wouldn't you like to cum?"

A man had never made her cum before. She had been with only four men. The furthest she had ever gotten with another person was, "It felt good."

"That's a shame," he said when she relayed this. "Can I try?"

She was nervous, but agreed.

He started moving his hand around her dress until he felt the center of her panties.

"Can you remove these?" he asked.

She reached underneath her clothes and slipped them off, putting them beside his hat.

"How should I lay?"

"On your back."

She did. The sunshine pelted her body, and she had the urge to remove the bulky, layered black gown she was wearing, but did not, as it would be too risky. She finally admitted to herself that this was daring, but it wasn't a weird feeling. If they got caught, that was just how it was, because there was no way she was stopping or putting this off. There was no one around, as she could see after she was more exposed, which had excited her paranoia in the first place. Before she swelled deeper into what they were doing, in public, he was moving his fingers around her pussy, and she stifled her moans and kept them at whimpers. He felt her heat and slippery slit, roaming the outside with his fingers first. Nothing she hadn't experienced, but she nonetheless liked. But then it happened so fast it was like confusion and amnesia hit her all at once. She forgot entirely the other times she had been fingerbanged, and all that was left was a vague mirage of memories whereas she was merely pumped into a bunch of times.

This was different. He kept his hand inside her pussy, with a thumb crossing over her clit the rest of her silky cunt. It wasn't long. In fact it was immediate. He was an experienced wanderer, and somehow his destination was reached in little to no time at all. She felt like a pulsation under his nail where he was scratching steadily.

"What the fuck is going on?" she nearly screamed.

"I'm stimulating your G-spot," he said tenderly, trying to relax her.

"I didn't know that was real."

"Oh, it's very real," he said, pushing away the urge to put his fingers in her mouth. He didn't want to scare her with any of his dirty impulses. Time was again the preventive. It was too early to fall down the spiral of hot, nasty, badass sex. They were basically making love, and he had to pluck this flower with as much delicacy as she had shown him for weeks. He had been so sad, and this was his release from all those negative emotions. These were the best times he had had in quite a while. He focused on making her cum.

"Oh my God," she said, breathily, gasping.

"Tell me when you cum," he instructed.

"I'm cumming right now!"

Her pussy got wetter and wetter. She seethed under his fingers, her vagina constricting. He suspected she was doing this in her own, but it was sexy.

She retracted from his insertion, pulling his face toward hers until their lips meshed again. The air filled with the sounds of kissing. Every time they left each other's mouthes briefly, there was a soft sucking sound. He wanted more sounds, like that pussy gliding on his dick, but he didn't impose, just wished. He kissed her throat again, softly, like he was teasing the flesh of a peach. He felt her body relax in his arms, post orgasm, but her heart beat loudly. He put his head on her chest and mouthed her breast over her clothes. She had big perky titties, and he felt for her nipples for a moment but she was wearing a bra. She climbed over his legs and sat on his lap, grinding down on his erection.

"Please let me fuck you," she told him, trying to be quiet.

"I'm right here," he answered.

"Please stay there."

"Not leaving."

"Help me," she said, milking his clothed cock with her hands.

He started removing his pants and she grabbed him by his tie, making eager, suppressed, wanting sounds.

He unearthed his dick from a pair of plaid boxer briefs, and she let her dress down. She wanted to feel him intimately. She felt like time and place had stolen any exploration she wanted to do, but she felt his length and girth under her skirt. Her pussy would feel everything for her.

She helped him inside, really feeling the pressure of having sex in public now, but a thrill was going up her spine, and this was really happening. His hands found her ass, and he helped her grind on him. At some point he bucked into her hard enough that she needed to steady herself backwards, her arms behind her and her hands gripping his thighs, which were like strong tree trunks. But she didn't need to move there. The same feeling that triggered her climax earlier was back again. That zenith of pleasure came over her like a star bursting in her womb. She remembered that he wanted to know, needed to know, when this happened, so in a rush she came to tell him that she was cumming.

"Yea baby," he chanted, "yea... fuck yea... cum on my dick. Cum as many times as you want."

She rocked on his hips, keeping his dick inside her. There was no sliding in and out, no sexy humping, just objective. She didn't care about looking hot. She already was, temperature wise, but that didn't matter. She was cumming again, and she brought this to his attention, in a drawn out guttural sound still masking its volume. They seemed to get sexier every time she came, and there was a point where she had done this a total of five times consecutively. Even the shadows were getting shorter. Sunbeams caught the crown of her head, and it looked like an angel was fucking him.

They had both connected in thought processes; at different intervals had they both seen the other as holy, sacred. While this wasn't the case, the idea that they were one another's salvation definitely clicked in their minds. They were escapes from indifference and boredom and hungering at the abysmal sky, wishing for love. And in that sense, they weren't wrong.

"You're going to make me cum," he finally told her, having these thoughts come over him, cross crossing with her pleasure and sounds. "Where should I cum?" He asked, quite lost on that note.

She got off of him, his dick slapping his belly below his shirt, his balls tight against his body. He clutched his dick and kept stroking it to maintain his edge.

She had to think on her toes, but this wasn't hard. She had been having vivid dreams of being sucked by a vampire...

"I want you to cum here," she said, making a ring around her collarbones.

A pearl necklace? he thought, knowing what that was called. Excitement claimed him. No fuck did he want to cum there, just about most of all.

"Yea, I'm about to," he told her.

She peered up at him until semen arced from the tip of his dick onto her. It clung to her skin, beading and slipping down her chest. It was warm for a moment, but chilled in the air. She didn't want to wipe it off. His face was a gasping fish. She looked at him until he finally locked eyes with her, probably for the first real time. Moray eel eyes, she thought pleasantly.

They found themselves at the aquarium. The zoo was about to close. She was staring at the eels.

"Can I see you next week?"

"How will we find each other? Chance, luck, the howling of wolves?" She laughed.