The Bear's Necessity

Luke drove into Oak Grove with his hands sweating on the wheel. Marcie didn't expect him home for another day. The job in Colorado went well, and Luke had an extra grand in his pocket -- an extra grand and a card for a place in Oak Grove. You've gone too far this time, Luke. Still can turn back. Hit the brake, get on the off ramp, and turn this fucking car around. Go back to your wife and forget this nonsense. He'd given himself the same talk a dozen times in the past hour. Each of which sounded more and more like his father.

Luke's father got him into the business of selling industrial chemical contracts at eighteen. The old man wanted a son who knew how to take care of a family. No high minded jobs of fancy, but a brass tacks life of putting bread on the table. Yeah, well you're fucking dead, dad, and I'm ten times better at this than you ever were. They'd spent years in the car together driving from one end of the country to the other. All the while, dear old dad kept his hand on the scruff of Luke's neck. Get a house, get a wife, make a kid. Live like a real man. Ol' Dad never said what the last bits meant, of course, but Luke guessed it was the reason his mother dipped out. Dad kept a woman in at least three cities, putting bread on plenty of tables.

I'm no fucking better now, am I? The card laid on the passenger's seat. Cherry red with a few black stripes, it only had a phone number on it in the lower right corner. A man at the conference gave it to Luke. The guy said Luke had a look about him that the card would fix. He'd said it with a wink and a slight pat on Luke's bottom. If Ol' Dad had been around, Luke would have clocked the guy. With Dad cold in the ground, Luke found himself repressing the urge to pat the guy right back. A few drinks later, he sat in a phone booth with the card in his hand. A couple of hours after that he slugged down two coffees at the hotel bar and hopped in the car for a drive to an address in Oak Grove.

He didn't feel like he could stop. From the moment the card hit his hand, Luke felt like a massive set of gears clicked into motion. The only way to stop them would be to throw himself into the spokes, and he couldn't do that. What if Marcie finds out? What if someone sees me and blackmails me? What if I get to the place and absolutely lose it? Nothing about it felt right. Not the massive turning of gears toward a final, unknown action. Not the poison in his thoughts poured there by his father for years. Not even his own skin. He didn't trust himself, and that was why he didn't turn the car around. Luke no longer believed he knew up from down or left from right. He only knew that something a long time coming was finally about to happen, and he would be a fool to try and stop it.

Oak Grove looked like any of the other cities he visited on a weekly basis, if a little smaller. Being a man of the road, Luke heard things about the city, weird things. He ignored the weirder stories, but being handed a card for an escort service wasn't the first time he'd heard about the town's peculiar past times. Sex clubs, swinger parties, office orgies. It sounded ludicrous to a small town boy like Luke who'd only ever had two sexual partners in his life -- Marcie and the mistake.

Luke and Marcie went to school together, the regular American dream story. Luke captained the high school football team while Marcie shook pom-poms on the sideline. Marcie lettered in debate while Luke cheered her on from the stands. They were good friends. It made sense for them to go together. They looked good together. Marcie with her blonde bob, petite figure, and cherry lips. Luke with his broad shoulders, towering height, and sharp jawline. Every girl envied Marcie, and every guy begrudged Luke. Most guys -- perhaps all but one. Luke and Marcie didn't waste time. Her parents wanted them to get married as quickly as possible because they saw Luke as the golden goose. Marcie didn't come from money by any stretch of the idea, but Luke already had enough to buy a house at eighteen.

Ol' Dad wanted his son to lock down some "trim pussy" before someone else did. Luke's father knew a good mother hen in the making when he saw one. He bet the farm on Marcie not batting an eye at her husband being gone weeks at a time. Cause that's what real men did. His son looked respectable with a pretty little wife while still staying on the road to bring in the money. Which left only one real problem. Luke, the all-American, couldn't get it up for his wife, at least not at first. She told him it was nerves or stress, but they both knew better. Luke knew Marcie had all the things most guys would break their legs just to have a chance at once. Big, round tits, a flat tummy, and an ass that could inspire a new round of Hellenic wars. For Luke, he could have been looking at a pile of used laundry. In the end, he figured it out. He even managed to enjoy himself from time to time. Too often, he managed it by thinking about the mistake.

It happened a week before his wedding. He'd been out on the town with some friends blowing off steam. They wound up in a bar on the far side of town, and Luke slipped away from the pack. A blonde guy a few years older than Luke offered to buy him a drink. Luke accepted and half an hour later, they ditched to the bathroom. Within minutes, Luke's pants fell around his ankles, and his cock slipped in the stranger's throat. For that brief moment, the grand gears of his life seemed to stop, as though thousands of invisible technicians suddenly doubted their design. By the next morning, the gears turned again, oiled and tuned with the shame of waking up to the vague memory of a stranger's lips on his dick.

Since then, he did his best to ignore the mistake. No one knew. Or maybe everyone knew, and no one was brave enough to say. No one except for a new stranger who handed Luke a card.

The number on the card put him on the phone with a man who gave him an address and a name, Tanner. The address led to a small apartment building covered in balconies lit by different colored lights. Music filled the air alongside the cheerful conversations of a few people in the small park in front of the building. Luke locked up his car, wiped the sweat off his palms, and headed inside. He passed a few people in the hall, most of whom dressed in a way that made him blush. The man on the phone had given him a number, so Luke made his way to the second floor room 204. Thankfully, only the quiet hum of music filled the hallway, giving him a moment in private. He stopped in front of the door with his hand raised.

This is it, Luke. If you go through with it, you'll never be able to deny what you are again. You can go home and have a long happy life. What's a little discontent? What's a little not knowing? Would it really hurt that much?

A door opened down the hall. A young man stepped out and looked both ways before facing Luke. "You lost?" he asked, eyes looking up and down Luke's form. "I'm free," he said.

Luke swallowed down the lump in his throat. "No, I'm here for 204."

"Ah, you gotta knock, hon. Tanner's a good guy. He'll take care of you." The other guy went back into his room and shut the door.

No judgment, no sirens outside, no shame welling up in Luke's chest. He took a deep breath and knocked on the door.

***

A young man about Luke's age answered the door in a pair of shorts and nothing else. "Luke?" he asked, and Luke nodded. "I'm Tanner, come on in." When Luke didn't move, Tanner took him by the hand and brought him into the apartment.

Luke tried to take everything in all at once. The apartment was smaller than expected, but nicely decorated. Luke's home had a woman's touch with frilly things set all around the place to make it more hospitable to guests. Tanner apparently lived under more utilitarian guidelines with a smattering of college boy aesthetic. Music posters lined one wall lit by a bright yellow neon glow. A comfortable looking couch pressed up against the adjoining wall across from a small television and large stereo which softly droned punk rock music. On the other side of the room was a small bar where Tanner went to pour a drink. He held up a bottle of vodka to which Luke nodded as he stood awkwardly staring at his new host.

Tanner's chest was smooth, not lightly haired but clean shaved and possibly waxed. Luke had never seen that before, but the last time he'd really seen another man shirtless was in high school locker room where boys boasted body hair rather than hid it. Tanner was a little lighter in muscle than Luke, though. Plenty of Luke's frustrations in life went into running and lifting. The shorts hugged Tanner's narrow hips and showed off his plump bottom. The other man was a foot shorter than Luke with a shock of blonde hair cropped short on top of his head. Luke thought him handsome, and found himself hoping Tanner thought the same about him.

"Come on, have a seat," Tanner moved past him, putting the vodka and lime in Luke's hand. Tanner plopped onto the couch with his legs crossed underneath him. "You can take your shoes off, if you want."

Luke gulped down the booze as he slipped off his shoes near the door. He moved to the couch and sat as far from Tanner as he could. Tanner stared at him with a strange, predatory look until Luke felt compelled to talk. "So, how does it work? Do I pay --"

"Pay? Shit, man, no. What'd Big Ed tell you on the phone? He likes the joke of getting guys up here thinking they're headed to a brothel or something."

Confusion and embarrassment supplanted the other forms of unease plaguing Luke. "Oh, god, sorry. He gave me your name and the room number. From the way he talked I figured..."

"Not your fault, Luke. Ed likes the gag, that's all. He'll razz me about it next time I go see him. Ask me how much you offered for it and all that. Sorry, I know it's a lot for a first timer."

"How do you know I'm a first?"

"Everything about you," he said, casually. "Don't take it hard. We're all first timers at some point. Probably why he sent you to me. I'm good for guys to test the water, so to speak. I don't mind it either. David, down the hall, he loses it with newbies. It's in his nature though, skittish, I mean. Doesn't even like being around me half the time, and I'm a kitten."

Luke shifted nervously. He didn't know why he took off his shoes. He rubbed his socked feet together while sipping his drink. "So how does it work then? Should I go?"

"Of course not. Witching hour is almost here. You wouldn't make it out of the city limits, and you're all charged up. I can smell it on you. Last thing you want is to be driving a car by yourself when it happens."

"When what happens?" Luke asked. He'd heard the stories, but they couldn't be true. Men and women changing into animal creatures, the nonsense of drug fantasies.

"Want another?" Tanner asked pointing at the glass. "I'll freshen it up for you at any rate. It's nice to talk, actually. I don't get to talk much day to day, you know. I work in an office downtown with a bunch of, well, quiet types. I get I'm not the most social creature, but I like my coworkers fine enough. It's nice to chat, but they don't go much for the stuff I do. They talk about their families or about who they're seeing or someone being pregnant. Office chatter. Sometimes the boss will come talk with me about football. He's a Packers fan and won't shut up about them. I grew up in Florida though, so it's college level stuff for me. Florida State born and raised, but hard to keep track of them up this way."

"Oh, yeah? My dad was an LSU guy. I've never even been to Louisiana, though."

Tanner made a face. "Yeech, LSU. Did you play? You're built for it."

"High school. Nothing serious. Some junior colleges looked at me, but my dad wanted me to get to work."

Tanner sat down, closer this time. "You've mentioned your dad twice now," he said. "I'm guessing he's the one who messed with your head for fucking years?"

"What? Christ."

"No, it's ok. We'll get to that. You asked how it works, so let me explain. I was like you. Younger and not quite so...well maintained, but I'm betting like you in a lot of other ways. All kinds of stuck in the wrong way of thinking because that's how people told me to think. I ran off. Got sick of trying to be a square peg in a round hole, so I skipped town and made my way here. Not sure why. Big Ed says people like us find our way here eventually, but that's some of his 'twelve-step' nonsense. Not the AA thing, just his whole dogmatic view of things. Whoever preceded Big Ed made a kind of club for people like us. A club where you can find yourself and become what you're supposed to be. Now, most guys show up at eighteen with their heads on backward, like me. They don't get sent to a hotel room to meet up with a guy. That'd be some fucked up grooming shit."

"How come I'm here then?"

"Cause you're a hard case. You're already married going off that ring on your finger. You've got some major walls built up, and the best way to bring them down is dynamite. What's her name?"

"My wife? Marcie."

"Does Marcie know you drive hours away to meet strange men in their apartments?"

"No."

"Would it surprise her to find out."

"Shock, yes," Luke said. "Surprise, I'm not sure. Is it customary to bring up the woman being cheated on before we even have the...cheating."

"Yep. Cause you have to know what you're doing and why you're doing it. You've meandered into a bad spot. Stop me if I get something wrong. You're unhappy pretending to be the happy husband to Marcie. Marcie doesn't understand why you're not happy so she spends all her energy trying to fix it, which is sort of like sending a camel to fix the titanic. She doesn't know what's wrong. Even if she did, she wouldn't be able to fix it. So, both of you trot around pretending to be happy while building up all this pressure, until eventually the thing will blow sky high. For example, you having an affair. Or her." He paused to sip his drink, flashing his eyes over the rim of the glass at Luke. "It's a funny thing, really. Cosmically funny, not ha-ha funny. Coming here is wrong, but if you don't do it the wrongness would continue anyway. Go home, tell your wife you're unhappy."

Luke didn't like feeling accused. Not by a stranger and not in this scenario. "I can't," he said. "If I go home, I'll hide it again. I'm a coward."

Tanner's hand landed on Luke's leg. "No, you're not. You're stuck in a terrible situation. There's not a way out of it without hurting someone, and you're more willing to hurt yourself than Marcie. Luke, the world isn't the way you were told. The rules aren't what you think. Come on. I'll show you."

Tanner stood up and took Luke's hand into his, leading him through a door to a bedroom. Gently, Tanner unbuttoned Luke's shirt. After an initial panic telling him to run, Luke became more attentive to the slight graze of Tanner's fingertips on his skin as the shirt came away. When Tanner's hands moved to Luke's belt buckle, he panicked again. Tanner looked him directly in the eye as the belt opened and the fly came down. Tanner guided him out of the pants and onto the bed, nudging him to lie back as Tanner sat beside him, running fingers down Luke's chest. When Tanner lightly touched the sizable bulge in Luke's briefs, any remaining doubt left Luke's mind. He was harder than he'd ever been. He wanted to scream with joy, cry with frustration, and hide from everything -- all at once.

Then, Tanner kissed him. Luke had never felt another man's lips on his own. It wasn't even sexual, but sweet and understanding. Marcie's lips had been insistent, as though trying to draw something out of Luke which wasn't there. Tanner's were patient and curious, met with the same curiosity from Luke. It was the first kiss Luke had ever enjoyed. As Tanner broke away, Luke braved the moment enough to look at Tanner's eyes. Except instead of seeing the hazel orbs which had peered at him over the glass of vodka, he saw two feline slits of black on a backdrop of bright green.

***

"Whoa, what the fuck?" Luke crawled back in the bed.

Tanner giggled. "I told you. Witching hour." He moved down to the foot of the bed and turned around. The nervous lump returned to Luke's throat as he saw what Tanner intended to do. Raising up to his knees, the other guy tugged down the shorts, slowly and purposefully. While most of Tanner was tanned, his ass was lily white. It was narrow in form, but plump all the same. The shorts came down past the cleft of his ass, giving Luke a full view of his asshole. He'd never seen a man's ass in such a way before, not even on the night of the mistake. The growing throb in his own cock confirmed his suspicions.

The shorts came off completely. Tanner bent forward to show Luke exactly what he came to see. Luke had no idea what a man looked like from behind. He'd seen his wife in the full, but never really looked exactly at her. In porn mags, he'd seen women in more compromised poses, but he'd never seen anything like the sort for a man. It surprised him to see how smoothly things transitioned. Tanner clearly groomed himself heavily as his balls looked hairless and big. Hanging down in front of them was a sizable cock as well, and it didn't look fully erect yet. Tanner arched his back and wiggled his ass. "Well. You haven't run screaming from the room yet. So I think you might have a thing for guys."

He moved back up between Luke's legs, slipping his fingers under the waist of Luke's underwear. The strange eyes sparkled as he pulled the band down, and Luke's cock sprang free. "Oh, you're starting off pretty sizable. Lucky you. Depending on how you turn out, you might even give Big Ed a run for his money." Tanner opened his mouth and took Luke's cock into his lips. Luke's hands dug into the sheet. He'd forgotten how different it felt with a man. Tanner's head lazily moved up and down the shaft as his hand squeezed and massaged Luke's balls. As he did so, his arm brushed against Luke's leg. Despite the overwhelming pleasure of Tanner's mouth on his cock, Luke kept noticing something prickly drag against his skin. Tanner took the whole length into his mouth with surprising ease before coming away with a wet pop. "Mmm, looks like I'm ready to change. Enjoy the show."

Tanner leaned back from Luke. The small hairs that had prickled against Luke's leg started to spread quickly. Within seconds, Tanner's chest sported a bushy, soft coat of orange blonde hair. Luke watched with amazement as the sculpted, small body grew a full coat of fur in seconds. Tanner rolled to his side, tucking his cock and balls back between his legs to give Luke a full view as a tail sprouted from the top of his ass and grew out to a swishing, flicking appendage within a few seconds. Tanner's cock remained visible, but it turned redder and grew a few strange ridges along its length as his balls took on a coat of hair and swelled an extra size larger. He pulled his ass open to show off the tight hole waiting to be fucked. His teeth sharpened, and his nose blunted into a small triangle of black. As the wave of change finished, Tanner let out a low purr as he began to stroke his cock with padded, clawed hands.

Luke didn't know what to say other than, "Holy fucking shit. You're a cat."

"Werecat if you prefer," Tanner said, his words underlaid with a low purring sound as his tail flicked back and forth. "It's why Big Ed sends your type to me. So you can transition from pussy to pussy, get it?"

Luke groaned. The sight of Tanner lying so openly before him finally drove him to action. He got up, cock bobbing in front of him and placed his hand on Tanner's thigh. The purr increased as Luke kneaded the other man's soft muscle. Luke didn't know what to do. He knew he wanted to do something. Looking at Tanner's ass made it seem obvious, but nothing about the situation made sense to Luke. He'd never fucked a man before, let alone a cat man. The tail in particular gave him pause. Could he hold it to the side? He definitely wanted Tanner's ass, but was Tanner ready for that? Luke could be satisfied with other things. He could be happy with simply lying beside each other and jerking off. His confusion became evident as Tanner reached out to stroke Luke's cock. "I don't know what to do," Luke said.