Divisions (Dev and Lee) (15 page)

“I do not,” I hiss, because he said that kinda loud and Vonni’s ears flicked back. “I just don’t want…”

“What? To cause a scene? To have fun?”

“We have a curfew.”

He rolls his eyes. “So go home before curfew. Nobody’s going to grab your cock and hold you in the club.” His eyes narrow and his smile widens. “’Less you want me to.”

The guys are getting farther ahead of us, and Vonni turns to check on the two of us. “I know you, doc,” I say. “There’s something else going on.”

His ears flatten. “It wouldn’t be so bad for people to see that gay clubs aren’t threatening. That straight guys can go in and have fun. Right?”

“Straight guys like football players.”

“Uh-huh. Well.” He trails a finger down my chest. “Mostly.”

Ty’s staring at us now, too. “That’s all? You don’t have…” I wave my paws forward, in the direction I imagine the club is.

“What?” He grins. “An army of fags waiting to jump your teammates’ bones? No, stud. I haven’t been to this club, but I promise, just straight girls.” He glances ahead at Ty and lowers his voice. “Ty sounds like he could use some bone-jumping, though.”

I sigh and hurry to catch up with the others, Lee padding quickly behind.

***

The air’s chilly and the street is considerably more crowded than when we came in. People, mostly guys, jostle and laugh all around us. I see a couple holding paws, then another, and for a moment my paw itches to take Lee’s. It’d be okay here; nobody would look twice at us. But then I pull it back to my side. We’re still out in public, in front of the guys, and after all, they don’t even hold their wives’ paws when they’re together. Well, Gerrard does, but the guys know what he gets up to on the road, so they don’t hassle him about being whipped.

When Lee and I catch up to the others at a corner, Lee speaks up. “The club’s in the next block. Might be crowded on a Friday night, but I think if you guys play your athlete card, you can get in ahead of the line. You okay with that?”

“Ty probably is.” I glance up at the foxes, looking around at the neon and the crowds, and the shops. We cross the street and walk on, past a closed erotic bakery, and Vonni elbows Ty, pointing. The two of them snicker. I gotta admit, I don’t know who’d want an enormous dong-shaped cake, but I guess there are some people. Not sure which species, judging by the shape of the cake, but it’s not fox or tiger, at least. Vonni makes some remark about the cake to Ty and Ty says, “Shut up!” Lee looks in at the window, then up at me, and doesn’t say anything. I can hear his thoughts loud and clear, though: he’s thinking it’s tacky, so I say as much in a low voice, and he chuckles, giving his tail a swing so it hits my legs.

The club is marked by a cluster of people on the sidewalk, the scents thick in the air. I can only barely make out the line to get in past the bouncer, a tall polar bear with a black leather vest and a clipboard edged with what look like blinking Christmas lights. Inside the open doors just beyond him, lights flash in all colors of the rainbow and a throbbing beat drives out. I’m not much for dancing, but it does get my feet tapping.

A few of the guys in line, then more than a few, turn and look at us. We’re taller than most of the crowd, but not that much taller. One or two of us would probably not get a second glance, but all five of us together stand out. We’re used to it, though, and the stallion asking for our autograph makes me feel like people are just staring the way they always do.

Lee brings us near the entrance, at the head of the line, and holds up a paw. “Wait here,” he says, and slinks over to the bouncer. I step forward enough to hear what he says over the music.

“Hey,” he says to the bear, and anticipates the guy’s dismissal with a sharp finger pointing back at us. “You got a bunch of pro football players wondering if they can make it in.”

“Huh.” The bear stares at us.

“The tiger, that’s Devlin Miski,” Lee says. “First publicly out pro football player.”

Now the bear’s eyes widen. I feel a flush in my ears, but I stand straight. The guys at the front of the line heard it too. A couple of them say my name and reach out. “For real?” The bear looks beyond me. “Those other guys coming out too?”

“Nah.” Lee laughs. “I told them we queers know how to put on a party.”

We queers
. I glance at the other guys, my tail curling, but none of them seems to have noticed. They’re all full of themselves, expecting to get into the club past the line, preening at the attention from the crowd.

The bouncer nods. “Lemme get the manager.” He talks quickly into a walkie-talkie at his shoulder and then looks back down at Lee. “He’ll be here in a minute.”

“Thanks.”

“I don’t need his permission to let people in.” As if to demonstrate, he lets the next three guys in: a white-tailed deer and two pronghorns. One of them hangs back, looking at me, until his friends drag him in. “He just likes to know when celebrities show up.”

Lee flashes me a bright smile and his tail wags. “Cool.”

It really is only a minute or so later that a weasel comes up to the bouncer, just about his height, wearing a sharp white shirt and pretty tight jeans with a big brass belt buckle. “Hey,” he says to Lee. “Educated guess—you Wiley Farrel?”

Lee gives him the same bright smile. “You read the papers.”

“Yup. Jay Vista. I’m the manager.” He gestures back to the polar bear, the open door, the lights and music and the crowd of people who are now all openly staring at us. “You boys want to come in for a dance?”

“Listen,” Ty says, “Dev’s, you know, but the rest of us, we’re just curious…”

“Not that kind of curious,” Jake butts in. “Just like ‘look around’ curious.”

Jay grins wide. “It’s cool, boys. You want to get your dicks sucked on the dance floor, you’re about four blocks too far north and two hours too early.”

Lee murmurs something to him that I don’t catch, and he laughs, but doesn’t answer it. “Nah, this is a safe club. You might get hit on—hell, you’re gonna get hit on if you stand out here another five minutes. Just don’t let it bother you. We’re all friendly. Anyway, between you and me, you fellas won’t be the only straight guys in there. So come on in.”

Jay pauses by the bouncer and puts a paw up on the guy’s massive arm as we file past. “Stevie, you go ahead and mention to anyone you want that we got some pro football players checking out the club tonight. Don’t say who or what team.”

“Got it, boss.”

“Football players,” Lee says to the people waiting in line, jerking his thumb at us, and goes in ahead of me.

“No shit,” the guys grumble, watching me and Jake trail the others in.

Pike grabs us all once we get in. “Limo’s leaving at eleven-thirty,” he yells over the thudding music. “We gotta be back and checked in at midnight. Meet back there?”

We give him thumbs-ups. He and Jake go off to where there’s a little crowd of bears, while Ty and Vonni stick with me and Lee. Lee takes my paw and drags me out, and the other foxes follow us, I guess still wanting a guide in the club. Lee’s eyes occasionally go their way, and then he grins back at me, but mostly he just seems to be having a good time, swinging his tail around and doing some fancy dance steps. I just kinda sway back and forth, making sure to move my feet because someone told me once that that was the key to dancing.

Vonni isn’t much more graceful than I am. But Ty, after the first fifteen minutes, really lets go and shows off some moves. Lee expresses his admiration with hand gestures and I try to convey back that I had no idea Ty could dance like that. Vonni looks impressed too, and when Ty sees us staring, he smirks and shows off even more.

I’m almost disappointed that we’re not being hit on more. One ringtail does come up to me and Lee, but when Lee signals that we’re together, he takes off again. Ty and Vonni just keep dancing, and I have no idea what’s been going on with them until we all take a break by the bar.

“That wolf was totally checking you out,” Vonni says to Ty.

“He was into you,” Ty says back. “He just danced next to me for a while so he could stare at you.”

“Like hell. He was sniffin’ your shirt, dude, that ain’t right.”

“Oh, you guys got hit on too?”

They both turn to me. “Bunch of times,” Vonni says. “Guys kept comin’ up.”

“We just ignored ‘em.” Ty grins. “Couple of ‘em can dance, though.”

“What did that one whisper to you?” Vonni asks.

“He said he didn’t care if we were together, he’d blow me anyway.” Ty looks out at the dance floor as if looking for the guy again. “I said, if you’re a girl, let’s go. Hey, what are we drinking?”

We order a round of rum and cokes, which Lee declines as he runs off to use the bathroom. It strikes me how weird this is, that they’re talking very casually about being hit on, and it doesn’t seem to bother them. But it bothers me, a little; they just seem very amused at the spectacle of all these weird people. Only I’m one of the weird people, too.

I’m not, though. I mean, yeah, I’m with Lee, and he is a guy with a cock and everything. And theoretically I’d be open to trying out any of these guys in the club, but they’re not attractive to me. Well, one or two are, I guess. But it’s not like when I was in college, going to bars and looking for the prettiest gal to take home. I’m just in love, and the person I love happens to be a guy. So I’m gay, at least on the outside. But I’m not gay like most of these guys are, where I want to strut around and show how awesome it is that I like cock. And yet, there’s no middle ground. I see how it looks weird to people brought up the way I was; I see why they want to show people that it’s not weird, or maybe it is but it’s okay. I just want to be allowed to live my life, preferably with my fox.

I can’t quite untangle that mess in my head, so I stay quiet until Lee comes back and drags me back to the dance floor.

Dancing is less complicated than thinking, and I shove all that mess aside while I try not to embarrass myself. Lee (of course) notices something and manages to ask me what’s wrong, over the music. Ty and Vonni are still close, but not right next to us; still, I just shake my head. “Not sure. Feels weird,” I say.

He saw me glance at them. “Worried about what they think?”

I shake my head again. “This is like going to the theater for them,” I say.

At first, I don’t think he’s heard me properly, because he kind of laughs. Then he dances up close to me and slides an arm around my waist and says, “Don’t you worry, hon. I took care of it.”

I glare down at him. “You better not mean what I think you mean.”

His arm tightens a little, and his tail swishes back and forth. “Oh, I probably don’t. But don’t worry about it. It’s gonna be fine.”

“Doc,” I say, “don’t fuck up our number three wideout.”

He looks over at the foxes. “Which one is that, again?”

“Vonni’s a corner—” He knows that. “Don’t fuck up either of them. Whatever you did—”

“Relax,” he says, but his ears go back and his eyes narrow, that stubborn expression I know from fights in the past. Then he looks past me, and tugs me away from Ty and Vonni. “It’s probably not what you think, and he’s been asking for it all night. It was just a spur of the moment thing anyway.”

“Oh God.” I twist while dancing and try to see what he was looking at, but I can’t see anything but a bobbing mass of heads and shapes. “Did you—what did you—”

“I’m sure he’ll tell you about it tomorrow,” Lee says. “I promise you, I know what I’m doing.”

“God dammit.” I turn around, intending to drag Ty out of the club, but he’s already watching as Vonni talks to an attractive young leopard in a slinky, shimmering silver dress. She—she?—is visibly excited, making “ohmyGAWD” gestures, wide-eyed, leaning right into the fox’s personal space. He doesn’t seem to mind at all. Maybe that’s because her breasts are trembling like they’re about to pop out of the low-cut top.

“You got her to hit on Vonni? Lion Christ, Lee, he’s married!”

Lee’s ears flatten. “I just said ‘the fox who can dance.’” We watch Vonni put his arm around the leopard as Ty spins away from them. “Um. He’s not acting married.”

I turn away, not wanting to see where this ends up. “Is she really a—a she?” I say.

“Oh, stud,” Lee says. “Would I do that to one of your teammates?” He gives me big blue innocent eyes. “Sides, those breasts looked pretty real, right?”

“Fuck,” I say, and turn around, pulling away from him. I search the dance floor, but both foxes are gone from where they were. I see Ty farther along the bar and make my way down to him.

He’s talking to a big wolf, almost as tall as he is, and they shake paws. As I come up, the wolf goes away and Ty sticks his paw in his pocket. “What’s goin’ on?”

“Where’s Vonni?”

His grin is wide and a little bit knowing. “Oh, he went off with that leopard femme. Hey, White Siberian, please,” he calls to the bartender.

“Was she, uh…? I mean really?”

Ty shrugs as though he’s already thought about that. “Who cares? We gotta be at the limo in twenty minutes anyway. Not like they’re gonna have time to go anywhere and do anything. Maybe they make out for a bit or she jacks him off or something.”