Halftime Entertainment

by Kyell Gold

 
It’s halftime of a pretty important game in the division. The Crystal City Sabretooths are top of the league, and us, the Yerba Whalers just up the coast, are struggling to hold on to the middle. It’s my third year as a pro football player, and I’m finally in the starting lineup, if only as a change-of-pace back. Means I get about fifteen carries a game, on average.

I’ve had ten by the half of this one, because our starter needs a lot of rest. Crystal City’s defense is number one in the league, featuring a bear and a boar who are beasts at stuffing the lanes, and a lion on the end who is quick as lightning, with muscles like thunder. The boar ain’t afraid to use his tusks, which do not have to be capped or blunted. If you manage to get through them, they’ve got two muscular coyotes and a wolf, faster than the lion, even, waiting to take you down. I’ve got a nice set of antlers—points capped per league policy, unlike the boar’s tusks, and you can call that unfair, but that don’t change the way it is—but these guys come at you from all angles. We’re down 14-0 at the half. I’ve gained nine yards total.

Our regular starter, a tough, compact wolverine, is sucking wind all during coach’s halftime speech, and so nobody questions me when I say I need to take a break. That’s our code for “go throw up somewhere quiet,” and as long as you don’t make a big deal out of it, nobody else will. Everyone gets worked up for games, it just affects some of us different from others. If you need to settle the stomach, better do it in the locker room bathroom and get it out of the way.

And I am pretty worked up. It’s hard getting amped up for a game when you sit on the bench most of the time, so I jump around on the sidelines. When I get into the game, I can’t wait to break out, but I also love gettin’ down in there behind my blocker, running into the line and straining forward for those precious few yards in the scrum, hugging the ball against my chest, antlers lowered. Any game of the season, I get a charge out of it. Today, it’s especially electrifying when I see that number “55” on the other side, his coyote’s grin waiting for me. He tackled me once in the first half, and as we were getting up, I got a smoldering look to go with his grin.

That look, that grin, are fixed in my mind as I slip out of the locker room. I don’t head for the visitors’ bathroom. I trot down the hall, getting more and more worked up as I go, only now it’s not the game that’s doin’ it. I see his grin, I feel his weight on top of me during that one tackle, and I’m getting hard enough that my cup is starting to get uncomfortable.

I pick up the pace. I’ll only have ten minutes and I don’t want to waste a second. It’s only my fourth time here in three years, but I know just which stairs to trot down, the smell and look of the short, dim, hallway, and the sign on the door next to the stairway that says, “Supplies.” The hall is clear, like always, so I tap-tap, tap-tap-tap at the door. There’s a brief pause, then it opens into darkness and the smell of bleach. A radio’s playing, softly, the highlights of the first half we just finished.

I fumble for the light switch before I kick the door closed. “I can’t see in the dark,” I say, becoming aware of the smell of coyote in the air as I step in. My heart races. “I don’t got antlers,” he says, and I can see the laugh even in the dark. “C’mon, we ain’t got all day. I got a game to go back out there and win. You tellin’ me you can’t feel your way?”

The door slams shut. I find the light switch. He’s taken off his pads, but he’s still got on his navy blues with the gold trim, the big number 55 on the back under his name, the snarling Sabretooth logo on his sleeve, and his white pants down at his knees. The coyote tail wags over his bare rear. “Course,” he says, “you ain’t havin’ much luck feeling your way out there in the field.”

My cock gives another jump. I want to wrap my arms around him and never let go, not just pressing bare hips against bare rear, not just thrusting up inside him, but just to be with him, to be myself and be with him. “I got a feeling this hole’s gonna be easier to find,” I say. His tongue lolls out when he laughs, even though it’s the same joke we always make. I yank my pants down, taking a precious five seconds just to stand there and look at him, the muscular, beautiful lines, the slightly spread legs. I dunno which I like more, fucking him or being fucked, but it don’t matter, ‘cause he feels the same. We worked it out like this: home team gets to be on bottom, visitor on top.

“Play clock’s windin’ down,” he growls, holding a bottle of lube in a backthrust paw. “Yeah, yeah. Let me get my uni on.” I keep a condom in my pocket. It takes about ten seconds to roll it down over myself, another ten to grab his lube and coat myself with it pretty good. Then I step in behind him and get into position. Later, after the game, there’ll be a quiet dinner in Crystal City’s gay neighborhood, where a big coyote and stag blend in pretty well with the rest of the gym rats from the beach. There’ll be a few drinks in a bar, maybe dancing in a club where the lights stay low and we can bump and shove without football pads between us. There’ll be time to undress slowly at his apartment, to look at each other and touch each other, to make comments on workouts and the injuries of the season, my sore shoulder, his sore knee. And there’ll be, maybe, a little time tomorrow morning before my team’s plane leaves. This moment here is all about the game and the sex, the need and the release, the here and the now, but it doesn’t stop me thinkin’ about the other stuff while I’m gettin’ my hands on him.

The highlights on the radio are all about the Sabretooths scoring now as I get into position between his cheeks. He chuckles and says, “Sweet,” and that might be about the pressure behind him, but the radio’s also just played the highlight of a passing touchdown. And I know him. Whichever one I assume it is, he’ll claim it’s the other. It was a sweet play—70-something yards—but I don’t rise to the bait. I just reach around and find him as hard as I am. My slick fingers squeeze, rubbing up and down his cock. “Shut up,” I say pleasantly.

“Big talk,” he says, but he shivers and pushes back against me. I push myself inside him, a little roughly, giving his cock another squeeze as I do. He stiffens. I press my nose to his cheek and exhale through the fur. My blood’s racing like it does when I stand behind the quarterback, waiting to get the ball. Every muscle tenses and twitches. The radio moves on to defensive highlights, choosing one where my coyote here broke through the line and dropped our wolverine in the backfield for a loss. “That run is stuffed,” the announcer yells.

I see his tongue lolling out again as he laughs. “How’s this for stuffed?” I growl, and shove myself into him, all the way up. He’s tight around my cock, and hot, too, with the exertion of the first half. I feel him relax to let me in, then clench again.

He growls. A moan escapes through them. “Good… penetration there…” he pants.

I wriggle, then pull out and start thrusting again, up and back, up and back, in a quick rhythm. He arches back against me as I wrap my other arm around his waist, holding his back to my stomach as my hips move back and forth, sliding my cock out and pressing it back in. I give him the same rhythm, stroking up and down his shaft, jerking him off the way I know he likes it. His squirming, panting response tells me I’m doing it right.

And he clenches around me the way he knows I like it, keeping it nice and tight as I press in. We’re both of us counting off the minutes in our head, and we know we’ve got maybe five left, then one to clean up and one to get back. So I don’t speed up too much, because I want to use up every one of those five minutes. It’s just a quickie, but I want to feel those legs back against mine, the shoulders against my chest, the muscles that can stop him on a dime, turn him to catch the ball carrier, and bring him down.

My legs strain against his, the legs that can push me past blockers and take tacklers with me down the field. I hold onto his chest with an arm, my other hand wrapped around his cock. For all the lube, I won’t let it out of my grip, not ’til we’re in the end zone. He writhes and pushes back, both of us panting now, his whole body tight and hard as his cock, me crushing him against the wall, buried deep in him and thrusting faster despite myself, unable to help it.

It’s still not as fast as that one time up in Yerba where his team was losing at the half. Coach kept them three precious extra minutes, so he already had his pants off and the condom on when he jumped into the storeroom back there where I was waiting. I barely had time to gloat about our first half before we were both shuddering, coming together, and then he pulled out of me and yanked the condom off, and was gone, with a kiss.

I did gloat later that night, though. That’s the only game we’ve won against them since I joined the team, and even though I only got on the field to return a punt, it still felt good.

The radio says, “We’ll be back with the second half kickoff right after these messages,” and that’s our three-minute warning.

I speed up, both in front and behind. My arm pins him against me while my weight holds him against the wall. His rear works back against my cock, pulling it all the way in, so my hips bang up against him. I bite my lip and then grab his ear; he squirms and clasps my arm, shuddering as I go faster with my fingers, too. His leg shifts. I feel the soreness in the quick movement, but he’s not going to complain, just like I’m not complaining about my shoulder. We know how the game is played. Injuries are for later. Nothing matters when the game’s on.

I huff harder against him. He’s tight in my arms, a compact machine of muscle with energy building, revving up like I am, hot and fast. A moan escapes his throat through his clenched teeth. He’s loud. I love that about him. I hit that moment, that point of no return, when I break into the clear and there’s nothing but green between me and the goal line. My legs work, my hips work, and I let the momentum carry us both. We shudder and spasm, hard coiled springs letting their energy out in a contained burst, a warm, slick, moaning collision of two bodies straining toward the same goal. Heat and sweat and focus all come together in the moment, his warmth spurting out over my fingers, mine emptying into the condom inside him. My antlers smack the wall in front of us as my head jerks forward. I squeeze his body and pump his cock; he squeezes his rear around me and my arm with his fingers.

Together we rock, he moans again and I echo him as the last of the passion drips out of us. He sinks back into me and I grip him tight, his warmth spilling out over my slick fingers. My shoulder complains a little, a distant, barely-noticeable cry. My breath comes hot against his ear, which twitches and flicks. I give it a five count and then pull out of him, through the tightness of him clenching around me the whole time. I lean back on a shelf and pull the condom off, knotting it up at the end.

He kicks a wastebasket toward me and wipes himself clean with a cloth he’s rubbed deodorant into, so the guys won’t smell the lube. I’ve got one in my pocket too, even though I don’t need it as much. My fingers and the base of my cock are slick, that’s all.

Still, he’s finished before I am, pants up, uniform all in place. He looks down at me, tail wagging. I draw the cloth up my shaft. He raises an eyebrow, licking his lips, but all he says is, “Lock up when you’re done. And try to get more than ten yards for the game. It’s just embarrassing otherwise.”

“You could let me through once in a while.” I pull my own pants up. My shoulder complains again. I ignore it, feeling mellow, and it goes away again. It’ll be sore for the game and tomorrow, but it’ll be fine after.

“What,” he says, “you don’t like when I land on top of you?” He winks, and blows me a kiss, a long one that takes three luxurious seconds to unfold. “See you tonight, hon.” Then he opens the door, swings his butt as he slips through it, and with a flick of his tail, he’s gone.

“Sure,” I grumble as the door closes. “It’s all ‘hon’ now.” But I can’t help my grin as I straighten my jersey and slide out of the little closet into the thankfully deserted hall. I think I have about five seconds to just stop, breathe, and get my grin under control, and I take every one of them.

Back up the stairs, back to the locker room full of white shirts and maroon numbers. “Cornwall!” yells the offensive coordinator. “Where the hell ya been? Get yer pads on and let’s get out there.”

“Yes, sir,” I say. I sit down at my locker and pull my jersey off, getting the pads out. The wolverine next to me shakes his head. “Feelin’ better?”

I’m breathing good, not panting any more. I’ve got that great mellow feeling and I’m totally relaxed. I feel ready to get out there and play another whole game, if I have to. I could take on the world. “Much.”

“Coach put a couple new plays in.” He rattles off the plays. I kind of remember them from the playbook.

“Sure.” I attach my pads around my shoulders and fasten them quickly around my midriff. “Runs left, right?”

He stands, fully dressed now. He adjusts his jersey. “Yeah. Wants us to try runnin’ away from those coyotes in the backfield.”

I’m making sure all my antler caps are in place. I try to keep my voice even. “Y’know,” I say, “they always catch ya in the end.”