Waterways (22 page)

He cried out and arched his hips up into the waiting muzzle, feeling his release with electric intensity from the tips of his toes to the tips of his ears. It went on, forcing another moan out of his mouth and a tight curl to his tail, and then left him drained, panting on the edge of the drying mat.

A moment later, he lifted his head to see Samaki wiping his muzzle with the handkerchief. “Sorry,” the fox said, ears still perked forward, a smile tempering the apology.

“For what?” Kory panted, and then grinned as Samaki gestured with the handkerchief. “Don’t worry about it. Doesn’t matter to me if you do that.”

“It’s not that you, y’know, taste bad. It was just kind of a lot.” Now his ears flicked as his smile widened. “I need more practice.”

“You can practice on me anytime,” Kory said.

“Mm, good.” Samaki stretched out next to him. “And we still have a few minutes before we should go look for Margo.”

“Good. I think I’d be all twitchy if I tried to stand up now.”

Samaki moved a paw lazily over Kory’s tummy. “Don’t want you to be twitchy, do we?”

“Definitely not.” He leaned over to nuzzle the otter, but hesitated when Samaki moved his muzzle for a kiss. The scent of Kory’s own musk was strong on the fox’s lips. But after all, hadn’t he gotten off in his own mouth more than once? He told himself it was silly to be that way, and leaned in to the kiss.

“I wonder if we’re the first ones to do it in here,” he said, when they parted.

Samaki laughed. “In a house for horny young unescorted boys?”

“Well, okay.” Kory grinned. “Did you ever walk in on anyone?”

“No…” Samaki hesitated just a little. His paw paused on Kory’s stomach.

Kory saw the tilt of the fox’s ears and the shift of his eyes. In the afterglow, he felt relaxed enough not to mind asking, or hearing the answer. “Did you ever do anything with someone here?”

Now the violet eyes searched his. He smiled reassuringly. “Yeah,” Samaki said. “Just once.”

“You can tell me about it,” Kory said. “I don’t mind.”

He watched Samaki decide, and then shrug. “There’s not much to tell,” he said softly. “He was all upset, talking about how nobody loved him, and we just ended up doing it. I just wanted to make him feel better.”

“Oh.” Kory nodded. The thought of Samaki being with someone else was vaguely troubling, but only vaguely. It was another Samaki who’d done those things, just as it was another Kory who’d slept with Jenny on and off starting, he realized, just about a year ago.

“It wasn’t in this room,” Samaki said. “And we just pawed. It wasn’t anything serious.”

“Did he feel better?”

The fox tilted his muzzle. “Yeah,” he said. “I think he did.”

Kory smiled. “Okay, then.” He fastened up his own pants, and kissed Samaki on the nose. “We should go find Margo.”

The squirrel was even more upset at Malaya’s leaving than she had been at Jeremy’s situation. Which made Kory feel guilty, because fifteen minutes ago he’d been enjoying himself with little regard to anyone in the house. He saw Samaki’s eyes lower and knew the fox was sharing the same thought, so he swung his tail over to brush Samaki’s, and smiled back at the look he got. Sharing the guilt made it easier. And after all, there was nothing either of them could have done fifteen minutes earlier to make the situation better anyway.

They played cards with the other boys for a bit, too distracted to organize any more productive activity. During one game, Kory saw the weasel leaning over and sniffing at Samaki, but if he smelled the evidence of their activity, he didn’t say anything about it.

Margo had calmed down somewhat by the time they left. She promised to keep them up to date on Malaya and Jeremy, who was still asleep in his room, and they promised to come back the following weekend. “That’s going to be hard,” Kory said, walking to the bus stop. “We both have big tests week after next.”

Samaki nodded. “I want to come back, though. I mean, if we disappear when she needs us… right?”

“Yeah.” Kory nodded. “No question.”

He hugged Samaki, leaning up to rub muzzles as they saw the bus pull around the corner. Even though he was leaving the black fox for another whole week, the memory of Friday night by the river and that morning in the aquatic room kept Kory smiling all the way home.

When he walked in the door, though, his mood faded, as the scent of his mother and their house brought back his fears. He would have snuck into his room without saying hello if she hadn’t been in the living room. “You look happy,” she remarked. “Did you have a good time?”

“Sure.” He walked quickly towards the little bridge over the houses pool.

“Kory.” She turned in her chair to look at him. Her tail thumped down as it hit the other side of the chair. “What did you two do?”

“Oh, uh, we just had dinner, and then he drove down to… around for a while. And then we helped at the Center yesterday.”

“Samaki can drive?” He nodded. She sighed. “I know you want to. I’m sorry I haven’t had time to help you practice.”

“It’s okay, Mom.” He did want to learn to drive, but that wasn’t really bothering him. He knew that when his birthday rolled around in the spring, he’d get his license. He had plenty of other things to worry about.

“Where did he drive? Just around the block?”

“Oh, around the city a bit.” He waved his paws, the memory of the dark space by the river vivid as he did.

Her eyes narrowed. “The two of you, by yourselves? I don’t like that. Some of those areas are dangerous.”

“Samaki knows the areas. He wouldn’t take me anywhere dangerous.”

“I want his father to go along if you go driving in the city again.”

Kory’s shoulders sagged, but he felt stronger, relieved that she was pressing on a topic that he didn’t care as much about, not on why he wanted to see Samaki every weekend. “Its perfectly safe,” he said.

“I read the news, and I know that’s not true. Promise me, Kory.”

He sighed. “I promise, Mom.”

“All right. I trust you to keep your promises.”

“I will. Can I go do my homework now?”

“Just a moment.” She looked at him harder. “Kory, at your age, I know a lot of boys get into trouble. They have friends who don’t always make the right choices.”

He rolled his eyes theatrically to cover the pounding of his heart. “Mommmm.”

“I know we’ve talked, and I am confident that the Lord has set you on a moral path, but all the same…” She scraped the arm of the chair with a claw. “I worry about you when I don’t know what you’re doing.”

“We drove around, and then we went to the Center this morning. That’s all, Mom. I promise.”
Please, please stop asking questions.

“I read in the paper,” she said as though he hadn’t spoken, “about these boys who were taking… meth, was it? They did it in one boy’s bedroom, upstairs, while the parents were watching television.”

He noticed that their TV was off. Meth, he thought, and almost giggled. “I’m not doing meth, Mom.”

“Or any other drugs?”

“No drugs.” The relief was taking a long time to reach his heart. “I should get to my homework.”

She nodded, waving him to his room and turning back to the book she was reading. The Bible, he noticed. Not a good sign. She only did that when she was worried about something. Even when he got into his room with the door closed, the relief that she’d been on the wrong track didn’t come. She knew something was wrong, and he was going to have to be more careful about hiding it.

After English class the following Monday, Perry caught up with Kory. “Hey,” he said, smiling, ears perked up.

“Hey. What’s up?”

“Well, I hope you don’t mind, but I looked up shelters for homeless kids on the Internet.” He was struggling to keep the bashful tone, but clearly he was proud of having succeeded.

Kory’s fur prickled. “Oh?”

“Yeah.” Perry’s tail wagged. “If you were worried about what I’d think, you know, you shouldn’t be.”

His heart beat a little faster. Regardless of what Perry said, this intrusive feeling of someone knowing his secret was starting at uncomfortable and getting worse. Was everyone he knew determined to find out what he was hiding? “You know,” he said, “I don’t really work there. I just, I said that so you would think I was well-rounded.”

Perry tilted his head. “Really? I mean, I asked about you and they didn’t know your name, so I kinda wondered. You didn’t have to do that.”

Kory felt a light-headed sense of relief. Margo had lied for him, then. He wouldn’t have thought she’d be smart enough to figure that out. “Well, you know,” he said, and shrugged. “So you’re okay with helping the kids out?”

“Sure, I mean, they’re people too, right?” When Kory nodded, Perry went on. “And I know what some people say about ’em, but I don’t care. It’s just ridiculous about them ruining society. It’s those conservatives, they’ll just go after anyone who’s not like them. But these kids, it’s terrible, you know, they just want to have a normal life and they’ve been taken away from their homes and mostly lost their parents…”

“Some of them would be better off if they had,” Kory said.

Perry bobbed his head. “Yeah. I didn’t want to say that, but they said there’s a couple where the families are alcoholic and it’s just a bad situation. You know, you think they all come to this country to get a better life, and then how do you go from that to being a drunk and abusing your kids?”

His ears were back now, a definite growl underlying his words. Kory’s ears came up. “Come to this country?”

“Yeah. Most of them from down south, or the far east, right?”

The beating of his heart slowed. “Which shelter is this again?”

“Holiday House. That’s where you meant, isn’t it?”

Kory shook his head. “No, I’ve never heard of it. What is it?”

“It’s a shelter for the kids of illegal immigrants. I thought that’s why you didn’t want to talk to me about it. But I called them and they said they always need more help. So I’m gonna go in this coming weekend. That’ll look great on my application.” His tail wagged, and then slowed. “I mean, uh…” He lowered his head. His tail curled under him, and it was only then that Kory realized that that was how he was used to seeing the wolf.

“I bet it will,” Kory said.

“They really need help, too. I mean, this house got stones thrown at it a couple times over the summer. People don’t like the kids being there. It’s right on the edge of a new rich development, that’s what Jolena told me, but they were there before the development and now the people are trying to force them to move, so one of the things I’ll be doing is not just working with the kids, but also doing some campaigning, like writing to tell people how valuable the house is. That’s pretty cool, and it works with my English major, too. So what shelter were you talking about, or did you just make one up?”

“You’re going to be an English major?” Kory said.

Perry bobbed his head, ears flicking sideways and back. “Not for writing like you, but literature. I love reading, and Mr. Deffenbauer says I have a real talent for analysis. He’s coaching me for the AP English test this year.”

“Hey, cool.” Kory stepped up to his bus and waved. “Let me know how the kids work out.”

“Yeah,” Perry said, waving brightly. “See you tomorrow.”

On the bus, Kory wondered why he was so reluctant to tell Perry about Rainbow Center. After all, the wolf wasn’t an illegal immigrant, but he was helping kids who were. Just volunteering at a house for gay teens didn’t mean Kory himself was gay. Perry would just assume he was doing it to pad his college application. But was it the sort of thing he would have done last year? Probably not. Well, to be honest, definitely not. There was something strangely… contagious about being gay. All it took was association for you to fall under suspicion.

He huddled against the window and stared out of it. Lines of a poem flitted through his head.
You can have the symptoms but not the disease. It spreads by touch, by mouth, by sight. The outward signs don’t mean a thing. The sickness is in the ones who point.
He rolled the lines around, rearranged them. There might be something for him to work with there. He actually hadn’t written any poems specifically about being gay, which, now that he thought about it, was odd. He would have to work on that, like Samaki’d encouraged him to. The disease lines might be a little strong, though. Samaki definitely wouldn’t like that. Maybe he’d just write this poem for himself, and another one for the fox. Something about being evaluated for college, your life reduced to a piece of paper with marks on it. That was a good thought. He made a note of that one, too.

His lie to Perry continued to nag at him, building on the worry about his mother and the issue with rooming with Samaki in college. The world was pressing to know his secret, and the more he felt it slipping out, the tighter he clutched it to himself. The problem was that more and more his secret felt like a mass of water behind an inadequate dam. Pressure and containment would be second nature to a beaver, but Kory was an otter, and he just wanted to let things take their natural course.
Just another few months, after the holidays, then it’ll all be downhill.
College, and the question of rooming with Samaki, was months away, a problem hidden by the larger one of getting accepted in the first place.

He spent Wednesday night talking with his mother about colleges, another exercise in frustration as she was mostly concerned with him getting into Whitford. He had to pretend that he was actually planning to try to get in there, all the while presenting his other choices as “insurance.” The whole evening had left him drained and frustrated, and when he told Samaki about it, the fox said, “So just tell her you don’t want to go to Whitford.” Which was impossible, knowing Kory’s mother, so he changed the subject to talk about the schools he was planning to attend and the tricks they were learning in the college prep class.

“One of the most important parts of the application is one you may overlook at first,” Mr. Pena said Thursday night. “I’m talking about the ‘species and ethnic origin’ page. I know a lot of you are used to just checking “fox,” or “otter,” and not thinking about it any more than that, but it’s worth putting some extra time into this section now. A lot of schools have species quotas. Most of the ones you’re applying to, in fact, have quotas, though they don’t publish them. Those are laws you should have studied in Civics class. I bet you never thought your Civics homework would be useful, did you?” He chuckled, looked out at the silent classroom, and resumed his speech. “So if you are a river otter, for example, but one of your grandparents was a small-clawed Asian otter, you might be able to put “Asian river otter” in that space on the application. You’d qualify as a minority, and have a better shot at getting into school.”