PART 1
These days are beautiful. Notah can see that. The days before might have been exciting but it’s not then anymore.
Working at the spa is really nice. He thought it was going to be awful at first, having to pamper rich tourists’ every need all hours of the day, a constant barrage coming in and out of the only spa in the middle of the desert, but that turned out to be so far from the truth.
In reality, there are no customers at all. Of course that isn’t quite the truth, but except for the weekends he isn’t scheduled for, nobody comes through except for a select few locals. The Thrasher Springs spa is officially listed as culturally significant to the town of Thrasher Springs, New Mexico, so the town won’t let it go out of business no matter what. There wouldn’t be a town here if not for the spa.
Notah mostly does cleaning and reception. They have a coyote his age who does massages – the son of the owner, Douglas– and his jackrabbit friend Wes who does mechanical stuff. The owners of the spa are around sometimes. He might technically be the only person on payroll.
These days are peaceful. He waits at the front desk for customers to come in, his eyes unfocusing as he stares at little waves in the indoor pool. When people aren’t coming in, he’s in the locker rooms scrubbing, around the pool deck fishing leaves and bugs out of the water, or standing outside looking at the natural hot springs. The clientele – mostly older men and women he’s seen at the grocery store before – stare at him and try to figure out where they know him from, but he’s used to that.
Today, he’s standing at the receptionist counter, re-sorting the ice pops they have in a cooler for sale. They stick to his feathers with how cold they are.
“Hey, kid,” a hearty voice says. Notah looks up. There’s a big coyote standing there. “You’re new here.”
That’s not a line he’s used to. Notah responds in customer service speak. “I am, sir.”
“No need to call me sir.” He grins. “I’m Jack. You’ll be seeing me around a lot.”
This guy is maybe 20 or 25 years his senior. He’s a brown and white coyote with a black ring around his eyes and a sly smile on his face. His yellow eyes are striking. Notah looks right back down so he doesn’t have to look Jack in the eyes.
“I’m Notah.”
“Okay,” he says with a scruffy approval. He nods and pushes his bottom lip up. “Nice to meet you, son.”
The rest of the time they talk is purely business – he gets a clip on his membership card and he goes in for access to the locker room, sauna, hot springs, and indoor pool. And when Notah hands him a towel and he walks away, Jack gives a toothy smile. “See you around, Notah.”
And it’s the briefest of interactions, but Notah can’t help but play it in his head over and over again. It makes his heart thump just thinking about it. He tries not to let it get into his head – just nervous thoughts, he rationalizes to himself, because of the new job – but he has all the time in the world to think about it and so he does.
He folds towels and thinks about the words that Jack used. “Kid” and “son” and his name at the end. That’s just how older guys talk, especially since Notah’s just some 20-year-old he’s never met before, but that doesn’t explain why he said Notah’s name like that clear as day at the end. So respectfully. So intentionally. That isn’t even mentioning the “sir” thing. What was that supposed to mean?
His shift ends before he catches Jack leaving but he thinks about him the whole drive home.
“Hey, kid!” Jack says, the next day at work, waving a hand in the air. “Hey, come over here.”
Notah complies. Jack is sitting on the edge of the pool, legs and tail dangling into the water. He’s wearing an unbuttoned shirt with a boho print – his big tummy and his chest are entirely visible, a light countershading all over his front. He’s leaning back on his paw which only accentuates his tummy. He’s definitely a heavier guy but he doesn’t look unhealthy by any means – plus, anyone would look heavy next to Notah. He looks so relaxed and so happy. Maybe living in the desert isn’t so bad after all.
He’s also wearing a Speedo. Notah normally wouldn’t even notice – the women here are wearing even skimpier bikinis and no one even looks. For some reason, he does. The strings of the Speedo rest over his crotch area, which is… Notah gulps and looks up.
“How’re you doing, Notah?” he asks with a warm expression on his face.
“Good. It’s a beautiful day out.”
“Sure is.” He grins and looks out at the sky, a hand shielding his eyes from the sun. “Now forgive me if I’m wrong, but I feel like I recognize you from somewhere.”
“Front desk?”
He practically guffaws at that. “No, not that. Somewhere else.”
Okay, Notah thinks. They’re talking about this. “Are you from Thrasher Springs?”
“I am.”
“You might have seen me around. Not a big town.”
“No,” he says, “I know you from somewhere specific.”
Notah sighs. “Um. I was friends with Al Doherty.”
“Ohhh.”
It’s quiet. The rush of the hot springs and the ambient noises of the desert and the flow of wind all stop so the two of them can appreciate this awkward moment.
“Whatever happened to that kid? He hop on a train out of here?”
Notah takes in a sharp breath. “Yup.”
“Oh. Well. I’m sorry about that.”
“It’s okay. It’s okay.”
“You seem like a very nice kid,” Jack says, lumbering out of the water. Standing up, he’s the same six feet as Notah is and maybe a hundred pounds larger. Their faces are aligned. Jack looks right into his eyes. “Don’t let anyone tell you off, okay, kid?”
“Okay. Thank you, sir.”
Jack chuckles. “I’m gonna hit the sauna. See you later, son.”
Everything about Jack is stuck in Notah’s head. The little bits of darker fur on the tip of his tail and his legs. The build of his thighs. The boho fashion. The Speedo. As he’s checking out of work he gives a half-hearted goodbye to Douglas and walks out to his truck, thinking about Jack the whole time. Maybe it’s a reverse of the usual situation and he instead knows Jack from somewhere. One of his dad’s old friends or something. Maybe he looks like a guy from a TV show or something. Maybe he looks like a guy who actually enjoys living in the desert and Notah’s jealous of that. Maybe he wants Jack to be his dad, for all he knows.
Of course he forgot to roll down the windows so his car is boiling hot. And of course when he puts the key in the ignition and turns it nothing happens. He tries a few times but Notah knows it’s not going to work – he bought this car after everything happened for dirt cheap and this was bound to happen. He goes to the front of the car and lifts the hood but he doesn’t know anything about how cars work.
Wes might know, but he wasn’t at work today and when Notah looks up Douglas is already biking away. He raises a hand and caws Douglas’s name into the air but Douglas doesn’t look back.
Notah slams the hood of his car shut. “Fuck. Fuck me. Fucking fucking fuck fuck fuck.”
He’s going to have to walk home to his shitty apartment. In the desert. And die of dehydration. Or heat stroke. Or frostbite when it becomes night. Shit shit shit shit shit.
And then he feels a paw on his shoulder. He turns around and Jack is standing right there. “Oh. Hello, sir,” he says, blushing. He wants to fucking run away. “I’m sorry, I-
“It’s alright,” Jack says. “You’re off-shift. No need to censor yourself. Men swear.”
“Okay. Okay.”
He only now pulls his paw off. Jack’s buttoned up the shirt, although not all the way so a bunch of fluff still pokes out the top. It looks like he just threw a pair of cargo shorts over the Speedo. “Can I give you a drive home, son?”
Notah smiles. “You’d do that?”
“Of course.”
And as Jack leads him to his old box truck, fuzzy dice hanging off the rear-view mirror and a discarded Big Gulp cup sitting in the passenger’s seat, Notah realizes exactly what it is that so enraptures him about Jack. And he doesn’t want to say it. He doesn’t even want to think it.
PART 2
His car smells like a cigarette smoked a cigarette. Notah sits in the passenger’s seat with his legs shut, awkwardly to the side because he doesn’t want to move anything of the CDs sitting on the floor of the passenger’s seat. Jack pops a Beach Boys CD into the car’s radio and turns it on. It rumbles into action.
Notah asks him about his life as Jack drives the two of them through the desert. Jack was born and raised in Thrasher Springs, went out to UNM, got his degree in business management and administration, and went into the wider New Mexico-Arizona area and made a shit-ton of money over 20 years. No wife, no kids, no family.
Notah stares at his teeth as he talks. Jack looks ahead on the road, not that there’s anything to look at, occasionally looking over to punctuate his points with a smile. Notah plays with his feathers. “You haven’t met anyone in Thrasher Springs?”
Jack chuckles. “Oh, you’re serious.”
“As I can be.”
“The women of Thrasher Springs aren’t, ah, the ones I’m looking for.”
“Oh.”
“I’m gay, to clarify,” he says. Notah stares at the road ahead of him. He doesn’t want to think about how that news makes him feel at all. “Not many gay men around these parts.”
“What do you…” Notah mumbles. You can see everything from everywhere in Thrasher Springs. He can make out the road he lives on from a mile away. Cactuses fly past the car. “Why are you back here then?”
“I love it here. I love it. I’ve spent so much time on the roads, so much time seeing bigger towns and cities, so much time seeing the world… there’s no place like home. She was right! No place like home. I love this place.” He punctuates that with a smile. “What about you, kid. Got any girlfriends?”
“No,” Notah says. It looks like he’s just sulking now, so he straightens himself out and puts an arm on the shoulder of the seat behind him. “No, uh. No. I haven’t really been out a lot. I got a job working from home uh, two years ago, so I haven’t… yeah. And I haven’t really wanted to get out anyway.” He swallows. “Yeah.”
“I’m glad you got out. There’s lots to see,” he says. “You got any big plans?”
Notah stares at the pile of CDs on the floor of the car. They shift around as the car moves. He wouldn’t notice if one of these went missing. He slips a different Beach Boys CD into his pocket without raising any suspicion at all.
“Uh,” he says. “I dunno. Get out of here someday, you know. I don’t really know what I’d do, uh, out there, but be somewhere else.”
Jack chuckles. “Well, look at that.” He turns his blinker on. “Aspinwall, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Alright alright.”
It’s just the harmonies of the Beach Boys as they drive a mile down to his house. He can see it the whole time, his ramshackle house he now lives all alone in. It doesn’t look too different from the rest of the houses in Thrasher Springs – homely, you might say if you’re kind, rundown, you would say if you weren’t. The wire fence is not in shape enough where he could consider the lot enclosed. It’s just that house and nothing else for miles.
“Oh,” Jack says to himself as he pulls in. There’s not much of a driveway to pull into, actually, but he more or less gets it right. “You live here, kid?”
“I do.”
“Alright.” He stops the car. Notah undoes his seatbelt and puts his hand on the handle. “Ah, Notah?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you have a plan for getting to work tomorrow?”
“No, I– walk, maybe?”
“Collapse in 110 degree heat?”
“Yeah, good idea.”
Jack snickers. “Can I drive you tomorrow?”
“Oh, that’s very kind of you, but-
“I’m gonna be there if I pick you up or not.”
Notah tries to not show his grin. “Oh. Yeah. Yeah. That would be nice.”
“What time does your shift start?”
“11.”
“I’ll be here at 10:40.”
“Really?”
“Of course.”
Notah steps out of the car and leans on the frame of the car. “Thank you so much, Jack.”
“Yeah. You’re a good kid, okay?”
Notah nods.
“Yeah.”
It’s weird being in the house alone, because tonight it doesn’t feel like he is.
Notah puts the Beach Boys CD he snatched on and sings along while he reheats a microwave dinner. He goes into the backyard and throws rocks out into the desert. He thinks about Jack.
And in the morning, where he climbs out of bed at 10:25 and he puts a slice of ham on two slices of bread and brushes his teeth during his two minute shower and puts on the same spa outfit he put on yesterday, when he steps out his front door, Jack is parked right there. He rolls his window down and waves.
“Good morning, kid,” he says, opening the passenger’s side door. “Coffee?” He motions to two to-go coffee cups in the cupholders of the seat. They smell great.
“Oh! Coffee! Thank you!”
“Of course.” Notah climbs in and Jack reverses out, his hand on Notah’s headrest and an inch away from his face. “You like my Beach Boys CD?”
Notah blushes. “What?”
“You know what I’m talking about.”
It’s silent as they pull onto the main road. Rocks crackle under the wheels of the car.
“I’m sorry-
“It’s alright, kid. I hope you like it.”
“I do. I do.”
Notah and Jack talk about the desert the rest of the time – how silent it is, how still it is, and yet how full of life it is. Jack clocks into work on time for the first time ever and Notah heads out to the pool with a novel in his paws.
The whole day, Notah looks for a way to repay Jack. He doesn’t charge Jack for his stay today, although considering his membership that might be doing more to lose Notah his job then be a thank you to Jack. He walks by and asks Jack if he needs anything multiple times and Jack always waves him away with a smile or makes a comment about the part of the book he’s on. He slips Jack a strawberry lemonade. He likes that.
And staring at Jack from the other side of the water, desert pooling on infinitely beyond the coyote, looking at his chest rising and falling and that Speedo he wears to the pool, looking at his manhood down there that he isn’t hiding, Notah knows what this feeling is. It’s attraction. It’s desire.
He wants Jack to hold him.
He wants Jack to feel him.
He wants Jack to envelop him.
PART 3
One of the perks of the job is full access to the facilities. The Thrasher Springs Hot Springs and Spa is really open to everyone always, really, considering how understaffed it is. Notah’s sure someone could park their car in the lot, walk around back, climb in through the natural hot springs, and get a massage for free without anyone noticing. He knows that because he used to do it back in his teenage days. Him and Al would come here and raid the fridge and go skinny dipping and the Siyuja family would be none the wiser. Now that he works here, he knows that there are no security cameras and no locks, but he didn’t even know that then!
Regardless, he gets full, legal access to the spa now. That includes the locker rooms, the sauna, the indoor pool, the hot springs, and even the massages at a reduced price. As much as he’d love Douglas Siyuja’s big paws pressing into his back, there’s no way he would ever do that. Everything else is enough.
The day is winding down. The hawk takes a deep breath.
It’s amazing the way a low level of anxiety underlies his every action, even in the middle of the desert that has nothing in it and in a genuinely very beautiful and relaxing spa. Before this, his life was so chaotic. With Al, there was new shit to deal with every day. New girlfriends and drugs to pick up and endlessly menial fights to have. Now there’s nothing at all, and he’s still anxious.
He stands at the counter all day waiting for new customers to arrive, which they never do, tapping his feathered fingers to his head and trying to stay calm. Every time someone does come in, they always know who he is. Even here he’s done something wrong.
Doesn’t matter. He steps towards the locker room with a towel under his arm. At least he can take solace in this.
Notah really didn’t appreciate it back then. He wasn’t going to the spa to go to the spa, he was going to the spa to do some stupid shit that would leave him with a criminal record. It’s not as nice when you’re working and on edge the whole time, but at least now the crowd has thinned out completely and he can just be by himself. Wes might walk in to fix something but he can handle the rabbit.
He takes a second to appreciate this moment. The tiled floor, the humid air, the sound of the steam going in the sauna. It’s lovely in here, no light but the little ones facing towards the ceiling to keep the room dark. He unbuttons his work shirt as he stares dead forward at the locker, then strips his pants off. He looks at himself in the mirror in just his briefs. Lean and tall — maybe someone would want him if he wasn’t such a fuck up. He can force abs if he really tries. He has a nice dick, at least.
Notah wraps the towel around his waist and lets the underwear drop to the floor, then stuffs it all in a random locker. If the spa doesn’t believe in locks, he doesn’t either.
He opens the sauna door and lets the heat hit him. Now this is a good sauna. The room is so small that a single light tints the entire room orange. It’s all made of wood. He sits down on the first layer, then decides to take the second one when the first isn’t enough.
Notah closes his eyes and breathes. He counts to four, like his mother taught him all those years ago, holds it for four, and breathes out for four. A bit of sweat rolls off of his brow.
He keeps going like that. In for four, hold for four, out for four. Breathe in, breathe out. Peace and calm.
Then the door opens and he practically caws out in surprise.
It’s just Jack.
Oh shit. It’s Jack.
The older coyote stands there wrapped in a towel, his stomach fat bounding over. He gives Notah a quick smile and then takes a seat on the first layer below Notah.
He instantly looks down towards the floor, leaning his elbows on his knees and clasping his paws. At first Notah is relieved that they aren’t going to talk, but then it’s suddenly weirder like that. He doesn’t want to say anything but he still finds himself squawking something out.
“Hey, Jack,” he tries.
Jack looks at him like he just did something incredibly inappropriate, then does a little shush.
“Sorry.”
He smiles. “Just kidding. Ha! Imagine if I was that much of an asshole?”
“Oh,” Notah says, embarrassed now. “Yeah.”
“No, sorry, kid. Didn’t mean to scare you. If you’re fine with talking in here…”
“Right, right. Against the rules.”
Jack grins.
“It’s not my job to police!”
“Yeah, yeah. Lots of other rules too.” Whatever that’s supposed to mean. “You enjoying the sauna? Haven’t seen you in here before.”
“It’s hot.” Notah stares at the coyote’s crotch. The Speedo was certainly more revealing but the towel threatens to give way at any moment and show off his junk. And if his dick was already that big flaccid in the Speedo, he must be packing something pretty nice right now. “It’s hot.”
What the hell is he thinking? Notah grinds his teeth. He has no fucking reason to be thinking like that. Notah goes right back to staring at the floor.
“That’s for sure!” Jack responds. “I love it in here. Most of the time I’m nude, actually, since there’s no one else in here, but…” When he looks back up, he notices Jack’s paw placed in such a way on his towel that it’s opening up to more of his thigh. If he was sitting on the lower level right now, he’d probably have a pretty good view of the coyote’s dick. His dick pulses under his own towel. Clearly the heat is getting to him. When he looks at Jack’s face, it’s like he knows something. “You’re lucky to be working here.”
“It empties out near the end of the day. You’d think people would wanna stay for the sunset…” He wipes the sweat from his forehead. “Nope. Pretty consistently. I didn’t think you’d be here, either.”
“I don’t know what it was!” he says. It’s such an innocent line, but he opens his legs as he does it and Notah can definitely see his dick now. It’s hard. It’s hard and it’s large. That coyote dick is biiig. Emerging from a bush of pubic hair, there are maybe seven or eight inches between it and a thick head. “Something just drew me in, you know.” He leans back onto the seat behind him.
Notah doesn’t know what in the world compels him to do it, but he makes eye contact and opens his legs too. The coyote can for sure see all of his business.
And the two sit there, staring at each other’s dicks. They both grow harder with each passing second. And a smile creeps onto Jack’s face.
“Hey, kid,” he says.
And Notah wraps up his towel and stands up. “I gotta… go.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. I gotta go. Sorry.”
Jack closes up, moving his arms back over his body so everything is hidden once again. “Alright. It was nice seeing you, kid.”
“You too, Jack.”
He hurries out of the sauna. Catching another look at himself in the mirror, he is drenched in sweat and has an obvious massive erection under his towel. He doesn’t even bother showering. He just throws his shorts on and rushes to his car.
Driving 20 over the speed limit with no one to see, Notah practices his breathing again. He will not let himself think about that again. In and out. In and out. In and out. All the way home.
PART 4
Somehow, those days Notah thought were beautiful and nothing else were actually the happiest he’s ever been. That little flutter of love in his chest as he sees Jack’s back in the locker room proves that.
He didn’t realize how much he liked having Jack around until the coyote wasn’t there. He still goes to the spa, but having picked up on Notah’s discomfort at what happened in the locker room, he’s all but stopped talking to the red-tailed hawk. Besides checking in and gently reminding him that he hasn’t restocked the towels, they don’t speak. It’s just like Jack is another one of the spa patrons.
And of course it makes sense. Jack’s failed attempt to get something going in the locker room would very well make him lose interest, maybe even make him think he did something wrong. But he did nothing wrong. Notah lies awake thinking about that day, wishing he accepted Jack’s advances. He wishes he could be back in that car with Jack, wishes he could be in Jack’s arms, wishes he could listen to the Beach Boys with him one more time. (And wishes he had someone to drive him to work like Jack did those weeks. There were a couple of days where it seemed like his car was working but then it crapped out all over again ten times worse. Wes took one look at it and told Notah it would be cheaper to buy a new model than to fix this one, then suggested he could tow it out to a nearby canyon and dump it in.)
He stares at Jack’s back as he sits on the bench, now basically a stranger when they were so close.
And Notah realizes he can’t leave it there. He has to say something.
“Jack…” he whispers. Then he clears his throat and tries again. “Jack.”
Jack turns away from his phone and looks at Notah with a polite smile. “Do you need me to get out of here?”
“Oh, no, um…” he swallows. “Um. Do you… know the story about me and Al Doherty?”
“What’s going on, son?”
Just hearing that word makes Notah want to cry. “I just think we should talk about it.”
He rewraps his towel around his waist. “I remember the news article.”
“You know. I was 17, high, and stupid, living in the middle of nowhere with nobody around for miles. So Al suggested we hit up the gas station. We weren’t even going to like, take the cash from the register or hurt anybody or anything, we were just bored and off our rockers high and unhappy and wanted snacks. We were 17. Just a bunch of little dumbasses. But, you know, the girl running the place had a gun under the counter and it turned into a whole thing.”
“I see you have a penchant for stealing.”
“It’s just sort of an impulse.”
“And you’re not very good at it, I’ve noticed.”
“No I’m not.” He chuckles, tearing up. “And. Al let me go. He let me run. I was just the getaway driver anyway. It’s not like I did anything other than stand next to him. Anyone could have stood next to him.”
“You’re okay, Notah. You don’t need to defend yourself. It’s okay.”
And that simple reassurance makes Notah start to crumble. He starts crying. This might be the first time he’s cried since that night with Al.
“I’m sorry.”
“What are you sorry about?”
“I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry.”
He cries into his hands.
Jack stands up and steps right in front of the hawk. “Can I give you a hug?”
Notah nods.
And right there, the almost-naked coyote wraps his arms around the hawk and brings him in tight. Notah sobs into his chest.
“I’ve just never had someone… give me this unconditional support… or saw anything more of me than Al’s delinquent friend.” Notah looks up at the coyote. “You care about me. You CARE about me. No one has ever cared about me. Nobody. Ever.”
“I care about you,” he whispers back. “I do.”
Jack pulls him back into the tight hug.
“And when that happened in the locker room…” Notah says into his chest. “I guess I just got scared.”
“I shouldn’t have done that, kid. That’s, uh, what we did back in the day, but, you know, they got the apps now. It’s more civil.”
“No no no, it wasn’t that. I would have… done it… but I guess I just got scared that maybe it meant you didn’t…” he laughs. “This is so stupid. I barely know you.”
“What were you going to say, son?”
“You didn’t care about me. It was just a sex thing. Like you just wanted to get your rocks off or whatever.”
“Oh.”
“I just… felt that love for the first time in my life… and even though I would want to do something like that so badly with you, it would mean that love wouldn’t be what I thought. This spa… this stupid spa is all I fucking have in my life. You and this fucking spa. And having sex with you like that meant ripping all of that away all at once.”
It’s quiet for a second before Jack let’s out a big sigh. “Can I tell you something?”
“Yeah.”
“I know what this town is like. I know what it does to you. What it feels like to be your age and begging to get out, to be someone different, but that never happens. To be gay here. When I saw you, I saw myself. And I just wanted to give you what I wanted to badly when I was your age. You know, fuck Al Doherty, fuck the spa, fuck what people think about you. You’re a good kid and you deserve love. I wanted to give you that love.”
He grabs Notah’s hands and holds them tight. “I will be here for you, son. If you want me to give you that love, I will give it to you. If you don’t, I won’t. I just want you to know that, no matter what, Notah, you have someone in your corner.”
Notah sniffs and lets out a chuckle. “You’d show me that love?”
“I’d show you that love all fuckin’ night, kid.”
“... Okay.”
“Yeah? You wanna come back home with me?”
Notah nods furiously. “Yeah. Yeah, I’d love to.”
“Alright then. Let me drive you home.”
PART 5
Stepping out of the car, Notah stares at Jack’s house. He lives in this geodesic dome thing, this house that’s mostly roof with a large saguaro cactus next to it and then nothing else for miles. Jack grins at him and places his paw softly on the small of Notah’s back as he guides the lithe hawk inside. Inside, there’s a beautifully decorated living room with a ladder to a lofted bedroom. Jack goes up first, Notah watching his ass move from side to side as he moves up the rungs. Notah follows.
There’s a sunroof at the very tip of the house. Outside, he can see stars splattered across the sky like little droplets of paint. Jack stretches up and then lays down on his bed, grinning. Notah stands in front of him nervously.
“You doing okay, kid?”
“This is just all very new.”
“I imagine. Hey, the sunroof looks even better from the bed.”
“Yeah?”
“I positioned the bed so I’m bathed in moonlight all night. It’s all just woowoo bullcrap but I dunno, might work for you?”
Notah chuckles, trying to muster up some confidence. “Let’s see.”
He takes a seat on the bed next to Jack. The coyote lies down, the hawk lying down right next to him. They look up through the sunroof. With how rural they are, there’s ribbons of purple and blue running through the night sky if they really look. Jack and Notah lie together, breathe together, and bathe in the moonlight.
“I can feel my cells being rejuvenated,” Notah deadpans.
“Mmhmm. It’s like a thousand Thrasher Springs Spa massages.”
“Hey, Den is pretty good.”
“Oh, I know.”
Jack chuckles and turns to Notah. “Can I kiss your forehead?”
Notah nods. Jack pulls him in and gives him just a little peck on the forehead, almost fatherly with the confident way he tilts Notah’s head. Notah can feel the warmth emanating off of Jack’s body, the softness of Jack’s paw. “I’ve never done this before,” he whispers.
“I know, kid,” Jack coos. “I’ll take good care of you, alright?”
“Okay,” Notah responds.
“Hey, look at me.”
Notah looks up from the darkness of Jack’s chest being pushed into the bed and up into Jack’s eyes. They’re beautiful in the moonlight, bright yellow with that ring of black only emphasizing them more.
“I’m going to take good care of you,” he repeats. “I promise you that.”
“Okay,” Notah responds again, his voice cracking. “Okay.”
“May I kiss you?”
Notah smiles, his eyes tearing up. “Yes.”
Jack plants a simple kiss on the bird’s beak. The tears break through. “Am I that bad?”
“No,” Notah says, chuckling but still crying. He wipes the tears from his eyes and laughs. “No no no. I’m happy.”
“Here. Let me lighten the mood a little.” Jack stands up, an obvious erection in his shorts as he walks over to a stereo on the other side of the room. Notah pushes his junk around into a more comfortable position as Jack leafs through his CDs, then puts one in. The Beach Boys.
“Oh!” Notah says.
Jack lays down with a smile and pulls Notah close. “Can I kiss you again?”
“You don’t have to ask.”
“Sure, kid,” he chuckles, before pulling him in.
The two begin to make out. Notah’s mind that was racing a million miles a minute screeches to a halt, his body almost numb from pleasure. It’s like the feeling of being on a rollercoaster with his mother all those years ago the only time they left town. Jack’s paw is on his arm. Jack’s tongue is on his beak. If he really focuses, he can feel Jack’s bulge pressed against his own. It’s all so much to take in until it becomes nothing at all, until what his body is doing is absolutely automatic.
The Beach Boys sing behind them: “Wouldn't it be nice if we were older?/Then we wouldn't have to wait so long/And wouldn't it be nice to live together/In the kind of world where we belong?”
Jack pulls away with a chuckle. “It ain’t that nice getting older, I’ll tell you that.”
“You did it gracefully.”
“You’re sweet, kid.”
They start kissing again, but Notah’s beak slowly falls down. Jack holds the back of his head as he tucks himself into the coyote’s chest, Jack’s muzzle planted on the hawk’s forehead once again. They’re bathed in moonlight, bathed in the harmonies of the Beach Boys, bathed in each other’s warmth.
“What do you want to do?” Jack whispers.
Notah’s wing sneaks down to Jack’s penis and gives it a squeeze through his shorts.
“Mm, I think I know what you want to do.”
Notah undoes Jack’s button, his bulge springing forward now that the tight fabric isn’t constricting it anymore. Jack shimmies his shorts down, leaving him in just a pair of white briefs. His paw reaches for Notah’s bulge and they repeat the process, getting Notah’s work pants off and leaving him in his own briefs. As beautiful as his eyes are, Notah is happy to not be making eye contact with Jack right now, otherwise he might be a little too overwhelmed.
“Mmmpph,” Notah moans into Jack’s chest.
“Yeeeeaaaah,” Jack groans. “That feels good, doesn’t it?”
“Mmhmm,” he nods slowly. “Yeeeaaah.”
Jack maneuvers Notah’s cock out of the leghole of his briefs. Jack has no comment on his penis, which Notah is thankful about, just a pleased sigh. Notah brings Jack’s cock out too. They lie pressed together, slowly massaging each other’s cocks.
They do that for god knows how long. Until well past the CD is over. The sensation is so wonderful, so much better than anything Notah could do to himself at home. He could sit here forever maneuvering Jack’s foreskin, hearing the little squish of precum as it slips up and down over his head. There’s for sure a little pool of sweat and precum on the bed between them.
“Son,” Jack whispers.
“Yeah?”
“Do you think… you’d wanna do anything else?”
“What do you have in mind?”
Jack chuckles. “Well, I’m wondering if you preferred the top bunk or bottom bunk, so to speak.”
“Oh!” Notah says. “Ohh, wow. You’d let me do that?”
“How else am I gonna show you that love?”
“I guess I’d,” he chuckles, “Uh, you know. Top bunk.”
Jack grins wide. “You wanna go for a ride?”
Notah nods with fervor.
“C’mon, son.”
Notah peels himself off the bed. He was right. There is a thick layer of sweat that feels wet when he presses his knee into it.
“Better than the sauna for sweating a little,” Jack quips as he searches his wardrobe. “Here we go.”
He returns with a bottle of prickly pear-scented body lotion from the spa. He hands it to Notah then strips off his sweaty clothes as he lies down on the bed ass up. Notah does the same, then stands behind Jack in bed, the old man’s ass completely exposed to him. It’s hairy and sweaty and the most inviting thing in the world, his balls loosely hanging below his asshole.
Notah kneels and puts a wing on Jack’s thigh, trying to figure out what the hell to do next. Jack waits patiently as the hawk slathers himself with lotion and then struggles to close the container with how slippery his wings are, then struggles to spread Jack’s asscheeks between the sweat and the lotion.
“Ohhhh fuck,” he whispers.
“Go for it, kid,” Notah says gently. “No need to be nervous.”
He presses his cock against Jack’s asshole. The slickness actually makes it a rather easy experience as he wipes his wing against the bed and then puts it on Jack’s waist. It only takes a little push to slide himself right in there.
“Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeah,” Jack groans. “Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah, juuuuust like that, juuuuuuuust like that.”
Notah grunts as he continues to push himself inside the coyote. His wings that were shaky are once again solid as he presses the rest of himself in. Jack’s ass is so big. Jack is so much physically bigger than him, really, even if Notah is tall. It feels like trying to get to the top of a car. The feeling is insane, like his whole body crashing into the water of the hot springs. He gets himself all the way in and holds himself there for a second as Jack’s tail swings around.
“How’s that feel?” Jack asks.
“It feels good,” Notah whispers. “Oh my god.”
“Have fun, kid.”
Notah closes his eyes tight, pulls back, and presses himself back into Jack. The coyote’s belly jiggles and he lets out a hefty moan. Notah could do this forever.
He just goes for it, driving Jack deeper and deeper into the bed with each thrust until his back is curved all the way.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Jack grunts as each thurst pushes his muzzle into his arms. Notah is whimpering and moaning behind him, his body on autopilot as he fucks the older man. “Grab my dick,” he moans.
Notah leans over Jack and feels his throbbing cock in his wing. Each thrust pushes Jack’s dick into Notah’s tightened wing, his foreskin sliding back as he fucks Notah’s wing himself. Notah enjoys the feeling of Jack’s belly pressing his wing down, his cock pressing his wing right back up. It’s the most natural feeling in the world.
“Shit,” he moans. “A littttle little little faster, kid.”
Notah is already going as fast as he can, but he musters up a little more energy. Holding Jack’s dick a little tighter, he fucks the coyote until Jack lets out a big moan and he feels the cum start to drip down his wing.
He’s like a runaway train. He pulls his wing away, the cum flinging everywhere as he jackhammers Jack’s ass, and hugs his arms tight around Jack’s waist. The plapping of his crotch against Jack fills the dessert as he gets a few last pumps in. Finally, finally, finally, he begins to let out his load inside of Jack.
“Theeeere,” Jack pants. “Give me your love. Give me that love. Give me that love.”
Notah fills him up, a little more spilling out of his dick as he pulls out. The cum drips down Jack’s balls as the coyote lies down on the bed and Notah lies down next to him. They lay together, naked, sweaty, and panting.
“That moonlight,” Notah takes in a breath. “Makes you do crazy things.”
“Not the moonlight,” Jack says. “That was all you.”
As sweaty and cum-drenched as they are, Notah wants to be nowhere else but in Jack’s arms. He slides himself in there and Jack gives him another kiss on the forehead.
“Thank you, Jack.”
“Thank you for trusting me.”
He pants. “What now?”
“What now? We cuddle. Take a shower, maybe. I got some nice Thrasher Springs Spa shower products.”
“And then… we go to bed?”
“Yeah, kid.”
“And we wake up? And go to work?”
“What else is there to do in the desert?”
Notah smiles. “I’d like that very much.”
