A Wolf And His Man - 15. Sex Isn't Everything

He realised he’d been asleep with his eyes open only when he blinked, and Oli put down his pen with a huge yawn. The motion woke Boris, and the wolf’s jaw creaked like a rusty door hinge. As soon as his tail started to flop from side to side over Oli’s foot, Oli realised it was about time to actually go to bed. He laid the drying sketches out over his work table with a sleepy smile of satisfaction.

The delegates from the pet shop chain had adored his concept work. The idea of the goods of the store being explored by a young boy and his dog, a happy couple and their cat and a little girl with a bearded dragon had enchanted everyone. Oli had completed the storyboards for the television adverts which would be worked up by an animation team, and gotten directly onto the sketches for the poster adverts and magazine inserts. Though he would clean the work up and deal with the lettering using photographic and drawing suite on the computers at work, Oli still preferred to do all of his sketches and ink work by hand. It had taken all evening, but Oli was finally happy with the work. Most of them had Boris in them somewhere.

“Bed time, c’mon babe,” Oli hauled himself out of his chair and his spine crunched as he stretched. When Boris did the same, his tail curled back over his rump and he wiggled his toes out in front of him as his long pink tongue flopped nearly onto the floor. Oli glanced up at the clock. “It got late, sorry. You still wanna take a shower Bud?”

Boris shrugged in a non-committal sort of manner, and padded out towards the garden. Oli didn’t wait for him, but wandered upstairs to wash up. By the time he’d finished with his teeth. Boris was sitting on the bathmat; ears flopped to the side, looking sleepy and pliable.

“We’ll shower in the morning,” Oli bent down and scooped the wolf up. Boris was big and holding him against his chest wasn’t easy, but he simply laid his head over Oli’s shoulder and allowed himself to be carried to the bed. Yawning, Oli stripped off the rest of his clothes, dumped them in the hamper, and curled up on the bed with his wolf. The weather was cooler now, and they’d switched for a slightly thicker blanket over the mattress. But Boris was plenty warm, and cuddling up with him was way better than having a hot water bottle or duvet. Boris made a soft noise in his throat as Oli settled in next to him, and Oli turned to place a kiss on the very end of his muzzle.

“I love you too,” he yawned again, “sorry babe. ‘Night.”

After a few moments, Boris whimpered and wriggled, then laid his weight very deliberately over Oli’s crotch.

“No… Boris,” Oli was barely able to keep his eyes open, but he wove his fingers into the wolf’s thick fur, “later, I’m too tired.”

Boris licked his hip and nudged him with the top of his muzzle in a gesture which Oli read as ‘later better not be too far away’, and Oli nodded sleepily.

“Promise.”

Since their last shift, things between them had only gotten sweeter. Thought nothing had technically changed, Oli felt different. They still spent all their time together; the pair went running on the beach, waked over the fields out of town, Boris accompanied him to work, trotting along next to the bicycle like it was the most natural thing in the world. They ate together, slept together, showered together, cuddled up on the sofa and worked their way through Oli’s collection of sci-fi movies together. But now, Oli wasn’t doing these things with a wolf, or a werewolf, or even a man he loved. He was sharing his life with his boyfriend.

And the only thing that still confused him was the sex, or rather the watching. There was no denying he adored watching Boris jerk off. Nose inches away from his crotch; seeing his boyfriend wrap strong fingers around his erection and rub his other hand in Oli’s fur, moaning gently as he brought himself off, was about the sexiest thing Oli had ever seen. But now that it was his turn to be human, Oli still felt embarrassed and ashamed. What Boris had said stuck into his brain: he was not his father, but it still felt wrong somehow. Maybe it was the fact Boris was a wolf for a lot longer than Oli was, or perhaps it was Oli felt slightly ashamed of his body, even though he never had before, but getting a hard-on was not something he looked forward to. On the other hand, thinking about Boris, especially thinking about him naked in his skin, was guaranteed to make all of Oli’s blood rush to his crotch.

He’d called his mother once he’d got back into his skin, because he’d felt generally horrible about what had happened and what Boris had said. Even if it was true, and even though his mother already knew, Oli did wish he hadn’t said it. Somehow, all of them going along pretending they didn’t know anything was easier; after all, Alexander had never tried to broach the subject with Oli about what’s he’d seen all those years ago.

“I’m sorry mum.”

“Oh hush, there’s nothing to be sorry for.” His mother had been, predictably, in the kitchen. When she wasn’t in the surgery Oli’s mother seemed to be tied to the room, and she had full and total dominion over it. “Now, would the two of you like to come over for Sunday lunch?”

“Mum… do you really think that’s a good idea?” Oli had stared down at Boris as the wolf cocked his head, listening in.

“Don’t you think I’ll let you use this thing with your father as an excuse not to visit us young man,” Oli only ever got called ‘young man’ when his mother was irritated or exasperated with him, “you are my only son.”

“What about Boris?”

“Oliver darling, I have been catering for werewolves at dinner for the last thirty-five years; making dinner for your boyfriend will be no different.”

“MUM!”

“Was it supposed to be a secret?”

“Um…”

“Well then,” Oli could well imagine his mother’s maternal and satisfied grin down the phone, “we’ll see you for Sunday lunch next week. Laying the table at one, don’t be late.”

*

Oli woke to the sensation of Buddy licking him, long damp and slightly raspy tongue scouring the skin of his abdomen gently. Oli’s hand landed on the wolf’s head automatically.

“Mornin’,” Oli yawned, “you wanna have a shower now?”

Though Oli still wasn’t fully convinced by the idea of being a morning person, getting up early had become so much easier since Boris had been around. Oli hated to think the only reason he’d always been so keen on sleeping in was that there had been no one to get up for. Sure, he kept a schedule at work but they wouldn’t worry if he didn’t show up for a couple of days. That was the whole point of being freelance, and Oli had few enough friends, had something ever happened to him, no one would have reported him missing for days, possibly weeks. Now, the idea of getting up in order to spend time with Boris made leaving the bed much easier. And harder, because what Oli really wanted to do was roll around on the mattress with the big strong werewolf, make out and have awesome sex. But since that wasn’t ever going to happen, sharing a shower was the next best thing.

Boris sat under the running water with his eyes closed, muzzle pointing up into the spray, ears flattened over his skull and smiling faintly. Oli enjoyed wolf shaped showers, but the big grey wolf seemed to adore them. Oli moved around him, washing his hair and sticking his head and shoulders under the showerhead. He shaved in the shower, cleaning up his jaw, underarms, and the few stray hairs in the centre of his chest. Oli liked strong hairy guys like Boris, but he didn’t take after his father, and kept himself tidy-looking. As soon as he put the razor down, Boris jumped up against him, forcing Oli to lean back against the tile rather than losing his footing, and began to lick his now super-smooth chest.

“Your tongue tickles,” the personal attention of his boyfriend was having a very predictable effect on the blood flow to his crotch, “mmm, babe?” Oli ran his fingers down through the wolf’s fur, before pushing his hand over his own erection. Boris smiled at him, tongue sticking out the side of his mouth, ears up and tail wagging happily.

“You’re sure?” Oli still hadn’t gotten over asking, even though he knew Boris loved to watch about as much as he did, “love you.”

Oli couldn’t resist his own touch for long, it had been too long and he wanted the pleasure too much. Even though Boris’s yellow eyes watching him made him feel guilty, there was a thrilling thread too, a shiny ultraviolet sort of thing that made his heart beat faster and made him want to be watched. Oli had never been one for exhibitionism, too shy and private for his own good sometimes, but once he started and the hot flash of blue-shame faded, he wanted to make a good show for his boyfriend. Boris stayed with his paws planted on Oli’s chest, looking down between their bodies and glancing up at Oli’s flushed expression as he masturbated. When he started to lick at Oli’s neck and chest, the young man moaned between clenched teeth and panted as his orgasm grew near. He almost didn’t notice the hard flesh-red heat against his knuckles, the way the wolf grunted in his ear, pushing his hips against Oli’s working hand. There was another hot flush of something like shame, but Oli was enjoying himself far too much to care. He came first, his growl of pleasure forming into Boris’s name, and as his spine went slack the wolf pushed against the heat of him, jerking his hips, and reached his orgasm with a whimper. Oli grabbed him as the pair of them slid to the floor, lying prone and awkward in the base of the shower, the water clearing away all the evidence of what they’d done.

“Well,” Oli tried to find his voice in between his moralistic conscious shouting at him he was an awful human being, “that was different.”

Boris wuffed softly, tail wagging happily. Then he cocked his head and frowned at Oli.

“How do I feel? Awesome…” Oli’s chest was still heaving. Having an eighty pound wolf lying on him wasn’t helping his ability to maximise his lung capacity. “…and weird. Sort of, not guilty, but… like we shouldn’t have done it.” Boris whined. “Illicit, dangerous…” Oli dragged his fingers through Boris’s thick fur, “sexy as fuck. C’mon, get off me. I’ve got work to do.”

It was a Saturday, but there was only another week and a day until the full moon, so Oli and Boris donned clothes and collar and with Oli’s thick portfolio, walked through town to the office. Sometimes it was nice to work on the weekends, the offices were quiet and most of the managerial team never came in. Oli said hi to the security guard, but apart from an IT tech, a pair of photographers and his boss’s assistant, there was no one else in. Boris chose a big square patch of sun, rubbed all over the carpet and fell asleep on his spine with all his limbs sticking at odd angles into the air. Oli stood at the big scanner, laying up the drawings he had completed the previous evening and sending them to his account with the press of a button.

“Hey Oli,” Maddie smiled at him, glancing up from the stack of photocopying in her arms, “oh are these the pet shop sketches?” She took one from the pile that had already been scanned, “cute! Is this Buddy?”

“Thanks. You’re not normally in on a Saturday Madds, something up?”

The assistant rolled her eyes, and Oli got the very clear impression there were lots of places she’d have much rather been mid-morning on a sunny-if-chilly weekend.

“Oh, you know. The boss double booked his own calendar and en-route to the meeting he wasn’t prepped for, lost his copies of half a dozen proposals for a new account,” she waves the photocopying stack, “so he called me to fix his life, as per.”

“Well, you’re so good at it,” Oli smiled, “I’ll be done with this in just a sec, then the machine’s all yours.”

“You’re a doll, Oli. I wish all the guys here were like you.”

“But then there’d be no one to flirt with,” Oli replied with a grin.

“Fair point. Oh! Speaking flirting,” Maddie’s brown eyes twinkled with glee, “I have this friend, Damien; twenty-nine, really cute. He’s got the whole Americana thing going for him, jeans, checked shirts, plays guitar.”

“Uh-huh…”

“Well I was talking to him and I just happened to mention you and then I sort of accidentally sent him your picture and he wanted to know if you wanted to go on a date, like?”

“Maddie, that’s really sweet and everything, but-”

“C’mon Oli!” Maddie pouted at him, “You’ve not mentioned anyone in like, a year. It’s just one date.”

“Actually,” Oli felt his heart glowing softly gold and pink, “I am seeing someone.”

Maddie gawped at him.

“Is it serious?”

Oli nodded, biting his lip; he was blushing.

“Oh my god, that is so great!” Maddie hugged him round the neck over-enthusiastically, “Oh my god. Let me get this done, I’ll grab coffee and then I want all of the details. Two minutes!”

Oli returned to his desk in a bit of a daze, and slipped the original sketches back into their protective plastic portfolio: he wouldn’t need them now. Boris watched him from his comfy patch of sunlight and quirked an eyebrow spot at him.

“Only good things Buddy don’t worry.”

True to her word, Maddie returned in less than a hundred and twenty seconds with a black coffee and a milky tea.

“Two sugars, right? I couldn’t remember.”

“Two’s great, thanks Madds,” Oli took the tea and sipped it, placing the cup at a safe distance from the electronic equipment on his desk. Maddie grabbed another chair and pulled it over, sitting at a cosy angle against the end of his workspace.

“So, tell me everything. What’s his name? Where’d you meet? When? Does he get on with Buddy?”

“Whoa, hold up,” Oli actually held out his hands to stem the flow of inquisition, “His name is Boris. We um, met on the beach,” Oli lied quickly, picking the place he’d taken Buddy for their first ever walk, “a couple of months ago. He’s really nice, and he loves Buddy. He grew up with dogs too.” Boris snorted from his patch of sunlight, and Oli knew the wolf was laughing at him. Oli was pretty good at lying, but when it came to the subject of his boyfriend he wanted to be as truthful as possible.

“And…?” Maddie looked at him expectantly.

“And he’s wonderful…” not since he’d first started dating Liam and forced a slightly reluctant Harvey to listen to him had he ever had the opportunity to gush about a guy he liked. “He’s tall, kinda skinny, and absolutely beautiful. He’s really funny too. We both like most of the same films and books, so it’s kinda fun to eat dinner and stay in and talk about actors we both like and stuff.” Oli stopped speaking all in a rush, the heady ecstasy of being able to talk openly about the man he loved easing off slightly now that he’d started. “Plus he’s always warm at night, good to hug.”

“Well that sounds like just what you need,” Maddie beamed, her lavender-coloured scent genuinely happy for him, “So do you think you might ask him to move in eventually? Does he rent?”

“Um, actually, he already moved in.”

“Shut the front door!” Maddie gawped at him, “oh my god Oli! That’s so serious. You really like this guy, huh?”

“Yes.”

The room was full of warm pink shades, and Oli glanced quickly over to the wolf. Boris might have looked like he was asleep, but his scent was full of thick green fronds like ferns in springtime, and Oli knew he was listening in.

“So if he’s already moved in, you think you might come to the pub and introduce him to us sometime?”

“Um, maybe,” Oli hated to tell such a barefaced lie to his acquaintance, “We’re going for Sunday lunch with my parents this weekend.”

“That’s big,” Maddie’s phone pinged at her, “good luck Oli. Try and have fun, yeah?”

“Thanks. See you later Madds.”

Oli watched her go before he returned in his computer screen. All his work sat there, waiting to be cleaned up, tidied, and placed with beautiful blocks of text and gorgeous slogans. Wishing gently that he could introduce Boris to people properly, he set about adding dashes of colour to his inks, and immersed himself in his art.

*

“What are you drawing there Oliver?”

“It’s Ruff,” the small boy spoke around the pencil held between his teeth, not looking up at his father as he concentrated very hard on the figure of the passed out puppy, curled up in his basket, “shhh. Don’t wake him.”

“OK, I won’t.” Alexander settled down next to his son and tilted his head to watch him draw. “You got a spare piece of paper?”

Oli tore a page from the little notebook and handed it across to his father. Alexander could always be counted on to have a pencil tucked behind his ear.

“Thanks.”

“’s OK.”

Side by side, father and son sketched the sleeping puppy onto the cheap paper stock. Alexander leant over to watch his son’s pencil scratching away.

“Here Oliver,” Oli’s father touched the ends of their pencils to get his attention without disturbing the passed out puppy, “hold the pencil further back; like this.” Oli copied his father’s grip, two fingers and thumb gripping gently around the body of the yellow and black striped pencil. “And try to use a softer stroke. If you draw shapes first,” he began to round out faint ovals for Ruff’s body, his head, and smaller shapes to define muzzle, legs, paws and haunches, “then you’ll find it easier to draw him in detail.”

Oli abandoned his crude drawing to lean on his father’s knee and watch him draw. It was magical to watch the image of the dog appearing before his eyes. Alexander’s sketch was quite formal, lots of straight lines, and the view was more head-on than natural; years later Oli would realise his father’s drawings were all like that, reflecting furniture even when he wasn’t wanting to.

“Daddy? Can I draw like that too?”

“You could probably draw better,” Alexander ruffled his son’s hair, “shall we go into town tomorrow and buy you some proper drawing paper?”

“Yes please!”

“Finish your drawing, it’ll be dinner soon.”

Oli leant into his father’s big hug, then took up his equipment again and began a new drawing. He worked with his tongue sticking out of the side of his mouth, not really knowing why it was comfortable, and used the long smooth motions of the pencil to shape-in the rough form of Ruff. He flicked his eyes between the real puppy and the one growing solid on the page, adding lines and little wiggles to show the detail of Ruff’s lovely fur. His father had used the pencil on its side to shade, so Oli did the same, making Ruff’s black fur darker than the rest, adding deep shadows where his little eyes were closed. By the time he was done, Ruff was rolling over, yawning widely, his little pink puppy tongue curling at the end.

“Hey boy!” Oli turned the notebook around, “look, it’s you!”

“Wrow,” Ruff rubbed his little head against his best friend’s chest, “wuff.”

“I love you too, Ruff,” Oli hugged him back, “let’s go have dinner.”

Oli left the sketch on the landing and ran downstairs with his dog. After dinner, the drawing was gone, and Oli didn’t notice.

Pressed tight between the pages of a carpentry book on carcassing joints, Alexander kept the first picture his son had ever drawn. He would never tell the boy how proud he was.