Chapter 2: About Last Night

Jake talks about surviving mating season with his best friend Nick and also the raccoon's disastrous evening at the bar last night.

Several years ago in a cheap rundown motel room off of River Street, two mammals grunted in the dark. Outside, lightning flashed through the miserable night's darkness and thunder punctured the pattering sound of the rain while it swept over the city. It also drowned out the squeaking of the room's worn-out bed and the lustful moans of the mammals in that bed.

The smaller brownish-gray and black tabby wildcat softly purred when she turned around to be engulfed in the lean raccoon's arms, "Someone was a wee bit desperate tonight?" Her voice had the bough of a highlander from the mountains of the old country.

"Mating season again, I've been…you know… desperate all day," the raccoon gasped. He was in his mid-twenties and somewhat tall for his kind, reaching just over three feet from hindpaw to forehead. His light gray and darker, almost black, gray fur had been carefully groomed. He panted from his endeavors while he looked down at her with gentle brown eyes that peered from within that telltale "bandit's mask" of his species. Jake Runnel was a burglar of exceptional skills, who applied those talents with only marginal success. He was a thief with the heart of a lover and only pursued his chosen career more for the challenge than for the money.

"I'd say you were ready for some action tonight," she giggled. "You know they have pills you can take to cut the edge off of things?"

"Why I've got you instead?" he said with a chuckle and then glancing at the clock on the side table he added. "At least for forty more minutes.

"Ach, this bloody thunderstorm has made business shitty because no one's cruising for tail in this rain. I'm done for the night and I have already told Jerry that I was calling it quits," she said as she snuggled back into his arms again, rubbing her cheeks into his chest's fur. "So, are you going to tell me what set you off like this?"

"I was at an uptown bar and there was a raccoon working there, I caught her scent and she was in heat," the male raccoon replied while he gently ran his claws down her back to her tail, which flicked in delight.

"You should have asked her out?" the cat replied as she looked up at him with mischievous green eyes.

"I don't think her husband would have approved," he laughed before he gently pushed her off of him and onto her back. "Are you ready for round two?"

"Make it slow this time laddie, we've got all night," she purred and then kissed him. "Besides you need to satisfy me this time."

He grinned when he asked, "Since you're off the clock, does that mean I don't have to pay tonight?"

"I love you, boyo, but not enough to give it away for free" the prostitute giggled.

"So that's how I survived mating season before I went to prison," Jake Runnel bragged in a seemingly casual manner while he pulled on the sleeve of his blue sweater before picking up his coffee cup. He looked around at all the other mammals in the coffee shop as he inhaled the scent of the brewing elixir, which was pleasant to him. Of course, he didn't go into all the details of that night.

"It would have been cheaper just buying the pills," the red fox in the tacky green polo shirt laughed after he looked up from his ever-present cell phone.

"But definitely less satisfying!" the raccoon proclaimed with a devious grin on his muzzle. "Besides after the first week, things do get better. There are always tissues and my paw, how do you think I got through the season in jail? The risqué photos Meredith mailed to me were…ah, very helpful."

"You used to spend every night paying to hump a hooker, that must have cost you a small fortune?"

"It wasn't every night and it wasn't just Meredith, one night she was booked and so I had a quickie with Trudy. She's the gray fox with the tattoo on her…"

"TMI coon, spare me the details! Did you ever do the red fox, she's really sexy?"

"Yeah, Candy and I have done it before. She can be a pawful, very physical…hey, you're into bunnies and not vixens?"

"I am, but…l just…" the fox stuttered before he continued. "Enough about me! You were with Melinda Velt this season."

"Yeah, Melinda too was rather physical. We hit mating season at about the same time. Did I tell you we once made out in the back of a pickup truck sitting in the parking lot at a honky-tonk? Everyone knew what we were doing, damn canine noses or it might have been the fact I made her howl. I never knew cape jackals could howl so loud?"

"Yeah, that would be a giveaway right there! You really need to start dating,"

"I date!"

"Picking up belly dancing sand cats in Sahara Square for private exotic dances is not dating. Paying for prostitutes is not dating."

"Melinda and I dated!"

"She swished her tail and you just followed. When was the last time you asked a girl out?"

"I get your point," Jake grumbled before he sat back and looked at the fox. He was agitated and Nick knew it from the way the raccoon's tail twitched and his ears were flat.

"You ever think of dating another raccoon?" the fox asked. "There's got to be a good-looking sweet girl out there who for some unknown reason would like to go out with you."

Jake held his tongue and didn't comment that his best friend was a fox married to a rabbit. "It's just that I don't hang out with the same crowds most nice girls do."

"You mean mobsters, thieves, hookers, and smugglers?" Nick chuckled as he picked up his coffee cup.

"Yeah and cops," Jake sighed. "All those real lowlifes of society."

"You could always hang out at bars," the fox almost absentmindedly replied as he returned to texting on his phone.

"You do know that Melinda is pregnant and they're my puppies," the raccoon replied while he leaned back in his chair and stared at the distracted fox.

"That's nice," Nick said while he continued to click away on his phone with his claw. Jake just grinned, giving time for the fox to realize what he had just been told.

"Wait!" the fox's head snapped up while he looked at his friend in shock. "You can't be the father, you're a coon and she's a jackal."

"Aw, so you did pass sex ed after all?" Jake sarcastically laughed while he held his paws to his chest in a dramatic fashion. "I'm pouring out my heart and soul to you and what are you doing? Oh yes, texting someone else!"

"I was texting Finn that you're being a whiny prick," the fox laughed before he gave the raccoon one of his trademark infamous smirks.

"Seriously bro, I need you to listen to me!" the raccoon sighed. "I met a girl."

"You mean that tasty-looking ringtail at the bar last night?" Nick said as he straightened up in his seat and gave his friend his full attention. "Yeah, you about broke your fool neck tripping over a chair trying to get to her, so what gives?"

"I don't know, it's just that when she looked at me I started sweating, and then I did something dumb."

"Dumb like what?"

"Last night she was at the restaurant's bar and I was so nervous that I was almost incoherent."

"I've never known you to be at loss for words?" Nick chuckled before he sipped his coffee.

"I think she actually thought it was flattering that she made me so nervous," the raccoon replied. "Then her roommate asked me for the time."

"Don't tell me," the fox sighed before he put a paw over his face. "You were holding your drink in your left paw and dumped it on yourself when you looked."

There was a thud when the raccoon's head hit the table and he groaned. "I was embarrassed, so I left."

"Yep, my friend the idiot! Tell me that you did at least get her name?"

"All I got was her first name, it's Marie," the raccoon groaned once again. His head was still on the table while he looked with forlorn eyes up at the fox. "I'm screwed aren't I?"

"Not necessarily," the fox replied with a smile. "You just need to jog a lot more in the mornings."

The raccoon sat up with a feeling of renewed hope. "Yeah, that's it, she jogs in the park!"

"You're getting a bit flabby anyways, so a good run will help with that."

"Hey, I work out every day at the gym! I have a great body, unlike you fox."

Although both friends were somewhat muscularly lean for their species and in excellent shape, they loved to tease each other about just about everything.

"Carrots thinks that my body is very sexy," the fox scoffed.

"That proves that love is blind," the raccoon laughed.

Sitting back in his chair the raccoon picked up his drink and after sipping the now-cold coffee, he looked over at his best friend. "Seriously, Nick there's something about this lady that I can't get out of my mind and it's not just her looks."

"Now don't go hanging your heart out on a hook again, you're still pining over that red panda you knew in collage. You haven't even asked her out, what if she says no?"

"Yeah, that's what scares me! Do you believe in love at first sight?"

"Lust yes, love no!" Nick chuckled.