Chapter 5
The party started off calmly enough. The Andersons made all the appropriate remarks about how lovely the house was and how much Rita and Gillian had grown, and it was so lucky the chances Richie was getting in Europe. Jon Anderson, who was a year younger than Rita, was going to California and had made dean's list his first semester, but Rita paid special attention to Maria, the girl her age who had apparently worn her wedding dress to the party. It was bright white, with lace over the shoulders and a small sprig of holly as a concession to the season. It flowed around behind her so awkwardly that Rita was tempted more than once to take up the edge and walk around behind her like a child holding the train.
She was pretty, no doubt about that, with ribbons in her styled hair and makeup applied artfully around the eyes. But every time Rita edged close enough to hear her talk, she was saying, "My fiancé," or "George is a doctor, of course," or "The wedding" or some combination of those three. Rita quickly grew bored of listening to her and roamed the party looking for other entertainment.
By this time, Brian and Alice had joined the crowd and Brian caught up to Rita first. "This is pretty nice," he said, enunciating so carefully that Rita knew he was trying to hide the fact that he was quite tipsy. He hadn't started wagging his tail all over yet, but his eyes were a little unfocused. He took another drink from his cup and wiped eggnog off his muzzle.
"You know that some of the eggnog is spiked, right?" Rita said.
Brian nodded. "I asked your cousin for plain. I don't want to get anymore drunk."
Rita tried to decide whether the smell of alcohol was from the eggnog or from Brian's breath. "I think I'll get some too," she said, wanting the sour tang of rum more than the sweet cream.
"Okay. I'll be right here." Brian smiled at her and parked himself next to the living room Christmas tree. His head was just even with the creepy Santa ornament.
On her way to the eggnog, Rita was accosted by her uncle and presented to the Hathaways, a retired fox couple who lived down the street. Mr. Hathaway had made quite a bit of money in some kind of some sort of energy company or another. Whenever Rita's uncle got hold of some kind of business plan that required investors, the name Hathaway inevitably came up.
"You remember Rita," her uncle said. "She's at UBC now, but we're looking into law schools for her."
"Oh, very nice," the old fox said, shaking Rita's paw. "You've certainly grown up."
"Thank you, sir," Rita said.
"I have a friend on the faculty at ASU," he said. "It's not Stanford or Harvard, but it's a respectable school. Let me know if you need a recommendation when the time comes."
"Thank you, sir," Rita said again. She extracted herself from the conversation.
At the eggnog table, her cousin was serving, which she found slightly odd, but Gillian was also dressed up more than Rita had ever seen her. She had gone all out, with a lovely blue dress that she thought was her aunt's, a fake corsage pinned over her ear, and a lacy forest-green wrap draped over her shoulders. She'd also put in earrings borrowed from her mother, little teardrop diamonds that caught the light and sparkled.
"You look great," Rita said. "Do we have any plain eggnog?"
"Sure. There are kids around. You want some?"
"No way." Rita held out her cup. "I'd take the rum straight up, but that won't be out for a couple hours yet."
She grinned and poured Rita some eggnog. "I'll be gone from here by then. Five more minutes, that's all I agreed to do."
Rita sipped the frothy sweet cream on her way back and almost spilled it when one of the aforementioned kids barreled full force into her legs. "Whoa, there," she said, putting out a paw to the young child, who looked bemusedly up at him and then scampered away, dangerously close to the elegant vase on the side table. Rita paused to move it back further from the edge and was considering whether to remove it altogether when a deep voice spoke at her back.
"Rita, right?"
She turned to see Jon Anderson, a fox about her height, dressed up in a sleek white shirt that was probably silk with a tie on. He and Rita had been playmates at some of the company picnics and parties they'd attended together and had been in the same middle school for two years when Rita was in fifth and sixth grade and Jon in fourth and fifth.
"Jon," he said. He stuck out his paw. "How are you?"
"I'm great, just great," she said. "How about you?"
"Pretty good. You're at UBC, right?"
"Yep. I like it, but I sort of miss the desert."
"You've got some desert out in UBC, right?"
Rita nodded. "It's a couple hours away, though. The ocean's closer."
"The ocean rocks," Jon said with a grin. "Are you still seeing . . . um, what's her name, that girl from high school?"
"Alice?" She saw Alice moving towards her across the room. "Uh, not really."
"Oh. I thought I saw her here."
"You did," Rita said.
Alice joined them just at that moment, putting her hand on Rita's arm. "Hi, Rita. And . . . Jon, is that right?"
"Yeah," he said. "We were just talking about you."
Rita tried to remove Alice's hand from her arm, but couldn't quite do it unobtrusively enough, so she let it stay there.
Alice appeared not to notice Rita's efforts. "I heard about your dean's list, congratulations." Her hand tightened on Rita's arm.
"Oh, thanks," Jon said and his eyes twitched. "It wasn't that big a deal, really. I mean, you know how freshman classes are."
"I'm not in college," Alice said.
Rita, who had gotten a 2.5 and a threatening letter from her uncle in her first semester, stayed silent.
"Oh? What are you doing?" Jon inquired.
"I work at the library and I'm doing some home crafting in my spare time," Alice explained.
Rita endured the description of Alice's jewelry aspirations largely by ignoring it and looking at other arrivals as they came through the door and Jon, from his frequent nods and glances at Rita, appeared no more interested.
"Well, look," he said finally, interrupting Alice in the middle of the detailed process by which melted glass could be shaped into different patterns, "I'm gonna get another drink. It was nice seeing you both."
"Good to see you, too," Rita said. When Jon was out of earshot, she added, "I suppose I could thank you for getting rid of him."
Alice continued to resist Rita's attempts to get her hand off of her arm. "You see, I can be a good companion."
"Alice, I'm with someone. And I'm . . ." She looked around to see if any of her uncle's friends were nearby. Mr. Hathaway was talking to Maria Anderson about ten feet from them, his large black eyes constantly swiveling to take in the room. "Well, you know."
"I know what you think you are," Alice said, "but that doesn't matter even if it is true. You still need a wife, don't you? How are you going to have kids? Who are you going to bring to parties?"
The shine in Alice's eyes was mostly wine-fueled, Rita suspected. "Listen, I'm with someone."
"Oh, that doesn't matter. You people all cheat on each other all the time anyway. It's not like it's a real relationship. I mean, you . . ." She lowered her voice to a loud stage whisper. ". . . slept with that wolf last night."
"Oh, my God." Rita could feel the fur on her back standing up as her ears laid down flat.
"Brian told me. He said how it was really okay because it was just one of those things that happened. Frankly, I'm more surprised at him. I mean, he was dating your cousin and he's a baseball player and everything."
"Oh. My. God." Rita couldn't believe Brian would have told her about such a thing. He must be more drunk than I had thought, she thought to herself. "I gotta go."
"Rita, just think about it." Alice followed her through the increasingly thick crowd of people. "You'll see I'm right. I'll show you . . ."
"Rita!" her aunt cried, sweeping down on her in a hideous red and green dress. Plastic candy canes swung from the base of her ears in wide arcs. "Alice! Oh, look, you're under the mistletoe!"
"Mistletoe's four feet away, Aunt Peggy," Rita said, edging further away from it.
"It has a wide shadow!" Peggy said. Everyone was looking at them now. "Come on . . . a Christmas kiss!"
"For the love of-mmmf!" Rita never finished her sentence since Alice planted herself on her muzzle and wrapped her arms around her like some kind of inexorable sea monster. She kept her lips resolutely closed against the insistence of Alice's tongue and extracted herself from the kiss as soon as possible while the onlookers clapped briefly and then returned to their conversations.
Her aunt was sniffling and wiping joyful tears from her eyes. "It's so beautiful," she panted and wandered off.
Alice's mouth was curved in a happy smirk. Rita wiped her own mouth off and took a swig of eggnog. "Hope you enjoyed that," she said to Alice.
"Didn't you?" Alice asked as Rita walked away.
Rita waved her away, though the fur on her tail felt Alice following her until she got to the Christmas tree where she'd left Brian. Her boyfriend was no longer there.
"Look how pretty the tree is," Alice said, coming up to Rita's side as she looked around.
"Right," Rita said. She twisted her way through a crowd of people, heading toward the kitchen. She hadn't quite made it when she ran into Brian, bearing a tray of some kind of appetizer.
"Hi, hon . . . er, Rita," Brian said. "Your aunt asked me to help serve!" His tail was wagging as though he'd been asked to put the star on the tree.
"Aunt Peggy," Rita said, spotting her aunt on her way back to the kitchen, "Brian's not a servant."
"Of course, darling," Peggy said. "Why don't you and Alice go have some more eggnog? I need to get the drawing pads out."
As Rita turned, Alice took the opportunity to grab her arm again. She cast desperately around and saw Mr. Hathaway nearby. She dragged Alice over to him. "Mr. Hathaway," she said, "have you met Alice? She's a friend of the family. She works at the library and makes jewelry. Tell him about the jewelry." She urged Alice over the fox's faint acknowledgement. She didn't wait for Alice to get started before slipping away, but as she wasn't looking where she was going, she ran smack into Mark. The fox put a paw on her shoulder and grinned down at her.
"Careful," he said.
Rita glared at him, muttered, "Sorry," and ran after Brian. Her boyfriend had put the appetizer tray down and was taking another glass of eggnog from Gillian.
"Hi, Rita," he said. "This is really fun."
"Just wait," Rita said darkly. "Aunt Peggy's getting the Pictionary pads out."
Brian's ears perked up. "Pictionary?"
"Not just Pictionary. A special Christmas version. The clues are all Christmas carols and when the team guesses them, they have to sing them."
"That sounds like fun!"
Rita stared at her boyfriend. "You're serious? Well, you can go play without me."
"Come on. It'll be fun."
"No." At the hurt look and drooping ears, Rita rolled her eyes. "Look, I don't want to pick at childhood scars. You can go ahead, really. I don't mind."
"But it won't be as much fun without you."
Rita barked a short laugh. "Trust me, it'll be more fun."
Brian looked around, then leaned in furtively. "I'll . . . make it up to you later."
Rita grinned. "Yeah, you will. Actually, the games would be a really good time to sneak upstairs."
Brian would probably not have agreed to the suggestion if he weren't drunk, but as it was, Rita noticed him shifting his hips to accommodate his arousal. He nodded with a wide, panting smile. "Okay. I'll leave early and come find you."
"We'll have to go up separately." She grinned back and felt a little aroused herself. "Just catch my eye when you go upstairs."
Her aunt called gaily, "Everyone who wants to play a game, come into the rec room!"
"Go," Rita said.
Brian took off with a grin, tail wagging.
"You're not going?" her cousin said from behind him.
Rita turned to see her standing next to a tray of appetizers, small flaky pastries that smelled of mince. "No." She popped one into her mouth. "And I see you're not, either. Hey, these are pretty good."
"I know. I've had four already." She flicked an ear.
Rita saw her uncle coming toward them. Cold air swirled around her; he must have just come in from outside. His red shirt and green tie were almost as bad as Rita's aunt's dress.
"I want the both of you in there to play the game," he said.
"She's got plenty of people," Rita argued.
"And I'm helping out the caterers," Gillian said.
"You two are really spoiled brats. If you don't care enough about your family to participate . . ."
Across the room, Diana Anderson's cackling laughter rang out, distracting her uncle. "That's her third glass of wine. She really can't hold her liquor." He looked very pleased by these circumstances. "Rita, get the vase off the sideboard." Her aunt was a happy drunk, but Mrs. Anderson was a clumsy drunk.
"Sure," Rita said. She moved to do the task before her uncle could reiterate his order to play the Christmas game. She cradled the vase in her arms and paused in the living room, looking for somewhere safe to put it. She decided to put it on the back porch. There was a corner behind her uncle's bar where it would be out of the way. She pushed through the dining room and past the caterers in the kitchen.
When she got to the back porch, it was deserted save for a few cocktail glasses, undoubtedly because it was much colder than the previous night. Her breath hung in front of her without dissipating now. She put the vase down, turned around, and jumped when she saw Alice standing on the porch, having apparently materialized out of nowhere.
"Hi, Rita," she said. "Kinda cold out here, isn't it?"
"I was just heading back inside." Rita tried to get around her, but Alice stepped to one side and back to block her.
"What's your hurry? Your boyfriend is singing 'The First Noel' in there, but I can keep you warm out here."
There were few things as unpleasant as being hugged by someone Rita would rather not be hugging, but one of them is being hugged sexually by someone she would really rather not be hugging. Alice ground her hips up against Rita's crotch and tried to kiss her again, but Rita managed to angle her muzzle out of the way before she could. She settled for pressing her face into Rita's neck, her paws groping down to her rump.
Ears flat, Rita tried to push her away. "Hey," she said roughly, "listen. I don't know what my mother told you, but really, I don't-mmf!" Alice had taken advantage of her talking to kiss her again. This time, she managed to get her tongue inside Rita's mouth. It reeked of wine and rum, getting the alcoholic smell up into Rita's nasal cavity.
The smell was so strong that it dazed Rita; it was a moment before she was able to spit out Alice's tongue and get her paws between them. Alice really was surprisingly strong and fairly determined. "Alice, please, just stop it."
Alice pressed closer to her. "No. Not until you recognize what's good for you."
"What's good for me? How do you or anyone else know what that is?"
"You certainly don't," Alice replied. "Throwing your life away. What we had was special, you know that as well as I do. It just didn't work because of the sex. But now I know what you like . . ." She lowered her voice. "I can be a bit boyish, you know." Her paw reached down under Rita's tail.
That was the spur Rita needed to match her determination and strength. She squirmed free of Alice and stood panting on the porch. "You're drunk. You should go sober up before you go around groping people."
"Oh, for heaven's sake," Alice said. "Groping? We know each other. We had our first sex together. No. I let you go once and I'm not going to make that mistake again."
Incredulous, and getting colder in the night air, Rita considered her options. She couldn't get back in the house because Alice was in the way. She could go out the back porch and around the front. Or she could try to brain Alice with the vase. Even though, she thought, she wasn't actually starring in a slapstick comedy, the last solution had more than a little appeal right now. "Look, I'm sorry you haven't found anyone since we broke up. But remember when we broke up and you said you were okay with it?"
"I was then," Alice cried, "but when you left, I didn't realize how much I missed you. You didn't have the right to break up with me."
"The right? The right? I can't be happy with you! That doesn't give me the right?"
"I don't know why you're being so mean." Alice was trying to act despondent, but Rita could see the gleam in her eyes. Alice thought she could make Rita feel guilty. "I even like Brian. You could still see him a couple times a week. I'm bending over backwards for you."
"Listen to me," Rita said, "I . . . do not . . , want . . . you."
"That doesn't have to matter," Alice said softly.
Rita shook his head. "You don't get it! Let's talk when you sober up." She took a chance and pushed past Alice. This time Alice didn't stop her, though she was afraid Alice would. S\he stole a cookie from the caterers' trays as she went through the kitchen and shook her head, moving through the dining room and to the back of the staircase, where a window opened onto the back porch. Putting her nose to the window, she saw the door close and guessed Alice had come back in. "Drunk people," she muttered to herself, then, more to say the words than because it was true, "Gosh, I need a rim job."
"Say what?" She turned and saw Mark nearby in his blue suit, a cookie in his paw.
"Uh . . . sorry. Just having a frustrating conversation."
"I saw. I thought I would have to come out there and break you two up." The wolf grinned and tossed the cookie into his mouth.
"We're already broken up. What business is it of yours anyway? Why were you watching us?"
Mark shrugged. "Just saw her follow you out there. Didn't look like a scene you wanted to be part of. But I didn't want to just walk out into it."
"No." She paused, squinted up at the wolf as an off-key "We Three Kings" burst from the rest of the house, causing both their ears to go flat for a moment. "Why are you so worried?"
Mark grinned. "I don't know. Seems like you're having a tough time, is all."
"You just want another ride on the porch?" Rita folded her arms.
"If you want. Looks like your ex came in, so it's empty out there."
"That's not what I . . . oh, hi, Aunt Janine." Her uncle's older sister had spotted her and come over to pinch her ears and tell her how tall she'd gotten. "This is Mark, Gillian's boyfriend."
Mark extended a paw. "Ex-boyfriend."
"Oh, my." Aunt Janine looked back and forth between them. "Well, it's Christmas, you'll make up. Rita, look how big you are! How are you liking college?"
"It's fine," Rita replied, shrugging her shoulders.
They moved back to the living room, where Rita told Aunt Janine about college through "O Holy Night", "Rudolph", and "Howl to the Star", the only Christmas carol she really liked because it was one of the few times she could howl as a child. In the middle of that last one, Gillian came over and Mark excused himself while Aunt Janine pinched Gillian's ears (more carefully because of her earrings) and told her how big she'd gotten.
"Yeah," Gillian said.
Aunt Janine leaned forward curiously, sniffing the air.
Rita saw Brian come out of the rec room, humming to himself and weaving a bit as he made his way to the stairs. He caught Rita's eye and winked. He made his way up the stairs slowly.
"Gillian," Aunt Janine said, "are you . . . okay?" She looked not only at Gillian's muzzle, but also down at her belly. At least, Rita thought, if she did guess the secret, Aunt Janine was not one to go blabbing all over the place.
"I'm fine," Gillian said. "Do you want some eggnog?"
"Yes, dear, but you'd better go make up with your boyfriend."
"Yeah, why don't you do that?" Rita suggested. "I need to, um, go do something."
"Fine," Gillian said. "I'll go find Mark and make up. While I'm doing that, Rita, you can get Aunt Janine her eggnog."
Rita looked at the stairs, then at her aunt's muzzle.
"Oh, I can find it myself," she said.
"No, that's okay." It wouldn't hurt to let a few more minutes go by, as much as she felt herself getting aroused again at the thought of getting up the stairs and shutting herself in her room with Brian.
"Well, tell me about this girl of yours. Alice, is it?" Aunt Janine walked alongside Rita as she made her way back to the living room. "I saw you kissing earlier. You do make a nice couple. She's the one you were-"
"We're not dating," Rita said.
"Oh." Aunt Janine chuckled softly to herself. "Well, you never know what the magic of Christmas will bring. Maybe you will be again soon."
"I doubt it. Here's the eggnog. Plain or, um, enhanced?"
"I'll have the rum." Aunt Janine smiled and held out a paw.
Rita poured her a spiked eggnog.
"Delicious," Aunt Janine said. "Your aunt's still buying that White Paw Rum, I see. It goes well with the eggnog."
Aunt Janine kept Rita's attention for a few more minutes, then she managed to disengage herself and get back to the stairs. She got only a third of the way up before her uncle's voice stopped her in her tracks. "Rita!"
She leaned over the banister. "What?"
"Where are you going?"
"Just upstairs for a minute."
"Come back down. We've only got two carols left and you're going to help finish the game. The Andersons are winning. We can't have that."
The forced jokiness in her uncle's tone set Rita's teeth on edge. "Uncle Hal, nobody wins at that game. You're all losers." Her attempt to copy her uncle's irreverent tone failed.
The older fox glowered and lowered his ears. "Get down here now."
Rita looked up and then sighed before marching back down. Brian could wait another ten minutes, hopefully, without passing out. She trailed behind her uncle back to the rec room, eyes down.
"Mark, if you want to, you can join us. You're part of the clan." Her uncle had stopped in front of the tall wolf.
Rita looked up in moderate surprise.
Mark shrugged. "Sure."
"I guess my cousin didn't come find you," Rita said as they entered the rec room. "I didn't think she would."
Mark's reply was drowned out by the chorus of "Hark, the Herald Angels Howl" from the opposing team, then by the effusive hugs of her aunt telling them how much fun they were going to have and how happy she was that they'd come to play. Rita folded her arms and wished her aunt could be happy for her without being drunk at a party.
The last carol their group got was "Deck the Halls", one of Rita's least favorites, but she guessed it quickly and then sang "fa la la la la" gamely along with her family and Mark. Then, while her aunt was still thanking everyone for playing, she escaped the room.
The wolf followed her. "Why was your cousin looking for me?"
Rita started up the stairs again. "Oh, she told Aunt Janine she was going to find you to make up or something. But I didn't think she would."
Mark came up the stairs as well. As Rita turned in annoyance, he said, "She was looking in the wrong place. I saw her go up there a while back."
Rita's fur prickled and she felt a chill. She turned and looked up the stairs and then back at Mark. She suddenly realized what her cousin was up to. "Oh, that slut," she bellowed. She ran up the stairs.
The door to her room was slightly ajar. She hesitated outside it while Mark came up beside her. Gillian's door was wide open and her room was empty and so was the bathroom. She didn't want to go into her room, but she felt she had to. She reached for the doorknob, then pulled her paw back as she heard a low moan, a sound she'd only heard Brian make with her in bed.
Mark heard it too and reached past her to pull the door shut gently. "Come on," he suggested. He pulled Rita into Gillian's room, closing the door behind them.
"I can't believe she'd do that," she said, sitting on the bed. "She did it deliberately. She got him drunk and then kept me out of the way while she came up here . . ."
"Well," Mark said, "you know, she was pretty upset about last night."
"Yeah, but that was an accident!"
The wolf grinned, his ears cast down, and sat cross-legged on the floor, looking up the fox on the black bedspread. "Look, uh, Rita, I've seen a lot of accidents. You didn't accidentally bend over and I didn't accidentally do you."
"But . . . I mean, I didn't deliberately set it up like that. She is such a conniving, backstabbing . . ." She trailed off. Her arousal had gone away briefly, but recalling the previous night was bringing it back. "Why are you being so nice to me?"
"What do you mean?" Mark looked sincerely curious.
"I mean . . . you were such a prick all through high school. Remember the toilet and . . . my science project and . . ." She was getting angry all over again, but Mark didn't seem fazed or guilty.
":Oh. That was just kid stuff, you know? You seem like a nice girl. Gillian talks about you a lot. Plus, you're kinda cute."
"Kid stuff?" But of course, Mark Winter hadn't been her only tormentor, not even the worst. He'd just been one in a line of people determined to make school miserable for Rita.
"Yeah. Sorry." Again, he seemed sincere. When Rita looked at him, he flicked his eyes deliberately at Rita's rear. "I'll lick your butt if it'll make you feel better."
Rita looked around at her cousin's room, the pink of her middle school years covered with a layer of black, the posters of bubble gum pop torn down and replaced with angry women screaming into microphones. "In Gillian's room?"
Mark nodded to the wall. "She's humping your boyfriend in your room."
"Well . . ." She was fully aware of the fact that she shouldn't say yes, but too hard and aroused and angry to say no. "It won't make me feel worse. But you don't have to."
"It's okay." Mark got down on his knees. "I kinda want to anyway." He put one paw on Rita's thigh and gripped her ankles, clamping her legs together. He pushed up until Rita was lying on her back, her rear pointed at the wolf's waiting tongue.
The red fox moaned softly at the electricity of the touch. Her tail thumped against the bed. "Why?"
Mark grinned, paw working at lubricating Rita's anus. "I haven't licked a lot of butts, so maybe I don't know the protocol and all, but I've never been asked why." He slid a paw underneath the fox's vertical body and wrapped his paw around Rita's waist. "I don't know. I like it. You're cute, and you're having a pretty bad day. Plus, you know, it's Christmas." His fingers drew Rita's tail out of the way, leaving Rita, who was accustomed to sex under the covers in the dark, to do nothing but watch raptly as the wolf drew his tongue up her butt to her vulva.
The soft pink tongue left glistening trails of moisture on her rear, trails of pleasure through her body. Her paws clenched the sheets and she exhaled, her body tense. She tried to will it to relax as Mark licked up again, holding her with one paw while his tongue explored Rita's behind, tasting the moisture leaking from the tip of her vagina and swirling around the sensitive areas until Rita let out her breath in a gasping squeak. "For not having done this much," she panted, "you're pretty good."
Mark grinned and flicked his ears in appreciation. Between licks, he said, "Well . . . you know, us athletes . . . we're a pretty erotic bunch."
"If only I'd known," Rita moaned, "I would've gone out for more spor-orrrrrrts!" Mark had slid his warm muzzle down over the entrance of Rita's anus, sucking on it as he licked. His other paw was now holding his rapidly swelling knot, massaging it as he licked. He curled his ears down, focusing on his muzzle as he pumped it up and down.
It was over almost too quickly, but Rita was seriously worked up and on edge. The wolf's tongue and muzzle had no difficulty bringing her to a shuddering, yipping climax. Mark kept his shaft imprisoned as he came, exhaling warmly and tasting Rita's orgasm. He held it in his muzzle until Rita had lain back, panting and moaning happily. Then the wolf drew his lips up and off of the fox's twitching tail, held up a finger with a grin, and disappeared across the hall to the bathroom.
Rita lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling and panting. Nothing occupied her mind but the pleasure she'd just had. When Mark came back and sat next to her, she hadn't even bothered to sit up. She turned to the wolf and smiled.
"Feel better?" Mark said.
"Yeah." Rita glanced at the wall beyond which her cousin and Brian were still presumably going at it. "I do. Thanks."
Mark grinned. "You can return the favor for me sometime."
"I will," Rita said sincerely.
"Not now, though. I'll get back down to the party. See you there. Don't sweat it with your boyfriend. He was probably pretty wasted."
"Yeah, I know. I'm more mad at my cousin, but I'm sure I can work things out with Brian. It'll be fine." Brian cheating on her was much less an issue after she'd had her second meeting with Mark. At least, as long as she didn't think about who Brian had cheated with.
"Your cousin's a good girl. She just needs to get that not everything is about her."
"Believe me, I know." Rita sat up. "She always does that. I think she gets it from her parents."
"Maybe." Mark grinned. "I know your family seems pretty cool, but this season does somethin' to them."
"Tell me about it." Rita rolled her eyes. "Anyway . . . thanks again. I feel a lot better."
"Thought you would. A rim job always cheers me up." Mark patted her leg and stood up. "See ya down there."
Rita watched the wolf's tail wagging slowly as he walked out. She listened for the creak of his step on the stairs. She lay back on the bed again and contemplated not going back down, just staying upstairs until the party was over and it was time to leave for church. Fifteen minutes before, she would have closed her eyes and shut the door, but now she felt better, more at peace with the world.
When she stepped into the hall, she noticed that the door to her room was still closed. When she pressed her ear to the door, she heard only soft breathing. Gingerly, she opened it and saw Brian passed out on her bed, shirt rolled up to his chest, the tip of his member poking out of his damp white fur. His eyes were closed and his tongue lolling out of his muzzle as he slept, peaceful and happy.
Rita covered him with a blanket and walked out, closing the door again as she did. From downstairs she heard strains of "Deck the Halls" again, and winced as she walked down to rejoin the party.
Her cousin kept trying to catch her eye, but for the next hour Rita managed to avoid her, dodging from one guest to another and sending tipsy relatives and friends to intercept her. She saw Mark occasionally, once standing beside her cousin and once talking to their Aunt Janine. The wolf looked so bored that Rita started over to rescue him, but got trapped along the way by Maria and Diana Anderson, and only barely rescued the wreath on their door from Diana's elbows when she made an expansive gesture.
Her aunt was running another party game, but it was a low-key game that involved making up Christmas limericks. Various pads and pencils were being passed around the party for each guest to contribute a line and then pass it on to another. Rita added one line: to "As Santa Clause got on his sleigh," she wrote, "His reindeer said, 'No freakin' way!'" After that, she passed on the pads as they came her way and plotted how she would escape when her aunt assembled everyone to read the limericks.
With an hour to go until the end of the party, she felt she was on the downhill stretch. If the worst thing that happened to her was the incident on the porch with Alice, this wouldn't be a bad party. Alice had been avoiding her since she came down from upstairs, or else she too had passed out somewhere.
She overheard Jack Anderson talking to her uncle. She stood nearby so that she could hear. Her uncle's ears were tightly focused on Jack, but the other fox looked pretty drunk, his ears wandering aimlessly around, tail puffed out a bit and wagging erratically.
"Great party this year, Hal," Jack was saying. "I really like what you did with the food."
"Thanks, Jack," her uncle replied. "Diana's looking well. Congratulations on Maria's wedding."
"Well, you know, he's an orthodontist, so at least the kids will have straight teeth." Jack Anderson had an annoying laugh, which he brought out to accompany this remark.
Rita's uncle laughed his polite laugh. "It's great that she's ready for marriage already."
"Don't worry, I'm sure Gillian will find someone soon. Maybe she'll get back together with that baseball player. He looks like a good kid."
"Well, she's at that age where she doesn't really know what's good for her. We try to tell her, but she gets her fur up and just won't listen, you know?"
"Sometimes she just needs to hear it from someone else. Hang on.
Rita followed the older fox's ears and eyes as he scanned the party. She saw Gillian some fifteen feet away, talking to Abel, Aunt Janine's son. She noticed that Gillian looked moody and more than a little tipsy herself. She started forward to interrupt Jack before he could say anything, but she wasn't fast enough.
"Hey, Gillian," Jack called above the crowd. She turned to look at him, and so did half the people in the living room. "When you gonna get back together with that wolf? You guys make a cute couple." This remark killed most of the conversation in the room.
Rita winced. She couldn't decide whether Jack was trying to be progressive by supporting a inter-special couple, or trying to embarrass her uncle by pointing out his daughter's inter-special relationship. Probably the latter, though he could always claim the former. Probably he was annoyed that the party had gone off so well. If that was the case, then Gillian's reply made Jack Anderson deliriously happy.
She stared at him for a long, silent moment, long enough for her father to clear his throat and say, "Hey, Jack, how about . . ." But he never got a chance to finish his remark.
"When am I going to get back together with the father of my unborn child?" Gillian said, in a voice that was now attracting the attention of people out in the foyer. "Never! You want to know why?" The deathly silence was an affirmative answer that she didn't need because she barreled on regardless. "Because I caught him doing my cousin!"
Rita could clearly hear eight ticks of the living room clock before any other sound reached her ears. Her uncle took that long to recover. He was the first to move. Shooting an angry look at the stunned Jack Anderson, he pushed his way to Gillian and said, "Come on, sweetheart, you've had too much to drink." He pulled her forcibly out of the living room.
And then everyone turned to look at Rita. Her fur rose on the back of her neck. There was nowhere for her to look to avoid the dozens of eyes staring at her. Jack Anderson's look of bewilderment was becoming one of those smugly superior smirks that bigots get when they found out Rita was a slut. And before the murmur of conversation had fully resumed, Rita clearly heard a young child's voice say, "Mommy, what's-"
That broke the spell. She heard the mother begin to say, "Not, now, honey, we have to leave," followed by a loud murmur of conversation. Jack Anderson said, "Jealous of your sister?" but she ignored the comment, pushing her way out of the living room.
People kept looking at her, only now it was out of the corners of their eyes. Their ears swiveled to follow her as she walked by. The hot flush she'd felt in the aftermath of her cousin's remark didn't go away. She passed her aunt, who was standing just outside the kitchen with a sheaf of limericks in her paw. "Oh, Rita, listen to this one," she said, but she pushed past her. "What's the matter?" she cried after her.
The caterers had packed up and the kitchen was empty. She shoved the screen door open and stepped into the cold of the back porch, panting.
The cold air calmed her as she filled her lungs. She leaned against the wall. Glancing to her left, she saw the red glow of a cigarette in the dark shadows outside the spread of the porch light. For a moment, she tried to recall whether her uncle had invited any bobcats; most canines hated tobacco, but cats and rodents, with their less sensitive noses, often indulged. They didn't know any rodents, but there was a family of bobcats that lived nearby.
The mystery was dispelled with another breath. It wasn't tobacco. It was the milder and more illegal drug, which Rita had tried a couple times in college. Mark strolled into the fringe of the light, half his face in the shadow and an abashed grin on his muzzle. "Didn't figure anyone would be out here." He tilted his ears. "You okay? You look bad."
"Why does she have to try so hard to ruin everything?"
"I don't know. What'd she do?"
Rita took a breath of cold, to steady herself. "She announced to the whole party that you're the father of her unborn child and that she caught us sleeping together."
Mark took a drag and exhaled. "Whew. I can see that might upset you." He extended his paw to Rita. "Want a toke?"
"Sure." Rita put the joint between her lips and inhaled, tasting the mildly heady drug and the scent of the wolf.
Mark moved a little closer. "Are you upset that she's doing it, or that she's doing it better than you?"
"What's that supposed to mean?" Rita stared at him.
"Oh, when we went to the party last night, all the way there she was just talking about you bringing Brian and how you were trying to get kicked out of the family Christmas before she did. I don't really understand any of it, frankly."
"Even after tonight?"
"Your family didn't seem that bad. They go a little crazy around Christmas, but so does everyone."
"I've always hated Christmas."
"Always?"
"Well, no. I mean, when I was a kid, it was great, all colored lights and presents and fun. But now it just seems like an excuse for people to get drunk and yell at each other."
From the kitchen, faintly, they heard her aunt calling, "Rita? Rita, are you out there?"
"Crap," she said, handing the joint back to Mark. "I don't want to go back in. I'm sure not going to church now." She opened the screen door at the back of the porch. "I guess . . . great."
Mark hustled her down the stairs and into the shadows just as the inner screen door opened. "Rita?" they heard her aunt say, then she sniffed audibly and called back inside, "It smells funny out there."
"What's the matter now?" Mark said softly.
"We drove here in Brian's car. He's passed out upstairs with the keys in his pocket."
The wolf held up a set of keys that jingled softly. "Wanna get out of here?"
Rita grinned. "You're a lifesaver."
"Think of me as a Christmas angel." He put out the joint and stowed it carefully in his shirt pocket as he walked briskly across the yard to where a line of cars were parked.
"Do I have to?" Rita hurried after him, tail wagging.
"Well, it is Christmas. I'm doing you a favor. But you don't have to." Mark owned a sporty two-seater that started with a wonderful growl. He pulled away while Rita was still buckling her seatbelt. "I think you have this Christmas thing all wrong. It's just supposed to be about people being nice to each other."
"Why does that have to be a certain time of year?" Rita said, watching her house's roof lights disappear in the rear view mirror. "Why can't we just decide to be nice to each other all the time?"
"You know, here's the thing. For me, Christmas is always just a time when I get to kick back and think about people and remember to do nice things. I get busy, you know, and sometimes I don't do things that I wish I had. So once a year I'm always thinking about it."
"What is this, some kind of after-school special about the true meaning of Christmas?"
"I don't even know the true meaning. I just know what it means for me."
"Tell it to my family."
"Yeah, well, you can't let them ruin your Christmas for you. You gotta make your own Christmas season if you don't get any help from them."
"Easy for you to say."
Mark laughed. "Yeah, I guess it is. So where we going?"
"Don't care." Rita leaned back in the seat and watched the town go by. She glanced over at the wolf, relaxing back in his seat and controlling the car with one sure paw on the wheel. Mark's blue suit was missing its jacket, probably left back at her house. He filled out the shirt nicely. Looking at the erect member made Rita smile. "Hey, I still owe you something."
Mark saw where her eyes were and grinned, leaning back in his seat to give Rita access. The fox slid out from under the seatbelt and reached over. By the time she had her paw wrapped around it, the wolf was nice and hard. She slid her paw up and down the warm hard member until Mark said, "Getting a bit cold."
"Sorry." Rita grinned and leaned over, slipping the wolf into her muzzle. She felt the wolf's arm across her shoulders and a moment later the car was filled with the sounds of some chorus or another singing "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen." Rita closed her eyes and let the spirit of Christmas fill her.
