Shownotes
The world might be ending, but a summertime recipe might ease the worries.
Today’s story is “A Simple Guide to Sugar-Free Lemonade by Arthur Felice” by Dirt Coyote, who, when he’s not causing all sorts of trouble on twitter, is writing a novel, a series, and short furry fiction. His story featured on The Voice of Dog, “I’m Just Your Stud” was nominated for Coyotl’s Best Short Story of 2021. Find him at DirtCoyote on Twitter for future updates.
Read for you by Khaki, your faithful fireside companion.
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https://thevoice.dog/episode/a-simple-guide-to-sugar-free-lemonade-by-arthur-felice-by-dirt-coyote
Transcripts
You’re listening to The Voice of Dog. This is Rob MacWolf, your Fellow Traveller,
Speaker:and Today’s story is
Speaker:“A Simple Guide to Sugar-Free Lemonade by Arthur Felice”
Speaker:by Dirt Coyote, who, when he’s not causing all sorts of trouble on twitter,
Speaker:is writing a novel,
Speaker:a series, and short furry fiction.
Speaker:His story featured on The Voice of Dog,
Speaker:“I’m Just Your Stud”
Speaker:was nominated for Coyotl’s
Speaker:Best Short Story of 2021.
Speaker:Find him at DirtCoyote on Twitter
Speaker:for future updates.
Speaker:Please enjoy “A Simple Guide to Sugar-Free Lemonade by Arthur Felice”
Speaker:By Dirt Coyote A Simple Guide to Sugar-Free Lemonade By Arthur Felice
Speaker:Today, I'm gonna teach you one of my favorite summertime recipes:
Speaker:Sugar-free lemonade.
Speaker:Now, the second thing on your mind is probably,
Speaker:"Arthur, it's February. Why're you writing a summertime recipe now?"
Speaker:while the first probably being,
Speaker:"An asteroid the size of Burbank is about to hit the planet. Who the fuck cares?"
Speaker:And to that I have two answers:
Speaker:The first being, these things usually are contracted in advance and are released when they're needed, not when they're written.
Speaker:The second answer is
Speaker:because I don't really care to start looting. The 45 inch LCD on my entertainment center has always been more than enough.
Speaker:Well, since I've been paid already, I might as well write the article.
Speaker:Keeps the fingers busy.
Speaker:Now, my mom is probably spinning like a top in her grave at this very moment.
Speaker:Sugar-free lemonade?!?
Speaker:She would not have approved of that and would chide me relentlessly about it.
Speaker:That wouldn't be the only thing she got on my case about. No,
Speaker:she was a very opinionated woman,
Speaker:noble stoat that she was, and was particularly voiceful
Speaker:when she caught me with my first boy.
Speaker:It was a spring, quite like this,
Speaker:when Kendrick Sanchez was sitting on my bed shirtless.
Speaker:He was a couple years older than me,
Speaker:a very handsome dingo,
Speaker:and the only other boy in my high school that would do things like that with me.
Speaker:He had one paw under my shirt and I had,
Speaker:well, not to get too spicy, but I had my
Speaker:paw on something else.
Speaker:Our muzzles were locked together when my mother walked in on me and Kendrick.
Speaker:Screamed like bloody murder,
Speaker:and the dingo was promptly chased out of the house.
Speaker:Didn't even have time to get his shirt back on.
Speaker:At first, it was the gay thing she was an
Speaker:old upsetti spagetti about.
Speaker:Certainly couldn't tell father any of it.
Speaker:It became our secret,
Speaker:and she would scold me about it whenever we had a minute alone.
Speaker:Needless to say, afterwards, there was a no-closed-doors policy in the house whenever I had any boys over.
Speaker:Eventually she simmered down
Speaker:and was more concerned about the age difference.
Speaker:It didn't matter much. That fling only lasted a season and I was left mostly boyfriendless throughout the rest of high school.
Speaker:All I had was a few online interactions and the entirety of the internet to explore myself.
Speaker:Anyways, onto the lemonade,
Speaker:if there's one thing that mother and I could agree on, is that you don't just dump your sweetener into a pitcher like a feral.
Speaker:No, you must create a simple syrup and like the name implies,
Speaker:it's pretty simple.
Speaker:Well, you'd think that.
Speaker:Boiling a pot of water wasn't on my list of skills when I was in college.
Speaker:Being a teenager in the dorms and having my own space,
Speaker:I was quite the mess.
Speaker:Yes, I was one of those boys. Dirty clothes on the floor in one pile. Clean clothes on the floor in another.
Speaker:It's embarrassing to think back on how many hookups I had back then,
Speaker:having to push trash off my bed before diving into it.
Speaker:There was Bruce, a jack rabbit who was my age,
Speaker:who got me started on being presentable.
Speaker:He was a history major, or something like that. Real prissy type. We met at our school's LGBTQ+ club and I brought him over for a quick romp, and would you believe it?
Speaker:He refused! Saw the state I was living in
Speaker:and plans changed quickly.
Speaker:He promptly left,
Speaker:leaving me a little bewildered
Speaker:only to come back not ten minutes later with a basket full of cleaning supplies.
Speaker:He shoved a trash bag into my paws and started instructing me where to clean up.
Speaker:Pulled out a sponge for himself too and began wiping down my desk,
Speaker:every now and then adding a few choice words my direction. Swear, he nearly fainted when we opened up my closet.
Speaker:No, we didn't have that quick romp.
Speaker:Never did, actually.
Speaker:Maybe a handy j, once or twice. But we became friends and part of the condition to our friendship was for me to perform some level of upkeep to my room.
Speaker:Even after I graduated and we parted ways,
Speaker:did I keep those habits.
Speaker:Don't have to worry about tripping over trash anymore.
Speaker:Oh yes, onto the simple syrup. Since we won't be using any sugar in this recipe, you can
Speaker:easily replace it with Splenda.
Speaker:I do. Exactly one part artificial sweetener and one part water.
Speaker:Get the water boiling and then
Speaker:pull it off the heat to
Speaker:add the substitute.
Speaker:Stir it all together and remove any sediment remaining, and voila,
Speaker:you've got your syrup.
Speaker:Now, by this point, you should have already had your pitcher out.
Speaker:If you're not seven years old, then I'd recommend a
Speaker:glass pitcher. If you are seven or just particularly clumsy, a plastic one should do you well enough.
Speaker:I think there's a taste it leaves, but I can be a little picky.
Speaker:I certainly wasn't picky when it came to men.
Speaker:I'd probably gone through a hundred or so by the time I was in my mid twenties.
Speaker:The grey in my fur wasn't always there!
Speaker:Choose to believe it or not,
Speaker:but this mustelid could swing these hips like nothing.
Speaker:My tail got allllll over the place.
Speaker:Then Jett showed up and, boy oh boy, he was quite the competition.
Speaker:Another stoat,
Speaker:probably could have been mistaken for my brother if I had one, and he sure liked to get in-between me and any boy I was trying to hook up with. Dunno what got his rocks off, but if I was chatting with a guy, he'd butt in.
Speaker:If I was dancing with some hot horny wolf, he'd steal him away.
Speaker:Try to buy a stud a drink?
Speaker:Jett was there with two in his paws, neither
Speaker:for me. Eventually, I began to pick up on his little game and suddenly,
Speaker:I was the one stealing boys from him.
Speaker:Sometimes it didn't even matter if I liked the guy or not.
Speaker:Just as long as he didn't leave with him
Speaker:was all that mattered to me.
Speaker:One night, though, it got
Speaker:particularly bad.
Speaker:Can you imagine, two grown-ass adult stoats in the middle of a nightclub getting physical? I wouldn't call it a fight. That involves kicking and punching, claws and fangs, and maybe even a little tail biting. No, we just
Speaker:started to slap one another, batted at our paws, and pulled each other's whiskers. It only ended when a bouncer, a gruff looking wolverine, lifted us both by the nape of our necks and hurled us out onto the street.
Speaker:It wasn't my proudest moment I remember. Don't even have to remember it at
Speaker:all. If you are good with the internet and know how to search things, I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to find a video online.
Speaker:Got over a thousand hits,
Speaker:half of those probably being my friends watching it on repeat and laughing their asses off.
Speaker:Thankfully, things cooled down from there,
Speaker:and me and Jett became less competitive. There was still some competition,
Speaker:but wasn't until a twinkish husky asked,
Speaker:"Why not both?" did we realize we didn't need to compete at all.
Speaker:Things got really interesting from then on.
Speaker:That night, we split that dog open like a cantaloupe.
Speaker:We became quite the devious duo,
Speaker:Me and Jett. Can't believe it took us so long to team up.
Speaker:It was all very well documented too. Again, if you are
Speaker:good with the internet and know how to search things… well,
Speaker:you might find what you're looking for.
Speaker:That lasted a while.
Speaker:Even when Jett got sick, he still wanted to go out with me.
Speaker:He couldn't stay up quite as late, and then eventually, he couldn't stay up at all.
Speaker:I stayed with him
Speaker:until the very end.
Speaker:I'll see you soon, buddy.
Speaker:Real soon. Now, the lemon
Speaker:is the key to any good lemonade, so that's where you're going to want to spend most of your time on.
Speaker:You could simply go to the store and grab a few off the shelf, sure, but what's the fun in that?
Speaker:You wanna make something that'll really brighten someone's day,
Speaker:and that requires fresh ingredients.
Speaker:Unfortunately, with that asteroid coming in a few days,
Speaker:you might not have time to wait for them to ripen in June.
Speaker:Thankfully though,
Speaker:they tend to produce all year and you just have to take some time and go out looking for the right one.
Speaker:I know I did. It was in my early thirties,
Speaker:out with my friends having a gay old time.
Speaker:Yes, a bunch of us queers being giddy out paying money to pick fruit for fun.
Speaker:I bet that sounds
Speaker:awfully exciting to you, but it was with my friends
Speaker:and I made the most of it.
Speaker:But it was there
Speaker:that I met my Rico.
Speaker:He was with his boyfriend at the time, a fox named George.
Speaker:We found ourselves underneath the same lemon tree,
Speaker:twisting and inspecting the fruit.
Speaker:It was small conversations at first and, well, we ended up exchanging numbers.
Speaker:Supposedly him and his boyfriend were new to the area and wanted to meet some locals.
Speaker:Oh boy, you wouldn't think me and my friends were in our thirties.
Speaker:Those queens tore me apart relentlessly.
Speaker:"What's his name?" "You think they're open?"
Speaker:"I saw the way you were looking at him."
Speaker:"Someone's got a crush.
Speaker:crush." "Arthur and Rico sitting in a tree.
Speaker:tree." They teased me non-stop and
Speaker:I was, well, I was as giddish as they made me out to be.
Speaker:So of course, when me and the weasel started spending more time together, our feelings for one another grew.
Speaker:His boyfriend George was, to say the least,
Speaker:not quite a fan of that.
Speaker:Now, I'll say, never once did we fool around.
Speaker:That was not the way I went about things.
Speaker:I'm a gentleman first.
Speaker:But, I'd be lying
Speaker:if I didn't hope for certain things.
Speaker:And maybe, once or twice, after finishing off a bottle or two of Moscato,
Speaker:did I mention some of those certain things to him.
Speaker:Maybe passed out with my head in his lap from time to time.
Speaker:Oh, and, well, not to mention that kiss we shared.
Speaker:Alright, alright, so I'm not a perfect gentleman.
Speaker:Hell, probably could be described as quite the scoundrel.
Speaker:We chalked it up to the wine and kept it between us… for a while.
Speaker:I'll never forget the day the fox showed up to my door.
Speaker:I greeted him kindly.
Speaker:George kneed me in the pecker so hard, I felt my gonads knock into the back of my throat.
Speaker:Couldn't get it up for a month!
Speaker:The two of them lasted a while after that, and, despite it all, we ended up being rather cordial.
Speaker:Actually, we still see him,
Speaker:and I wonder what he and Torrence are up to at this very moment.
Speaker:I guess now is a better time than ever to give him a ring and
Speaker:apologize for being such a twat.
Speaker:Back to the recipe.
Speaker:To bring it all together depends on your tastes.
Speaker:Some like a lemonade that'll
Speaker:punch you in the face and steal your wallet.
Speaker:I find about four or five large lemons to do the trick,
Speaker:but I wouldn't go over eight, even if you do like it a little tart.
Speaker:Personally, I enjoy mine to be on the sweeter side of things.
Speaker:As sweet as that first night that Rico came to me.
Speaker:He had split things off with George, and later that week, he came to my house.
Speaker:I don't know what I could have expected to happen when I answered.
Speaker:Don't think I could have ever imagined him to just scoop my muzzle into his pawpads and pull me right into a kiss.
Speaker:Then he stepped through my front door and
Speaker:closed it behind him.
Speaker:A year after that, we got married and I didn't have to worry about any other Arthurs
Speaker:coming around to shake things up.
Speaker:We've been together ever since, and I guess,
Speaker:we'll be together always.
Speaker:Even now, he's sitting on the porch,
Speaker:waiting for me and a pitcher of sugar-free lemonade.
Speaker:Just pour it all together, add some ice,
Speaker:and you'll be good to go. I'm not afraid. No, I guess that's not true. I don't think there's any last minute Deux Ex Machina coming to save the day.
Speaker:I'm not worried, is what I mean to
Speaker:say. About how things turned out or about how things will turn out.
Speaker:Things happened the way they did and there's not much else that can be said.
Speaker:I do hope though. I hope that there's gonna be some fallout shelter that survives and when its residents come out, there'll be something waiting for them.
Speaker:I hope that if some green aliens stop by our planet,
Speaker:they see that someone was here. Hell,
Speaker:I hope that the jellyfish in the sea evolve enough
Speaker:to step out of the water a hundred thousand years in the future to start things up
Speaker:all over again. If someone digs through our rubble,
Speaker:I hope that there's a server they can repair and find this
Speaker:article. When they do,
Speaker:they'll have a headstart on one recipe they can use for themselves.
Speaker:And maybe, just maybe, they'll see my story and know a little about us and
Speaker:a little bit about me. It's time that I go and watch one of the few remaining sunsets left for me.
Speaker:I'll be holding onto Rico the entire time. Before I go though,
Speaker:I guess I should leave you all the recipe.
Speaker:Thanks for sticking around this long.
Speaker:See you on the other side.
Speaker:Ingredients for Sugar
Speaker:-free Lemonade: Four cups of water
Speaker:One cup of ice Two cups of Splenda simple syrup
Speaker:Some parts mistakes
Speaker:More parts growing up
Speaker:All the love in the world
Speaker:And four to five
Speaker:freshly squeezed lemons
Speaker:This was “A Simple Guide to Sugar-Free Lemonade
Speaker:by Arthur Felice”
Speaker:by Dirt Coyote, read for you by Rob MacWolf, Werewolf Hitchhiker.
Speaker:You can find more stories on the web at thevoice.dog,
Speaker:or find the show wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker:Thank you for listening
Speaker:to The Voice of Dog.