[18+] Donovan’s long hours have been pushing off his Tuesday date night with Conor all week. When he gets home on Friday, he finds a freshly cleaned apartment and Conor cooking in the kitchen.

Today’s story is “Date Night” by Kayode Lycaon, a gregarious painted wolf who is just starting out his writing career. His story “Dark Garden Lake” about a reluctant assassin appears in The Reclamation Project - Year One by FurPlanet, and you can find more of his stories on his website kayode.co.

Read for you by Khaki, your faithful fireside companion.

You’re listening to The Voice of Dog. I’m Khaki, your faithful fireside companion,

and Today’s story is

“Date Night” by Kayode Lycaon,

a gregarious painted wolf who is just starting out his writing career.

His story “Dark Garden Lake” about a reluctant assassin

appears in The Reclamation Project - Year One

by FurPlanet, and you can find more of his stories on his website kayode.co. Please enjoy: “Date Night”

by Kayode Lycaon

My phone dings before I can even get out of my office.

I sigh because I know it's Conor, again.

No matter how hard I try,

something always comes up on date nights.

Tuesdays are supposed to be the one evening we spend together, no matter what happens.

It's already Friday,

we still haven't had a date this week,

and I promised him I'd be home early.

On my way out the door, I pull on my heavy wool peacoat to cover my professionally thinned fur.

Sarah, a fellow snow leopard from the development team in the cubes outside my office, follows me out.

"A bit cold today, Donovan?"

she teases. I swat playfully at her.

"Why don't you come along with me to my parents’ house and bake in the blinding sunlight." "Nah. My family is going skiing up north.

north." Sarah sticks her tongue out.

"Happy holidays. Stay warm!"

I roll my eyes with a smile

and walk towards the train station while Sarah heads to the parking lot.

When I get to the crowded train station,

I shift the bag holding my work laptop to my other shoulder

and check my phone.

There are three messages.

One message is from the pharmacy telling me Conor's meds are ready

and the other two are,

of course, from my favorite bipolar wolf.

I love him to death but sometimes his anxiety can be a little much.

At least he has a sense of humor about it. «When

will you be home?» «*nervous

whine*» I wait until I'm comfortably seated on the train to think about my reply.

I know he's going to want more than just dinner and a movie tonight.

But after dealing with work, I'm just

too tired and worn out.

Our relationship is difficult sometimes.

Sex is important to Conor,

but I would be just as happy playing a boardgame with him.

That's not to say I don't like sex,

I do. It's just different for me and he wants it so often that I can't keep up.

As a compromise, most nights we cuddle, and I paw him off. It doesn't use a lot of my energy

and I love holding him.

Watching him pant as he gets close

is deeply satisfying.

I imagine he feels the same way in that moment,

but he's never been able to explain it in a way I understand.

Once in a while, I'll let him give me a blowjob in return.

He's good, and it feels great,

but seeing how much he enjoys giving them means so much more to me.

And that's what's killing me now.

I'm leaving on a plane Sunday and I don't have the energy to do anything tonight.

Pushing him off another day just isn't fair to him after waiting all week.

Rather than start that whole discussion and have an argument over text,

I just answer what he asked. «Soon.

On the train.

Need me to pick up your meds?»

Unfortunately, his reply is immediate.

He's probably been staring at his phone for the last fifteen minutes. «Nope.

What are we doing tonight? :)»

Outside the window, white caps roll across the bay.

We set up date nights because otherwise we would hardly spend any meaningful time together.

Work has me constantly busy.

Conor has school and multiple weekly therapy sessions,

both of which come with endless homework assignments.

If that wasn't enough,

Conor needs a steady routine to keep his mood swings under control.

Lately it's been hard for me to find the energy every week.

The metal ring on my right paw

weighs heavily on my heart.

Conor's name is engraved on the inside.

I won't be able to take him--or even the ring--with me when I go to my parents.

They don't know about Conor

and keep trying to hook me up with eligible snow leopards no matter how much I tell them

having two ex-wives is plenty.

If that's not enough,

Conor still doesn't handle separation well.

We've made a lot of progress in the last year,

but an entire week is going to be a hard for him,

especially during Christmas,

and I want to give him as much love,

sex, and reassurance as I can before we part.

The only way I can do that

is by taking tonight off to recharge.

No matter how much I love Conor,

Saturday is going to be exhausting. «You

okay with just dinner and a movie tonight?»

I ask. Then I wait for the inevitable argument,

only it never comes. «Sushi?»

I send him a thumbs up

and wonder what's going on. # # #

At the door to our small apartment,

I take a deep breath.

When I open it, the smell of lemon cleaner assaults my nose,

followed by the faint musk of fox,

and the smell of cooking rice.

Conor's scent isn't notable,

so he must have showered.

We don't have roommates, so the fox is probably his friend Alex.

The next thing I notice is the apartment is

clean. There are no clothes on the hardwood floor or crumbs on the coffee table.

Then I see Conor's backpack tucked against the side of the couch

and his textbooks neatly stacked on the end table on the other side.

It's all a shock.

He has enough trouble keeping up with his schoolwork, so I don't insist he does more than dishes and weekly laundry.

I don't know how he managed this.

"Conor?" I ask tentatively.

"Kitchen!" I hang up my heavy winter jacket on the coat tree,

set my bag on the floor next to his, and walk over.

As I suspected, he's cooking,

which is odd. We usually go out on date nights.

His latex allergy limits our options,

but it gets us out of the apartment and gives Conor practice at handling his anxiety in public.

In the kitchen, there's a pot of rice on the stove

and some kind of raw fish on brown butcher paper on the counter.

Conor is focused on carefully dissecting a cucumber.

I scuff my feet on the tile, so he doesn't startle when I reach around to hug him.

"Thank you for cleaning the apartment,"

I say. "I really appreciate it."

"I know." His tail wags

and he stands on the tips of his toes to give me a brief kiss.

I return the kiss and then bend down to rest my muzzle between his ears.

I love how small he is.

He's short and slender for a wolf;

every coyote at my work is bigger than him.

Then, while I'm holding him,

I realize he's significantly less fluffy than he was this morning.

"What happened to your fur?"

Conor tilts his head back to look at me,

ears still perked.

"Alex took me out to get it thinned."

"Heavens why?" I ask.

"Lewis is two hours north and you don't even have a winter jacket.

jacket." His tail wags again.

"You'll see." It takes me a moment to process that.

Then I notice a discarded bag from the grocery store pharmacy on the counter

and begin to worry about everything he's done today.

This is a really bad time for him to start going manic.

I step over to grab the torn bag

and check the paper stapled to it.

It's a new prescription for Klonopin

and not a small amount of it.

"When did you get this?"

He turns to look at me,

his ears sideways.

"I emailed my psychiatrist yesterday, she faxed it in for me this morning.

morning." I rub his shoulder. If he took one,

that would explain a lot.

Though I'm surprised she had prescribed it.

Conor's last experiment with tranquilizers ended with several weeks of uncontrolled anxiety.

He had been hesitant to try them again.

For all his flaws,

he's stayed sober and been careful with medication in the last year.

"How did your final go?"

I ask. "Pretty good.

Didn't need any extra time,"

he says proudly. Then his ears droop.

"Still had to take it in Student Services.

Services." "One thing at a time,"

I reassure him. He's definitely too calm to be manic, which is a relief.

"I suppose we're eating in instead of going out,"

I say off-handedly.

It's a silly question, of course we are eating in,

but I'd like to know why.

Conor gives me a grin that a coyote would have a hard time beating.

"If you want to go out, I can pack all this up and spend the night at Alex's place

teaching him how to give a proper blowjob.

blowjob." That shouldn't make me laugh but it does.

I once made the mistake of giving Conor permission to fuck Alex--his very straight and uninterested best friend.

Alex had been furious

and Conor had been more hurt

than I ever could have anticipated.

Just because he wanted sex

didn't mean he would have sex with just anyone.

If Conor showed up at Alex's place tonight and offered him a blowjob,

Alex would kill me.

"How many times do I need to apologize for that?"

"You'll never stop apologizing.

apologizing." His tail wags. Then he invites me to help him with dinner.

Cooking isn't one of my strong points

but Conor has been patiently teaching me since we started dating.

Tonight, I learn how to make sushi rolls.

He has me start with adding the vinegar to the rice,

and that's when I realize what he's been doing.

Even though it's a date night,

he's making a lot of effort to show he loves me

in as many ways he can

and allowing me to do the same in return without bringing sex into the picture.

I'm pretty sure what his goal is but that doesn't stop what he's doing from working.

Knowing he's attempting to meet me where I'm at

takes the stress of the week off my shoulders.

"Alex help you plan this?"

I ask with a purr.

"Yup, he went to the fish market and got the groceries while I was taking my test.

Then we got my meds and

cleaned the apartment together.

together." His smile turns sheepish.

"Sorry about the fox smell."

"Conor. I work with an arctic fox. It doesn't bother me."

"Right," he replies.

"I forgot." We take turns using the rolling mat to make sushi rolls

and then after cleaning the cutting board,

I slice the rolls into individual pieces.

He shows me how to wipe the knife between cuts to keep it from catching.

The ones he rolled are easy but

when we get to mine, they come apart.

Fortunately, Conor rescues me and finishes those himself.

When we're done, we carry the cutting board to the living room

and set it on the coffee table.

Conor picks up the remote and navigates to our purchased videos.

"I suppose you're choosing?"

I ask. It was technically my turn.

"You were home late and lost your TV privileges for the evening.

evening." He sticks his tongue out.

"Besides, the new season of Real ER Stories just

came out." "My favorite,"

I reply in a deadpan voice.

Conor's favorite show is definitely not mine.

Medical dramas bring up bad memories from when I was a paramedic.

Real ER Stories is better than most

but some of the episodes are still difficult for me to watch.

Fortunately, he was joking

and picks an older action movie involving spies and submarines.

We've both seen this movie a dozen times and it

never gets old. Before Conor spent three months in rehab,

discovering the benefits of sobriety,

we played a drinking game where

each time an actor failed to have the proper accent,

we took a sip of wine.

Anything more than a sip

would have us blackout drunk before the movie was half over.

This time, instead of drinking,

we take turns feeding each other sushi.

Conor giggles as I shove a piece in his muzzle

after the famous lynx actor absolutely fails to speak a foreign language.

It's then as he leans against me laughing that

I understand why he had his fur thinned out.

His body is close

and warm against mine.

To feel our fur sliding together against our skin

is a joy I can't describe.

I wrap my arm around him

and whisper in his ear.

"You're a clever little wolf, playing all the cards just right.

If I didn't know better,

I'd suspect you had an ulterior motive.

motive." He rubs his head against my shoulder with a grin.

"Perhaps." Once the sushi is finished,

we start removing each other's clothes instead.

We're both down quickly to our boxers,

but Conor holds off on going further.

Instead, he lays on top of me while I lay down on my back.

Our heads are both turned to watch the TV

but neither of us is paying much attention.

My paws rub Conor's back and he breathes

easily, almost content,

but I can feel his sheath pressed up against mine.

He's ready but I'm not quite there yet.

Cuddling him like this

almost brings me to tears.

If there was some way I could take him home with me, I would.

"I'm going to miss you,"

I say quietly. "Me too.

too." He sniffs. "I wish you didn't have to go.

go." He sits up to look me in the eye.

"You're my teammate. Come up with me and we can stay with my foster parents.

They love you." I stroke his muzzle lovingly with my paw.

Him calling me his teammate chokes me up.

On paper, we're both married--domestic partners-

-but neither of us are ready to call each other husband.

We still wear our rings on our right paws.

Partner wasn't a strong enough word for us so, almost a year ago,

we pledged to be teammates until we were finally ready.

Unfortunately, right after that, we separated to visit our respective families for Christmas.

To say that Conor didn't handle it well is an understatement.

If I felt along his left arm,

I'd feel new scars on top of the old.

Now we are separating again.

"My parents would never understand,

and I don't want to lose my family,"

I say quietly. Conor noses my chin

and I pull him into a kiss.

The only family he has left are his foster parents,

Alex's family, and me.

He couldn't ask me to abandon mine.

"Will you be okay?"

I ask, hoping he will be.

"Maybe. I'll have my meds and Alex,"

he replies. "He's staying with me at my foster parents and then I'll be staying with him at his.

He won't let me be alone.

alone." The pressure in my chest

eases slightly. He's more stable now than he was last year

and, maybe this year,

he'll be able to cope without cutting again.

"If it hurts too much,

you or Alex can text me.

No matter what is happening,

I'll leave the room and call back right away."

"Okay," he says quietly.

That's good enough for me.

I don't make any demands or push for any promises because he already has a plan in place.

All I can do is trust him to reach out if he needs to.

I wrap him in a gentle hug.

"Has anyone told you,

you're a smart wolf."

"A certain red fox may have said something like that this afternoon.

afternoon." He buries his muzzle in my neck ruff.

Then he wraps his paws around my shoulders and whispers,

"I love you." I kiss him on the forehead

and hold him a little tighter as I say the same in return.

Those three words carry so much weight between us,

more than anyone else would expect.

He hasn't always been able to say them.

Even now he says them with an undertone of pain,

as if the past was reaching out to grasp his throat

and pull him back down into the despair he had lived in for so long.

Yet he said them.

Another part of me relaxes,

as if those words had been the last piece

of a snow leopard-shaped puzzle.

My paws slide down his back

to rest on either side of his tail.

Conor rubs his muzzle against mine

but he doesn't push any further,

inviting me to make the first move.

Then I lick his nose.

"You watching the movie?"

I ask. His tail wags.

"Not anymore." We kiss,

his long tongue sliding along my much shorter one.

Then my paws slide down under his boxers so I can squeeze his butt.

His erection is hard against mine.

I'm ready. This was

“Date Night” by Kayode Lycaon,

read for you by Khaki,

your faithful fireside companion.

You can find more stories on the web at thevoice.dog,

or find the show wherever you get your podcasts.