The Clockwork Wolf (Serial Story) - Part 2 (Patreon)

I got a little behind there since this is for July, but I've finished part 2 of the "The Clockwork Wolf." Enjoy!

I rolled over on my bed. Something had woken me up, and it wasn't the sound of the waves down on the shore below. My ears swiveled and then I picked up the sound. There was music playing in the background still. I yawned and looked at the clock on the nightstand. It read 2:17.

"Man can those ReizTech people drink," I mumbled. I had retired around eleven, back when I realized I was drunk enough to keep repeating the same old Kevin stories. The party had been winding down then, and I left Kev playing pool with a few of his direct reports. It was a good time to let the stoat do his business thing.

I rolled over onto my back and stared at the ceiling listening to the distant music. The moon had shifted since I fell asleep, and I let the melodramatic sounds of the organ put me at ease.

Organ music? Who listens to organ music at two in the morning at a party? Did Kev even like classical music? He preferred dance and indie music I thought. Maybe this job had really changed him.

Something about the music itched at the back of my mind. I sat up and listened, my round ears swiveling to try to focus on the sound. The feeling of the organ was haunting. I reached over to the nightstand and turned on the light. It sounded like some type of funeral dirge, but the music died out a minute later.

"What the hell?" Maybe they were finally finishing up for the night and the DJ wanted to be spooky about it.

I listened for a minute to see if a new song was going to start, but I didn’t hear anything. I was reaching to turn off the light when someone knocked on my door. I yelped, startled, and pitched forward, falling to the floor in front of the nightstand.

"Who... who is it?" I called out.

"Jon, you awake in there?" asked Kev through the door to the bathroom we shared. We had his and hers bedrooms in the mansion, which meant we shared a bathroom.

I got up from the floor and ran claws through my fur to make it tidier. I was dressed only in my underwear. "I am now."

The door opened, and Kev slipped into the room, closing the door behind him. He had his cell phone in his hands. The stoat looked tired, and his fur was mussed. He also only had on a pair of boxers. I blinked. I hadn't seen him this naked since we dated in college. He at least seemed to be getting his exercise.

"What the hell are your people doing down there, playing strip poker?"

"What? The last guests left over an hour ago. I've been just lying in bed thinking since then."

As long as I'd known Kev, he had trouble sleeping when he had a good idea on his mind. In college, we sometimes stayed up to dawn going over his plans. It had been fun, then.

"Can't it wait until morning? You have all weekend to tell me your newest business ideas."

"Oh, I thought you were still up. I got up to use the bathroom and saw your light on,” he said, sheepishly.

I had been a bit nervous about splitting the bathroom with him, but the large claw foot tub and amazing tilework had convinced me to do it. The fact the house had split up the master bedroom suite into distinct his and her bedrooms hadn’t surprised me; it was a feature common in mansions when the house was built.

"Sorry, I just woke up briefly." Maybe I had just imagined the strange music. I sat down on the bed and rubbed my webbed paw against my face.

"Ah." Kev twisted his hands together over his cell phone. "I guess we can talk in the morning then."

He turned to leave, but I could read his body language perfectly. He had something he wanted to tell me, and the fact it would have to wait bothered him.

"What is it?" I inquired.

He paused and turned back to me. "I've been thinking, and I realize how stupid I've been up until now. I've been seeing the flaws in my thinking for a while, but it's become more obvious to me."

"I'm sure you'll work it out... whatever it is you're trying to do. You have a good team under you." I yawned. I wasn't going to indulge him very long with this.

"Thanks," he said softly, "but some things I have to do myself."

"And that my friend, is why you work late many nights."

His tail twitched, and he looked annoyed. "You don't make this easy you know. I'm not talking about the business. I'm talking about us."

All vestiges of sleep were gone now. "Excuse me?"

He nodded and walked over and sat down with me, setting his cell phone down on the bed. "I won Jon. I did everything I set out to do in college; I created the future, and oh what a feeling! And you know what? It's still boring. I'm still alone in this world."

"Please. You might be able to flatter your way through other people, but I've known you longer than almost anyone."

He shrugged. "I can still find you handsome at least?"

"You can, but I don't have to care if you do."

The stoat wiggled a little on the bed. "You don't think I'm cute anymore?" he asked.

"That's not the point!"

He sighed. "No, no it's not. Gary, Janet, Charlotte, even you. You all moved on with your lives. In my shining victory, I realized it was still a defeat. Money is just a tool."

"You didn't sound so humble earlier."

He smiled. "I’ve been hoping I could tempt you to come to ReizTech so I could see more of you, but that never worked out. In a way, that makes this next step easier. "

"Easier?"

He nodded. "Yeah, about the buyout offer, I actually took it. I signed the paperwork for the last step of the process to sell the company yesterday. I was trying to stall, but I knew it was pointless. The paperwork is still sitting in the legal team's office because I gave everyone today off for the party, but the rumor mill is already at work. We told the buyer yesterday."

I was stunned. "You-you-you sold the company?"

"Yup for $247 million. After taxes, generous employee stock options, and the cut for the investors, that leaves me about fifteen million and some stock in the new company. I also used the sale to donate three million to our alma mater for student scholarships. The company wouldn't have been possible without them."

I blinked. "Wow. This was a going-away party for you."

He bobbed his head. "Yeah. Seven wonderful years of my life done."

"Congrats?" I offered.

“Thanks,” he said with a shrug. “It still hasn’t sunk in.”

"What will you do now?" I asked.

He pondered for a moment. "The logical answer is go found another company, and get into something else. It would be easy to raise funding for a new venture to do it all over again.”

“Repeat the process?”

“Oh yeah.” He gave me a lopsided grin. “I’ve been in the game long enough to know what most startup founders would do. The goal of having money is to make money, right? Poverty is for people who are lazy. Forget about whatever disadvantages they started with in life.”

“I guess.”

“Capitalists, keep eating when they’re full because they can never have enough.” He got up and walked over to the other side of the room, where an ornate painting hung depicting a tranquil seascape. “They see only progress, and do not think of the costs of that progress.”

“And what are you now?” I asked him.

He turned to look at me. “A winner in a game I don’t want to keep playing. It will take me a while to get used to having downtime once the deal is finalized, but I think it’s time to rethink my life. Money only gets you so far."

Kev with downtime? That just wasn't Kev. The Kev I knew in college used to love a good movie, but the Kev who'd founded ReizTech didn't have time to watch TV. There were problems to solve, and he was ready to jump into the fray and work on them.

I got up from the bed and walked over to him. “So, you brought me here to impress me with your wealth to try and get back in my good graces?”

His shoulders sag. “Maybe? I wanted to celebrate with my old friends, to show them what I’ve done, but also to show it was time to move on. You’re the only one who came. I guess I should feel lucky at least someone did.”

I had come, and it wasn’t just because of the food. I came because some part of me still cared for Kevin. “Is there anyone you’ve been seeing I should know about before I do this?”

He titled his head and blinked. “No, and do what?”

“You stupid stoat.” I gently leaned forward to kiss him. Part of me felt it was wrong, but part of me also felt it was right. His lips still had the same feeling, and after the initial shock wore off, the same warmth. We held the kiss and then I broke off.

“I probably shouldn’t have done that, but…” I trailed off.

“It felt right?” he asked me.

I nodded. “You’re still an insufferable rich nerd though who knows how to play with my heart.”

He squeaked out a laugh. “Ha, hardly now. I may be single, but I haven’t a clue if you’re seeing anyone yourself.”

I shook my head. “Not right now.”

He just smirked.

“Now, now,” I responded, “kissing does not lead to forking.”

“So, we spoon next?”

“I didn’t say we were back together.”

“True, but I liked that. It makes me realize what I traded away to become who I am now.”

I press my head to his. “Life will always find a way to make you miss what you lost.”

“That it does. Is it too late for me to change?”

“I don’t know.”

Kevin’s paws traced to the side of my face, and he got on his tippy toes to kiss me on the forehead. “I hope it’s not, but it will take work.”

“Relationships do, but unlike code, you can’t crunch a relationship like you can a coding project.”

He laughed, throwing his head back. “God no.”

“Then you realize one night can’t fix seven years of degradation between us.”

Kev let go of me. “You’re right. It’s wrong of me to think that there’s anything left. I’m glad you came at least.”

I could have let him walk. It hadn’t worked in the past, so why would I think it would work now? Yet I also knew we’d both changed in those years.

“Thank you for inviting me, it’s… different. Not what I expected, but I came willing to see where it was going to go. I’m willing to see where this new Kev is going to go.”

He looked at me, searching my face to understand exactly what I meant. “Does that mean I should call you more?” he asked cautiously.

“You could have called me before, but you were busy all the time.”

“I know, and I have to wrap up the sale, but then…” he trailed off. “Then I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself.”

“Sleep?”

He chuckled. “I do that, but I need to get more of it. Oh there’s so much I wish I could have shown you, but… well it’s all code and flowcharts.” His ears reddened. “It’s not that exciting really. I guess I’m just a big goofy nerd.”

I shook my head. “As someone who works as a developer full-time, I see enough code during the day not to want to look at it at night.”

“I know, but I love solving problems and puzzles. It’s what made the work fun. If I could just think of it all as a giant puzzle, I could do then work out a solution.”

“Does this mean I’m just a giant puzzle?”

He laughed. “Yes, but not one that has a solution.” I felt a finger trailing through my stomach fur. “There are inputs and outputs, but the mind is not a simple machine. It’s complex, and we both have our own desires.”

“Mine right now,” I said slyly, “is to get you to stop talking about work and do something more useful with that mouth of yours.”

Kev snorted amused and got down on his knees. A quick tug by the stoat’s paws and my underwear was on the ground. I felt his breath against my sheath. “Better?” he mumbled against me.

I stepped out of my underwear and kicked it to the side before I pulled the skin back to release my shaft. “Just put it in your mouth and stop talking.”

Kev took the cue then and I felt his tongue rasp along my shaft, slowly teasing me. He gingerly kissed the head, one of his quirks I remembered fondly, and dragged his tongue up and down before my member before he took me into his muzzle. I’d missed this. It’s not that I hadn’t had sex since I’d broken up with Kev; it wasn’t with someone who took so much time teasing me as Kev did.

I let my hand fall to the stoat’s head and rubbed one of his ears as I thrust into his muzzle. It was late, I was tired, but I was engaged. Kev seemed to have a thing for otter dick also, or at least mine, because he always worked me slowly, savoring the taste and sensation.

“Have you missed this?” I asked him, to see how he’d react.

He pulled off of me. “Yes, more than you know,” he mumbled before he nuzzled his face in my crouch.

I considered if I wanted to put him on the bed, but there wasn’t any lube in my luggage. I settled for letting him enjoy himself, lick after lick, relaxing to the music coming from downstairs.

I was starting to get really worked up when he finally started stroking himself, but his timing was a bit off. I ended up shooting down his throat while he was still masturbating himself. He had to lick his paw pad to handle for lubrication, smearing salvia and seed on it, but when he returned his hand to his shaft, it didn’t take long before he painted the carpet under me.

I wagged my thick tail, amused. “We better clean that up.”

He sat back and yawned. “Yeah.” He tilted his head. “Organ music?”

The haunting melody had returned. It had been playing for a few minutes I think, but I hadn’t noticed it since I was distracted with Kevin. “Yeah, I heard that earlier. I thought you said everyone else was gone.”

“They are.”

I was getting nervous. “Then who is playing that?”

“I have no idea.”

We stood there quietly, me looming over Kev with my dick still hard, and the stoat in a compromising position, still clutching his dick. “So…,” I started, “Is this normal around here?”

He let go of himself to shrug. “No clue. I can ask the housekeeper in the morning about the music. Maybe she’s the only playing.”

“I guess that’s possib—,” an ear-splitting scream stopped me mid-sentence.

“Fuck!” exclaimed Kev.

Another scream echoed through the house and was cut silent. My blood chilled at the sound. Kev growled low. The music was over.

Fuck indeed. Here I was naked with my ex, finally reconnecting and it sounded like someone was in the process of getting murdered.

“Hey Kev,” I whispered, “next time you want to make up, assuming there is a next time, let’s rent a mid-priced hotel room.”

The stoat slowly got to his feet. “I’ll keep that in mind.” We both listened but couldn’t hear anything. “What do we do?” He asked me.

I, with a sense of bravery responded with, “We find out what’s going on.” I would later find out what an incredibly stupid idea that was.

Kev, the man who had a net worth of fifteen million earned through years of grueling hard work, and a new life to look forward agreed with my stupid idea. “Sure.”

No one said either of us were smart, but hey, we were together in this. Two idiots, together.