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Cubes and Stars

“Where’s the cruise ship, Cory?”

As they drove closer to the dock, Lee became all the more insistent.

“Where is it, Cory? All I see are like, industrial boats and tankers.”

Still his boyfriend didn’t reveal the surprise.

“Paws alive, Cory, where’s the ship?”

The fox finally parked the car in some shabby lookin’ car park about a stone’s throw from the roots of the breakwaters, the offices, jetties and hulkin’ great container ships. He relaxed in his seat and pointed a paw forward.

“There she is!” He beamed proudly, “The VSC Caudate taking dried meat, electronics and paint to the other side of the world… oh, and you and me too!”

Cory’s giggled end to that sentence was not met with equal enthusiasm by Lee who was stuck in a consternated stare out the front of their car, his jaw dropping and his ears pinning in disbelief.

“A month of just you, me and the sea!” The fox got out and breathed deep, inhaling stale airs of brine, dead fish and rusting iron, his eyes keen and excited on the huge ship before them.

“A month?! On that?”

“Yep. Well, once we get to New Zealand we’ll have more time on land... before we fly back that is.”

“Paws alive, baby, wh… when I said I wanted to get away from things, this isn’t exactly what I had in mind!” Lee padded around to the boot of the car and unloaded their two suitcases, his golden eyes wide and lingering with dread on the paint-peeled, cold and skyscraper-high hull of their quote-unquote ‘cruise ship’.

But Cory was already bounding over to the huge ropes and chains that held the container ship steady whilst in port, marveling at its size and waving like a schoolcub at the workers already aboard.

“This is such an old man thing to do… paws alive!” The Alsatian huffed exhaustedly, “It’s like we’re train spotters or something. You really weren’t kiddin’ when you said you loved boats.”

“This isn’t a boat, sweetie, it’s a ship and...” Cory turned tail and was faced with his boyfriend’s less-than-impressed muzzle; his tail drooped and his ears pinned as he padded solemnly with him towards the rope walk, “I’ll… I’ll uh, shut up now.”

There was an instant droop in poor Cory’s tail, realizing that this ‘surprise’ wasn’t exactly being met with as much enthusiasm as he’d hoped. He felt the rich, angry waft of his boyfriend’s scent strike at his very heart.

“I uh… I did it all for you, ya’ know.” He murmured shyly as they made their way up the ‘walk’, thoroughly chastised by nothing more than olfaction, “I know you wanted to see the world.”

“Right… but slummin’ it wasn’t exactly how I wanted to do it.”

“You’re mad at me.” The fox replied, his ears pinned and guilty.

“I’m…” Lee sighed deeply to punctuate his chagrin, “I’m not mad at you, Cory, I… look, let’s just get onboard and get this over with.”

That wasn’t exactly what his boyfriend had wanted to hear. He still smelled real ticked-off too.

“But hey…” Cory bounded over the first deck, his ‘long-suffering’ mate trailing with the two cases in paw, “…we still get our own private cube, like a self-sufficient container with tail washer, shower and a bed – plus one of the containers has supplies for tourists and crew – jerky, smoked meats, grasses, dried bugs, salted chocolate.”

Cory was trying his best to perk-up his mate as they got settled; but nothing seemed to work.

“I feel like a part of some giant tetris game!” Lee exclaimed as he was met with endless walls of containers as far as the eye could see and the nose could smell.

His boyfriend managed to chuckle at the observation, but it was obvious that Lee still wasn’t in the mood! The gruff and no-nonsense Alsatian owned a security company and was looking to get away from the darkness, the industrial and the clinical for a few weeks. His boyfriend of three years, Cory, was a bagger at the local supermarket with a tail full of dreams. He simply wanted to have fun with his life, explore the vast oceans and the swathe of Vulpinity across the globe.

Cory craved to smell different musks, eat different meats and worms, and feel the wags of a million cosmopolitan tails as they went about their everyday lives. Foreign was fun for Cory. Lee on the other paw just wanted to let his fur down. He had plenty of challenges at work… he didn’t need them on holiday.

“How many tourists are there?” Everything was now punctuated with a heavy sigh.

Cory sheepishly showed him the two digits of his right paw.

“Seriously?! It’s just you and me and these… these… blue-tail workers?”

“Oh come on, try and relax and have some fun.”

Another sigh was Cory’s response as they climbed another set of rusty stairs to their cosy ‘cabin’. Only time would tell how much of a pain in the tail Lee was going to become.

**

As they got going, the sun soon made the vast two-tone blue a little more tolerable – it was gorgeous on tired fur and footpaws.

“We’re moving?” Lee hesitated, his muzzle snuffling nervously and his paws gripping the railing that ran the length of the ship on port and starboard, “This is gonna’ take forever.”

And there was another sigh!

“But you’re with me.” Cory murred, nuzzling his mate’s ruff and cuddling his left forepaw.

Lee was kinda’ non-plussed by it all. He was still mad… and Cory knew it.

“Well…” The fox started, “I’m gonna take a jog around the ship, get some sun on my fur and watch these hawt hunks of mid-shipfoxes go about their duty.”

“That would be a military designation, darling. These are just crew.” Lee replied with a conceited frown.

“But I still get to lech, right?” Cory nudged him again.

Raised eyebrows and a distinctly perturbed, annoyed tail scent was all he got in reply.

“Paws above… whatever, Lee! Be miserable!” The fox put his paws up in ‘surrender’ and huffed with an upsetting break in his voice, before turning tail to pad up to their cube to change.

Much to Lee’s consternation, Cory had already been buggin’ some of the workers on their breaks as they sat on the tops of the containers at the very head of the ship. He’d ask about the effects of salt on their pelts and tails, amongst other nonsensical things. Most found Cory curious… others, a little irritating. Nevertheless, these were paying customers who were here for the duration; so, frustration or not, the crew behaved themselves and indulged the curiosity of their guests.

This semi-domestic arrangement for these guests – especially for so long – was a new concept to the couple after all. They hadn’t moved in together yet, so Cory was loving being away from his dark and dank home Earth… to be above ground for weeks on end was wonderful. Lee on the other paw had a terranean terrace in a southern city of the wolven homeland… but paws alive, he’d wanted away from the bustle and the hustle and the endless sea of workers and sweat. This wasn’t exactly paradise for him right now!

**

It took all of those first three weeks at sea for Lee to finally mellow; and hey, maybe that was because he had little choice but to do precisely that. Cory preferred to see it as his boyfriend was finally ready to enjoy himself. The Alsatian could be seen chillin’ and listening to an old CD player he had brought with him, all whilst lying in the sun atop their own personal container. The corrugated surface and the smells of flaked paint, crusty rust and seawater lulled him to a snooze in the glorious uninterrupted sunshine of mid-Pacific. He had wondered why Cory had deterred him from bringing his iPaw. Duh! No paws-damned internet out here. ‘Course there wasn’t!

It wasn’t until they were out in the centre of this vast puddle, that – in the lulls between storms through which they’d passed – he realized how much of the night sky he could see from the ship. It made so much of a change from work, where he only ever stared up into a vast melamine orange, swathes of light pollution from cities and towns that drowned out galaxies and edges so distant it was tail-boggling.

After a brief dinner of steak, beef broth and sashimi worms, he actually initiated the moonlit walk with Cory. The young fox – who wasn’t the passive aggressive type no matter the arguments they’d had prior - thought his boyfriend may have had a sudden onset of fever, jokingly taking his temperature by pressing a paw to his forehead.

“Nope, wow… it really is you suggesting this!” He giggled, before taking the Alsatian’s strong, tan-gold paw and padding away with him to the deck.

In the heat of the night, they padded along the outer deck, looking up to see the stars and the crossing of transpacific flights.

“Heh…” Lee paused and ‘spoke’ to the skies, “I bet you guys have at-seat service, dry pawpads and a whole bunch o’ cool stuff to watch!”

“But isn’t this cool?” Cory murred, snuffling his muzzle beneath Lee’s.

The gruff dawg was kinda’ caught off-guard; but he broke into a smile, swathes of char-black and straw-tan glistening as his maw actually tore to happiness. It was a miracle!

“I have to admit… this is pretty awesome.” He murred, putting a paw around Cory’s slender shoulders, his tail batting then curling lovingly around the fox’s musky brush.

**

They began to pass some of the atolls, including Tikehau and Rangiroa, surfers out on the wave crests like struck, smudged red and black paint on the surface of a huge drinking glass. There were also smart ocean chalets in the distance, fingers of jetties and boardwalks reaching into the blue.

“Say uh… that looks like fun.” Lee murmured, grabbin’ his boyfriend’s attention and pointing out over the ocean, his tail wagging excitedly, “Are we stoppin’ any time soon?”

“French Polynesia I think, hon’… about two-thirds o’ the way across. We can’t be more than a day or two away.”

Sure enough, the massive VSC Caudate docked at Pape’ete on the island of Tahiti, Lee and Cory having the opportunity to disembark and – once they were away from the grubby quay – pad along the white sands and beneath the beautifully picture-postcard palm trees. They’d leave for Auckland in another twenty-four hours, and this was long enough for the pair to see the hustle and bustle of young tail enjoying the sunshine and the surf. Groups of swimsuit-clad foxes and wolves were dashing past to dive into the waves, boards at the ready.

“Salut!” Came the call as Lee and Cory parted to make way for a lagging ‘yote and his dalmatian pal.

Striking windblown fur and sand-coarsed pelts, became like smudges of polychrome oil paint against the ever-blue sky, life that had both substance and the musky smell of contented tail.

“Paws alive I feel like I’m cheatin’ on you by watchin’ all this!” Lee laughed, coming back by his mate’s side and taking his paw firmly, those golden eyes chasing after swiftly disappearing, semi-friends who were already tail-deep in the swash and ready to dive.

“Are you kiddin’, I’ve been checkin’ out the tail ever since we left L.A.”

And it was then that the Alsatian finally cracked a proper smile.

“Hey, Corz?”

“Hm?”

“Thank you for suggesting this and… like, gettin’ it all arranged n’ stuff.”

“No problem, honey tail!” Cory nuzzled his boyfriend’s sun-warmed ruff, fragrant with woods, sweat, clay and salt, “Besides, I knew you’d warm up once we did something real… s’pacific! Get it? Get it?”

The dawg just shook his head with a laugh and held his boyfriend’s paw tighter.

***