The Hustler’s Daughter

In a small town out of Columbus Ohio, a 22 year old grey wolf named James was having a little bit of loneliness. As his old friend Mark would say, “It’s time to go clubbing!”. In fact, he couldn’t think of anyone better to go out on the town with then him; he was definitely a great friend.
Mark was a 23 year old buck that had always been very athletic, so he never had any trouble picking up a girlfriend for a night. Not that James ever had any trouble getting girls; he just wasn’t quite as good at it as Mark. James had played for his school’s basketball team since the seventh grade, and had run track for them since ninth; Mark was a football player and a track runner also, which is where they met up.
So, he called Mark up and set up a time for both of them to go out into Columbus and try to find a nice girl. So they met up and hailed a taxi out of the small red bricked apartment building that they both lived at, and headed straight out to Alice’s Bar.
As soon as they walked in, James and his buddy went over to the bar, sat down in the uncomfortable red cushioned bar seats, and took in the sounds, smells and sights of the bar. They were bombarded with hundreds of different smells; smokers, nachos, drinks, fur, and… even pheromones. The constant chatter of furs, scalies, and feathers, talking, growling, barking, and chirping was almost deafening, just to be broken up by the sharp resounding cracks of billiard balls at the dark stained wooden pool tables in the corner.
It was there that James saw her; she looked like a border collie and a golden retriever mix. She was so beautifully sexy; her ears folded in just the right spot on her keen ears, her fur was very shiny and sleek, and her pattern was magnificent! She had the basic gold color of a retriever with splotches of light brown randomly set around her athletic body. And her eyes, oh! How awesome, even from a distance he could tell she had the most beautiful blue eyes he’d ever seen. Her top was a small but pretty white blouse that complimented her extremely white teeth and her shiny fur.
He had to get to know her!
“Can I get an apple martini and a glass of champagne please?” James politely asked the bartender, who was a fairly old red fox who had patiently been waiting for an order from them as soon as they had sat down.
“And add a beer to that also” Mark added.
“In a glass or bottle sir?” Asked the bartender.
“A bottle’s fine, and you can add both his and my orders onto my tab,” and added with a small wink, “I’m not sure how long I’ll be here, but I have a feeling I’ll need to pay for my buddy’s drinks when I leave too,”
“I’ll have those right out for you sir, and what name should I put on the tab?” The bartender asked nicely.
“Mark will work”
“Alright, I’ll put the name on the tab as ‘Mark will work’ and have those drinks out in just a moment,” The bartender said with a small grin.
After the red fox left, Mark whispered in James’s ear, “Foxes, damn smartasses…” He had to bite his tongue to keep from laughing out too loud; they both knew he didn’t mean it; some of their best friends were foxes.
“I saw you gaping,” Mark said, “Who was it?”
James smiled, nothing got past his pal, “You see that girl over at the pool table?”
“Her?” Mark said with his snout pointed to the girl.
“Yeah,”
“Wow, nice choice. Is that martini for her?” Mark inquired.
“Yeah, you think that’s coming on a little too strong?” asked James, a little nervous; James never got nervous talking to girls, something was definitely up.
“I think it’s just right!” said Mark with a wink as the bartender walked back up with their drinks.
“Here you go boys, enjoy!” said the fox lightheartedly, and then left to go get an order from another group that just walked in.
Mark smiled, handed him the glasses of champagne and the martini to James, gave him a thumb-pads up, and motioned for him to go over and talk to her.
James sat up, swallowed, and headed over to his hopefully soon-to-be girlfriend. As he walked up to her, he found that he couldn’t concentrate on what he was going to say; all that he could think about was how beautiful she looked. When he got to her table she was just about to shoot, so he didn’t disturb her.
She bent over the table, pool cue in hand, closed one eye, wiggled her tail and shot. She knocked the eight ball in and won the game. It was then that he realized that besides her partner playing with her, she was the only girl there. And by the looks of it, she had caught everyone by surprise that she was so good at pool. All of the men she had played with wouldn’t admit it, but they were really embarrassed about losing to her. They all politely said good game, and went off to drink that game away.
James figured that this was as good of a time as ever to talk to her, so swallowing one more time, he waltzed over to her, trying to act as casual as possible, and without a word, slid the martini into her hand, leaned against the table and said simply “Nice job creaming those guys,”
She must not have expected this because for a few moments she just stood there staring at the glass of liquor in her hand.
“Th-Thanks,” She finally responded with a look of confusion on her face, she turned to look at the strange fur that had struck her dumbfounded. Once again she got quiet and studied the young wolf’s face.
“Y-You’re welcome,” James said quietly, he was amazed by how angelic her voice sounded, and she even had an English accent. He got lost in her eyes; it was almost like he was looking into the deepest, prettiest sapphires on earth.
They both stood there, staring at one another, looking deep into each other’s soul, and for a few minutes, the world stood still.

Back at the bar Mark was watching his friend; he smiled because he was almost positive that those two were made for each other, he could even tell that she thought the same thing.


“How did you get so good at pool?” James asked.
“My dad used to hustle people in this bar about ten or twelve years ago,” she responded, she didn’t seem very proud of this; but it was probably to be expected.
James couldn’t think of anything good to say to this except “Did he make a lot of money?” But that wouldn’t seem right, and he didn’t want to settle for the all shunning “Oh”, so he just kept his peace and hoped that she would ask the next question; she did.
“What’s your name?” she asked, “Mine’s Elizabeth, but most people call me Lizzie, or Liz, but then I feel like a scaly, but its okay I guess…”
“That’s kinda cool, mine’s James; just James.” He responded quietly; that made her smile.
“Alright James,” she said with a sexy smile on, “Do you wanna play me?”
“Just you, or you and your partner from the last game?” James inquired.
“I don’t play alone; it’s got to be with Veronica.” Elizabeth replied.
This was the first time he had even paid any real attention to her partner, Veronica; she was a slightly small pink bunny with green eyes and a black biker jacket on. James shook her hand and gave them both the sign that he would be right back. He walked over to his buddy at the bar who was smiling at him with a hint of mischief in his eyes.
“Will you play pool with me?” James asked a little bit too fast.
“Getting a little bit wily eh? Sure I’ll play. Lemme just finish my drink real quick and I’ll meet you lovebirds over there.” He said with a wink, took a drink of his liquor, stood, and followed his friend over to the billiard tables.
“Elizabeth, Veronica, this is Mark, Mark this is Veronica and Elizabeth.” James announced. They all politely shook hands and exchanged kind hellos; the pink bunny grabbed two cue sticks for the both of them, racked the balls and motioned for one of them to break.
Mark took this as his opportunity to shine; James was actually pretty good at pool, but Mark, in James’s words ‘was a beast’. Mark smiled hunched over the table, winked at Veronica, and shot. He sunk to solids in, the 1 and the 3. Both Veronica and Elizabeth seemed surprised, but didn’t say anything. Mark shot again, knocked in the 5 ball and scratched; Veronica pulled the cue ball out of the upper right pocket, set it up at the upper part of the table, near where she pulled it out, shot, and knocked in the 13 ball.
As the game continued it stayed pretty even, James did okay; he’d done better, but he didn’t do badly. He was having an extremely tough time concentrating because of Elizabeth, even though she didn’t know she was being a distraction, she didn’t do that great either.
After about 15 minutes of playing, James had scratched with the only ball left on the table being the 8 ball. He knew it was the end, these girls were too good to not be able to make it; it was Elizabeth’s shot, she bent over licked her chops, closed one eye, wiggled her rump, and shot. She got it in….. With the cue ball, this meant that they had lost….
“Good game girls!” James exclaimed, “Let my buddy and I buy you two some drinks eh?”
“Yeah, that was the best game I’d played in a long time!” Mark added.
The two girls were struck dumb, for two reasons: that they never lose, and that these two men were such great sports.
“Uhhh, sure… That’d be great, thanks!” Elizabeth finally said, “Good job you guys, we’ve never been beat before!”
So Mark and James led the way to the bar with the girls close behind them, they waved to the fox bartender and all ordered their own drinks.
“Where’d you guys get so good at?” Elizabeth asked the boys.
“Uhm, I learned from, practice…” Mark said, his voice a little slurred; he must have drank more than James had thought.
“Yeah, same here,” James added.
“I hate to say it, but, I’ve got to go,” Veronica said reluctantly; she stood up, winked at Mark, shook James’s hand, walked over to Mark, and gave him a small peck of a kiss. After a few seconds, she let him go, stood up, pulled a little on one of his antlers and walked out.
Mark looked over at James, wiggled his eyebrows and tried to get the bartender’s attention so that he could pay and leave.
“I had a great time tonight,” Elizabeth said as she reached into her moderately small purse, pulled out a card and handed it to James, “Call me sometime sweetie!”
James grabbed the card and said, “Sure, maybe we can get together sometime,”
And with that, Elizabeth grabbed James by his grey wolf neck fur, slowly pulled his mouth towards hers and planted a massive kiss on his canine lips. Slipping his tongue into her mouth and hers into his, they sat there for several minutes eyes closed, relishing the taste of each other.
Elizabeth let go first, which was probably for the best, because James would have sat there and made out with her for the rest of his life; that’s how good it felt.
As they both stood up to shake hands and exchange goodbyes, and gave each other one more long passionate kiss. Elizabeth nodded to Mark and James, and left.
“That’s one way to spend an evening eh buddy?” Mark said playfully.
“It sure is, I think she’s the one man, I really do.” James whispered. Even now, he still couldn’t get her thought out of his head; her eyes, her ears, her fur, her accent, her sense of style, her attitude, her breed, her background, her sportsmanship… EVERYTHING!!! Even though he had just met her, he knew it, he loved her!

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I know it is kindof small, but I went out over the holiday weekend and had the urge to write a story that had something to do with Billiards, Please critique I need to get better!!!!