Here's a secret.

Actually, it's not a secret, haha, everyone knows, everyone can tell just by looking at the way we look at each other in public. The awkward, I-can-keep-a-secret-if-you-can-but-boy-we-both-suck-at-keeping-secrets look.

Swiper and I had sex.

I had sex with Swiper.

Swiper was fucked by me.

I was fucked by Swiper.

Something like that.

"Swiper, no swiping! Swiper, no swiping!" I used to run around hollering in those orange boy shorts. I sure had a lot of fun those days just being a kid and doing any goddamn thing I liked, from tea parties to river-rafting and shit like that.

I'm not a kid anymore. Neither is Swiper. Well, he's a foxcoon. I don't know how time works with foxcoons. Do they age at the same rate as humans, or faster. Do foxcoons even qualify as adults, when they get to an adult-like age.

There are a lot of problems with our relationship.

First of all, I'm human and he's a foxcoon. No fucking kidding, right? Well the reason I state the obvious is because it's a big fucking problem. The discrimination, that is.

Second of all, I'm human and he's a foxcoon.

I guess that's the gist of it.

Swiper is an animal. And he's got animal habits. I'm not sure if we even understand each other anymore. After Swiper moved back to the forest, he forgot all his English.

After moving to Cambridge, Massachusetts I forgot all my Spanish.

Harvard's really not a bad college, but gee, the tuition is fucking expensive and Abuela's getting pretty broke. She also needs meds. There's no universal healthcare coverage back where she still lives, and neither is there in Cambridge.

Well, fuck.

Swiper and I started going out last Sunday.

It happened like this. It was a Friday night and I was lonely. Boots didn't pick up. Boots was an easy lay. He sure put the "boot" in booty call, haha. He fucks like a monkey, literally. As in, he is literally a monkey. So I do mean it in a good way.

That night, Boots didn't reply to my texts, either. I figured he was too busy fucking someone who wasn't me. He has a lot of those in his life, people who aren't me. Like Backpack and Map, for example. For inanimate objects, they aren't bad lays. But I doubted that they'd pick up either, if one or the other really was getting it on with my best childhood friend. And I hate it when people don't answer.

I thought on it for a while, and decided to call up Swiper.

I'd called him many times before, when drunk or pretending to be. Somehow his number was always at my fingertip. To be fair, I saved him on speed-dial. He was a fun guy – that is, foxcoon – to chat up whenever I had some minutes or hours to waste. The best thing was, he picked up most of the time. Not like there was a lot to do in the forest, or Cambridge for that matter.

He picked up this time, too.

"Hngaah?" he hngaahed.

"Yeah, babe," I teased. "Wanna fuck?"

And somewhere in that dulled little foxcoon brain of his, the vestigial memory of English was sufficient for him to know what I wanted.

It took a day and a half for him to get out of the forest, and evade customs and immigration. That's why he only arrived on Sunday. Was almost worried that he'd gotten lost. But a furtive text and quick call assured me he would be coming.

Come he did.

Inside of me. Later, on a Sunday. But I'm getting ahead of myself, here, ahah.

Sunday. Swiper and me, me and Swiper. In a dorm beside Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Fucking.

His widened foxcoon eyes glistening into mine, human. A torrent of emotion in my breasts. Like my heart got swiped or something.

But nah, on second thought, it was only physical.

News is gonna get out. Strangers stare at us on the bus, mock us at every turn. I don't know if Swiper understands. Like I said, he forgot the only human language he could speak, and mostly it's people who do the insulting. Still, I squeeze his paw. The bus continues hobbling along, swaying and taking us across a city that we don't feel like we belong in. I have school today but fuck that. I don't wanna go. Abuela would throw a fit, with all that tuition money and then me skipping school. But I can't go back there, can't look anyone I know in the eye. Glancing out the window at the clean, proper streets, I feel ashamed. I keep squeezing that paw, as though it's the only thing I've got to hold onto.

I think of everyone I love, and how they'll react when they find out. Then I remember, I don't love anyone.

Well, that doesn't mean that there aren't people in my life who'll judge me. My classmates hate me already, so I have little to lose in that regard. Backpack and Map are inanimate objects, so I never know what they think. Boots has jealousy issues, so I feel a little bad. Abuela might just get a second heart attack. I sure hope she doesn't. Funeral services are so fucking expensive.

I'm at a loss now, really. I don't know what to do. On this bus, in this city, this state, this country, I'm alone. I'm alone, Swiper or not. Swiping or no swiping. Fucking or not fucking.

It's part of the human condition, and I bear it, I bear its burden, I cry, I cry alone at night and don't give a damn, I hate everyone and everyone hates me and that's how it is, always will be, I don't care and no one else does either so great, we're even, why am I even complaining if it's even?

Beside me, you snort, a string of spit-fluid dripping from between your teeth and dribbling down your foxcoon-lips. You look at me most tenderly, as if to say, hngaah.

Oh, Swiper. I'm so lonely.

Sure, you're here. But to be honest, that's not very much.

Abuela paid for my tuition. Abuela paid for this dorm.

There is a bed in the dorm.

I tumbled onto it, pulling Swiper down with me.

Tore everything off. Shirt and skirt, gloves and blue bandanna. Grabbed the base of Swiper's ear, grr grr. He's got these nifty little fingers, long and hairy and so good clawing into me like that. Grabbed the base of his dick, put it where it belonged. Oh, it fit so swell! You never would've guessed.

Bit into his muzzlecheek, grr grr. He kept making all those animal sounds, all snorts and fox-coon yelps some of which weren't even in the fucking range of human hearing. So I made my own sounds back at him, grrrrrr grrrrr, snort, hah! Grrrah. And I was free – grrrroowww-ah! He moved his ass and I moved mine! I pounded into him pounding me! Yes, oh yes! I was free!

Fuck this life, fuck Harvard, fuck moral decency, fuck yes, Swiper, tears coming out my eyes, fuck, FUCK!

Oh yeah, baby, just like that.