Chops

The repast on the move completed, he began the post-prandial realignment. His tongue slipped its moorings from behind the labial sheath and slithered so as to start lapping at the pelage beneath his snout. The soft down was a piquant contrast to the gristle he had just hoofed down his gullet. The glossal papillae were sensitive enough to guide him to the flecks of carrion lodged between the fur follicles, but not the sebaceous globules of adipose reflecting light off them like a sniper’s rifle sight. Neither was his protuberant muscle attuned for the blood and juice spume matted there, nor the drool and saliva webbing his philtrum, bound in mucal chains like a spider’s prey. He was oblivious of an even older sedimentation, a few bubbles of foamy scum deposited under his septum when he had been at the watering hole prior to his impromptu feast. Now that the victuals had been devoured and the gustatory gnaw in his gizzard sated, he had a yearning to return to the watering hole and slake a pressing thirst. For the moisture he was expending to clean himself up seemed to be exerting a mulct on his overall fluid reserves. Yet eating had also spent his energy and bone-weary, he just wanted to slumber. Flailing blindly, he brought a paw up to wipe his mandibles and beyond that he inclined his head into the crook of his limb and padded at himself to expel any flotsam. Hia loyal zaftig mate dabbed at him to further expunge the last of the orts . Grooming was now complete.

That had been one hell of a doner kebab.