Bring up to date

content/post/fiction/all-of-time-at-once.md

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+---
+categories:
+- Short Story
+ratings: G
+date: 2004-04-21
+type: post
+tags:
+- Science fiction
+- Time travel
+title: All of Time at Once
+---
+
+"A driver after my own heart," I muttered to myself. I'd taken to talking to myself while driving to help keep the more drastic emotions to a minimum. I've been working on reducing the negative comments in favor of more positive ones --- make your drivers happy drivers! --- and with this utterance, I was praising a slightly battered Jeep that was driving at my usual, comfortable two miles above the speed limit: I was neither gaining on him, nor was I lagging behind, so I forgot about him and set about losing myself in the music. I have a love-hate relationship with Prokofiev.
+
+My happy driving, however, was soon interrupted by an emergency signal from the truck in front of me. Looking to its rear window for an explanation, I was rewarded with the shadowy figure of the driver inside gesturing repeatedly for me to pull over. Fearful that the Jeep might be some sort of undercover cop, I complied quickly, and was soon stopped behind the Jeep on the soft shoulder of a fairly empty Highway 93. Admittedly creepy, but I was supposed to be kind, wasn't I? I was supposed to help.
+
+The guy who was in the truck clambered out slowly and walked towards my Pathfinder, his hands facing palms up at his sides in a disarming gesture.
+
+"Hello, friend!" I heard him say as I rolled down the window. "I wasn't as smart as I usually pretend to be, and I'm nearly out of gas. Think you could lend me some? If you follow me to the gas station, I'll fill your tank, too."
+
+I blinked --- there was an interesting request. I looked closely at the man, who introduced himself as Nicholas --- "But you can call me Nick" --- in hopes of finding something of his intentions. His honest face and, I thought, striking resemblance to me assuaged any fears, and I nodded to the request. Boulderites were supposed to be nice. Anyway, I'd just that morning put an extra can of gas in the back of my truck, promising myself never to let my tank get as low as it had the last time.
+
+We set about getting him ready to go. Through polite chatter, I learned that he was just moving back to Boulder after a leave of absence and he learned that my name was Joseph. I mentioned earlier that people from Boulder tend to be friendly (and liberal, and new-age...), but the way Nick was opening up, he must've lived there quite a long time. I didn't exactly mind, but I wasn't quite yet on the same level as him.
+
+By the time we finished emptying my can of gas into his dusty truck, I'd agreed to let Nick pay me for the gas and the quarter tank's worth needed to fill my truck (mostly because I was broke), and, addicts that we both were, we agreed to stop by at a nearby coffee shop afterwards, since neither of us had anything to do afterwards.
+
+Our discussion moved onto current events over two mochas, mine with a shot of peppermint in it (trendy, but tasty). We'd tried talking about ourselves, to be friendly, but we mostly ended up just skirting interesting details and pretending to reveal our secrets. By silent agreement, we decided that neither of us knew each other well enough to continue on such a subject, so we moved onto something more neutral.
+
+"They say that, since he plead insanity, even though he plead guilty to rape, they're going to charge her with prostitution." Nick was saying. "It's like they're taking the 'asking for it' argument to a new extreme: having insane people rape you is your fault or something."
+
+"That's...stupid," I say slowly, feeling fairly stupid myself. "You'd think they'd have some common sense about these things." My mind was moving slow, like it does when you've not had any sleep the night before. I wasn't tired, I was just thinking with all the speed of a bottle of molasses. Of course, that didn't stop my elitist emotions from riling up against the stupidity of a nation.
+
+The conversation continued much along the same lines, through the two mochas we each had, until we decided to go our separate ways. I was thinking that I'd have to stop and give people gas more often, if it would always lead to meeting someone, when Nick called across the top of his car over at me, "See you next week?"
+
+I agreed.
+
+-----
+
+Nick and I have been meeting about once or twice a week for a solid year now. Not much has really changed. Well, sure, many things have changed --- I'm a sophomore in college now, and he found a good job working at a local ISP --- just that between us, not a whole lot has evolved. We've grown more comfortable about sharing more personal things with each other, but current events are still the number one topic at our meetings. He's a good, consistent friend.
+
+Another thing that hasn't changed is the slow feeling I get while around him. It's progressed a bit, perhaps, and it feels a bit like déjà vu now. I've been pondering seeing someone about it, but I'm not sure whom I would see. It's a physical feeling, but the cause, being around Nick, is so specific that it sounds psychological. Nicks says just to ignore it, and that he's felt the same thing about others, and that things turned out fine. He then proceeded to joke that it may be love.
+
+No, things haven't really changed for us, but the world around us has. Our recent conversations have spanned across topics from the news ranging from the sudden resurgence of *a cappella* pop music among college students to recent NASA disasters, from more absurd crimes to new follies of the *res publica*.
+
+One current scandal was over the growth of interest in magic. The physicists said no, the metaphysicists said maybe, and the media happily embraced it while conservative groups around the world denounced it angrily before going on to practice their own brand of mysticism.
+
+Most notable in this movement was a group calling themselves 'The Mentats,' capital M on Misnomer. Seems a guy named Clarke, one of those Doctors that makes you wonder if some university really do just hand out degrees, had a good couple hundred people convinced that the type of magic he professed to be able to really 'do' was real, and that they too could practice it before long. He had been quietly disappeared after a while, though, and had left behind his group to do as they would.
+
+Unfortunately for the world, the Mentats weren't just a cult, and, however subtle, their 'magic' was real (real being a slippery, subjective term in itself; I just use it to mean with visible results, never mind the process). Unfortunate, as I said, because the world just wasn't quite ready for this --- the understatement of the universe --- and soon the Mentats had been laughed down, beaten down, and had willingly gone down into the underground of society, spreading ties as any normal cult would.
+
+On to the important thing, though: sushi. A once-every-few-months type of deal, Nick and I went to a nice, modern sushi restaurant. The chairs were uncomfortable, the place was noisy and poorly lit, but the sushi was excellent and, as an added bonus, there was a small, flowing stream of water running in a shallow-cut trench in the bar. No fish, though.
+
+"So, what do you think of this whole Mentat thing?" Nick asked. He had caught me right as I had neatly fit a piece of a tempura roll in my mouth. He was an expert at that.
+
+I finished the tasty morsel and leaned back, trying to think of a tactful reply. "I think it was poorly done. I mean, that Clarke guy had the right idea, train a few in case something got him, but distributing the documents on the internet just made the governmentals more edgy. They don't like stuff done for free like that, they're capitalists. Besides, it would've been awful if they'd decided to do the oppression thing," ever ready to expound my opinion as truth, was I.
+
+Nick nodded sagely, but I hazarded a random question, anyway. "Why? Are you a Mentat?"
+
+This got a chuckle out of him, and he said before he went back to eating, "I don't look for signs, they don't prove anything." Great, a non-answer.
+
+Eating seemed like a pretty good idea, so I shrugged and left the subject alone. I'd remember to ask him later that night. In actuality, I asked him the next week, as I'd forgotten. This is what convinced me of the reality of what the Mentats were doing. Never mind what actually happened, the process isn't what's important, only the result, and the result was that I was convinced, for better or for worse.
+
+-----
+
+This time, thins have changed. A whole lot has happened in a year. It's now been about two since the faithful day I stopped to lend a stranger some gas, and that stranger and I have grown closer. I've promised myself not to say the 'R' word, but perhaps I must: I'm beginning to think of Nick as a romantic interest. Eugh. Romance; it makes me feel like I'm high school again, and that's not a good feeling. That dreaded word has haunted me throughout my life. Whenever I had a 'romantic interest' with a girl, it never lasted more than a few months as said girl learned more about me (or I learned more about her), and whenever I had such an 'interest' in a boy, I ended up either having to hide it from people I knew, or he did, making things rather difficult.
+
+I have better things to talk about than my love life, though, and I'm straying from them, so I'll do as Nick and I do, and shift my rambles to current events. The Mentats were in the news again, this time with more surprises. There had been a minor but successful revolution wherein the Mentats, who had grown by a surprising amount had basically just come out as a church and declared themselves that legally. There had been a few short squabbles about it, but, since it became a matter of religion, it was soon left alone except for the standard name-throwing engaged in by other religious groups.
+
+The press had taken this fairly well, and it just got an objective column on the front page, at least in the local paper. A good half of them were Mentats , anyway; they had spread further than some might like to think. Once again, the process wasn't nearly as interesting as the results. Small, subtle acts of the Mentats' magic only made the news for the first few weeks, but after their 'repertoire' was shown to be rather limited, the papers stopped reporting on them. It wasn't so much of a sensation anymore.
+
+I, personally, didn't care all that much. From what I'd seen, the Mentats had taken fairly understandable things and wrapped them in a mythos and collection of ceremonies to make it more palatable. It seemed cheap to me, no matter what they could do.
+
+Perhaps part of the reason for my complacency is that, since I've moved in with Nick (I forgot to mention; I'm a junior now, and was getting tired of living in the student housing), the slowness and déjà vu have gotten progressively worse. Yet I still hold off on seeing anyone, lest I become the object of scrutiny; not everyone has taken to complacency like I was. I'm still doing fine with school and everything, as when I'm working, the feeling pretty much gets pushed to the back of my mind. I'm thinking it'll go away when it's ready.
+
+Anyway, I was studying for midterms and Nick was lounging on the patio when our collective life was change. The knock on the door startled me from my notes, and it was with a disgruntled attitude that I answered the door to a tall man, sharply dressed, who looked like he was prematurely balding. Some sort of high level type Mentat, most likely.
+
+"Hello," said he. "You are Joseph Stringer." It wasn't a question as much as it was a statement of truth (an annoying habit of the more advanced Mentats), so he kept on talking. "Nicholas Jospeh Stroud is out on the porch. I wish to talk with you both."
+
+The man was frightening, so I nodded, swallowed dryly, and led him out to the porch where we took a seat next to Nick. Nick himself hardly acknowledged our presence, he just kept staring out from the porch over into the park next door. It was an eternity before anyone spoke: I was too confused to, and the Mentat was content to sit five years in that one spot if need be, and Nick was clearly reflecting on something. Nevertheless, he was the first one to break the silence, "Hello, Doctor Clarke." I blinked and looked stolidly at the large, balding man. I had a headache. "I've been feeling worse. It's about time, isn't it?"
+
+Then, in the most emotion I think I've ever seen an advanced Mentat exude, Clarke sighed. "You know what will happen. I just wished to let you know how soon, so that you may prepare yourself." If Nick became an advance Mentat, I probably would go insane, having to live with him. "Do you mind if I leave from here." Another statement. He left. I suppose the brevity comes with the lack of emotion.
+
+I don't remember much for a while after that. I think I went to lie down, because that's what I was doing when I started remembering again. Nick crept into my darkened room quietly and sat down on the edge of the bed. Once more, there was an eternity of silence, which, once again, Nick broke.
+
+"Do you know what is happening?"
+
+I shook my head.
+
+"Well, while the Mentats were finding out what they could do, one of them hypothesized time travel. They never tried it until a few days ago, when they sent a mouse back a few minutes. They're going to send something else back soon..." he trailed off.
+
+With my mind moving as slow as cold honey, it took me about five minutes before I figured out what Nick was talking about. When I did finally understand, I could barely speak, and the first few times I tried came out as croaks. Eventually, I eked out, "Me?"
+
+Nick nodded, "You. Are you seeing what's happened? They sent you back, and then you became me..."
+
+I felt my mind clearing slightly as I had this problem to think about. I sat up in bed and eyed myself: Nick. Always a fan of science fiction, I had to ask, "But wouldn't that be a paradox?"
+
+"Not necessarily," said  Nick. "You'll see it clearly when they send you back, but I'll try to explain. Time wouldn't let anything bad come of it; if you go back in time, it's as I met you. You've changed because your time flowed forward at a different time as mine, and your experiences have changed you. That bull about the same atoms occupying the same space at the same time has the same possibility of happening as you finding the gaps between the atoms in a wall and walking right through it."
+
+I laughed as I pictured someone sliding back and forth along a wall to find the gaps. I lay back down and stared up at the ceiling as the laughter faded. My perception of reality was falling apart. I closed my eyes and remembered the past two years. My brain had tricked me. It had seen the truth behind Nick from the beginning, but it refused to acknowledge that such a thing was true until it was confirmed. Now that it had been confirmed, I felt like I was merging with myself --- Nick --- who stretched out beside me. I thought of how I felt about him/me, and blurted out that I loved him/myself, even if he/I already knew.
+
+"I know." He laughed, which made me blush, and continued, "It's the ultimate in narcissism, isn't it? When the Mentats ran through their records in search of someone to send back, they were searching for someone who was just a bit naïve and had good self-esteem. If they hadn't done that, there would've been a good chance that, even though the two had met up, they might hate each others' guts."
+
+I nodded and gave me a hug, since it seemed like I needed it. I'm going to let me have my pen now so I can finish writing my story, as I don't think I can keep going. I'm rather tired, even if I'm not, and I think I should let me sleep, as I have a big event ahead of me. I think I'll have myself sleep with me tonight, though, as I need to be alone with my thoughts.
+
+-----
+
+Joseph gave me his pen, turned over, and fell asleep immediately. Reading what he'd written brought back many, many memories, several of which he'd recorded. I won't add any more, he covered enough.
+
+I don't think he'll want to write any more in the morning than he did just now, so I'll explain what will happen to him.
+
+His slowness and déjà vu feelings will increase right up until they send him back, when he'll feel that his head is about to explode. Then, when he's being sent, the feelings will abruptly stop.
+
+Beinng sent is the most relaxing thing that you could ever have happened to you after those feelings. Like Steven King's *The Jaunt*, "It's forever in there," but the end result isn't nearly the same (i.e: you don't go insane, nor do you grow any older). You have an eternity to spend examining time laid out before you.
+
+All of time at once is a beautiful thing. Words can't describe it, because none of the five senses experience it. You can sense your own track, your own destiny through time, and everyone else's independently. You're spread out across all of eternity as you fall toward the infinitely small point of your destination in time.
+
+As he takes forever to instantaneously snap back into reality, he will understand who Time is: Time is kind, but strict. Time will bend the rules to let him back in, but Time will give him the headaches. I still have mine. I suspect they will go away when Joseph does. I also suspect that Time will pretend Joseph never was, but that Time will let my memories of the past two years stay; it's not the process that matters, so much as the result.
+
+As for what happens to Joseph after, you already know that. Me, I think I'll become a writer; the Mentats will take care of me for my 'service to humanity,' and I suspect Time will be kind enough to let me live quite a bit longer. I've always wanted to be a writer. I'll use a pseudonym, though. I'm rather fond of Nicholas.

content/post/fiction/at-his-whim.md

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+---
+author: Madison Scott-Clary
+categories:
+- Short Story
+ratings: X
+description: A date turns into much, much more as a wolf takes everything from a cat, from words to memories.
+date: 2018-01-22
+type: post
+pdf: at-his-whim.pdf
+tags:
+- Furry
+- Sexuality
+- Kink
+- Dubious consent
+title: At His Whim
+---
+
+<div class="cw">Hypnosis; dubious consent</div>
+
+Oh god.
+
+Oh god oh god oh god.
+
+How the fuck did I wind up here?
+
+Okay, cat, come on, you can do this. Mind's all sorts of hazy, but just need to keep track of things, try and remember back to where things got started.
+
+Oh god, so full...how does...oh god...
+
+-----
+
+I reasoned that a date was probably a good excuse to get all prettied up. After all, this was one of those first impressions things, right? You get to meet someone, and they'll always have this picture of you in their head from when they first met you.
+
+Hell, I could still picture so many people in the outfits I first met them in. "Oh, yeah, they were in a white button-up shirt," or "yeah, he was definitely wearing a silly shirt grabbed off some site online".
+
+So, okay. Yeah. Lets do this.
+
+This date's unspoken theme --- at least on my end --- was Business Goth: I had a satiny black blouse with barest hint of silky shimmer; long fingerless gloves that reach up to the elbows, also in black; a black box-pleated skirt, just above the knees, with the only concession to color being navy blue piping along the waist and hem. Oh, and underthings of course: black panties and...well, actually a light gray bra, since I didn't have a black one. Padded out slightly because why not.
+
+Dang, see? You can dress up nice! I looked halfway like I was gonna go take over a company, halfway like I was going to some industrial show.
+
+Business Goth.
+
+That was enough to get us started. There's this wolf I'd been dying to meet, and now that was *actually happening*. After the date had been arranged, we sent a few goofy texts back and forth deciding on what we would each wear. Not to specifics, of course, otherwise I wouldn't have had the chance to explore much. We just agreed on smart, snappy dressing, and that I would be in the darker clothes.
+
+Ought to be fun, right?
+
+-----
+
+I'm stuck bracing myself against the wall, claws digging at the paint and finding little purchase. Nothing seems able to give me any respite. I'm so full, so full...he just keeps cumming and cumming, and so do I, and how the fuck did I even get here?
+
+Those headphones are still in, but it's all I can do to keep myself propped up against the wall, with the way he's leaning into me like that. If I move my paws, I'm pretty sure I'd just slam into it nose first.
+
+Those headphones...
+
+Think, cat, come on.
+
+Oh god.
+
+Oh god oh god oh god so full...I can feel the way my lower belly is starting to bulge, feel the fur bristling beneath the newly-taut skin.
+
+How can one cum so much?
+
+Those headphones...that beat, that off-rhythm beat that's different in each ear...and his murmuring words beneath it, tangled coils of repetition hidden beneath sibilant esses and susurrating syllables that tug at me this way and that with tangled coils of repetition beneath murmured words and commands and half sentences that double back on each other in tangled coils of repetition reinforcing small instructions that have me letting go and...
+
+Oh god...
+
+How...
+
+-----
+
+Thus gussied, the both of us settled in at the painfully pomo 'bistro' he'd picked out. It was something more than a bar and less than a restaurant, which I supposed was what a bistro is supposed to be. Still, it had few concessions to the French (or was it Italian?) style that I'd associated with that word. All black wood and brushed aluminum and chopsticks. We ordered "tapas" of "Asian bruschetta" - a rice cracker bearing a sheet of nori, a few paper-thin slices of mozzarella, and half a cherry tomato, drizzled with a reduction of black vinegar and soy---
+
+I lost track halfway through the description. The food was good. *Very* good. "I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of how good this is," I joked, and the wolf laughed.
+
+Handsome guy. Very handsome. He had dressed just as smart as I, his dark fur set off by a linen jacket and trousers, and a pressed shirt. No tie, and lemme tell you, ties are for chumps. Jacket and shirt without a tie is top notch.
+
+The food was good, the company was good, the wine was good. Plum wine, natch, which went weirdly well with the temaki made of a curled, fried Parmesan crisp, stuffed with arborio and lightly seared ahi dredged through a balsamic---
+
+Anyway, it was all too good.
+
+He paid over my strident protests, and laughed when I pouted at him. He admitted that, yes, it was expensive, that yes, I'm getting the next one, and that yes, if we go out for dessert --- "which we totally should" --- then I can get that one, too.
+
+Luckily, I knew this area of town, and I could guide us to a good dessert place. There's this dinky hole-in-the-wall place that does crepes on one end of the counter and scraped ice cream on the other. You could get a few of those rolls of ice cream tucked neatly into a crepe with sauce and such, but if you're me (or the owner, who told me about the trick), you can have them fill the crepe and then press it down on the ice cream surface, then roll it up into a cone with alternating layers of crepe and ice cream and, once again, I couldn't hear him over how good the food was.
+
+Judging by his expression, he liked it enough to have given himself an ice cream headache.
+
+From dessert, we went for a walk around town. We talked about...I can't remember now. So much of that is fading away... We talked about this and that. We talked about music, I remember that much.
+
+We talked about music, and his voice kept getting quieter, and yet no less distinct. And I...but that's fading, too... We started wandering away from the park area and toward an apartment building.
+
+-----
+
+Knot's...too big. I have to brace myself against the wall, but my hips are canted at such an angle that I don't really have any leverage to make myself comfortable, to deal with that far-too-full feeling.
+
+I'm a mess, I can tell. I can feel the way the lube and cum stick to my fur, cooling in the air of the room, despite it being so warm. So warm. So warm I'm panting, I can feel the cooler air drawn raggedly over my tongue and teeth, but nothing seems to help cool me down.
+
+Too full, too full, can't think straight...
+
+Oh god, how...
+
+How does he keep going? How do we both keep going?
+
+All I can hear is the soft beats from the headphones and the soft words and commands, and I'm struggling to think of anything else but that knot, keeping everything in place, locking him to me...that knot and the stretching of my belly, so much cum I can feel the way my lower belly is distending, feel so much of his cum sloshing inside with my every twitch and shudder...
+
+Oh god oh god.
+
+Think. Words...
+
+-----
+
+I remember him saying, "I'm really into binaural beats." For some reason that really stuck out to me at the time, because the only time I'd heard of them being used was during a course in school to explain stereo perception or something.
+
+We'd made it to the door of his apartment complex and he'd invited me up for music, but --- and I mostly remember this --- right there, in the lobby, he perked up and told me to wait as he fished in his jacket for some headphones, clicked them into his phone, and then handed them to me.
+
+He was sweet and kind about the whole thing, and even if he wasn't, he was totally my type, so I just kinda went along with it. It was fun, right?
+
+The music was a sort of house beat, but with a third rhythm knocking around inside my head. My paws darted up to tug one of the headphones free, and the beat disappeared. My face must've shown something, because he laughed and tugged me over to the elevator by my free paw, letting me tuck the other earbud back in place.
+
+There's something about that...that binaural beat, that third drum line kicking inside me that was almost hypnotic. Was hypnotic. It was --- is --- hard to concentrate on anything but it, following it around in some internal space.
+
+-----
+
+It's still there, too. It's getting louder, and his words are rising with it, and I can't do anything but moan and hold on and try to remember.
+
+But I can't. Words are failing, and memories are slipping away, and I'm unable to quite pull up how...
+
+How this...
+
+How this happened...
+
+How this is happening...
+
+-----
+
+I think I made it to his apartment still of my own volition, but I can't be sure. I had that music going, and he was tugging me along and talking to me smoothly. I could see his lips moving when the music was loud, and hear his soft, murmured words when it wasn't. He was encouraging me and telling me I was pretty and enticing me and telling me I was good, and it was all so comforting, and so easy to not think about anything else.
+
+I think I made it out of my clothes all by myself, and I know I helped him out of his, or maybe just pawed and fawned ineffectually at him as he undressed himself. I can't be sure, though. Through the whole process, he never ceased his soft explanations of how good I was and how good I was going to be, and he made sure those headphones stayed in my ears the whole time.
+
+I remember him being big. Like real big. That bit I remember. I can't forget that, not with where I am now, not with how full I am.
+
+And...words and memories are sifting away through some as yet unseen grate, and I can barely pick up after that. Words...
+
+He was big, bigger than I thought.
+
+He seemed to keep getting bigger.
+
+He was hard and seemed to keep getting harder.
+
+He was gentle, and I don't quite know why, but that was surprising to me.
+
+He was steady. He moved sensually, but never sped up nor slowed down.
+
+He kept talking, kept cajoling and convincing and enticing and praising and the songs trailed from one to another and all I could think about for a while was that beat. That beat and how good I felt. That beat and how pretty I was. That beat and how nice I was. That beat and how I was his. I...his words...remember...
+
+And when he tied with me, I started to lose it.
+
+And when I came, and so did I, I started to unravel.
+
+And when I started to unravel, I was lifted up and pressed to the wall.
+
+And when I was only able to hold myself up and not move otherwise, he tucked his muzzle over my shoulder.
+
+And as his murmuring grew more and more insistent
+
+I became less and less
+
+And less real
+
+I don't know
+
+How this is happening. I don't know
+
+I don't know how
+
+I can't
+
+I can barely
+
+Keep up
+
+And it
+
+It all feels
+
+So good
+
+So full
+
+So good
+
+So good
+
+So good

content/post/fiction/light.md

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+---
+type: post
+title: Light
+date: 2004-06-12
+categories:
+- Short story
+- Erotica
+tags:
+- Sexuality
+- Romance
+description: A very old piece of erotica. I was on my bullshit even back this long ago.
+ratings: X
+---
+
+A kiss. Light, and only to the cheek. Yes, that's how it would start, I suppose. I'd settle in behind him, and crane my neck over his shoulder to give him a kiss on the cheek. Light. A touch. I wouldn't hold him tight, either. Not squeezing, at least not now. Just slide my arms loosely around him, above the paunch, below the breasts, the place where the arms just rest, adding to him lightly instead of pressing.
+
+"What are you doing?"
+
+"Enjoying you. Is that okay?"
+
+Ask. Always ask. It's always about permission, because permission is always about trust, and where is love without trust? What happens to love if I trust everyone completely? Do I love everyone? I might.
+
+"No...ah...yes, I mean. I don't mind."
+
+"Mmmh..."
+
+Another kiss, still light, this time to the back of the neck. That place on people who actually have substance where the skin is pressed out in a gentle rise. Yes, just above there. I suppose my forehead would brush through hair. Shiver. The neck is sensitive there.
+
+Maybe now a squeeze. A light one, at that place where the arms rest nicely, before moving, brushing fingertips along the jaw line on the side nearest, brushing fingernails back down along the side of the neck. Another shiver.
+
+"Hnn..."
+
+"Can I touch you?"
+
+Always ask. Permission by nod. Fingers continue down from neck, down over the chest, avoiding the spots that are too sensitive, skirting gentle rises before moving back up. Go underneath the over-shirt, like that, go ahead and nudge it aside, maybe even over the shoulder. Now maybe even use some more of the hand instead of just fingertips; not the palm, really, just more of the fingers. (What about the other hand? Maybe a little, just shift it down the side, trace a curve, but not too far.)
+
+Another kiss, the third, to the base of the neck, but the side, where the shoulder meets it. Longer this time, too, linger a little, enjoy it some. It's okay to go slow, don't worry if he gets a little bored, have fun. I suppose now would be a good time to shift a little, too, and, shifting, shift off his over-shirt. Two shirts is seeming like a little too much right now.
+
+"Ah...where is this going?"
+
+"Only as far as you want."
+
+He's unsure, and submissive. It might go farther than he'd like. Is it taking advantage of him? I can egg him on about that, but I know what he'll say; I can stop, but must I? At least it's slow, giving him time to think about what's happening, time to object, time to accept, time to relax, time to get nervous, time to enjoy. Close your eyes, go on, don't mind the hands, they'll just search out skin. (His neck. Brush the fingers back up the other side, let more of the hand in, run fingers through hair. You know, entwine, but it doesn't need to be firm, still light.) It's okay to move, tilt your head, mine will be there to rest it against, cheek to cheek, though I'll have to stretch a little for that. (And back down, but give the under-shirt a miss, slip beneath the radar, under the collar, find the real one, the collar-bones. Yeah, just explore along those for a bit.)
+
+"Hey..." (Pause. Okay, maybe a little movement, with the fingers,)
+
+"Do you want me to stop?"
+
+May have to ask this at every step (but that makes it sound like I have plans. I might). Slight nod's enough, keep going along the collar-bone until it slips up on the shoulder, but slip off the path there. Fingers down over the chest, over the upper part of the breast, then between the two, but gently, it'll make him squirm. Hand's in his shirt, now; any farther and it'll be an arm instead of just a hand. That's okay, got two hands: send the other down, cross the belly to his hip, find the hem, slip up beneath, go back the way I came beneath the shirt, it'll follow. He'll squirm, so will I.
+
+A kiss. Light, and only to the cheek. Yes, then reposition. That seems like a good place for hands, so send the other down over the front to join the other up beneath the shirt. It gets complicated, trail fingernails down along the upper edge of his tummy (I don't understand how people can't like that. The word, and the weight. Skinny people are just scary).  Down over his sides, along the lower boundary of the ribcage, not too low or he'll jump. Shirt's all tugged up on his front; lean back, slip hands to skin, slide it up further, make as if to take it off.
+
+"May I?"
+
+"Um."
+
+Wish he'd answer, but he lifts his arms. It's yes enough, so go ahead and slide hands up and over his back, take the shirt with, hands beneath the collar. Up it goes, over the head, with hands, then in front, let him deposit the shirt.  Why not trail hands along arms and shoulders while I'm at it...
+
+"And mine? Is it alright if I take mine off, too?"
+
+"Uh."
+
+He's tense, and shifty-eyed; he's shaking, but so am I. It's okay, just go back to the beginning. Slide arms around him, rest between chest and midsection. Lightly. Light squeeze. A kiss. Light, and only to the cheek. Yes. That's how it began.
+
+"I can't...I don't know. I, ah..."
+
+"Shh."
+
+Another squeeze, why not, and tighter this time. Longer, hold it. Hold him. Hold myself. The light's there. It flows, in through the head, out through the heart. Skin to skin, but who's keeping track. He's shaking, and tense, he's crying, but so am I. The light burns both, full and empty...
+
+Shift! No, crawl around in front, face my fears, face him, face light, face to face. Cheeks are wet though tears have stopped. He won't meet my eyes, grabs his shirt. But first...
+
+A kiss. Light, and only to the cheek. Yes. And another, to the forehead, and one more, right where it counts. Lightly, to the lips, share a little of the light, so he knows it's pure. Okay, now let him put on his shirt if he wants. Or giggle, whichever comes first.
+
+"It's...it's alright...like this."
+
+"What?"
+
+He makes a move, reciprocates, returns, even leans in. My turn to be surprised. He doesn't know what to do with his hands. A kiss. Light and only to my cheek. Yes, and a hug. Hugs and kisses. Hugs are awkward when on the ground. I could try not supporting myself, see what happens. Wrap my arms around his middle, relax my back and hips. Back to him, with the surprise. Over we go. Lands half on me, half on the ground, self-conscious about his weight, squirms, I'll let go, mustn't push. Rolls onto his back, back to kneeling for me, over him, rest a hand on his chest, if it'll do ya, odd folds in his pants, mustn't hope (but he's blushing. Maybe a little hope).
+
+"I don't know what to do..."
+
+"Relax..."
+
+I'll take off my shirt. Didn't ask. Hope it's okay. Looks, averts his eyes, looks again. Smile, get a smile back. Trace invisible lines with fingers, maybe meridians, middle of the chest makes him tense, eyes half closed (both). Over his front, sides, belly, try and feel if those folds mean anything without him noticing, though he blushes more.
+
+Lean down. A kiss. Light, and to the lips. Apologize silently for being brash, then do the deed. Gently now, mustn't startle, just with the fingers, and light, always light. Belt buckle. Button. Zipper. Tented. He squirms, and blushes furiously, he's hard, but so am I.
+
+"Ah...!  I...ergh." (Lift hand, quick, but let it hover.)
+
+"Did I go too far? Should I stop?"
+
+Now's a good time to panic. Think about what you've done, my life, his life, the light, always the light, think with my head, think with my crotch, balance the two and weigh the options. He's squirming, mostly his hips. He looks pained, but so do I. Grabs my hand, wavers, holds, shakes all over, holds, puts it back down on his crotch. Sigh, smile, kiss him on the cheek, but always ask.
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"No...but go ahead."
+
+Slow, then. He's hard, but so am I. It's pointed up in the air, and up towards his head, angled, fingertips move down to the base, hand wraps gently around it through cloth and squeezes, light. Other hand kneads at hips through shorts, down over thigh, other hand down from erection to between legs, spread slightly, along inner thigh, hem of shorts, elation. Skin. Hand up along skin, inside of shorts, other hand back up along thigh, elation. Skin, up through shorts. Boxers. Always wanted to. Up through shorts, fingers between legs, skin pulled tight, wrinkled with nervousness, just a touch.
+
+Back down, out. Back up over shorts, another squeeze to the erection, and I can look again. His eyes are closed, his brow is furrowed, his face is red, and light is shining. A kiss. Light, and only to the cheek. Yes. It's time.
+
+"I...want to see."
+
+"Okay..."
+
+Zipper.  Don't need to take them off. Zip. Touch, he shivers, search, he tenses, opening in boxers, there. Skin touches skin and he whimpers (but so do I), lightly, ever lightly, wrap fingers around and disentangle from clothes. Out in the open. Cut. Curved upwards, slightly to the left. Can he get any more red? Can I? Skin silky, tip slick, be brave, do it. Deed is done, his eyes open, he leans up.
+
+"Are you going to...you know...s-suck?"
+
+"If you'd like..."
+
+Savor the taste of the one lick, get another non-answer. Make up my mind. The light burns more than ever, in through the head, out through the heart, overflowing, need to share, need to give, need to take, need to have, to hold, to know, to be. Adjust self, stretch out, get comfortable, he's still on his elbows. Just the head, now, go slow, first time for both. Vaguely salty, vaguely metallic, definitely warm. Press tongue to the underside, suckle warmly on it, like I'm gonna get something out of it. No teeth. He bucks, surprise, that's okay, take some more, warmth. Mouth. Wet. Not sure what to do with hands, he touches face, hair, ears, shoulders, head. Leans back again, arches, get more in my mouth. Suckle firmly, rub with tongue, move some, bob along it, use a hand around the base, since it doesn't quite fit. Pick up speed, he's tense, but so am I. He may be close, know I am. A tug on my hair.
+
+"I'm...ah...shit..."
+
+"Mmnrgl."
+
+The taste! Almost pull off, but I need to share, the light, the taste, oh god, Jesus...The light comes in through the head and out through the heart, and the seed is made inside and comes out the shaft, coats my tongue, fills my mouth. Bitter. Salty. Swallow. Writhes. Hold it. God...Warm. Squirms...
+
+"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, aw jeez, I'm sorry...ow..."
+
+"Nngh...I'm sorry..."
+
+Sensitive, pulls me off, hurriedly hides himself with clothes, blushing furiously, turns away from me, curls up. I'll curl around him, snug an arm around his chest, just above his belly, press close against him, form fitting. He's crying, I'm still hard, don't notice. Hold him tight and bask in the light, flows in through the head and out through the heart, wash around us.
+
+A kiss. Light, and only to the cheek. Yes. The cheek, twice salted with tears, hides his face from me but nestles back to my front. The light is blinding, bury my face against his neck, hold him tight, laugh.
+
+"What's so funny?"
+
+"The light. Love is all light."

content/post/fiction/missives.md

@@ -0,0 +1,226 @@
+---
+categories:
+- Short Story
+- Epistolary
+ratings: G
+date: 2016-08-30
+type: post
+pdf: missives.pdf
+tags:
+- Furry
+- Romance
+- Poetry
+- Flower language
+title: Missives
+---
+
+Sir,
+
+If it please you, I write concerning our last meeting one week and six days ago at Mister G-'s manor, wherein we spent a happy hour discussing the finer points of his garden.  You requested that I write back upon returning home and I find myself with unanswered questions.<!--more-->
+
+You asked about the maiden's hair and I replied, out of haste, that I found it beautiful, but perhaps too much to occupy the entirety of one's garden.  On further consideration, I have decided that there is a thing of beauty involved in the simple maiden's hair fern.  The stem, I have decided, traces a most delicate arc, and the leaves describe a softness that I find lacking in many other such plants.
+
+In addition, you asked about the gardenias, and I found them to be quite splendid, though I was initially taken aback by their appearance.  I found them to be strikingly vivid, and I was taken aback by its hue and intensity.  I know you've an eye for the bright, but I worry a touch that it was out of place.
+
+May I instead draw your attention to the gloxinia? I found it to be decidedly beautiful, though it be crouched lower than the rest.  Knowing the keenness of your gaze, I trust that you saw it as well, though I hadn't the chance to point it out at the time.
+
+Please do write me back with your thoughts, I remain curious.
+
+Yours,
+
+*V. V., Jr.*
+
+-----
+
+My dear fox,
+
+I was surprised and delighted to be greeted with your letter today, for I had feared that I was too forward in asking to continue our conversation in such a setting.  The hour had grown late, however, by the time we were free of our duties, and I had much travel before me, and my hasty parting was in no way a reflection on you.
+
+I find your observations astute and in line with my estimation of you as a person.  Knowing that, I say:
+
+> Tho' the flow'r may bloom ere long  
+> and night recede unto the dawn,  
+> so yet may love's embrace grow fond  
+> and yet be spoilt upon the wan.
+
+For, as I'm sure you well know, too much water on the gardenia flower causes the soft white of the blossom to turn brown and discolor.  Even such a perfection of God's creation as the flower be spoiled by too much of what is good for it!
+
+Thus it was that I had to depart in haste, though I found our time together so enjoyable.  For that, a thousand apologies are in order.
+
+Though you declined to quote any of your favorite verse during our stroll through the garden, I hope that you do not mind the wandering mind of your companion.  A coyote finds much on his mind, surrounded by by books.  Books!  And yet there I was, enjoying a walk above all else.
+
+I've distracted myself, though.  You mention the gloxinia, and I too think that such are quite the sight to behold.  I don't believe that it was the type of blossom to be seen by any who had passed by, so a fox's gaze must be singularly acute.  I will not hesitate to say that I think such flowers beautiful.
+
+How telling it is the things that we find pleasing to the eye!
+
+Alas, I must draw the line across the page here, but I do hope that you write back.
+
+> Although our words be brief, so too will they sustain us.
+
+Yours in confidence,
+
+*A coyote.*
+
+-----
+
+Coyote,
+
+You speak of confidence, and although I cannot guarantee the security of my own words, I shall write to you in the same spirit.
+
+To walk with you in the garden that day was a rare joy.  Though I spend my life in a comfortable home, I do indeed spend it.  I feel the coinage of my Self slipping away by the hour, entertained only by my father's attendants and the scant few visitors who pay us note.  I could scarcely hope to escape the stifling manner of it all by a stroll through G-'s lovely garden.
+
+And yet there I was greeted by a most curious sight: a coyote had laid down his affected cane and knelt to inspect the flowers.  I approached slowly and noisily to make my presence known, then squatted most ungracefully beside him to see the blossom at hand.  I had no idea that the time that I would nearly cause my father embarrassment by dallying so long in the garden rather than being at hand.
+
+That coyote -- that delightful companion -- rescued me from the drudgery for not one, I'm told, but nearly two and a half hours!  Oh, the way my father's tail bristled when he confronted me.  Chastened, I could not laugh, though I do now.
+
+I think that we had both wound up there in that garden for similar reason.  Neither of us wanted to be at that party.  I was bored of the routine, while you were repulsed.  There were, I think, not enough books there to keep your mind active, no pens to keep your paws busy.
+
+And yet we talked.  We talked of flowers, we talked of the day, we talked of the news.  This all provided a pleasant afternoon, my friend, but do not think that I did not pick up on your words at the time.  Your talk of maiden's hair, that flowing fern, the plant of a secret bond.  Your words of gardenias with their hints of secret affections and attractions.  For I, too, know the language of flowers.
+
+I know also of the language of motion and of movement, for do not imagine that one of my station not be schooled in such.  Our steps steadily began to move in time with each other, and those casual brushes of elbow to elbow, paw to paw, fingers to fur were not missed.  I must admit that I didn't so much as "catch you out" as gleefully reciprocate in this newfound closeness.
+
+Ah, it makes my ears light up to admit it, but I miss that, dear coyote!
+
+It has been two weeks, and I've been taught that this is an appropriate amount of time to have passed before requesting the presence of a visitor once more.  Would you, dear coyote, be so kind as to bless us with your presence four days hence, on Friday the fifth?
+
+Sincerely,
+
+*Fox*
+
+-----
+
+Fox,
+
+My goodness!  Who knew that the fox had so many words within him!  A pen and paper and a promise of confidence is all it took!
+
+You know, of course, that I jest.  Walking with you in the garden that day was truly a delight, but I could tell that your tongue would be a long time in loosening.  Don't think that I am unschooled in the language of interaction simply because of my low station.
+
+Your words shall always stay safe with me, dear fox, the confidence is absolute.
+
+Let us speak further on the garden walk of some weeks past, then.  You divine my intentions correctly when I bring up the maiden's hair and gardenias, of course.  I find it fascinating that one might such as yourself might even know to pick up on such allusions, never mind be able to bandy them back in turn.  Gloxinia indeed!  Could it be that you do truly feel this love at first sight that so many talk about?  I'm sure I do not know.
+
+However, I must admit myself flattered, all the same, that a pious and gentle critter such as yourself would stoop to spend a carefree afternoon with a poor poet and flower fancier such as myself!   What is it, then, that you saw in me that was worth your time?
+
+It is only fair that I tease out your answer by providing something in return:
+
+> Though ev'ry climax approach a denouement  
+> And ev'ry dawn a night,  
+> Ev'ry moment worth sharing  
+> May be worth stealing.  
+> Were it with you,  
+> Delay, then, the morn.
+
+In you, I saw that last cold breath of night before the morning, the promise of something spectacular.  I catch myself wondering if it was something that is integral and permanent for you -- will you always provide a glimpse of a bright day to come, or will you forever hover on the edge of darkness?
+
+There is no small part of me which is eager to see, but the most of me would enjoy the wait.  Will there be some day to break within you, or will our affections be strictly something of dreams?  Longings and pining that will never cease and yet cause the fire in the hearth to flag and yet keep the room all the warmer?
+
+Do tell.
+
+*C-*
+
+-----
+
+Dear coyote,
+
+What say you to my invitation?  Your words are more than pretty, they make a poor fox's very being yearn for a time when he may once again hear them with his own ears.  However, they certainly do not address the issue at hand!  Will you bless us with your presence?  It is too late for the fifth, I fear, but perhaps you may join us for dinner on the twelfth?
+
+On that day that we spent together in the garden, I cannot help but remember most clearly as we were called away to our places for the evening's festivities, when you laid your hand atop mine and said simply, "Come".  Perhaps it is something weak within my heart, but it is that touch, that smile, and that simple word after so many that touched me so deeply.  That is what I long for again.
+
+So once more, "come".  It is I who am asking this time, and do not dodge the question again!
+
+*Fox*
+
+-----
+
+My delightful fox,
+
+Ahhh, is that then the dawn I spy approaching?  Perhaps our dear fox does has some day within him yet!
+
+I find it singularly amazing that a book so quiet as this may lay itself open wide and be read by those with even the poorest eyes.  If it were open the wider, if it were more plain, I do not think that I would be so pleased. And were it shut, were it hidden away, I think I should feel left out of the whole experience.
+
+As with the dawn, however, you approach slowly, carefully at first, and then with a surprising suddenness you breach the darkness and begin casting shadows.  There is no hiding from a dawn such as this.
+
+> Tho' the heart may quicken --  
+> Tho' the tongue may lap --  
+> I shall sup no greater meal  
+> Than thy gift entrancing
+
+You know as well as I that touch is not casual, but calculated.  And that word, lonesome after so many had been spilled in that garden, was naught to be ignored.  I say this not out of boast, though I know that I did well in making my intentions clear, but out of the fact that I, too, am left without a paw in mine.  Desire is a tumultuous thing, and many an hour of sleep was lost to the remembered closeness.  Ah, would that there had been more...
+
+You've answered my question, then.  Now to yours.  A dinner, you say?  I humbly accept, and shall "come" at your bidding.  The twelfth it is, please do expect me before tea, that we may spend some time recounting the virtues of flowers together.
+
+With the utmost fondness,
+
+*C-*
+
+-----
+
+My dearest coyote,
+
+I write hastily, as you have just left and I am to be going to bed and not up writing letters to you, if I am to keep from arousing suspicions.  This must
+take the guise of a thank-you note, and it is -- I want nothing more than to thank you right now.  Thank you, thank you, and again thank you!
+
+To spend such an evening -- to consider spending many such more -- I do not hesitate to call myself smitten!  I trust that you found the food palatable, for you certainly ate more than me or my father, and I fear the servants may even feel shorted tonight.  I am happy to see someone enjoying with such gusto, however, and to walk the grounds with you both before and after the meal was a singular delight.
+
+You have such an eye for softness.  Things that might miss the normal gaze, a hidden globe of clover here, the shy peeking of a late blossom of witch hazel there.  It was such a delight to share both your company and your mind, to share a touch of paws or a kiss upon the whiskers.
+
+The kiss!  You were so shy to move, so bashful after, I felt my heart breaking in two!  And so was I: my stammering response must've given a poor showing, and no bravery in my heart let me return the gesture.  The next we see each other, I shall make it up to you double and treble over!  Tens of kisses, hundreds!
+
+I do hope that we will have the chance to spend further time with each other. As the primrose, I cannot truly live without you.  As motherwort says, perhaps one fox's love for a coyote ought best be concealed.  I care not.
+
+*A fox who would consider himself yours.*
+
+-----
+
+To a fox whose beauty is surpassed by none,
+
+You have done such an eloquent job of thanking me for the evening together that I, for once, find myself nearly at a loss for words.  The food was indeed wonderful, but paled in comparison to the delightful company.  I found you and your father both well read, and keen with words.  The walk within your own garden, around your splendid grounds, was not a thing that I will soon forget.
+
+> You find me at a disadvantage --  
+> Panting and aswish --  
+> Would that distance be traversed as easily  
+> As hearts t'wards yearning hearts
+
+I must address that kiss.  I confess myself a shyer person than I perhaps present, and I found myself self-flagellating within my mind after the act, worried that I had perhaps misread, that I might have overstepped my bounds.  To know that we could both blush so much...ah, well that is what will stick most firmly in my memory.  To know that one such as yourself may dream of kisses to come, that is what will sustain me for the future.
+
+I shall scarcely be able to write a line of verse for the longing that night engendered in me.  Or, perhaps I shall be overrun with a graphomania, unable to cease scribbling my poor lines for the desire of yet another small kiss.  I fear it shall be the latter, that I am doomed to be forgotten among the countless smitten poets littering the streets with their oversweet verse.
+
+In evidence of my restraint, I leave you with only one more word: "again".
+
+*A coyote who would call you his own.*
+
+-----
+
+Dear sir,
+
+I write at the behest of my father.  It has come to my attention that a discussion of plants in a garden and a subsequent dinner has led to impropriety.  The boundaries that are firmly in place by society and God's law have been overstepped, and we toy with the sin put in place on this earth by Satan himself.  It would be best if we were not to be seen together again.
+
+May this final gift of both motherwort and primrose cuttings from our own garden sate your desires, and may that be the last we be seen together as my family wills it.
+
+*V. V., Jr.*
+
+-----
+
+Reply to the esteemed fox of the household,
+
+I must offer my immediate and unconditional apology for any slight or dissatisfaction.  It was my intent only to build a relationship of trust and kindness between equals, lovers of the word and of life.  That my actions have caused pain and discomfort by encroaching too closely on your person causes me great pain in turn and is chief among my regrets.
+
+I will expect no reply in return, but let my poor words stand in place of any further deed that I may do to you and your family.  But by your request, you shall not hear from this repentant soul again.
+
+> A rose, single, now blooming
+>     may indeed bless the stem,
+> yet are not roses clipp'd and shown?
+>     Undoubted 'tis a blessing to them
+> who receive such a gift!
+>     Yet now unmade is the flow'r
+> which adorns thy mantle with its grace,
+>     and withers, however slowly, by the hour
+>         until 'tis faded to nothing and dust,
+>         though some scent remain forever amidst the must.
+> {: class="verse" }
+
+I take well the meaning of your letter and the final gift of flowers within.
+
+With the sincerest apologies,
+
+*C. L.*

content/post/fiction/post-self/apres-un-reve.md

@@ -0,0 +1,200 @@
+---
+categories:
+- Short Story
+series: Post-Self
+ratings: G
+date: 2017-02-04
+description: A young woman reluctantly goes through with the uploading procedure, risky though it is, to reconnect with her lover.
+img: post-self.png
+type: post
+pdf: apres-un-reve.pdf
+tags:
+- Death
+- Science fiction
+- Uploading
+title: "Apr\xE8s un r\xEAve"
+---
+
+> *Dans un sommeil que charmait ton image  
+> Je rêvais le bonheur, ardent mirage,  
+> Tes yeux étaient plus doux, ta voix pure et sonore,  
+> Tu rayonnais comme un ciel éclairé par l'aurore;*
+
+Echoes of Grace singing, memories and emotions, clashed with the doctor's words. "I know you've signed the waivers, but I need a verbal confirmation. Do you understand this?"
+
+Sylvie nodded. It was strange not to feel her hair, always so frizzy and buoyant, not following the motion a scant second too late.
+
+"The uploading process will be fatal and irreversible. There is some risk, about one and a half percent, that it won't work." The doctor paused and picked up a pen. She added, "Won't work after the point where your body will have died, that is. Do you understand?"
+
+A swallow, dry, and another nod. "What will happen in that case?"
+
+"Your family will receive a payout of ten million francs CFA. Your body will not be available for a burial, unfortunately." The doctor looked abashed. "The results of the process are --- ah, not pretty."
+
+"I understand."
+
+"One last bit, then. After the uploading process, successful or not, your blood, organs and tissue will be donated --- or, well, sold --- to a tissue bank in central Africa. Your family will receive ten percent of this, and the Centre the other ninety. This is to help defray the cost of the process."
+
+Sylvie thought for a moment, rubbed her hand over her smooth-shaven head. "About how much will that be?"
+
+"The cut to your family?" The doctor fiddled with her pen, twirling it across delicate dark fingers. "Lately, we've been getting about a hundred million francs, so again, about ten million. Not a bad payout, hmm?"
+
+Not bad indeed. Sylvie had little love for her family, minus her brother, so the payout wasn't a huge incentive, as it was for others. She just hoped Moussa wound up with a chunk of it.
+
+Unlikely, given her mother.
+
+She nodded her assent.
+
+"So then. Your surgery is scheduled in one hour. You have fifteen minutes before prep, which means fifteen more minutes to back out if you should choose. I'm going to head back to the team and leave you be to think this over." The doctor gestured to her right, "Dial zero on the phone on the desk if you wish to cancel."
+
+The doctor stood and leaned forward, offering her hand. Sylvie lifted herself out of her chair and accepted the handshake, feeling as though she needed to be careful of those delicate fingers. The grip was strong, though.
+
+As the doctor slipped out of the room, Sylvie settled back into the chair. She closed her eyes against the sight of all the posters advertising the procedure. "Upload today!" they said. "Experience a life beyond need!" they promised. "Work without pressure! Fork at will!" they hollered. Everything was so loud, so loud.
+
+She had them all memorized, anyway. Right now, she just wanted quiet. She just wanted to think of Grace.
+
+Grace with her silvering hair.
+
+Grace with her fair and smooth skin.
+
+Grace with her liquid laughter and lovely singing.
+
+They’d fallen in love within months, and shared only a scant few years together before being separated again. An impenetrable boundary of distance, of emulated sensorium and embodied flesh.
+
+Grace's decision hadn't been Sylvie's. Uploading, the thought of uploading, made Sylvie's skin itch and eyes ache. To be removed from this world and sent to another, to the System, didn't appeal to her.
+
+It did appeal to Grace.
+
+Grace with her failing voice.
+
+Grace with her deteriorating coordination.
+
+Grace with her pain, her depression.
+
+For Grace, it was a way to escape her body. That body that Sylvie loved so much, and was a prison to Grace. A voluntary procedure --- "Help combat overpopulation!" the posters howled --- but  also a way to neatly sidestep the MS slowly claiming her body and mind.
+
+After the upload, Grace had communicated with Sylvie through text, through mails sent to her terminal which she'd pour over at work. She begged Sylvie. *Come join, come upload,* she said. *The posters, they're all true, they're all right.*
+
+The thought *still* made her skin itch and her eyes ache, but all the same, she kept dreaming of Grace. Dreaming of softer eyes, of a voice more sonorous. Her Grace shining like the dawn.
+
+So she'd relented.
+
+> *Tu m'appelais et je quittais la terre  
+> Pour m'enfuir avec toi vers la lumière,  
+> Les cieux pour nous entr'ouvraient leurs nues,  
+> Splendeurs inconnues, lueurs divines entrevues,*
+
+Sylvie's mind was filled with Fauré, with that rolling, lilting theme. With Grace's voice.
+
+"We're going to keep you awake, okay? We need to, in order to tell when the upload is complete, but you'll under local anesthesia. It'll make you feel a little dreamy, may have visual disturbances." The doctor's smile was kind. "Some report it to be enjoyable."
+
+"Okay. How long will the upload take?"
+
+"The procedure will be about forty five minutes to prep you for upload, and then the upload will happen in two stages," the doctor said. "You'll be uploaded to a local node at our center, which will give you access to a waiting room of sorts for the System proper. The upload to the System will take several hours --- it's a lot of data, you understand --- so the waiting room will usually have you fork and the copy will be uploaded."
+
+"Create a copy of myself and let that be uploaded while I watch," she murmured. Sylvie thought for a moment, "What about the copy that remains?"
+
+"It's free to quit, like a program on your terminal quitting. But they --- the, ah, sysadmins --- usually request that it stay around in case the upload to the System gets interrupted for some reason."
+
+"And what will I feel if things go wrong?"
+
+The doctor hesitated, looked to her team. It was another team member, a man with a thick French accent, who responded. "We don't really know. The local node will pick up on it and alert us. Death just looks like death to us."
+
+Sylvie nodded. Tried to nod, at least. She was firmly strapped down. "Alright."
+
+There was a pinprick at the crook of her elbow. A feeling of coolness spread up her arm, into her chest. A tightness, there, and then a tightness along her neck. A brief moment of panic as she tried to flex her fingers.
+
+"Starting the neuromuscular blocker. This will paralyze your voluntary muscles, so don't panic about the feeling," the anesthesiologist mumbled, distracted. He tapped her forearm, sending a pins-and-needles flash through the right half of her body. "But it doesn't numb you. That will be the next one, the anesthetic."
+
+Sylvie attempted to speak, but only managed a grunt of assent.
+
+The anesthesiologist nodded, "Good. Here it comes, then."
+
+The coolness was replaced with a comfortable warmth.
+
+Not warmth, she realized. Nothingness. Floatingness. Leaving-the-earth-ness. Gone-ness.
+
+"Sylvie, can you hear me? You won't be able to speak or blink or nod, but can you try and take two quick breaths? It may be difficult. We'll intubate if necessary."
+
+Sylvie obeyed. Or thought she did, at least. She couldn't tell if the breaths were actually happening. It seemed to be enough for the anesthesiologist, whose shadow across her vision bowed and stepped out of sight.
+
+Time wandered.
+
+Voices rang with the tenor of bells, though she could still understand them. Surgeons talking to technicians.
+
+A dull, basso organ note of something grinding, her vision vibrating, blurring the sight of the light above the bed.
+
+The light took the form of Grace, and Sylvie more readily gave in to the effects of the drug.
+
+Grace with her angelic smile. Grace lifting her up, away from the earth. Grace running, running into the ring of that surgeon's lamp. Clouds, clouds parting.
+
+The organ note screamed up through several octaves.
+
+Calm, ringing voices.
+
+That yearning song tinkling through her mind. She was unable to tell whether it came from herself, or from one of the techs. Or maybe from Grace. *Dans un sommeil que charmait ton image...* Tinkling and flowing. Rocking. Drunken. Drunken on dreams.
+
+Minutes fled by. Hours. Days, perhaps. Always, in front of her, her angel. Pure white skin that contrasted beautifully against her own, cream spilled in coffee. Always lifting her up. How far did they have to go?
+
+Grace was drifting away from her, receding.
+
+The light flared in intensity. Somehow became black. A shining blackness amid a field of more blackness.
+
+Tugging, pulling.
+
+Prying.
+
+A snap.
+
+A sense of wrongness, of gravity.
+
+Falling away. Layers of self peeling back, each successive shedding revealing something more raw, more primal. Molting. The boundary between her Self and the blackness complicating, fraying, fading.
+
+Grace was gone, too, faded to nothing.
+
+*Come back!* Sylvie shouted into the nothingness. Her fists, raw and exposed to their very core, to the concept of Fist sans physical representation, pounded at the blackness. Pounded at herself.
+
+*Come back! Come back! Grace!* She wailed. Screamed. Sobbed.
+
+*Grace...*
+
+A whisper against building chords, Grace's sweet voice.
+
+> *Hélas! Hélas! triste réveil des songes  
+> Je t'appelle, ô nuit, rends moi tes mensonges,  
+> Reviens, reviens radieuse,  
+> Reviens ô nuit mystérieuse!*
+
+The team stood still. There was no written protocol as to what one should do while the local node processed the upload, but they always remained silent. The doctor held her breath every time.
+
+A small pinging noise. The local readout flashed red.
+
+Shoulders sagged around the room.
+
+"Error in processing upload." The tinny speaker sounded impersonal. Perhaps it was designed that way to play down the loss. "Irrecoverable data corruption. Please check all contacts before continuing or contact System support for a technician for a full rig inspection."
+
+"Well." The anesthesiologist's voice, so human,  contrasted with the words from the speaker. "That's that, then."
+
+"That's that," the doctor echoed. She sighed and backed away from Sylvie's body. It was empty, now. A husk. "I'll start the paperwork and call her family and the insurance company. Get the payout processed as soon as possible."
+
+The other team members nodded. None of them looked happy.
+
+"Go on, get her cleaned up and sent to the handlers." She trudged out of the room slowly, her feet dragging. Pulling off her gloves, one by one, she added, "At least someone will get something out of this. Alas."
+
+Prayers began around the corpse.
+
+<!--
+In a sleep which held your charmed image
+I dreamed of happiness, passion-filled mirage,
+Your eyes were softer, your voice pure and sonorous,
+You shone like a sky lit by the dawn;
+
+You called me and I left the earth
+To flee with you to the light,
+The heavens for us were opening their clouds,
+Splendors unknown, glimmering glimpses of the divine
+
+Alas! Alas! Sad awakening of dreams
+I call you, O night, bring back your lies,
+Come back, come back radiant,
+Come back, O mysterious night!
+-->

content/post/fiction/post-self/assignment.md

@@ -0,0 +1,130 @@
+---
+author: Madison Scott-Clary
+categories:
+- Short Story
+series: Post-Self
+ratings: G
+date: 2016-12-26
+description: Ioan Balan is a historian and blogger assigned to research a flash-cult. Things go sideways, and he's left with more story than expected.
+img: post-self.png
+type: post
+pdf: assignment.pdf
+tags:
+- Science fiction
+- Uploading
+- Mystery
+- Cult
+title: Assignment
+---
+
+The feeling of an instance merging state back with the tracker would never NOT make Ioan Balan#tracker uneasy. It wasn't the differences in experiences, those could be anticipated, so much as the tiny changes in identity that resulted. Having to internalize a slightly different version of yourself was too close to experiencing a doppelgänger. Or perhaps hanging with a sib, fresh home from a semester abroad.
+
+Ioan#tracker had never been abroad, had no siblings. Just new memories.
+
+Ey set aside eir work --- a simple bit of nothing for a blogging organization that really didn't matter but nonetheless offered some reputation --- and sat back to deal with the squirming, greasy feeling of the merger.
+
+-----
+
+Ioan Balan#5f39bd7 was forked on suggestion of one of Ioan#tracker's friends as a way to inspect and experience life among a flashcult. Although the lifespan of the group was likely to be measured in months, or even weeks, Ioan figured it was a worthwhile investigation. Ey had an investigative journalism gig that could use a story like this.
+
+The forking had gone quite according to plan. Ioan#tracker had no reason to expect otherwise, of course, and when the instance was rendered in front of em, the two shared a perfunctory handshake and went over notes one last time before the instance headed out to catch transit to as close to the flashcult as ey could get.
+
+\#5f39bd7 took little time to settle into life among the cultists. Ioan was affable, likable. It was part of why ey had found the work of an investigative journalist easy, and why ey had quickly gone from low to high reputation in the field. The problem ey kept running into was boredom, rather than burning out.
+
+-----
+
+Ioan#tracker was left feeling let down, as ey perused what ey had been left of #5f39bd7's state. Ey used a fairly standard, off-the-shelf algorithm to cut down on the sheer amount of state ey would have to sift through to gain something from the instance's brief --- ey checked the date --- three weeks, two days of existance. It was enough to gain most of the knowledge and a good portion of the emotional and intellectual slices from the state, which was all ey needed for eir work. A full merge would've taken too long, and may have even been counterproductive: ey needed an amanuensis, not a recording device, for eir reporting.
+
+The 'assignment', such as it was, had been fairly straightforward, and Ioan#tracker had expected little of interest from the state dump. The flashcult was strange, but not too out of the ordinary, so ey sped up eir perusal, skimming.
+
+A sharp jolt of fear.
+
+A pain that stretched from physical to existential.
+
+EOF.
+
+Ioan#tracker sat up straighter, brow furrowed. Ey skipped back through a few chunks of state to where ey had started to get bored.
+
+-----
+
+The flashcult was strange, but not too out of the ordinary. Ioan#5f39bd7, with no journalistic duties, found eirself getting into the swing of things with ease.
+
+It was a sort of weird vacation, performing weird rituals that slowly began to make a weird sort of sense, knowing that at some weird moment, ey would either get too bored and quit or receive a SIGTERM. When ey caught the signal, ey would either have have to acquiesce and quit right then, find a place to step aside and quit, or risk crashing. But mostly lots of loafing around.
+
+As work, being an amanuensis was merely inoffensive. Not super interesting, kind of relaxing, and maybe something interesting would happen that eir tracker could turn into a story.
+
+It was during one of the rituals --- a call-and-response prayer wherein the members seemed to be working on memorizing progressively longer digits of numbers --- when the co-cultist beside em let out a soft sigh that turned into a quiet giggle.
+
+Then she turned to em, grinned beatifically, and winked.  Winked!
+
+Ioan#5f39bd7 watched her raise her hand and call the ceremony to a halt, saying almost dreamily, "I found them."
+
+Faced turned toward em, all smiling that same, kind, peaceful smile.  Ey sat dumbly, looking from face to face.  "I...yes?" ey managed.
+
+"You're the one," a voice chimed in.
+
+Another added, "The reporter. You're the reporter."
+
+There was a thrill of fear that ran up #5f39bd7's spine. It had never been a strictly undercover operation, but neither had ey been forthcoming about why ey were there in the first place.
+
+Ioan#5f39bd7 lifted eir hands from eir lap, palms up in a placating fashion. "Well," ey began. "I am a reporter, no denying, but I'm not here on offic-*urk!*"
+
+There was a sharp blow to the back of eir neck, knocking em flat to the ground, then a weight settling solidly onto eir back. One of the other members had sat on em.
+
+"Congrats, Ana," said the cultist on eir back.
+
+"Three weeks and a day, getting better," another grinned, and others soon chimed in, reaching in to shake hands with the young woman who had originally pointed em out.
+
+Ioan#5f39bd7 picked out the face of the lector in the crowd, an older person of indeterminate sex who had always struck em as rather vacuous. It was a difficult task, from eir viewpoint on the ground, and since all the adherents wore identical clothing, there were few clues.
+
+"This is the tenth iteration. As we discussed before you arrived, we'll tell you, now."
+
+The fear continued to well within #5f39bd7, growing in intensity.
+
+-----
+
+Ioan#tracker set eir usual algorithm aside for the merger, requesting that the entirety of the instance's state, from that last ritual on, be merged with em. It wasn't the first time ey had done such a thing, but it was still rare enough for em to do so that ey had to look up how. Despite eir career depending on it, ey had never been all that good at the whole dissolution thing. Ey never even figured out how to name eir instances, relying instead on the random string of digits that the system generated for em.
+
+Once that had been organized, ey moved out onto the wrap-around deck and settled into one of the Adirondack chairs out there. Such things, ey suspected, were built primarily for thinking.
+
+Ey closed eir eyes, and let memories wash over em.
+
+-----
+
+The fear continued to well within #5f39bd7, growing in intensity.
+
+"We're practicing, you see." The lector paced a slow circle around Ioan#5f39bd7 as they went on. "We start something interesting, wait for a reporter, and find them out. That's what we're practicing. Finding out who's watching, who's the reporter."
+
+Ana giggled once more, "It's a class, get it? An experiment, a dissection. You're the subject."
+
+The lector nodded and, having completed their circuit, leaned down to meet #5f39bd7's wide-eyed gaze. "And now we've got it reliably under a month. Time to make it known. What's your branch name?"
+
+"Ioan Balan#5f39bd7," ey stuttered. "Bu-but why are you...what are...why are you doing this?"
+
+"We're looking for reliable ways to find out the reporters because," they paused, withdrawing a syringe from the billowy sleeve of their tunic. "Because some day we may not want to be seen."
+
+That wellspring of fear turned to a geyser.
+
+In the system, there was no real need for an actual syringe, so they had taken on a new, codified meaning of something that would modify an instance in some core fashion. Intent was thick in the air, so Ioan#5f39bd7 had no doubt that this was some sort of destructive virus.
+
+"Wait," ey gasped, finding eir breath coming in ragged, erratic bursts.
+
+There was no time to continue with mere words, only a hoarse shout. Eir fear spiked beyond what it felt ey were capable of containing as ey watched the hand bearing the syringe slide calmly toward them to efficiently slip the needle behind eir ear.
+
+Eir final thought before eir instance crashed was surprise at just how much it hurt to die. It was a pain that spread from eir head through eir body, from the physical reality of the sim to some existential plane.
+
+-----
+
+Ioan#tracker found eirself clutching at the arms of the deck chair, eir own breathing shallow and fast. Ey felt some of the same fear that eir instance had felt.
+
+What should ey do?
+
+A quick search showed ey couldn't turn over the instance. Little was actually 'recorded' in a useful fashion that any sort of authorities (such as there were) could use. The instances were eirs and eirs only. Ey certainly didn't want to confront the cultists, either as emself or through an instance. Ey didn't know how to change eir instances like some others did, so ey would just look like Ioan#5f39bd7 back from the dead.
+
+Ey realized that all ey could really do was what ey knew how to do best.
+
+Be a reporter.
+
+It was what the cult wanted, but ey felt the words and experiences stirring within em already. Hell, it's what *ey* wanted, too.
+
+Finally, an interesting assignment.

content/post/fiction/post-self/gallery-exhibition.md

@@ -0,0 +1,26 @@
+---
+categories:
+- Short Story
+- Interactive
+series: Post-Self
+ratings: G
+date: 2017-01-03
+description: null
+img: gallery-exhibition.svg
+type: post
+tags:
+- Romance
+- Science fiction
+- Uploading
+title: 'Gallery Exhibition: A Love Story'
+---
+
+This gallery exhibition serves as the capstone for Dear, Also, The Tree That Was Felled, of the Ode Clade in its role as fellow. The fellowship in instance art was created specifically for Dear in recognition of the excellence it brings to the field.
+
+The Simien Fang school of Art and Design is proud to invite you to the opening of the exhibition. Location, time, and your ticket are attached to this message. We kindly request that you fork and send a non-#core/non-#tracker instance. We look forward to sharing this experience with you.
+
+RSVP<!--more-->
+
+## [Play the game](/assets/posts/gallery-exhibition.html)
+
+This entry takes the form of a Twine game. There are choices to be made, and random chance at play. Twine is a form of interactive fiction that you can play in your browser. It requires a modern browser with JavaScript enabled.

content/post/fiction/rum-and-coke/again.md

@@ -0,0 +1,425 @@
+---
+categories:
+- Short Story
+series: Rum and Coke
+ratings: X
+date: 2015-09-03
+description: Exes and transition make for a lot of change all at once.
+img: rum-and-coke.png
+type: post
+pdf: rum-and-coke.pdf
+tags:
+- Furry
+- About furry
+- Convention
+- Gender
+- Kink
+- Sexuality
+title: Again
+---
+
+Michael woke blearily to the sounds of muffled giggling, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and lifting his head off the pillow.  He couldn't quite make out what was going on in the bed next to his own, but it appeared to be quite fun, or at least funny.
+
+Rooming with his friends came with its benefits, but also its drawbacks. No one had been particularly shy about the fact that part of the reason they had come to the convention in the first place was to play around and get laid, and that was just sort of part of the bargain when it came to rooming with others.  He smiled slightly that it was those two who had started messing around before he and his own bed-mate had; he knew Bomber had quite the crush on him.
+
+On that note, he rolled over in bed, putting the giggling behind him, and slipped his arm around the still sleeping Bomber.  He fit snuggly behind the slightly smaller form, doing his best not to rouse his friend, content for the moment just to enjoy the shared warmth of laying close to someone.  Bomber, for his part, simply mumbled something incomprehensible and appeared to go right back to sleep, comfortable against Michael's front.
+
+He apparently dozed off, because the next time he woke up, the giggles had been replaced with muffled panting and the quiet, rhythmic rustle of...it couldn't be much more than a blow job, given that only the blankets seemed to be rustling, rather than the entire bed.
+
+"Morn'," mumbled Bomber.
+
+"Shh, quiet," Michael whispered, confirming his hunch with a look over his shoulder.  "Very important things happening over there."
+
+There came a laugh from the other bed, along with a muffled giggle. "Very important, verrrry warm," Alexis replied, voice slurring with the effort of enunciation while receiving oral sex.
+
+Michael rolled slowly onto his back and canted his head to watch the goings on, while Bomber sleepily rolled over next to him and rested his head on Mike's shoulder.
+
+They couldn't see Corrin, and with as skillful as he seemed to be, could barely hear the fox moving rhythmically beneath the covers, except for the rustle of blankets on hair.
+
+Skillful indeed.  Before too much longer had passed, Alexis' eyes shot open and his jaw dropped, breath catching in his throat only to be let out in a hasty, "Oh fuck."  Alexis shuddered, Corrin drastically slowed his movements, and Michael and Bomber looked on in appreciation.
+
+"Mmm, well done, you two," Michael offered, getting a breathy giggle from Alexis and a grin from Bomber, whose own hand was inching its way down over his front, seemingly casually but obviously aiming for the crotch.
+
+Both Michael and Bomber had slept only in their underwear, and watching the little show did have Michael somewhat worked up, so he tolerated the touches -- tentative at first, then a little more exploratory over the tented boxer-briefs that he wore -- though it felt a little awkward with Bomber.  He knew how much he meant to his friend, but considering him only a friend, felt he had little he could offer that would satisfy him. He tended towards women, usually, but wasn't above the friendly touch.
+
+Corrin slunk from under the covers with a sheepish grin on his face, muttering, "Hi, guys."  He kissed Alexis on the cheek, took the other's hand in his own, and guided him out of bed.  "C'mon, let's grab the shower first."
+
+Alexis nodded and managed to slip out of bed behind his friend, tugging his discarded boxers along after him and using them to cover his crotch, walking quickly behind Corrin, who was doing his best to hide his own erection.
+
+"Have fun," Bomber offered.
+
+"Yeah, and save some hot water for the rest of us."
+
+Michael and Bomber settled comfortably back into bed, Bomber nestled in against Mike's side as he continued to pet gently along his friend's flagging arousal, his own pressed firmly to Michael's hip.  After a silence, he asked, "This okay, Roo?"
+
+Michael nodded, eyes closed.
+
+Another long silence, then, "Can...can I do any more?"
+
+Michael hesitated a bit.  There was no denying that the touches felt good, but that lingering sense of awkwardness remained.  "Um...no.  Not this time, maybe soon?" he offered.
+
+Bomber nodded, abashed, and settled himself back against Michael's side.  The touches slowed, but continued, more carefully than before, lest they cross a boundary.  Eventually, they settled to a stop, and Bomber simply slipped his arm around Michael to hug himself closer, murmuring, "This is good, too."
+
+Michael nodded in agreement to that, brushing his hand up along Bomber's back to hug around his shoulders, helping to keep his friend warm against him while they waited on their own turns at the shower.  It would be a bit, yet.
+
+-----
+
+Saturday morning -- nearing afternoon by the time Michael, Bomber, Alexis, and Corrin drew the curtains and made it out of the room -- was a pleasant affair.  The four made their way to a nearby coffee shop, managing to pick up two more along the way: a lion and his intensely shy friend who looked to be some sort of blue fox or wolf, if the tail was anything to go by.
+
+They shared coffee and gossip, laughter at the expense of Alexis and Corrin, and the Shy Blue Fox produced a clipboard with paper from his messenger bag and polled everyone for their species and began sketching.
+
+Michael, from his position next to the Shy Blue Fox, watched the sketch take shape.  He wasn't much of an artist, himself, but always found it fascinating to watch artists work, turning what looked like the simplest of shapes into something that carried meaning.
+
+"Is that you, Roo?" he heard a husky voice from behind him, feeling crossed arms settle onto the back of his chair.
+
+Michael turned quickly.  Something about the voice tickled his memory in strange, not altogether unpleasant ways.  A short man with a well-kept goatee stood back upright behind his chair, crossing his arms over his chest and smiling down to Michael.
+
+"So it is."
+
+"Do I know..." Michael began, half rising out of his chair.
+
+It was the height that tipped him off, more than anything.  The skin was rougher, the hair cut from waist-length to a sort of unisex pixie cut, the facial hair, the masculine, well-built chest.  There was something about how this person was exactly the same height as...
+
+"Glade!  Holy shit, is that you, Glade?"
+
+The other man nodded, then bust into a wide grin, uncrossing his arms and holding them open in an invitation to a hug.  Michael stood fully from his chair and moved cautiously into to the hug, wrapping his arms firmly around Glade for a good long moment before stepping back once again to look over him.  The hug felt familiar, and yet incredibly different at the same time.
+
+"You look...ah...very different," was all he could manage.
+
+Glade laughed easily, tossing his head to clear the hair from in front of his eyes.  "That's an understatement.  What do you think?" he asked, standing a little taller.
+
+Michael couldn't quite keep his mouth from hanging open, much less form any words.  "I...you...well you look good!  You'd always talked about...but I didn't think..."
+
+Glade kept grinning, reaching forward to pat Michael gently on the cheek, "Don't worry, don't need to think too hard.  I'm doing things that make me happy.  I won't pester you too much, I just wanted to say hi.  It's been, what, five years?"
+
+Michael struggled to define what he was feeling, the violent mix of old emotions combined with the surprise of seeing Glade after so long.  All he could do is nod.
+
+The two stood in silence for a moment longer before Glade reached to give Michael's bicep a squeeze, "Well, it's good seeing you.  I'll let you get back to it, maybe see you around?"
+
+Michael nodded and croaked, "See...see you."
+
+When Glade sauntered off and he turned back to the table, he found everyone staring up at him silently. Alexis was the only one who had known Michael long enough to know of the stormy end to his relationship with Glade.  It had been kept behind closed doors for the most part, except for one notable exception, to which Alexis had been witness and help Michael clean up the blood from his broken nose.
+
+"Sorry," he mumbled awkwardly.  "Old friend.  Ex."
+
+The corners of Alexis' mouth twitched up slightly into a smile.
+
+Bomber, sitting on the other side of Michael from the Shy Blue Fox, rested a hand on his knee and gave it a gentle squeeze beneath the table.  "You okay?  Look kinda shocked."
+
+Michael nodded and scooted the last few bites of his breakfast burrito around on his plate before giving up and wrapping his hands around his coffee cup and leaning back in his chair.
+
+"Yeah, it's just a bit of a shock.  We were only together for a year and a half or so, but she...uh, he now, I suppose, cut contact after a bit of a messy breakup. It's just a surprise."
+
+"Been a long time then?"
+
+Michael nodded once more, "Yeah, about five years or so, I think.  Sh- he, I mean, had always talked about gender and stuff, didn't really think they'd...change."
+
+Rubbing his hand on Michael's thigh comfortingly, Bomber nodded.  "That'd be a big shock, I guess."
+
+Michael relinquished his coffee mug to rub his hands over his face before patting at Bomber's own on his leg.  "Jesus.  Yeah.  It's...not bad, of course, I'm happy for...him, but I think I just need to think about it for a bit."
+
+Michael kept quiet through the rest of the brunch with his friends.  Bomber lost interest before long and went back to talking with Corrin and Alexis.  The lion had been edging closer to the Shy Blue Fox, and eventually seemed to cave and just rest his head down on the other's shoulder. watching the lazy sketch session.  The Shy Blue Fox hadn't said more than a handful of words through the whole morning, but the lion didn't seem to mind.  Con love, Michael thought.
+
+It took them longer than Michael would've liked to make it out of the coffee shop.  He hadn't successfully worked through the mess of thoughts and emotions surrounding seeing Glade, and so different now, at least not enough to make it back into the conversation.  However, the hard wood of the seat hadn't let him relax at all, and so he'd been antsy as he alternated between wandering through old memories of his mistress (master?) and watching the Shy Blue Fox finish up his sketch with firmer strokes of his mechanical pencil.  It was a little cartoonish for Michael's taste, but he'd muttered his appreciation and thanks as the Shy Blue Fox tugged the sheet of paper from the clipboard and skimmed it to the middle of the table.
+
+Eventually, a critical moment seemed to be reached when enough people decided that they were done and started clearing up paper cups and clinking plates to bring to the trash and dish drop.  Michael looked cautiously around himself before breathing a sigh of relief when Glade was no where to be found.  He scraped the uneaten bites of his burrito into the garbage and set his place along the growing stack above the trashcan before following his friends out into the sun and warmth.
+
+They trundled back to the convention hotel before all seeming to split and go their separate ways. Alexis made his way to the art show to bid on a piece he'd heard would be in it.  Corrin followed for a few yards before getting intercepted by a friend of his and dragged into a growing conversation circle.  Bomber gave Michael a questioning look before heading off to the Dealer's Den to see if, luck of all luck, they had a mouse tail for him.  The lion and the Shy Blue Fox drifted down the hallway, away from the hubbub of the central lobby to, presumably, make out some more.
+
+Michael stood for a few moments, finally free of the burden of conversation so that he could think about what had just happened.  Glade had always been...
+
+He shook his head to pull himself out of his reverie.  He was staring into space like some lunatic.  He forced his feet to move, carrying him toward the bank of elevators that would take him back to his room.  He did need to think, but he certainly didn't need to do so in the lobby.
+
+He wound up sharing the ride up with a gryphon in suit (which took up most of the back of the elevator, and a skittish, stocky fellow who pressed the button for two, then spent the entire short ride with his palms pressed firmly over his eyes.  When the door opened and he didn't move, Michael gently guided him out of the elevator and received a mumbled, "thanks."
+
+Michael shrugged to the gryphon and hit the door closed button.  The gryphon shrugged back, exaggerated in suit.
+
+Three floors up, Michael made his way out of the elevator, giving the silent fursuiter a wave before trodding off to his room.
+
+Housekeeping had obviously been through the place, replacing glasses, cleaning the bathroom.  He poured himself a rum and coke on a whim -- it was a con, after all -- then flopped down onto one of the freshly made beds and clasped his hands over his front, staring up the ceiling.
+
+There hadn't been a huge, prolonged break-up; just a rough month of small spats and then the crushing argument wherein they had realized that they knew each other less well than they had originally thought.  That was when Glade had spilled her -- no, his -- heart out about the ways in which gender intersected with his life, their relationship, and his sexuality.  Michael had been dismissive, and it hadn't gone over well.
+
+"You get only what you deserve, roo," Glade had growled, punched him in the face, and, minus a few curt emails, that had been the last either had seen of each other.
+
+-----
+
+Michael felt the warmth of the rum-and-cokes he'd had up in the room starting to fill him by the time afternoon slid into evening and he made his way down to the bar. There was something cathartic, in a way, drinking to old memories.  It didn't necessarily resolve anything, but the alcohol could let you pretend that it had.  At least now he felt more able to take in the fact that he would be, in a way, sharing this convention with Glade.  After all, not all of the memories were unpleasant.
+
+The elevators ejected him into a lobby more packed with people than it had been before, filled with hundreds of missed connections.  He made his way languidly through the crowd, scanning faces, scanning badges, handing out smiles.  It felt good.
+
+"Oh hey, it's you guys!"
+
+The lion and the Shy Blue Fox looked up from where they were trying to share a seat in one of the lobby's chairs, one earbud in each of their ears leading to a phone held by the Shy Blue Fox.  They looked up to him slowly, smiled with recognition and reached hands out to grab him in for an awkward hug.  Not sober, but maybe not necessarily drunk, the two seemed more alive and active than they had earlier in the day.
+
+The three of them decided on the hotel restaurant as a good source of dinner.  Expensive, but fitting for three innebriated furries to chill and at least get food in the system before the evening's dances began.  They settled into a booth and ordered a round of drinks, beers and a gin and tonic.
+
+"So," Michael began, putting what he had hoped was a conspiratorial tone in his voice.  "Good day for you two?"
+
+The Shy Blue Fox buried his face in his hands and giggled, while the lion looked serene.  "Mmm, yeah, very good.  Bit of molly, lots and lots and lots of hugs."
+
+Michael laughed out loud.  Colorado wasn't exactly the heart of Ecstacy, but it showed up every now and then.  More common now was marijuana -- legalization had played a roll in a good number of the attendees showing up here, he was sure.
+
+"Good, glad you guys are having a good time."
+
+The lion looked almost beatific as the Shy Blue Fox rubbed himself almost sinuously up against him, reveling in the touch.
+
+"How about you, man?" the lion asked.  "Been a good con so far?"
+
+Michael nodded distractedly and sipped at his water, "Good enough, yeah."
+
+"Saw your...your ex?  Saw your ex showed up, earlier."
+
+"Yeah, I was surprised to see...them here.  I wasn't expecting that."
+
+The lion cocked his head, "Been a long time?"
+
+"Yeah, definitely.  Five years or so."
+
+"Not a pleasant break up?"
+
+"Yeah she...she at the time, broke my nose and we vowed to never see one another again."
+
+"But you hugged-" the Shy Blue Fox began.
+
+Michael brushed it off with a wave of his hand.  "Yeah.  There's a lot there," he stammered, searching for the words.  "Plenty of good memories, along with the bad.  It's good to see her.  Him.  It's good to see him."
+
+Ecstasy, in his own experience, added quite a bit to the level of empathy one normally had, and often led to picking up on cues that were embedded in day to day speech, bits of meaning that exposed more despite all attempts to hide.  It was no different with these two.
+
+"He's not what you were expecting.  Quite the change, huh?"
+
+Michael felt his face flush, and looked down toward the table, nodding.
+
+There was a silence that stretched until their drinks arrived, thankfully not too long.
+
+Finally, the Shy Blue Fox asked, "Do you think you'll see him again, during the con?  Like...actively?"
+
+Michael hid his face in his beer, sipping slowly to buy himself time.  "Maybe."  He set his beer down and twisted the glass between his fingers.  "Maybe."
+
+-----
+
+By the time Michael made it to the dance, he was decidedly buzzy, full of rum and coke, beer, and mediocre pizza from the hotel kitchens.  It was fuel enough for fucking around in the dance, he figured.  Not like anyone was likely to notice his un-fursuited form stomping away on the ballroom floor to deep house or yacht punk or whatever the hell kids were spinning these days.
+
+The dance was a just good way to let loose.  For him and so many others.
+
+He prowled down the long hallway from the hotel restaurant to the ballroom, weaving skillfully between clumsy fursuiters and those moving much slower than he.
+
+He felt good.  Real good.  This had been a good day overall, from watching his friends have their fun in the morning, all the way down to dinner.  Even, he admitted to himself, seeing Glade again, in all his newfound confidence.
+
+The dance was packed, even for as early as it was.  Saturday was one of the two big nights, with a line-up of two-hour DJ sets that lasted nearly until dawn, and programming had stopped hours ago.  So it was to be expected that there would be a ton of people there, Michael thought, showing his badge to the guard at the door and bouncing in time with the thumping music even as he made his way into the ballroom, quickly picking up the time as he moved.
+
+The music washed over him, thick as honey, as he moved out onto the floor.  It pushed at him, tugged at him, guided his movements between the furries out on the floor, both in and out of suit.  He knew he wasn't a graceful dancer, or even a good one, but he couldn't deny how good it felt to move along with the beat.
+
+It was some uncounted number of songs later before he noticed the form moving closer to him, hips swaying in the rhythm of the music through the crowd.  He was sweating, and he could feel dinner's two drinks coursing through his veins, that was about the only indicator he had that it was later on in the evening.
+
+Glade.
+
+He slowed his movements, settled down into a relatively quiet sway where he stood on the dance floor, watching as Glade moved up to him through the crowds.  The presumed hormone therapy had changed the shape of his previous mistress, shifting the bulk of his weight up toward his middle and away from his hips, and what had been a generous bosom had been drastically reduced -- how, he couldn't say.  The walk had changed too, though not in any way he could pinpoint.  More movement to the shoulders, perhaps.
+
+What he saw, stalking toward him rhythmically through the crowd of dancing furries, was a well-built, clean young man, dressed in jeans, a skin-tight shirt, and a leather jacket, who somehow still retained so many recognizable features of his old partner.
+
+Glade reached out and took his hand, drawing him dancingly from the floor and away from the speakers to the back of the room.  Michael followed helplessly, half in awe and half in shock at his former mistress' directness.
+
+They both moved subconsciously to the beat, shifting their hips and their weight in time with the music, then nearly pausing as the beat built up to the drop.
+
+Glade brought him to an unoccupied section of the wall at the back of the ballroom and turned him firmly so that his back was to the wall, then pressed him up to it.  He seemed deliberate in his actions, making sure that Michael's back was flat against the wall before planting his hands surely beneath each of his arms, leaning in close to him.  He had to stretch up a little in order to make himself heard as he spoke quietly.
+
+"Lets have some closure here, roo."
+
+Michael swallowed roughly at the sure signs of dominance that remained in his ex's actions.  "What," he began, and swallowed once more.  "What sort of closure do you want?"
+
+"One more night," Glade murmured.  "Tonight, you're mine, we take what we had at the best of times, and have that be the end, and we go back to being comfortable friends, rather than what we had before."
+
+"But you're-"
+
+"I'm me, and all you need to be is my little pet roo, just once more."
+
+Michael swallowed hard once more, keeping his hands flat against the fabric of the dividing wall behind him.  The alcohol, the dominance, the familiarity all worked in Glade's favor, and he couldn't do much to suppress the excitement that had lingered since that violent outburst that had ended their relationship in the first place.
+
+All he had to do was reconcile that it was really over, and on agreeable terms.
+
+He felt dizzy, looked up to find no relief in the swirling lasers and lights that projected from the stage, a glowing arachnid of greens, blues, and purples.
+
+"T-tonight," he stammered, "I'll be your little pet roo."
+
+The grin that creased Glade's face was knowing, pleased, with maybe a touch of evil.  The music began to rise once more in a crescendo.
+
+"You're already a little buzzed, I can smell the beer."  Glade held up a slender tube which tapered to a small mouthpiece and glowed with a blue LED, "Will you still be my good little pet if I get you a little more buzzed?"
+
+It took Michael a moment to understand what was being offered.  Once he figured out the vape pen, he nodded shakily.  Glade knew him through and through, knew how much he liked placing himself into someone else's hands.  Glade took the nod as assent and tilted the mouthpiece of the vape to his lips, not yet pressing the button that activated the heating coil.
+
+"You'll be my pet?"
+
+Michael nodded.
+
+"You'll please your dom?"
+
+Michael took in the new term, nodded.
+
+"I've got my crop."
+
+Michael flushed in the dark, nodded.
+
+"Do you have your paws with you?"
+
+Another nod.
+
+"Same safeword.  'Rouge'?"
+
+Michael squirmed between Glade and the wall, nodded once more.
+
+Glade pressed down on the stud that activated the vape and pressed the tip of it between Michael's lips, quietly instructing, "Breathe in.  Slow."
+
+Michael knew the theory behind the devices, and so he breathed in slowly and carefully, tasting the not-quite-smoke flavor of pot on his tongue and down his throat, flowing liquidly within him and filling him with both a sense of fullness-of-being and hunger that he couldn't quite put his finger on.
+
+The devices were frowned upon by the hotel, no matter what they contained, so Glade kept the LEDs covered by his finger and palm, letting Michael have a good long inhale before swiftly pocketing the vape once more.
+
+Michael held the warm vapor for a few seconds, then let it out with a few gentle coughs, muffling the sound as best he could.
+
+"Come on," Glade said, with a sudden, earnest smile.  "Let's finish this set, at least."
+
+The two moved back out onto the dance floor.
+
+Michael felt the pot take him over in a matter of minutes, rolling in from his extremities until he felt as though he was dissipating into a cloud.  The music moved through him with such ease, and he felt like some luminous being, moving against and with the other luminous being of Glade, enjoying both the space and tension between themselves, as well as the friction of cloth on cloth or leather as they brushed up against one another.
+
+Some unknown amount of time later, the set drew to a close amid the cheers of their fellow dancers, and Michael and Glade drifted from the dance floor, hand in hand, out past the guard and into the hallway.
+
+Michael found it difficult to stop dancing, swaying gently from side to side and rocking his weight back and forth even as they made their way over to the bank of elevators.  Glade laughing at him was all he needed in terms of encouragement.  He got the impression that Glade himself wasn't entirely sober, and he felt in good company -- comfortable, like how he used to feel when they smoked together.
+
+They made their way to the elevators and stood with a tired looking canine suiter and a few other up-late furries, waiting.
+
+Glade leaned in against his arm and tugged him down a little closer, murmuring, "Your room okay?"
+
+Michael nodded.  The whole room had agreed to let private liaisons be allowed, and so anyone who was there and not already in the middle of something should agree to clear out if Michael needed.
+
+The ride up was uneventful, and likewise opening the door into an empty room.  Alexis was probably still dancing with Corrin, and Bomber was probably hovering around the edges of the dance, unsure of where he belonged.
+
+Michael slipped into the room with Glade, then bent down to offer a kiss, falling back into old habits with the drink and pot filling him with warmth.  Glade leaned up to meet the kiss, but quickly took Michael's lower lip between his own and bit down on it.  He tugged carefully downward until Michael's face was level with his own before letting up on the bite.  "You going to be a good pet tonight?"
+
+Michael sucked his lower lip into his mouth and searched briefly for the taste of blood before nodding bashfully, "I'm going to be a good pet."
+
+"Strip, then," Glade ordered imperiously.  "And get your paws on."
+
+Michael hesitated, swaying a little on his feet.  Glade reached behind his back and extracted a small riding crop from his back pocket, simply holding it at his side.
+
+Michael got the hint, and slipped over to where his bag lay next to the bed, fishing out his paws: gloves of dark brown faux fur.  He moved back to where Glade stood and carefully slipped out of his shirt and tugged his jeans and underwear off, standing exposed and erect in front of Glade. He shivered slightly in the air-conditioned room, though at least half of that was due to his excitement.
+
+"Now me," Glade ordered quietly, holding his arms out.
+
+"Yes mistr-" Michael began, before realizing his mistake.  He winced as Glade raised the crop, then braced himself and held still.  There was a quick crack and an almost satisfying sting against the left cheek of his buttocks.
+
+"You will call me Dom Glade, little pet," he purred.  "No more slip-ups."
+
+"Yes...Dom Glade," Michael whispered.  The strike had hurt initially, but with his body buzzing in its high, the sting was quickly turning into the familiar pleasant sensation they had experimented with so long ago.
+
+Glade held his arms out and let the naked Michael slip the leather jacket off, then lifted his arms for Michael to lift his shirt.  There was something intimate about undressing his former partner, even having been ordered to do so, and he took his time, being mindful of the crop.
+
+Beneath his shirt, Glade was bare, no binder or anything.  There were just two well-healed scars, each curving gently beneath his nipples, where the mastectomy had taken place.  Michael brushed his hands, fuzzy in their paws, softly down over his ex's chest, wonderingly.  There was so much more body hair than he had remembered, more than some of his roommates here at the con, come to think of it.
+
+"There you go, little roo," Glade murmured, sounding pleased.  "You're halfway there.  Kneel to do the rest."
+
+Michael nodded and obediently lowered himself to his knees, reaching up with his paws to work on unfastening the button of Glade's jeans, fumbling partly because of the fake fur and partly out of nerves and excitement.  Glade wore boxers -- though he always had -- which slipped part way off his hips as his jeans were carefully tugged lower.
+
+Michael reached his fur covered hands up to rest just above the wasteband of Glade's pants and underwear, uncertainty growing within him.  He finally smoothly slid his hands down, taking the garments along with them to free his ex from his pants.  He hadn't been sure what to expect, seeing that Glade had opted for top surgery, but found himself confronted with the neatly trimmed crotch that still felt familiar to after all these years.
+
+Glade chuckled quietly above him, drawing the tongue of his crop up along Michael's back to tease gently across his shoulders.  "Expecting something different, little pet?"
+
+Michael flushed and drew his hands lightly up over Glade's legs once more, the fur of the gloves brushing through the hair of his ex's body.  "I...don't know what I was expecting."
+
+Glade tapped the leather tongue of the crop gently against the back of Michael's head, "I'm comfortable how I am.  I can present how I like, and little pets can still worship me."
+
+His cheeks still red, Michael nodded and swallowed, carefully rehearsing in his arousal- and drug-addled mind what he was going to say next.  "May I worship you, Dom Glade?"
+
+Glade walked slowly around Michael as he sat, kneeling and aroused on the floor.  He seemed intent on drawing the moment out and letting Michael stew.  The tongue of the crop kept tapping and prodding, as though it were inspecting all the ways in which his body had changed over the years.  The process of waiting had that flavor of delightful agony that Michael knew Glade was keen on.
+
+Finally, Glade relented and sat back on the edge of the bed behind Michael, tapping him gently on the shoulder with the crop before leaning back onto one of his hands.  "There's a dam in one of the pockets of my coat.  Get that, and you may worship me."
+
+Michael tried not to appear too eager as he crawled over to the crumpled jacket and tugged out the plastic-wrapped dental dam.  Aside from a few instances of almost fooling around, like that morning, he had been mostly abstinent throughout the last five years, and he lept at the chance to service his old owner as he used to (with that bit of latex in between, this time -- they weren't fluid-bonded anymore).  It might be the alcohol and pot buzzing through him, but he felt right, in his place.
+
+Glade kept his noises primarily to purrs and growls, huskier than Michael remembered.  Even so, the act maintained its familiarity to him: the long teasing licks, the shorter feathery ones, lazily spelling his name out in cursive against the latex of the dam before delving a little more adventurously between the labia of his former -- and once more -- lover.  His hands, still stuffed in their paws, alternated between gentle brushings and firmer pets along Glade's legs, showing his adoration as he worshipped the best way he knew how.
+
+He read his partner's body as best he could, finding all the spots that led to the reactions he craved.  He would focus there, then drift his attention elsewhere, not letting any one spot get played out.  Despite the years intervening, he still felt as though he knew Glade's body thoroughly.
+
+"H-huff," Glade breathed with a stiff shudder.  "Mmn, such a good little pet."
+
+Michael relaxed back onto his heels, peering up along Glade's more masculine body, eager to receive the praise.
+
+"You did well, roo," Glade growled, hefting himself up further onto the bed.  "Come up here by me, there's one more thing I want you to do, and I know you deserve it."
+
+Michael nodded shyly and stood to his feet, feeling the blood flow freely through his cramped legs.  He moved around to the side of the bed before climbing in, stretching out alongside his ex.
+
+Glade leaned in closer and bit gently at the lobe of his ear, whispering quietly while he was there, "I want you to paw, just one more time for me. I want to see you get off."
+
+Michael blushed and nodded, still shivering at the bite to his ear.  "Yes...yes, Dom Glade."
+
+He moved to slip one of his hands out of the paw mitts, only to feel the sharp crack of the crop against his thigh.
+
+"But leave those on."
+
+Michael swallowed.  He knew he'd make a mess of the paws, that was inevitable.  He also knew how to clean them, though, and so after a moment, he nodded and rolled onto his back.
+
+His erection hadn't let up since Glade had first gotten his attention with the questions on the dance floor, and by now, he felt an aching need for release.  The fur of the paws was dry and coarse against his stiff shaft, and though he usually required lube for masturbation, it seemed to feel just right to curl the clumsy fingers loosely around his cock and stroke along it gently.
+
+It didn't take much, really.  The tickling of the fur and the occasional squeeze around the base of his cock as he stroked was enough to get him closer and closer to his orgasm.  What finally did it, though, was that last bit of mental stimulation when Glade leaned in close against him and nuzzled up to his ear, murmuring, "You are just such. A good. Boy."
+
+His heavy breaths were cut short with a quiet whimper and he gripped tightly around the base of his shaft with his fur-covered hand and felt the rush of pleasure wash over him, felt the first few spurts of seed land on his front, and the rest dribble down over the brown fur of his paw.
+
+"God, I missed that," Glade cooed as Michael settled back down onto the bed.
+
+"Nnnf."
+
+Glade grinned and gave a gentle kiss to Michael's cheek before levering himself up out of bed.  "Thank you, little pet.  Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got some other parties to go to."
+
+"Huh?  But..." Michael began.
+
+"Hush, you did good."
+
+Michael leaned up onto one elbow, watching Glade tug his boxers and pants back on, then hunt for his shirt.  "What...what was that?  For us, I mean."
+
+Glade tugged his t-shirt back over his head and stood, regarding Michael for a moment.  "Closure," he said simply.
+
+"And where do we go from here?"
+
+"I don't know, roo, I really don't.  I just feel like we're in a better place from where we left off before."
+
+Michael nodded.
+
+His head still spun.
+
+-----
+
+There was an electric-mechanical click as the lock on the door activated, and Michael jolted upright in bed, rushing to cover himself with his hands as he sat up.  He must've drifted off once Glade had slipped out of the room to head to his party.  He was still wearing the paws, even.
+
+Bomber slipped quietly into the room, saw Michael in his messy and furry state, and smiled bashfully, turning away to face the wall.  "Need a moment?"
+
+Michael shook the paws off of his hands quickly and ducked over the edge of the bed to snag his underwear, slipping them on quickly, "Just...ah, just woke up.  You're fine."
+
+Bomber laughed and slid further into the room, slipping out of his canvas jacket and sitting down on the bed.  "Hope I didnt interrupt, thought you were just sleeping."
+
+"I probably was, at that," Michael mumbled, rubbing his hands over his face, before reaching for his shirt to wipe up his spilled cum.
+
+The two sat in awkward silence for a minute or so before Bomber asked, "Good evening, then?"
+
+Michael let out a breath, more forcefully than he had intended.  "Yeah.  Glade came over.  Bit of...bit of the old days, I guess."
+
+Bomber nodded and fiddled with one of his fingernails.
+
+"Sorry," Michael offered.  "Maybe a bit much information."
+
+"It's okay," Bomber responded.  "Just wondering what he means to you."
+
+Sensing the undercurrent of meaning, Michael reached a hand over to rest on Bomber's knee.  "We broke up, a long time ago. I don't think that's going to change."  He took a deep breath before continuing, "I know you like me, Bomber, and I know I've been distant, but I just don't really know where my head is anymore.  Glade meant enough to me that I don't know what to do after that ended."
+
+"I can't really say I know how you feel," the mouse replied hesitantly.  "I've never been in a situation like that.  I don't want to push you or anything, I just like you, I guess."
+
+Michael nodded, silent.
+
+The two sat for a while longer, touching and keeping contact.
+
+Finally, Bomber asked, "Think you guys will hook up again?"
+
+Michael thought for a moment, then shrugged, "Probably not.  Not in the same way we did before, certainly, but it's good to have contact open again."
+
+Bomber looked down and nodded.
+
+Michael laughed and leaned over to hug both arms around his friend, "Hey, don't worry, whatever happens happens, not leaving my friends behind at all."

content/post/fiction/rum-and-coke/how-many.md

@@ -0,0 +1,511 @@
+---
+categories:
+- Short Story
+series: Rum and Coke
+ratings: X
+date: 2015-09-02
+description: 'Navigating poly is an ongoing process demarcated. Chief among them: first meetings.'
+img: rum-and-coke.png
+type: post
+pdf: rum-and-coke.pdf
+tags:
+- Furry
+- About furry
+- Convention
+- Mental health
+- Anxiety
+- Sexuality
+title: How Many?
+---
+
+"Oh for pete's sake, quit fretting," Andrew chided, bumping his elbow against Ian's as they crowded into the too-narrow seats. Neither of them were all that skinny anymore, and Andrew was bordering on fat, to Ian's stocky.
+
+Ian closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, focusing on wedging himself in between the window and his boyfriend, counting up slowly through the numbers as he absentmindedly slipped the buckle around his waist.
+
+"Sorry, Ian. I know it's probably harder for you than for me. Like...twice as hard, or was it three times..." Andrew continued, a slight smile twisting the corners of his mouth.
+
+Ian had to smile as well, caving to his partner's wiles and leaning over to place a kiss on his cheek. "I'm just happy you're coming with, really. I can't promise I won't be freaking the whole time, but at least there will be wolves to come back to in the evenings."
+
+Andrew grinned, "Damn right there will! No gallivanting off with weasels for me. Just sitting in the room, twiddling my thumbs, waitin-"
+
+Ian kicked Andrew's foot under the airline seats before settling down against the side of the wall of the plane. "You get plenty of fox time, don't you worry. Rei's there with his whole group of friends. I'm not going to leave you hanging or anything."
+
+"I know, I know. You've told me a few times. I swear you have all your bases covered, just relax and promise me you'll have a good time."
+
+"I'll...I'll try. I promise I'll try."
+
+Ian jumped as there came a steady, barking sound beneath their feet, clutching earnestly at the arm rests as though he might actually leap to his feet, though the plane was taxiing steadily to the runway.
+
+"Hey, hush," Andrew soothed. "Don't worry, it's a normal sound. Just...just make sure you count, and you'll be fine, promise."
+
+Ian nodded. He edged his hands from where they were grabbing at the seat to mock stretch, feeling the sweat coating his palms. Dragging his palms along his jeans from knees to waist, he did his best to calm down and simply let his hands rest, adopting the attitude of someone who wasn't terrified of what was to come, as if that would keep him calm.
+
+It didn't.
+
+Once the engines started to spin up, Ian went rigid, his whole body tensing from head to foot. He deliberately edged his hands back to the armrests, only to find his right hand intercepted by Andrews. Holding gratefully onto both his boyfriend and the plane, he closed his eyes and began counting.
+
+"One, two, three," he mouthed silently, tracing the outline of each number in his mind as he counted up. "Four, five..." The plane began to shake, his eyes went from merely closed to clenched shut. "Six, seven, eight, nine," he continued, feeling himself sink back into his seat with the acceleration, feeling Andrew's hand getting coated with the sweat from his own. "Ten...eleven..."
+
+"Keep counting," Andrew urged quietly, leaning his bulk toward Ian so that the other could feel the comforting touch all the way from fingertips up to shoulder.
+
+Ian's lips stopped moving, but he kept up the ritual in his head, tracing the numbers, drawing them with a saturated brush on imaginary paper in his mind, from eleven on up. By the time he reached seventy, the plane had gone airborne and made its first little dip after takeoff. By the time he reached one hundred, they were climbing steadily out of Portland International, and he felt more settled than he had during take-off. Just to be sure, however, he began counting once again, starting over at one. It was one of the rules: never count above one hundred.
+
+Andrew, well accustomed to the ritual, relaxed his grip on Ian's hand when he felt him settle down next to him. He knew how much internal strife the anxiety caused, and he knew that it had a half life, decaying exponentially into the ground state, something just slightly more anxious than what he supposed he would consider his own 'normal'. Being a hand to grab as needed was one of the roles he played.
+
+-----
+
+It took seventeen counts of one-hundred to make it through the flight. The nice part about flying, Ian knew, is that by the time one was at cruising altitude, the plane seemed to morph from a trap into simply a cramped, tube-shaped room. The view out the window turned from horrifying evidence of their speed to something like a tapestry being drawn slowly beneath him. At that point, height seemed to matter less because it was outside his brain's ability to grasp.
+
+The counting came up primarily during take-off, landing, and any turbulence -- twice there -- as well as the stolid progress of the flight attendants down the aisle-way. They were seated just aft of the wings on this flight, which afforded Ian plenty of time to watch the cart of drinks make its way row by row down the aisle, and he found himself counting -- twice again -- out of habit as he fretted about what to order to drink, knowing that he'd fail to be understood when the time came.
+
+"Rum-and-coke," he answered, well rehearsed, when the attendant finally made it to him. There was no fall, no muttering or mumbling, nothing exploded, just a quiet response.
+
+The flight attendant accepted his card as he reached past Andrew, knowing that the alcohol would likely calm him in the short term at the expense of the long term.
+
+Andrew knew this too, and murmured to him as his plastic tumbler of ice was prepped, "You sure, hon? I suppose we land late enough we can take it easy..."
+
+"Or stop and get another drink before dinner," Ian joked, accepting the cup, can, and tiny bottle of rum.
+
+Andrew thought for a minute, then shrugged, "We probably could, at that. Vacation Rules."
+
+Vacation Rules meant different things to Andrew than it did to Ian. For Andrew, it meant a relaxation of the stringent ways in which he kept himself, letting the excess that had led to his belly creep into other areas of his life. For Ian, it was another ritual in and of itself, a way to follow up ever action one took with "but we're on vacation" as a means of alleviating the inner tension that went along with his anxiety.
+
+This particular vacation had come with all sorts of extra rules for both of them. Andrew and Ian had made it to plenty of different conventions in the past, both together and separate, but this was the first time both would be going to the same convention with Rei also there. They'd talked through the procedures involved in visiting a shared third partner plenty of times in the past, but only in the last few months had it involved a third partner involved only with one of the two.
+
+It's not that Rei and Andrew didn't get along. They got along fine. They just never seemed to connect on the same level that Rei and Ian had, and they both had seemed happy with that.
+
+Even as Ian counted his way through the plane's choppy descent into Colorado, he felt giddy, as well as nervous. Going through the process of getting close with Andrew, going through the outings-with-friends that slowly turned into dates, had felt natural, but this was something wholly different.
+
+He was going to a Convention! To go on a Date! With someone he *Liked*!
+
+It was all so explicit.
+
+He had only made it up to about thirty-eight or so by the time the plane touched down once more, and was still gripping Andrew's hand in his own. He couldn't stop now, though, so even though Andrew turned to face him, he held up a hand to signal the wait as he made his way through the rest of the numbers before finally settling back into his seat, turning to smile sheepishly at his boyfriend.
+
+"So, um...about that second drink?"
+
+-----
+
+The couple managed to make it all the way to the hotel without stopping, despite the rising panic on Ian's part, checking his pockets repeatedly to make sure that he hadn't misplaced his phone, wallet, or keys -- the all-important keys with their little vial of emergency pills. No matter how thoroughly he convinced himself that he had everything that he needed, the results would slowly fade into is-it-a-dream-land, and he'd begin questioning his judgement again.
+
+He kept his mouth shut, though, and mostly just clutched at Andrew's hand, letting himself be led to the shuttle, to the hotel, to the front desk, to their room, before finally letting his guard down.
+
+"Hey," Andrew said quietly, resting his hands on Ian's slumped shoulders and guiding him into a hug. "We made it. We don't have to do anything else tonight, except maybe get that drink. That sound good?"
+
+Ian leaned tiredly into the hug, slipping his arms around his boyfriend's waist and holding himself close for a moment, just nodding.
+
+"Need a shower or anything?" Ian asked after a moment.
+
+Andrew shook his head.
+
+Ian nodded and pulled out his phone, quelling the feeling of being sweaty, being caked with sweat, being coated with grime, dirt and grease, grease so thick it showed through his clothes, enveloped them, darkened and then made them translucent, coating him in-
+
+"Ready hon?"
+
+Ian nodded, relaxing his grip on his phone long enough to text Rei to tell him where they would be before stuffing the phone into his pocket. "Yep, let's go," he chirped, striding to the door before another cycle had the chance to start up.
+
+They made their way down the hallway to the stairs, thankful for the low floor as the elevators were already starting to back up with fur-clad congoers. Elevators were usually okay for Ian, except late at night, and except for glass elevators. Since there would doubtless be late nights at the con and since this hotel had glass-walled elevators overlooking an atrium, they'd specifically requested a lower floor when booking, and had been pleasantly surprised by a room on the second floor.
+
+As they trooped tiredly down the stairs, Ian thought for a moment before pulling out his keys and unscrewing the vial containing his medications.
+
+"Think you'll need that?" Andrew asked.
+
+"Think I already do."
+
+Andrew nodded a little and continued on to the landing before pausing to let Ian catch up.
+
+He carefully split one of the small tablets in half and placed one of the halves beneath his tongue, the learned reaction to the taste bringing an almost immediate sense of calm, however superficial.
+
+"Gonna be okay taking that with a drink?"
+
+"I should be, yeah," Ian responded. "If anything, it'll just make me sleepy, and sleepy is an okay way to be."
+
+Andrew brushed his hand down over Ian's back and nodded, "Well, just keep an eye on yourself. Yap if you need anything."
+
+"Yap!" Ian grinned.  "Like that?"
+
+He followed Andrew down the rest of the steps, yapping as he planted his foot on each one. The meds hadn't even started to kick in yet, but he knew they would, and knowing that was enough to lift his spirits to the point where he was actually looking forward to the bar, to seeing Rei.
+
+Rei was shockingly easy to spot at the bar. He wasn't remarkable in his build, but having bleach-blond hair made him stick out in a sea of dark.
+
+"There he is. There he is!" Ian exclaimed and bounded ahead of Andrew. He took the steps up to the bar -- a group of two and a group of three separated by a small landing (five was a perfectly acceptable number) -- and called out, "Rei!"
+
+The man with the blond hair shot upright and pocketed his phone quickly. "Ast! Is that you?" he asked, meeting Ian -- or Ast, as he knew him -- in a quick, firm hug. "Jeez, it's good to see you!"
+
+The two regrouped into a more comfortable, less hasty hug, leaning in against each other and simply spending a moment holding tight. The sound of a shutter clicking brought Ian back to attention and he turned his head quickly to see Andrew grinning from behind his phone, holding it up to take another picture.
+
+"H-hey!" Ian stammered.
+
+Rei laughed and grinned, "You must be Andrew. Gonna have to send me those pictures."
+
+Ian felt himself flush, biting back a stinging retort and simply tucking his head back over Rei's shoulder, thankful that they were about the same height. He focused instead on counting. He didn't need a hundred, but he made sure to hold the hug until fifteen. Three and five were particularly auspicious.
+
+Slipping away from Rei, Ian gestured to Andrew, "Um, let me formally introduce you two. Andrew, Rei. Rei, this is Andrew."
+
+They shook hands, then seemed to think better of it and hugged before settling into stools around the bar table, Andrew picking up where Ian left off. "Ast's told me a lot about you, too. Good to finally put a face behind the name.  And hey, I like your hair."
+
+"Hah, thanks. Yeah, it feels like I already kind of know you." Rei said, rubbing at the back of his neck.  "I uh...I hope it isn't too weird meeting up with your boyfriend's partner. I don't want to...like, impose or anything."
+
+Andrew shook his head and put his hands up disarmingly. "No, trust me, it's fine. We've had this talk so many times just between the two of us, it's good to put it into practice."
+
+The tinkling of glasses breaking behind the group drew their attention, and they turned to see a young woman in paws and a tail rush to clean up a small flood of drink from the table. Ian saw her cut herself on a piece of broken glass, feeling the glass slice into his own flesh within his mind, and winced, swiveling back to face his own table, clasping his hands together in front of himself to keep himself from forcing both Andrew and Rei to turn away, second-hand embarrassment running deep.
+
+Ian had realized how close he was to panicking and had taken the brief, calm interaction between his two partners to clutch at the edge of the table for dear life and work on calming himself. Breathe, slow, calm, chill, breathe. Simple one-syllable words said in order to restore a sense of balance within himself. Finally, he stood, paced in a quick circle behind his chair and shook his hands to dry the sweat from his palms, before settling back onto the stool and grinning sheepishly at Andrew and Rei.
+
+"Sorry," he said breathlessly. "I'm really excited. Um...hi!"
+
+Rei looked a touch taken aback, but Andrew laughed. "Long flight, we're both a little on edge. Seen the waitress around here? I think a drink might do all of us good."
+
+Rei smiled warily, but nodded to someone behind Andrew, catching the eye of the server.
+
+"Help you gents?" the man asked, whisking a cocktail napkin down in front of each of them with practiced ease.
+
+"What beers do you have?" Andrew asked.
+
+The server rattled off a list. The only one that seemed to ring a bell outside of the standard macrobrews was some craft beer, so Andrew ordered that.
+
+Ian tore his gaze off of the table and managed to order a rum and coke. He focused on not fiddling with his napkin too much as Rei ordered a mojito.
+
+Once the server went back over to his station to put in the order, Ian rested a hand on both Andrew's and Rei's knees. Forcing himself into a calmer composure, he smiled between the two of them, "Really glad we could make it, and really good to finally see you, Rei."
+
+Andrew simply smiled back, but Rei leaned in to kiss Ian on the cheek, "You okay there, fox? You seem pretty on edge. Rough flight?"
+
+Ian swallowed hard and quelled the sense of unbalance of only being kissed on one cheek. He focused on the swelling warmth inside his chest, the first sign that the anxiolytics were kicking in. "Uh, well, yeah. I'm just really anxious. Like, most of the time. I'm sorry, it sometimes comes out in strange ways."
+
+Rei reached a hand over and brushed it down Ian's back before resting it on the chair behind him, "No, it's okay! I just wasn't sure what was up, is all."
+
+"I type better than I talk," Ian admitted. "And I talk better if I'm pacing."
+
+Andrew leaned over and knowingly placed a kiss on Ian's other cheek, helping to restore balance, "Hey, don't worry about it, hon. We're all just animals here, no need to worry about how you talk."
+
+Ian was sure that he was blushing red. Bright red, cherry red, fire-engine red, beet red, turning purple, lips blueing, struggling for air, hypoxic. No, none of those. Just blushing, he smiled and gave the knee under each of his hands a gentle squeeze, murmuring, "Just really glad."
+
+Once the drinks arrived, Ian felt that he could relax. The warmth within his chest swelled slowly and was augmented by the addition of the rum in his drink. Conversation eased for him, and he felt himself opening up both to Rei and Andrew. His two lovers shared an occupation as software developers and had plenty to talk about when Ian's stories of online goings-on flagged. He felt comfortable sitting between them, watching someone dressed as a cat flirt with someone who was dressed for something other than the convention, who may not actually have been a part of the convention, but was willing to humor the cat.
+
+Balance became less of a pressing concern as the meds took firmer hold, but even so, as Andrew and Rei chatted about computers, Ian revelled in the feeling of love flowing out from himself and into himself evenly from both sides.
+
+-----
+
+As the night wore on, through at least two more rounds, Ian settled into a very comfortable spot between Andrew and Rei. The medication he'd taken had filled his head with the softness of cotton and soothed the jagged edges of his anxiety, leaving him feeling almost languid in combination with the alcohol. He contented himself with touching each of his partners, sometimes evenly, sometimes not, enjoying the slight thrill of the lack of symmetry.
+
+By the time he started to feel as though he was nodding, he had his hands entwined with Andrew's and Rei's both.
+
+"Hey, I'm fading, guys," Andrew murmured. He'd always been something of a lightweight when it came to drinking. "Mind if I call it? You two can totally keep up or do whatever."
+
+Rei nodded, "Sure, I've had about my fill of these stools, anyway. Do you...um, do you mind if I steal Ast for a little while?"
+
+Ian felt the blush begin to return as his partners talked about him so plainly.
+
+Andrew laughed, "Sure, go ahead, as long as that's okay with you, hon. You guys should spend some time together."
+
+The blush deepened, but Ian nodded and said, "Yeah, I'd like that. I'll be back tonight, okay?"
+
+Nodding and leaning in to give him a light kiss, Andrew smiled, "You, sir, need to have a good evening, don't fret any. You know where I'll be and how to get in touch. Have fun, you two."
+
+Andrew sauntered off and left Ian with Rei, the both of them sitting in silence for a moment longer.
+
+Finally, Rei offered shyly, "Would you like to head up to the room? Not, like, for anything, just some place quieter? Roommates should be out still."
+
+Ian squeezed Rei's hand in both of his own. "Yeah, let's do that. I'm a little buzzy, and it's a little loud down here."
+
+Rei nodded and moved to settle the tab, covering all three's drinks over Ian's protests, before standing. The two smiled at each other and, before his sleep-, medication-, and alcohol-addled mind had the chance to talk him out of it, Ian stood quickly and leaned to give Rei a soft kiss, more of a smooch than anything.
+
+Rei looked a little startled, but smiled all the wider, slipping his arm around Ian's back and gently guiding him out of the bar, the two talking softly about how good it was to finally have the chance to meet.
+
+"So," Rei said as the door to the room shut behind them. "How'd you and Andrew meet, anyway? I mean, I know how we met..."
+
+Ian laughed and settled onto the bed that Rei led him too, leaning back onto his hands. "We actually met outside of furry, at school. Our campus had a GLBT Student Services office, and we both met there, though I think it only took us a couple of days to figure out that we were both into the furry thing. He's been in it a lot longer than I have."
+
+Rei slipped his messenger bag off of his shoulder and set it down atop a hard-shell suitcase as Ian talked, chatting about how he and Andrew had started dating by default, but found themselves more than compatible.
+
+Rei slipped up onto the bed behind Ian, carefully settling himself on the bed with his legs to either side of his partner's waist. He leaned back onto one of his own hands before carefully drawing Ian toward his front, letting him rest half in his lap, half against his slender front.
+
+Ian fretted for a moment about letting his weight rest against Rei before remembering Andrew's admonition. He had fallen silent when his partner had drawn him close like that, and eventually he managed to relax, murmuring affectionately, "Weasels are slinky."
+
+Rei chuckled and placed a kiss atop Ian's head, replying, "It's in the job description. We can't help it."
+
+Sighing quietly at the kiss, Ian settled both of his hands on Rei's arm around his front and made himself cozy. Everything felt warm, comfortable. There wasn't the same safe feeling he felt with Andrew, but he figured that would come in time.  For now, he was content to rest against his lover, asking quietly, "How do you feel about tonight? I hope it wasn't too, you know...awkward."
+
+Rei appeared to think for a moment, then shrugged. "It was good. I mean, I've talked with Andrew some, too, it's not like we don't have anything to talk about or anything."
+
+"But it wasn't weird with me being affectionate with both of you?" Ian fidgeted, "Wasn't weird when I kissed him?"
+
+Rei shook his head. "No. I'm happy to have the time with you now, but I still really enjoyed the evening." He paused for a moment, then asked, "Did the evening make you anxious?"
+
+Ian shook his head drowsily, hiking himself up a little further onto the bed so that he could rest more comfortably against Rei, "Not really, no, just wanted to make sure. I took meds before meeting you in the bar."
+
+Squeezing him a little tighter against his front, Rei nodded silently.
+
+Ian lay for a little bit longer, but eventually sat up, turned to face his partner, and leaned in to kiss him once more, more thoroughly this time. Rei carefully brought both arms up around Ian's shoulders and guided him down to the bed as he lay flat on his back.
+
+Ian shifted up along Rei's front, careful to match movements and stay close. He made sure to set his elbows down to either side of Rei, resting most of his weight on them. The kiss lingered a little longer before parting with the two looking quietly at each other.
+
+"I'm not crushing you, am I?" Ian asked quietly.
+
+"Hush, fox," Rei laughed, taking a cue from Andrew. "Don't fret."
+
+-----
+
+Ian edged his way as quietly as he could into his room, finding it totally dark.
+
+"Mmm, good evening, hon?" he heard from the blackness, letting the door shut quietly behind him.
+
+Ian nodded before realizing that Andrew wouldn't be able to see him, even if he had his eyes open. "Mmhm, just some cuddling, was nice," he murmured, kicking his shoes off and tugging his shirt up over his head.
+
+"Yeah, you weren't gone all that long."
+
+He blushed at the implication. Had he been gone longer...but no, that was anxiety talking. Anxiety that was growing sharper edged as time went by -- the medication was starting to wear thin.
+
+"C'mere, hon," Andrew murmured from the bed. "I'm up now."
+
+Ian slipped out of his pants and down to his briefs, sitting for a moment on the edge of the bed. He could still feel Rei's warmth in his arms by its absence, still catch the faint scent of him in his hair. And yet, here was his boyfriend of the last six years.
+
+Shaking his head to clear the confused tangle of thoughts, he tugged the covers up and slid beneath them alongside Andrew. He leaned in to kiss his partner three times, softly on the lips, before turning his back to him and nestling snug against his front. This is where he belonged. There was belonging with Rei, too, but this is where he was meant to be.
+
+Andrew's arms slipped comfortably around his chest in the dark, pulling Ian warmly against his front, the soft breaths against the back of his neck raising small bumps from there all the way down his arms. "Shh, just relax," came the whispered words against his neck.
+
+Ian did his best to follow his boyfriend's suggestion, settling and relaxing within his grip by conscious effort. Andrew was warm behind him, belly pressed to the small of his back and hips pressed to his backside. He'd apparently been woken during quite the dream as the firm ridge within his boxer-briefs nudging along Ian's rear attested.
+
+He stayed quiet, stayed still, stayed relaxed. This is where he belonged. His own erection strained at the front of his underwear, pent up after an evening of closeness with his other partner and still no release.
+
+One of Andrew's hands wandered sleepily down over his front, brushing over freshly-shaved skin to trace a delicate fingertip along that tented fabric, "Mmm, definitely didn't get up to much, did you, fox?"
+
+Ian melted into his boyfriend's arms and let out a quiet moan. For all his anxiety and all the obsession over being in control, letting Andrew control things completely during sex was one of the only times he could truly let go.
+
+With a deft hand, Andrew hooked both his underwear and Ian's down past their hips in one smooth motion, exposing his own arousal to slip stiffly along his partner's backside. "Wolf wants inside his fox," he growled quietly. "And fox needs his wolf."
+
+The sex was not gentle, though it was quiet, both of them aware of being in a strange room, in a strange bed, and not wanting to make too much noise. After a minute or two of firm grinding, underwear found its way to the floor and the lube had been snagged from the nightstand, and Ian felt himself spread wide by his partner.
+
+The two moved in time, working from a few cautious initial thrusts to a steady rhythm with Andrew holding Ian to his front with one arm while the other hand clutched at his hip, tugging him back to meet his eager thrusts. The feeling was both familiar and titillating. Ian quelled a pang of regret as he felt himself leave streaks of slick precum along the underside of the sheets, the feeling of his erection being dragged across them almost enough to get him off as it was.
+
+Finally, he felt those familiar fingers curl around his shaft and squeeze, stroking shakily as the thrusts became more urgent, less rhythmic. Ian began counting his breaths as they started to catch in his throat. He only made it to twenty-seven before he felt Andrew grind firmly against him from behind and let out a gasp, and only to thirty-three before he felt his own cock pulsing in his boyfriend's hand, waves of pleasure pushing through him and washing any thoughts of numbers out of his mind.
+
+Once his climax had petered down to a dribble within Andrew's hand, Ian let out a long moan and relaxed back against his lover. Andrew had cupped his hand in front of Ian's shaft to catch most of the mess that he'd made, and before Ian could object, he wiped the slick mess up along Ian's clean-shaven front, leaving a smear of seed in a vertical swatch up to his neck. Hands clutched him close, and Andrew growled in his ear, "Marked my fox. You smell of sex, and wolf"
+
+Ian let out a sound, almost a whimper and tensed rigidly against Andrew's front, hands balling up into fists at the combination of erotic teasing and the feeling of being dirty.
+
+"Mine now," Andrew murmured, then leaned in to kiss three times at the back of Ian's neck. "Go, shower. I know you need to, love."
+
+The rush of relief at being given explicit permission to clean came through as a shudder when Ian relaxed against Andrew's front, pausing for a moment before carefully slipping free of the embrace and turning to kiss him firmly. "Love you," he sighed, very nearly a moan, and slipped out of bed to go clean up.
+
+-----
+
+Saturday morning started out slowly. Andrew and Ian had spent the hour or so after Ian's shower talking about the night past and hadn't gotten to sleep until late. By the time they made it out of bed, Andrew needed a shower, and Ian felt as though he did too, so they wound up showering together. That ate another hour of time, though Ian felt it was time well spent.
+
+They didn't even really make it out of their room until late in the morning, partly because Andrew kept teasing Ian about the night before, brushing fingertips down over his front right where he'd smeared that slick mess the night before and making Ian squirm at the touch.
+
+This playful attitude kept up all the way down the stairs and out of the hotel before Ian remembered about Rei. There hadn't been any plans around breakfast, though, and he sheepishly left his phone in his pocket. They had all weekend to spend together, and doing something as simple as going and getting coffee with Andrew shouldn't be that big of a deal.
+
+They strolled leisurely through the crowds of begoggled and betailed folks in the lobby, making their way out through the doors and down the street to the coffee shop, also visibly filled with the furry crowd. They could spy no less than three tails in the line of five waiting for drinks, and several others who might be congoers as well throughout the seating area.
+
+The settled in a corner table next to a window, Ian keeping his back to the wall so that he could see both out the window and into the room.
+
+"I know I got a little wound up last night, but how was your evening?" Andrew asked, splitting his breakfast burrito in half to let it cool.
+
+Ian blushed and polished his silverware on his napkin, "Not much more than I said, really. Got all cuddly, kissed a little, talked about you and I. It was a good evening."
+
+Andrew laughed and forked bite of burrito into his mouth, nodding and chewing, huffing slightly to cool the bite. "That's good, though. I'm really happy for you," he said, once he could speak again.
+
+Focusing on cutting his burrito into sixteen bite-sized pieces (four was important, but square numbers more so), Ian nodded and took the time to formulate a response. "Yeah. I mean, I feel good about the way things went...er, are going well. I feel really safe with you, and I think I'm learning to feel that way with Rei as well."
+
+Ian tried not to notice as Andrew haphazardly cut off another bite of burrito, "Can you unpack that a little?" he asked. "I mean, I'm glad you feel safe and all, but I...well, I guess I want to make sure you keep feeling that way."
+
+Ian shrugged and nodded, taking the first bite of his burrito and chewing thoughtfully, counting as he went. "I guess, like, it's a two way thing. I feel like I can be myself around you and you accept and work with that, and vice versa. We each have our idiosyncrasies and the other knows how to make...that...work. Sorry."
+
+"For what?"
+
+"I ran out of words." Ian frowned, fumbling over his own thoughts for a moment. "We work with each other, rather than against each other. We don't focus on the thing the other might like, we focus on just being happy, and it works out. I don't honestly know if Rei and I are there yet, but I want to see if we can be,"
+
+Andrew nodded thoughtfully as he chewed on his burrito, washing it down with a coffee drink as he stared out the window. "I think I get it, yeah. It's safe because it doesn't have much friction, and you're finding the way to um....interact with Rei, cold as it sounds, without that friction?"
+
+Ian nodded and worked his way through the first half of his burrito before polishing off a quarter of his coffee. He thought for a moment before adding, "I wish he were here. Rei, I mean. I wish we could all have this conversation together."
+
+"Why didn't you invite him?" Andrew asked, concerned. "He's more than welcome, you know that."
+
+Ian flushed, then rubbed his hands over his cheeks, then his eyes. "I thought about it, I just didn't know if he was awake." The excuse sounded lame, even to his own ears.
+
+"I think it's good stuff, though, have you talked about this with him?"
+
+Ian shook his head and focused on finishing his own burrito in eight smooth motions.
+
+-----
+
+> Rei: Hey, what's up foxy?
+>
+> Ast: Hi weasel. Sorry I was out most of the morning. At the dealer's den, wanna join?
+>
+> Rei: In friend's panels. Join later? Dinner?
+>
+> Ast: Erf, forgot about panels, sorry. Dinner sounds good. Hotel or out?
+
+The lack of reply vexed Ian as he made his way through the Dealer's Den, mentally noting the artists he liked and their positions within the ballroom, planning a future route. He did want to keep up with Rei, this was their time together, but he felt unable to assert himself even enough to ask which panels he was in. He could guess, maybe, by looking at the schedule, but the thought of showing up unannounced presented itself as a jagged corner of anxiety in an otherwise smooth mood.
+
+These corners had been getting out of control, today. It was like some square -- or no, some pointed star rotating within him with the points of the corners catching on his soul as though at the hem of a fraying cloth, tugging and pulling at loose threads as he wound his way through the crowds. There wasn't any way for him to keep moving without invoking some ritual or another, whether it was counting to some unattainable number or holding still long enough for his subconscious to catch up.
+
+Ian loathed the fact that there was some sort of medication he needed in order to function within the world around him, and he avoided it at all costs. Cons, or any open, public space, however, seemed to demand such things of him, and there was little he could do to escape it.
+
+"I won't need it," he sub-vocalized. "I can take it later when I can lay down. I won't need it. I can make it through this."
+
+The affirmations had little impact on the part of his brain that kept repeating, "You're visible, you're known, they know you, they can see you, they know how guilty you are, they know what you've done to Rei, how you've betrayed Andrew, they've seen the filth, they know, you're visible..."
+
+He shook his head, trying to clear his mind.  It was just the inner critic, he thought, shouting down all the other parts of his personality.  He just needed to calm that part of himself, bring the meeting back to order.
+
+Ian found himself standing outside the dealer's den, facing out the windows of the hallway with his hands over his ears.
+
+"I gotta stop," he told the glass. "It needs to stop. I need to stop it."
+
+How he found himself by the elevators, or why, he never knew. Ditto the trip up to the second floor: there was simply no memory of what had happened, beyond the feeling of hands on his shoulders, guiding him out of the tiny box into an empty hallway, limitless placards, hungry doorways.
+
+His mind was filled with numbers.  One, two three, four, five six, six...did he get three already?  One, two...
+
+"Two...one eight," he repeated to himself. "Two...two nines...two one eight."
+
+The simple math problem calmed him enough to allow him to recognize the placards next to each door before him, and he found himself counting up by twos until he reached the door that proclaimed itself. Two. One. Eight.
+
+Retrieving his wallet was easy, but managing to get the key-card into the slot required to open the door less so. He found himself confronted with a monumental task, weighted down with years of emotion, the actions of his own history, and the incredible importance of what it would mean if he were to open the door.  Would they all come tumbling out?  It wouldn't mean anything to open the door.  It would mean everything if he opened the door.
+
+"Open it," he mumbled, pressing his forehead to the door, eyes angled sharply down to the lock. "Open it."
+
+He slipped the card in. The simple electronic shuffle of the lock cycling was almost a let down. Rei? No. Andrew?
+
+Ian collapsed into the room, the door having provided less resistance than he was expecting. As the door clicked shut, he found himself on all fours, then knees and elbows in front of it. Two. Two nines. Two one eight. Two three four, one two, two times four. Two one eight.
+
+Bed?
+
+The thought was distant, but it seemed to resonate with his elbows and knees. Something something lay down something. The words didn't really line up in his head. Andrew. Rei. The things that made him feel safe. If he could only lay down with Andrew and Rei...
+
+-----
+
+"Oh jeez, I'm sorry, hon," came the voice from at least a mile away.
+
+"Mmnuh?" Ian asked.
+
+Andrew climbed into bed with his partner, laying on top of the covers before him His hands fumbled down along Ian's sides in search of that key ring with its all-important vial.
+
+"Hot," Ian mumbled. Andrew laughed.
+
+With the key-ring in hand, Andrew unscrewed the vial and fished out a whole tablet of the blessed benzo and, with minimal effort, slipped it into Ian's mouth. "Hey, just relax," he mumbled, leaning up to kiss on Ian's forehead. "Everything's fine, fox, Just relax."
+
+Ian wasn't sure when the blur of torrid panic gave way to simple rest, nor even when his boyfriend's voice really faded in and out, and when it was simple hallucination. He welcomed that cool sensation, though, and sunk down into it.
+
+-----
+
+Ian woke later that evening to find himself laying down between two sets of hips, the thicker of the two he recognized almost immediately as Andrew's, and on further investigation, he realized Rei was on the other side of him. The TV was playing softly in the background.
+
+"Hey, um," he mumbled, licking his lips to clear the dry mouth that seemed to occupy all of his attention. "Hi."
+
+Both Rei and Andrew smiled down to Ian, and he basked briefly in the glow of their attention.
+
+"Hey," Andrew said. "We got pizza. Just pepperoni. Want some?"
+
+Sitting up in bed made Ian feel the cottony softness that the medications brought to him still filling his mind. He nodded sleepily and accepted a paper plate with a slice of admittedly pretty good-looking pizza from Andrew. He leaned first to the right to kiss his boyfriend on the cheek, then to the left to kiss Rei in the same spot on the other cheek, "Thanks. Um, sorry about all that."
+
+"It's fine!" Andrew promised.
+
+"And sorry I didn't get to see you much until tonight, Rei," Ian offered. "I kinda panicked."
+
+Rei grinned and hugged his arm around Ian's shoulders, "It's okay, really. We've got tonight and the rest of this weekend."
+
+Ian relaxed into his partner's side and focused on eating. Pizza was less than ideal, but it sated the hunger that had cropped up as he slept, though sleep wasn't quite the right word for the fugue of deep anxiety.  It was tasty, but simply difficult to decide how best to eat it. He could make it about halfway through with single, even bites, but then had to proceed boustrophedon along the thicker portion of the slice until he got to the crust, which he could break up into four pieces and eat one at a time.
+
+Knowing that he wasn't up for leaving the room again that night, Ian settled into bed between his two partners. Watching TV at a convention wasn't really what anyone wanted, but being able to spend time with loved ones was certainly worth it. They managed to find some movie to leave on quietly in the background and settled in to talking, then into cuddling, with Ian feeling safe between Andrew and Rei.
+
+As the night went on, the trio slipped further down into bed until they were lying flat, Rei spooning up behind Ian with his arms wrapped around him, Ian hugging those arms to his front as he nuzzled and kissed with Andrew.
+
+As the cuddling grew in intensity and sensuality, Rei bit gently down on Ian's shoulder, right where it met with his neck, getting a quiet moan out of his partner.
+
+"Uh-oh," Andrew grinned. "You found one of his buttons. Keep it up, and make sure to get the other side, too."
+
+Rei held his grip a little longer before kissing at that spot, then along the back of Ian's neck, to bite gently on the other shoulder.
+
+The fact that both of his partners were taking control of him in such a way had Ian blushing bright red, not least of which because he was also intensely aware of his arousal, as well as that of Rei pressed firmly to his backside. The gentle biting continued along his shoulders and neck as Rei pressed firmly to him with a gentle rocking motion.
+
+Andrew shifted some in front of Ian, slipping one hand down to cup over his boyfriend's tented jeans as he reached back with the other to snag the plastic bag that held the condoms and bottle of lube they had brought along to the con. The biting on his neck stopped as Rei looked up, curious.
+
+Ian's eyes widened, "H-hey..."
+
+"Shh, it's okay, just relax, fox," Andrew murmured, passing the bag over Ian to Rei, who took it cautiously. "You two should have some fun, it feels like you're already on your way."
+
+Ian chewed on the inside of his cheek for a moment, then nodded. "Can you...can you stay? Is it alright if he stays, Rei?"
+
+Andrew thought for a moment, then nodded, "I'll stay if you want, if it's okay with Rei."
+
+Rei had been quiet throughout the exchange, holding himself still against his partner and clutching the plastic bag in one hand. "Um...If you'd like, sure. I'll admit I've never done anything in front of someone else, much less my partner's partner."
+
+Ian felt flustered, but clutched one hand on either of his partners, unable to meet either of their gaze. His blush seemed to be consuming his face with its heat, but he could feel his shaft pulsing stiffly against Andrew's hand still lingering on his crotch.
+
+After a few more moments of stillness and silence, Ian worked up the courage to stammer, "T-take your fox?"
+
+Rei let out something akin to a quiet growl and gave another firm grind of his hips to Ian's, biting down on his shoulder once more, more firmly this time, before rolling free to extract a condom and the lube from the bag. Andrew did his part in helping by unfastening the button to Ian's pants, slipping the zipper down and helping his boyfriend scoot both pants and briefs down to his knees, freeing his erection from the confines.
+
+Leaving himself mostly clothed as well, Rei managed to unroll the condom down along his own shaft and coat it thoroughly with the slick lube. That accomplished, he rolled himself back to face Ian, leaning away from him enough to peer down his front as he worked the tip of his cock up against, then very carefully into his lover.
+
+Ian, for his part, clutched tightly to Andrew, burying his face against his boyfriend's shoulder and letting out a soft moan as he felt Rei slide into him. Rei felt thinner inside of him than Andrew did, but longer as well, and the whole experience was almost jarring, in a pleasant sense. He felt connected, emotionally and physically, to both of the people he treasured most.
+
+Edging himself forward until his hips were pressed firmly to Ian's bare backside, Rei let out a shaky breath. He slid his hands up under Ian's shirt and inched the fabric up until he could help his partner out of the garment, breaking his grip on Andrew only momentarily.
+
+Thus exposed, he dragged his fingernails down over the skin of Ian's back, grinning as the back arched to the touch.
+
+As they relaxed, the two settled into a slow and comfortable rhythm. Ian rocked gently with each of Rei's thrusts into him as he held his upper body close to Andrew. Rei, confident in the red scratch-marks along Ian's back, settled his hands on his partner's hips to hold them still as he moved within him. Andrew contented himself with kissing gently along Ian's forehead while his hands busied themselves with his boyfriend's own stiff arousal, caressing along it in time with the thrusts.
+
+Ian focused on counting along with his breaths. He made it a point during sex to breathe steadily and evenly. Four counts in, hold for one count, four counts out, hold for one count. He knew that the definition of a 'count' changed as he got more worked up, but it was important that he remain consistent.
+
+They didn't speak much, and the TV was too low to make make out, and so the only sounds were the gentle sounds of sex: quiet affirmations, gentle rustling, and the occasional sound of Rei's hips meeting up with Ian's rear after a particularly hard thrust. Andrew coaxed Ian on with gentle cooing, while Rei murmured, "My fox," under his breath.
+
+The feeling of belonging, of being taken by both his partners in a way, touched Ian both emotionally and physically. Usually, it took him longer to get off than Andrew, but tonight, his body seemed to rush toward climax. He didn't even have a chance to count his breaths before he felt the familiar surge of pleasure, spurt after spurt of his cum coating Andrew's hand, wrist, and front.
+
+"Mmm, goodness," Andrew murmured into his ear. "There you go, good fox..."
+
+Ian whimpered and shivered through his orgasm, tilting his head up to kiss Andrew firmly on the lips, something he couldn't easily do during climax in their usual set of positions.
+
+Rei, sensing his partner's climax, redoubled his efforts, picking up the pace of his thrusts and clutching all the more firmly at Ian's hips. It didn't take too much longer -- only twelve more shaky breaths by Ian's count -- before Rei pressed himself firmly forward one last time, leaning forward to bite down on Ian's shoulder as pleasure overtook him.
+
+Spent, the partly clothed couple simply held themselves still and worked on catching their breath. Ian could feel Rei's chest heaving against his back beneath the soft fabric of his t-shirt, reveling in the comfort of being held twice over as he rested his head back down against Andrew's chest.
+
+"Mmm, two good animals," Andrew hummed softly, holding himself still as his boyfriend relaxed into calmer breathing and relaxation.
+
+Ian held himself still as long as he was able. The corners of his anxiety were starting to make themselves felt once more, spurred on primarily by the sensation of his semen starting to cool in the room's air, making him feel coated and dirty. Even so, it was nice to be held by both partners and share in the moment while he could.
+
+Finally, the need to be clean overrode the coziness, and he murmured quietly, "I need to go get cleaned up, can I get up real quick?"
+
+Rei peeked questioningly over Ian's shoulder to Andrew who nodded his assent. Both of them disentangled from their lover and let him slip carefully out of bed and shuck his pants the rest of the way before making his way off to the bathroom.
+
+"...just needs to be clean, nothing wrong..." Ian overheard Andrew explain before he shut the door, keeping his embarrassment to himself as he started the water running for the shower.
+
+A scant minute or so later, he heard the door to the bathroom open. Someone washed their hands thoroughly followed by a bulk settling onto the closed lid of the toilet. Peeking out from behind the shower curtain, he saw Andrew sitting there, rubbing his face in his hands.
+
+"You okay, wolf?" Ian asked quietly, soaping his hands up for another round of trying to clean himself of the slick lube.
+
+"Yeah. I'm okay. I don't know if that was really what I needed, but I'm happy for you."
+
+Ian stood in silence for a moment until he was done soaping and rinsing. Finally, he replied, "I'm sorry, I just...I just wanted you both there, I guess. It was very nice to feel."
+
+"Yeah, no, I get that." Andrew sighed, "You're just my fox, you know? I could accept you and Rei as an intellectual thing before now, but that just kind of made me internalize it...a little more forcefully than I was expecting."
+
+Ian nodded and ran his hands down over his body, checking for any hint of slickness from lingering spots of lube before realizing that Andrew couldn't actually see him. Rather than replying right away, he shut the water off and grabbed a towel, drying himself in the tub. Once he was mostly dry, he folded the towel neatly in quarters and slid the shower curtain back, laying the folded towel on the floor in front of the toilet before daintily stepping out.
+
+"I'm your fox, wolf, and nothing's ever going to change that," he murmured, settling himself down onto his knees and resting his hands on his partner's knees. "You and Rei play different roles in my life, and nothing is supplanting anything that was there before."
+
+Andrew nodded and took one of Ian's damp hands in his own and smiled tiredly. "Promise?"
+
+"Promise," Ian murmred, leaning up to kiss his partner on one cheek, then the other. He stood to dry the rest of the way with a smaller towel.
+
+"Hey Ian?"
+
+"Yes, wolf?"
+
+Andrew paused for a moment. "How many? How many roles do you think you need filled?"
+
+Ian draped the smaller towel around his shoulders and thought for a second. "I don't have an answer for that, hon. I just know you're the first, and will always be."
+
+Andrew stood again, level with Ian so that he could kiss him gently on the lips. "And you'll always be my fox?"
+
+Ian nodded, smiled.
+
+"Come on, then," Andrew rumbled. "I left Rei out there to clean up. Thanks for yapping, though."
+
+"Yap!"
+
+Andrew smiled, more earnestly this time.
+
+Ian let Andrew precede him out of the bathroom. He thought for a moment, smiled, and hung up his towel. Anxiety quelled, he headed back out into the room, to both his partners.

content/post/fiction/rum-and-coke/what-i-expected.md

@@ -0,0 +1,570 @@
+---
+categories:
+- Short Story
+series: Rum and Coke
+ratings: X
+date: 2015-09-01
+description: Meeting for the first time is stressful enough, but all the more so when things don't match up with what you expected.
+img: rum-and-coke.png
+type: post
+pdf: rum-and-coke.pdf
+tags:
+- Furry
+- About furry
+- Convention
+- Gender
+- Sexuality
+title: What I Expected
+---
+
+Painting their nails had always calmed Sascha down. The simple act of dragging a brush slowly and carefully, following along the contours of the curved nails in smooth strokes, moving deliberately so as not to bump those nails already painted. The whole act seemed to be almost a meditation, calming to the core.
+
+At least, usually it did. It was difficult to contain the nervousness and excitement that filled them, and they found themself anxiously cycling over the list of things that needed doing before they headed out. Clothes: packed. Cat: fed. Tail and paws: in the bag. Phone charger...
+
+Phone charger!
+
+Cursing quietly under their breath, Sascha quickly finished up the last two nails on their right hand -- always the hardest -- and ran down the hall to snag the charger from the plug by the bed, being mindful of their still-wet nails. No sense in having to clean polish off the wall.
+
+No such luck with the charger, unfortunately, which received a dash of glossy paint.
+
+"And of course. Piece of shit."
+
+Moving slower now, Sascha made their way back to the kitchen table and settled into their chair. They took a few deep breaths to calm themself before delicately twisting the cap off the polish again, straightening up, and working on adding an additional coat to cover up the ding in the polish they'd received from the charger.
+
+"Getting all gussied up for the con?" their housemate asked sleepily, drifting through the kitchen toward the coffee pot. Mike had a way of moving that looked almost effortless, a testament to his laid back life as professional dreamer. Sascha had always admired him for that, along with so many other things.
+
+"Yeah, I figure if there's any one place where I can be assured to not be the weirdest one around, a furry con is probably it."
+
+"Oh, come on," Mike said, rolling his eyes and polishing off the coffee pot to fill his mug. "You're hardly weird around here. College towns are full of people weirder than you, no need to drag yourself through the mud."
+
+Sascha sighed. It was a conversation the two had had enough times before that they didn't feel the need to list out all the counter-arguments they kept in stock. No amount of discussion could seem to dispel the deeper insecurities involved, anyway, much as Mike might try.
+
+So the two shared an easy silence -- or perhaps it was easy on Mike's end; Sascha simply held still, fingers splayed, and watched the floor as they waited for the polish to dry. Their mind rolled through waves of anxiety and forced relaxation, focusing on holding still and not simply jittering right out of their chair.
+
+"So," Mike finally said, voice softer than before. "What's got you so nervous? Meeting up with whats-his-face?"
+
+Sascha slumped, "That obvious, huh?" They bought themself a moment to think by blowing across the nails of one hand, then the other.
+
+"Yeah, meeting Shadow," they continued. "I'm not...really sure what to do. I mean, I really like him, and I guess a con's a safe enough place to meet up with someone, since if it doesn't work out, it's not like you're trapped alone with them with nothing to do but feel awkward. And at least with this one, I can drive home if I absolutely need to."
+
+Mike eased into the chair across from Sascha and nodded, clearing a space for his coffee. "Do you think you'll hit it off, though?"
+
+"Maybe? I mean, we certainly get along well enough online, but you never really know in person until you meet. We talked through that, too, about how maybe things won't line up that well, and how this is just sort of an experiment."
+
+Sascha found it hard to meet Mike's sleepy gaze. They had tried dating each other once, earlier in college before they'd moved in together, and it only took a month or two before the realized how much better friends they made than a couple. They clicked well, just not on a relationship level. Ever since, though, Sascha had a hard time discussing relationship things with Mike. The fact that they now shared an apartment had instilled in them a hesitancy around relationships that had kept them out of anything more serious than a crush or fooling around online. This was the closest Sascha had gotten to another relationship since Mike, and it felt a little exciting, as well as more than a little scary.
+
+"You'll do fine, kiddo," Mike laughed, sipping at his coffee.
+
+The pet name got a smile out of Sascha -- the height difference between them and Mike when they were dating had led to them being confused as parent and teenaged child more than once. "I know, I know. Thanks. And thanks again for watching the cat so I can go be a ridiculous furry."
+
+"Oh, that shithead and I will get along fine. We'll totally ignore each other except around dinner time."
+
+"Sounds about right, yeah."
+
+Mike finished his coffee and stood again, wafting easily toward the hall and giving Sascha's shoulder a squeeze on the way out. "Good luck, kiddo, for real. Call me if you need."
+
+-----
+
+Sascha managed to make it through the rest of the morning without dinging any more nails, a real accomplishment. They had already packed up clothes and furry gear, and got the over-stuffed backpack into the back of their shitty Civic. They even managed to only turn around and retrieve a forgotten item once (the phone charger, natch), and that before they hit the highway. The trip was off to a good start, all told.
+
+The drive itself was uneventful, a mere two hours from home down to the hotel hosting the convention. They were pretty confident that some of their friends would already be there, and thus would provide some distraction from the way their stomach seemed to be doing its level best to pirouette inside their abdomen.
+
+Sascha had moved comfortably through the furry fandom for more than a decade now, having found it sometime in high-school, sticking with it through college, and into post-college life. More so than any other community, furry had helped them through some of the toughest parts of their life, from the divorce of their parents, to coming out -- first as gay, then genderqueer -- to moving away from home life. They'd tried to fit themself into countless other structures: gender and sexuality support groups, writing groups in college, all with more or less the same result: fading interest, spotty attendance, and eventually moving on.
+
+The most comfortable thing about the fandom was that it provided a place for them to be themself. At times, pretending to be an animal person on the internet was almost ancillary to the sense of community, of just being able to feel comfortable with friends, something they'd never experienced in more structured environments such as all those carefully curated groups and meetups.
+
+And furry is where they had met Shadow.
+
+Shadow was, as his name suggested, a black wolf. Wolves were one of the more common species out there in the furry community, and Sascha had even known a different wolf named Shadow years back. Despite the rather plain name and everyday species, Sascha had found him to be a sweet, mature person who had seemed genuinely interested in them.
+
+They had made an unusual, even rather awkward couple, Shadow the wolf and Sascha -- or Skylark, online -- the mink. Sascha had initially resisted getting much closer than friendship with Shadow, but he had eventually won them over. They had spent countless hours talking, role-playing everything from going for walks together to sexual encounters, and otherwise getting to know each other over the last four or five months. They'd even had a few short, tense phone calls, something Sascha avoided at all costs, getting to know each others' voices.
+
+Shadow had seemed open to Sascha's gender identity and expression, saying that while he generally considered himself more straight than anything, he was willing to explore outside his normal comfort zone. They had both agreed that sex may not even be a thing for them, as it tended to make Sascha uncomfortable and Shadow had said he wasn't exactly sure what all he would enjoy with someone of indeterminate gender who nonetheless lacked a vagina. It was that open-mindedness that had convinced Sascha that meeting up, even if it wound up only being casual, would be okay.
+
+Now, making their way down the highway and trying to drown out the rattling dash with music, Sascha felt less sure than ever that this was a good idea. Mike and their other friends had been pushing for them to find more of a relationship for years now. They knew their friends were right, too, given how much they talked about companionship and how much that meant to them. Still, though, this just felt like all the scenarios their parents had warned them about, and here they were deliberately going into it.
+
+They shook their head and settled back into the seat. They were committed to going. They'd been telling themself that for weeks, now, and now that they were more than halfway to the hotel, where they'd already reserved a room.  There was definitely no turning back.
+
+-----
+
+"Well if it isn't Skylark, pretty as always."
+
+The voice from behind the chair Sascha had managed to commandeer in the lobby made them jump, startled at first, then hit with recognition. "Maverick! Holy hell, I didn't know you were planning on making it down this weekend!"
+
+They jumped up out of the seat, tail smacking against the coffee table nearby.  They remembered to put their purse on the chair to claim it as best as possible, and dashed around to throw their arms around Maverick, who picked them up in a tight squeeze in turn.
+
+"I managed to wrangle some time off. I'm only down here through Sunday at stupid-o'clock in the morning, but hey, at least I made it."
+
+Sascha settled down once Maverick let them go and straightened their skirt out, nodding. "Well, still, glad you could. It's been forever since I've seen you. Haven't caught up with any of the rest of the crew, I figure I'm probably here a little earlier than most."
+
+"Oh, well, I'm here, and I know Volare's around somewhere, I ran into him at the bar, naturally."
+
+"Of course, I'd expect nothing less."
+
+Maverick laughed, straightening his badges and lifting Sascha's purse from the chair before plopping down into it, "I'm sure the bar's gonna make plenty good money this weekend."
+
+Sascha snagged their bag from their friend. Online, Maverick was a rather glowy cheetah whom they'd known for years, and met several times in person at local meets. They settled for sitting down on the arm of the overstuffed chair, leaning against Maverick and draping their stuffed tail across his lap. The two caught up on recent happenings -- who was quitting furry forever, what art had caused a big stir among their group of friends, what they had been saving up to buy in the dealer's den this year.
+
+It was Maverick who finally broached the subject of Shadow.
+
+"So when does your...uh...guy friend get here? You've been looking left and right since I spotted you."
+
+"Not until later tonight," Sascha sighed. "I'm just so nervous, I can't stop thinking maybe he'll somehow magically get here early."
+
+"Excited, huh?"
+
+"I'm not even sure it's that, really. Just nervous."
+
+Maverick furrowed his brow. "What, do you think it won't go well or something?"
+
+Sascha buried their face in their hands and trailed their fingers up through their hair, freshly dyed a subdued red just for the occasion, mumbling behind their forearms, "Yes. Well, no. I mean...I guess I don't really know. I haven't been this close to someone since Mike, so it just feels so weird. I don't know what to do about it."
+
+Maverick nodded and brought a hand up to rub up over Sascha's back, tracing along their spine soothingly. "You'll do fine, minkypie, and you know you've got a bunch of us here to take care of you if things don't go well. They will, though, trust me. Shadow's a little plain, given the rest of us, but he's good people."
+
+"Oh, come on, he's not that plain. You just say that because your spots glow blue and Volare's bright pink. By your standards, I'm plain."
+
+"That you are, girlie."
+
+Sascha groaned and draped herself dramatically across Maverick's lap, "Girlie, huh? I haven't been called that since...well, ever. Congrats on being the first."
+
+"Skylark the delicate minkygirl, plain as day, swooning wildly into the muscle-bound arms of her manly wolf lover."
+
+Sascha's groan turned into giggles, muffled by their hands as they hid their face. "Seriously? I should hit you for that. And lay off the 'girlie' and 'her' nonsense."
+
+"Oh? Feeling more boyish of late?" Maverick asked, still grinning.
+
+Sascha sat back up on the arm of the chair, twisting around to settle more comfortably against their friend as they toyed with the fluff at the tip of their tail, "A little, I guess. Maybe it's the possibility of meeting up with Shadow, though. I don't want to come across as...as...I don't know, disingenuous."
+
+"Hey now, I've heard you talk about gender enough to know that you're hardly disingenuous about it. You talk convincingly enough to get me doubting my own gender, for Christ's sake. Shadow really has you feeling more like a boy?"
+
+"Um, there's just...it's just...there's more to it than that, I guess. I've been honest with him and all, but he's so much more, well, active than I am. I don't want to surprise him or anything."
+
+"Because you interact with him mostly as a girl online?"
+
+"Yeah and..." Sascha stammered for a bit, hunting for the best way to convey the way they'd been feeling. "And I just don't want him to think I'm dishonest or anything."
+
+"Hey mink," Maverick said soothingly, "I don't think you're being dishonest, and I don't think Shadow will think you're being dishonest, either. If you've talked about gender already, then I don't think there's anything you need to worry about. Heck, you're wearing a skirt and have your hair done up all nicely, you're certainly not looking boyish."
+
+Sascha couldn't think of much to add, nodding and murmuring a quiet "thanks" in reply.
+
+The two sat for a little longer, watching the congoers and confused non-attendees streaming past the lobby chairs in various amounts of costume.
+
+It was Maverick's phone buzzing that brought their attention back to the moment.
+
+"Oh, hey, Volare found Vish, and they're at the bar, want to go meet up with them?"
+
+Sascha gave one last look around searching for the buzz-cut that they knew they would spot first, that first sign of Shadow, then finally nodded, "Sure, I could use a drink, anyway."
+
+-----
+
+The initial meeting between Skylark and Shadow was widely panned by critics as a romance, though some praised its comedic aspects.
+
+By nine that night, Sascha was still in the bar, nursing their second Manhattan and making sure that Volare stayed on his stool more often than not. Maverick had gone off to the restroom something like fifteen minutes ago, and Vish, a non-drinker, was looking more than a little hemmed in. Everything was that delightfully confused mix-up of a convention, and everyone was settling into it in their own way.
+
+"Your hair is...redder than I was expecting."
+
+Sascha whirled. The voice was undoubtedly Shadow's -- Peter's -- recognizable from the phone.  And sure enough, the buzz-cut towering nearly a foot over their own head had them immediately feeling dwarfed. The second thing to catch Sascha's attention was the crash and tinkle of not one, but two glasses as the back of their stool knocked into the bar table and tipped both Volare's and Vish's drinks.
+
+Rather than rushing to hug their partner as they had immagined, Sascha was overcome by an intense feeling of self-consciousness and guilt at what they'd done. They quickly helped pick up pieces of glass and ice, mopping up spilled beer and soda while muttering hasty apologies to their friends. In the process, they managed to cut open a finger on a piece of glass, adding to the confusion.
+
+"Whoa, whoa! Slow down. Skylark!"
+
+By the time Peter had gained their attention, Sascha was fighting to hold back tears and refusing to meet anyone's gaze, never mind that of their boyfriend.
+
+The waitress rushed over to the table with a rag and a bandage for Sascha, and was helping to clean up the sticky mess. She commented on how lucky everyone was to have been spared the deluge for the most part -- Volare and Vish both had only a few scattered droplets on their shirts, the rest of the beer-soda flood having made its way onto the floor.
+
+Sascha managed to pry their eyes from the mess and look sheepishly up to Peter, who simply held his arms out. No leaping to the offer of a hug, nor collapsing, weeping, into his arms. Instead, they hesitated for a few seconds -- long enough for the entire table to go silent -- before slowly leaning into the offered embrace, covering their face with their hands and crying as quietly as possible as Peter held them.
+
+"I'm sorry, that was...that didn't go as planned," Sascha said, once they were sure their voice wouldn't crack.
+
+"Hey, hey. It's okay. I'll just take it as you were really happy to see me. Everything's okay."
+
+"Sorry, I'm just a little anxious, awkward..."
+
+Peter leaned down and placed a tentative kiss to the top of Sascha's head, cooing gently, "It's okay, I promise. Come on, let's sit back down, and we can grab a drink and relax and catch up. You look really good, by the way."
+
+Sascha felt a good portion of their tension melt away at the relaxing murmuring of their partner, enough that they could disentangle their own arms enough to slip around Peter's stocky middle and finally return the hug, taking comfort in the fact that he practically enveloped their smaller frame.
+
+Eventually, Sascha let go and dried their eyes, tugging another stool over for Peter and introducing him to the crowd, most of whom he'd known online for the last few months of hanging out with his partner, and a few of whom he was just meeting for the first time. Peter made his dramatic arrival up to everyone by covering a replacement beer and soda for Volare and Vish, another Manhattan for Sascha, and a beer for himself.
+
+"So," said Volare, sitting up as straight as he could, a sure sign of his drunkenness. "You're the Shadow that we've been hearing so much about! You and Skylark make a really cute couple."
+
+While Sascha hid their face behind their drink, Peter grinned widely and nodded, "It's been an interesting few months for me -- for both of us, I think. I don't think Sky was really looking for much in the way of a relationship, and I wasn't really looking for someone like him." Realizing his mistake quickly, he rushed to add, "Er, them. I'm sorry, Sky..."
+
+Sascha hunched their shoulders in an attempt to get even smaller, feeling the attention shift from Peter to themself. "It's...it's okay. I appreciate the correction."
+
+Vish and Volare let their gaze linger on the couple, one smiling and the other looking nervous.
+
+"Anyway," Peter continued, hoarsely. "I think it's worked out well, there should be plenty to do this weekend, anyway."
+
+Feeling their courage return after having tripped over themself so much early on, Sascha nodded. "That's why cons are so awesome. We can all hang out together, and we automatically have stuff to do."
+
+Maverick finally made his way back to the table, having been gone for nearly half-an-hour on some minor adventure. Introductions were made and the conversation began to wind comfortably around the group, settling into rhythms at once familiar from all the time they'd spent together online, and foreign in this strange and new setting. A hotel, Sascha decided, was not the most comfortable of places, but the convention was a sort of force working actively against that, bringing comfort to a comfortless place.
+
+-----
+
+"Sky, I'm really sorry about earlier, I promise I'll do better about the pronouns thing."
+
+Sascha laughed and leaned themself in against Peter, slipping their hand into his and entwining their fingers. "Oh, don't worry about that. I dumped my friends' drinks all over them and fucked up my finger in the process of trying to say hi to you, I'm pretty sure I'm the one that owes you the apology."
+
+Peter laughed as well, and the two of them settled in to the bed they would be sharing for the rest of the con. They had splurged for this trip since Sascha wouldn't be flying and Peter was paid fairly well. They'd gotten a room to themselves with a king bed, and had piled all the myriad pillows up against the headboard in order to create a sort of cozy nest for themselves. After an evening of drinking and watching Volare get drunker than everyone, they had felt the need for a space that was quiet and soft. It was here that Sascha felt most at ease, opening up around Peter, leaning closer and closer to him as they had talked, getting more and more affectionate.
+
+"Sky, I promise, it's fine! I'm just, uh...I'm just really happy to see you. Like, I don't think I've been this happy to meet someone for the first time in a long time."
+
+Sascha tucked themself comfortably against Peter and nodded bashfully, "It's really good to get the chance to actually meet up in person, and I'm really glad-"
+
+They were cut short as Peter fumblingly nudged their head toward his and pressed a shy kiss to their lips. The kiss lingered for a brief second or two before Peter settled back, averting his gaze and admitting shyly, "I, ah...I just wanted to...have wanted to for a while."
+
+"It's okay," murmured Sascha, twisting a little to face Peter more directly and slipping their arms around him. "I'm not complaining one bit."
+
+Peter smiled and helped to tug Sascha a little closer to him, saying, "I've never really kissed...I mean, I guess I should say I've only really kissed girls...er...women in my life. Oh...that sounded bad..."
+
+Sascha laughed and leaned up to kiss Peter once more, shaking their head. "It's fine, Shadow, really. Is it any different?"
+
+"Ohh, I dunno," he said, trying to pull what was obviously his best attempt at a sly look. "Might have to continue experimenting to find out."
+
+Peter, Sascha discovered, tasted slightly of beer, and slightly of the sea, in some inexplicable way. Mike had never been much for kissing, though it was something Sascha had always found to be enjoyably intimate, so they relished the opportunity. Peter was an active kisser, too, leading his partner through his actions, guiding them with his hands on their sides and back, first closer to his side, then, with a gentle tug, up into his lap, leading Sascha to straddle his thighs and lean against him as he leaned back on the headboard. The kisses grew in intensity, as did the tension in both of their bodies.
+
+"Mmn, slow down, just a sec," Sascha whispered, pulling back.
+
+"Everything alright, mink?" Peter asked, looking concerned.
+
+"Yeah just...just need to slow down for a few, little bit of vertigo, feels a little sudden."
+
+"Okay, didn't mean to rush, that was just really nice."
+
+Sascha smiled and slipped their arms up around Peter's shoulders, "It was nice. Very nice, trust me. Just needed a second." They relaxed against his front and calmed their breathing, "Did you figure out if kissing me was different?"
+
+Peter laughed at the question and nodded, "It is, but damned if I know how. Maybe it's just that everyone kisses different, who knows."
+
+Sascha grinned and nodded, "Thought so. Here, lets just get a little more comfy on the bed and we can go back to exploring."
+
+Through concerted effort, the two slid a little further down onto the bed so that Peter rested mostly on pillows instead of the headboard, and Sascha was able to rest their weight more evenly against his front, stretching almost luxuriously along him as they leaned up to meet him in another kiss, moving more slowly and deliberately this time. Tongues teased at each other and hands gripped at shoulders as the couple worked on gaining the comfort that had come so quickly online in a new context.
+
+This time, as the kisses grew more intimate, Sascha quelled their anxiety and opened themself to Peter's obvious desire. They clutched themself closer to him with hands on his shoulders and pressed warmly to his front, feeling the way he moved slightly against them, feeling the slight bulge of his erection grow into a firm ridge against their thigh, feeling his hands move down to the small of their back and pull them to him as his hips nudged gently upwards.
+
+"This okay?" he breathed quietly. Sascha nodded in reply and pressed gently down to him in time with his own motions, slipping back into the comfort and intimacy of the kisses. Their mind was focused on that warmth, focused on making sure that Peter felt as good as they could make him in the moment. Their own arousal, much more constrained by panties and an undershaper, felt secondary to sharing the moment.
+
+Over time, Peter's motions became more insistent and he rolled the two of them onto their sides, still clutching close as he ground his hips firmly to Sascha's. Kisses grew more passionate and hands rubbed along sides and back as the couple rocked together in the bed, both seeming content to be simply be that close, even fully clothed.
+
+Sascha's nervousness began to pick up once more at the thought that Peter might want to go further than simple grinding and kissing in bed, unsure if they were ready to feel that exposed before someone they had just met in person for the first time earlier that evening. However, Peter broke the kiss first and gave a sudden buck of his hips, then shuddered in Sascha's arms, letting out a shaky moan that trailed off into something like a sigh.
+
+Understanding dawned on Sascha and a feeling of intense emotional warmth overrode their anxiety. They simply clung tightly to their lover as he shook gently against them, reveling in the feeling of someone experiencing the rush of pleasure in climax so close to them, sharing in that through proximity as best as they could. There was too much fabric in the way to feel much more than a gentle pulsing of that firm ridge pressed to their thigh, but Sascha could tell that the orgasm was intense, if unexpected.
+
+"S-sorry," moaned Peter, turning his head slightly toward the covers as if to hide his face. "I think...I think I was a little more pent up than I thought..."
+
+Sascha, practically purring in contentment, replied quietly, "No, no, it's okay. That was actually really delightful. Are you okay?"
+
+Peter worked to calm his breathing as he slowly settled down against Sascha, nodding. "I'm fine...I'm fine. Though I'll need to change pants before too long. Um...thank you, Sky."
+
+Sascha laughed and pulled themself even closer to Peter, placing a delicate kiss at the corner of his mouth and marveling at how perfect it felt to be so close.
+
+-----
+
+Sascha woke slowly, curled at the edge of the bed, to the gentle sound of Peter's snoring -- quiet enough to be more endearing than annoying. They had fallen asleep in a tangle of limbs, once they'd gotten cleaned up and into pajamas, but, as had always been the case in Sascha's experience, had separated during the night and slept in late on opposite sides of the bed.
+
+The evening of drinking, talking, intimacy, climax, and more quiet talking drifted back into focus, and Sascha curled up a little tighter, smiling against their pillow at the memory. That things had wound up heading in the direction of sex wasn't all that surprising, given how the two generally acted online. Sex had loomed large in their relationship, and although the idea of getting too much further into it still made Sascha nervous, they found themself relaxing in a warm afterglow the next morning. The simple act of being so close to someone during such an intense moment filled them with happiness. Even if they themself hadn't reached climax, it still felt as though they had gotten a chance to share something special.
+
+"Mmmf, morning."
+
+Sascha was startled out of their reverie by Peter's quiet mumbling, smiling, "Hey, morning."
+
+Peter tugged the covers up under his chin seemingly still asleep, but after a minute or two of silence, he asked, "Time is it?"
+
+Sascha yawned and peeked back over their shoulder at the alarm clock, "Nine-ish, bit after."
+
+Peter nodded and rolled onto his back, muttering, "Sleep. Gooood."
+
+With a quiet laugh, Sascha shifted closer to him under the covers until they were nestled in against his side, head resting on his shoulder and arm slipped over his front, finding the most comfortable way to fit against him. Peter slipped his own arm around their shoulders and rumbled quietly in contentment, though he still hadn't managed to open his eyes.
+
+The two stayed like that for half an hour more, Sascha nearly dozing off before Peter finally stretched out and yawned. He tilted his head down to kiss lightly at Sascha's forehead, leaving behind a gentle tingle from the soft, not unpleasant bristle of his stubble.
+
+Sascha leaned up to return the kiss, but after a moment Peter turned his head to the side, then carefully slipped out from under their arm to stand up out of bed.
+
+"Mm? Is everything alright?" Sascha asked.
+
+"Just wasn't expecting...I mean, would it be okay if you shaved?"
+
+Sascha brought their hand up to feel their own unshaven face -- barely a hint of coarseness, but enough to feel -- and felt their body tense. They nodded and sat up in bed, crossing their arms over their knees and settling their chin down behind them, doing their best to hide any shadow that might be showing, "I'm sorry."
+
+"It's okay," Peter mumbled, slipping into a T-shirt. "I just wasn't expecting it, I guess."
+
+Sascha nodded again and slid quietly out of bed, grabbing a change of clothes -- jeans today -- and their toiletries bag and headed for the shower, hoping they'd remembered their razor.
+
+-----
+
+The embarrassment didn't last long. A good shower fixes a lot of things, and Sascha always felt better after shaving, often to the point of doing it twice a day to ensure they had as little shadow and stubble as possible. It was one of those things that wouldn't go away without an investment, and they'd had enough trouble scraping up for this splurge of attending the con.
+
+Sascha thought back to the previous day's conversation with Maverick about not wanting to appear dishonest to Peter about gender. They winced, but got themself cleaned up well and even added a touch of makeup, just a bit of concealer and eyeshadow to feminize their features somewhat. Something conciliatory to make things go a little more smoothly. Soon, that warm afterglow they had felt before was back, along with a smile.
+
+Getting dressed, they belted on their tail and opted for fuzzy paws instead of shoes. Now that the con would be in full swing, it wouldn't hurt to furry things up a little. After all, just paws and a tail would put them at the low end of the dress-up spectrum.
+
+Sascha packed up their kit and slunk out of the bathroom to find Peter gathering his own things up for a quick shower. They leaned down and kissed him lightly on the cheek, "This better, Shadow?"
+
+He smiled up to them bashfully and nodded, "Sorry about before. I know it wasn't very nice of me. I just was caught off guard."
+
+"No, it's alright. I don't like it either. Go ahead and get ready, and we can get some food. There's a coffee shop down the street that does good breakfast burritos."
+
+While Peter showered, Sascha caught up on how their friends' nights had been. Volare had gotten drunk, of course. Vish had gotten upset, of course. Maverick had apparently spent much of the evening trawling the lobby and Friday night dance in hopes of running into anyone else he knew with little luck. His job kept him busy enough that he wasn't totally in touch with the furry scene, so it wasn't a big surprise. A few more of Sascha's friends and acquaintances had shown up, and they made a note to say hi at some point during the day.
+
+They spent a few minutes poking at Twitter, drafting message after message
+
+> Fantastic night last night :)
+
+Delete delete.
+
+> Really good evening, so good to meet up with @ShdwWolf.
+
+Delete delete delete.
+
+> Good evening last night. Caught up with friends, had a fantastic time with @ShdwWolf. Glad I could make it.
+
+They pondered for a second before hitting send. It would be enough to state that the night had been positive without necessarily tipping their hand as to how positive it had been for them.
+
+Peter eventually made his way out of the bathroom, clean-shaven and damp, and smiled to Sascha. They finished getting dressed -- standard furry wear of con shirts, jeans, paws, and tails -- and made their way to the elevators.
+
+Sascha leaned against Peter's arm in the elevator, taking his hand in their own. He smiled down to them and gave a little wagging motion of his backside. It made Sascha laugh.
+
+Once in the lobby, they ran into Maverick looking bored, and roped him into going to grab breakfast and coffee with them. The three chatted amiably as they made their way to the coffee shop and through the line to order, each getting a breakfast burrito or other treat and a coffee drink to finally wake up.
+
+Peter excused himself to go wash his hands, and Maverick pounced. He took Sascha's hands in his own and grinned widely at his friend. "So! A fantastic time, huh?"
+
+Sascha did their best to not look embarrassed, "Yeah, it was a good evening all around."
+
+"Come on, you're glowing!"
+
+"What? Am not!"
+
+"Trust me. Take it from the glowy cheetah.  You're glowing."
+
+Sascha couldn't do much other than bow their head to keep their blush from being seen.
+
+"It's good, minky," Maverick continued, voice softening. "I won't pry, I'm just happy for you."
+
+Sascha smiled shyly and drew one of their hands back, enough to take a sip of their coffee and hide their face for a moment. "It was a good and comfortable night. We didn't...you know, do much, but it was just good."
+
+"Well, hey, 'good' is what cons are for. Oh, hey Shadow, promise I'm not mackin' on your mink."
+
+Peter pulled his chair up to the table and grinned, adopting an air of incredulity, "Macking? Really?"
+
+"Yeah, come on, Maverick. We left the nineties behind a while back," Sascha laughed.
+
+Later that day, by the time they'd made it back to the hotel and met up with Volare, an icy Vish, and a few others from the IRC channel they all hung out on, the glow that had obviously suffused Sascha had calmed down to a sense of peace and happiness. They were pleased to tag along after Peter and the crew as they made their way slowly through the dealer's den, ogling books and art, carefully noting commission prices (and snagging one or two that were within their range), and just generally being a giggly group of friends.
+
+-----
+
+The day wound down slowly, and since all had been out and about on their feet all day, none were all that keen on heading to the dance. Dinner had been a simple, if stressful affair at an overcrowded sandwich place.
+
+Afterwards, everyone had decided to congregate in Maverick, Volare, and Vish's room. The fourth member, Anna, hadn't been able to make it to the con, and they hadn't been able to pick up anyone else by the time the con rolled around, so Maverick had a bed to himself while Volare and Vish alternated between cuddling and arguing in their own bed.
+
+Volare had, of course, procured a fifth of rum and a two-liter bottle of coke, despite Vish's grumbling. Everyone sat down on the beds and the single office chair, passing around one of the two water glasses filled with rum and coke, while Vish claimed the second glass as his own without any rum. Eventually, Peter caved and ran up the one flight of stairs to his and Sascha's room to get a few more glasses.
+
+"So how's it goin', Sky?" Volare asked, his voice perfectly level, but the redness in his cheeks showing that he'd had two rum-and-cokes to everyone else's one. "With Shadow, I mean. Seems like things are going well."
+
+Sascha blushed as Maverick immediately laughed. "Ignore him. Things are going well. We had a good night, and today was good. It feels...I don't know. It just feels good to be close to someone again. Some awkwardness, you know, with the gender thing. Nothing bad, just kinda finding ways to work it out, I guess."
+
+Volare nodded, hugging an arm around Vish next to him. "You sure everything's okay, though? I hate to go all motherly-gay-dude over you, but I just want to make sure."
+
+Passing the last of the drink off to Maverick, Sascha nodded. "I think so. I worry that I'm too outside of the realm of experience, for him, though it seems like he's trying, in his own way."
+
+Volare nodded again, and a silence fell over the room as Maverick set about mixing another drink, this one stronger than the last. He was larger than anyone in the room (though that was hardly a stretch, given how small Volare and Sascha were), and tended to make things to his own tastes and constitution.
+
+There was a quick knock on the door, and Sascha jumped up to open it, letting Peter back in carrying two glasses and a small metal flask. "I've got the glasses, and I've also got some crappy whiskey some rando in the hall filled my flask with. Evan Williams or something equally awful."
+
+"Mmm, shitty bourbon," drawled Volare.
+
+The group laughed and welcomed him back into the circle, letting him take his spot by Sascha. He poured a finger or two of whiskey into one of the glasses and beckoned for the coke, passing the other glass to Maverick in exchange, then topped off his own glass with soda.
+
+The pleasant banter continued around the room, minus the bits about Peter now that he was there. At some point someone put some music on through their cell phone, though later, Sascha was hard pressed to say who exactly had done so. Something chill, calm, something to fill the silences when conversation waned.
+
+Sascha noted that, when he wasn't drinking from the communal rums-and-coke going around the circle, Peter was also sipping from the flask that he carried, and quite obviously getting drunker as the night went by. That was okay, though, they figured. They were drinking plenty, themself, and it was good to feel the warm buzz surrounding everyone as the night wore on. Even Vish seemed to be getting in the spirit, laughing along with jokes and getting closer and closer to Volare through the night.
+
+"'m glad you all seem pretty cool with me tagging along like this. Know I'm new to the channel and all, but I'm glad Sky put in a good word for me," Peter said quietly during one of the little lulls in the talking.
+
+Maverick, always a happy person and a happier drunk, laughed and leaned over to give Peter an awkward sort of sideways hug. "Of course, man, you seem cool, and I know we trust Sky."
+
+Peter returned the half-hug and grinned to himself, looking sleepy. "Yeah, he's a good mink," he said, sounding satisfied.
+
+The silence lingered on for a few seconds before Sascha hunched their shoulders and quietly murmured, "'They're'."
+
+Peter laughed loudly and hugged his arm around Sascha's shoulders, pulling them firmly toward his side. Definitely drunk. "He, they, whatever. You can be my good little minkyboy too, right?"
+
+The silence continued to stretch out, glances were exchanged.  Eventually Sascha sat up a little straighter, trying to look as dignified as their drunk self could manage. "I'm not feeling very boyish. I know I'm maybe not as much of a girl as you'd like, but I'm not a boy."
+
+There were a few nervous laughs around the group, but Peter furrowed his brow. "I'm trying to compliment you, Sky. I think you make as good a boy as a...as a...as a whatever."
+
+Sascha watched Peter fall into a sulk and frowned. They didn't feel like there was much that they could do. The drunk reasoning with the drunk is a fancy way of talking in circles.
+
+It was Vish, of all people, who saved them the trouble. "Hey, it's getting late, and I want to crash. Sounds like folks have stuff to work out, too, so maybe we can catch up tomorrow?"
+
+Maverick caught on and stood up right away, only wobbling a little bit. "Hey, Shadow, was really good to get the chance to catch up. I'm out early in the morning, so..." he trailed off, offering Peter a hug, as was customary.
+
+Peter struggled to his feet and leaned silently into Maverick's hug, then seemingly on impulse, hugged Vish and Volare as well. He straightened up deliberately and made his way back to Sascha, who had made it to their feet by then as well, and held their hand, firmly entwining fingers with fingers.
+
+"Drive safe, Maverick. See you guys later," Sascha offered, trying to sound light-hearted
+
+-----
+
+"I feel like I've let you down," Sascha said quietly. "I feel like I've lied to you."
+
+Peter stomped up the stairs, two steps ahead of them. "Tell me about it."
+
+Sascha followed on in silence up the next flight and out the door by the ice machine, making their way after Peter down the hallway to their room. They unlocked the door and entered in silence, Sascha sitting carefully on the bed and Peter falling gracelessly into the desk chair. Silence, thick and tangible, hung between them.
+
+"I feel like we had a really good night last night," Sascha offered, after a minute or two. "I feel like we connected in a really important way-"
+
+Peter cut them off, "I feel like I was imagining you as my little girl, like you were the person I've been imagining the whole time these last six months."
+
+Sascha fell quiet again. They stood, paced to the end of the bed, paced back, sat again, and stood once more. Finally, they buried their face in their hands and mumbled, "I'm sorry. I'm not trying to...you know, be difficult. I want to be that person for you, I just...there's just so only so much I can do."
+
+"You could've not been..." Peter started. "You could've acted like what I should have expected from the start. You're not really what I expected at all."
+
+Sascha clenched their fists and stuffed them into the pockets of their hoodie, "I want to be something good for you, that's all I've ever wanted to be. I don't know how to be anything else."
+
+Peter looked away in silence.
+
+Sascha lowered their head, closed their eyes, and resumed their pacing circuit. They didn't look at Peter, they didn't look at the ground, they simply paced and did their best to cut out all input. Anxiety welled in their chest like some awful, noxious bubble aiming to burst in the form of some horrible meltdown. They focused on breathing. Count of four in, hold for a count of five, count of seven out. Anything to calm the situation, even if only internally.
+
+"Here, I'll tell you what you can do, sweets," Peter slurred, sounding half angry, half something else.
+
+Looking up, Sascha found that Peter had unzipped his fly and tugged his boxers down, and was aiming his erection in their direction. "Even boyminks got warm muzzles, hmm?"
+
+Sascha was shocked. Their head was spinning, and they couldn't tell if it was from the alcohol or the proposition.
+
+"Well, c'mon, you were eager enough last night, though you must've had some rockin' panties on, didn't feel a thing," Peter sneered.
+
+"You want me to give you a blow job," Sascha asked incredulously. "But you just said I wasn't what you expected."
+
+"Come on. Bygones and all that crap. Take care of me and I'll forget about all this gender shit. I came here thinking we'd have a good time together, so let's have a good time."
+
+The combination of vague threats and an act that Sascha had rehearsed in their mind over these past few months countless times -- had acted out through role-play online with Peter more than once -- was too much for them to handle. Their mouth went dry, they couldn't swallow, the room seemed closer and closer.
+
+"Fuck it," they whispered. "Fuck you, if you think sex'll clear this mess up."
+
+And they stepped out the door.
+
+-----
+
+Sascha made it to the stairwell before the tears hit, and when they did hit, they hit silently and with no force, simply spilling down over their cheeks and into the waiting sleeve at the crook of their elbow. Growing up a boy, taught to be a man, had left them much that needed to be unlearned, but the secret of crying quietly when one was supposed to be strong felt like an inheritance of sorts.
+
+Their phone buzzed. Twitter.
+
+> fine
+>
+> Direct message from @ShdwWolf
+
+The tears came harder.
+
+-----
+
+> SkylarkMink: you awake?
+>
+> Mavcheets: Just getting ready.  What's up.  You okay?
+>
+> SkylarkMink: no.
+>
+> SkylarkMink: can i come by
+>
+> Mavcheets: Sure, just be quiet. V and V are asleep, was packing
+
+-----
+
+> Sky I'm sorry, drank too much :(
+>
+> Direct message from @ShdwWolf
+
+-----
+
+> Sky, take your time, but please come back :(
+>
+> Direct message from @ShdwWolf
+
+-----
+
+> Mav sent me a dm, can we talk
+>
+> Direct message from @ShdwWolf
+
+-----
+
+> Mav says your okay and sleeping there, talk tomorrow pls? :(
+>
+> Direct message from @ShdwWolf
+
+-----
+
+Sascha awoke neatly wrapped in Maverick's -- they still didn't know his real name -- arms when their friend's alarm went off. Maverick was well attuned to his alarm and reached across Sascha to turn it off with ease before returning to the hug that had apparently lasted all night, burying his face against the back of Sascha's neck.
+
+They had fallen asleep with their clothes on, for lack of any pajamas. The night had drawn out for another hour or so of whispered conversation in bed, keeping quiet lest they way Volare and Vish. Sascha had fallen asleep dressed and crying, but safe against their friend, feeling his bulk behind them as something of comfort rather than as a source of anxiety.
+
+Maverick had done admirably. He'd asked if everything was okay several times, and gotten the full story of what had happened after Sascha and Peter had left. He didn't pass any judgements on either of them, and had let Sascha talk until they had started to doze.
+
+Even so, Sascha wasn't sure what to make of the remainder of the evening. Everything felt so safe with Maverick and so...well, cold with Peter. They were hesitant as always to draw conclusions on that -- just because a friend was nice to them when something had gone wrong didn't mean that...well, it meant that he was a good friend. To be honest, their first instinct had been to take Mike up on his offer to call whenever, but it had been so late, and only a little bit since they had left Maverick's room in the first place with alcohol buzzing through them. Nothing to feel sorry about.
+
+Except Peter.
+
+Maverick grunted and leaned up on an elbow in bed behind them, then leaned forward to give a friendly kiss to their cheek. "Hey, morning. I gotta start getting ready, but you sleep in, okay? I'll send V and V a note explaining that you needed a place to stay for the night and took my bed."
+
+Sascha curled themself a little tighter in bed and nodded silently.
+
+"You keep in touch, okay hon?" he murmured, giving one last gentle squeeze. "And be safe, minkypie. Things got rough, but you've got friends here."
+
+"Thank you," whispered Sascha, clutching briefly at Maverick's hand before letting him get up and get ready to drive.
+
+-----
+
+Later that morning, once Volare and Vish had woken up and learned what Sascha would tell them of the night before, they made plans to get them back to their room. The two flanked them as they made their way up the flight of stairs and preceded them into the room in case Peter was still in there and upset.
+
+Instead, they found the room to be empty, and Sascha followed after to find the room neatly kept -- the bed made hastily and Peter's clothes stacked neatly atop his bag. The bathroom was humid, a shower taken there not long before.
+
+"At same coffee shop, meet me there?" read a small note on the desk.
+
+"That's good," remarked Volare. "A question you don't have to answer. And he wants to meet in a public place. Shitty what he did and all, but I'll give him credit for trying to do the right thing today."
+
+Sascha was inclined to agree, but asked Volare and Vish to follow them to the coffee shop all the same. "The sooner we can get this sorted, the better, I think. Otherwise I'll just fuck things up all the more."
+
+Vish pulled the door shut behind them as they left the room, and thumped Sascha on the shoulder lightly with a fist. "Don't go blaming yourself, mink. There was booze, things went sideways.  It's not your fault."
+
+Sascha stuffed their hands stubbornly into their pockets and hung their head, then nodded as they made their way to the elevators. "You're right, I'm sorry. I guess I was just worried that I'd chicken out on seeing him again."
+
+Vish grinned, "Wouldn't blame you, but no, this is something that needs talking through before too much time passes, or it'll turn into something ugly."
+
+-----
+
+Peter met them at the fence of the coffee shop's patio, correctly foreseeing that Sascha would have a hard time making it through the doors if they knew that he was waiting inside.
+
+He didn't hug them, he certainly didn't act out, he didn't do anything but stand with his hands in his pockets and quietly say, "Hi."
+
+"Hi," Sascha offered, at a loss for anything else to say.
+
+"Look, about last night..." He stared at his shoes for a moment before continuing, "I'm sorry. I had too much to drink, and I know that doesn't excuse what I said, just...I'm sorry."
+
+Sascha looked around to find that their friends had backed off and were standing by the entrance. Still within sight, but giving the two privacy.
+
+"It's okay, but maybe we should talk about it," they offered cautiously.
+
+Once inside and at their own table, each with a coffee, both Sascha and Peter seemed to relax. There was the requisite fiddling with condiments, lids, and hot drink sleeves to occupy them and get them used to each other's company in the wake of the previous night, but once seated, there was nothing left to do but talk.
+
+"I'm really sorry," Peter began. He paused for a moment as if to collect his thoughts, then continued. "I can't say I didn't mean to make it about gender, last night. I know we agreed that this would be an experiment, and I can't say yet whether it's passed or failed. I've never been with a guy-" he held up his hand to forestall a response, "I've never been with a guy, not to mention someone like yourself. I think you're wonderful, I really do, but I don't know how to make it work in my head."
+
+They sat in silence, Peter staring down at his coffee lid and Sascha down at their hands. Finally, they dredged up enough words to come up with a reply. "I...don't feel good about last night, but I don't feel bad about this, I guess. I mean, I kind of want to yell at you about that, but I also get what you're saying. I definitely accept your apology, but I need to think a little more about what you said."
+
+Peter nodded and sipped at his coffee, while Sascha's thoughts whirled wildly around their head. They wanted desperately for this thing that they'd been working on for months to work out, but they also wanted to feel safe, not to mention welcome to be who they were. Neither of those things seemed to fit in their mind with what had happened last night.
+
+Finally, speaking slowly, they said, "I know a con breakup isn't what either of us really wanted, but I don't know that this is going to work."
+
+Peter let out a heavy sigh.
+
+"I've got a lot I can say on that, but I don't want to seem like I'm beating around the bush or anything," Sascha continued.
+
+"No, no, I agree," Peter said quietly, clutching at his coffee. "I really want it to, but when I think about you, I think about...I think about my little minky girl, and I just can't make that jive in my head...I don't know what I'm saying."
+
+"Mm, I think I get it, though," Sascha said gently, wary of the bright look of tears in Peter's eyes. "I spent years having it not jive -- 'boy this' and 'boy that' didn't work, but neither did anything girly -- so here's how I am now."
+
+They drifted back into quiet for a good long while afterward, each watching the room from a different angle as furries bought coffee and early-sermon churchgoers boggled at those in tails and rave gear. They both stayed quiet until each had finished their coffee.
+
+"So," Peter began. "We've got one more day and one more night."
+
+"And everything after."
+
+"And everything after," he agreed.

content/post/fiction/sawtooth/acts-of-intent.md

@@ -0,0 +1,85 @@
+---
+author: Madison Scott-Clary
+categories:
+- Vignette
+series: Sawtooth
+ratings: G
+date: 2017-12-16
+description: A coyote burns meaning into the world around him.
+img: flag.svg
+type: post
+tags:
+- Furry
+- Magic
+title: 'Vignette: Acts of Intent'
+---
+
+> *Lines and curves, lines and curves. Beginning now.*
+
+Seven o'clock, and the 13th Street crowd was headed to dinner, or focusing on a postprandial stroll.
+
+Jacob was focused on lines. On arcs and straight edges. On corners and angles.
+
+> *The cans of spray-lubricant had clanked onto the counter, earlier that afternoon. Three of them, some of the cheap kind.  The poor stoat behind the till scanned them numbly, seemingly on autopilot.*
+>
+> *To see someone with such dead eyes had led down some strange alley and into what felt like second-hand embarrassment for Jacob. Second-hand to what, he couldn't tell. Either way, the transaction had itched, and he had shifted his weight from paw to paw until it was done.*
+>
+> *Finally able to tap in the pin for his card, that itch had been scratched. The digits of the number across the pad always traced a pleasant, angular rune, and then the coyote was done, hurrying out of the store. The bag of cans had been dumped unceremoniously into one of the panniers of his bike, his tail clipped quickly to his thigh, and he had been off.*
+
+His breathing slowed and the jittery, speedy vibrations in his mind smoothed out.
+
+The heat along those lines grew, dull black iron turning first into a burgundy red, then glowing, picking up more towards cherry.
+
+> *Spring turning to summer had the days warm, but not uncomfortably so. The air still held enough spring in it that the light long-sleeved shirt Jacob wore never got too warm, even with the exertion of the brisk ride home.*
+
+Eyes focused on surroundings briefly, hunting for a patch he knew had to be somewhere here. Wander north, magnetic attraction.
+
+> *Ducking into the apartment had taken only seconds, enough for him to toss two of the purchased cans on a counter and another into a backpack, then back out into the evening air. Back onto his bike. Back on the road.*
+
+Cherry red and up to yellow, starting to put off enough glow that it crept into his vision, a light-leak in the camera of his eyes.
+
+> *Making it to the 13th Street Plaza had taken longer than expected, but perhaps that was for the best. The flames would shine brighter in twilight.*
+
+North, north along Linden. North to cross the plaza. North to pass the fountain.
+
+> *Jacob had parked his bike at a rack in front of one of the 12th street shops, locking it with care. Of his two prized possessions, the bike was the most practical, and the thought of losing it was something he would barely allow to register. He would be more than just upset, he'd be fucked. The commute to work would go from twenty minutes to more than an hour on the bus system, a fact he knew well from when it was too cold to ride. He'd saved up for three months to get this bike, a fantastic upgrade from what he'd had in college.*
+
+He could barely see now. Yellow brightened, headed more towards white. A sun made of lines, graceful arcs and definitive straightedges.
+
+> *The other prized possession was less immediately practical, yet even more dear than the bike. The small sketchbook, barely more than a few inches on each side, was truly irreplaceable. That sat snugly in his pocket; the backpack was too risky, even his apartment wasn't safe enough.*
+
+Toward the courthouse.
+
+Jacob was panting now. Cool as the evening was getting, it was no match for the searing symbol locked in his thoughts. Burning, some part of him reddening, blistering, flaking and charring.
+
+> *His Sigillarium sat distinct from his notes. Those were ash now, long gone. Their pages had held letters, all unique, warped and twisted through repeated passes of his pen, slipping and sliding together into some place between joy and fear, a place of too much meaning.*
+
+Past the courthouse now. And there, along the brick wall that surrounded the guarded parking lot. A place for moving the guilty to prison, maybe? There was the icy patch, freezing in the still-warm evening.
+
+> *Once the meaning grew overwhelming --- he'd know the moment when it came --- the Sigillarium was brought out, opened reverently to the next blank page, and impressed with the new sigil. He used a dip pen with India ink into which he'd stirred several drops of blood. As the ink dried, Jacob did his best to start the process of forgetting.*
+
+Strange place, strange place. Empty, yet meaningful. Locked up. Guilty and innocent. Shackled, manacled, clanking and clinking in chains. The patch on the wall likely wasn't actually cold to the touch, yet he knew if he touched it, frostbite would follow.
+
+> *Forgetting took days, weeks, months. It began with closing the Sigillarium, locking away intent and meaning while Jacob forgot the words themselves. He wouldn't look at the sigil again until the night before.*
+
+Obscured though his vision was, Jacob turned around, using his peripheral vision as best he could to check for others around.
+
+Empty street.
+
+> *Doubtless there were cameras who had seen him, but intent never left a visible mark, so no one had ever come after him. Intent was psychological. Magical graffiti for no one to see and everyone to feel. He would begin internalizing the symbol the night before, and hold it in his mind until the moment of, when it once more became unbearable.*
+
+Smooth movements. Smooth and sure. He took the can, focused on the frigid patch, and began spraying. He couldn't do it too quickly, even if he did need to hurry. There needed to be enough penetrating oil left to burn.
+
+> *Then he would bike and hunt for the cold he knew peppered the town.*
+
+The sigil was one unbroken line. One line that contained all those arcs and curves and straightaways and angles and corners. All sprayed dead scenter in the midst of that patch layering intent over what meaning was already there.
+
+Quickly, before he even capped the can, he fished his lighter out of his pocket and gave the wheel a rasp just at the final endpoint of the line.
+
+Blue flames, tinged yellow at the tips, spread fast, curling along the sigil, branching and curving whenever it came across a point where lines crossed.
+
+All that fire in his mind wound up on stone.
+
+All that patch of ice began to thaw.
+
+The coyote was already on his way back to the plaza, can of lubricant on back in his bag and all that unbearable meaning seeping from him as he slipped back into the evening crowd.

content/post/fiction/sawtooth/centerpiece.md

@@ -0,0 +1,254 @@
+---
+categories:
+- Short Story
+series: Sawtooth
+ratings: X
+date: 2016-12-17
+img: flag.svg
+type: post
+pdf: centerpiece.pdf
+rating: X
+tags:
+- Furry
+- Romance
+- Sexuality
+- Kink
+title: Centerpiece
+---
+
+
+"Hey E," Aaron mumbled, the cat nudging the turn signal lever up to make his way toward the right lane.
+
+"Mmm?" Erin peeked up from her book to see how far they'd made it into their journey. Still about twenty minutes. She lowered her gaze once again.
+
+"Put any more thought into the idea of a donor?"
+
+Slinking lower into the passenger seat, Erin gave a half-hearted shrug. "Not really any more than before. Just want someone we know already and who we trust. Don't want to go to a bank."
+
+Aaron nodded and settled back into his seat as they made their way onto the highway. "Anyone you can think of, minkypie?"
+
+Erin caught herself about to shrug again and shook her head instead, "Only really know a few other minks out there --- the Redstones from work, and there's that Matthew guy from your office...Matthew Lederer, was it? --- and I don't know if they swing or not. Come on, though," she laughed. "Figure out something sexier to talk about. We're supposed to be getting psyched for a night of debauchery, not figuring out sperm donor paperwork."
+
+Erin and Aaron had been one of those couples that had been insufferably cute when dating. When they'd been friends, they'd been teased about it enough, but when it turned to romance, it all seemed a bit much.
+
+It was the names that got most people, of course. They'd react in a few very predictable ways when they found out that the couple had homophonic names. Most folks would gush over how adorable it was, asking how they referred to each other when alone, what they'd name their children if they could have any, and so on, The rest seemed to fall into two camps: those that would ask, "doesn't that get confusing or weird in conversations?" and those that would make some lewd comment about sex, whether referring to threesomes or whether they'd ever played with another Aaron or Erin or something like that
+
+The answers were all fairly straight forward, too, especially after several years of being asked the same questions. They would say that they called each other by their names like regular folks; they'd joke that if they had kids, they'd name them Erin and Aaron; they'd say that conversations were made easier when eye contact signaled which individual was being talked to; they'd say their sex life was private but give a wink.
+
+Below the surface, though, were the more intimate truths. In private, they really only used each other's first initials, going by E and A respectively. They'd done the threesome thing quite a bit, actually, and even once with another Erin, it had been really rather nice, and they were looking forward to seeing her again tonight. And perhaps the most intimate truth was just how sore a subject parenthood was for the two of them, how much being an interspecies couple got in the way.
+
+Aaron laughed and nodded. "Alright, alright," he said. "You looking forward to being a useful mink tonight, then?"
+
+Despite all the planning and negotiation that had gone into tonight, despite all the times she'd heard it before, being called a 'useful mink' right before the first night in far too long where she really would be useful had Erin squirming in her seat, ears pinned back against her head.
+
+The cat in the the driver's seat laughed, "I'll take that as a yes, then. Tell me what you're looking forward to most, then."
+
+"Being...being useful."
+
+"Mmm, so it's more the serving others than the bondage?"
+
+Erin felt her tail start to frizz out, something she could never seem to help when agitated. A fact that Aaron was always keen to exploit. "Mmhm...mink wants to be useful more than anything."
+
+"More than anything?" Aaron asked, risking a glance away from the road to grin at his wife. "More than the pleasure of the act, you just want others to use you to feel good?"
+
+If his goal had been to make her flustered, Aaron was succeeding. If it had been to get her more worked up, it was also very, very much succeeding. "Yeah," she began, voice thick with embarrassment. "Yeah, I want...I want people to come away feeling fulfilled, I want to be a tool to help them feel that way." The mink thought for a moment longer before adding, "The sex is good too, you know I'll enjoy that, but being useful is what I want."
+
+Aaron nodded. "Not to drag us back to where we were, but is that part of why you want to be a mother so badly?"
+
+"Mmhm, at least a little part of it. It feels like the strongest, highest, and, well, purest form of being useful."
+
+"Well, that makes sense," Aaron said with a chuckle. "So..."
+
+"'So...' what?" Erin sat up within her seat. "What are you planning?"
+
+"Nothing, nothing!" Unable to lift his paws from the steering wheel, the cat did his best to imply a disarming gesture with his shoulders. "Only, I was wondering, what if you got to be useful at a party like this one, and that led to a child?"
+
+The mink in the passenger seat sat, mouth open, for a moment before finding the words to respond, "You...you're sure you're not planning anything?"
+
+"Promise. No plans, or we'd be negotiating a hell of a lot harder."
+
+"Well, I...I don't know." Erin realized that she was fiddling too much with her book, bending the pages, so she set her bookmark in place and slipped the paperback into her bag. "It would be a lot to process. But I'm pretty sure all of it would be good."
+
+Aaron grinned toward the road, making his way over to the rightmost lane once more --- they were just about to the end of the freeway stint of the trip, Erin guessed, so probably just a few minutes left. "Well, alright then. So if we wind up at a party like this and there just happens to be another mink there-"
+
+Erin cut him off with a quiet whine, her tail bristled from base to tip and swishing against the back of the seat. "A! Come *on*!"
+
+The cat's grin turned to a laugh. "What do you mean, 'come on'? You'd love it, you said so. You'd love to be a Centerpiece and come away with motherhood, I know you would! And you know I'm game, too."
+
+Brushing furiously at her tail in an attempt to soothe her nerves, Erin let a stony silence fall, fighting to sort out a turbulent mixture of embarrassment, arousal, and that longing she'd always associated with her drive towards motherhood, biological imperative and otherwise.
+
+Erin's silence and Aaron's grin lasted the next few minutes until they parked at the curb before a squat, suburban ranch house.
+
+Aaron turned off the car and tugged up the parking break, leaning over to kiss his wife on the cheek, "Sorry if that was too far, E."
+
+When Erin didn't respond, he reached for her paw, twining fingers with her. Looking back up to her face, he was surprised to see a bashful smile there.
+
+"No, was just thinking," she murmured. "I *would* love that."
+
+The cat's grin snapped back into place almost immediately, along with the start of a quiet purr. He leaned over to give another quick kiss before slipping his paw away and swinging wide the driver's side door. "Come on, then, grab the bin and let's get inside, catch up with folks."
+
+-----
+
+Those who travel among the play parties, orgies, and swing groups often think of themselves as being sexually liberated.
+
+However, they'll all be the first to admit that the time before the play party begins can be the most awkward part. Milling around with a plastic cup of too-sweet spiked punch in one paw and a little plate of store-bought cookies in the other sometimes made it feel a little too much like a social function put on by a group of employees.
+
+The hosts of this party, another couple that Erin and Aaron had known for a few years now, two ferrets named Elise and Joan, had set up a few things to help alleviate that feeling, though there's not much that could make it go away entirely. For every bowl of chips or plate of cookies, there was a bowl of condoms (with several different sizes present) or lube packets (silicone or water based). The cooler of drinks, normally holding just beers and sodas, also contained a few drinks made from stronger things. Small, printed signs listed the rules (play safe, wear clothes outside, and so on) near every doorway. The plans for segueing from "party" to "play" involved strip poker.
+
+Despite all of the effort, there was still some difficulty in loosening up. This was due in no small part, Erin suspected, to anticipation for later. Even the most sexually liberated could be in the time leading up to sex.
+
+Thankfully, as Centerpiece, she had little to worry about, in that sense. For her, the start and end to the night were clearly delineated. No strip poker for her. It would start when she was bound, gagged, and blindfolded, and it would end when she tapped out or was set loose, whichever came first. That would come soon, and the gear was all in the bin that Aaron had dragged in and set in the living room next to the neatly decked mattress that would be her spot for the night.
+
+"First things first," Aaron said, once Erin had gotten a drink. "Lift your chin."
+
+Erin did as she was told, letting her husband deftly swing a collar up around her neck and fasten it in front. Although she couldn't see the collar, she knew what it looked like --- black nylon webbing with some yellow nylon woven into it to spell 'TOY' along the back and a tag saying the same in front. Feeling the weight of it around her neck, the slight constriction of her fur beneath it, Erin tensed up and swished about, her short, rounded ears canted back.
+
+"Finish your drink, minkytoy," Aaron continued, waiting for the mink to down the rest of her soda before clipping a leash to the D-ring at her throat.
+
+When the cat gave an experimental tug, Erin felt herself jerked forward an inch or two by the collar at back of her neck. Beyond that, though, she felt that latent arousal that had been dwelling within her the last few days finally begin to assert its presence, felt sub-space start to surround her like a warm blanket.
+
+Her husband grinned at the obvious change and leaned in close enough to whisper to her, "Mmm, cozy there, pet?"
+
+Ears pinned back, Erin gave a bashful nod.
+
+"Going to be a good pet tonight?"
+
+Nod.
+
+"Still comfortable with this?"
+
+Another nod, more vigorous this time.
+
+"Going to be useful for everyone tonight, no matter what?"
+
+Erin let out a low mewl, tucking her muzzle down toward her chest and hunching her shoulders as though she could hide her embarrassment that way. "Yes owner," she murmured, tail lashing this way and that. "Will be useful."
+
+Aaron grinned haughtily and wound the leash around one of his paws a few times, giving another little tug to help reinforce his position over her. "Good mink. Let's go see who you're going to be useful for, then."
+
+Erin felt like they into a feedback loop of power dynamics. The more dominant that Aaron got in showing her off to the party's other attendees, the more submissive she felt. The more submissive she acted, the more that seemed to egg Aaron on. Before long, he was encouraging her to spin and show off, to curtsey, to make small confessions to the other attendees.
+
+This was one of the other things that Elise and Joan did to loosen up their guests. Each party --- and there were several a year --- included one guest who would be the Centerpiece. The Centerpiece had become a coveted role in the circles that attended this party, one that had to be applied for ahead of time.
+
+And it was indeed a role to play. The Centerpiece was the one who had to start moving the atmosphere from party to play while the two ferrets tended to more mundane things such as maintaining snack levels and ensuring that the rules were followed. Once the atmosphere had shifted, the Centerpiece (almost always a known sub, but once or twice, a more dominant figure had surprised the group by serving) was to become literally that: a fixture at the center of the party, immobile. A figure to be discussed or a toy to be used in a public fashion.
+
+Although this was Erin's first time being the Centerpiece, the role fit her naturally. Elise had leapt at the chance to feature the mink for the party. To have a willing critter who was already a well-known sub (and already quite knowledgeable in bondage) made the hostesses' jobs easier and the party more fun.
+
+By the time they had made the rounds of the patio, Erin knew that she had done well. The timbre of the party had shifted according to plan, the curtains had been drawn, and the game of strip poker had already begun in the den. The mink was buzzing with a mixture of arousal and pleasurable embarrassment, along with a base note of that nearly primal need to please.
+
+Which is precisely when her smirking owner and husband tugged on her leash to get her to look up, saying, "And this is Matthew. Matthew Lederer. I believe you've met."
+
+Erin found her gaze sliding up along the slinky form before her, hidden by a half-unbuttoned dress shirt, to the soft features of the other mink. He was sleek and well groomed, whiskers bristled as if caught in the middle of searching for an intriguing scent. As everything from the earlier conversations clicked into place, she found herself tense at the end of the leash.
+
+Another mink.
+
+And here she was, smelling of arousal and desire: the Centerpiece, the offering to the party.
+
+Matthew's mind seemed to be going through some similar calculation, as his gaze shifted from shock through bemusement to hunger, grinning at the slender mink-toy being presented to him by the cat, giving an appraising glance over the rims of his glasses.
+
+Erin watched him turn to face her husband, "Good to see you here, buddy! And yeah, I believe we have." That grin widened, showing the mink's pointed teeth. "Wasn't expecting to be so lucky in my choice of toys for tonight."
+
+Looking positively smug, Aaron tapped the tip of his wife's nose with the end of the leash, nodding. "Mmhm. Was my turn to bring the Centerpiece. Just about to go get her all trussed up. But here, stand up straighter, minkytoy."
+
+Able only to muster a soft mewl, Erin nodded and stood up straighter, her tail flitting about erratically.
+
+"The Centerpiece should greet all her guests while she still can. Go on."
+
+Erin nodded and leaned in to give the other mink an embrace and a whiskery, bashful kiss to the side of his muzzle. "W-welcome..."
+
+Matthew returned the kiss with a grin, seeming to pick up on some of Aaron's bravado. "Thank you, ah..." he reached a paw up to lift the tag on the smaller mink's collar to read it. "Thank you, toy. I'm sure I'll be most welcome indeed."
+
+-----
+
+"I thought you said you didn't have anything planned," Erin said, still shivering from the mix of humiliation and arousal as she tugged her shirt off.
+
+Aaron, already nude, looked up from where he had been rooting in the bin of bondage gear, "I didn't, E, I promise. I didn't even know he was coming until he showed up just then."
+
+Erin nodded, anxious. She slipped shyly out of the last of her clothes and knelt, nude, on the mattress.
+
+"Do you want me to call in Elise? We can tap out, if it's uncomfortable, or Elise can ask him to not interact with you as the Centerpiece."
+
+The mink felt herself flush beneath her fur, whiskers bristling. "Mmnf..." she managed, then, "N-no. I mean, now I'm all curious. I've...never been with another mink before, after all."
+
+Aaron grinned and sat down on the edge of the mattress, holding a pair of soft, locking bondage cuffs and a snap hook connector --- two lobster clasps joined by a strip of nylon with a D-ring situated in the middle --- for binding them together. "Oh, so you're eager, then, toy?"
+
+Erin squirmed at the pet name. She hadn't quite left sub-space, hadn't wanted to, and so the words played readily into that. "I...maybe," she admitted, squirming tensely.
+
+The cat's grin widened as he turned and crawled over the mattress to her, muzzle tucking in against her cheek, his paws working to fasten one of the locking cuffs around her wrist. "Toy sure *smells* eager," he breathed.
+
+Tilting her cheek to her owner's muzzle and lifting both of her paws to offer her wrists to him, Erin whined quietly in return. "Can't help it," she mumbled, her breathing picking up.
+
+"I imagine not." Aaron continued slipping the other cuff onto the mink's other wrist, making a show of checking the locked status of each before attaching the connector to the exposed D-rings of the cuffs, effectively locking Erin's paws together. Although cuffs were a common accessory for her, she always got a thrill out of having them put on by someone else.
+
+"Hopefully not too obvious?" she asked.
+
+"This is a play party, E, it's kind of expected," Aaron said. The cat's laugh made Erin lay her ears all the way back. He tugged on the strap connecting her cuffs together pulling her up onto her knees and then onto all fours, his paw pinning the snap connector to the mattress. The laugh turned into a low growl as Aaron murmured, "And besides, toy, everyone noticed." With a soft nip to her ear, he lowered his voice further to a soft purr, adding, "Everyone."
+
+Any distance Erin had managed to gain from the sexual dynamic to ask about plans was quickly obliterated with the firm treatment and teasing words. She quickly found herself back in that cozy submissive space, her paws clutching at the sheets of the mattress, held only as far apart as the cuffs would let them. "Was toy useful?"
+
+Dragging the tote of gear closer, Aaron nodded, his voice muffled slightly by the fact that he couldn't hold back a purr. "Very useful. You got everyone up and moving. Lots of needy looks when we left to get ready." The cat brought up another snap connector and with an insistent push, nudged Erin's shoulders down until her chin nearly touched her paws, clipping this connector between the D-ring on her collar and the one on the first snap connector, leaving the mink with her backside hiked up and exposed. "But you're only just getting started, minkytoy. You're going to be very, very useful by night's end, aren't you?"
+
+Erin nodded, her breathing quick and shallow in anticipation. She could smell her own arousal quite strongly, now, as well as that of Aaron, a scent she was well accustomed to. "Yes owner," she panted, breaths tinged with a whine.
+
+There was a bit more fumbling in the bin before Aaron lay a few more items out in front of her, close enough to see but not touch. A ring-gag. A blindfold. A small remote control type device. A bowl of condoms. Two laminated signs --- one with rules, the other with a space for tallying just how the mink had been useful. A marker to go with the signs.
+
+Kneeling before her, Aaron took the blindfold in one paw and the gag in the other and leaned in closer. The familiar scent of the cat's arousal was filling Erin's nostrils, his stiff shaft dead center in her gaze, but, again, just out of reach. The scent of him was overpowering the scent of herself, but she could feel that burning arousal in her belly, feel the cool air against her groin, caressing warm and slick flesh.
+
+"Even that mink? Matthew?" the cat asked. It was hard for Erin to pick apart whether her owner was purring or growling, or perhaps a little bit of both. "Are you going to be a useful toy for him, too?"
+
+Erin felt her fur bristle, that perennial reaction to humiliation no longer restricted to just her tail, but creeping up her spine to her neck and ears, heckles raising. "I will," she whimpered. "I'll be usef-*nngh!*"
+
+She was cut off quickly. She'd been so focused on Aaron's words and the sight of her arousal in the center of her tunnel-vision that she hadn't noticed the paw with the ring gag.
+
+With one deft movement, the cat had taken advantage of her open muzzle to slip the gag in place, wedging her muzzle open with the ring of stiff rubber. His fingers quickly traced the straps of the gag to their ends, velcro straps that looped around her collar to hold the gag in place.
+
+"I know you will, toy," the cat growled --- and it definitely was a growl this time. A commanding, possessive, domineering growl that ensured she knew her place.
+
+Erin could only whine and pant, huff and whimper. She nodded shakily, as much as the straps restraining her neck to her wrists would allow.
+
+Those teasing growls continued as Aaron set up, clearly leaving the blindfold in his paw until last so that she would be forced to watch. "I wonder if toy will be able to tell it's him," he said. "By shape or by noise. Or maybe he'll lean forward and whisper to you how he's taking you. Maybe he'll just scruff the toy. I bet his teeth are sharp."
+
+Whimper, pant, squirm. Erin couldn't manage a whole lot more, as she watched her owner set up the signs. "Please use condoms; no damage; Centerpiece will use buzzer to tap out" read one. "Cum count: In sex --- In muzzle --- In fur" read the other, the pen laid neatly at its base.
+
+"Maybe it'll trigger something in you," Aaron said. He picked up the remote control and gave its single button a quick press, the small box emitting a surprisingly loud buzzing noise, annoying by design. Slipping the buzzer into Erin's paw, he leaned in closer to continue, "Maybe your body will know him by his species. Maybe you'll know what it is that you're missing out by him using a condom with you, by being that close to having his kits."
+
+A more drawn-out whine this time, low and needy, as her owner sought out and tickled each and every one of her kinks in turn.
+
+She was gone. Totally lost in sub-space. And he was driving her deeper and deeper.
+
+"Press the button, toy."
+
+Shaking, Erin fumbled with the remote, getting the button aligned under her thumb before pressing it. She got a loud buzz in response.
+
+"Good. Don't forget that, toy." Aaron grinned and reached once more into the tote of gear. "I'll watch when I can, but I have my own fun planned tonight."
+
+With that, Erin watched as the cat stood, making as if to open the door for everyone, letting the play of the Centerpiece begin, still murmuring, "Maybe toy will find herself needing him, hmm? Craving that mink within her, fitting so nicely like only another mink can. Maybe some day you *will* wind up with his kits."
+
+The cat paused and turned back, looking as if he'd just remembered something. Erin noticed the blindfold left in his paw and squirmed against the bed, knowing that the sensory deprivation would only serve to drive her deeper into Useful Mink territory.
+
+Aaron knelt before her once more and lifted the blindfold, then set it to the side and instead lifted his other paw. In it was a safety pin, something from the emergency sewing kit in the gear tote. Holding his paws deliberately within her gaze, Aaron opened the safety pin, exposing the sharp point. With his free paw, he reached down to grab one of the wrapped condoms from the bowl.
+
+"And who knows," he said, grinning widely as he drove the point of the pin through the package, the condom inside, and clear through out the other side of the package. "Maybe he'll get this one."
+
+The condom dangled briefly from the safety pin directly before Erin's eyes. She watched, unable to speak even if she hadn't been gagged, as the cat slid the needle-thin pin from the condom and massaged it with his fingerpads, leaving it looking intact and unmolested. He then tossed it almost casually into the bowl of condoms, mixing them up lazily with his paw. Aaron closed the safety pin and dropped it back into the tote with a small rattle.
+
+Realizing that she had been holding her breath, Erin let out a gasp and a shaky moan before swallowing dryly, making a soft *glk* noise with the gag in the way. She could feel Aaron hesitating, watching her for any sign that she would need to back out.
+
+Her mind was reeling, her breath coming in ragged pants, her arousal out of control, her body coursing with what felt like electricity. But she gave a slight nod of consent.
+
+Her last sight was of Aaron grinning as he reached down to fasten the blindfold over her eyes, clipping that, too, to the collar so that it couldn't easily be removed. Sight gone, she could only rely on touch, scent, taste, sound.
+
+The rustle of Aaron standing, the feel of the mattress shifting beneath her.
+
+"Remember your buzzer, toy."
+
+Footsteps.
+
+The scent of her owner's arousal fading, the scent of her own taking over.
+
+The sound of the door.
+
+Traces of other scents, other people, other species, other arousals.
+
+Voices, soft applause.
+
+And Aaron's voice, "The Centerpiece is ready."

content/post/fiction/sawtooth/disappearance.md

@@ -0,0 +1,848 @@
+---
+categories:
+- Short Story
+series: Sawtooth
+ratings: R
+description: A weasel attempts to escape from her life in Sawtooth to Oregon, but finds her old life still tied to home.
+date: 2018-08-14
+img: alley-cat.jpg
+type: post
+pdf: disappearance.pdf
+tags:
+- Furry
+- Romance
+- Sexuality
+title: Disappearance
+---
+
+"This is going to sting."
+
+I nod.
+
+"No, this is going to sting a lot."
+
+That warrants a dry swallow and a second nod, more nervous this time.
+
+The first thing they'd done at the mod parlor was shave my fur. A smooth line back from my muzzle toward my ears. They'd gotten all of both of my cheeks, down to the jawline and up toward my ears, though not quite all the way.
+
+It's not a good look for a weasel, this awful grooming.
+
+I'll have to live. I suppose it'll take a few months to go from stubbly to bristly and back toward soft, and then another few after that until I'm back to normal.
+
+Well, not normal. New. Different.
+
+"Alright, first bit," the rat begins, tugging over the lower part of a milk jug that's been cut in half. "Gonna get the bars super cold. You sure you want the straight lines?"
+
+"Yes." I don't sound sure, even to myself.
+
+The rat does that thing where he just sits still and silent, waiting on me. His ears have been tattooed black up along the backs, and the fluorescent lights shining through them cast blurred shadows, crenelated ideas of shapes.
+
+I sit up straight in my chair and give a firm nod. "Yes. Straight lines. Three on each cheek, spreading out toward the back of my head."
+
+The rat waits a little longer, then cracks a goofy grin. "Good. Good choice. I'm gonna start the middle one a little further back. And I'll use tapered ones rather than rectangular. It'll make you look speedy."
+
+We laugh at that, and I use the it to hide the terror. Not at the pain, mind, but at the sheer enormity of what I'm about to do.
+
+"Alright, lady." The rat stands, pads across the room with claws clicking on linoleum. There's a hissing, gurgling sound, a sound of something more complex than water being poured, and then a soft curse. A single curse is more a matter of form, though, and the lack of follow-up keeps me from panicking outright.
+
+The rat hurries back toward me, the half-jug in oven-mitt-clad paws billowing a sinking fog in his wake. This gets quickly set down on the steel table so he can shake the mitts off. The nitrogen fog continues its cascade, flowing over the table and onto the floor. From then, everything happens in quick succession.
+
+I'm laid out on my side.
+
+A thick petroleum jelly is smeared into the fur around my eyes, and a piece of aluminum foil massaged into that to create at least an attempt at a seal.
+
+Footsteps.
+
+A paw holds the foil in place. Another holds my muzzle down against a pillow in a sanitized paper pillowcase. A third, more spindly than the others, presses down on the side of my neck. Someone presses a rolled-up towel into my paws.
+
+Murmuring.
+
+A rush, a clatter, and then pain as something presses against my cheek. I grit my teeth, clench the terrycloth in my paws, and let out a sort of gurgled moan. Someone's counting down.
+
+The pain leads with cold, then turns searing, and then is lost in a labyrinthine landscape. Sere, white, a sun too bright to look at, and the smell of snow.
+
+The countdown reaches zero, and the pressure against my face relaxes. That 'something' that was pressed against my cheek is lifted away, and someone murmurs dryly, "One down, five to go."
+
+I spend the next half hour alternating between gasping for breath between each countdown and exploring that landscape: a tangled mess of chalk-white rocks, angular, thorny bushes with no leaves, lingering snow-scent, and a flute playing whistle-tones above it all.
+
+I'd never known how intricate pain could be.
+
+After the last countdown is finished and I am allowed to sit up once more, I finally allow myself a simple, "Fuck."
+
+There's laughter as the foil is pried away from my gummed-up fur and I blink my eyes back into focus. There's the rat along with his accomplice, a weasel far taller than I, sitting on a stool with a kerchief keeping unkempt headfur out of his eyes. On the table by him, a short copper bar clamped into a stainless steel handle is still oozing tendrils of too-heavy fog.
+
+"*Fuck,*" I say again.
+
+"Stings, huh?" The weasel grins, and I recognize his voice from the countdown.
+
+"Uh...I guess." I try to smile, feeling cold-burnt skin pull at my cheeks, and the smile turns into a wince. "Bit of an understatement. What does it look like?"
+
+The rat reaches to snag a mirror and hold it up to my face. Shaved cheeks---that much I'd seen---cutting fine brown fur almost down to the skin, and three bars on each cheek, radiating away from my whiskers toward the back of my head. The bars show up as patches of matted, crispy, burnt fur.
+
+"It'll turn white soon enough," the weasel says. He stretches out his arm and bunches up his sleeve, revealing simple coiling patterns of white fur amidst the brown of his fur. I'd seen it before in pictures (that being the reason I'd chosen this parlor), but seeing it in person made me all the more eager for the fur on my cheeks to grow back.
+
+"Now you just need some piercings." The rat laughs as I shake my head.
+
+I pay in cash. They accept cards, but I had more than enough on hand.
+
+-----
+
+From the mod parlor, I head home to take care of the apartment. All the stuff I need is already in the car, packed into a backpack and a suitcase. Nothing from inside, of course. This all has to stay. Still, it's good to make sure.
+
+Everything's neat. Not too neat, of course, as I can't keep up with Jarred's standards, and he can't keep up with the rate I make things messy. Stuff's on shelves, dust free. Clothes are put away, but the hamper's overflowing. The kitchen's wiped clean, but there's a stack of plates and glasses in the dirty half of the sink.
+
+Poor Jarred. Ah well.
+
+Once my account of the house is done, I begin to dismantle the life I'd built up for myself. I unwind it in slow, circular passes of the apartment, starting from the ground up. I carefully destroy what I was.
+
+I slowly untick a checklist, item by item, of the things that got me where I am, made me who I am.
+
+Drawers are tugged open and clothing strewn haphazardly about the floor. The bed sheets are pulled free of the mattress and shredded with my claws to look as though it was all done in haste.
+
+It's not. It's all careful. I have to be quiet for the neighbors, and I have to be deliberate for myself, even if it does feel like watching someone else work.
+
+The mattress is thrown askew as though someone had been digging for cash beneath it. The bathroom is mostly left alone, but pill bottles are dumped in the sink, looking like someone was hunting for something more interesting than aspirin. The top shelf of the closet is ransacked, with shoes tossed on the floor and the contents of my jewelry box tucked away in a backpack, along with Jarred's nice watch. I didn't care for the stuff, but I knew a burglar would.
+
+The living room is more difficult. We have a TV, which a burglar would latch onto immediately. I'd planned for this, though, and the TV is set neatly by my door while I see to the rest of the room.
+
+I tip over the speakers on their poles and scratch carefully crazed claw marks around their bases, a show of trying to detach them. They stay on the floor.
+
+The bookshelf is dismembered as quietly as I can manage. Books are pulled off in armloads and scattered around on the floor. One from every armful is bent and torn, my heart aching to do so. A yearbook tweaks memories and is discarded. Paintings are removed from their hooks and tossed on top of the books.
+
+The couch is shredded and exposed just as the bed had been. Nothing there, beneath those torn cushions.
+
+The kitchen is next. I step quietly over the pile of books and head on in. There's a cursory pass of the fridge and cabinets: pushing glasses and food to the sides to expose the backs of them. My concession to looking hasty is to put a glass in a plastic bag and crush it under my foot, then scatter the shards over the counter and onto the floor. A very careful “whoops.”
+
+The garage had been my space, and is the last to get torn down. We'd rented half a duplex and paid extra for the side with the attached garage, which I'd claimed for all of my painting stuff, but which was under constant threat of being slowly consumed by junk.
+
+I eviscerate my old camping gear. I trusted Jarred to never pull himself away from his computer long enough to even consider camping. So much time at the keyboard, so little to spend elsewhere; so much time spent on him, so little on anyone else.
+
+My easel is easy to deal with: I just tip it over. The rickety thing clatters to pieces just shy of the front bumper of the car. A sketch of a painting, burgundy on black, tumbles askew. Boxes containing old clothes are turned out. A clock is broken most carefully.
+
+Jarred and I, we'd never hidden anything together, but I have to look thorough.
+
+On my own, though, I'd hidden cash. Just shy of twenty grand in a locking cash box disguised as a two-quart thermos tucked firmly into my old backpacking gear in the mess of our garage.
+
+Or it had been. Now it was tucked into the car, just behind the driver's seat.
+
+My life isn't completely unwound. Not yet. But I'm getting there.
+
+I reach in the car and grab a bag of odds-and-ends fur sweepings. Little bits snagged here and there from shedding coworkers. Some from a grooming place. Even a bit from the mod shop's bin before I was shaved. I make a quick circle around the apartment, scattering fur on the most torn up bits
+
+I grab the TV on the way back to the garage---a flat screen thing that we only ever used for movies------and lay it down its back by the car. I give it a kick until it's squarely behind one of the front wheels.
+
+*Here we go.*
+
+I climb in the car and hit the button to open the garage.
+
+When I reverse over the TV, there's a delightful crunch. I can't smile without my newly branded cheeks burning, so I breathe satisfaction out on a sigh.
+
+-----
+
+My paws ache all the way to Oregon. I had thought it would be pretty easy to slash up the inside of my car before I abandoned it, but they were tougher than I had imagined. I'd managed to come out of the experience without breaking any claws, at least.
+
+Once the seats had been shredded, I carefully cut my finger along the side and smeared blood along the clawmarks. The car was trashed as I rolled it into a ditch. There was a tiny forest there, with crumpled cans and paper wrappers mixed in with the fallen leaves. After thinking for a moment, I squeezed out a few more drops of blood onto that garbage.
+
+The bus driver had greeted me with the tired acknowledgement of a fox who had seen much worse than a sloppily dressed weasel with newly branded cheeks.
+
+I'd never been on a long-distance bus trip. Jarred and I had never been wealthy, never higher than lower-middle class, and this wasn't helped by me having pretended to make fifteen-hundred less than I actually did a month at work, all that extra cash making its way into my thermos. A cross-country bus trip is unthinkable when you can fly, when you have a car.
+
+But you can buy bus tickets with cash.
+
+The seat is cramped. About what I'd expected, to be honest, but I wasn't prepared for this quite as much as I thought. No one sits next to me, but I still felt hemmed in on every side. I tell myself to just enjoy myself, enjoy this new life. This non-life. This life without history.
+
+Hard to do when you are bumping down the road at sixty-five and no faster.
+
+I use the toilet as little as possible.
+
+-----
+
+I have made a huge mistake.
+
+If I were a smarter lady, I would've spent more energy figuring out what to do once I got here than what I spent on that hour of unwinding my previous life.
+
+I can stay here, of course. There's a long-stay hotel that doesn't side-eye my cash too much, and there's a little kitchenette in the room with a two-burner stove that's plenty for cooking for myself. Getting groceries with cash is as easy as expected.
+
+But I can't get a job.
+
+If I were a smarter lady, I'd've changed my name before leaving, keeping it a secret from Jarred as best as possible...but even that isn't smart. That would've tipped off investigators immediately. "Weasel changes name, weasels out of debt." I can only imagine the headlines once I was caught.
+
+But I can't get a job.
+
+I'm educated and all. I was a fantastic accountant, and it felt awesome to be one of the few who actually uses her college degree for what she does for a living and *enjoys it*. I worked for a few CPA offices and was on the short track to moving up at the last one. I'm fantastic with numbers, which is why I thought I had this all set.
+
+But I just *can't get a job.*
+
+No one is going to hire an accountant with no name. With no history, no verified skills, no bank account, no credit, no social security number. No one is going to hire even the smartest weasel to run numbers if that weasel doesn't legally exist---or is at least trying not to.
+
+Fuck.
+
+I can't get a job, I can't rent a place, I can't open another bank account. I can't even change my name, since that would mean engaging with my old identity, the one I'd tried to kill.
+
+*Fuck.*
+
+I can live here for a while. I ran the math on my recently-purchased calculator (cell phone was back in the car, of course---no more net for me, much as I can help it), and I can live here for maybe a year and a half. Longer, if I find a cheaper long-stay. At least I have time to try and fix this.
+
+-----
+
+The proprietor, Adam, and I have been getting on surprisingly well.
+
+He's a good guy, which I hadn't picked up on at first. I'd taken his silence while handing over my key as standoffishness. There was certainly an element of caution to it, but he's also just a quiet guy.
+
+We exchanged nods daily for the first two weeks I lived here, then simple pleasantries for the next two. He came off as soft-spoken and content with where he was in life, and as far as I could tell, he was.
+
+A week or so into my second month staying in that little studio, and he's invited me over to the patio behind the office (which I suppose is also his home) to discuss arrangements for the future.
+
+"Discussing arrangements," however, has turned into sharing half a bottle of rum while sitting in deck chairs. The rum's fantastic, but comes out of a vodka bottle. The glasses are half-pint canning jars.
+
+I can't decide if it's hipster or hippie, but the more I drink, the less it seems to matter.
+
+"So." A pause to toss another cube of ice in his jar along with another inch of rum. "Why you out here?"
+
+I hesitate and swirl my own glass around, letting the melting ice water down the rum. It's definitely overproof, and almost certainly homemade. "Needed out of where I was, I guess."
+
+He does that thing---the thing that rat at the mod shop had done------where he simply waits in silence. There's no shared glances, and the silence is comfortable, but also expectant. Maybe that's a thing that people who are happy can do.
+
+"I needed out of that life. I packed my stuff and left without a word."
+
+"You seem like you ain't hurting for cash," he says.
+
+"Well, no. I brought along enough to live out here for a while."
+
+"Mm." He looks at me over the rim of his glass as he sips at his rum. Otter expressions, I'm discovering, are close to weasel ones, but use the whiskers more. The look isn't exactly crafty, but getting close, as he continues, "Problem with cash is no collateral. S'why I charge you up front."
+
+I nod. It tallies.
+
+"But you seem straight."
+
+"Straight?" A smile tugs at the healing brands on my cheeks. They're starting to come in white.
+
+He laughs, "I ain't making a pass at you, don't worry. Sex ain't a thing 'round here. Not for me, at least. Hell, maybe you like girls too. Not my business." He copies my swirl and we both enjoy the pleasant clinking of ice against glass. "No, I mean straight. You're a good lady. You're out here to get away, you say, and I trust that's all you're doing. No thieving, no running, you ain't in trouble."
+
+I settle back into the deck chair and attempt to use that 'silence' technique I keep running into. He just grins.
+
+"So what I'm asking is this. That number I said before?" He gestures behind himself, as though that's where the past is. "I'll cut it in half if you can do some work 'round here."
+
+"Work?" I tilt my head, turning over ideas of what that'd entail.
+
+"Sure. Work. What can you do to cut down your rent?"
+
+"Uh, I can...I mean, I was an accountant. I can run your books, file taxes, that stuff."
+
+The minute I say “taxes,” Adam perks up and his whiskers bristle outward with his grin. "Deal. Sight unseen. I'm good at what I do, but that ain't taxes."
+
+I laugh, I can't help it. "Half rent? For taxes?"
+
+"Sure," he says, sounding content. "Run the books and handle taxes, and I'll halve your rent. You can take the desk some days if you want a bit more off."
+
+I rub my paw over the short, bristly fur of my cheeks, a habit I picked up as it grew back in. The crisped, branded patches had largely been replaced by normal, soft fur, now growing in white. All the shaved spots were taking a while to grow in.
+
+"A secretary, hmm?"
+
+"Well, sure. It ain't grand. Accountant like you ain't gonna find anything grand without being legit."
+
+At that I fall silent.
+
+He continues, "Jobs these days, you need to be legit. You couldn't offer me anything but cash, not even an ID to hold. You needed out of life so bad, you left behind your legitimacy."
+
+My silence becomes darker, seems to close in around me. Ears pinned back, eyes burning, muscles tensed, I try not to visibly panic in front of Adam.
+
+"It's okay, though." He settles back into the Adirondack chair with a sigh. "You can get by without that. You're just gonna have to let go of the idea that you'll ever be a part of that world again. You might, but it's best to expect you won't."
+
+From then on, it's silence. I cry as quietly as I can. Adam pours me another inch of rum and leans across the table between us to tip another ice cube into my jar.
+
+-----
+
+Adam is *set.*
+
+He owns his property outright, and is up-to-date on all his licenses. Business is good. “Half rent,” for me, covers twice the cost of maintaining my studio---utilities, that share of property tax, everything.
+
+And he's happy.
+
+-----
+
+With my stay here nearly doubled, I've started exploring further into town.
+
+We're a ways out from Portland: I could take the regional bus there in about an hour and a half, but I never do. Instead, I stick to this little town I wound up in, a town picked because I got too anxious about Portland and got off the bus at the stop before. Probably my best idea yet.
+
+I'd just gone to the dinky supermarket before, but now I started taking walks. Originally, it had just been a "stretch the legs before shopping" exercise, but now I was even heading into town just to wander. There's a neat little café with huge single-pane windows and a rocket stove that I've taken a liking to. Something about the impracticality of the windows combined with that adobe stove behind the bar tickles me. And as long as I stick to drip coffee, it's not too much out of my budget.
+
+I even ventured to the lone grooming stop in town to get my cheeks checked up on. I had been worried that they'd be weirded out by them, but I was greeted by a punky opossum with a bright pink streak of fur from the tip of her snout down to the nape of her neck. She said my cheeks were looking good, then talked me into buying a tube of dye. She suggested pink, but I went for the blue instead.
+
+I don't know why I did that. Being an accountant wasn't just an occupation for me. It was a whole identity. I bought into the smart pantsuits and that sensible jewelry, the latter of which was still in my suitcase, to mark my position hard-core. The tight grooming and the calm speed of numbers, that's *who I was*.
+
+Now, I don't know. I have three pairs of jeans, a frowsy canvas skirt, and a bunch of long- and short-sleeved button up shirts and tees---only some of which fit well---I grabbed from a thrift store before this whole excursion began.
+
+Maybe I just figured I'd own it. I got the cheek brands, after all; might as well get the dye, too.
+
+Tonight, I'm dyeing a diamond shape into the white down my front. It'll sit just above my breasts, with a tendril curling down beneath them, and another tendril curling up over my front to my neck. I can hide it with a scarf if I need, but otherwise, it'll peek up from above my shirt. Just a little tease. One that could go “sexy” when I want, or just “artsy” otherwise.
+
+The thought's actually quite embarrassing, but it's been a long time since sex. Jarred and I were pretty into it at first, but then it became routine, and then scarce. We hadn't fucked for a month before I took off, and since then I'd been too busy hiding to worry about it.
+
+With this new arrangement with Adam, though, I don't know.
+
+Maybe being a little sexy will be okay.
+
+-----
+
+Holy shit, I may actually be able to pull this off. It'll be crazy, but maybe I can do it.
+
+I guess Adam did some talking after I'd asked about more possibilities, and now I've got the owner of Starry Night, the town's little café, as a "client" of sorts. He's having me do the taxes and help run the books. He even offered to let me run the till if things get busy. They haven't yet, but he's promised me it's still the off-season. Not cold enough to be winter, but not yet warm enough for holidays. He's not paying me anything close to livable, but with the deal I'm getting on rent, I might just be able to do this.
+
+It's such a small town. It looks bigger than it is, since so many of these kitschy stores and homes have so much space around them. The market has a parking lot twice the size it needs.
+
+There are folks living around the town in seclusion, I guess, but those who live in the town itself, who *are* the town, probably number in the low hundreds. Other than that, it's just a waypoint. Folks heading up to the mountains stop through and keep all the businesses going, but they never stay long. They're always on their way to more romantic locations or heading back through on their way back to the coast. The town itself holds together through the need to provide for all those who would only pass through. All those people on any one day, and it's still a small town.
+
+I've started painting again, too. Starry Night has a drop ceiling and each tile is painted a different color. After I mentioned having been a painter in my "past life," Stefan, the owner, perked up and sent me home with a blank tile, along with a few crusty tubes of acrylic and a brush that hadn't been used in a while.
+
+"Go nuts," he said, and so I did. Background of green and a symmetrical tree in black, limbs splitting into branches that became whisker-thin toward the edges of the tile. The leaves were vague suggestions of white that broke the symmetry. An idea of a tree. Just the type of stuff I painted up until four months ago.
+
+Stefan loved it, and here I am working on my second tile.
+
+This---working jobs all but off the grid, body mods, looking like a hippie---isn't what I'd pictured when I unwound my previous life. Now, when I look back on it, on all my planning and scheming, I don't think I had pictured anything.
+
+-----
+
+I've taken to working mornings at Starry Night and heading back to Adam's after lunch to run the desk there. If it's needed, I can even head back to Starry Night after to help out a bit more. We're well into the busy season, so both the long-stay and the café are happy for whatever help they can get. An accountant running the till is a weird fit, but at least I'm fast at it.
+
+It's interesting to watch the ebb and flow of traffic through the town.
+
+Starting about six in the morning, folks start trickling into town, but within an hour, it becomes busy, then frenetic. From there, it climbs steadily until about nine-thirty, dips for an hour, then picks up for lunch.
+
+I head out by one thirty or two to dash back to Adam's and start getting folks checked in and out while Adam does property stuff. Usually, he's out repairing the drive to the units (and the little one-room cabins in back, one of which I now inhabit). He's intensely focused on that drive; he's talked with me about the upkeep and maintenance of a dirt road for an hour or more on multiple occasions. I don't drive anymore, so I just have to trust him.
+
+Things clear up by five, and sometimes I head back to Starry Night. At that point, it's mostly a social thing. If I'm not chilling out back of the office with Adam, I'm here at the café. If not either, I'm painting. I've gotten about a third of the ceiling tiles done.
+
+The movement of people is fascinating up close, following the ways in which people move and change throughout the day. The before-coffees and the nine-AM-bounces and the post-lunch-siesta. The perking of ears and the bristling of whiskers. The droop of tails and stifled yawns.
+
+When you zoom out, though, it's grains of sand just below high tide. The tide rolls in, and there's a chaotic dance of spiraling movement. Each wave brings cars cycling around parking lots, small collisions of bodies, crimped tails, tantrums weighing down parents.
+
+And then tide rolls out, and the town settles back down into its ground state. Grains of sand compact nicely when left to dry, a comfortable stasis until the next high tide.
+
+In the midst of it all, the regulars provide a sense of weight, anchoring high and low tide to provide a sense of continuity. There's Adam, of course, and Stefan. I suppose I'm slipping into that role too. We are the wave-polished stones.
+
+And then there's Aurora.
+
+We've only talked once or twice in earnest, her voice familiar and quiet, but I watch her every day. She has a table all but reserved in the corner of Starry Night, farthest from the door but right in the elbow of two of those ridiculous single-pane windows. To her left, one window looks out over the parking lot and, across the street, the parking lot of the market. In front of her, three trees that have been planted too close to each other, forming a tiny grove between Starry Night and the back fence.
+
+She wafts in around six thirty and orders a latte, a soda water, and a pot of hot water for her and one of the teabags riding shotgun in her jacket pocket. If her table isn't free, she'll sip her latte at the bar until it is, and then set up camp.
+
+She drinks the latte first, then the soda water, then the tea.
+
+Once she's finished the soda water, she pulls out a pen and either a book or a stack of printouts and a clipboard. I've never figured out what she does for work, but she's always either taking notes or marking up printouts. A teacher, perhaps? An author? Editor?
+
+At noon, she orders another soda water and another pot of hot water for the second teabag. Some days she'll pull out a sack lunch, some days she'll order something from me---we serve a few simple sandwiches---in her comfortable contralto.
+
+She eats the lunch first, then drinks the soda water, then the tea.
+
+Once she's finished the soda water, she settles back into the chair and stares out the windows. Mostly, she just looks at the trees, but sometimes she'll rest a cheek on her fist and look out toward the market, her long canine ears canted cozily back. Something about the sight always has me watching her in turn. Something familiar, cozy.
+
+Then the coyote gets back to work, and, before long, I duck out to help Adam. On the few occasions I've stayed, Aurora will close out the shop with us, saying little but saying it kindly. Her silences, I expect, are a matter of course. They are absolute, and absolutely part of her. A stillness I can only dream of.
+
+I've never seen her out of the shop, but I think about her every time I walk or bus back home. I'll have inevitably forgotten by the time I get inside, though, as she's context-shifted around a corner of my mind.
+
+-----
+
+I'd imagined I'd done such a good job of cleansing my life of who I used to be when I left, that each time I’m confronted by something I'd accidentally brought along, it’s jarring, or even frightening.
+
+Undergarments had been the first such instance. I hadn't thought to grab any new panties before leaving town. This was probably fine, I reasoned, because anything missing would have been noticed. Unfortunately, this left me with only one pair---the ones I left in---and I'd had to visit the "essentials" aisle of the supermarket early on to grab a pack of bland panties. They fit so poorly, I'd largely stopped wearing any.
+
+What had me jittery, though, was seeing that old pair every time I did laundry. One last reminder that I'm no longer who I was.
+
+I threw them out soon after.
+
+Each time I come across some remnant, it reminds me of what I've done, in a very tangible way, even if not necessarily why. The "why" had already begun to blur on the bus ride, and I've never been able to make it gel again.
+
+It's not always negative, this process, but it's never positive. Other than a few useful items---the jewelry, for instance , kept for something pawnable in an emergency---I throw everything I find away almost as soon as I find it, stopping only to destroy it for the catharsis. It’s all too much risk to keep around.
+
+Thus me, crouched on my haunches behind Starry Night, hyperventilating as I try to destroy my old driver's license.
+
+How this had escaped me before was something of a mystery. An actual legal document bearing my actual legal name, tucked within my old wallet in the back of my suitcase, was not something I should have missed.
+
+This caromed straight into fear. Into terror. Into that agonizing sickness that settles into one's gut and closes off one's throat. I'd stopped crying as much, recently, and started smiling more, but I'm on the verge of panicked tears now.
+
+I can't say what made me tuck the wallet into a pocket at the start of the day. It was an interesting artifact, perhaps, nothing big or important, that I decided to keep on some whim. The credit cards that had once filled it lay scattered by my abandoned car back home, after all, so I figured it must be safe.
+
+The license won't tear. That was my first instinct, but my pads had slip off the slick plastic too easily, and my claw tips only scrabble ineffectually at its surface.
+
+I can bend it, at least, and I crease it this way and that in an attempt to fatigue the plastic enough that maybe I can snap it. ID cards are, apparently, designed to last, and despite repeated folds, I can't get enough of a grip to tear the card, much less snap it, though the ink along the crease fades and warps into whiteness. I don't have the leverage necessary to crease along my name, however.
+
+This isn't working.
+
+I stuff my wallet back into my pocket and dash over to the dumpster, flipping up the lid. I had intended to tear up the license and toss it in with the coffee grounds and banana peels, but the thought of it slipping out of the dumpster or falling out of the trash truck feels inescapable. With all the people going through the café during the day, though, there has to be...
+
+I tear through two of the shop's thin garbage bags before I find what I'm looking for: a cheap plastic lighter, yellow and scuffed.
+
+The rasp of the wheel against the flint sends my whole paw to buzzing, the snap of the spark too loud for my frazzled nerves.
+
+I flick at the lighter a few more times. It’s almost certainly dead, thrown away for a reason, so I just have to hope there's enough fluid in there.
+
+The flame finally catches, only barely peeking above the rim of the lighter.
+
+*It'll have to do.*
+
+Holding my breath and struggling to still my shaking paws, I carefully bring my driver’s license above the tiny flame, letting the diffuse glow settle beneath the photo of my face, the weasel there looking startled, backlit by flame. The plastic browns, sags, then starts to char and bubble. By the time the smoke, reeking of burning plastic, starts to make me cough, the image of my face and much the identifying details have melted away, the ink burnt off by the low flame of the lighter.
+
+Motion in the shadows cast against the dumpster catches my eye and I whirl around, Aurora startling back a half-step at my sudden movement. We stare, uncomprehending, at each other for a moment.
+
+"I---" I croak. "Hey."
+
+"Hey, uh...you okay back here?"
+
+I look around, down to my mangled license and the shitty yellow lighter in my paw, back to the coyote, struggling to come up with an explanation. A half-truth is the best I can manage. "Needed to, uh...expired credit card and all. Melting it, I mean."
+
+The quotidian mundanity of such an activity seems to click things into place for the coyote. She perks up and smiles, "I'd never thought of melting them before, I always just cut them into little pieces."
+
+The lighter is finally starting to cool down in my paw after it's extended use, which is good, given how much I keep fiddling with it. "Couldn't find my scissors once I got out here, figured this would work."
+
+She nods, squints toward my paws, then back up to me. "You from Idaho?"
+
+I gape, crumpling the license as best I can within my hand.
+
+"Just looked like my old card, I mean."
+
+I do my best to keep my ears from flattening and tail bristling, only to catch myself panting. So much for acting cool. "I...yeah,” I gasp. “Moved a while back."
+
+"Hey, no stress. I won't pry," Aurora laughs, holding up her paws disarmingly.
+
+I manage a smile, hoping it's convincingly embarrassed. "Sorry," I say, stuffing the lighter and warped card back into the garbage bag, before hauling the whole thing back into the dumpster. "I guess it's just a weird thing to get caught doing."
+
+Head tilted, Aurora grins at me a moment longer, then shrugs. "I guess, yeah. See you inside?"
+
+I nod, struggling to calm my breathing as I watch her round the corner to the front of the shop with a flick of her tail.
+
+When I make it back inside to prep her usual latte, Aurora smiles at me. I beam back to her.
+
+Something about the encounter by the dumpster has left me feeling giddy. Perhaps it was the thrill of nearly being caught, or maybe the relief of being rid of the thing. It's one fewer identifying thing about me that I need to worry about, after all; and beyond that, it got Aurora laughing.
+
+Why that makes me so happy in turn is beyond me.
+
+-----
+
+My brush-strokes are confident, each one is a smooth arc describing edges and boundaries, or perhaps reinforcing color.
+
+The tile had been given to me burgundy, and I'd chosen to leave it that way, painting within that dark red surface rather than covering it up. I painted in black, and I painted only shadows, not details, as though the scene were blown out towards white and the contrast turned to a hundred percent.
+
+It had started as an abstract gesture of a face, angular and canine, but had slowly headed toward something more concrete. Not realistic, but perhaps something from a comic. Hard-edged lines, but true to form with no liberties taken.
+
+Aurora at her table as seen from the espresso machine, cheek on fist, staring out of frame. The shape of her muzzle, the tilt of her ears, both familiar and new.
+
+My brush-strokes are confident. Black and red, no need for another color.
+
+"Season's winding down."
+
+"Mmm."
+
+Adam laughs and shakes his head, plopping down, then melting further into the deck chair.
+
+"S'good to see you painting, you know."
+
+"Mmm." I perk up as my mind parses meaning out of those sounds, and then flatten my ears. "Sorry. I got kinda into it. What'd you say before?"
+
+"Said season's winding down."
+
+"Yeah, seems like," I offer as I carefully shift the painting off the table to lay it flat on the ground next to me, replacing the bucket of ice in its spot. My poor-weasel's easel of the table between us returns to its former state as drinking space. I pour us both a drink.
+
+The otter has moved on from rum and is now trying his paw at whiskey. We've been cycling through batches over the last few weeks. The taste is far sweeter than I would've expected, but Adam says he doesn't have the cuts quite right yet.
+
+In my mouth, ice machine ice and homemade whiskey jockey for space with words. "Wha's li' in off 'easong?"
+
+"Eh?"
+
+I crunch down on the ice and brave the brain freeze to say more clearly, "What's it like in the off season?"
+
+"Same but slower," Adam says, chuckling down to his glass. "Way slower, some days. You got here before season started, but weren't really here in the middle of off-season. I'll probably beg your help deep-cleaning some of the units."
+
+"Sure thing, boss." I laugh as that gets me an ice-cube to the face. "Fine. Sure thing, master."
+
+Adam makes as though he'll throw the whole bucket of ice at me, before we both settle back into our chairs with jars of whiskey and ice, grinning. In the silence, I paint my claws idly with the black acrylic left on the brush from my work on the ceiling tile. The condensation off the glass thins the paint and it starts to seep into my fur. My paws are covered with the stuff anyway.
+
+The silence goes from comfortable to expectant, and when I look up, Adam's adopted a vaguely confused look with whiskers smoothed back, which he's directed toward his all-important drive. Just as I'm about to brush it off, he asks, "How'd you leave?"
+
+Anxiety brushes up against me, breaking through the veneer of calmness. It takes me a bit to respond, and I try to fill that space by nervously stirring the ice into my white whiskey. "If I just say 'very carefully', will that be enough?"
+
+The otter's expression softens and he shrugs against the back of his chair. "I s'pose. Doesn't mean I don't still want to know."
+
+"I just...I don't know. I spent a lot of time thinking about all the different parts there were of my life and thinking about what I'd be without them." I brush my paws over my cheeks, heedless of the paint. My fur has almost grown back completely, and the freeze-brand has indeed come in white. Still, it's become a habit. "And then I just set a date and went around to all those parts one by one, turning them off or throwing them away."
+
+"No going back, then?"
+
+"Not if I want to stay out of jail." I don't think this is true, but it sounds good.
+
+"So you turned off or trashed all these parts of who you were," Adam mumbles, pouring himself another inch of whiskey. "What's left?"
+
+I don't answer.
+
+I don't *have* an answer.
+
+When I think about it, there's just nothing there. It's like trying to see the inside of my eyelids. Just nothing there. I tore down what I was without any thought of what would be left. Even my license, that last proof of me-that-was, had long since burned. There was nothing after that. It was more a form of suicide than I'd wanted to admit.
+
+Finally, I shrug. "Just me, I guess."
+
+Adam laughs at this and stretches his legs out, splaying webbed toes. "Fair enough. You do a good job around here, though. It feels like you belong now. I don't know what you were like before, but you were scared out of your whiskers when you got here. Now you're just you."
+
+"A punky weasel living off the grid in a hippie town?"
+
+"That too, yeah. Took you a while to grow into the punky bit, but you're getting there."
+
+My turn to laugh. "Just missing the get-up, I guess. Second-hand shirts and jeans miss the mark a little."
+
+"Mmhm. And you ought to get a piercing." Adam slides out of the chair and stands, using his thick tail to give the leg of the table a thwack. "And it's good to see you painting.”
+
+-----
+
+For the first few months I was here, I'd get a little twitch in my paw when someone mentioned something off the Internet. A twitch in my paw and a little shift inside me at a sudden-yet-averted context-shift. *I could look that up,* I'd think. *I could answer their question, or laugh at their picture.*
+
+For a while, I'd countered it with lies. An "Oh yeah, ha ha" here and a "Yeah, I saw that" there. The anxiety that I'd mess up and be called out got to be too much for me, though, and I switched from that to nervous silence.
+
+I replaced that twitch early on with the gesture of brushing back over my cheeks. At first, it was obvious why: when I got to town, my face was still freshly shaved, and for the first few weeks, the freezer-burnt marks of the brand were plain. Soon, though, it became more of a habit than a coping mechanism. I'd brush my pads over the fur and feel the edges of the shaving, and once they became imperceptible, I'd trace my claws through fur, trying to sense where the brown fur ended and the white, branded fur started.
+
+Anything---*anything*---to keep from touching the Internet. It would be too easy for me to just log back on. The temptation to peer into a life that no longer existed was too great. My very existence here in this town depends on that life no longer existing. I’d destroyed it, and destroyed all that tied me to its remains.
+
+And yet here I am, panicking in the bathroom at Starry Night.
+
+There's a soft tap at the door, and I rush to straighten my skirt and apron, peeking in the mirror to make sure I haven't visibly cried.
+
+Aurora's there when I open the door, standing a scant few inches taller than I.
+
+"Sorry, I'm..." I shake my head. "I'm all done."
+
+The coyote tilts her head quizzically, a movement that brushes against old memories. "You okay?"
+
+"Yeah, I am." I stand up straighter and smile apologetically to her. "I will be."
+
+We slide past each other and I make my way behind the bar again, busying myself with wiping down the already-clean espresso machine, just to give my paws something to do. Not many people ordering coffee at six at night. This late in the season, the sun sets early too.
+
+Stefan hikes himself up onto the bar, the wolf's tail flagging off to the side. "You alright there, kiddo?"
+
+"Yeah." I nod eagerly, then decide eagerness isn't what I should be going for, and turn it into a shrug. "Just stomach stuff. Nerves, maybe." I laugh, and it sounds too loud.
+
+"You bolted right off, yep. Anything bring it on?"
+
+I look around, checking on the occupants. We're down to me and Stefan, a young fox couple, and Aurora of course. "Just...just something a customer...something that bear said. Or saw. I don't know."
+
+Stefan's brow furrows, and I watch as the his tailtip tap arhythmically against the wall where it joins the bar. "Saw? How do you mean?"
+
+"He had a tablet, and I guess I caught a glimpse. He was talking about it to someone. Someone on the phone."
+
+"Mm, yeah, I remember. What'd you see?"
+
+"I saw my---" My words catch in my throat. *I saw my husband. I saw my name. I saw the picture from my ID.* "I saw my hometown."
+
+The wolf grins and leans back on his paws. "Home, eh? You don't seem like the girl who’s eager to go back."
+
+At this, I laugh in earnest. "No. Not at all."
+
+"What about it piqued your interest, then?"
+
+I hide my racing thoughts with a shrug, and come up with a half-truth: "The headline had the word 'police' in it."
+
+Nodding, Stefan slips down from his perch on the bar. "Fair enough. Weird day in here, anyway. I'mma close down after this---" he gestures vaguely toward the customers, "So feel free to head out whenever you want."
+
+I think of the bus back to Adam's and being alone with my thoughts. I could walk, but that'd just mean more time turning that glimpse of an article---something about “police” and my old name, something about how long it had been---over and over in my head. "I'll stick around, help clean up and stuff."
+
+Stefan shrugs, "Sure thing. Maybe I'll take off early, then. You okay closing up?"
+
+"Mmhm," I nod, tamping down anxiety with a jokey grin. "Wipe everything down, put all the food away, put the chairs up, steal all the money from the drawer..."
+
+The wolf laughs. "No more than ten percent, please. And girlie," he reaches out and pinches my ear between his claws. "Get your ears pierced with all sorts of crap or something so you can turn into a real punk. You're too wholesome-looking to be thieving."
+
+"Adam suggested the same thing. This town must be in sore need of a punk."
+
+"Yeah, all we've got is Aurora."
+
+The coyote flips him off without even looking away from her book. He laughs.
+
+-----
+
+Stefan's really good at disappearing when he's not needed at work anymore. If he doesn't have to be there for closing, he'll be nowhere to be found.
+
+Oh well, that's fine. I don't imagine I'll be here much longer anyhow.
+
+I start by cleaning down the bar and arranging all those bottles of flavored syrup for the drinks. Next comes flipping over the “open” sign and wiping down the empty tables, stacking chairs upside-down atop them.
+
+The fox couple picks up on the hint quickly and we settle their tab.
+
+I make a quick pass of the bathroom, but it's clean enough as is, so I mostly just wipe down the sink.
+
+Back out in the café, I turn off the soft indie pop on the house speakers, and then something clicks within me.
+
+I clutch at the edge of the bar as all of those emotions, eight or nine months of them, crash into me. All those months of living in at least some state of fear, all those days of holding back on feeling anything else, they all add up to time past-me only borrowed. All those past-due feelings make themselves felt *now*.
+
+My grip on the bar tightens as I gasp out a stifled cry, and then I'm crumpling to the floor, wedged between the milk fridge and the end of the bar where Stefan had been sitting only a half hour ago. Anxiety crescendos into panic, and then far, far beyond that. My muscles are tensing, and my perception of the world, my entire awareness, is shrinking to something the size of a coin, chalk-white pain smelling of snow.
+
+I come to on my side, gasping for air and choking on sobs. I'd been sobbing the whole time, apparently, as my cheeks and the sleeve of my shirt are soaked. Drooling too, from the looks of it.
+
+My body hasn't figured out how to move, yet, but I can see a dark, angular shape above me. I try to push away, but all I can manage is to tense up further.
+
+"Hey, hey, chill. It's okay." Aurora. It has to be.
+
+"Mmnglh."
+
+"Let's get you upright, at least a little. See if you can stand." She helps lever me up until I'm leaning back against the bar. "Come on, legs out. You uh...you fell over. Let’s at least get your legs in front of you."
+
+I can't figure out how to work my voice, so I just continue to moan and sob as the coyote helps get my skirt untangled and my limbs out from under me. She slips her paws up under my arms and starts to lift.
+
+"N-nnn," I manage and clutch at her arms---far too tightly, if her wince is anything to go by. Too filled with terror, too struck by a sense of impending death to control myself.
+
+She relents and settles back down, then gives into my tugging and slips her arms around my shoulders instead. There's a little uneven rocking motion as she slides her legs out from under her, and then she's drawing me in against her.
+
+I don't really know how long I stay like that. The only thing describing the passage of time is my sobbing. Aurora is a warm bulk against me, something to wrap my arms around, some bit of stability. She doesn't coo or shush, just rests her head against mine in silence. A kind, patient silence. A silence with no expectations.
+
+Eventually, I run out of sobs, and settle into a gentle, almost calm sort of crying. Aurora gives me a bit more time before carefully leaning back. Letting our arms slip from the embrace at least enough so that she can look at me. Her smile's kind, rather than pitying. "Come on, let's get you up, okay?"
+
+My joints are loose hinges, too well oiled. Finding a way to be upright without wobbling onto the floor again proves difficult. It takes a few tries, but I wind up with my butt parked against the edge of the bar, tail crimped behind me. I leave my shoulders leaning forward to maintain my grip on Aurora. I'm loath to let go of her, so it takes another fumbling second for me to find a way to do so.
+
+"Sorry," I croak.
+
+She shakes her head and rests her paws on my shoulders. Once she's sure I'm steady, she steps away and grabs a plastic to-go cup from beneath the bar and fills it at the sink. She takes one of my paws in hers and guides my fingers around the cup, making sure I'm holding on before she lets go. "Drink. You cried yourself empty."
+
+I nod and sip at the water. It feels too full in my mouth. Too thick. It slides around like oil. When I swallow, I realize how thirsty I truly am, and finish the rest of the cup in one go.
+
+Aurora, meanwhile, finishes closing up; all that was left was her table, so there's just two chairs to put up.
+
+I refill my cup from the tap and straighten up, trying to dispel the wobbliness in my hips and knees, to shake off the dark sense of panic. "Thanks Aurora, you didn't have to---"
+
+"But you're in no shape to," the coyote cuts me off, laughing. She tucks her book and papers back in her bag and slips back behind the bar again. Shrugging her bag's strap up further, she snakes an arm around my back. "Let's get you home, though, okay? You good to walk?"
+
+"Mmhm. I can take the bus, though. Don't need to walk."
+
+"I meant to my car. I'll get you home."
+
+If I open my mouth, I'll start crying, so I just nod.
+
+-----
+
+Aurora's car is very...*her.*
+
+I don't really know how to put it otherwise. It's sensible, as she is; it's filled with books and stacks of paper, as her bag is; it's not messy, but it's got a lot going on beneath its simple exterior, like her.
+
+Still sniffling, I wait as she moves a sheaf of papers held together with a binder clip from the passenger seat to the back. Then I swipe my tail and skirt out of the way and slouch into the seat, clumsily clicking the seatbelt in place with one paw, the other still holding the half-full cup of water.
+
+The car smells of her too. My nose is doing about as well as anyone's would after so much crying, but I can tell that much. It smells like when she held me. It smells familiar, like something from years ago. Years and years. I have to swallow down a rising wave of guilt and terror.
+
+The coyote settles into the driver's seat and gets all buckled in before giving my thigh a squeeze in her paw. "Adam's, right?" she asks, smiling. "One of the cabins?"
+
+I nod. "Thanks again for driving me."
+
+Aurora waits until she's reversed out of her spot and turned onto the road before answering. "No way I'm letting you walk, and goodness knows I know how awful crying alone on a bus is."
+
+"Yeah, probably not a good look," I say. I can't quite laugh yet, but I do manage a sort of “heh.”
+
+"You are a bit of a mess."
+
+I look down over my shirt and skirt. They're both rumpled. My shirt's still damp from my tears, and my skirt has picked up a stain from the floor behind the bar---probably old coffee. I can only imagine how my face looks. I grin. "Fair."
+
+I let Aurora drive as I focus on rehydrating. I want to just gulp down the water, but I've made enough of a mess of myself tonight. No sense risking a spill. Probably better for me that way, anyway.
+
+It's about a forty-five minute walk from Adam's to Starry Night, and about twenty-five on the bus. I never realized how long the bus took, though, as it takes us less than ten minutes to get back to the long-stay. I laugh at the thought.
+
+"What's up?" Aurora says, pulling into the dirt-road drive, heading around the back of the suites toward the cabins.
+
+"Just thinking. First time I've been in a car here. Only ever ridden the bus or walked."
+
+Aurora grins and pulls into a space in front of the cabin I point out. "Bit faster, yeah. Still, it's a pretty enough walk."
+
+The car turning off leaves us in relative silence, my ears buzzing in my stuffed-up head from the lack of noise. My thoughts seem to be surrounding a blank space. Circling and swirling around it, around nothing. A black pit containing all the things I could think about my old life, of being discovered, of having to go back.
+
+"Hey." Aurora. She's smiling. That's a good thing to think about instead, that smile. "Let's get you inside."
+
+I fumble for my buckle and start to protest, but stop before I say anything. The coyote, the scent of her, it's all so comforting; might as well let her help. A few more moments together, at least.
+
+Aurora levers herself out of her seat and strides quickly around the front of the car. I've got the door open by then, but there she is, ready to help me out of the bucket seat. I grin, feeling bashful, and take her offered paw.
+
+She's got a bit of a wag going on, too, but I try not to read too much into that.
+
+I lean on her as we walk the handful of steps to the door of the cabin. Once there, I fish in my apron pocket for my keys---I'd taken to wearing my work apron with the skirt for the utility of pockets---and let myself in.
+
+Let *us* in. No discussion about whether she's coming in, too. She just is.
+
+I flip on the lights and cringe, both at the sudden brightness against the dusk outside and the mess. I've been using my suitcase as my clean clothes drawer since I moved in. It's just got a day's worth of clothes in it, though. Next to it on one side is a pile of dirty clothes, and on the other, a folding drying rack holding a pair of jeans, a shirt, and two pairs of panties hanging off the corners.
+
+Fuck.
+
+I turn to apologize to the coyote, but she hasn't noticed the laundry at all. Doesn't even seem to notice me.
+
+I follow her gaze, then cringe in earnest.
+
+*Fuck.*
+
+"Holy shit. Those paintings are yours?"
+
+"Yes," I say, trying not to sound *too* humiliated.
+
+"The coyote?"
+
+I can't come up with a reply. We stand in expectant silence: Aurora's eyes locked on the paints and ceiling tile, burgundy, with her silhouette in black; and me, with my eyes locked on the floor and my tail tucked in against my leg.
+
+She turns, mouth open to ask again, when I grab at her paw and rush to cut her off.
+
+"Yes, I mean. Yes. You're just...you're just always there." My eyes well up with tears---I'm surprised I have any left---as words keep coming, and I keep holding onto her paw. "You're just always there and so familiar and I don't know--- They let me paint the ceiling, and I don't know--- I should've asked, I'm sorry--- I don't know, you're just one of the only constants in my stupid fucking life and I didn't even talk to you until I---"
+
+"Whoa, hey!" she says, raising her voice to cut off my stream of babbling. She looks startled, but not angry. "It's totally okay but---hey..."
+
+I've started crying in earnest again. *Looking a fool, standing there holding a girl's paw, tears pouring down your cheeks.* I manage a strangled laugh, though it's caught up in a sob. *Looking fucking crazy.*
+
+Perhaps as an echo from the café, Aurora takes charge. She guides me over to my bed and sits me down on it before settling in next to me and just holding me, arms around my shoulders.
+
+It doesn't last long, and doesn't get a tenth as bad as the crush of panic at Starry Night, but it still takes me a few minutes to get to the point where I can speak again. "Sorry, Aurora." I pace myself, so I don't just start babbling again. "Didn't mean to do that. Just such a mess today. My life's a mess, and it all hit at once."
+
+"Tell me a bit about your life, then," she asks, low voice kind. "I want to hear."
+
+I feel my face tighten in an ugly rictus, teeth bared and whiskers bristled. It's been months, but the freeze-brand scars over my cheeks give a twinge of protest. "There's nothing." As the sobs pick up again, dry now, I have to eke out words between. "There's nothing there. I'm just...paper. Paper thin with no substance. No substance at all." I trail off and take a few gulping breaths to calm myself, forcing my expression into mere hopelessness, rather than that grimace of self-loathing.
+
+Aurora watches me, and, after I've gotten my crying under control, opens her mouth as though to say something, then seems to think better of it and leans in to kiss me instead.
+
+I jolt and tense up. I hold my breath. My mind goes blank. That sensation of being about to cry fills my chest, never mind the fact that I'd already crying.
+
+Then I just lean into the kiss. Return it. No discussion about it; it feels familiar, fulfilling. I'm calm. Still at last.
+
+Aurora seems comfortable taking the lead, using her paws and subtle shifts of her weight to guide me to lay back on the bed. Once I'm there, she leans up from the kiss and grins down to me with just a hint of silliness. "You feel substantive to me."
+
+I'm wrong-footed by this and it takes a moment to parse. Once it clicks, though, I giggle. "Thanks." I feel stupid just leaving it at that, though, and add, "That was nice."
+
+"Mmhm." Still grinning, she leans into give me another quick kiss, then moves to kneel on the edge of the bed, tugging me by the paw. "Come on. Scoot."
+
+I laugh and swipe at my face with the sleeve of my shirt---I must look a mess after all of this. Still, I scoot further up onto the bed at the coyote's bidding. "Alright, alright. How come?"
+
+Aurora shrugs, her grin softening into a kind smile. "I got you thinking less about whatever's up with your life, right? I hope so, at least." I nod, and she continues, "The least I could do is also let you be comfortable on your bed instead of half hanging off of it."
+
+"Good point," I laugh and haul myself up onto the bed, flopping back against the pile of pillows. I'd bought more once it was clear I was staying here a while, and I'm thankful for it now.
+
+Aurora moves too; as I make room, she moves up onto the bed to kneel next to me. "Doing better?"
+
+"Yeah, thank you." After a moment's thought, I ask, "Why'd you do that?"
+
+The coyote frowns down to me, ears splayed in embarrassment. "I wanted to. It felt like it would work, and like it would be okay. I should have asked, though. I'm sorry."
+
+"No!" I realize how loud that was and smile sheepishly up to her. "No, it was nice. Real nice."
+
+That slightly silly grin comes back, tugging on buried memories. Memories of a latrans smile. "Good," she says, leaning in to press another kiss to my muzzle. I return this one more readily than the last, sliding my arms up around her shoulders.
+
+This goes over quite well. Aurora seems to have taken it as a sign, and leans down over me more assertively, paws planted to either side of my shoulders. After a moment's hesitation, she leans up a little further onto her knees and shifts one up over me until she's straddling my waist. She's bigger than me, weighs more than I do. Maybe it's the way she carries herself, but her weight is more comforting than heavy.
+
+"Wait," I murmur, twisting my head slightly to pull away from the kiss.
+
+Aurora immediately tenses up, ears canting back. "Uh, sorry, I don't---"
+
+"No, no. You're fine," I mumble, searching for words. "Don't know why...why this is...doing what it is. Working. Stopping me from crying and all. Taking my mind off stuff."
+
+She stays silent above me. An expectant silence she waits for me to fill.
+
+I hunt for words as best I can. "Maybe I just...I don't know. I haven't touched---or been touched by---anyone since I made it out here. Before that, even. It feels dumb to say, I guess."
+
+Aurora gives a short bark of a laugh at that, then lays her ears back again apologetically. "Sorry. You mean not at all?"
+
+"Well, sure, I mean. I shook paws with Adam and Stefan, whatever. I've *touched*, yeah, but just nothing like this."
+
+At that her expression softens and she nods. "Been a while, huh?"
+
+I nod.
+
+"And this is okay?"
+
+I nod again and lean up to give her a quick kiss. "Yeah, very."
+
+She nods, muzzle dipping to turn that motion into something of a nuzzle, and I can feel her nose tracing along one of those white bands of fur on my cheek, then under my chin, dipping down to tease at the coil of blue fur---faded now to a pale aqua---peeking up above the scoop-neck of my shirt. Her soft, low voice is muffled by my fur. "This is okay, too?"
+
+Without tucking my muzzle uncomfortably low, all I can really see are her ears, so I lean forward to place a kiss between them, fur and familiar scent tickling at my nose. "Mmhm." I've given up saying more.
+
+Aurora responds with a kiss of her own against my sternum. It's a ticklish sort of feeling, and my squirming gets a giggle, muffled as before against my chest. She settles down from her crouch above me, bringing her paws from by my shoulders to brush along my sides as she rests more fully against my front. I slip my own arms from around her until it's just my paws on her shoulders.
+
+The sheer exhilaration of physical contact seems to be filling my mind---or at least that empty void within that I've only been able to tiptoe around---with something new. Something *else.* Something other than low-level anxiety. I can close my eyes and not wind up in some horrible hopelessness. I don't have to think, I can just be here. Goodness knows why, but I can just be here.
+
+I jolt to awareness from my wandering thoughts and tense up, and Aurora's paws pause halfway up my sides. Her fingers and claws are buried in my fur with t-shirt cloth bunched around her wrists. We both hold still in that silence, a few long seconds of just our breaths. For once I don't rush to fill it with words, and simply settle back down, relaxing into her grasp.
+
+The coyote hesitates a moment longer before edging her paws upward further, inching shirt up over fur. Keeping my paws on her shoulders as best as possible, I arch my back enough to let her slide my shirt up.
+
+The exploration continues in fits and starts from there. Kisses along the blue diamond and down over my chest. Aurora shifting her weight. Me tugging my shirt off to keep it out of the way. Soft coyote nose tracing spirals in my fur. One lasting sensation, a singular point of focus.
+
+The skirt, though, requires coordination. Aurora and I have to exchange a few glances, one or two half-words, and some soft giggles before the garment winds up bunched around my waist, spilling in pools of cotton to either side of me. And then there we are: me, with shirt off but for one arm still stuck through a sleeve, skirt bunched around her waist; and Aurora, looking nervous but excited, wagging as she looks up at me along my front over a pile of rumpled skirt.
+
+"So uh..." I begin.
+
+"Mm?"
+
+"Mm."
+
+Soft noises. Gestures of paws. The warmth of a tongue, slender and attentive. Finely-tapered coyote muzzle. Lithe, arched weasel back. Quiet moans and subtle shifts to express what works and what doesn't. Paws finding places to rest, to touch, to brush and stroke.
+
+And then something new, something different clicks within me. A rising swell of pleasure, and a sudden, uneven tumble of memories. A shuddering gasp and an attachment of name to place to time. A contraction, then relaxation of muscles and a line drawn between two points. A connection.
+
+Panting to catch my breath, and glimpses of high school, of nervous first times. Memories of a muzzle and an attentive tongue. That same muzzle, that same tongue
+
+A warm glow, and a name surfacing to memory.
+
+I collapse back onto the bed, slack, and stare down over my front. Aurora stares back just as intently shifting her weight forward once more, retracing her route of kisses in double time.
+
+"Wait, you're---"
+
+"Aurora. I'm Aurora."
+
+I start to speak, but she cuts me off.
+
+"I'm Aurora. You're you."
+
+I swallow compulsively, feel fear caving in my insides, terror at having been recognized, caught. "But you were...we---"
+
+"I know who you *were*, and you know who I *was*, but I'm Aurora. You're you."
+
+I fall silent, paws clutching at the duvet in search of something solid. Aurora leans up for the final kiss, more tender than heated, more earnest than fumbling. I smell her, and taste myself.
+
+-----
+
+"We all have reasons to disappear," Aurora murmurs.
+
+We've settled back onto that stack of pillows I've collected. My skirt's still bunched up between us, but I've managed to toss my shirt to the side. She's gotten her arms around me once more and her cool nosetip is teasing along those brands again from where she lays beside me.
+
+"I suppose," I begin, then shake my head as if to throw away a bit of the non-speech. "So you came out west and transitioned out here."
+
+A faint nod, nose exploring a line perpendicular to the stripes of my brands. "I tried back home, a bit after high school and, uh...us. My heart was half out here by then anyway, though, and no one wants a mopey, trans coyote, least of all my parents."
+
+I nod. There's still that hint of a name---I can think it, but would have a hard time saying it---and that memory of a tapered muzzle between my thighs.
+
+Memories from nigh on twenty years ago.
+
+A high school fling. Two dates, a night together, and drifting apart. She had seemed so uncomfortable with herself. We'd... Well, tonight had more than made up for that.
+
+"And you?"
+
+"Mm?"
+
+"Why'd you disappear?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+Aurora lifts her head a little, a hint of a grin turning the corner of her mouth. "You don't know?"
+
+"I don't." I tilt my head to press my nose to hers. "I think that's what got me today. I saw that thing on the news. About Jarred, about myself. About home."
+
+She nods, nose against nose and stifling a yawn.
+
+"And I just don't know why," I murmur. "I unwound all of that life and came here, and I think, when I saw it, I realized I don't know why I did it."
+
+"Were you happy, back home?"
+
+"No."
+
+Aurora tucks her muzzle up under my jaw and hugs her arm around me a little tighter. "Neither was I."
+
+I brush my fingers across her arm, plowing a furrow in gray-tan fur, then smoothing it back down. I push down memories of that gawky and shy coyote, and revel instead in the comfort of Aurora.
+
+So many months of panic following so many years of discontent. So much time alone. And now, comfort and peace.
+
+Muzzle tucked over hers, I ask, "What about me did you remember?"
+
+"Your paintings."
+
+"Have I changed that much?"
+
+"I mean, you looked like someone who could've been, uh, who you were. But it was your paintings." She yawns in earnest. "The lines. The shapes."
+
+The burgundy-and-black ceiling tile is behind me. I think of looking, of disentangling myself from the coyote's arms, but there's something much better here in front of me.
+
+"And you?" Aurora sounds sleepy. "What tipped you off about me?"
+
+I think of all the things I could say---the warmth of her breath, the trail of kisses, the way her nose drew lines through my fur. The way she rested her cheek on her paw, staring out the window. The softness of her form. Her very scent.
+
+We lay together in silence. A comfortable silence. The first in a long time.

content/post/fiction/sawtooth/gigs.md

@@ -0,0 +1,315 @@
+---
+title: Gigs
+type: post
+date: 2020-06-26
+description: "Gig economy is kind of the worst! We want happy lesbians, not frustrated ones."
+series: Sawtooth
+img: flag.svg
+tags:
+- Furry
+- Employment
+categories:
+- Short Story
+---
+
+*Well, shit.*
+
+Winter trudged heavily through the piles of dead leaves lining the gutter, the lynx's broad paws crunching through them. There was a sidewalk, but this wasn't a mood for sidewalks. This wasn't a mood for keeping clean, staying out of the way. This was a proper sulk.
+
+She pulled her phone out for the umpteenth time and thumbed at the screen, tapping out yet another message to Katrin that she wouldn't send. Deleted message. Put phone away.
+
+A low growl started in her chest, rose, crescendoed, and she let out a brief yell. No words, just a vent of frustration. Birds startled from the tree beside her.
+
+It didn't help.
+
+"Making a damn fool of yourself," she grumbled. "Twice over."
+
+She hesitated on the corner of Linden and 18th, stopping mid-stride and staring down the street. She should turn. She should turn left and walk the next two blocks. She should head up the stairs. She should open the door, set her phone down, change out of her clothes --- clothes she'd now have to return to the market --- clean up, start cooking.
+
+She should tell Katrin what happened. She should look for a new job.
+
+"Shit," she repeated, this time aloud, and kept walking straight. Five blocks to the plaza. She'd grab a coffee, sit on one of the benches. Watch the early afternoon crowds putter along the mall.
+
+Or maybe she shouldn't grab a coffee she could no longer afford. Maybe she should be saving her money.
+
+She kept walking.
+
+She got her coffee.
+
+She sat, and she watched.
+
+-----
+
+Katrin and Winter stood still, heads bowed, both searching through their thoughts.
+
+Winter couldn't guess at her wife's thoughts. The fox was always so inscrutable. Winter would sometimes watch her face while the vixen worked, the blank mask of pure white, punctuated with only the pitch-black nose, those darkest-brown eyes, and try to decide if the inscrutable part was the all-white fur or some sort of Scandinavian magic.
+
+Today, she couldn't tell. Katrin's matte-white fur reflected light so well that there were no shadows left to reflect her emotions. And yet, there was still something foreign to those features. The almond-shaped eyes, the blunt muzzle, the ears almost hidden in thick fur.
+
+Perhaps another Swede would be able to read that face, to say what Katrin was feeling, but not Winter. Not right now.
+
+"And they didn't give any recourse?" The fox looked up to Winter. "Just *come pick up your last paycheck and drop off your shirts*?"
+
+The lynx nodded. "Just that. Mr. Stevenson just said he couldn't keep both managers on board, and, well, Kayla's his daughter."
+
+Katrin nodded and slid her paw across the counter top to twine her fingers with the lynx's. "I understand. I'm sorry, love."
+
+"It's okay." Winter sighed and gave those fingers a squeeze in her own. Even with the flour still clinging clinging to her wife's fur, even with the coarseness of her pads, worn from so much kneading of dough, they seemed so delicate in her thick-furred mitts. "I'll start looking tomorrow."
+
+"Okay. Let me know if you need any help, I'll do what I can."
+
+The lynx nodded.
+
+"It'll be okay, love. I promise." Her smile was tired.
+
+-----
+
+Gone were the days of sitting up at the kitchen table, circling help-wanted ads in the newspaper. Hell, gone were the days of the newspaper.
+
+Instead, Winter grew addicted to job posting boards, both local to her town and some that ran on a wider scale. Once she got her résumé all fixed up, she began flooding local stores with it, starting with all of the local grocers --- as Stevenson's had been --- and then broadening her search to related retail outlets.
+
+And then unrelated.
+
+Then non-retail positions.
+
+She would work in shifts, spending an hour prowling through postings, then spending five minutes making sure her files were in order, then another two hours applying. The act of uploading a résumé to a site that promised to read all it could from it, then required her to fill in all that information again in form fields became rote, numbing.
+
+There were a few calls back, but more often than not, silence. It was starting to feel futile. It was starting to feel like hollering into the void. She would click submit on yet another application, and it would just...go away. It would go nowhere.
+
+Even an outright rejection would feel better.
+
+She had set herself a week to exhaust all of the usual application channels. On the third or fourth day, she started driving around to stores and dropping off paper copies of her applications as well.
+
+It was on one of those outings towards the end of her time-boxed week that she first noticed the ride share sticker in someone's window.
+
+-----
+
+"Winter? For Malina?"
+
+"Yep, that's me," the lynx replied cheerfully.
+
+"Great!" The badger hauled a few sacks of groceries into the back seat and slid in after them. "Thanks so much for the ride. Car's in the shop and all."
+
+"Oh, no worries." Winter waited for Malina to get herself buckled in before tapping at the GetThere app on her phone to set the satnav to direct her to the badger's destination. "Hopefully nothing expensive?"
+
+Malina laughed. "Shouldn't be. One of those warranty things. A part recall or something. I'm out a car for a day or two, but at least I don't have to pay for it."
+
+"No loaner, then? Do they even still do that?"
+
+"I'm not sure, honestly. They might. But either way, I'm within walking distance from work, so I figured it wouldn't be that big of a deal." With a wry smile, she added, "I just wasn't counting on having to do a grocery run for work. Starts getting cold out, and we start mowing through milk."
+
+Winter slid the car back into traffic --- mercifully light today --- and started down the road back toward 13th. "Fair enough. Where do you work, that you go through milk so fast?"
+
+"A coffee shop. The Book and the Bean, on the plaza. There's a few shops within walking distance that sell dairy, but none of them sell the more exotic milks, so I have to head further out. Easy enough to walk there, but I'm not hauling all of this back."
+
+"Oh, yeah! I know the one. My wife's restaurant, Middagsbord, is just down the block." She grinned. "I doubt those bags are light, though, yeah."
+
+Malina laughed and shook her head. "Not at all."
+
+There were a few moments of silence as Winter negotiated a left turn and the badger in the back seat thumbed through her phone.
+
+"How about you?" came a distracted voice from the back. "Is this your full-time thing? Driving?"
+
+Winter shook her head. "Not exactly. I just started this not too long ago. This and random gigs on Simpletask."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"Just random things people want done but don't want to do themselves. I've done filing, transcription, cataloging...boring stuff, really."
+
+Malina nodded. "Sounds like driving's the more interesting of the two."
+
+"Wasn't really my first choice, but it's turning out to be way more fun than I thought it would be."
+
+"Oh yeah? What about it do you like? Setting your own hours?"
+
+"I try to work pretty standard hours, though for me that means working morning rush hour driving, doing some tasks, driving during lunch, more tasks, and then evening rush hour." Winter thought for a moment, then continued, "No, I think the thing I like about it is that it gets me a lot of the best things I liked about retail without the standing all day or dragging boxes around."
+
+In the rear-view mirror, Malina grinned. "Yeah, that makes sense. Just the meeting people sort of thing?"
+
+"Mmhm. Meeting people, being helpful. People are generally kinder here than they are in stores, too. Most folks are grateful for the rides, and those that aren't having a good day are usually pretty quiet. I don't get many people hollering at me."
+
+Malina laughed. "Oh, I know that one. I used to work in finance, but got sick of it. I figured moving to where I saw people instead of numbers would be easier on the soul. I was mostly right."
+
+"Mostly?"
+
+"Yeah. A lot of people are grateful for coffee, but like you said, those who aren't tend to holler."
+
+It was Winter's turn to laugh. "Yep, that's the type. I guess that's what I mean, though. I got good at the sort of happy retail mask that one puts on around them, but I haven't needed it here. Not as much, at least."
+
+As expected, the drive was a short one. Once they made it to the loading zone at the end of the 13th Street Plaza, Winter helped Malina unload the bags of milk and other sundries from the back of her car.
+
+"Thanks again, Winter," the badger said, loading herself up once again. "Stop in any time."
+
+The lynx nodded and waved before hopping back in her car and turning off the hazard lights.
+
+-----
+
+While the biggest benefit to this new form of employment was the free-form nature of it, that very benefit worked against it. It was up to Winter to schedule her day around the best times for driving, and the best times for working on projects on Simpletask.
+
+However, when Sawtoothians needed rides was unsteady. Sure, there were times when rides were more likely: rush hour, some time over lunch, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights. She started keeping track of sporting events, concerts, and conferences.
+
+Some days, Winter would be flooded with rides, and the lynx would dart all over town, picking up passengers of all stripes and driving them to some concert venue or the UI-Sawtooth campus stadium.
+
+And some days, she would be stuck on her laptop at The Book and the Bean --- Malina having convinced her to become a regular --- waiting for either a ride to crop up or a task she was qualified for. Warm days were usually slow, as folks would be more willing to walk or bike. Some days, she'd make seventy percent of the income for the week, and some days, she wouldn't make a thing.
+
+And then there were the customers.
+
+Her experience of folks being grateful for rides held true, as did her experience of folks having a bad day generally simply being quiet. Those types were both easy enough to deal with, if not outright enjoyable. Over time, though, she began to see a wider variety.
+
+Around Thanksgiving, she started making trips too and from the airport and bus station, and families getting off longer trips were rarely happy. She got snapped at more than once by upset fathers trying to wrangle children or mothers coping with family through stony silence. On one occasion, played therapist along with a coyote to a frightened weasel having a panic attack, in town to visit her family and have some complicated-sounding interaction with her ex-husband.
+
+The worst of all were the drunk folks. When she first started driving folks home from bars, it felt good. She was doing a sort of service by keeping tipsy bar-hoppers or plastered sports fans off the road. The first time someone vomited in the back seat, however, her opinion of the task began to sour. It may be nice to keep drunks from driving, but cleaning vomit out of the foot-wells --- thankfully, the dog had managed to miss the seat --- was hardly a pleasant task.
+
+Football games became a source of dread. She wasn't even safe before they began, as she'd haul thoroughly pregamed fans from parties to stadium, groups of students hollering painfully loud, nigh unintelligible, whether from drink or simple in-jokey camaraderie.
+
+The tasks from Simpletask, while a break from the enforced social interaction that was an integral part of driving, were riddled with their own problems. People generally expected that someone driving for GetThere knew what they were doing enough to leave them alone.
+
+Not so with someone performing data entry from scanned documents or making brochures for events. She discovered a particular brand of cruelty that seemed unique to the role of small business owners, which they held in reserve for menial labor.
+
+The lynx lost track of how many times she was called an idiot. She lost track of the number of times she was lured in by a sizeable tip, only to have it withdrawn after she had completed the project during the three-day grace period. She lost track of how often she was brought on to be the small one, to make someone feel bigger.
+
+Still, she had to pay the bills, didn't she?
+
+-----
+
+Winter don't know how long she sat in the car, forehead resting against the steering wheel, before there was a soft knock at the driver's side window.
+
+"Love?" Katrin's voice was muffled through the glass.
+
+Winter looked dully out the window at the vixen, unseeing. Some part of her knew that she should get out of the car and head inside, should at the very least lift her head from the steering wheel, and yet she lacked the executive function required to even do that.
+
+"Winter, can you come inside?"
+
+The lynx took a deep breath. Perhaps it was the lack of something that was keeping her trapped here rather than some unwanted presence. The lack of oxygen. The lack of air. The lack of motivation.
+
+When the breath did not bring any further energy, she let it out in a rush and, through force of will, sat up straighter and unlocked the door. She might have sat there longer, but Katrin didn't give her the chance; the door she was leaning against angled smoothly away from her.
+
+No helping it now.
+
+Winter unbuckled her seatbelt and accepted her wife's paw to help lever herself out of the driver's seat. Together, they shut and locked the car and made their way inside.
+
+Only once she was settled at the kitchen table with a small plate of dill-heavy dumplings --- some new recipe Katrin was testing out --- was she able to loosen up.
+
+"I'm sorry, Katrin. I just...long day."
+
+The fox nodded, frowning. Never able to completely cease working, she seemed to be dissecting one of the dumplings she had made and was poking at the insides of it with the tip of a knife. "You've been having rather a lot of those lately, sötnos."
+
+Winter frowned. "I suppose. I know it's not exactly ideal."
+
+"It's okay, don't get me wrong, I'm glad to see that you're out and about doing work. I just worry."
+
+"Yeah..."
+
+Katrin, apparently satisfied with the internal texture of the dumpling, popped half of it in her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. When she had finished enough to do so, she continued. "Tell me about your long day, love. I want to hear, because it sounds like it was more than simply the length."
+
+"I suppose." Winter stalled for time by eating a few of the dumplings. They were quite good, though perhaps saltier than she would have liked. "Just had a really gross ride partway through and never quite recovered."
+
+"'Gross' how?"
+
+"He was just really adamant about sitting up in the front seat with me."
+
+Some inner part of her smiled, despite the competing emotions. She knew she had Katrin's full attention when the fox finally put down her silverware. "I...see. Are you okay?" she asked.
+
+Winter nodded. "He didn't do anything super gross physically, but it was just everything else he did."
+
+Katrin blinked slowly, ears tilted back. Winter was never quite sure what emotion went along with such an expression, but this time, she was certain it was one of concern or worry. Perhaps anger.
+
+"I'm alright, though, I promise. He just got really pushy about sitting up front and kept saying all these vaguely...uh, sexy things, I guess, and kept staring at me."
+
+"Did you report him?"
+
+"Yeah, I mentioned it on his review."
+
+The vixen nodded.
+
+"It just made the rest of my shift feel extra long, is all. Every time I'd go to accept a ride, I'd get nervous. I drove to the other side of town just to be sure he wouldn't request another from me."
+
+"And did he rate you well?"
+
+Winter winced. "No. He complained that I was unfriendly, and I got a note from the system about unacceptable behavior, like it was somehow my fault."
+
+Katrin reached out a hand to tug one of Winter's over for a squeeze. "I'm sorry, love."
+
+Winter returned that squeeze of the fingers distractedly. She couldn't drop the topic, though. Not now. Not after the dam had burst. "It's just so humiliating. I can't keep myself safe or I risk their ire. I can't look for jobs that pay well because I know they'll just recall the tip after and I'll be out a bunch of cash."
+
+"It's been a month," Katrin said once the flare of anger died out. "Do you think you might look for something more traditional job again?"
+
+"If anyone's even fucking hiring," the lynx growled.
+
+"It's still worth looking, perhaps."
+
+Winter bit her tongue to stay silent. It must have been evident to the fox, whose frown deepened.
+
+"Winter, you know that I love you and won't push too hard, but this is not healthy. You have been having 'long day' after 'long day' for the last few weeks. I'm glad you can get paid for stuff like this, but I don't know if it's worth it long term, at this rate."
+
+"You're right," she said after a long, deliberate pause. "No, you're right. I'll finish these and then start searching again."
+
+As expected, reference to the food immediately drew the fox's attention away from the problem at hand. "Do you like them?"
+
+"A bit salty. Maybe more lemon?"
+
+Katrin smiled ruefully. "The salt is high, yes. I think you're just a sourpuss, though."
+
+Winter swatted at her wife and laughed. It had been a calculated gesture, getting her to talk food, but one that she knew would distract them both. "Not as salty as you, though.
+
+-----
+
+"Surprised to see you in today, Winter, and for so long."
+
+The lynx looked up from her laptop, gratefully accepting hot chocolate number three from Malina. "I suppose I've been here for a while, yeah."
+
+"About two hours." The badger hastened to add, "No complaints. The busier we look, the busier we get!"
+
+The hot chocolate was good. Malina seemed to have picked up on Winter's penchant for whipped cream and piled this mug high. Something about the way the cocoa would break through the whipped cream was...not exactly soothing, and yet nonetheless she felt more at peace after.
+
+"As long as I'm not a problem," she said.
+
+"Not at all. Just surprised you're not driving today. Figured it'd be lunch hour rush."
+
+Winter shrugged. "Not really feeling it lately. Had a string of creeps, so I'm mostly doing Simpletasks and looking for something more stable."
+
+Frowning, Malina looked around The Book and The Bean and, seeing no one in need of drinks, pulled out the other chair at the lynx's table to sit. "Hopefully nothing too dramatic happened."
+
+"No, thank goodness. Just a string of bad luck with lewd assholes." She typed at her laptop briefly, pulled up a site, and turned it toward the badger. "Apparently there's a site for reviewing drivers on a sort of hot-or-not basis, and I guess I made the list."
+
+Malina's frown deepened. "I'd say congratulations if that weren't completely disgusting."
+
+Winter laughed and shook her head. "Yeah, no congrats needed."
+
+"There anything that GetThere can do about it?"
+
+"I don't think so. They don't seem to care about the drivers all that much, truth be told. Not like I'm the first to bring it up or anything." Winter gave her hot chocolate a slow swirl, watching the skin that was starting to form on the surface ripple. "They just sent me a canned response of, like, how to stay safe as a driver."
+
+Malina crossed her arms and leaned back in her seat. "That's frustrating. Is Simpletask treating you any better, at least?"
+
+Something about the lynx's expression caused her to look away. They sat in silence.
+
+"Either way." Winter tried to keep the dejection out of her voice, tried to sound positive. Tried to smile. "If you have any tips on job openings, I'm all ears."
+
+"Well, do you know anything about coffee?"
+
+"I...well, no. Are you hiring?"
+
+"We've got some shifts that could use some coverage." The badger smiled, shrugged. "It's a coffee shop job. Doesn't pay much and I don't have a full-time work week's worth of shifts open, but if you're willing to learn--"
+
+"Of course!" Winter caught herself short and laughed. "Sorry. Yeah, I'd be up to learn."
+
+Malina's smile widened. "Great. Follow me."
+
+Wrong-footed, the lynx tilted her head. "What, now?"
+
+"Sure. It's fairly slow. I can at least show you around behind the bar."
+
+She looked between the badger and her laptop, then shrugged and closed the lid, slipping it back into her bag. "Well, fuck it. Why not?"
+
+-----
+
+The Book and The Bean was not enough to carry Winter, but it was enough to allow her to be more selective in her jobs. She still drove occasionally when not at the coffee shop, but the added income let her focus more on Simpletask.
+
+What it offered beyond that was something less tangible. It leant a sense of stability that the gigs could not. She could always rely on at least a little bit of money to help supplement Katrin's income from Middagsbord. She could trust that a few shifts would help cover her share of rent, and that anything else would be covered by one-off tasks.
+
+More than that, it eased tensions between her and Katrin.
+
+She hadn't realized how frustrated the lack of security made her wife until she had regained it. The vixen once again became easy to talk to. She laughed more readily. She gushed about new recipes and bitched about customers. All those little things that are part of daily interactions that had been tamped down in the face of trying to make ends meet were suddenly back and in full force. That Winter was now working in food service as well certainly helped her case. They could commiserate in ways that neither had expected.
+
+And they were happy, in their own way. A new kind of happy. A different kind. And really, what more could they ask for?

content/post/fiction/sawtooth/mind-your-manners.md

@@ -0,0 +1,37 @@
+---
+author: Madison Scott-Clary
+categories:
+- Flash fiction
+series: Sawtooth
+ratings: G
+date: 2017-11-29
+description: '[one big awful Canadian joke]'
+img: flag.svg
+type: post
+tags:
+- Furry
+- Humor
+title: 'Flash: Mind Your Manners'
+---
+
+"I'm sure that we can find something for you here, sir. We have the largest selection of mattresses anywhere in Sawtooth."
+
+An angry opossum, Jake decided, looked basically like an angry rat. They all looked about the same, when they were angry. they get their teeth out. They make a show of balling their fists as if to say *my claws may be manicured, but that doesn't mean they aren't still sharp.* "I can't see how you can live with yourself mister--" The opossum peered at Jake's badge. "Mister Jabbs. You stand there, calm as can be, when you're peddling...peddling...when you're selling filth!"
+
+The wolverine tilted his head to the side and offered his best apologetic smile. "I'm sorry, sir, I really am. We stock several different kinds of mattresses --- we're one of the largest retailers in Idaho, you see --- and we understand that you've received one that isn't a good fit for you. If you would be so kind as to come with me, my manager would be more than willing to get you set up with a mattress you would be happy to take home with you tonight."
+
+Alissa popped her gum with a grin once Jake made his way back to the sales island they shared. "Another champ, huh?"
+
+"Mm, they do seem to come in waves."
+
+"I heard that bit, the *I don't know how you live with yourself*. I've gotten two this week." The coyote rolled her eyes dramatically, and added, "Sometimes, I don't know how I live with myself either."
+
+Jake shrugged and shuffled his sales materials into a stack, racking them against the counter before loading up his clipboard once more. "Oh, it's not so bad. They come in, they yell, they go home. They buy something, they return it, they think they've won. We all go home."
+
+Alissa frowned, "That easy, huh?"
+
+The wolverine gave a lopsided grin, "That easy."
+
+"Okay, no, I'm with them. How *do* you live with yourself? If you were any more laid back, you'd be asleep."
+
+"Well," Jake said, straightening his tie and strolling back onto the floor. "I am from Canada."

content/post/fiction/sawtooth/sorting-laundry.md

@@ -0,0 +1,32 @@
+---
+author: Madison Scott-Clary
+categories:
+- Flash Fiction
+series: Sawtooth
+ratings: G
+date: 2017-02-11
+description: You always have to sort your laundry.
+type: post
+tags:
+- Gender
+- Family
+title: 'Flash: Sorting Laundry'
+---
+
+"You always have to sort your laundry," her mother always said. "Separate the lights from the darks, at the very least. Try to get all the bright colors in one load, at least for the first few washes, than you can mix them with the dark."
+
+*Yes, ma.*
+
+"Remember how daddy got his pink shirt?"
+
+*Yes, ma.*
+
+"Just remember to sort, and you'll be fine. And don't use fabric softener on your towels, they'll stay softer that way."
+
+*Yes ma, yes ma.*
+
+She grinned, stuffing towels, light and dark together, into the machine. A bra clung to one of the towels by the hooks. She chuckled. She slid the bra up, hoping to get it off the towel without problem. She laughed. A thread tugged lose from the towel, insisting on clinging to the bra strap. She laughed harder. Laughed and laughed.
+
+Laughter turned to sobs. Shaking sobs. Great, gasping sobs that left her clutching at the edge of the washing machine for balance. *Yes ma, yes ma. You haven't talked to me since I needed a bra, ma.* She plucked the thread from the bra and dropped both into the machine. *Your son had died, ma, and you never wanted a daughter.* She admonished herself through tears about not sorting laundry.
+
+*Yes ma, sorry ma.*

content/post/fiction/sawtooth/the-fool.md

@@ -0,0 +1,352 @@
+---
+categories:
+- Short Story
+series: Sawtooth
+ratings: G
+date: 2017-05-08
+description: A student and a motherly badger explore questions of identity through a tarot reading.
+img: the-fool.png
+type: post
+pdf: the-fool.pdf
+tags:
+- Furry
+- Tarot
+- Gender
+title: The Fool
+---
+
+The badger looms over a small table, the short sleeve of her smock tugged down toward the table by a glass candy thermometer. A deck of colorful cards rest neatly stacked on its surface.
+
+Contrary to expectations, the room is bright and spacious. No hint of incense or dark velour drapes, just a simple living room in a simple home, a simple badger and some simple cards. She can't be older than fifty, and she's of a more motherly bent than a mystical one.
+
+*More motherly than my mother, at least*, I think. *More earthy and far less mystical.*
+
+"Tell me about your day, Avery," she begins, and as I speak, she shuffles a worn deck of cards, nodding along with me. She draws cards yan tan tethera, and lays them face up on the table with a casual slowness that does little to distract from my words. Still, my language is stilted, and I find myself tracing the edges of the table with my gaze or watching her paws rather than making eye contact.
+
+"Now," she says when I trail off to an uneasy silence. The badger, the table and cards, a bright room with motes in afternoon sunbeams; an image more meaningful than I anticipated. And me --- dingy clothes draped over a broad frame I never wanted --- out of place. "Here are three cards. Look, and tell me the first thing you notice."
+
+"Notice?" I ask. I sound dubious even to myself.
+
+"Notice," she confirms. "What do you see? When you look at the cards, what jumps out at you? Colors, motions, angles and lines. What do you see?"
+
+I stare at the badger. She stares back, then lets out a kindly laugh and gestures down at the cards.
+
+Three cards, laid out in a line. I move my stare to those, more bewildered than anything, trying to pick out singular things. "From each of them? One at a time?"
+
+She shrugs, smiling not unkindly.
+
+*Odd,* I think. *How such a small task could feel overwhelming.*
+
+I puff out a breath of air, whiskers bristling, and tap at the first card. "Well, this one's upside down, for starters. The, uh...Page of Wands." Digging through memories, I try, "A page is like a squire or something, right? Someone who helps a knight?"
+
+"Yes, a young person, someone in training." She grins and nods down to the remaining stack of cards. "There are knights in the deck, too, but that's for another time."
+
+Whiskers still canted forward, I nod and hesitate for a moment. "So, what does it being upside down mean?"
+
+"You tell me."
+
+I roll my eyes. Still, she sounds kind rather than petulant or snide, so I think about upside-down cards. Upside-down figures, upside-down and tipped over, upset in the literal sense of the word. Upside-down meanings. Meanings inverted, reversed, turned over.
+
+"I think I see." I intend it as the beginning of a sentence, but seeing the badger's smile widen, I leave it at that. I shut out the other cards, focus on the Page. "In training, hmm? They looks like they're investigating or contemplating. The, uh...I guess the wand. The wand is the only thing growing, the only thing with green in the entire scene."
+
+"Learning about life. Investigating growth." The badger nods, but neither confirming nor sage. Simply agreeing. "But reversed."
+
+"Not learning?" At this, I sense her expression close down. It's not a visible thing; it's a sensation of her movement of thought being put on hold. "Not...not doing anything with learning, perhaps?"
+
+The badger nods. I can see the clip on her thermometer holding it to the over-washed fabric, see beads of sugar still clinging to glass, bobbing with her movements. "Wands are for beginnings, for doing. Or perhaps activating is better." She sets a paw next to the card. "This Page --- a bear, maybe? I've never figured that out --- is learning, but not moving, not beginning. There is knowledge, but no decision."
+
+"Activation energy!" I blurt, and, seeing questions in her eyes, continue. "Like in chemistry. It's dorky, but there has to be enough energy for an electron to jump from one sphere to the next; it just sits there otherwise. It needs the proper amount of activation energy to get going."
+
+Questions turn to understanding, but her gaze stays locked on mine, waiting.
+
+"I don't have the energy."
+
+"Perhaps not. Or perhaps you do, but you're --- you or something within you --- is not letting it reach the activation. The energy may be there, but blocked."
+
+I have to restrain myself from a snide smile. A reaction to my mom's mysticism, maybe. To crystals and blocked energy. In the badger, though, I sense only earnestness. "Energy as in will? Purpose?"
+
+She shrugs. My choice, apparently.
+
+"Everything's yellow in the card--"
+
+"Energetic color, yellow."
+
+"--yellow except for the black of the salamanders on their coat-thing."
+
+She nods, murmurs down to the card, "His creations, perhaps. How many full ones do you see?"
+
+I lean closer, nudging glasses further up my blunt snout. "Two, maybe three out of a dozen or so."
+
+"If the card were upright, those other ones would be creations yet to happen." Her voice carries knowledge, and more authority than she's shown yet. "Reversed, that becomes flipped around. It could be creations abandoned, or it could be things you're afraid to start.
+
+"These cards named after people or titles --- the page, the knight, the king, the queen --- they're sometimes about people. Maybe this card's about you. Or they all could be. Maybe--"
+
+I smirk, nod my head toward the second card. "So I'm the fool?"
+
+"Maybe they're just facets of yourself." She finishes, returning my smirk.
+
+Thus chastened, I look at the second card. "Okay, well, there's a dog, one of those breeds with short fur, though it doesn't look like any of the dogs I've met. He's--" I catch myself, seeing androgyny in the dog's features and tamping down the yearning for my own. "They're stepping toward the edge of a cliff, with a little spirit thing dancing at their feet. They have one of those sticks with a bag tied to the end, but their tunic thing is what has me thinking. It's all growing things." I lean in closer and add, "And little splashes of water. Green and blue with flowers on navy."
+
+We sit in silence for a moment while I think about the card more.
+
+"There's a good balance of colors, come to think of it. More than the Page, at least. Blue and green and red and yellow." I hesitate, staring at the lean canine muzzle: the balance continues there, masculine and feminine, hard and soft, focused and uncaring. I say nothing, and wonder why.
+
+The older woman nods slowly. "It's a fancy shirt, no denying. It'd look good on you."
+
+I laugh, to which she looks up, smiling. "Seriously. It's a good mix. You're a good mix, too. But you wear all drab colors. Why's that?"
+
+There's a sudden flush to my cheeks, at my appearance being so deliberately addressed. I lay my ears back. A blush along with the first hints of annoyance. These are soon replaced with simple embarrassment. "I don't want to-- I mean, I don't think I'd look good in bright colors or fancy clothes."
+
+"I think you would." She hastens to continue, speaking over my mounting disagreements, "I think you'd look good, if you dressed how you wanted. Don't you?"
+
+I frown at her. She continues, "You didn't say you don't want to dress in bright colors and fancy clothes. You started to say you didn't want to do something else."
+
+I held my breath. Anger is the wrong word for what I feel. Frustration? Humiliation, perhaps. Am I so transparent?
+
+"I don't want to," I begin in a rush of pent-up breath, feeling that struggle blown out with it. My shoulders sag, and I complete the statement more slowly. "I don't want to be seen like that."
+
+"The fool, here, they're everything. They're the beginning of all things, and they've already got all of the endings inside themselves. At the beginning of all journeys, there's the fool: taking that first step is a fool's gamble, after all." She pauses, looking at me earnestly, intently. "You caught yourself earlier, you said 'he' and then switched to 'they'."
+
+I hunch down into my slouched shoulders, muzzle dipping as I struggle for words. "They looked-- I mean, It's on my mind, I guess."
+
+"I'll come clean," she admits after a pause, dark paws fiddling with the remainder of the deck, straightening cards. "Your mom told me you were coming, so I know that much. Even if she hadn't, though, it's written on your face. I mean this in the best possible way, Avery, but you don't make a very good man."
+
+I close my eyes. I shut out the cards, the motherly badger. Motherly in the sense of speaking truths, in the sense of knowing children, in having seen them grow up. Motherly in lived experience. Experience lived in the moment, not in some dream world of crystals and chakras. *More motherly than my mom,* I think.
+
+When I open my eyes, her gaze has softened.
+
+"Why three cards?" I ask, deflecting.
+
+"Past, present, and future." She laughs.
+
+I nod, then sit up a little straighter, murmuring, "So it's more that past me that didn't have the activation energy?"
+
+"Or didn't want to use it, yes."
+
+"That makes more sense, then."
+
+"How so?"
+
+I shrug, continuing, "If I'm at the beginning of something now, it's because of how much time I spent fretting --- and not starting --- before."
+
+She nods. "And are you at the beginning of something now?"
+
+"I think so." I sound dubious, even to myself.
+
+"Why now?"
+
+"College," I say.
+
+"Away from home?"
+
+"Mmhm."
+
+She nods again. "It's a little freeing, isn't it? Being away from parents. So you, like the Page of Wands, have been investigating, leaving all that energy pent up inside. And now you're ready to...to what? Take that step?"
+
+I catch myself fiddling with the hem of my shirt. It's an olive color, faded further into drabness by countless washings, no fancy tunic; even her washed-out smock is brighter than my shirt. It doesn't go with my fur. Nor do the well-worn khakis. A darker animal dressed in those would look rough and tumble, ready for a hike. A mountain lion looks like a mess of dirty laundry.
+
+I look up from my dull self to the table once more, speaking to the cards. "I have an appointment to start talking about it --- talking about gender --- with a counselor."
+
+"Congratulations," the badger says, smiling. And I realize she doesn't need to say anymore. I realize *that's* what I needed from my mom. I realize that's probably why my mom sent me here. I realize that there's probably more to my mom than I gave her credit for.
+
+I realize I've stopped thinking of this --- the tarot card reading --- as something mystical.
+
+I speak up, "The third card, then."
+
+The badger returns her gaze to the table.
+
+"It feels impenetrable to me."
+
+She laughs and shakes her head. "It's not a book. You're not writing a report on its deeper meanings. You're picking up on some of those meanings, but you don't have to do it right away or all the time. Or at all, for that matter." Still grinning, guides my attention back down to the card with a gesture, badger and cougar looming over the table. "Just tell me what you see."
+
+Abashed, I return her smile as best I can. "Alright. It's a...well, I want to say a woman and a child being ferried across a lake or something, but the boat they're in has six swords in it. They're upright, like they've been stabbed through the bottom of the boat."
+
+"Stabbed? Like they're going through the wood?"
+
+"Yeah."
+
+"Is water coming up around them?"
+
+I look harder. The bottom of the boat is pitch dark. "I can't tell, but no one seems in a rush to get them out, anyway."
+
+This gets a chuckle. "No, no they don't. Maybe they're plugging the holes in the boat. Maybe it's best to leave them in."
+
+Nodding, I keep looking at the card. There are lines to draw the attention. The swords, the boat, the pole of the oarsman, the horizon, the water...the water. "The front of the boat, where the swords are, isn't sinking. The people still weigh something, though. Look, the back of the boat's low in the water."
+
+She nods, "Maybe they--"
+
+"Like they don't weigh anything," I add hastily, cutting her short.
+
+"--don't weigh anything, yes."
+
+I lay my ears back and grin, "Sorry, didn't mean to trample."
+
+She returns my grin, pats my tan paw in her black one. "You're excited. It's really nice to see."
+
+"So why swords?"
+
+"I don't know. What do swords do?"
+
+I laugh. "Cut and stab. Kill people. Stuff like that."
+
+"Fair enough," she chuckles. "Why would one do that?"
+
+Her words stop me short. "To...to kill," I begin. "But that's what I just said. Are you asking me why people kill each other?"
+
+She nods.
+
+"To get something," I murmur, fumbling for words. "To gain something. To get what one wants, or needs."
+
+"So, since this is the Tarot and there's bound to be a lot going on here, can we just say the swords are a tool?"
+
+"Well, I'm not about to hack and slash my way to get what I want."
+
+She leans in close to me, stage-whispering, "I'll let you in on a secret. None of the cards in the swords suit --- in any suits --- show blood. Death, yes. Change, definitely. But no blood. It's hardly hacking and slashing."
+
+"But they're still--"
+
+She holds up a paw, "They're still swords, but they're tools. Swords show work. Strife, sometimes, sure; striving toward a goal. But what they is show work. These swords aren't working right now, they're just standing there. So where is the striving?"
+
+"Behind them?" I ask. "They figures are all facing away from something."
+
+"Or toward something."
+
+"So," I say hesitantly. "I'm going to go on a journey?"
+
+She laughs, "Can you guess what my next question would be?"
+
+I shake my head.
+
+"My next question would be: are you? And then you sit and think about it for a moment."
+
+"I sit and think a moment, then say: no, of course not, it's about the work of going through something. The journey is the work." I hesitate, then nod and continue, more sure of myself. "Because I'm here at the beginning. I'm the fool, ready to take the step, and then I just have to take the next and keep going."
+
+She smiles and urges me on with a little gesture of her paw.
+
+"So if I was stalling by investigating every possibility, never starting," I say, nodding back to the first card, the Page of Wands. "Then I guess what I'm focused on is taking that first step, and after that, taking the next."
+
+"You're doing my job for me," the badger laughs.
+
+My smile falters. "Fair enough, but what do I do?"
+
+"That's advice, kid." That soft smile, again. She flips the cards over, one by one, and continues, "Advice comes from people, not from cards. And if I'm going to give you advice, you're going to need to tell me what's actually going on."
+
+She leans forward, folding her arms on the table, and looks past the cards and to me.
+
+So I tell her. I tell her all that stuff from childhood, all those stupid things --- the dress-up, the questions, the uncomfortable guidance, the frustration at forced roles. I tell her all those things that meant nothing, may still mean nothing, and yet add up to a picture of a different me than who I am now. A different shape, a different body, different face and voice and name.
+
+I speak more freely than at the beginning of the session.
+
+I tell her about my mom, about telling her bits and pieces of my feelings, and her insistence at first that it was just a blockage of energies, and then her reluctant acceptance. I tell her about my dad, and how terrified I am of him and his iron grip on masculinity. I tell her about leaving for school and deciding that becoming my own self mattered more than their financial assistance and what belongingness they could offer.
+
+"Your mom sent you to me," she states again, after a comfortable silence. "Did you tell her any of this?"
+
+I shake my head. "She knows just that I'm, er--"
+
+"That you're transgender?" she finishes for me. "Would that be fair to say?"
+
+"I...yes, that's fair."
+
+"But you don't want to say it?" she asks, kind eyes on my own. "You don't have to, can just say yes or no."
+
+"No. I mean, I don't want to say it, but I should. Maybe that's part of the first step." I hesitate for a second, ears flat and eyes averted, before murmuring, "She just knows that I'm trans."
+
+The badger nods, unclipping the thermometer from her smock and turning it over in her fingers. "Alright. And she sent you to me for advice? She told me to talk to you, mentioned vague facts."
+
+"Yeah, she told me to go to you to work on things." I give a wry smile and add, "Her words, not mine."
+
+She laughs and sits back in her chair, slouching and twirling that thermometer. "Your mom is nuts," she says. "I mean that in the kindest way, of course: I love her dearly. Have since school. I suspect she wishes the world worked differently for her. And for you, for that matter."
+
+The unabashed laugh and words of affection are contagious and have me grinning. "Yeah, she's nuts," I echo. "Still, can't say I'm upset with what I got out of this."
+
+"The cards, you mean?"
+
+"Yeah. I was expecting fortunes, I got--"
+
+"You got what you had when you came in the door," she asserts. "And a chance to talk it through. Now, you want my advice?"
+
+"Yeah. I want to know what you think I should do next."
+
+"About which bit?"
+
+"Coming out, I suppose." I scuff at the back of my neck, paw feeling clumsy. "Maybe starting transition."
+
+"Well, it sounds like you're on your way to both, right?" She clips the thermometer back to her smock and straightens the remainder of the tarot deck in deft paws. "You've told your mom, and you have that appointment, right?"
+
+I nod, brushing fingertips over the overturned cards left on the table. It felt like we were both acknowledging their presence in our own ways. "But I still haven't told dad, and I'm still freaked out what the counselor will say."
+
+"Anxiety, then?" she offers, waving a paw above the cards. "A bit of the Page of Wands still left over?"
+
+I nod again, silent.
+
+"Do you want to dig at that?"
+
+"Mmhm. Do you have any thoughts on how to get past that?" She shuffles the cards and opens her mouth to speak, but I interrupt, "Wait, don't tell me. Now you'll ask if *I* have any thoughts on how to get past that."
+
+Her laugh is kind and her fingers sure as she slips another card from the top of the deck, laying it flat on top of the first three.
+
+The image shocks me enough to get me to sit up straight, as if by gaining some distance from the card itself I could escape it. "What the hell?"
+
+"The ten of swords," she says, voice level, conversational.
+
+I count the swords sticking out of the anonymous figure's back. Ten. A feline laid flat on his front, a dark sky, a calm shore, and ten swords buried in his back, each as high as the cat himself.
+
+I clear my throat and manage, "I thought you said there wasn't any bloodshed in the swords."
+
+"Do you see blood?"
+
+Despite everything urging me not to do so, I lean in close and inspect the figure. "No," I admit. "Though his cloak is red."
+
+"The color of passion. And yellow, the color of action."
+
+"The dawn's yellow, too," I offer. I sound dubious, even to myself.
+
+"Dawn, then?" The older woman looks down at the card curiously. "Dawn or sunset?"
+
+I frown and shake my head. "Dawn, I think. It always feels like dawn chases the night, but sunset gives in to it."
+
+"Poetic," she says, and her smile is earnest.
+
+I count the swords again. "One in his ear, one in his neck. Three or four in his back." I stifle a giggle and murmur, "That's a lot of swords."
+
+Her eyes brighten. "Isn't it? Overkill, in the truest sense of the word. Like an overreaction."
+
+A thought occurs to me, and I lean in over the table. "Staring at the dawn, killed ten times over. Look, the water's even clear, like the--" I lift the last card up to peek, and continue, "Like the six. Like me staring at coming out and poking a billion holes in the idea without ever taking the step."
+
+Her eyes stay bright. "Maybe it's an alternative to the six, then. Too much emotion, not enough action. Passion and action pinned down, rather than the work of the six. You could keep taking those steps, or you could keep killing yourself with indecision."
+
+I nod eagerly and ask on a whim, "What's it like reversed?"
+
+She gives a little shrug and turns the card over for me to see. "The swords fall out --- that's a relief --- but he's still dead, isn't he? Resigned to his place on the shore."
+
+"Sure enough," I laugh. "Wait, 'he'?"
+
+"You said it first," she says playfully. "Seriously, though, most of the figures are ambiguous. Or androgynous, I think. What you read into them can mean something if you let it."
+
+"It could be nothing," I mumble. "Or it could be the old me. The 'he'."
+
+She shrugs. My choice, apparently.
+
+A chime interrupts us, me staring at the card and her smiling at me. A clock tolling slow hours. I check my watch to confirm it. Five.
+
+"Oh jeez, I'm sorry. It's way later than I thought."
+
+She laughs, "Conversations go where they will. There's no rush. I can pull together dinner for two if you want to stay." She taps at the thermometer with a grin, "I even made marshmallows, though they'll be sticky still."
+
+"No, it's alright. Thank you. I'm getting pretty tired, as it is." I shrug, realizing just how true that statement is. "This took a lot out of me."
+
+"It does that. It's a wonder we need exercise at all, when just thinking about things wears us out."
+
+I laugh with her, nodding.
+
+"Still," she continues. "You're in town, now. Don't be afraid to stop by, say hi. There's lots more we can talk about, cards or no. Don't wait for your mom to push you my way."
+
+I lever myself up from the chair, swishing ropy tail once or twice to make sure it hasn't fallen asleep, and offer my paw to the badger. "I won't. I know she thinks we'll work on things, but I just want to talk. This was more than I expected. I didn't know I needed--"
+
+She bypasses my offered hand and gives me a firm hug around the middle. Startled, I hold still. She smells of sweets. Sweets and baking.
+
+I feel unfortunately tall. A rectangle. A lummox. A big, dumb cat.
+
+I also feel understood, appreciated. Welcomed. I return the hug carefully. Then, with her farewell in my ears, take that first step out into the evening air.
+
+And then the next.

content/post/fiction/sawtooth/what-defines-us.md

@@ -0,0 +1,173 @@
+---
+date: 2019-07-01
+title: What Defines Us
+type: post
+description: Darren and his mother struggle with the rammifications of the past repeating itself.
+categories:
+- Short Story
+- Epistolary
+tags:
+- Furry
+- Family
+- Divorce
+---
+
+Darren,
+
+Haven't heard from you in a while. Do you think I could come up and visit for xmas? Been a while since I've seen the little monsters. Let me know before prices go up.
+
+How are you? How is Leila?
+
+LYF
+
+Mom
+
+-----
+
+Mom,
+
+I'm sorry I haven't gotten back to you recently. Things on our end have been awful, if I'm honest.
+
+Leila and I are thinking of splitting up.
+
+I don't know about Christmas. I hope you understand.
+
+LYFA
+
+Darren
+
+-----
+
+Oh honey, I'm so so sorry. What happened? Was it about work again?
+
+I still want to come out and see you. More now than I did before. Can I do anything to help?
+
+LYF
+
+-----
+
+Mom,
+
+Sorry, I guess my last email was pretty skimpy on the details.
+
+Yeah, the work thing got bad, then got a whole lot worse. I knew Leila was unhappy with it and all, but I don't think I realized how unhappy. I mean, I'm not happy with it, either, but obviously it's the life I live---and have lived---so it's in my blood. She wasn't happy hearing that.
+
+Well anyway, dozens of arguments later, it comes out that she got fed up enough to start sneaking out and seeing others. Maybe if she'd been open about it or whatever, I would've been more able to work with it, but I think it just goes to show that neither of us are happy and neither of us can trust each other.
+
+We tried doing the counseling thing. Even brought Jer and Eileen to some, but I don't know, mom. I feel like I'm in a bad spot with that. I feel like I'd like to be the one to talk things through with the kids, not some very expensive stranger, you know? It makes me feel like I'm out of touch with how they feel about things, and like it would just sow distrust in them of us.
+
+I'm lost, mom. What do I do? This is all so overwhelming...
+
+LYFA
+
+D
+
+-----
+
+Darren,
+
+It's not easy stuff to work through, I know. It sounds like you're doing a good job of things, and certainly like you're doing right by the kids.
+
+You both knew that there would be a lot of compromise going into this relationship, but maybe you just didn't realize how much? I hope I'm not overstepping or anything, just that sometimes compromise works and sometimes it doesn't. That's just the way of things. You and I had to compromise on a lot, and it's worked out okay (I think!!), but Justin and I tried and never could get it to work.
+
+As for what to do, just be honest. Painfully so, if need be. That said, you should be careful about Jeremy and Eileen. If you want to talk about all this and work on the divorce thing, \*don't do it on your own.\* Do so with Leila. Both of you talk with them together, and don't be afraid to talk about the problems you and L are having. They're smart cats, they'll be able to understand, and may have good advice for you, too! Treat them like adults, and they won't treat you (either of you!!) like mysterious unapproachable aliens throwing their lives into chaos.
+
+Call me if you need?
+
+LYF
+
+Mom
+
+-----
+
+Mom,
+
+Sorry for the delay. Things are up and down over here. We did as you said and have been talking things through with the kids, to mixed results. I can tell they're uncomfortable and unhappy about it all, but I feel like they're getting it, and having their say. And I feel more connected with them about it.
+
+The downside is that it's splitting L and I's thoughts on the matter in a weird way. When we talk about things in front of the kids, it feels like we're saying one thing, but when we talk in private, it's something different. We both act so civil around them because we have to, that it's made our arguments in private more painful. Things were sort of a maybe until we started doing this. Now it's feeling more like a definite.
+
+It hurts so much, mom. I love Leila, and I love the kids. If this is the direction we're going in, I guess that's what needs to happen, but none of this work stuff is going to look good to a judge. The thought of losing them has me not eating, not sleeping.
+
+I don't know what to do.
+
+LYFA
+
+-----
+
+I know, honey. I don't want to sound like a broken record, but I know it's not easy stuff. When things have broken down this completely, there is no outcome of this that is going to feel fair, but you love your children. It's plain to me, and I hope it's plain to Leila and any judge in the matter. You won't have them taken away from you. Just make sure you stay in their lives. Make sure you do what you can to help them want to stay in yours, too. (Not saying buy their affection, just show your love and appreciate (visibly) the love they show you.)
+
+LYF
+
+-----
+
+Yeah, the goal is not to be my dad here.
+
+*Sent from MobileMail*
+
+-----
+
+Darren,
+
+That's not fair to me \*or\* your dad at all. He and I had our differences and we couldn't work them out, but my goal was never for you to hate him. We shared our time with you as we did, for better or worse, and I tried to keep channels open. That's why I'm saying what I am. Help them want to be in your life.
+
+LYF
+
+-----
+
+That's just the thing, mom. You keep pushing me to him, but there's nothing there. Not saying your advice is bad, it's certainly good. It's advice I wish you could give dad. The guy hit me, though. I was never good enough for him. He was an abusive jerk and you know it. Why would I want to go and show him \*any\* positive attention?
+
+Seriously, I've tried to handle this divorce shit and my relationship, hell, my fucking life the \*opposite\* of how you handled things. You both provided me with so many bad examples of how things could go. And yet here I am, reliving the fucking past.
+
+*Sent from MobileMail*
+
+-----
+
+Darren, honey, I'm so sorry.
+
+Not a day goes by that I don't think about you. You're my baby, remember? Long as I live.
+
+So please, please understand me when I say that I'm sorry. Both your dad and I handled that entire situation terribly. \*Both your dad and I.\* I messed up back then, and if I could go back and change things, I would. I don't know if that means staying with Justin longer so that I could protect you or getting the divorce sooner to get you away from him. I don't know how I can fix it now, other than to help you not \*become him.\* We're after the same thing, here. Neither of us want you to be him, to wind up in his shoes.
+
+That's why I keep pushing you toward him, though. I know it had to have hurt him for you to cut him from your life. I can't imagine how much it would hurt if Jeremy and Eileen did that to you.
+
+I can't speak to your relationship with Leila. You know that Justin and I were cordial to each other, but when things ended, they ended, and there was no going back. If you two can patch things up, then that would be great! If you can't, though, you're right: don't be like your dad and I.
+
+Love you forever
+
+Mom
+
+-----
+
+I'm sorry, mom, you're right. I know things weren't great for you and dad either, and I know you're just trying to help. It's just hard. It hurts a lot, and it's making me really upset at the drop of a hat.
+
+Love you for always
+
+D
+
+-----
+
+And as long as I live My baby you'll be!
+
+The problem with being a parent (and you'll understand this more and more as Jeremy and Eileen grow up) is that your children are both the better versions of yourself and also doomed to repeat so many of the mistakes you did. You took a lot away from how things were when you grew up. Like you said, you took away the things that went wrong and want to do the opposite. You have my blessing on that! You make me endlessly proud when you do so.
+
+But you also took away my work ethic. That's a good chunk of why Justin and I didn't last. Not the main reason, of course, but still, it was there. And now it's playing havoc in your life.
+
+All we can do is try and do better. What happened isn't all there is to us. What defines us is also what we become.
+
+LYF
+
+Mom
+
+-----
+
+I don't really know what to say. I didn't realize that was a problem you and dad had, too. I'll have to think about it.
+
+Things are still up and down, but have been a bit more up recently. I still think things are going to end in a divorce, but talking with the kids forcing us to be more civil has helped a lot, and we've started talking about an equitable split.
+
+Thank you, mom. I know I got snippy, but you're right, and have helped more than you realize.
+
+Can you still come up for Christmas?
+
+LYFA
+
+D

content/post/fiction/sawtooth/what-remains-of-yourself.md

@@ -0,0 +1,236 @@
+---
+categories:
+- Short Story
+series: Sawtooth
+ratings: X
+date: 2017-01-30
+description: A cat heads to a party. What's usually a safe and comfortable group of friends is slowly dominated by a dog. A dog with plans.
+img: flag.svg
+type: post
+pdf: what-remains-of-yourself.pdf
+tags:
+- Furry
+- Sexuality
+- Kink
+- Dubious consent
+- Drugs
+title: What Remains of Yourself
+---
+
+<div class="cw">Drugging, dubious consent.</div>
+
+Boots? Check. Knee-high stompers with buckles from ankle to top. Dark enough brown to pass for black. Cradled the paws oh-so-nicely.
+
+Leggings? Check. Clingy and stretchy, form-fitting. Dark enough red to pass for brown. Showed off those big, no-nonsense calves and thighs.
+
+Skirt? Check. Pleated, short, the barest hint of lace.  Black and polyester, but shiny enough to pass for vinyl in the right light. Gives some shape to those hips.
+
+Top? Check. Just a navy blouse, though, nothing special about it.
+
+The last thing Alex needed was their bag: a leather and waxed canvas deal, halfway between a purse and a backpack Like a backpack with only one strap. Big enough to hold wallet, keys, phone, hat, gloves, change of socks, change of panties, a gaff in case they wanted to feel even more feminine, and a whole slew of other handy bits and bobs. It didn't really go with the rest of the outfit, but neither did it clash all that much. They didn't expect to be keeping it on them at all times, though, so that didn't matter too much.
+
+Plenty good for the night.
+
+They made it down one whole flight of stairs from their apartment before the stairs became too much to do in boots. Walking in stompers wasn't as easy as they'd hoped.
+
+Elevator to the lobby, then. And then out onto the street. *Cold, cold.* Alex shivered. *Cold.*
+
+They held their phone in their hand the entire way to the party. It was a walk of a few blocks, a ride-share across town (always nerve-wracking, but they weren't going to try for the busses and wouldn't be able to drive home), and a walk of a few more blocks. Thumbing their phone from map to messages to map to messages. They knew the route, but still. Map to messages.
+
+Made it, at least. No hassle from the driver, no one out on the streets they had to walk. The party, that red pin dropped on their map, nonetheless felt like a safe haven. *Friends here,* it announced, *Friends and fun and safety.*
+
+There was a comfortable rhythm to the party, one that was easy to fall into. Alex rotated among the loosely defined stations. The cuddle-pile on the beanbag, where they could only sit on the edge for the "no shoes" rule, too much trouble to take those clompers off (and put them back on again, later), but they did take a hit or two off a pipe someone offered. The kitchen, leaning back against the counter and chatting a little too loud with friends and friends of friends, drinking pricy beer. The living room, where they took control of the party's music for an hour or so.
+
+Comfortable rhythms from the stereo. Not too fast, not too slow, heavier on the bass than the treble. Music they liked dovetailing into more music they liked. That felt like their place, that's where they belonged.
+
+A comfortable rhythm, but with a new note, a new bass-line that teased at the edges of their perception.
+
+A party like this, they expected to know maybe half of the people, and recognize most of the rest, but there was a newbie here.
+
+Well, maybe not a newbie. He moved with too much confidence to be totally new. Talked with too much ease with too many of their friends, knew his way around way too well.
+
+New to them, then.
+
+Tall. Doberman, probably? No concessions to the style, though. No cropped ears, at least, and no mean look. Fur dark enough brown to pass for black, from what they could see, and the rest was obscured by a simple outfit. Work-out shirt of some breathable material, a backpack he kept on, and cargo shorts.
+
+*Pretty cold out there for shorts, but maybe thats just me being a cat.*
+
+Intriguing, to say the least. Alex set the next song to playing and angled toward one of their friends, no harm in asking for an introduction, right? Get a name, see if he's cool.
+
+"Jeremy, is it?"
+
+"Hmm?" His voice was a little higher pitched than they'd imagined. Not squeaky, just a tenor. "Oh, hey cat. Yeah, or Jer. How's it going?"
+
+Alex put on their best grin, shrugging, "Goin' alright. Just puttering around. Haven't been to one of theses things in ages. How 'bout you? How're you? Not seen you around before."
+
+The dog settled back into the couch, Alex perching themselves on the arm-rest by him. Jeremy set his backpack at the his feet. "Yeah, doing good, doing good. Last one of these was my first, so I guess I'm still kinda new." He had a very toothy grin, very toothy. "Hey, you got a name, cat?"
+
+"Of course. Just Alex will do for now, though." They swished, proud and a little buzzed. "Sorry, probably should've led with that, hmm?"
+
+Jer grinned, reaching up and giving their tail a little tug, dark brown paws on their black tail complementary enough. Got a mew out of them, too. "Yeah, probably," hee replied. "So uh...who invited you? Who do you know? Trying to figure out how we're connected."
+
+"Me too," the cat laughed, shrugged. "Aaron and Jen, mostly, though I've been hanging with that crowd for a while."
+
+"Mm, yeah." Jeremy nodded, continued, "I came with one of Jen's friends, Amy. Josh, and that crew. Know them?"
+
+"Oh, huh. Know of them. Not really who I hang out with, usually." Alex leaned back onto one paw, the other reaching up to ruffle the dog's ears. A brief twinge of embarrassment: *flirting already? Yeesh.* "Well, glad I got the chance to meet you. Don't see many floppy-eared dogs about. What did you get up to, last time?"
+
+Jer laughed and shrugged, "Guess not. Ma didn't want mine cropped, and it's not my bag anyway. Last time, last time, hmm. Lots of lounging, mostly. Grabbed one of the bedrooms to get closer to someone."
+
+"They let you do that?" Don't sound interested, don't sound interested.
+
+"Sure, if you ask." The dog paused, slipped some vape pen out of their pocket and drew, then added through billowing clouds, "Though keep quiet about that, it's not supposed to be a known thing."
+
+"Lips are sealed," Alex laughed and took a swig of beer pilfered from the kitchen crew. Don't sound interested, cat. *But a fling might be nice,* a small voice whined. *Don't sound interested.*
+
+Man, what was it with this guy? Body type or something?
+
+They shook their head.
+
+"Mm? What's up"
+
+Alex sat up again, giving their paw a rest. "Huh? About what?"
+
+"You just went all quiet and then shook your head," Jeremy said, grinning.
+
+"Oh, uh, internal dialogue." Alex tried to laugh it off. Don't sound interested. "Happens when I get anxious."
+
+"Are you anxious now, then?"
+
+They gave a on-committal shrug. That ought to do. Just don't sound *too* interested.
+
+"Hit off the vape, then?" The dog reached into his pocket, drew the pen back out. A pen? Maybe a different one.
+
+"Tell me what's in it, first." Relax? Around the dog? Hmm. Lowered inhibitions might be nice.
+
+"Just something to help relax. Basically what they have at the beanbag."
+
+Alex nodded, held out a paw with a little give-it-here gesture. Jeremy dropped the pen in their hand. A light, cheap deal with a translucent 'tank', about half full.
+
+They gave a draw. A short one. Started reasonably smooth, then a bite at the back of their throat. Hold it, bite's getting stronger, cough. Surprisingly odorless cloud of vapor.
+
+"Good?" Jeremy asked. "Should get you chill in a few minutes."
+
+Alex shrugged and nodded, the two motions starting a gentle buzz, an even gentler wave of pleasure. Ooh, that's nice. "Mmhm, very good. Thanks, man."
+
+Jeremy grinned and shifted himself a little to the side, closer to the bunny who'd plopped down beside him, to open up a narrow slot on the couch. He patted it. "Come sit, there's room. No need to perch up there."
+
+They hesitated a moment before shifting as well, slipping down the arm of the couch to fit neatly into the slot. Warm thigh against thigh, warm arm against arm, close enough to smell canine. Canine tinged with a slight fruity scent from the vape. Definitely a different vape.
+
+Arm against arm shifts. Jer slips his out of the way to drape along the couch back. Alex grins. Feels smooth, silky, wavy. Smooth cat. Giggle. "Trying to pull one of those subtle stretch-and-then-cuddle moves?"
+
+"Nah, more room this way." The doberman pauses, then slips the arm down further to drape over the cat's shoulder. Fingers tease at the hem of their sleeve. "But now that you mention it, that's a good idea."
+
+Alex laughs. It tinkles, wavers between masculine and feminine, chiming bells. Smoother, silkier, wavier. Tenses blurring, memory shrinking, self becoming translucent. Maybe sound a little interested. "No complaints here, not gonna turn down affection."
+
+Jeremy grins and nods. The grip tightens, cat pulled against dog. Warm, warm, so warm. Came to the party for socializing, got cuddles. No complaints indeed.
+
+Cat and dog sit like that for a few minutes, just listening to music, sinking into the couch. Warm and warmer, but not too warm. Cozy and smooth and wavy. Alex opens their mouth, and closes their eyes. Pants. *Revel in it, cat. Feel warm, taste the air, enjoy the company.*
+
+A tap at their lip, something hard and plastic. They open their eyes again. The vape. The vape and, off to the side, Jeremy's grinning muzzle.
+
+Hell with it.
+
+Another hit, about the same size though it's hard to judge. The bite is expected, calmer this time. Hold it in, breathe it out. Sweet clouds, dog. Warmth ratchets up several notches. Their weight doubles, or seems to. Sink into the couch, lean against the dog. Lean more, kick a leg up over the arm of the couch --- it's okay, they're wearing the leggings, no one's getting a show.
+
+Jeremy encourages this, for his part. That paw slips further down the cat's arm, dull claws brushing through fur. Muzzle tilts down, next to ear, and he murmurs, "Cozy cat, aren't you? Wasn't expecting this, tonight."
+
+"You'n me both," Alex mumbles. The words roll around in their head and fall out of their mouth, one by one. Disjoint, not connected to one another. Speaking out of instinct.
+
+They close their eyes again.
+
+Dog shifts, arm slips a little further around over the far shoulder, paw moves from arm to abdomen. Flat against it, then slowly curling, fingers bunching up blouse. Slit of fur between shirt and skirt exposed. More black fur.
+
+"You're cute as hell, kitty." A low rumble, nearly a growl. "Boy cat? Girl cat? Neither cat?"
+
+Purr. Purr louder. "Nnh...cat."
+
+Another growl, and this time it is a growl, insistent. "Girl cat."
+
+"Girl cat," lazy agreement. Agreement coming from some remote part of their mind. "Girl cat and boy dog."
+
+"Very boy dog," the rumble continues even after words end. A low growl filling their ears, filling their mind. Nothing but the growl. Eyes close to drown out extraneous visual noise.
+
+A tap at their lip again, then the mouthpiece to the vape is pressed past lips. No questions, no waiting. "Another hit, pretty kitty. Go on, you're fine, just breathe in nice and slow."
+
+Breathe, the bite, exhale.
+
+Start to lean back, vape follows.  "Nuh-uh, you're not done yet. One more. Getting wobbly, huh?"
+
+"W-wobble. Melty." Words are difficult.
+
+Alex melts, melts against that dog, slouching, arm draping over his thigh, Elbow, near crotch, senses arousal. Smells arousal. Not just the dog's either. *Don't sound interested* seems to have gone out the window.
+
+Dog slips the vape back in his pocket, reaches to another pocket just above it and pulls out a phone. Thumbs at it.
+
+Those delicious rubs to their tummy continue. Eventually, shirt stays bunched and they paw moves to fur instead of fabric. Purr more. Claw-tips send radiating waves of pleasure, all tingly.
+
+Buzz buzz. Jeremy checks his phone. Puts it away. "Pretty kitty," the growl is insistent, right next to their ear. "She's such a pretty kitty."
+
+Breathing turns ragged. Pretty kitty. She. Yeah, she, that's what she is. She's a pretty kitty. Girl cat, boy dog.
+
+The growl continues without words, and then, "Lets go snag one of those rooms, yeah? Got the 'okay' to play."
+
+Yeah, yeah. Don't just think it, say it out loud, girl, come on. "Mmm, yeah."
+
+Getting to the room clearly happens. At least, the next thing Alex notices is being in a bedroom. Memory's gone, only a memory. Room's a little messy, but cozy. Jer's got his backpack up on the bed.
+
+"Sit, puppy." Still a growl. Puppy?
+
+They move to sit on the bed, but Jer snaps his fingers, points to the ground. Alex pauses, swaying. Just need to sit. Need to be a good kitty. They kneel, skirt flaring out around them, backside resting on the heels of those stompy boots. Waves of pleasure, so smooth, so silky. "Kitty," they mumble.
+
+Jeremy unzips the backpack. A rustle.
+
+The growl grows imperative, menacing. "Puppy. You're my puppygirl, now."
+
+Resentment? Fear? Shame and excitement? Kitty...puppy. Feelings clash. Obedience wins out.
+
+"P-puppy," they stammer. She stammers.
+
+Jeremy draws out a seemingly complex contraption of vinyl. Evolutes it with his paws. There's a snap.
+
+A mask. Dog mask.
+
+Alex is panting. So hot. Too hot.
+
+Jer squats before them --- before her --- and, with both hands, slips the mask onto the cat's face. Feline muzzle sockets neatly into a pouch, ears are slicked back. Canine paws reach behind their head. A buckle, and then a snap. A vape being pressed through the mask to the muzzle beneath. A hit, a wave of ecstasy, intense.
+
+Erection strains at panties and leggings. Tenting, begging. Should've worn gaff.
+
+"Good girl," growl and praise. "Such a pretty puppygirl. You're mine now, hmm? My pup."
+
+Pant, pant, pant, pant. The Alex that was "they" and the Alex that is "she" swirl in her head. Ditto cat and dog. Swirl and mingle. Words too hard, can't pull them up. Comes out as a faint mewl.
+
+The doberman raps the top of the muzzle of the mask with his knuckles, "No, none of those noises. No cat, you're my puppy now."
+
+Pant. Pant, pant pant pant, pant. So hot. Too hot. "Rrrf."
+
+"That's more like it."
+
+Pant. Gasp and pant. Jer stands.
+
+"Take off your shirt, pup, don't overheat. One button at a time, one at a time. Each button that you undo makes you more my dog. My puppygirl."
+
+Words squirm around her head in a thick cloud, seem to coalesce into a thin, silver string. Contract, sink past fur and into her mind. Puppy, girl, puppygirl. Jer's puppygirl. Very high cat. Spectacularly high cat. Swimmingly high cat --- though not pot, not just pot --- and seemingly sober dog. Not cat, no. Pup. Good pup, good pup.
+
+She does as she's told, pant pant pant. She unbuttons slowly, one button at a time, pant pant pant pant. Exposes binder, exposes self. Cooler air, but not enough. Becomes more dog, pant pant pant pant pant. Thoughts flicker into her head and then out again before even being comprehended. No will, no volition, no reasoning, just dog, just dog.
+
+Pant pant pant pant pant pant.
+
+The final button. All dog, all dog.
+
+All dog.
+
+"Good puppy, beautiful puppygirl." The growl is proud now, lordly, smug. "You're my dog. You're my pup. Is there any cat left?"
+
+Headshake, spinning, a gasp. She can tell she's leaked through her panties in arousal and is well on her way to leaking through the leggings.
+
+Jer's shorts are tented out, too. He's worked up too. Her owner, the one who claimed her. Nose filled with, senses overwhelmed by arousal. Her arousal. His arousal. Need. Pant pant pant. She can smell him, smell them both. She can't not smell them both.
+
+"Good. That's 'cause you're my puppy girl. You'll do right by your owner, won't you?"
+
+Alex nods. She's a good pup, a good puppygirl. Eager to please, eager to please. She leans forward onto balled up fists. Good dogs sit, good dog good dog. Thoughts grow faint. Just a dog, just a pup.
+
+Jeremy leans forward, gather's up the cat-- the dog's scruff in his paw, clutching and lifting, pulling, tugging her closer, tugging that vinyl nose close until it bumps against the crotch of his shorts. Nose flooded with his scent. Eager to please, moaning, eager to please,
+
+"We have all night. You're my pup. It all belongs to me, what remains of yourself." A fond growl, a claiming growl. "What remains belongs to me."

content/post/fiction/sawtooth/where-the-dust-comes-from.md

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+---
+categories:
+- Flash fiction
+ratings: G
+date: 2017-11-29
+type: post
+tags:
+- Family
+title: Where the Dust Comes From
+---
+
+"Alright, now, as soon as you see it, you must scoop it up!"
+
+"Okay!"
+
+"So what do you do when you see it?"
+
+"Scoop it up!"
+
+"Good boy, good. Now, watch..."
+
+Anne tapped the tip of her 'wand' against the edge of her plate. Once, twice...three times and a small plume of dust spilled out onto the table. Jamie, wielding his cooking scraper well, scooped the dust off to the side.
+
+"Scoop! Scoop!" Anne encouraged, laughing along with the boy as he nudged the flurry of dust onto the small pile he'd accumulated next to the plate. Once he was done, they both cheered and clapped to each other, pleased as peach to have piled up some dust.
+
+"Anann Anann!" --- Jamie's name for her since before he could pronounce 'aunt' --- "Can you do it again?"
+
+"Alright, alright," Anne laughed. "Once more, and then it's off to bed. Get ready though, okay? What will you do when you see the dust?"
+
+"Scoop!"
+
+Anne nodded. She drew herself upright, positioned her chopstick of a wand imperiously, then tapped at the side of the plate, scuffing her dirty fingers against each other to cause a small cascade of flour to sift down around the chopstick. It wouldn't have been so dramatic if the last rays of the sun coming in through the blinds make it so that they dust only showed at the last moment.
+
+They'd made a pie that morning, of course. Jamie had helped with the mixing, mostly by making a mess of himself, though he might've gotten some of the flour in the bowl where it belonged.
+
+That was hours ago, though. Ages. That had been in the *kitchen* and this was in the *dining room*. Two vastly different worlds separated by eons of time, in the mind of a child. That was cooking, this was magic.
+
+That night, Anne would tuck him into bed, and she knew that some tendril of thought about this moment would creep through, and he would ask about the magic. "Where does the dust come from? Are you magical, Anann? Can you teach me some magic?"
+
+She'd do what adults did. She'd beg off. She'd lie and cajole and bribe him to bed without ever revealing her secret. Tomorrow, doubtless, she'd come up with some other bit of magic, but for now, he had a bit of mystery. Dust came from Anann. Anann was magical. That would be enough to get him trying to conjure up dust for weeks.
+
+That was the real trick. That was the real magic.

content/post/fiction/sawtooth/youre-gone.md

@@ -0,0 +1,39 @@
+---
+categories:
+- Short Story
+- Interactive
+series: Sawtooth
+ratings: G
+date: 2018-01-26
+description: An exploration in grief, told through instant messages to the dead.
+img: flag.svg
+type: post
+tags:
+- Furry
+- Death
+title: You're Gone
+---
+
+<style>
+.fin {
+    display: none;
+}
+.page-content > p {
+    text-indent: 0;
+    margin-bottom: 0.5em;
+}
+</style>
+
+*You're Gone* is an exploration in grief, told through instant messages to a dead loved one.
+
+All you need to do is send the messages.
+
+Hard as that may be.
+
+-----
+
+### [**Play the game**](/assets/posts/youre-gone) (or [read the script](/assets/posts/youre-gone/script))
+
+*You're Gone* is a story as told through instant messages. It's playable in all modern browsers.
+
+There is [a version on itch.io](https://makyo.itch.io/youre-gone), which is a non-furry version.

content/post/fiction/the-hand-of-god.md

@@ -0,0 +1,192 @@
+---
+title: The Hand of God
+description: A bit of fanfiction for Jeff VanderMeer's The Southern Reach trilogy.
+date: 2020-05-29
+tags:
+- Horror
+- Fanfiction
+categories:
+- Short story
+ratings: G
+---
+
+The day began with the botanist giving the physicist a hand in setting up countless contraptions around the rim of the clearing, describing an invisible net of arcane geometries held there five feet above the ground. She lugged the total station while he placed the equipment. He prattled on as he went, describing what he was doing, what tools he was using, what equipment she was carrying. She largely lost track after the word 'theodolite'.
+
+Theodolite.
+
+*Theo*-dolite?
+
+*Theodo*-lite?
+
+The *-ite* put her in mind of stones. Of something semiprecious. Pretty, but not costly. And that *theo* weighing down the front-half of the word got her thinking of gods and, perhaps, of God. Theology. Theogeny.
+
+*The God-stone? Does that make sense?*
+
+Or perhaps it was the *-dol-* stuck in the middle. Sadness? No, that wasn't it. Pain? Dolorimetry, yes. The measure of pain. Was that a science? A sub-field, perhaps. Not hers, not the physicist's.
+
+*The God-stone: amber of the highest quality, embedded in which is a kernel of pain.*
+
+Here the physicist was, describing measurements and chromatic aberrations and spherical lenses and timed strobes and...
+
+And all she could think was *would I know the God-stone if I saw it? If I touched it?*
+
+"Hey."
+
+The botanist jerked upright. She had been crouched. Or hunched. A near feral wariness had overtaken her and formed her body into a bow. Taut, ready. She put forth a conscious effort to straighten up, square her shoulders, let them relax.
+
+"You okay?"
+
+"Yeah, sorry."
+
+"It's alright. Did you hear something?"
+
+"No. Maybe. I don't know."
+
+The physicist frowned, peered out into the trees in the direction the botanist had been looking. "I thought you might have heard something. You froze and started looking over there, over to the staircase."
+
+She didn't remember which way she had been facing. She knew that she had turned to face the physicist, though.
+
+"But then you just kept standing there. It wasn't like you were listening. You were just frozen."
+
+"Yeah, sorry. Maybe this place has me a little on edge.
+
+At that, the physicist's demeanor relaxed. "Right, yeah. The air's so thick here, like there's too much oxygen."
+
+"Mm."
+
+They walked back into the shade of a tree, epiphytes strange and new winding around its trunk. Once the physicist had strung wires between these arcane points, describing a sigil the botanist could never hope to understand, they could seek relief from the sun. Ferns fingered the air and fronds like hands seemed to be reaching out to touch them.
+
+A flash. A sudden light from all five posts set the clearing in stark relief.
+
+The physicist smiled dreamily. "Thank God that worked."
+
+And then they unwound the entire procedure from before. Undoing the cabling, unearthing the rods, undowsing, in some strange way, the work of the theolodite.
+
+On the way back to the camp, the physicist continued to chatter. He was measuring the way light and shadow moved within Area X. "No reason to think something as basic as light would differ here," he had assured her. Or at least assured her form, as her mind was elsewhere. "But you have to admit, everything's a little strange."
+
+At the camp: quiet. The four sat, each in front of their tent, thinking or not, reading or not. At one point, the linguist asked after the architect, and the psychologist repeated, "He went back to base."
+
+And then: quiet.
+
+They ate.
+
+The botanist read for a few pages, and then set her book down, tented up over the unfinished page, and fingered instead the thin shim of metal that was her bookmark. Brass, or something like it, it had become her fetish over the last two days. A thing to touch. Something known. Something remembered. Something grounding in this most ungrounded of places.
+
+"What *is* that, anyway?"
+
+"What?"
+
+The linguist gestured to the bookmark, the etched letters on its surface. "That. Every time we're here at camp, you read like two pages of your book and then just play with that. What is it?"
+
+She shrugged and handed it over. "Gift from my dad. We had a...complicated relationship, but he gave this to me before I left. Just a bookmark, probably from some tourist trap."
+
+"'May the road rise up to meet you', huh?" The linguist looked as though she was on the edge of saying something snarky, but her gaze softened. "Go n-éirí an bóthar leat. It's Gaeilge. Irish. Supposed to be 'may your travels be successful', but someone messed up the translation ages ago, and we got this version."
+
+"You know it?"
+
+"Yeah. I studied Celtic languages for a while and wrote a paper on the whole blessing for an undergrad anthropology class. Write what you know, I guess."
+
+The physicist: "'The whole blessing'?"
+
+She grinned. "Yeah, it's several lines. Uh...*go n-éirí an bóthar leat, go raibh an ghaoth go brách ag do chúl, o lonraí an ghrian go te ar d'aghaidh, go dtite an bháisteach go mín ar do pháirceanna, agus go mbuailimid le chéile arís, go gcoinní Dia i mbos A láimhe thú.* I think. It's been a while. It's like, 'good luck on your road, may the wind be behind you, may the sun shine on your face, may the rain fall on your fields, and until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of His hand.'"
+
+It was the most any of them had spoken in hours about anything other than...than work? Than whatever it was they were doing out here in Area X. All of them were listening.
+
+And as she listened, the botanist felt that hand, felt God's hand, close around her mind. Felt it cradle, grip, tighten, squeeze. Felt it test her limits, and, on finding them, sit just shy of too much. She was sure there must be some visible change, a hand-print sprawled across her face, but none of the others said anything about it.
+
+The physicist: "See, I have engraved you on the palms of My hands."
+
+Silence.
+
+He looked abashed. "Isaiah forty-nine something."
+
+The psychologist lifted her sleepy head. "You're Catholic."
+
+It wasn't a question. She knew already. Knew all of their profiles. A statement, then, for the benefit of the others.
+
+"Yeah. I'm, uh...gently lapsed, I'd say. I still believe, still read the bible. Just don't go to mass. I don't like it there."
+
+Silence.
+
+Hands.
+
+Hands.
+
+Always hands.
+
+The botanist had tuned out, and some distant part of her was surprised to find that she had stood, that she had been pacing, that she had stopped and hunched and tensed, once more facing the stairs. The stairs. That finger pointing toward God.
+
+The psychologist: "Are you excited, too?"
+
+She frowned, the tension draining from her as a blanket settled over her unsettled mind. Turned, abashed, back toward camp. "No. Maybe. I don't know."
+
+The hand of God had loosened its grip around her mind and here she was, back at camp, back beneath the trees, back by the tall reeds, back by the ferns fingering the air and the fronds like hands reaching out to them.
+
+It did not last.
+
+The camp grew quiet once more. The physicist handed her bookmark back and she fingered it, book forgotten. She felt the letters etched into the thin brass, felt the words there, proven now to be incorrect, felt the letters telling lies against her skin. She felt the weight of that hand, at once comforting and threatening, settle once more against her brain-stem, compressing, caressing, squeezing, squeezing, squeezing...
+
+The quiet grew thick. The air grew heavy. The light failed.
+
+And one by one, they went to bed. The physicist. The linguist. The psychologist. The botanist.
+
+One by one they retreated to their tents and their own personal narratives diverged once more. Perhaps they slept, perhaps not. Perhaps they dreamed.
+
+Perhaps the others dreamed. The botanist knew that she did. She lay on her camp pad and closed her eyes and there must have been some point at which she fell asleep, at which she crossed that border, but she was not aware of when. She was only aware of opening her eyes again and seeing before her her own face.
+
+It was not a mirror, for the movements were not exact. It was another her. Another version of herself, and while it blinked as she might, and when she lifted her head, it lifted its own, the exactitude was imperfect. There were subtle differences. Their breathing was off by half a second, perhaps, or she was sweating more heavily than it.
+
+And when she reached out her hand to touch its face, it reached out its own to return the gesture, and, very specifically, moved its arm above her own so that they would not collide. Was that something that a reflection could do?
+
+And the touch was real. It was palpable. It was warm. It was present. There was the softness of her palm. There were the callouses on her fingers. There was the dirt beneath her nails.
+
+And her cheek was as cool as her own felt, and those tiny hairs that lent to the softness of her skin were beyond familiar: known in a way that proved the relationship beyond a doubt.
+
+And while the dreamy confusion was mirrored on her face, there was also curiosity, also a detached fondness, an understanding, however inexact, of oneself. And these, too, were inexact, for she did not understand, did not feel fond. Did not feel anything.
+
+And she had stopped thinking of this Doppelgänger as something other than herself. She was not it. She was she. She was she.
+
+And her hands were her own. She had a hand in their making. Her hand was forced hand in hand with blood on her hands washing her hands of the matter. After all, was a bird in the hand not worth two in the clearing, their beside the stairs where, written on the wall, were the words, "Were lies the strangling fruit that came from the hand of the sinner"?
+
+And there she was, and if there had been a transition from her being in her tent to her standing in the clearing, to her moving toward where those stairs bored down into the earth, she missed it, just as she had missed that transition between waking and sleeping.
+
+And yet was she asleep? Was she? She was here, and the air was heavy, and the light had failed, and the quiet was absolute aside from the sounds of the night. No words, no words.
+
+And there she was in front of her. There was her. There was *her*. There was her mirror image, her perfectly imperfect self.
+
+And they crouched toward each other, feral, as if in preparation for flight. 
+
+And they reached out toward each other and their fingertips touched and the touch was warm and the callouses were real.
+
+And they relaxed, and the botanist felt that even as the darkness deepened, the light within her grew, and they both settled down to their knees.
+
+And finally, the mirroring was broken as the *her* that was not her slid *her* fingers up over her wrist and gently guided her hand down toward the soil, loamy and damp, and she knew then that she must spread her fingers and dig them down into the earth, there by the stairs which were a finger pointing at God such that she was in turn pointing at...at what? At the owner of that hand? At the owner of that finger?
+
+And as she did so, she felt that the dirt beneath her fingernails took root, that her nails themselves must have been rootlets and that her arm a stolon, that her whole body was the runner for some tree, some entity other than herself, for at that point, she took root.
+
+And her fingers crawled beneath the soil, and drank of the water there, and tasted the nutrients, and found purchase beneath the layer of loam and humus.
+
+And there, her fingers curled around the God-stone, and indeed, she knew it as she felt it, amber with a kernel of pain embedded within.
+
+And even as the bark crawled up her arm, she saw her Doppelgänger stand and smile to her. A dreamy smile; not kind, not cruel, not knowing, not ignorant. Just a dreamy, inevitable smile.
+
+And she felt growth accelerate as, bound now to the earth, her bones became wood and her muscles loosened, unwound, and thus unbound began to lengthen, to strengthen, to arch skyward, seeking stars, seeking God.
+
+And when the physicist awoke, he was the first to notice the botanist was gone. 
+
+And when the psychologist awoke, she was the first to notice the new tree, where ferns fingered the air and fronds like hands reached out to touch them.
+
+## The physicist
+
+Breathe.
+
+*Breathe.*
+
+"Come on."
+
+Hands clutched soil.
+Grasped for purchase, for solidity.
+Anything to help keep him anchored to reality.
+*Pin me to perception - or perception to me,* he begged air gone thrawn.
+
+His cries, nonverbal, were nonetheless beat back by some unseen force, some will bent on countering his own with mindless determination.

content/post/fiction/the-presence-between-the-pages.md

@@ -0,0 +1,146 @@
+---
+date: 2020-03-04
+type: post
+title: The Presence Between the Pages
+description: |
+    Belek Oorzhak: reluctant warlock.
+tags:
+- Furry
+- Fantasy
+- Horror
+- D&D
+categories:
+- Short story
+---
+
+"Every five years we must take down every scroll, stack by stack, and replace the rugs beneath them. We must also unroll the scroll and make note of its condition," the monk rasped. "The latter will not be your responsibility, young one, but we are happy to provide you with a cot in the dormitory, and you will be welcome at the refectory during your stay here. Can you eat our food?"
+
+Belek bowed politely to the monk. "I will eat what I am able, grandfather, and I will work."
+
+The monk smiled faintly at the honorific and gave a subtle nod in return. "We do not interact much with the cat people. Too stationary for your kind, perhaps. The khiidiin nomyn san does not move, after all. We will do what we can to provide for you in exchange for your labor within the limits of our strictures. On completion of the task, we will be able to pay you for your time here, though you must understand that the monastery is not wealthy."
+
+*Within the limits of their strictures* proved to be plenty within Belek's. While they could not eat the monks' tsampa during lunch, they would take butter in their tea and fill up with steamed balls of the filling the monks had within their momo at dinner.
+
+They kept to themself, bowed at anyone in a robe, and worked quietly. In the morning, they would let the younger monks lade a frame pack with scrolls and books and move them to the hall where the older monks toiled, checking for silverfish and signs of rot.  In the afternoon, they would roll up the rugs and take them to a patio where they would be inspected and cleaned and repaired if possible, or set out for the beggars if they were too worn.
+
+And at night, they would run through the list of items they had carried throughout the day and consider which would be a more appropriate payment than simple coin.
+
+-----
+
+When Belek worked - and work they did! - they would search for jobs offered by those with big hearts.
+
+The empire was not fond of cat people, and their family moved often enough with the others of their tribe when they were young, so they were used to finding work where they could and drifting from town to town, job to job, never staying anywhere long enough to raise suspicions.
+
+As it was, they were unfailingly polite and always appeared to work within law and custom.
+
+They had worked during shearing season with a small family for a spot on the floor and food for two weeks, and had come away with a small official payment, and a larger unofficial one of an entire sheep slain in the quiet of the night and expertly skinned, the dried meat and hide folded away into a pack they had hidden in the rocks, collected on the way to the next job.
+
+They had worked as a midwife, helping to brew the groaning beer and ferry hot water before purring gentle reassurances into the lady's ear as she screamed and cried. They had curtsied to the men and averted their eyes, and come away with a handsome sum in coins, a glowing recommendation, and two small jade statues.
+
+They had walked the streets of the city with a family as a porter and made a pittance for their labor, and a far larger sum for pickpocketing both the crowds around them as well as the father.
+
+They were always careful. They were never caught.
+
+They were always Belek, or mister or miss Oorzhak, the polite young cat with no family or friends, the one who was slight and feminine enough to be a midwife, and boyish enough, deceptively strong beneath that gray fur, to be of help with the men. They were hard working, and quiet on the job, but friendly to their employers during downtime, really opening up and telling stories of their adventures, never wholly true, but never, ever false.
+
+Somehow, one of two things would happen before they left. Either something terrible would happen - a sheep would go missing, howls in the night and blood on the grass; a poor father pickpocketed while in the market, the porter hunched under his load - or the employer would find themselves entranced by this worldly feline - here, take these figures with our blessings, may they bring you good fortune, my dear Oorzhak.
+
+The size of their employers' hearts would cover any payment beyond mere coin.
+
+And then they were off to the next city, with a kind wave or a sad bow, to sell their was real gains at market and look for the next big-hearted rube.
+
+-----
+
+"Grandfather, I thank you for your kindness," Belek said. They had introduced themself as male for the monastery job by necessity, but found that some aspect of feminine grace and vocal mannerisms went quite a ways with the old monk. "May I eat with you?"
+
+The skin around the monk's eyes crinkled in a smile and he patted the mat next to him. "Please, young one, sit."
+
+The cat did so, settling down cross-legged with their bowl of steamed dumpling-filling and buttered tea. They smoothed out their deel, removed their cap, and popped a meatball into their mouth, chewing thoughtfully and waiting for the monk to begin talking as he always did.
+
+"Tell me, Belek, where will you head next?"
+
+They swallowed their mouthful before giving a noncommittal shrug. "Perhaps I will head North. I once worked for an empire wheelwright for a month. They are very skilled, and usually one must apprentice for years before working as one, but this man's apprentice was a, well," the cat leaned in conspiratorially. "He was one of the men who shifted."
+
+The monk nodded solemnly. "I know of these only through tales. Was he as dreadful as they say, young Oorzhak?"
+
+Belek's tail tick-tocked in amusement before adding in the more human smile. "Very few of them are terrible, grandfather, but sometimes they do not shift well and wind up mad with rage or stuck in agony. This young apprentice wound up in the latter, so he begged a sword from a friend and fell on it."
+
+The monk covered his mouth, aghast. "His soul! His soul will wander forever."
+
+Nodding sadly, the cat finished another few meatballs before continuing. "This wheelwright, he was crushed, both emotionally and with his labor. While I could do nothing to help him of his loss of a friend, I was at least able to run the treadle of his lathe and carry wood for him. The empire does not care for my kind, and many find us untrustworthy - I think because we do not have the same faces and expressions as them - but some in the north have kind souls, as do you here at the monastery."
+
+The monk paused while rolling a ball of tsampa to smile widely at Belek.
+
+"He could not pay me much, but he gifted me a fine awl. It was well worn, of course, and he had taken delivery of a much finer replacement during my stay, but he was a generous man. Perhaps I shall find such generosity up there again." The seed was planted. Before the monk could respond, however, Belek, pulled the conversation suddenly in another direction. "You said 'his soul will wander,' grandfather. What did you mean?"
+
+The monk chewed thoughtfully, then washed the tsampa down with water. "Some walk in dream even while awake. When they die, we say their soul will walk still in dreams. Some, however, walk in unceasing nightmare. Perhaps, when they die, that is when they wake up, but should they take their own lives, their soul cannot awake, and will continue to wander forever, living in a nightmare. They become demons or wicked spirits."
+
+-----
+
+After a week of work, the direction of scrolls, books, and manuscripts began to reverse. The cataloging complete, Belek began hauling loads of materials back into the library, helping the younger monks to place them back on their shelves according to some system the old monk - the cat supposed he must be the librarian - held within his head.  There was a small celebration when the last of the shelves was emptied, and the monks pulled out thin beer, sparinga small lump of sugar for Belek to add to their tea in lieu. From then on, it was a task of re-loading the library and finishing the last mending of mats.
+
+Three days later, and the work was finished.
+
+"Grandfather, I thank you again for the kindness you have showed, and for the chance to work here," Belek said while fingering the spines of a few books. "I have never been surrounded by such knowledge in my life"
+
+The old monk nodded absently as he worked on filling in some final notes. "Thank you, young Oorzhak. You have shortened our labor by days."
+
+Still running their fingerpad along the spines of books, the cat paused, feeling a sudden chill against the coarse skin there. They hesitated, then carefully drew the leather-bound book from the shelf. It was not just cool, but cold. Actively cold, as though it strived to be so. They could read the language of the empire - slowly, to be sure - but the writing on the cover of the book was of some other tongue.
+
+"Belek."
+
+The cat jolted and whirled around. The voice had seemed to come from the book itself, an echo or a whisper or perhaps only the suggestion of a voice, but there was the old monk staring at them, a strange glean in their eye. "My apologies, grandfather, I-"
+
+"You have done such wonderful work for us, young one, would you accept this book in exchange for your labor? In addition to your wages, of course."
+
+The cat blinked. There were other books they had their eye on. Gilt, illuminated, fancy ones. Still, now that they held this one in their hands and they were growing used to the cold weight of it, there was suddenly nothing more precious. "Surely this book is too much," they stammered.
+
+"You have provided us with a service," the monk said. His voice was eager, his brown skin stretched perhaps a little too tight with some hidden exertion. "Please, I would be honored if you would accept this small tome of knowledge in exchange."
+
+Belek bowed low, finding themself unable to say anything other than, "I accept."
+
+The words were stilted, unnatural. They felt oily in their mouth, leaving behind a thin sheen of premonition. They hung in the air, vibrating with anticipation.
+
+"I, Otgonbayar, give this book to you, Belek Oorzhak, in free exchange. It is now yours."
+
+The monk's equally stilted words clashed with Belek's in the air, and suddenly, the book began to warm in the cat's paws. There was a scent of ritual to the exchange, of power of choice and bargain and deals accepted. Deals beyond just a gift to go with one's wages.
+
+And then the moment passed.
+
+"I must...I must rest, young Oorzhak. I thank you once more for your labor. Your wages...your wages will be in the refectory... Ah, preserve my soul." If the monk had looked crazed before, now he looked truly on the verge of madness. His eyes no longer tracked Belek, but seemed to be reading something written on the ceiling. His muscles are rigid. Sweat stood on his brow, and spittle clung to his chin.
+
+"I...yes, grandfather," Belek mumbled. "You look unwell. Please rest well, and perhaps I shall see you again soon.
+
+The monk only moaned in response. After a moment's silence, he toppled to the floor, falling as would a tree, rather than crumpling.
+
+Belek skittered from the library and down the long hall towards where the other old monks were packing up their pens and scrolls.
+
+"The old monk!" they shouted. "He has fallen in the library!"
+
+The other monks dropped their materials and lept to their feet, hollering. One of them dashed up to the cat and opened his mouth to speak before noticing the book clutched in their paws. His look of worry turned into one of dawning horror, then of sadness. "I see you two reached a deal."
+
+Dumbstruck, Belek looked down at the book, then back up to the scribe, holding out the book. "He offered me this in exchange for my efforts. If he was mistaken-"
+
+The monk shook his head and pressed the book forcefully back into the cat's paws. "The deal has been made. Your wages are in the refectory, please take them and your belongings and leave."
+
+"Leave? But I-"
+
+"Leave. The monastery thanks you for your work but you must leave at once. You must be away by nightfall. Perhaps the librarian shall recover, then." And with that, the monk rushed off.
+
+Belek stumbled numbly to the refectory and picked up the small bag of coins left atop their cap and cloak. The whole monastery seemed to be rushing to the library, and suddenly the advice to leave seemed extraordinarily prudent. They ran to the dormitory to shoulder their pack, and were on the road away from the monastery before the sun began its long, slow decent toward evening.
+
+They bivouacked in the lee of a patch of scrub and it was by the rude light of a small, dry fire that they read the book. They did not rightly know why they decided to remove the book from their pack and opened the cover. Perhaps it was another whispered 'Belek', and perhaps it was something more akin to a compulsion.
+
+More, they did not know how they were able to read the book. The language, when they focused their eyes, was not one that they could read, but were they to let their eyes drift just out of focus, the meaning came to them. It came in waves, in gusts, in inexorable currents. It washed over Belek and left their stomach rolling and their eyes watering.
+
+At the turning of the final page, there sounded a distant blast of horns, a low, sustained note from the direction they had come.
+
+"Belek," came the voice, now more than simply echo. "Do you hear that, Belek? The horns to announce the death of a monk. What better way to forget me than through death?"
+
+The cat could manage no more than a groan. The meaning of the text was clear.
+
+"Belek, Belek, Belek. The deal has been made."
+
+"I'm...I am a drifter," they muttered. "I walk the steppes for work. What could I possibly hope to offer, lord?"
+
+"The deal has been made," the presence between the pages purred. "And now you will go North."

content/post/fiction/tu-pater-et-mater.md

@@ -0,0 +1,57 @@
+---
+type: post
+date: 2003-05-01
+title: Tu pater et mater
+description: In high school Latin class, we were provided with the opportunity to clean coins from ancient Rome. This program was put forth by ACE, Ancient Coins for Education. As part of this program, an essay contest was put on regarding inscriptions, as inscriptions were studied along with the coins. My teacher at the time, Ms. Gibert, had me participate. The idea was to write an essay in 1st or 3rd person from the point of view of the person whom the inscription was for, by, or a passerby reading the inscription. Here's the result.
+categories:
+- Short story
+tags:
+- Death
+- Latin
+- History
+ratings: G
+---
+
+> Tu pater et mater lacrimis retinete dolorem, nam fato raptam non potes eripere.
+>
+> *You, father, and mother, hold back your sorrow with tears, for you’re not able to take back what fate has snatched away.*
+
+The withered old man held the punt steady against the shore as the young boy clambered aboard. The boy was only nine or ten at most, short, with brown hair, and obviously not a slave. Slaves usually didn’t make it onto this ferry.
+
+The man in the boat held out a pallid hand and croaked, “Fare.” His voice sounded older than time itself.
+
+Nodding distractedly, the boy spat out a slightly damp coin into the outstretched palm and resumed looking about. Out past the battered bulwark, the river flowed by darkly, coming from out of the gray mist and heading right back into it. On the shore he’d just left, an occasional solitary soul drifted past, staring longingly at the old craft.
+
+The old ferryman was pushing off now, so the boy sat down. He’d only ever been on a boat once before and he didn’t yet trust himself to remain standing. He watched the old man as he pushed the craft slowly along with his long pole, wondering how someone so thin and withered could keep the boat steady with just a stick.
+
+“Does your job ever get boring?” asked the boy curiously.
+
+The ferryman turned and stared at him blankly, punting still, even though he was no longer facing the direction they were going. The boy didn’t question it; the man looked like he’d been at this for quite the long time.
+
+“My name’s Lucius,” he continued, whispering the rest of his name as the man continued to stare. “Lucius Silvanus…” The ferryman clearly wasn’t much of a conversationalist, the boy decided. He kept on talking, because the boat made him feel lonely.
+
+“I saw Caesar once! Before I came here, I mean. I saw him when he came back from that place… uh… Gaul. He was bald.” The boy giggled conspiratorially, “He looked kind of funny. I didn’t say that, though. There were soldiers staying near us. He went and talked to them, then his soldiers fought their soldiers. I couldn’t tell them apart, really. Caesar’s were dirtier. I went to watch, even though I wasn’t supposed to.”
+
+The ferryman continued to punt and stare, though his gaze may or may not have been softer. Lucius was on a roll, though so he kept going.
+
+“Before that, I always wanted to be in the army, but when I saw all the men fighting, I changed my mind. I saw one guy get hurt; he screamed real loud…” Lucius drifted off into silence.
+
+The ferryman knew of whom the boy was talking about. Many people had come through recently, most of them with money to pay the fare, and many of whom had mentioned people screaming. It was like an exodus from the boy’s hometown. None of the man’s features betrayed this, of course; he just kept pushing the boat along. He wasn’t a very interesting person.
+
+They were about halfway across when the boy spoke up again. “I got hit with an arrow at the battle, in my shoulder. I didn’t cry though,” he added toughly. “Someone from where I live found me and took me home. I couldn’t walk to well, and I was bleeding a lot. I think my mother and father were angry with me, though, for going and watching; I wasn’t supposed to. They were crying”
+
+Lucius was starting to run out of things he wanted to talk about, and they were only two thirds of the way across the dark river, so he took a little break to save what he was going to say. In the mean time, he watched over the side of the craft for any fish in the water. He saw some things that might’ve been fish, but he wasn’t sure. It was awfully murky.
+
+“Before I came here, you know, they said the arrow was Pompey’s. I don’t know who he is,” the boy said retrospectively. “But I really think I like Caesar better. He didn’t shoot me.”
+
+Lucius looked up from the flowing water to the poling man. He had the same blank expression on his face. The boy wondered whether it was really as shallow as it made the man seem, or if he could just say the word ‘fare’.
+
+He tried a question, “Do you know Caesar?”
+
+This didn’t get a direct response, but the man did start poling faster. Lucius didn’t know if it was because of the question, or just because they were starting to near the other shore. He kept on talking, he had a few more things to say before he left.
+
+“I told my parents it’s okay to cry. I always feel better when I cry. I maybe cried a little bit when I was in bed and they were taking the arrow out. I was dizzy then, so I don’t remember a whole lot.” Lucius looked down at his hands, “That was the last I saw them, though.”
+
+After a few moments of silence, the battered boat slid smoothly up onto the shore, where the ferryman held it with his punting pole, gesturing for the boy to get off. After scrambling onto the shore, Lucius turned back to face the ferryboat, whispering, “Thank you.”
+
+The man nodded – the first reaction he’d seen from him – and pushed back off the shore to pick up the next paying soul. As the boy turned and headed further into the underworld, Charon smiled – barely – to himself and pushed his way across the Styx. People rarely talked to him, but he always enjoyed it when they did. Especially those who were still innocent. All too many either tired with life or kicked out for good reason came through and tarnished his lovely boat, and the little boy, Lucius, was almost a breath of fresh air. He’d put in good word for him.

content/post/fiction/unseeing.md

@@ -0,0 +1,551 @@
+---
+author: Madison Scott-Clary
+categories:
+- Short Story
+ratings: G
+date: 2020-12-26
+description: A blind ascetic is gifted sight
+type: post
+tags:
+- Furry
+- Fantasy
+title: Unseeing
+---
+
+On the morning of every day, when days are warm and there is no rain, on days when Lyut knows when it is day and when it is night, he will gather his ingredients onto a small board and sit at the entrance to his cave and make his incense for three days hence.
+
+Lyut works with measured care, for he does not want to injure the pads of his paws nor nick his already-scuffed claws nor shave off any of his fur, nor, Ýng preserve him, damage his carefully honed equipment. He works with measured care and a practiced slowness, with a patience known to one who holds the highest devotion to his labor and to his lord.
+
+Lyut works with particular care when employing the use of his knife for he has cut himself before. He has cut himself and knows that not only will this spoil his incense for the day, it will also leave his pads aching and sore, will leave his fur matted and sticky, will leave a thin layer of blood upon all he touches until the flow stops and the wound scabs over. Knows that he would have to make his way down to the river to wash. Knows, too, after a particularly bad accident with his knife, that the stick he uses to guide his way down the path gets slippery and would need to be cleaned as well, that to bind a wound with only the use of one paw carries some particular difficulty.
+
+And so he gathers his ingredients and tools onto his board and carries them to the entrance to his cave where he sits and works with measured care.
+
+He works from left to right because he holds the knife and hammer in his right paw, and he builds the scent from bottom to top because that is how he has laid out his ingredients, and because it is the base notes of the scent that are the most forgiving to balance.
+
+Begins, then, with the crushed roots of nardin, which previously he had pounded and which now he lays against the board and measures ten claw-widths thereof and cuts with his knife. To this is mixed ten teardrops of common mastic the width of a claw. On holier days he may find himself using copal in its place, and indeed he may use that later. For now, he attempts to find nodules the size of one of his claws without requiring that it be cut or broken, lest his senses be dazzled and the balance lost
+
+The middle notes come next and Lyut takes a fingertip's length of sweetgrass and puts it into the bowl with the base notes. The scent of sweetgrass is, yes, sweet, but it provides also the bulk of the material that will burn throughout the day.
+
+To this he adds sweet flag root which has been carefully washed and hung and dried. He grates this first with his knife before adding it to the bowl, scraping the blade almost perpendicular along the root to shave off a fibrous powder.
+
+These are all taken together in a stone mortar and ground with a stone pestle to pulverize them into a uniform powder, which he checks with gentle touches of the last fingertip on his left hand, which is the most sensitive.
+
+Judges with his nose and, deeming it correct, finishes, now, with the lone top note of a precious dried pod of cardamom and what he judges to be one third again in weight of makko powder to bind the incense.
+
+To build a scent from the bottom up is to tell the first of three prayers of creation to Ýng, and Lyut works with devotion in his heart as he grinds. He does not speak his prayer; the sound of stone against stone are his words. He does not look up to the heavens where he knows Ýng to reside for sight is not a sense he possesses; allows, instead, his lord's presence to pierce his heart and travel down his limbs and guide the motions of his paws.
+
+The powder of the incense, thus created is sifted into a small bowl, the finest silt brushed from the mortar with the very tip of his tail.
+
+To mature incense in the quiet and the dry and the cool is to tell the second of three prayers of creation to Ýng, and Lyut again works with devotion in his heart as he unlimbers himself from where he had been kneeling and carries the bowl to the back of the cave where it will always be driest. He does not speak his prayer; the sound of his paws padding in dirt and fingertips dragging along stone wall are his words. He does not look for the shelf containing the other two incense bowls for sight is not a sense he possesses; allows, instead, his lord's presence to pierce his heart and travel down his limbs to place the bowl beside the other two.
+
+Lyut then cleans his board, bringing it back into his cave and replacing unused ingredients in their bowls, jars, or baskets by touch and by scent
+
+At last, he picks up the rightmost bowl in the line and scoots the other two up into its place and carries it to the mouth of his cave. Along the way, he bends down and lifts a dish filled with ash, and carries it with him as well.
+
+To lay the incense trail is to tell the third and final prayer of creation to Ýng, and Lyut works still with the devotion in his heart as he tamps down the ash in dish into a smooth plane with the tip of his finger, then draws a careful furrow in the fine powder, sowing incense in its wake. He does not speak his prayer; the rhythm of the tamping and the quiet hush of incense and ash are his words. He does not look at the boxy spiral he draws for sight is not a sense he possesses; allows, instead, his lord's presence to pierce his heart and travel down his limbs guide his left foreclaw while the right hand follows by touch, dropping the powdered incense in its wake.
+
+The presence of his lord burns bright within him. Lyut does not know light from darkness, but were he pressed to answer, he would say that Ýng's presence is that of light, Their absence that of dark, and by this point in the day, Lyut is filled with light.
+
+The prayers of destruction follow the prayers of creation.
+
+Against a crease in the rock at the entrance of his cave is his fire pit. The night before, he brought in sticks and bark from the near-woods and laid them at the feet of the fire. In the mornings after preparing his incense, he begins the first prayer of destruction, of breaking down the sticks and shredding the bark into tinder and kindling. The sound of the crack of dry wood and the tear of fibrous bark his words, the spirit of his lord guiding his every movement.
+
+The second prayer of destruction is the forging or rekindling of fire. If there are embers left, then the words of this prayer is the sound of Lyut's breath against them and the slow crackle of kindling catching alight. If the coals are out, then the words of this prayer is the singing of the bow drill between his feet, thermoception stretched taut as he strains to feel the warmth of the new flame starting in the tinder.
+
+The third and final prayer of destruction that Lyut offers to Ýng is that of the lighting of the incense. He works with the same measured care as he lights a punk from the fire, the spirit of his lord singing along his limbs, and touches it to the small mound of incense at the center of the trail he has built. The words of this prayer are silence.
+
+Only now does he speak his prayers aloud, and by now, he is overflowing with light. It seeps out through his fur, falls from his mouth in honeyed drops, shines from darkened eyes.
+
+Ýng is with him now as he chants, as the smoke wreaths him, as the scent of his labors fills his cave and the clearing and rises up past the tree-tops.
+
+Ýng is with Lyut, and I am as well.
+
+-----
+
+After prayer, Lyut feeds his fire and sits for a while before it to ensure that the sound of the wood burning is just as it should be and no louder and that the heat of the fire is neither too hot nor too cool, for he knows that a hot-burning fire that roared and rushed with the voice of Ýng's anger was one that would at best burn out too soon and he had been taught that at worst it would claim souls as easily as wood.
+
+With the smoke of the fire mingling with that of his incense, with the scent of his devotion lingering in his nose and clinging to his fur and stinging sightless eyes, he takes up his knife walking stick and pads slowly down the path from his cave to the section of river he calls his own. His feet guide him with soft shuffling. His stick guides him with gentle tapping. His ears guide him with the sounds of the river. Ýng guides him with Their hand on his shoulder.
+
+At the river by his cave, there is a pool where the water flows out from between two rocks, and it is across that gap that he has strung a net.
+
+Lyut sets his stick aside and crawls on hands and knees to one of the rocks and with a long-practiced swish of his fingers through the water, he catches up the cords of the far end of the net from where they lay on the bank and sweeps his arm around to draw the net around and back toward him.
+
+I have smiled on him today, and in the net he feels the dancing of a fish and, upon dragging the net ashore, feels in its knots also the hard-shelled bodies of the crawfish that live their silent lives on the bottom of the silt-bedded river.
+
+The net entire is laid flat upon the shore to let the fish and crustaceans drown in air while Lyut cleans his paws and knife in the water of the stream.
+
+To wash in cold water is to speak a prayer of cleanliness to Ýng, but also to me, to me who knows the meaning of light dancing on clear water in a way the god of the sun cannot, in a way that blind Lyut cannot, and so I sustain myself with those prayers even as the ascetic guts the fish with measured care, washes once more in the stream, and then with practiced slowness strings his net once more, letting the constant stream of water flow brightly through the pounded and knotted reeds to catch fish, to catch food.
+
+Dripping and naked, Lyut crawls upstream along the shore, fingers crawling among the grass until he comes across the fronds of a fiddle-head fern of which he plucks two. Washes these, then wraps in them his daily catch of fish and sluggish crustaceans, and packs around the bundle clay from the riverbank.
+
+Takes then his stick in hand and taps his way back to his cave, where, after banking a portion of the fire, he nestles his bundle among the hot coals until it is dry and parched on the outside.
+
+In the meantime, Lyut walks carefully into the woods perpendicular to the hill on which his cave rests, brushing aside further fronds to the place where his nose tells him he may have his toilet. After finishing, another trip to the river is made, this time carrying a jug slung over his shoulder to be filled with water for his camp.
+
+By then, the smell of steamed fish is beginning to escape from the clay baker that he has formed, and the time to break his fast is upon him.
+
+His walking stick, hard and long-cured, is used to drag the baked clay from the embers and the jug of water put in its place to bring to a boil. He says a short prayer to Ýng for his bounty, for his food, and for the taking of three lives in order to fill his belly, and by the time the last word is finished, the clay is cool enough to tap and crack apart to exposed his steamed food. I sup from that prayer as well, for I provided him with his meal.
+
+He sets the spent clay aside and unfurls the ferns from around his food. His first bite is of the curled heads of the fronds, seasoned with the fat of the fish and the heady scent of crawfish. His second and third bites are the flesh of the fish scraped away from soft bones with sharp teeth. The rest of his meal is a silent contemplation of what wonderful complexities the silty life of a crustacean must hold, as he pulls the tails from the crawfish, eats the meat within, and sucks the butter from the heads.
+
+Fish head and skeleton and crawfish shells are placed in the jug of water now boiling, the makings of a thin broth which will be his sustenance for the rest of the day.
+
+For the third and final time, Lyut washes that day, and I revel in the act of his careful attention to his postprandial grooming. This is the time when he ensures that his pelt is clean and free of ticks and fleas. This is the time when he massages the dirt out of his pawpads. This is the time when he brushes his whiskers. This is the time when he lays his fur in order. This is the time when he makes himself pure in body before Ýng, having already made himself pure in spirit.
+
+Too, this is the time when he makes himself pure before me, though he knows it not. This is the time when he gives thought to the direction his fur is facing. This is the time when he gives thought to any dirt which may cover him. This is the time when he, blind pekania, blind fisher, puts thought, however abstract, into what a watcher may see.
+
+-----
+
+Lyut lives his life in prayer and devotion. It is a life that is lived ascending in a steady spiral of years, for time moves upward and yet is echoed below by the change of days, the change of weeks, the change of seasons. This year, this day, this soft spring is an echo of last soft spring beneath it. It is antipodal to the autumn that will come
+
+Cycles within cycles, spirals within spirals. This morning, too, is an echo of the day beneath it, behind it, in the past. His days are defined by the cycle of incense, prayer, fishing, foraging, meditating. He knows that it is day when he wakes when he feels the warmth from the sun. He knows when it is night when he feels the warmth fade. He knows when it is morning because he hears the birds sing. He knows that it is night when the birdsong of the day settle into the chorus of insects.
+
+Clean now, he meditates on this. He meditates on cycles. He meditates on warmth and coolness. He meditates on his relation to it, and on his relationship to Ýng.
+
+He has surmised, for instance, that his fur is of a particular quality that the sun is drawn to, and he has surmised that this is as worthy of prayer as the incense he makes, for was not the sun with Ýng? The sun is drawn to him as it is drawn to the rocks and the dirt and the bark of the trees. It is drawn to them and it dwells within them, for the sun powers him as warmth, and the sun fills the trees with a captive warmth that is released by fire.
+
+And are there not things that the sun shies away from? The sun shies away from night, from water, from the cool fresh leaves that interrupt it, for one need not sight to understand directionality, to understand shade as a consequence of sun's arrow.
+
+Lyut lays on his back to let sun's arrow dry him, to let that warmth pull the water from his fur and the chill from his bones, and then he lays on his front and lets Ýng's light bathe his back as well.
+
+Not all prayer, Lyut knows, is in ritual.
+
+In ritual lies comfort. In ritual lies service. In ritual lies the active participation of worship, that portion of devotion that is a conversation with his lord. The time of ritual is the time when Lyut may speak up and say to Ýng: I am here, I am yours, I am your vessel of light and all that I do is in service to you and by my very existence, my every action, I serve your glory.
+
+Not all prayer is in service to Ýng, either, for some of it is to Their servant, to himself.
+
+In service of Their servant, he keeps himself clean and free of sin and distraction. In service of Their servant and to Their servants, he prepares the incense that wreaths himself and the village below. In service of Their servant and servants, he subsists only off a single meal drawn from the river and whatever alms the village cares to provide him along with the ingredients for the incense that he makes in turn.
+
+But in meditation lies the comfortable companionship. In meditation lies love. In meditation lies reassurance and trust. The time of meditation is the time when Lyut may sit next to Ýng in silence and appreciate the wonder of Them and the world that They have made.
+
+So this morning, he lays in the sun next to Ýng, beside Ýng, and revels in all that Ýng has created rather than singing praises to Them, because it is important even for the ascetic to understand the beauty of the world, the wonder and delight in it. It is as important for Lyut to feel the way his fur tugs at the sun, collects the warmth, and the way the sun pulls the water from him. It is important for Lyut to feel the ground beneath him and hear in its silence the praises to his lord. It is important for Lyut to marvel in the way Ýng's sun shuns the underside of leaves and follows the bark of the trees on the side it faces. It is important for Lyut to bake until he's panting and gulping in breaths of air, and then it is important for him to crawl back into his cave, stricken from the sun by the laws of directionality that he understands on a visceral level in lieu of a visual one, for sight is not a sense he possesses.
+
+And then it is time for him to remove his simmering broth from the fire and to sip it from the cool shade of his cave, straining it through sharp teeth to prevent fine carapaces and finer bones from getting caught in his throat, unsalted but nonetheless savory, until, despite the heat of the broth, his thirst is quenched.
+
+This, Lyut knows, Lyut relishes, is the cycle of the day, the cycle of the year, and, his lord promises him, the cycle of his life, for he will surely be reborn when the hours of his life slow to a stop.
+
+In this, Ýng is a liar, but it is a kind lie, a lie of omission, for when Lyut dies, *I* will take him unto me. I will take him and his acts in life together into my bowl and crush and knead and he will rejoice with me and I will rejoice with him and then whatever rest he has now, whatever glory he knows now, whatever elation he may feel shall be pale in comparison to what comes after.
+
+-----
+
+Lyut prays and works for the rest of the day, for today is the day that he makes incense for the town below.
+
+This week is the week of fasting and next week is the week of rejoicing, and so this week he must prepare for them three times the normal amount of incense, as this is the week they subsist on smoke until they cannot tell, Zita promises him, the white thread from the black after the sun sets and the cool night comes. This is the week they live on prayer and next is the week they live on celebration, when they bake small cakes in the heat of their fires, in the heat of their ovens, and five of which Zita will leave for him.
+
+Zita may or may not be her name, or perhaps only her title. He does not know, because beyond a few kind words, she will only pray with him and pick up the incense from the edge of the clearing before his cave and leave in its place the alms that the village provides, of flatbreads and berries, of the ingredients for the incense which they grow or perhaps purchase from other villages, who may purchase in turn from villages going south, going south and east.
+
+So today he retrieves his board once more from his cave and on it stacks all of the ingredients for the incense of the week of fasting that will feed the village and the two amphorae that will hold it. He sings wordless hymns to himself as he works with measured care cut the sweetgrass, to shave the calamus root, to count the cardamom pods. He sings to Ýng as he pounds and grinds batch after batch of incense until his hands are humming, until his pads are singing along with him.
+
+And then he takes his board back into the cave and returns with the stack of ingredients for the incense of the week of feasting, with the base notes of cassia and vanilla, the middle notes of ginger and turmuric, and the top note of star anise, the spices that season the cakes that they bake in celebration, and these he pounds with laughter and with tears, for with celebration comes mourning and with devotion comes the sudden feeling of loneliness brought on by laughing by oneself.
+
+It is evening and he can feel the sun's arrow striking horizontal by the time he finishes, and when he steps out of his cave, cradling his three amphorae to his chest, he can smell even above the incense Zita sitting at the entrance to the clearing. He walks carefully until he can hear her breathing and then sits cross-legged before her and sets the vases down between the them, and they pray together:
+
+<div class="verse">They who make the world,
+They who end it,
+They who bring the thunder,
+In Tsuari which fell,
+In Tsuari which rose from the ashes,
+We offer up the words of our forefathers,
+We offer up the smoke of our forefathers
+We offer up our hearts to you.
+In Ýng's name we pray,
+In Ýng's world we pray,
+In Ýng's own voice we pray,
+By the light of the sun we pray,
+By the heat of the fire we pray.
+</div>
+
+And on until the sun's arrow has wandered off course and into the night sky.
+
+This week, this week of fasting, Zita has not brought him alms. There are no soft leaves of flatbread or ingredients for incense, just as one year ago there were no leaves of bread, and one year before that, there were no leaves of bread.
+
+This week, Lyut does not smile kindly to Zita as she collects the amphorae and walks the path down the slope to the village, because the fasting of prayer is also a fasting from emotions and worldly attachments.
+
+And the next day, it is truly a fast, for there are no fish in his net, and if there are no fish in his net, he knows that he must not collect the fiddlehead ferns, and instead of savory broth, Lyut drinks only boiled water, hot and cleansed by fire, and he spends the rest of the day in meditation, and he goes to bed hungry.
+
+I watch as he sleeps, fitful, and leave for him two fish in his net for his unknowing devotion to me.
+
+-----
+
+It is the last night of the week of fasting and it is the thirtieth year that Lyut has served Ýng and myself that I have decided to change him and by changing him, change the world, for while I am the god of the water and the god of watching and the god of death, am I not also a trickster god?
+
+I am the trickster god who confounded Ýng in his creation of the smooth plains of the world by carving the land with my rivers. I am the trickster god who confounded the lord by setting the moon in the sky to tug at the waters of Their oceans in tides, even when the moon is not seen. I am the trickster god who brought death to Ýng's ever-living world.
+
+I am the trickster god and my trouble will come back on me thirtyfold, I am sure, but Lyut is the thirtieth ascetic who has served me and I am ready.
+
+Lyut has once more gone to sleep hungry, belly filled with prayer and contrition and boiled water. No fish in the net, no ferns to be had, no stale leaves of flatbread or sun-dried berries. I come to him then. I come to him and I touch the back of his neck, then the crown of his head, then the lids of his eyes and the scars around them, and then I sit in the clearing and wait for him to waken. I sit and watch, for that is my jurisdiction.
+
+When the pekania stirs at the slow warming of day, his eyes drift open as usual to the slit of relaxed muscles that is his habit, and then he shouts.
+
+He shouts because I am a trickster god and after forty years of life, after thirty times thirty years of blind ascetics serving Ýng and myself, I am ready for change and I have given him sight.
+
+I know his thoughts: I know that when he perceives the light of the sun for the first time in his forty years, blurry and bright, that he is struck with a mighty pain and a fear far greater than any accident with a knife could cause. I know his terror, his confusion, and his instinctual need to escape, and so I watch him scramble back into his cave and press his face to the back wall for minutes on end, barely breathing, eyes clenched shut. 
+
+"Ýng!" he cries at last. "My lord, my lord, what is happening?"
+
+I answer in Ýng's stead: "You see."
+
+He pants into the silence that follows. I know his thoughts: I know that he hears Ýng within his heart and within his bones and within his breath. I know that I have spoken to him in the language of sound, and that this brings with it its own fear.
+
+"You see," I say again.
+
+"You are not Ýng."
+
+"I am Týw. I am the god of the moon and the water and of watching and of death."
+
+"Týw?"
+
+"Týw," I repeat, and smile at his confusion.
+
+"But Ýng is the god of all things. How are you the god of those things?"
+
+"Ýng is the god of all things, and They are the god of me, but of those things not under Their direct dominion, some are under mine, and I am the god of watching, of looking, of seeing. I am the god of water, and I am with you when you fish and bathe. I am the god of the moon, and when it shines down on you, I am with you. When Ýng is with you, I am as well. When you serve Ýng in these ways, you also serve me."
+
+Tears course freely down his cheeks, and he says: "It hurts to see."
+
+"You have never seen before. Come out of your cave."
+
+He does not move, and so I wait. I know that he will need to attend to his day soon, and I know that he is praying to Ýng and feels the compulsion to perform his acts of service, his rituals, and I know that the village below is waking up to ready itself for a day and night and week of celebration. So I wait.
+
+Too, Ýng waits, because although I sense Their wrath on the horizon, I think that it will not come yet, because this is also new for Them, and They also watch.
+
+Eventually, Lyut, crawls, eyes clenched shut, on hands and knees, crawls out into the sun, and sits cross-legged in the center of his clearing.
+
+"Open your eyes."
+
+He does not. I know that he can see the warmth of the sun behind closed eyelids, showing dusky orange through them. I know that he can sense the shadows cast in the sun's arrow by the leaves above and around him. I know that even this seeing is too much for him.
+
+"Open your eyes, Lyut, faithful."
+
+"You are not Ýng, you cannot command me."
+
+"No," I say. "I cannot command you, but you are as faithful to me as you are to Them in the ways that I have described, and so I ask for this small obeyance."
+
+Lyut ponders this for a long while, his tail flitting agitatedly behind him, drawing praises to me in the packed earth. Finally, he opens his eyes, a crack, a squint. He opens his eyes and looks at the ground before him. He looks at his naked body. He looks at the clearing and at the trees around him. Looks in wonder. Looks in awe. Looks in terror and in panic. Looks at the ground and the trees and the sky. Tries, even, to look at the sun, and learns that the sun's arrows are keenest above all to the eyes.
+
+"It hurts! It hurts!"
+
+"Do not look directly at the sun, faithful," I laugh. "Ýng has decreed that the sun provides your life, and so it is too dear for you to behold."
+
+He grinds his palms against his eyes and smears his fur with tears and with dirt. Even as he cries, he is marveling at the flashes and swirls of light that come to him now, and each phosphene that blooms in pink and white and green is a prayer to me, so I allow him this moment of non-darkness until the moment passes and he can open his eyes once more without pain.
+
+"Where are you, Týw?"
+
+"I am with you."
+
+"Can I see you?"
+
+"We are also too dear for you to see with your eyes, Ýng and I, but do you not feel the way we pierce your heart and burn along your arms as you prepare the incense for our offering?"
+
+Lyut is silent once more, still once more. He prays. He prays to Ýng with a fervor he has not yet shown in his forty years. Tears stain tracks down his cheeks as he struggles with the sudden, overwhelming sight. Sight, a sense he now possesses.
+
+"Go and prepare for your day, faithful. I am with you."
+
+-----
+
+Lyut is slow to begin moving, and when he does, he walks as though a great dream has come upon him. He lets Ýng guide his movements and I stand apart from the lord and Their servant.
+
+Lyut moves as though a great dream has come upon him and lets Ýng guide him, and even so his morning task of making incense is far slower than usual, for his eyes water constantly and he marvels at just how drab the ingredients, so bright and colorful in the nostrils and so familiar to the touch, are to behold. He has not known the comparison of color before, but even to one for whom sight is a new sense, he is surprised to find that the crushed root of nardin and the shaved root of sweet flag look so similar despite the vast difference in aromas and purposes, that the mastic, that steadfast base of a scent, nearly glitters in the sun while the jewel-bright scent of cardamom is belied by so dun a color.
+
+He moves as though a great dream has come upon him until it is time to lay the powdered incense in the bowl of ash, that third prayer of creation, and he realizes that he can see the furrow he digs in ash with his claw, can see the tan powder that he packs in its place, and can see the spiral he builds, and then tears come upon him once more, and all of his prayers of destruction are completed through sight blurred by shock, and he relies on his habits and Ýng's guidance to make it through to the end without burning himself.
+
+I stand apart from the lord and Their servant and watch, and drink in what prayers I may along the way.
+
+At last, the time for ritual passes and Lyut stumbles into the woods to tend to his toilet and lingers a while in wonder at the sight of his own body, the sight of the woods and the leaves and humus on the forest floor, before returning to his cave and, out of the habit of so many years, grabbing his stick to guide him down to the river.
+
+"Do you need that, faithful?"
+
+After a moment's confusion, the fisher laughs. "I suppose I do not, Týw."
+
+"Will you leave it behind?"
+
+His answer is a long time in coming. "It is comforting in my paw. I will take it with me."
+
+Guided still by habit --- and perhaps by Ýng, for I do not know the lord's every thought --- Lyut taps his way down the path to the water, and perhaps it is for the best that he has brought the stick, for his eyes are drawn constantly to every detail along the way, from the way the suns arrow strikes the leaves to the way their shadows dance across the ground when the wind moves across them. His eyes water still, for he is overflowing with sensation. A life lived without a sense is still a full life, and to one born without that sense, raised without that sense, he did not think of himself as blind except in comparison to Zita who picked up the amphorae of incense with such ease that he had never known.
+
+Stops, at last, at the edge of the stream and stares at my domain, mouth open as though to speak, though no words come forth.
+
+I wait a while, and then ask: "Faithful, do you see the wonder of my creation? My friend the water?"
+
+"I had never imagined that it looked like this." His voice is barely above a whisper, and his eyes drink deep of the sight of the stream. "I did not know that something could be as beautiful."
+
+This fills me more than any prayer yet that day. "I am the god of the water and the god of watching and the god of the moon and death. When you come here to fish, when you come here to bathe, when you come here to drink, those are praises that you sing to me."
+
+Lyut tilts his head. "Is Ýng not the god of all things? I am sorry for asking again, but I must know."
+
+"They are the god of many things, and They are the god of me. To sing praises to me is to sing praises to Them in turn." At this, I feel the lord's anger at me soften, though it does not wholly retreat.
+
+"I do not know the words to any prayers to you, Týw."
+
+"That is alright, faithful. You may pray all the same by fishing and bathing and drinking, by rejoicing in those things that are under my jurisdiction."
+
+Lyut nods and steps into the water. This is not the usual order of his mornings, but as the wonder on his face at the sight of the water moving around his legs fills me to overflowing, I do not complain. He stands in the middle of the section of the stream that is his own, in the pool held up by the narrow gap across which he strings his net, in the cool water where the sun's arrow pierces the canopy of the trees. He stands there and he watches the way that the light reflects off the surface of the water. Watches, too, the way the water eddies around rocks, around his legs, explores the funnels of whirlpools with his fingers, peers through clear water to the silt and rocks and algae below the surface.
+
+"What am I now, Týw?"
+
+"What do you mean, faithful?"
+
+"Before this morning, before today, when I did not see, I was complete."
+
+I remain silent.
+
+"I am sorry, god of water and of watching. I do not doubt you, for your gift has spoken for you. I do not turn away your gift, and I offer my praise to you. But if I was complete before and a servant to Ýng, then what am I now?"
+
+I watch him curiously, this servant of mine and of my lord's, standing in the middle of a pool in a stream where his thighs are steeped the cool water. "You are Lyut, faithful of Ýng, faithful of Týw. Has that changed with your sight?"
+
+He runs his hand above the water, feeling the boundary between water and air with his pawpads. He feels the surface tension of the pool, and through him I feel his wonder. He tests and plays as might a kit of his people even as he begins bathing. Each time he comes up for air, he sings a line of praise to Ýng, and every time he is beneath the water, I know that he is thinking about what he is now. Each time he dives, he is singing his praises to me as well, and now he is cognizant of this as well.
+
+After he has said his prayer and cleaned himself he wades to his net in which he finds three small fish. He gives thanks to Ýng and, after a moment, to me as well.
+
+With the fish on the shore, wrapped in net and stunned, gasping and drowning in air, Lyut watches. He watches them glitter and wiggle. He watches them die their slow deaths. He traces sun-struck scales with a claw and asks: "Do the fish see beneath the water, Týw?"
+
+"Yes, faithful. They see my domain and all its beauties."
+
+"Do they smell beneath the water?"
+
+"After a fashion, yes."
+
+"Do they smell my incense?"
+
+"No, faithful. The boundary between the domain of air and the domain of water is too firm for the smoke of your incense to pass. After all, do you smell your incense beneath water?"
+
+"No, I do not breathe under the water." Lyut looks angry, then laughs. "Only, I wonder."
+
+"Yes, Lyut?"
+
+"I wonder if the fish upon the shore here has the chance to smell the incense and hear the prayers to Ýng before it dies."
+
+I do not answer directly, saying instead: "You are not going to die, faithful."
+
+He looks satisfied at this answer and I realize that I have said what he needed to hear. I know that Lyut holds terror in his breast even still, that he will hold it there until the end of his days, for I have taken his innocence from him. I am pleased to see his satisfaction, and I sense Ýng's bemusement at my anxiety over pleasing a servant.
+
+I am pleased all the same, and I remain with my servant.
+
+I am with Lyut as he gathers his fiddlehead ferns and pawfuls of clay. I am with him as he sets his net once more. I am with him as he cleans his fish and heads back to his cave to prepare his daily meal.
+
+Three times, he closes his eyes and his whiskers droop as he attempts to settle back into his unseeing routine. He is testing himself, I know, and I do not stop him. I do not stop him because I know that when his eyes are open, he is closer to me, to Týw the watchful, and when his eyes are closed, he is closer to our lord, Ýng, the god of all things, and it is good for him to understand this.
+
+He closes his eyes to shut out the sight of preparing his meal, too confused by the twisting of the ferns around his fish. The leaves which make so much sense to his long-practiced fingers do not behave to his eyes the ways in which he expects.
+
+He closes his eyes to eat his food after cracking open the clay baker, for the sight of the fish changed by fire is unnerving. The change in texture he had always known had changed, as too with the taste, for Lyut was no stranger to the flavor of raw fish. Now, sight-ridden, he finds the taste of the fish reduced when his eyes are opened, as though too much of him, of his mind, his being, is taken up processing that which he sees.
+
+And he closes his eyes, last, when he lays on the ground to dry and meditate.
+
+He closes his eyes as he lays on his front, and then when he rolls onto his back, he keeps them closed, and I see his cheeks wet with tears.
+
+"Speak to me, faithful. Why are you troubled?"
+
+"You say that you are the god of watching, yes?"
+
+"I am."
+
+"Must watching always be with sight?"
+
+Again, I do not answer directly. "Do you wish now that you had not regained your sight?"
+
+"It is too much, Týw."
+
+"You are strong, faithful."
+
+"It is too much." He shakes his head. "I feel less holy. I feel less pure when distracted by seeing. How can I serve Ýng as faithfully now that my time spent watching is time spent serving you?"
+
+I feel Ýng's anger rising against me once more, and I answer carefully. "To live is to be holy, to live and rejoice in life, to be pure and clean in your actions and words. Ýng is the lord of all things, and to Their servants They gave life as a way for the universe to recognize its own beauty and wonder."
+
+Lyut's face twists in a anger. "And yet I cannot hear Ýng as well today as I did yesterday. He is with me, I know, but..."
+
+"The only mind which can hear as purely as it sees when both eyes and ears are open is that of Ýng, true, and yet in seeing, do you not also praise Them? It was They who made seeing as well as hearing. It was They who made me."
+
+At his his features soften. His words are slow, and he processes his thoughts and feelings aloud. "I, as a servant, do not understand the hierarchy of the gods, but, yes, if Ýng made the light and the sun and colors and also you, then I suppose I pray to him as easily by rejoicing in sight as I do in sound and touch."
+
+The sun is overhead and tipping down its long path through the afternoon. The colors of the trees are bright and I am with Lyut. "Rejoice, then, in your sight, faithful, for in doing so, you offer prayer to Ýng and to myself."
+
+A slow minute passes as the fisher meditates. At last, he opens his eyes and looks up to the trees and cloudless sky.
+
+"I will try, Týw."
+
+"That is all we ever ask of our servants, Lyut."
+
+-----
+
+When Zita comes up from the village, bearing an armload of flatbread and a small basket full of spice cakes for Lyut, he had since ceased his conversation with Týw and had ceased meditating by laying on the ground, and had instead settled for sitting cross-legged in the entrance to his cave looking out. Zita sang as she walked, as she had for the last ten festival weeks that this had been her duty, and so Lyut hears her before he saw her.
+
+He debates for thirty heartbeats whether or not he is willing to keep his eyes open for her arrival. He debates whether or not he is willing to see, to perceive someone with senses other than those he had been born with.
+
+Lyut makes up his mind and closes his eyes when he hears Zita rounding the curve of the path toward the clearing before his cave. He sees her shadow move in the trees, he sees a hint of her between the trunks, and all courage fails him in that moment.
+
+"Faithful, why do you close your eyes?"
+
+Lyut stays silent.
+
+"As you wish, faithful, but know: while some miracles are private and must be held close to the heart, not all of them, and to hide this one would be to live a lie before me and before the village."
+
+"I am not brave enough."
+
+Zita's singing crescendos as she enters the clearing, then abruptly stops. Lyut supposes that because he is not sitting in the customary place with the customary smile on his face, that she must sense in him some change beyond her ken, and at this, his fear only grows. 
+
+He turns over what I had said within his head. He turns it over ten times and considers the ramifications of it. Were he to keep his newfound sense a secret, then yes, he would in some way be living a lie. He would have sight at his disposal and yet the village would know not of the incredible power of the gods that had granted it to him. And yet there was terror to be had at the thought of anyone finding out. He was holy in part because of his unseeing, was he not? He was pure before Ýng at all times, and he was pure in the ways that the village could not be, for that was his role as the ascetic, as the incense-maker, as blind Lyut.
+
+And yet to lie is to sully oneself. To lie before the village was to betray his role as ascetic and to make himself less holy in the eyes of Ýng. To tell the truth was to test the village and change tradition, but to lie was to destroy it for the sake of the village.
+
+To live a lie until Ýng took him and decided at what point in the endless cycle should be placed his death was too terrible a thought, and the need to tell truth, to remain as pure as he could be, won over in his mind.
+
+"Lyut?" Zita speaks, tentative.
+
+And so he opens his eyes. He opens his eyes. He opens his seeing eyes and looks across the clearing and sees Zita there, shorter than him, softer and rounder than him. Too, she is better fed than him --- though that is not his place in the world --- but she is different on a level more fundamental than any he could have imagined. She is, he thinks, unlike anything he had expected her to be.
+
+He smiles. "Zita."
+
+That he had opened his eyes and looked upon her seems to startle Zita, and she takes a half-pace back away from the cave.
+
+He speaks as calmly as he is able, but he does so quickly as to preempt her leaving. "Zita, Ýng has blessed me this day. Ýng and his servant have blessed me, and when I awoke and opened my eyes, I saw. I saw for the first time."
+
+She frowns and walks toward him. She moves slowly, and then steps a few paces to the side when she is halfway across the clearing to approach him from a diagonal. It is a test, I know, and when his eyes track her movements, she rushes to him and sets down the bread and cakes beside him.
+
+"Ýng has done this?" she says quickly and quietly. "Ýng has worked a wonder! Such a wonder!"
+
+"Yes," Lyut says. It is a small lie, but one easily fixed when first the topic of me, of the god of sight and of watching comes up. "Ýng has granted me sight. I have been praying and meditating, and I do not yet wholly know the reason why."
+
+Zita's eyes dart this way and that as though to take in all of his face, to look at his eyes and to check for the scars that Lyut had sometimes felt beneath his fur while washing, though he knew not where they came from. At last, she looks into his eyes for a long while.
+
+This makes Lyut uncomfortable, and he does not rightly know why. Was there something to behold there? He can see her eyes, and is seeing them for the first time, and to do so fills him with anxiety. They are round and dark, and seem to be made of a ring of brown surrounding a circle of black, and as her eyes move, he sees that the circle of black sometimes grows larger or smaller, though perhaps it is some trick of the light.
+
+But those were simply the mechanics of sight. He can see her eyes, yet he feels that to look directly into the eyes of someone else is to *truly* see them, and he worries that, on some level, Zita will be able to read his thoughts and fears, that she will know deeper secrets about him than he could possibly ever know about her. Was this some knowledge of the sighted that he must someday learn himself?
+
+As well, this close to her and he can smell her better than he ever had before, and she is in no way, in no sense unpleasant.
+
+The feeling of being sullied and unholy hangs around him like a cloud.
+
+He asks, then, quietly: "What do you see, Zita?"
+
+"I see you as I always see you, but I see you with your eyes open and clear, where they used to be cloudy and dim, and I see your fur brown and thick without the scars that my mother says have lined your eyes since you were born."
+
+"Yes, but what do you *see*?"
+
+Zita finally averts her eyes, though only to pick up a cake from the basket and split it in two, holding out one half for Lyut and keeping the other for herself. The cake is the color of the sun and bespecked with the cassia and cardamom which had gone into the incense. "I see that Ýng has wrought a miracle and that our time of fasting and keeping holy has led to something truly wondrous."
+
+Lyut lets his shoulders relax from a tenseness he had not known he was holding, and he accepts the spiced cake from her. "I see. Thank you, Zita. I have been praying and meditating on this all day, and though I know I must not, I doubted this miracle and felt unholy."
+
+She bites into her cake and chews, her eyes focusing seemingly on nothing. Lyut can hardly read her expression, so new is his sight, so he remains silent. She swallows her cake and says: "I think that you are as holy now as you were at the beginning of the time of fasting. You have kept holy as have those who came before you, and the village has kept holy, and perhaps the whole world has kept holy, and now Ýng has provided for us a new thing."
+
+Lyut eats his spice cake and thinks on this. He thinks about what I had told him. He thinks about the shock of sight, still so new to him that the brightness and colors in the world sting his eyes and bring him to tears. He thinks of the newness in things that have always been there. He thinks of how overwhelmed he is by this mere fact, and he thinks about how small he is before Týw and smaller still before his lord.
+
+He thinks about how small he is and realizes that his devotion burns more strongly within him than it had ever before. And, though he does not know or understand my motives, he knows that any servant, that *every* servant of Ýng's is master of him, for the most holy are truly the servants of servants.
+
+He thinks about this and then he smiles to Zita once more and nods. "Yes. Yes, this is a new thing that Ýng and his servant Týw have done, and in their presence I will continue to be holy."
+
+Zita tilts her head to one side, and Lyut wonders if perhaps she had not heard well. "Who is Týw?"
+
+I break my long silence and say, "I am."
+
+Lyut stiffens and Zita startles to her feet.
+
+"I am Týw, and I am the god of the water and of the moon and of watching and of death, and I am servant to Ýng, and I have given sight to Lyut."
+
+When Zita understands, she falls to her knees and prostrates herself before Lyut, seeing no one else to bow before. "A spirit! A spirit!"
+
+Lyut laughs at this, though not unkindly. "I believe Týw, that they are the god of the water and of watching, though I know not what the moon is. I have prayed to Ýng about this and I believe that Týw is Their servant."
+
+"I am. I have given Lyut sight and Ýng is watching all of us."
+
+"I cannot see you, though," Zita says.
+
+"As the sun is too dear to look at, so are the gods, faithful."
+
+"How can I be your faithful?" There is an edge of frustration to her voice, and her tail dances about behind her. I accept her agitation just as I accepted that of Lyut.
+
+"Every time you bathe or drink pure water, every time you keep watch on the world, every time you behold the beauty of the moon, and every time you mourn the dead, you give praise to me, for not all prayers are in words, as Lyut well knows."
+
+He nods in agreement.
+
+"These things are my dominion and Ýng is my lord in turn."
+
+Zita sits up slowly. Still frowning, she considers this. "Why have you given Lyut sight?"
+
+"That is not for you to know, faithful, not yet. There will be a time when you may, however."
+
+She relaxes at my words, for she knows the workings of the gods and the mystery therein almost as well as Lyut does.
+
+"Now, it is almost evening," I say. "Put away the bread and the cakes lest the night animals take them."
+
+Zita nods and moves to help Lyut gather his food before remembering that he can see the basket and the flat loaves of bread as well as she, and they laugh together.
+
+After the food is put away, both fishers kneel together and begin to pray aloud to Ýng.
+
+<div class="verse">They who make the world,
+They who end it,
+They who bring the thunder,
+In Tsuari which fell...
+</div>
+
+I let them finish their prayer and bask in the jubilant way that Zita's voice rings out to her lord.
+
+When they finish, Zita smiles to Lyut and stands once more. "I must go down to the village and tell them of this miracle. Tonight you will see the moon, holy one, and know its beauty and that will be your praise to Týw."
+
+The thought fills me with joy, for the moon is indeed beautiful, and I watch Zita put her arms around Lyut in an embrace --- his first in many years --- before departing down to the village once more.
+
+-----
+
+Lyut stays up late into the night at the promise of the moon. Night is not day, this he knew, and the subconscious understanding that the sun brought light would mean that the absence of the sun would bring darkness does not surprise him.
+
+He remains curious about all things. He marvels at the red and pulsing glow of the embers of his fire. He wonders at the way the sun's arrow disappearing colors the sky pink, purple, navy, black. He drinks in the way in which the color drains from the world.
+
+The first night of the week of feasting is the night of the full moon, which Lyut had known but had not understood, but now he does. He understands the moon and its importance when first it creeps into view of his clearing. He understands its beauty, and he weeps. He weeps for my creation, and I am filled with praise unclouded by words. Filled to overflowing as I have never been since Ýng created me at the beginning of all things.
+
+And that night is the night when Ýng comes to me and makes his decision.
+
+The next morning, a second strange occurrence greets Lyut when he opens his eyes. Sitting at the entrance to his cave is a creature very much like him in many ways, but in many ways different. Long and lithe, yes, strong and slender, yes, but shorter, and with fur of the purest white as opposed to the dark brown of his own. A face more slender and ears larger, and on the tip of his tail, the fur is dark black.
+
+"Who are you?"
+
+I smile to him. "It is I, faithful. It is Týw."
+
+A look of confusion comes over his face, and I must hold back amusement as the fisher sits up and rubs his eyes, looking around as though the answers were to be found in the air itself.
+
+"Týw?"
+
+"Yes, faithful."
+
+"I thought that the gods were too dear to be seen?"
+
+I close my eyes. I revel in the blackness this brings. I revel in the feeling of terror and the exaltation that come with being embodied. I revel in the power of our lord. "Yes, this is true. This has always been true through the long years and longer millennia. However, I was not completely honest with you yesterday, Lyut."
+
+He frowns, staring intently at me in my new form. "If you are a god and you are holy, how can you lie?"
+
+"It was a lie by omission, for I am the god of water and of watching and of the moon and of death, but I am also a trickster god. I am the god who sows chaos while Ýng brings order. Forever we work together or strive against each other. Forever we move in a cycle. This is our very nature. This is the way of things, for Ýng must have something to strive against that time move forward and his creations grow and change with it."
+
+Lyut sits cross-legged and bows his head as he thinks on this. He knows that, on some level, it must be true, for there are times when the weather is bad for days on end and he cannot --- or could not --- tell the difference between day and night, and there are times when he will go a week without food from the river, and once there was even a time when something happened to the water of his section of the stream that caused it to taste bitter and plant-like, and no amount of boiling could remove the flavor and he was sick with fever.
+
+"You sow chaos and Ýng fixes it?"
+
+"There is no fixing chaos, faithful. I sow chaos because that is who and what I am. Ýng brings order because that is what They are. There is no moral ground on which to judge the chaos that I sow, just as there is no judgement to be made on the order of our lord. Both are holy in their own way, because they are the chaos and order of gods"
+
+"Is the chaos of your servants not holy, then?"
+
+"It is not. It is my role in the world to sow chaos so that you may learn and become better for it, but when you sow chaos for each other, you lower yourselves in our eyes." I see confusion on his face and sense questions in his mind, but he does not speak, so I continue. "The chaos sown by living beings is an exchange of power. Inevitable, perhaps, but it bespeaks a lack of devotion."
+
+Lyut frowns as he considers this.
+
+I give my servant time, for he has learned more in the past day than any of his predecessors have in their spans.
+
+"So then," he says at last. "How can I see you now? What are you?"
+
+"I am the god of watching and of water, of the moon and of death, and I am a trickster god, but all of these things are a part of the world separate from you. I am, this body is, the concrete manifestation of myself and I will take this form for a time. I am this concrete manifestation because I committed a concrete act by giving you sight, and the ramifications to me are also concrete."
+
+"You made it so that I can see you?"
+
+"No, faithful. Ýng has made it so that you can see me, for They are my lord and I am Their servant, and I sowed chaos and They have in turn brought order to *me*. At least, for a while."
+
+Lyut looks startled at this. "Is it a wicked thing that you have given me sight? Have you made us both unholy?"
+
+"No, faithful, dear Lyut." I smile and hold up my hands. "It is good and holy that you may see, and Ýng agrees. However, They control the balance, and so they have decided that the balance, the exchange, for you seeing is for me to be seen. I will live for thirty years among the world in this embodied form, and you will find that the chaos that I bring is vastly reduced while I am here, for in this form, I cannot work my usual methods."
+
+"Is that not a punishment, for a god to have their power lessened?"
+
+I laugh. "No, I do not think so. Ýng was at first angry with me and perhaps They wished at one point to punish me. But They understand now, and this is instead a matter of me experiencing what you experience in the way that only a god can, for gods must learn and change along with their servants."
+
+He thinks for a long while on this, and I know that he is praying to Ýng throughout, that he is closing his eyes so that his hearing is sharper and his smell is more keen and perhaps his sense of the holy is as well. I do not interrupt his prayer, for Ýng is with both of us. I pray with him. We sit in silence in the cave and hear the wind and the stream and the birds, and we smell the cassia and cardamom and copal, and we share our prayers.
+
+"Týw," he says at last. "I have faith in Ýng and I have faith in you that I will remain pure and that the world will remain pure with us. I do not understand, but I have faith."
+
+"Good. Now, I will teach you to see, faithful, and you will teach me to be seen, for everything --- *everything* --- will be different now."
+

content/post/fiction/where-do-you-see-yourself.md

@@ -0,0 +1,51 @@
+---
+title: Where do you see yourself five years ago?
+type: post
+date: 2020-09-04
+tags:
+- Science fiction
+categories:
+- Flash fiction
+---
+
+*"Where do you see yourself five years ago?"*
+
+The signs hollered at him. Shouted. It was so noisy in here. No one talking. No music playing, everyone just sitting and waiting, reading or toying with phones or lost in thought.
+
+It was the colors, he suspected. All those posters and signs on the walls. The "cheery" green of the paint and clashing purple of the carpet. They were the ones leading to the sense of din. *A waiting room should be calm and muted,* some part of him reasoned. *It should instill boredom, not terror. I shouldn't flinch away from the walls in a waiting room.*
+
+*"Where do you see yourself five years ago?"*
+
+This one particular sign with its twisting of tense and archaic, faux-1900s aesthetic had caught his eye and would not let him go. It was understated, given much of its competition: red letters stamped on a cream background with silhouettes pointing toward a hopeful sunrise.
+
+He focused his attention on that. Did his best to will tunnel-vision into existence. Tried to block out all of the garish surroundings and just take in those few muted colors.
+
+*"Where do you see yourself five years ago?"*
+
+He knew where he saw himself. Had agonized over the prospects and lived all those counterfactuals in his head over and over and over to himself. He had read all the brochures --- carefully procured away from home, carefully disposed before returning --- and had gone through the requisite interviews and investigation. Always careful. Always where Iosef would not see, would not find out.
+
+He knew where he saw himself: he saw himself away from here. Away from where he was. Away from Iosef. Away from that apartment they shared with their cat and all of the pain bound up there. All of the din of anxiety and trauma that those three rooms held.
+
+Finally, they called his name and brought him back into the office. Relief crashed over him in a wave. Relief not at what he was doing --- he was mildly surprised that there were no regrets in his mind --- but simply at being out of that horrifying waiting room. The office walls were painted a dusty lavender and the furniture all a rustic, unfinished pine.
+
+The contrast would have been jarring if it weren't so much of a sight for sore eyes.
+
+The official walked him through the steps. He'd get a mild hypnotic. He'd write himself a note to explain why he was here, what he'd done. He'd sit in the chair by the wall, there, and speak the three words he was allowed to speak, and then...
+
+And then he'd be done.
+
+The hypnotic went down easy. It tasted like lemon yogurt.
+
+The note was easy, too. Words flowed onto the paper with a practiced ease.
+
+The chair was comfortable.
+
+The machinery clicked on and the official spoke in quiet, coiling repetitions to him, easing him down into something akin to a trance. *"Speak your words, think your words, believe your words. The you of five years ago will hear like a thought unbidden. Speak your words to yourself, think your words to yourself, believe the words you hear. The you of five years ago will hear like a thought unbidden."*
+
+And then he spoke: "Don't say yes."
+
+A hum, a whirr, a sigh, a beep, a blink, and he was awake.
+
+Frowning, he looked down at the note in his hand. The frown relaxed, turned into a relieved smile.
+
+And when he went home, it was to the apartment he shared only with his cat.