From 28848819163bd0873544880cf8329bd7f89b3955 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Madison Scott-Clary Date: Sat, 11 Apr 2020 00:40:07 -0700 Subject: [PATCH] update from sparkleup --- writing/sawtooth/centerpiece.html | 140 +++++++++ .../sawtooth/every-angel-is-terrifying.html | 272 ++++++++++++++++++ writing/sawtooth/what-defines-us.html | 102 +++++++ 3 files changed, 514 insertions(+) create mode 100644 writing/sawtooth/centerpiece.html create mode 100644 writing/sawtooth/every-angel-is-terrifying.html create mode 100644 writing/sawtooth/what-defines-us.html diff --git a/writing/sawtooth/centerpiece.html b/writing/sawtooth/centerpiece.html new file mode 100644 index 000000000..de371d42e --- /dev/null +++ b/writing/sawtooth/centerpiece.html @@ -0,0 +1,140 @@ + + + + Centerpiece + + + + + +
+
+

Centerpiece

+
+
+

:writing:furry:sawtooth:fiction:short-story:erotica:kink:

+

"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."

+
+
+

Page generated on 2016-12-07

+
+
+ + diff --git a/writing/sawtooth/every-angel-is-terrifying.html b/writing/sawtooth/every-angel-is-terrifying.html new file mode 100644 index 000000000..79fb6b793 --- /dev/null +++ b/writing/sawtooth/every-angel-is-terrifying.html @@ -0,0 +1,272 @@ + + + + Every Angel is Terrifying + + + + + +
+
+

Every Angel is Terrifying

+
+
+

:writing:fiction:furry:sawtooth:short-story:mental-health:erotica:romance:suicide:

+

I take the bus to the edge of Sawtooth, basically as close as I can get to the highway on local transit. Beyond here it's all industrial. All warehouses and junkyards and hulking, silent buildings painted gray or beige, or not painted at all. Machine shops, garages, or simply anonymous buildings with rows of doors and loading docks. Beyond here, there is no living. It is a liminal space.

+

That's okay. I just need out of this town. This stupid fucking town. This brown and flat and sad town. This restless town. This home to ennui and melancholy. This scrub of buildings and people and emotions spilled in the middle of an apathetic landscape like hay from an overturned truck.

+

I walk from there.

+

I walk past the buildings until the parking lots are replaced with fields and, eventually, the buildings are too.

+

I walk until the sound of the interstate grows from the sound of wind to the sound of a waterfall, and from there to the sound of wheels on pavement.

+

I walk along the county road, across the bridge over the freeway. Halfway across, I fumble my phone from my pocket and let it tumble over the railing to the concrete below.

+

I keep walking.

+

At fifteen, I had been an anxious and gawky dog. Too anxious. Too gawky. I took to slinking around school from class to class in silence, letting my overful backpack propel me down the halls, walking close to the walls. Any time not spent in the desk furthest from the door daydreaming was spent in front of one of the computers in the lab.

+

Sawtooth High had a few computer classes, but none of them warranted the lab that the school had. Twenty relatively high-end machines---at least, higher end than would ever be needed for the two typing classes, the Pascal class, or the HTML class offered by the school---and my favorite, two Linux machines tucked away in a corner. Babylon and Enterprise.

+

I spent hours on those damn machines. Sometimes, it would be me, holed up in the lab itself, sitting in front of an aged CRT monitor, claws clacking on the keys as I taught myself one programming language or another, worked on homework, or just plain goofed off online. Sometimes, it was me me surreptitiously tabbing back and forth between what I was supposed to be working on in Pascal class and a terminal window opened to Babylon (Enterprise being the machine that ran the school's website, we were discouraged from actually using). Sometimes it was me sneaking out of bed once I was sure my mom had gone to sleep and, muffling the modem with my pillow, logging on remotely.

+

Most often, at those times, it was me logging into some text adventure or another. Where flashy video games had never caught my attention, I'd gotten hopelessly addicted to dungeon crawling with a small party over a MUD. Where instant messengers had failed to grab me, I would spend hours chatting on MUCKs.

+

The limitations of text only fascinated me, and though I never wrote with any seriousness other than a well-worn blog, more journal than literature, I learned to weave my tales and use my words in front of a crowd.

+

And it was there where I found love. There where I found love and lust and romance and flings. I dated. I TSed (we were, of course, too cool to use so vulgar a word as 'cyber'). I set up relationships for characters in our games, and I set up relationships that transcended that, two hearts touching through only those white words on a black screen.

+

Merlin and Marusin, The_Prof and rranger386, people I would dream about and likely never meet. We were all young. We were in love with each other in our own little worlds, serially and in parallel.

+

And while sometimes I would think about who they were beyond the screen, it was rarely for long. I was in love with Merlin the fighter who hated magic. I was in love with The_Prof the student who desperately wanted to be a professor when he grew up, and didn't care which subject.

+

Sometimes I would think about who they were when we TSed, would wonder what it would be like to have their paw instead of my own around my erection, but never for long. It was easier. It was safer to not bother with it.

+

But our relationships were as real as any collocated flings. More so, we told ourselves, for the purity of essence that came with no flesh to get in the way.

+

I'm sure we all hungered for touch.

+

I'm regaining my I. My me. My self.

+

I'm no longer just Derek, that monster, that hollow shell, that desolate vacuum. No longer watching him from the outside, watching him move with mindless purpose.

+

I'm regaining my I, and I don't like what I see.

+

I keep walking.

+

It was toward the tail end of high school that I began to get plagued with depression and mood swings.

+

I was a healthy collie. All the romance of a noble lineage had gone to my parents' heads, and there was simply no reason one of my standing should ever feel bad. Sure, the family had come on hard times financially, and Idaho had been an inexpensive refuge for us. Flyover state or no, we could keep our large house and happy lives. How could any dog be sad?

+

And yet I was. I was in spades. I would swing down for a few months, life slowly losing its color, until I'd feel nothing except an ache behind my sternum, eating only mechanically, and only when reminded.

+

Then it would pass. It would be dinner and I'd realize that I was actually really enjoying the curried chicken. I'd realize that it had been days since I'd thought about falling asleep and not waking up. I'd have energy.

+

I'd have a bit too much energy.

+

Mom would shrug and mumble something about boys. "Men in this family, always so moody. You'll grow out of it."

+

I mostly kept it to myself. When I did share it with friends online, it was to commiserate in the "Parents, eh? What do they know?" style that never goes out of fashion among teenagers.

+

Still, as awful as it was, I learned the rhythm of it. I'd spend a month or so feeling terrible, three months feeling pretty good, and then a month feeling great.

+

Not just great, better than great.

+

I'd spend all of my allowance in a week. I'd sleep three, four hours a night. I'd write page after page of backstory for my role-playing characters. I'd scribble ideas as fast as they came to me and still not be fast enough.

+

I still have a folder of those ideas. They're illegible, unnerving.

+

And then, over the course of a week at most, I'd be back underwater once more.

+

Depression is a strange thing.

+

I tried at several points to capture some sense of it in words, but nothing ever quite fit. Whenever I did, I found myself using a lot of ellipses just to fill in, textually, my fumbling for words with enough meaning. I came up with stuff like, "I dunno. My brain just isn't all me. Like... It's something else. It's there and exerts influence on me life, but it spends an inordinate about of time trying to destroy me."

+

Or poetry. I tried to throw that at depression, too, but it just came out sounding stilted and weird. I'd wind up talking about fire a lot. Fire and birds, for some reason.

+

Which was nonsense, really, but each in such a way that seemed to cover at least one small corner of depression.

+

Depression is big. It's vast and terrible and empty. Completely empty, and there you are, in the middle of it, feeling bad about nothing.

+

There's just no sense to it. No sense in trying to describe nothing. A 'nothing' which is also nonsensical.

+

And yet I keep trying.

+

All these words...

+
+

Every angel is terrifying.

+
+

The words start a whisper, a half-heard echo. They are a niggling thought, a loose tooth, a thread to be worried loose from a hem.

+

And before long, they're resounding within my head. They pound and boom in time with my steps, and I start murmuring them under my breath. "Every angel is terrifying. Every angel is terrifying."

+

As with all linguistic satiation, I can't tell when it is that they stop holding any meaning. It's as though I let my attention slip, and the next time the phrase rolls through my mouth, they're awkward shapes tumbling from my tongue, buzzing in my nose, brushing past my whiskers. Poetry reduced to its bare building blocks becomes as clumsy as any other guttural utterance, though they may stack better than most.

+

"Ein jeder Engel ist schrecklich," I try, hoping the original German might somehow waken something other than dread within me---it doesn't---and then I bark out a laugh, realizing maybe it's doing exactly what it was meant to.

+

The single laugh does not echo. It dies among the weeds and crumbly blacktop of the county road.

+

I keep walking. I keep murmuring my mantra. Keep muttering long after the words have lost meaning. Long after all that's left is a bottomless, emotionless nothing. Long after all thoughts have left my head, except for the realization that I desperately, desperately want to die. Realize it for the million, billion, trillionth time.

+

I keep walking.

+

"LTS, this is Derek, how can I help you?"

+

It was one of those staid lines, the standard greeting that everyone gets when they called our department, Library Technical Services. One of those lines that was so rote, such a patterned behavior, that I'd answered my own cellphone with it once or twice.

+

I'd worked at the campus library for a year and a half at that point, and eighty percent of the problems we take care of were reported through a form on the library's intranet. Even so, I'd gotten that line down pat. The line and the tone. I lowered my voice a few steps, spoke quietly and soothingly, sounding attentive. The people who called rather than using the request form were usually doing so for a reason: they wanted service right then, their problem was urgent, and usually affected more than just themselves. Most issues with customer-facing stuff---the public computers, desktops or laptops---were reported through a phone call.

+

"I...I can't find the photo editing program, and I can't find the page layout program, and I can't find email, and...and gosh darn it, you guys promised all of this would be on my new computer!" the frustrated voice whined from the receiver. I felt my ears cringe back and the fur at the back of my neck rise.

+

"Alright, ma'am, slow up a sec, everything's going to be alright, now--"

+

"No, everything is not going to be alright! I was told I'd have all the software that was on my old machine back again, and it's not, otherwise why would you guys ask for it?"

+

"Ma'am, please slow down, I think there's been a misunderstanding," I said. "When we upgraded your computer, you were upgraded to the new email suite, so your desktop shortcut is probably broken. I can fix that and install the other software items you need here in just a sec. Can you compile a list of all the old software you had on your computer?"

+

She was near tears by then. "I don't understand why you guys even asked me what software I wanted on the new computer if you're not going to install any of it!"

+

"That's where the misunderstanding was," I replied hastily, tail tucking out of instinct. "We were asking for a list of software to be installed on everyone's computer in Liaisons, not just your station. We install the same operating system image on everyone's computer in that area."

+

"Well, this is absurd. I need email back, and I need photo editing and page layout...ing!" She sounded so much like a petulant child, I dropped the phone.

+

No, tell a lie. I threw the phone. The portable handset skittered across the carpet and knocked against the far wall, battery cover snapping open and the battery pack tumbling free, smoking.

+

Bad sign.

+

I rushed to pick up the battery pack and hold the shorting wires apart so that I could tape them separately.

+

I shouldn't have thrown the phone, to be honest. It was just as childish and petulant as the employee I was talking to. No denying it felt good, though, that catharsis.

+

But that day hadn't been a good one. It felt like school and work were conspiring against me to make my life as hard as possible. Majoring in computer science had sounded so fun when I'd picked it, but the more I learned about computers, the more I learned to loathe them. The more I loathed computers, the more I loathed a key part of my identity, loathed myself as a whole. The more I loathed computers, the more I loathed school, the worse my grades, the angrier the calls home, the less I spoke, the more I hid.

+

The last thing I needed was an employee throwing a temper tantrum and blaming me for her non-issues blown way out of proportion.

+

We knew it was a non-issue, too. Her software had indeed been included on the list we were given with her name beside it, so we had checked her drive over the network and found that the last access times for the editing software had been only a few hours after their creation dates, more than a year ago. Always on a quest to trim down the size of the disk images, boss had gone on a bit of a spree---or the opposite of a spree, rather---pointedly not including software that people didn't use on the Liaisons image.

+

A minute and a half later found me sitting in my chair trying to fix the portable handset I'd just thrown across the lab with little success. The employee, a fisher, came peeking in through the door to LTS. I held up the phone toward her and mumbled something about having a little bit of trouble with the handset, simple mechanical repair, sorry for the dropped call. My boss peeked out of his office, glancing between us to see what the noise was.

+

"Matt," she whined to him. "When you gave me the new computer, I was told that I would have all of my old programs on it and they're not there!" She sounded a hairsbreadth away from tears, and my boss's eyes went wide at the tinge of hysteria, his muscles tensing as he backed away from this new threat. I noted with a small amount of satisfaction that the coyote's own tail tucks as reflexively as mine.

+

"I think there was a misunderstanding," he said carefully. "Everything will be alright, if you just give us a second, we'll--"

+

I was already wincing away from the conversation at his very familiar words by the time she stamped her foot. Her tail was already bottle-brushed out, and I could tell she was only a moment away from hissing. I took that as my cue and quietly ducked out around her to slip out of the library.

+

I walked around the building. I took the counter-clockwise route, knowing I risked being seen from LTS' view of the parking lot, but trusting my boss to have things in hand.

+

An unseasonably warm winter was heading toward a cold snap. I could smell it in the air, as though all of the moisture had been packed away for the weekend. Shortcutting through a grassy alley between the library and the psychology building, I crunched through dead leaves with paws buried deep in pockets.

+

I wasn't relaxed enough by the time I reach the front doors again and so I walked around the building a second time, thinking.

+

Most of the employees in the library were meek, older, librarian types. I didn't mind that. It made my job a whole lot easier. I told them to do this, not to do that, and they obeyed with a look of fear or reverential awe in their eyes. We had a few that were bad for thinking they knew rather more about computers than they really did; bad, because we got called in to clean up particularly broken messes.

+

Still feeling surly, I decided this particular librarian was the last type: the customer. The customer is always right, even when they're wrong, even when it's to the detriment of the those around them.

+

I really shouldn't have thrown the phone.

+

When I got back into the lab, my boss handed me a small stack of install disks and a list of downloadable software with an apologetic look. "She was awful...I think I'm scarred for life," he mumbled. "I'm gonna need you to install those for her. She went home for the day, though, so feel free to do it remotely."

+

"What's her computer again?" I asked resignedly. Fair's fair.

+

"N-W-A-I-T-E"

+

"Nora? Nancy? I forget her name. Guess I blocked it from my mind. Should probably email her an apology."

+

He gave an abbreviated wag, always a sign of trouble. " 'I moan' backwards."

+

I groaned, rolled my eyes at the strained humor, and set to work installing Mrs. Waite's software.

+

That night, I dully made myself a grilled cheese sandwich, poured a finger of precious, ill-gotten gin over stale ice, and holed up in front of my computer, wrapped in a blanket with tail draped limply from the back of my chair.

+

For an hour, perhaps, I scrolled through blogs and forums. I read up on my friends' brighter lives. I read threads I didn't care about. After a certain point, I didn't even read. I scrolled mechanically, and when I hit the bottom, I'd click the 'next page' button.

+

Or perhaps I read, I don't know. Perhaps the pattern-matching part of my brain that recognized letters and words and sentences kept on doing its job. Perhaps words and meaning did flow through my mind, but none of it found any foothold. None of it stuck.

+

It was a flashing icon in system tray that caught my attention, and I sheepishly clicked over to chat, wondering just how long it had been blinking at me.

+

There, tinted cyan amid the general stream of chatter in the room, was a private message. With a force of will, I crunched my mind back into gear, and read to understand.

+
+

Peter_P pages, \"Hey, you okay?\" to you.

+
+

Before I knew what I was doing, I was already well into my reply third reply, and by then, I had too much momentum to stop.

+
+

You page, \"Yeah. I mean, I guess I'm depressed. Work is probably the highlight of my day if only because I have to be there and doing my job. Even with classes, I can just zone out in the back and feel bad almost in private. I come home and avoid my roommates and idle on here.\" to Peter_P.
+You page-pose, \"Piree sighs, \"I'm okay, though.\"\" to Peter_P.
+You page, \"Or my life is okay, I dunno.\" to Peter_P.
+You page, \"Shouldn't complain, I'm in a good spot. It's just hard when it all feels so pointless and empty. Sometimes I get so desperately sad and everything hurts or whatever, but this is just like having my heart and brain replaced with cotton balls. It's like thinking through gauze.\" to Peter_P.

+
+

I realized, by the time I manage to lift my paws from the keys and cup them around my blunt muzzle, that I've started crying, the fur on my cheeks damp with tears. I wished I could delete messages. Erase them from the screen, from the server, from Peter's mind, if he'd already read them. I wished I could take it back and just be empty in my room, at my poster-covered walls, rather than empty on the internet at distant friends.

+

Greeted with silence, I tucked my muzzle down and covered the rest of my face with my hands and held my breath, willing time to stop, reverse its own flow, and drop me back at work.

+

When I looked up again, I was greeted not with a reply from Peter, nor even simple silence, but a few lines on the screen.

+
+

Peter_P teleports away.
+MEETME: Peter_P would like you to join them at their current location.
+MEETME: type \"mjoin Peter_P\" to join them.

+
+

For another minute, I stared at the screen, unable to comprehend what would lead him to want to talk about this further, in some quieter room.

+

"Ah, fuck it," I said aloud, typed mjoin peter_p, and whacked the enter key.

+
+

Peter_P hugs!
+Peter_P says, \"Tell me what's up?\"
+Piree hugs and sighs. \"I dunno. Depressed, I guess. That time of the month.\"
+Peter_P says, \"Yeah...\"
+Peter_P says, \"I know you're poking fun, but it does seem cyclical.\"
+You say, \"'it'?\"
+Peter_P says, \"Depression, yeah.\"
+Peter_P says, \"In you, I mean. You seem to go through these cycles of really energetic and really depressed.\"
+You say, \"Yeah...\"
+You say, \"That noticeable?\"
+Peter_P sticks his tongue out. \"Don't take it the wrong way. It's not like super blatant or anything, just something I've noticed about you.\"
+You say, \"heh\"
+You say, \"You pay that much attention to me, then?\"

+
+

I grunted and spent another moment wishing I could take back what I'd just sent.

+
+

Peter_P says, \"I guess :P\"
+You say, \"Sorry, that came out snippy. I didn't mean it.\"
+Peter_P shrugs. \"I guess I do, though. I like you. I worry about you.\"
+Piree hugs. \"Thanks. That means a lot.\"

+
+

When I next looked at the clock, it was nearing two in the morning. I'd spent nearly five hours talking with Peter. I thanked him profusely for staying up so late with me---\"No problem, I don't have work tomorrow\"---and signed off for the night.

+

I went to bed...not exactly happy, but comforted. As I started nodding off, I realized that I'd disconnected in Peter's room, my character had fallen asleep there. A smile tugged at my lips. It felt right.

+
+

Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the ranks of angels?

+
+

With the sun at my back, I trudge east. The din of the freeway once more softening through waterfall and back into the sound of distant winds.

+

I feel those winds blow through me. Not just blow through my fur---the air itself was still---but through me, through my core. I feel hollow, empty. I feel like one of the pipes in an organ I got to tour some years back. I feel the wind blow through me, and I feel myself excited, humming. Hollow, but humming. Cold, but buzzing.

+

I realize my breath is coming hoarsely now. My steps are heavy and my feet hurt and I'm breathing hard. I've been stomping without realizing it.

+

I slow my pace and focus on walking like a normal dog. No sense in getting worn out early. I want to get away from town. I want to walk far enough away that the town of too many memories. Of so many visits with Peter, of jobs left behind, of feelings too strong to bear.

+

I walk east under some other authority's direction. I am not in control of my body anymore. I am not in control of my thoughts.

+

I have no thoughts.

+

I have no thoughts. Emotions well up, rage, and die within, ceaselessly and directionlessly.

+

I have no thoughts. I ride my emotions from one swell to the next, surfing along, feeling that I, too, will rage and die.

+

I have no thoughts.

+

I keep walking.

+

Much of my undergrad was borne out of depression. School was just a thing I did during the days, but my time spent in front of a keyboard was a part of myself. Each story, each post, each role-play session was a piece of myself. Each was a tiny rock to throw at this vasty nothingness. Justifying the things I liked, delineating the craziness of lives real and manufactured, gushing about worlds fantastic...they were all ways for me to pound my fists against nothing at all.

+

A scant two months into my second year at university, I crashed hard and tried to commit suicide, a private affair I never told anyone about, and after that, I just buried myself in it---in my computer and in the life lived there, the life I was soon sharing with Peter.

+

I found ways to write more whenever possible, just to try and fill that big, quiet nothing. I splashed around in great heaps of words, scrabbling at every pebble of a story I could find beneath the surface. I prowled through the tangled thicket of fiction and nonfiction, hunting for ideas to highlight. I took way too many metaphors way, way too far.

+

And you know what? It worked.

+

At least, after a fashion. I started to feel fulfillment. I started filling my weekends with writing. I got in trouble with Peter for idling out repeatedly during conversations, words flowing into the editor instead of between the two of us. I started to gain energy just from the act of spending energy on something I loved wholeheartedly.

+

In a flash of insight---or perhaps mania---I scheduled an appointment with someone in the arts department. Changing degrees and the course of my life was, it turns out, as simple as signing a sheet of paper and waiting a week for confirmation. The next semester, I would be able to start signing up for classes to work toward a degree in creative writing. It would likely extend my undergrad by a year, but thankfully, I'd gotten plenty of the core curriculum classes out of the way already.

+

One of the downsides of working on insight is, by the very definition, a lack of foresight. Telling my parents resulted in them immediately pulling financial support for my tuition.

+

"I'm not going to help buy you a useless future," dad growled. "I can't stop you from throwing away your life; you're a fucking adult. That won't be on me, though."

+

It was only by dint of luck that the current semester, plus my living situation for the remainder of the semester and summer was already paid for. That check had already been deposited.

+

The thing that sealed the deal for me was that I still enjoyed my time at school even when the next downswing struck later that semester. I'd already realized that decisions made when I felt good weren't always the right ones, but if they still felt right when I was depressed, I could be sure that they'd be more likely to stick.

+

Such had not been the case with comp sci, it seemed.

+

Depression was not solved by increasing quality of life. Its tenor changed, to be sure, but the dependable five month cycle continued throughout the years, souring summers and leaving me bedridden with "the flu" or "a cold" for days at a time.

+

I would spend the days under the covers with the second-hand laptop I got from the library surplus and, depending on the weather, either a glass of gin and ice or a hot cocoa spiked with peppermint schnapps, alternating between writing and programming, masturbating to old TS logs, and crying.

+

I would role play as my best, purest characters. Or perhaps, with Peter, I would role play as my better self. Someone happier than I was. Healthier, more responsive, more engaging.

+

I would go to bed feeling guilty for wearing such a mask, consoling myself in the fact that without it, I might wind up without him.

+

I would marvel the enormity of this empty space in which I inhabited.

+

I would marvel at the film-like quality to my life.

+

I would marvel at the diegesis of objects, sounds, tastes, smells.

+

I inhabited a spotlight shone on a flat gray ground.

+

I began relying on alcohol to feather the edge of it, making the boundary between myself and that emptiness softer, less cruelly sharp.

+

I used the pain of plucked fur or hot knife-tip against skin to send up magnesium flares, enough to briefly light up the world around me and offer a sense of clarity, however superficial. The mundane, everyday-ness of wound care would ground me for a week, two. Before long, my arms were ragged, scarred.

+

None of that made me any less of myself. They didn't sweep away Derek. It simply became a part of me while I wasn't watching. The pain, the gin, the days holed up in bed were a fine set of glasses for helping me see which things I was burning myself over were real, and which were just phantoms in that dreamscape.

+

And then, with clockwork predictability, it would lift. With a sharp coolness burning my nostrils, I'd rise before the sun and walk the neighborhood, find my way to The Book and The Bean, and see eyes other than my own.

+

With only a modicum of foresight or perhaps practiced nonchalance, I slipped from my undergraduate program to an MFA program in Moscow, Idaho, off in the far west of the state.

+

Memories, fragments, wordless things crowd me, wraiths tugging at my clothing and fur. I am caught up in these non-thoughts, these non-memories and non-words, buoyed up, borne aloft, buffeted.

+

My steps falter. I stumble and weave. I fall once, twice. Tired. Exhausted. Spent. Drained of life and purpose and intent.

+

Derek is gone. The collie is gone. There is only the I, the me, the barest speck of self.

+

"Oh god, it's so much easier to fly into Boise than Moscow or Sawtooth," Peter grunted, luggage clattering to the floor as we hauled it from the carousel.

+

I laughed. "The city does come with its benefits, yeah. Pretty good food, and it's big enough to get you to visit more."

+

"Yeah, I turn into a pumpkin if I leave the five boroughs at all."

+

"Well, it's not that big, and not nearly as tall, thankfully."

+

Peter smiled apologetically, tall ears splayed. "Sorry. Can't help my apartment's so high up."

+

Telescoping the handle out of one of the shepherd's two suitcases, I guided him away from the crowd and over to the rental car stations. "You're fine, love, promise. You turn into a pumpkin when you get out of the city, and I feel like any building higher than three stories is bound to come tumbling down."

+

"I know. Different strokes, I guess. I feel so exposed out here. It's all so flat, I feel like the tallest thing around."

+

"And I feel like a tiny speck in New York." I shrugged. "Despite growing up next to the mountains."

+

The rental car was a concession to life in the Midwest. It was all well and good to take public transit in a place like New York City, or even cabs, but even though public transit wasn't exactly terrible in Boise, it was much harder to get from the airport to my apartment here on public transit than it was out east. Besides, it would allow us the opportunity to hunt down good restaurants or hunt for good hiking east of the city.

+

We spent the drive back catching up. We talked plenty, both over text and phone, but for some reason, those first few hours after touchdown always felt like a period of reacquainting.

+

I told him of life in grad school, of looking at doctoral programs, of the way that it always felt like stumbling when I started teaching in the fall, before I'd fall back into the rhythm of it, no matter how many fall semesters I taught. He told me about his design work in the city, and though I'd heard plenty about it before, it was suddenly more engaging, if only for the fact that I could see his wild gestures when describing it out of the corner of my eye as I drove us home.

+

By the halfway point, we'd re-purposed the center console as platform to bear our clasped paws, and by the final mile, our paws had each wound up on the other's thigh.

+

The bags didn't even make it to the bedroom. Neither did most of our clothes, for that matter. They left a trail of evidence for some keen-eyed detective from the entryway to my bed, where the heady scent of sex hung thick in the air: a final clue for why two dogs were sprawled, panting, fur matted with semen and lube.

+

An hour's lazy conversation, a shared shower, and a glass of wine on the patio led us to the conclusion that it was far, far too nice out to bother with eating indoors, and so we walked to the convenience store for a simple dinner and struck out for the park.

+

"It's a different kind of height."

+

"Mm?"

+

"The mountains," Peter said.

+

We'd settled down on a pair of folding camp chairs in a small park and were sharing an inexpensive can of wine---though perhaps 'inexpensive' isn't a necessary prefix to 'can of wine', but they looked like sodas from a distance, so they worked well for picnics. Before us rose a slow slope, the neatly manicured grass of the park ending abruptly at the base of a dun-colored hill.

+

"That's hardly a mountain," I laughed.

+

"Yeah, but, like...in Sawtooth. Those were real mountains."

+

"Fair. What do you mean, different kind of height, though?"

+

Peter took a long sip from the can, and we sat in silence, waiting for the last of the sun to slip off the tip of Camel's Back. Once it had settled into the evening with the rest of us, he continued. "It's so haphazard. All the buildings in the city, they're all so regular, even when they're tall. I can stand by the base and look straight up and know---know---that I will see sky. I don't feel that way with mountains."

+

"I suppose I felt the opposite," I said after a pause. "I always felt like they were looming over me, like their whole weight would topple down on top of me if the wind blew wrong."

+

The other dog laughed. "I guess we're the same, then, for different reasons. I always felt like the mountains were going to come down on me. They sit there to the...well, to the east, here, but back in Sawtooth to the west, and they just--" he waved his paw vaguely at the hill before us. "--they just stand there. Wild and untamed. There's no order. You don't know what they're going to do. Not like in cities, where the buildings are...are manifestations of order. Order imposed on physical reality."

+

"You, my darling, are drunk," I said, and we both laughed again. "But I think I understand. You feel like the mountains could coming crashing down on you, because there's nothing to stop them from doing so."

+

"Mm."

+

"And I feel like there's nothing to stop the buildings from coming down on me because I know how bad we are at ordering our lives; how could we possibly be any better at ordering nature?"

+

Peter passed the can of wine to me to finish, waited for me to transfer it to my other paw, and then took my closer one in his. We sat, paw in paw, until evening settled into twilight.

+

That night, as we lay curled together, I wondered aloud for the millionth time what kept Peter with me. He drew so much strength from order, and I was such a train wreck.

+

"Sometimes I feel like you're the mountains. There's nothing to stop you from falling, because there's so little order in your life. Doesn't mean I don't love you."

+

I hesitated in the slow strokes of my fingers through his fur, frowning up into the darkness.

+

"I'm sorry, Piree," he mumbled, falling back to that comfortable name of years ago, a username turned pet name. "That maybe came out wrong. Maybe I'm still a bit drunk."

+

"No, you're probably right." I sighed, turning until I could tuck my muzzle beneath his. "I would have a hard time trusting order. I don't have any proof that it actually exists."

+

We slept.

+

Shivering in the March evening's chill, I come to a tee in the road. Staring out at the unbroken rolling plains beyond town, I linger. The sun sets, the moon rises. Stars fade into view, and still I stare at the low scrub.

+

The first true thought that enters my mind is of how small I am. I mentally try to estimate how many of myself stacked head to toe and packed in cords it would take to equal just one of those low hills, not to mention just one of the mountains of the Sawtooth range behind me. And how little all my problems must mean to that many people.

+

All that I love feels poisoned to me, tainted by the fact that I burned so hard in an attempt to light up all this nothing a little better. I feel forced to like these things because I'm trammeled by this indescribably empty space with them.

+

No, tell a lie. I did this. I tore Peter up and threw him away because he wasn't in there with me in the midst of that nothing. I was a coward: afraid to be alone, but more afraid to ask for help, so I removed my choice in the matter.

+

All these words, all this burning bright in an attempt to light up vast, crenelated spaces of nothing...perhaps it's just a hunt for a reason to incinerate myself.

+

These upswings, if that's what they are, have long since ceased to actually feel good. It's just depression at the speed of sound. Depression, but if you stop moving, you die.

+

And now that's where I am. That's who I am. That's all that's left. In the last week, all of that sludge of depression sloughed off and I was left jewel-hard and burning from within. All of that nothing had transmuted into hatred, utter revulsion for myself and everything good in my life.

+

I am not myself.

+

Burned too long, and all that's left is a charred scaffold of a personality.

+

I am not myself.

+

In the middle of class earlier today, I simply gave in. I must have stopped talking for a long moment, as a hesitant "Doctor MacIver...?" came from the middle of the room. As my only response, I stood up and walked silently from the room.

+

No, not 'I'. I was not the one doing these things, anymore. Someone else was. Derek MacIver was. I watched numbly as he paced out the door.

+

He didn't stop in the hallway.

+

He didn't stop at the door outside, nor at the quad.

+

He didn't stop until he made it home.

+

He didn't stop at his door. Not until he made it to the computer did he stop, and only then to lean over the keyboard words spilling directly onto the screen with no thought to back them up.

+
+

You mail, "I honestly feel sorry for you. The only thing more pathetic than myself is anyone who would love me." to Peter_P.

+
+

After countless nightmares wherein I would somehow find the one single thing I could say to hurt someone---no, not hurt, crush; completely and utterly destroy---any revulsion of actually doing so was lost amid the flames of boundless loathing for this Derek, this hollow shell of a collie.

+

Then it was just a matter of him grabbing a few things and hopping on the bus.

+

I had no thoughts.

+

I had no thoughts.

+

I had no I.

+

The sound of a car door shutting brings me out of my reverie, if reverie it is, and I blink at my surroundings. I'm standing at the side of the road with the barbed wire of the fence clenched in my fists, a small, cheap two-door parked about twenty feet away. It's a small wonder I hadn't heard it before, nor even noticed the headlights casting my shadow before me. There's a dull pain in my hands. A far away pain. A someone-else pain.

+

Once the driver walking towards me resolves from a blurry black cutout against their headlights to the features of one of my students---a solidly built mountain lion, glasses, feminine features on a masculine face; the one who had called after me in class---I relax my grip on the fence. Without saying a word, the puma leads me over to the passenger door of the car and makes me sit in the seat. They tear strips from a towel in the back seat to wrap my bleeding pads.

+

My paws. My paws covered in lacerations and punctures from the barbed-wire fencing. They are not my paws. They are someone else's. They are somewhere else.

+

Am I me? Is Derek myself? Who lived this life? Who loved? Who destroyed? Great, choking sobs begin to muddle all the 'who's and obscure all the 'why's.

+

With my student's help, I use one of the strips to wipe the tears and snot from my face. The mountain lion shuts the door, pads back around the car, and turns it around on the narrow county road.

+

When we reach the university, the cat finally speaks, asking me where I live from there. I mumble my address, and another two minutes of silence follow before we pull up in front of the condos I live in.

+

Both of us get out of the car. They ask if I need help inside, if I need an ambulance. I shake my head, and the mountain lion gives me a hug.

+

It isn't a guy hug, isn't that chaste, dry form of affection I've never been able to understand, though it's far from any embrace I'd shared with Peter. There's more support, more emotion, more understanding in that hug than in any of the many words I've been capable of hearing over the past week, month, year, lifetime, and I have to try my hardest to make it back inside before bursting into tears once more.

+
+

Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the ranks of angels?
+And even supposing one of them took me suddenly to their breast,
+I would perish within their overpowering being,
+For the beautiful is right at the margin of terrifying, which we can only just endure,
+And we marvel at it, because it holds back in serene disdain and does not destroy us.
+Every angel is terrifying.

+
+

I have found my I.

+

I fumble the snub-nosed revolver from the waistband of my pants, swing open the loading gate, and, one by one, dump the rounds into my bandaged paw. Acting on serene autonomy, I lock the gun into its case once more, and tip the cartridges out of my paw and into the trash.

+
+
+

Page generated on 2019-05-21

+
+
+ + diff --git a/writing/sawtooth/what-defines-us.html b/writing/sawtooth/what-defines-us.html new file mode 100644 index 000000000..92b1a7d7a --- /dev/null +++ b/writing/sawtooth/what-defines-us.html @@ -0,0 +1,102 @@ + + + + What Defines Us + + + + + +
+
+

What Defines Us

+
+
+

:writing:fiction:epistolary:furry:short-story:family:divorce:sawtooth:

+

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

+
+ +
+ +