To Thine Own Self Be Zoo
Vol. I No. 11
November 2023

CONTENTS:
[1] Underground Newzletter
[2] IGRA PRC
[3] Gift
[4] Super Soldier Mega Spies
[5] Poetry;
     - Ducks
     - Fort Boysnuggle
     - Dog Pee
     - Passing by a T intersection
     - New Recording 5
     - Grocery List
     - Queer Dogs
     - Squirrel
     - Apparent Loneliness
     - Partners In Crimes
     - Feeling It
     - Sniffs
     - Memo
     - Air Conditioning
     - Dogs
     - Still Dogs tbh
     - Maternal
     - Untitled Maturation
     - Moment
     - Memento
     - Untitled Vague Green Bug
     - Metal Bit
     - Communication
     - I Get It
     - An Interest
     - Superlative
     - ZETA
     - (Shh Secrets For Zoosexuals Time)
     - Police Dogs
     - Suddenly Cognizant Seconds




[1]

Underground Newzletter

AWOOOOOOOOOOOO! SALUTATIONS, ANIMAL LOVERZ! For all those who know
the comfort of snuggling a dog under a blanket on lonely nightz:
For all those who arent shy to look at a dogs boy parts or girl
parts like another dog would, and would like the pleasure of
sniffing around in there too: For those whose first thoughts about
a horse arent their rideability (at least, not that kind)...: For
those who LOVE ANIMALS, its time for your community newz as we
continue our faster-than-light yet slower-than-an-unswelling-dane-
bulbus-glandis voyage into the deep sector!! Therez p-l-e-n-t-y of
animalz-themed fun going on if you know where to look: and if your
looking here your looking in the right place! Come join in the
debauchery! The more the marier! The party never ever ever ever
ends, as long as neither of our competing captains on this shit
show vessel tank the thing before we get to the next habitable
space rock.

!!!Eventz!!!

Nickys Meet!
On Mission Day 438 at Unadjusted Station Time 1800, animal loving
folkz will be gathering in Nickys Bar outside of the aft colluseum
for drinks, then at around 2015 everyonez drunk assez will be
walking around the corner to Crankys Theater to catch their
showing of Balto for history and culture night.

Luztful Meet!
MD 439 @ UST 2130: Wanna hump someone? Wanna get humped by
someone? Okay with taking a chance on whether that someone is 2
legged or 4?? Evin will be leading an officially sanctioned tour
of one of the stations sanitary sewers, the door in iz next 2 the
door to Engine 4, by Insanity Pizzaria. This tour will definitely
just be to obtain knowledge and foster a sense of community and it
totaly iz irrelevant that Evin is bringing shitloads of condoms
and lube and dog food.

Craftz Meet!
MD 440 ALL DAY!!! Somewhere in the arboritum, animal loving craftz
folkz will have merch on display! Lindi has made tonz more knitted
glovez with knit clawz on the finger endz after the last round
sold out so fast, get some from the new batch while they last!
Mergrit is continuing her surprise stickerz series, no spoilerz
here but your not going to want to miss this weekz graffic,
seriouzly. Get out there and check out whatz on offer!

!!!Newz!!!

Giroz VR!
Our god given master of 1s and 0s, GIRO, has released ANOTHER NEW
VR EXPERIENCE. Mail him $2 at the usual address and let him know
you want giraffe, and he will mail back the disk that you can slip
to the chair operator at your next VR sesh. U heard right,
GIRAFFE! The scene can be scaled to make u big enough, the giraffe
small enough, u can be a giraffe 2 or any other avatar u want to
bring in. It feels out of this world. Giro sez the next one that
hez workin on iz another in hiz line of fictional typez, and iz
not commenting farther at thiz time.

Sticker Sitingz!
Ho. Li. Shit. To whatever ninja assassin ultra sneaker put a Get
Lickjobs sticker on captain Berrmz podium right smack in the
middle of his logo, in time for hiz LIVE BROADCAST TO THE WHOLE
STATION, you deserve a place in history. Hiz press guy noticing it
near the end and trying to walk by in front of the podium and
remove it casually and totally failing to get it off and only
making it more obvious to EVERYONE it was there when he gave up
and walked away again made my entire year. Bless you, unknown hero
of stickerz.

!!!Artz!!!

(Line art of a man sniffing the stink lines coming off of a
donkey's butt. A woman is watching him with her arms raised in the
air in despair. Below in quotations is the text, "And he won't eat
his spinach at dinner. MEN.")

(Line art of a deer from the neck up. In place of each of the
deer's eyes is a plume of fire. Some of the deer's antler points
are cut off and are pouring blood.)

(Black and white photograph showing the exterior of a bakery. The
bakery's wall has spray painted art on it. The spray paint art
depicts a Labrador dog with an arrow pointing to her rear, and
text before the arrow which reads, "COOKIE LOOKING 4 MILK.")

(Line art of a dog's erect penis with the bulbus glandis swelled.)

!!!Personalz!!!

Jeff - Have hemeroids, my husbands dick needs somewhere to go in
the meantime. Look for the bald guy and the husky walking around
the oaklog forward dwellings, can host.

Stallion Stufft - Need recording professional to record our new
album! Acoustic, so we have an excuse for not knowing how to do it
ourselves! Please get in touch!

Aymee - The chick I hooked up with at the masquerade on MD 422 who
had the dog tattoos: Still thinking of you. Hoping to meet again.
I am at Iceberg Tunnel Coffee most mornings around UST 0645. Lets
talk about dogs. Kisses, mwa mwa.

Alwayz so much going on!!! Catch the latest newz again soon,
animal loverz!!!!!!!!!




[2]

IGRA PRC

My name is Lyn. I like to go on walks. I'm working on learning how
to do art, but, to say my doodles are uh, childish, would still be
pretty generous, they're still bad, I'm still learning. I chew on
sticks. And, I am literally undead, although I don't mention it to
most people.

I originally lived from 1952 to 1961, and died getting hit by a
car in my old age. I was a Great Dane. My life partner (my human)
was named Fiona, we grew up together, started as young ones and
grew into ourselves, through all of the fun and all of the
hopeless-feeling work that that entails. I remember long hours
sniffing around our back yard while she did laundry; I remember
lying pressed up against her side in the sunlight as she did the
washing in the bucket, and I remember playing around bothering her
to throw a rock for me to go get while she was pegging up the
clothes to dry; I remember how at first she really wanted to throw
a stick, but I liked the rock more, lifting it up and the taste of
it as I carried it, it was important to me it was a rock, and
eventually she went along with it. I think fondly of the smells
that filled the house when she cooked. Roasts, bacon, I drool just
at the memory sometimes. I remember some days were crying days,
she would be in a foul mood, and it would never go away until at
least the next day, but she would calm down a little if I was
there, she would cling to my hair, she would pet me, she would
tell me things that I don't think were about me, but I tried my
hardest to be listening, and I learned who some of the people were
who made her sad. I remember her scolding me regularly for going
up onto the table to eat food when she wasn't around, but the food
she made always smelled so good, nothing she could say would stop
me the next time I was left alone, it was always worth it. I
remember a time when my ears were sore and itchy, and she would be
mad when I scratched at them, I didn't understand; eventually they
stopped being itchy, anyways. I remember sharing her bed, I would
never fall asleep better than to the smell of her breath, and the
warm comfort of her there with me, my packmate. I remember I
always licked her, on the hands and arms and legs, and then one
day while we were on the couch, she looked around to see if we
were alone, and then we kissed mouth to mouth, and that became a
thing that we did a lot. I remember one time our bedroom door was
closed with her inside and me outside, and I bonked my paw into it
to push it open, and to my surprise the door wasn't fully closed
and did come open, and I saw her on the bed naked, doing something
with her nakedness; she looked around like she had looked around
before the kissing, and then she invited me into the bed; she
showed me what she was doing, sliding some toy in and out of her
vagina; I licked at it carefully, and she liked that a lot, and it
became another new game we played; I even got her to use the toy
on me, showing her my puss, showing every interest in getting
played with too; when she finally did, it was so immediately
fulfilling, pleasurable, enjoyable, like I had found out about a
new sense entirely, similar to the disobedient gluttonous joy of
filling my belly by eating good food off of the table; I remember
the first time she did it, we looked into each other's eyes like
hey, we just found something new to share together, didn't we; it
was a fun personal moment. We went on for years, playing around on
the bed, waiting around in the house, romping around in the
sunshine in the back yard as the wind blew by and carried all of
the neighborhood's smells right past my nose, for my inspection
and appreciation. And then, yeah. Car. Smack. I barely lived long
enough to even know that was what happened. It's not like it was
all that traumatic, at the end of the day, from my perspective
anyways. It was pretty quick and then it was over.

I don't even want to get into why I was brought back, because that
isn't really my story. It's like if I was raped by a stranger. Why
HE decided to do what HE did doesn't define ME or what MY story
ever was before that. But, since it did become a defining moment
anyways, sure, I'll give the brief version.

The car that ran me over ran over a human later too, same driver
in fact, and this time the driver actually did do time for murder.
But, more to the point here, after being in evidence and then in
an auction, the murder car mostly spent the next few decades
forgotten about in some dude's barn under a sheet.

And then in 2018, my reviver--I won't say his name, fuck him--came
along looking for a murdered soul, knowing about the story of the
car. Well. He knew about the human who was killed by it. She was
the one he was looking for. He didn't know I was on there too.
Inadvertently, he got the more inert pieces of her, and the actual
soul of me. He had designs of creating a zombie to assassinate
President Trump. I didn't know what a president was prior to being
brought back, because, yeah, dog. Not my ballgame. I did get some
factual knowledge off of the human's soul, so, when it came time
that I was resurrected for this purpose, I at least knew the job
description of a president, even if the exact politics of this
specific president were a few decades ahead of the other soul's
time too.

My reviver died, anyways. As he was trying to imbue me with the
desire to assassinate and the skills to actually make the attempt,
something went wrong with the ritual. A demon appeared he hadn't
even been attempting to commune with--I think she overheard, bless
her. A giant she-wolf made of fire and smoke. She bit his entire
head off, freed me from the chains he had kept me in, and then...
the world was mine again. Just like when I was a dog, before, I
was alive again, I was a creature in the world that could do...
whatever it behooved me to do.

I tried to find Fiona. That took a very long time. It was
difficult enough finding the town that we had lived in, but I did,
in the end I walked there through huge fields of corn that cut up
my bare and sensitive human feet. I walked to our house. Someone
else lived there who I didn't know, and he threatened me as he
told me to leave. I learned more about what year it was, and, what
that meant. I found out it was 2019, and she had died in 1968,
seven years after I had. Everything was over.

I tried to die. I went out into the woods and tried to starve. I
tried to shoot myself. All I felt (after the initial pain and
confusion) was a breeze. I reached into the wound and started
scooping my brain out, handful after handful, until I could run my
hand smoothly around the entire inside surface of my cranial
cavity. It didn't matter. I regenerated. I never even passed out.
My soul (my perspective of existence in the universe) is not
predicated on having a physical body, like it is for most people.

So I decided, if I am unable to die, then I will give myself over
wholeheartedly to living. I eat well and I eat healthy--I'm
actually vegan, mostly, which is not very dog-like, but with these
human taste buds I cannot get enough of onions and peppers,
seriously. I have a job. I have a girlfriend who I uh, have not
told the undead thing to. And I have a truck that I am driving in
right now, on my way home from picking up some groceries from the
organic store that's down the highway. I didn't really need to go
there, but, I'm mixing it up today. It's a free spirit sort of day
right now.

My exit isn't for another couple miles, but on a whim I take this
other exit I'm coming up on anyways. I have a drink of my bottled
lemonade on the way up, tilting it up beside by face, my eyes
never leaving the road. At the top of the off ramp, I take a right
turn onto whatever the hell street this is, and start cruising.

I don't really have anywhere to be. Not in a hurry. The groceries
in the back are mostly produce, nothing that's going to go bad
even if I take all afternoon getting home. And I'm on a two week
staycation, because incidentally I have not used any of my
vacation time this year, and that time resets on the anniversary
of when you were hired. So, being that I was hired nearing three
years ago, here I am with time off that I either use or throw
away.

So I am taking the scenic route home.

Shortly after the off ramp and the stop light are some gas
stations, fast food places, nothing surprising. I think one of
these bigger buildings is a hotel, and the next one down is
probably an apartment complex, and then I'm into a bunch of
housing, my truck ambling along by people's yards, taking it
casual in the slow lane.

I see a sign for a yard sale. Yeah, why not. I throw on my turn
signal, ease down the break, and make the turn.

A little ways farther down a bendy residential road, and I see the
garage sale ahead. A few fold-out tables set up in the driveway, a
few people poking around. I park the truck on the side of the
road, hop out, and go to see what's good.

The other humans shuffle around between the tables, looking things
over. Seems to be middle aged people, one of them has a kid with
them who is goofing around in the front yard--I smile at her.
She's making a better use of this day than any of the rest of them
here, definitely, doing somersaults and running around.

I do turn my attention back to the tables. It's mostly clothes,
from all kinds of ages, baby to adult. I wish it wasn't considered
weird to smell things. Like, screw all these other people, I'm
interested, you know? I'd love to spend a long, long time here,
going item by item, holding the clothes right up close, cupping
them around my nose whether they're a shirt or socks or pants or
underwear, and just sniff them, inch by inch. Who knows. Maybe
they'd all just smell like cigarette smoke anyways. But, maybe
some body odor, maybe fragrant detergent, maybe dirt, maybe
mildew. Guess it'll be a mystery. Guess I'll be left not really
caring about these clothes, since, that was going to be what was
interesting about them. Oh well.

On one table, there are some tools on one end, wrenches and uh,
stuff. And on the other end of that table is some computer stuff
too. A couple of screens, a couple of keyboards and mice. I
certainly don't have an interest, and I think my girlfriend, June,
is already good on screens and keyboards and mice. What catches my
eye though is something that she might have an interest in:
there's a cardboard box with game cartridges stacked inside.

I take some out and look them over. They're definitely used, a lot
of the labels are scuffed or discolored. I sniff one, it doesn't
really smell of much at all, which is good of electronics I have
come to understand--I catch myself and do not sniff any more. Most
of the cartridges are light grey, and have labels with different
cartoon characters on the front, and names I am sure I've heard
before, Mario, Banjo, Zelda. Down at the bottom of the box are ten
black cartridges that don't have any graphics on the labels, just
a narrow white laminated strip with plain black text on it. I
don't know what those are. They all say IGRA PRC and then a
number, like, the lowest I see in here is IGRA PRC 2, and the
highest is IGRA PRC 30, so there would appear to be numbers
missing, I don't know if that matters.

But, details aside, June LOVES computer games. Each of the
cartridges is labeled with a little sticker that has $10 written
on it in pen. I turn to the woman who's seated in a fold-out chair
in the mouth of the garage.

I say to her, "Nice day out." It's the way humans say hi to each
other, I guess. Start by talking about nothing. It is nice out,
anyways: it is autumn, and it smells like it and it feels like it.

She says back, "It could stay like this all year long, you
wouldn't hear me complaining."

Just estimating, buying all of these would be three hundred bucks.
And I mean, I have it, and I'd do that, why not. But I do think
June will appreciate this more the less I say I spent. She is
smart like that.

I make an offer. "One forty for the box?"

"Deal," she says, no hesitation. As I'm getting out my wallet, she
goes on, "I was on the phone with my grandson, he said I should
charge more for those, found them going for more online. I said,
well do you want to come get them? They're free to you, if they're
staying in the family that's worth as much to me as selling them.
And he said no, and I said well there you go, I'm not charging
more if you won't drive an hour to get them."

I hand her one forty in twenties.

She counts it out briefly, and then says, "Thank you very much,
miss."

"Good luck with the rest of the garage sale!" I say.

She grabs a sturdy plastic cane and starts to stand up, probably
to go put the money inside. I have such a desire to help her stand
up, offer her a hand, but I have learned that personal space with
humans is... Touching a stranger is not something you do, even if
you're being nice.

I leave her to stand up on her own, happily pick up the cardboard
box that is so totally mine now, and carry my new thing to my
truck. I set it in the passenger side on the floor, rather than in
the back, to keep the open box safe from unexpected showers or any
dust on the road. I kind of hate computer stuff. Always have to be
so careful with it. No fun. But, I'm happy to have gotten the box
all the same, I think it's a good present. We'll see.

I continue driving in the direction of home. Driver's side window
rolled down, arm hanging out, wind on my face.

Getting closer to home, now on streets that I do usually go down,
I make a stop that I usually make. I pull into a small graveyard
by the road, park the truck, and get out.

Reaching into the bed of my truck, I take a can out of a six pack
back there, and open it as I walk to one of the graves.

Fiona Warren. My life partner.

I sit down in front of the grave cross-legged, and start sipping.
There is a lot of space between my thoughts, as I speak them to
her.

"Not much new to say since yesterday, Fi. Picked up a box of old
games. I don't even know what system they're for. They look like
Nintendo 64? I don't even know if all of them are games, some of
them are labeled like they might be someone's tax files or
something, so, maybe they aren't even for a game system
necessarily. June will know. I basically got them for her. I think
she'll either be stoked or she'll call me a dork and be a little
bit annoyed at how much money I wasted on this. It wasn't much
honestly, but, I guess it would be a dumb amount to spend on
something she can't do anything with, if she can't. We'll see.
I'll let you know if anything in the box was any good."

I set the can down and lean back for a moment, hands pressed down
onto the grass, head tilted back to look up at the clear blue sky.
I breathe it in, and sigh. I pick up the can again, which is half
empty now, and I keep talking.

"I don't know what else to tell you. So much of the human
experience seems to be about... thinking about things that you
aren't sensing right now. And that's not to say I never thought
about things that weren't in front of my face as your dog. Believe
me, when you were at work, I looked forward to you coming home,
even beyond the fact it would mean you would let me out into the
back yard to play around. I just looked forward to seeing you. So
it's not new, thinking about things that aren't true yet. But
it's... more. So much of the human experience seems to be thinking
about things you aren't sensing right now, even when the things
that you are sensing right now are good enough. I don't know.
That's just how I feel about it in this moment. But I'll let you
know how the games go over with June."

I take the last drink from the can, crush it in my hand, and huck
it into the bed of my truck as I'm walking back to it. I get in,
and drive the next couple of blocks back to home.

I live with June, my girlfriend. It's her house. It's REALLY her
house. A human's house. I would never think to put so many of the
touches on it that she has, but she has really made it her own
space, on top of all the things that the previous owners left
here. She's done an unnecessarily cool job of decorating the
walls: in the living room the walls are mostly painted black with
a bunch of neon colored triangles here and there; in her office
the walls are papered with desert imagery, sand and cactuses and
skulls, that kind of thing. There are book shelves in so many
rooms, many do actually have books, others have ceramic vases and
figures, pieces of taxidermy, sewing projects, puzzle toys, tiny
masks carved from wood and painted in detail. If this were my
house I probably would have smashed all the windows to let the air
in and dragged all of the blankets into the kitchen to make a food
and shelter den. So, she has thought of more than a couple
decorating ideas that I would not have.

Her car is in the driveway, I didn't really expect she would be
going anywhere while I went out to get groceries. I bring
everything inside, two bags of groceries in one trip (I bury my
nose down into the bags as I walk in and sniff the onions and
greeny earthy veggie smells), and the box of games in the second
trip (I bury my nose into the box and sniff that too, and
basically just smell the cardboard box itself).

I set everything on the kitchen table for now, and start going
around to find where my girlfriend is. She isn't down here on the
first floor, in the living room or kitchen or in her office or in
the bathroom. I climb up the stairs--unashamedly I go up the
stairs using my feet and my hands. At the top of the stairs I walk
lightly over the carpet down the hall, and poke my head in to our
bedroom. There on the bed is June, all cozy with blankets strewn
all over her. Sunlight falls on her in little golden beads and
lines, through the gaps in the binds. I feel a phantom tail
wagging behind myself--the fact that I don't actually have one
isn't even super a bother right now, it would be smacking so hard
against the wall behind me. I tiptoe forward, take off my shirt
and pants, and slink onto the bed with her, snaking my way under
the blankets, into the warmth that she has packed in there.

June, half asleep, grabs me in her arms. Under the blankets, we
hug front to front, finding a way to settling in that is comfy:
she ends up using my arm as a pillow, I have a scrunched up
blanket for my pillow. We nuzzle in, my face and hers touching,
skin tingling skin, my nose mushed into her forehead, her cheek
mushed into my lips, and we are so cozy this way. I love her. It's
perfect.

I take a deep breath. A slow breath, letting go, wholeheartedly,
of any sense of needing to be anywhere else. I do not need to do
anything at all right now. I can just relax. I can snuggle.

I love coming home to this. I love June. She is warm. She is here.
And she wouldn't make it anything more complicated than that. She
gets me.

And the smells. The sheets smell like us. Sweat, cooch, ass,
detergent, breath. This is our den. This is our special together
place. This is ours.

Before too long at all, I fall asleep with her there, face on
face.

I wake up to the feeling of her planting a big kiss on my lips. I
wag, or at least, I feel the fact that my tail is not thumping
against the bedsheets when it should be. I kiss her back. Then I
stretch, grab all of the blankets, and fling them all onto the
floor in one throw, leaving me and her bare on the bed.

"How do you DO that?" she asks, amused, but also really asking.

"I wanted them off the bed and now they are. Duh."

I pet her tummy. She stretches, and lays back relaxed and lets it
happen.

She says, "It's like that trick where you pull the table cloth off
and still leave everything on the table, but with the blankets and
leaving us on the bed."

I have no idea what she's talking about, but I just keep petting
her tummy.

"I got you video games," I tell her.

"Did you?" she asks--she sounds like she might be happy about this
but is sooo skeptical of what I mean by that, which, to be fair,
is totally fair.

"Whole box of old ones, down on the kitchen table."

She floppily rolls away from my petting and off of the bed, onto
the floor, and starts pulling her clothes on down there on the
floor without getting up. I do get up, get back into my pants and
shirt too, and follow her out of the bedroom door, towards the
stairs.

"I need to see these immediately," she says on the way. "What kind
did you get?"

"It's a surprise because I have no idea."

"Oh my god."

We get to the bottom of the stairs, and she runs to the box on the
kitchen table, and immediately starts grabbing the cartridges out
and looking them over and setting them out.

"Yeah, these are Nintendo 64 carts," she says. "Holy shit.
Okay..." She is setting all of them out in some kind of organized
way, it seems. "Where did you get these?" she asks.

"Garage sale," I answer. "I know the labels all say ten dollars, I
just bought the whole box for a hundred and forty."

She continues digging and sorting while I'm talking. When she gets
to the ones at the bottom, the black cartridges with the text
labels, she says, "I don't know what THESE are," and she leaves
them in the box. "But the ones I do know... yeah, honestly you did
not get ripped off whatsoever, some of these are pretty worthless
but some of these are good gets."

That is good to hear and all, but I wasn't in it for the resale
value: I'm just pleased that her tone of voice at seeing this is
all excited, happy, interested. I am very pleased that I seem to
have not fucked up here. Some could even say that I have been a
good girl.

June asks me, "Wanna play these?"

Holy shit. "You have the console??" I ask.

"Yeah, it should be up in the attic."

Holy shit! "You have an attic????" I ask.

June lets out a shrill little laugh, as I continue to stare,
wide-eyed, awaiting her elaboration as to this "she has an attic"
news.

"WE have an attic," she tells me, resting a hand on my arm.

That is firstly very exciting, and I must know right freaking now
where this entire freaking attic is hidden at. And, to the point
of her emphasis on 'we,' it is nice that she thinks of this house
in that way. Because, according to my understanding of how human
ownership works, this house is all hers and she could kick me out
for no reason if she ever felt like it. So it's nice to hear that
she doesn't feel like it. The house had previously belonged to her
parents, and then there was a sickness that killed a lot of people
including them, and now it belongs to her.

She promises that yes, she will show me where the attic is. When I
see she's going for the stairs I run around her and climb up the
stairs ahead of her on all fours, and wait for her at the top.

"There," she says, pointing to some kind of square recess in the
ceiling of the upstairs hallway.

"THAT'S an ATTIC?" I ask.

"It's the stairs leading to an attic. Come on."

We go to stand under the square. I see there is indeed a little
handle, painted the same white as the ceiling, I never noticed it
at all before.

June carries out a stool from our bedroom, and uses it to step up,
and pull a fold-down door stairs thing magically out of the
ceiling.

"Woahhhh," I say.

"It's very cool," she says, teasing me, but she loves me. "You
going up first?"

"Absolutely not."

"Really? You always seem to insist. Like, literally just now when
we went up the stairs."

"Yeah I already know what's up the stairs, I dunno what's in that
fuckin place."

"Alright, I'll go make sure there's no ghosts or anything," she
says, and starts up the stairs slash ladder thing, up into the
attic.

I hold my tongue as far as commenting on how the ghost is kinda
down here, sort of. Me. Her girlfriend. Whomp whomp.

I follow her up, once she's made it to the top. Looking around, I
see that there is indeed an entire attic in this house.

I ask her, "Why aren't we doing anything with this! This could be
like an awesome scary hangout that we turn into a cozy hangout!"

"Um," she says, and then looks around, and shrugs. "I guess I'm
not against that, actually. I have to go through all these boxes
at some point."

"Do you know where the video game thing is?"

"Yeah! My old gaming stuff is in a plastic crate, I should be able
to spot it." She takes out her phone, turns on the flashlight, and
barely shines it around for two seconds before the light lands on
a blue plastic box that stands out from all the cardboard ones.

She moves towards it, doing a sort of crawling walk to not bang
her head on the low ceiling here. I crawl after her, and take her
phone to hold the light while she opens the box.

"This one!" she says, and takes out a game system. I can see right
on the top of it, it has a slot the right size for the game
cartridges I got. "One sec, let me find the right cords."

The box has all kinds of old electronics and game cases in it.
Neatly packed in among them are power cords that are all bundled
together and kept from being all loosey-goosey by the same kinds
of twist ties that come on bread. She takes out two cords, and a
pair of controllers, and then closes the box and takes her phone
back, and turns off the light.

We split up the load, making easy work of carrying it all down to
the living room. As she gets it all hooked up to the TV, I go and
put away the groceries. I put the paper grocery bags beside the
collection of paper grocery bags June keeps below the
sink--sometimes I see them re-emerge as overflow recycling bags. I
don't know if she uses them for anything more other than that,
but, I put the bags under the sink, anyways.

When I come back to the living room, June is on her stomach,
reaching under the TV stand into all of the wires back there. I
sit down on the couch, and hold a pillow as I watch her work.

Eventually she is triumphant in setting up the system, and raises
her hands over her head and does a little dance. I clap along to
her rhythm--dancing still LOOKS very strange to me, but, some
human instinct for keeping time has rubbed off on me, and so going
along with things like music is... still weird-feeling, but it
kind of tingles too. It's sort of like the first time June gave me
a foot massage, when the feeling of music is strong. When the
feeling is weaker, it's more like seeing an optical illusion.

June continues her little dance all the way over to the table, and
there she stops. I turn around and flump over the back of the
couch, facing her.

"Were there any of these in particular you wanted to play?" she
asks, looking over all the games she's laid out.

"Nah," I tell her.

"Would youuuu like to try a racing one or a fighting one?"

"None," I say.

"What!"

"I just want to watch," I tell her.

"That sounds a little boring."

"It sounds a little NOT boring," I counter, and I wag at
her--well, I would wag at her, etc etc. "I get seasick playing."

"Yeah, I know."

"But I wanna snuggle and see you play and you tell me what you're
doing and I ask dumb questions and you tell me more."

"I love you so much, Lyn."

I blow her a kiss. She makes an air kiss back at me too.

She grabs one of the games, and says, "Let's try Ocarina, make
sure my N64 still works. After that though, I'm really curious
about these other ones with the weird labels."

"What do you think they are?" I ask.

She peers down into the box, moves a couple of the black
cartridges around. "The labels say I G R A, P R C. That doesn't
mean anything to me, off the top of my head. But I mean, it could
be a few things? My guess is that these are just bootlegs, and
they'll just turn out to be some other normal games, maybe in a
different region or something. It could also be that these are
loaded with in-development game snapshots? Doesn't seem likely,
but, it's weird anyways, so who knows."

"Do they still make games for this?"

Lyn laughs a little, as she comes over to put her chosen game into
the system. "No," she answers. "This is like, later 90s, up into
2000, baaarely anything 01 or 02. Well, but that's the thing: just
because commercial development stopped, doesn't mean that any
random person who wanted to couldn't develop on their own in the
twenty years since too. Modding is definitely a thing."

I have no idea what she's saying, but I wag at the sound of her
voice going on. It's very relaxing. As she's been talking she has
put a cartridge into the slot at the top, and slid the power
switch on.

Onto the screen comes a logo, and then the title screen, with a
horse going across a dark field in the background.

"It works!" June says.

"Yay!" I yay.

June sits down on the couch next to me, presses stuff on the
controller, and then we are looking at a menu. I don't know this
game at all, but I get the gist of it, that these are two
different save files. The second file is empty. The first one has
some stuff on it.

June flips the selection back and forth between the two files, and
says, "Huh. The guy named his Link Pick."

"Is that important?"

"No, not at all, but I guess that's what we can call him? I am
assuming all of these games came from a guy, I have no reason
whatsoever but it's what I'm going with."

"Sure, they can all be from a guy," I say, and then I melt over
against her side, nuzzling her, getting comfy. "We can call the
guy Pick. Can we look at where he got to in the game?"

"Yeah," June says, and just as soon selects the first save file.

The screen cuts to a view as though we are looking down into a
room from the ceiling, and I am very glad I have opted out of
playing: just looking at the screen I can deal with, but if I was
the one who had to drive the character around right now I might
hurl. June makes the guy, Pick, leave the room, hop off of a
balcony, and then start wandering around in a village with a bunch
of trees and hills.

June mentions, "From the file select, I know he's still on the
first dungeon."

"Show me around," I request.

June takes me on a walk all around the town, doing all of the fun
little things to do, running around in tall grass, throwing rocks,
talking to all of the people--she does the voices on all of them,
as I snuggle in and wag and listen. I do enjoy it, seeing this
whole place. It'd be neat to be there.

As June is about to go into some other part of the game, I
interrupt, saying, "Let's try the weird games."

"Fuck yes, let's," she agrees.

We both scramble off of each other, and she goes to get the box
while I stand and stretch--my side that was all mushed into her is
all sore, but, no regrets.

She brings the box over and sets it beside the system, and kneels
there as she switches out the game we just played for one of the
black cartridges. "IGRA PRC Two," she says, and then slides the
power switch on, and doesn't even get up as she looks at the TV,
waiting to see if it works.

The game does come on, I think. It looks like a pale blue sky in
the distance, a completely flat dark green field, and a yellow
rectangle standing on the field. And that's it.

"Hm," June says.

"Any idea what this is?" I ask her.

"Nnnnnot a finished game, is all I can tell you," June answers.
She hits the reset button, and same image quickly appears on the
screen.

Sensing that this whole process might involve a lot of fiddling
around with switching out games and doing stuff on the console
itself, I start taking cushions off of the couch and blankets and
pillows and stuff, and begin forming a cushion nest around June
that I will join her in when I am finished.

June tries something with the controller, and right away says, "Oh
wowwww, this is terrible. Look at this."

I look, as I am draping a blanket over her shoulders. She is
moving the rectangle around, but the point of view on the screen
isn't changing, so the rectangle easily goes away off to the sides
or becomes really small in the distance.

She makes a noise like she's going to throw up (I think she's like
half pretending) as the rectangle starts drifting slowly into the
distance.

"What?" I ask.

"I pressed the... oh Jesus, the D pad starts the camera moving but
then doesn't stop it, I can still control the block with the
joystick, this is... wow."

"Bad?"

"Yeah, very bad."

"You like it?"

"This game is talking dirty to me in the BEST way."

I lick the side of her face, and then continue working on the
pillow fort.

She tries the second controller. It doesn't seem to do anything at
first, none of the buttons effect anything, but then all of a
sudden she says, "That's a crash." She laughs to herself, kind of
rolls over onto her side (onto many of the comfy cushions I have
placed) and then rolls back up, sighing after the laugher.
"Wowwwwww this is shoddy. Initializing controller two crashed the
game."

She turns it off and on, and the game is back to normal. I sit
down beside her, and get in on the blanket I put over her,
stealing half of it so it's now draped over both of our shoulders.

June tells me, "If the rest of these are as exciting as this one,
we are in for a treat."

I lick the side of her face again, she kisses me back this time,
and then she turns off the game.

She reaches into the box, and says, "Up next, IGRA PRC Five."

Swapping out the games, she turns it on with the new one in, and
we get a totally different screen. We actually have a person to
move around instead of a rectangle: he has a cape and green skin
and a bald head. And there's actually stuff here, too. A bridge is
right ahead of us, leading towards an expansive obstacle course
that climbs high above our heads in a field in the woods.

"Damn," June says. She moves the guy around, and he actually
walks. "Well this is a huge step up."

She starts walking for the bridge, and our view actually follows
the guy now, instead of staying behind.

As she goes, she tries out all of the things her guy can do. He
has a bunch of different kinds of jumps, some of them are flips
and others are really far jumps or tall jumps. She manages to do
double jumps too, finding weird ways to dance the character
around.

"This handles insanely well," June lets me know.

"Is it a copy of a game, like you were talking about?"

"No. This isn't anything that was ever released on the N64. It's
taking some design cues from SM64, but this really is wholecloth
its own thing."

"Maybe it's one you haven't heard of?"

"I am a freaking historian with this stuff," June says. "I
promise, I am familiar with the entire N64 library, this isn't
anything in it."

"Name every game."

"Super Mario 64, Pilot Wings 64, Saikyo Habu Shogi--"

"FUCK STOP, I believe you."

June giggles to herself. She is doing a lap around the forest
clearing area, staying on the ground rather than going up onto
anything.

"Getting a lay of the land?"

"Yeah. This area alone is extensive. Can I..."

She tries a few things on her controller, making her guy do random
stuff. Then, with an "ah ha!" she makes the view look upwards.

"Damn," she says.

It goes up very, very, very far. Kind of far enough that the
highest stuff up is basically too small to see, so it might go
even farther.

Once she's done a whole lap around, she stands in the middle of
the clearing, and points the view around to a few different
places. She explains, "So, we can start climbing up there...
there... or there. I think all of them are a viable path up, but I
wanna try this one, I see tight ropes and I'd like to see how
those work."

"Sounds good to me."

June heads for that way, which starts with a series of platforms
spiraling up the trunk of a very tall tree.

The way that June plays is mesmerizing to watch. I don't just mean
that of this game, either, I have sat and watched her play games
before. It's like performance art. She glides around the platforms
up this tree like a ninja. She gets to the tight ropes, and with
laughing and experimenting, she has figured out how they work so
fast, and starts jumping across them like she is hot on the trail
of someone ahead.

This area of the game really is freaking huge. We spend way longer
just climbing up all of these things than we spent in the village
in Ocarina, and it just keeps going up and up and up.

At some point I grab us snacks. Snacks from June's food, not mine,
so, chips and sodas.

By the time we can see the top of the area, it's gotten dark
outside in real life. There is one last thing to get over, a bunch
of platforms that are all spinning around a weird giant glowing
green orb. June just goes for it, no hesitation at all, we both
scream and reel at the idea of falling down at this point, but she
powers forward, makes it across the platforms, and leaps into the
orb.

Instantly, her character is teleported to a completely different
level: a blue-tinted town, instead of a green-tinted forest. June
scream laughs at the jarring change in scenery, and rolls over
onto her side, into my lap. I pet her as she is laugh crying and
trying to breathe.

She says to me, "We are going to be up all night, aren't we?"

"That sounds fun to me," I say. I. love. doing weird random shit
with her.

"I need to know how much more of this game there is," she says.

"I'd like to know too," I tell her. And then I admit openly, "I
mean, I don't actually care, but, I want you to be able to find
out, and I like spending time with you."

June kisses me. She tastes like terrible cheesy corn chips. I love
her. She then sits up again, takes the controller once more, and
goes forward into the new area.

As we go around the town, she says a lot of things like
"interesting" and "huh" and "ohhh." I usually have absolutely no
idea what is so interesting or huh or ohhh-worthy, but she
explains to me that basically this area is a huge puzzle, riddle,
secrets kind of thing, unlike the last area which was purely
jumping around.

She walks around to the same areas many times, sometimes spends a
bit of time standing in place, staring at an area, thinking,
before she says "ah ha!" and then goes and jumps on something or
moves something somewhere else, and then seems pleased about it,
and explains how this thing she did here will have effected some
other thing somewhere else. Mmmmost of this is lost on me, but
mostly I don't care. At a certain point I'm not even looking at
the screen, I just have my head in my girlfriend's lap, facing
her, taking in deep sniffs of her shirt, and feeling her gut
moving forward and back against my face as she breathes. She
smells so human. Bad cheesy snacks, body odor. We are both
incredibly sweaty for two people who are just sitting here. It's
probably a mix of all of the excitement from jumping around in the
game and also just the fact that we are very toasty, both of our
body heat pooled together and contained within blankets.

It really is seeming like we're going to be up all night. She is
still sitting there, I am lying beside her on my back, looking at
the TV screen upside down, and she and I are just talking about
stuff as she works on the puzzle thing in the town.

June says to me, "This reminds me of growing up. Being tired, and
eating garbage, and hanging out with friends, and playing a game
without knowing at all what I should expect next. An actual sense
of mystery in a game."

I treasure her sharing that. I haven't told her much about my life
from before I knew her, because, there's not a lot to share if I
don't want to get into the whole 'undead dog' thing. And, in a
sort of mirrored way, I don't know much about her life from before
I knew her either. In some ways I don't need to? I never know if
this is just a normal human thing or if I should try harder to
ask. There is isolated trivia. She knows I dated someone named Fi
who died. I know she had a girlfriend growing up too, but I don't
know what her name was, or what happened, and that's fine that I
don't know. I feel like it is my dog side that is utterly
nonjudgemental as to how she got to be here, and is only invested
in the fact that yes, now she is here. But, this right here, this
night, is the best of both worlds: her sharing some insight that
stuff like this is how she grew up, I love to know that, and I
love to get to be here doing it again with her.

She asks me, "Did you do a lot of stuff like this growing up?"

What a question. I tell her bluntly, "No. Doing stuff like this
with you is a lot of firsts."

"I had like, two best friends when I was a little kid," she says.
"One was a neighbor, and the other was a friend from school..."

She goes on, telling me stories from when she was little. Playing
around in the woods pretending to be wolves--hehe, oh that is so
great, I love that. I wag a ton at those stories, and ask to hear
a lot more about their pack, their territory, their hunts. She
tells me things about going to school. I hear so freaking much
about school, from TV shows and from people talking. It sounds
traumatic, so much of the time. Fiona cried about school a lot. It
sounds like June had mixed experiences. Some of it was bad, and
hurtful, and unfair. But she and her friends also got up to fun,
writing things on the whiteboards that would disrupt class,
passing notes and trying not to laugh but failing, and also
sometimes just leaving school early with her friends to go hang
out and, well, do stuff like what we're doing, this night. I
snuggle against her listening to all of it, wagging. It's
incredible I get through the entire conversation without it coming
up that I never went to school.

It's late enough into the night that June and I are both nodding
off a little bit. We have busted out June's energy drinks, and
have been sipping those. June has been circling around and around
a graveyard in the game. There has been a little lull in the
conversation, and I find myself snapping my head upright, catching
myself from almost falling asleep. I turn and lick the side of
June's face.

"You're weird," she says.

"Licking is a sign of closeness in wolves," I tell her.

She is weirdly quiet at that. I expected her to explain we are
humans. But instead, there is a real heavy silence, as she makes
the character on the screen walk around the graveyard more.

And then she says really quietly, "Hey Lyn?"

I get the sense that we're not in teasing joking mode anymore, and
I try to affect a certain amount of... approachable gravity. "I'm
here," I answer her.

"I told you once that I could relate to you and Fi, but I didn't
want to get into it."

I nod, and don't interrupt her. I can feel her voice on the verge
of cracking, and I might cry just hearing how worked up she is,
but I remain right at her side. I rest my temple on her shoulder,
listening completely.

"Well. My partner growing up, my girlfriend who I had my first
kiss with, and my first sexy times, and who I really wanted to
marry and run away with... was my family's dog, Shiloh."

Tears flood into my eyes, because of how much I know now, how much
I understand about her pain. The dog "was" Shiloh, not "is"
Shiloh. I might be the first person she has ever told about this
hidden pearl of love. I tell her, "Oh sweetie," and I grab her in
a strong hug. She grabs me back, and we cry together.

"I understand," I tell her, as I pet her, and we hug each other.
"You're okay. You're beautiful. You're perfect."

She lets it all out. I stay here with her, here to have it all let
out onto. I'm good at that. I wouldn't have it any other way. I
want all of her pain she will give me. I squeeze her again. She
squeezes me back. We are real. We are two breathing crying things
that are here together right now, breathing and crying on each
other.

As some time passes, we are eventually just two beings breathing
together, not crying. I lick the side of her face. She licks me
back. I wag. She smiles.

"Do you wanna tell me more?" I ask.

"Not right now," she says.

"Will you later?" I ask.

"Sure," she says.

"I love you."

"I love you too."

"I really do get it, and I hope you and her had all of the best
years that you could."

She nods, and says, "We did. I wish it could have... no offense to
you, but I wish it could have lasted forever."

"You don't have to explain that one to me, I understand."

"Right. Sorry."

"We have so many notes to compare, some other time," I tell her. I
hope I used the turn of phrase right. 'Compare notes.' Seems like
a school thing.

She seems to know what I mean, anyways. She nods, and comes in and
hugs me again. We make it a quick one this time.

June looks over at the TV screen, and says, "I give up on this
graveyard, unless you have any ideas."

"I have had no ideas the entire time you have been in this area, I
promise."

She snickers, and says, "If these are all 'in progress' versions
of the same game, maybe this is as far as this version goes.
Should we try the next one?"

"Let's snuggle a little first," I offer.

"Sure," she says, and then in one motion she leans forward and
switches off the power on the N64 and falls onto me to snuggle. I
catch her, and gently lay both of us down in this nest of cushions
and blankets. Both of us there, both of us having the taste of
chips and soda on our mouths, both of us up way past our bedtimes
and so tired, both of us so cozy, I nuzzle her. I kiss her
forehead once, and then we just lay there, and I hold her, and I
pet her.

Pretty soon, she is snoring as I am petting her.

I relax, good to fall asleep too. I fall asleep thinking about how
beautiful my girlfriend is, this human completely asleep on me who
knows what the love is like between a human and a dog. I fall
asleep thinking about how much we really, really have in common. I
fall asleep in love with someone who kisses dogs, more times than
she knows she has, but I think, when I tell her, that it will all
be good news to her, as much as something like that can be. I fall
asleep truly, fully pleased with my new human, as she has fallen
asleep with her new dog.




[3]

Gift

Read the following short story, and then answer the questions
about the short story that follow. The short story is
approximately 8,000 words, and is called "Gift."

--

Gift

A clatter of pool balls. Smooth jazz playing on the speakers,
whenever someone isn't using the juke box. I sit in the booth in
the back corner, my usual outpost here, hunched over my big
notebook, carefully making a straight vertical line in pencil,
drawing in a strut connecting floor and ceiling on the first floor
of my latest creation. I can see it all in my head already, all
five floors, every room, every piece of furniture, every painting,
every trinket on every shelf, and it's good to get it down. It's
good to be working on the sketches. I like this stuff.
Architecture. Pure fantasy. Scratching pencil lead, or, graphite,
it probably is, onto paper. It gives me a chance to just be... no
one. I don't hear any voices when I'm working on this. I can't
even say I hear my own, most of the time. It's a weirdly effective
numbing agent for the mind. Part by part, line by line, I am
filling the page in.

A drop of sweat falls off of my brow and lands on the page, about
where the third floor's guest suite bathroom will be.

Distracting.

I lean back, feeling my back decompress with little aches and
tingles. I maybe hadn't realized just how long I was bent over
that notebook, finishing off the previous building that I had
started on yesterday. With a sigh, I grab a couple of napkins out
of the dispenser on the table, and wipe the sweat off of my
forehead, and off of the rest of my head while I'm at it, ears,
back of the neck. My shirt probably isn't visibly soaked, only by
virtue of the fact that it's black. The weather had been hot all
week, but it's been the worst today--now tonight--, and the AC
here in Ivory's hasn't been switched on all summer.

I reach over to the other side of the table, and grab my fruity
drink, which is sweating as much as I am. The fruit punch-y,
pineapple-y, rum-y taste is nice for sure, but tonight the fact
there's ice in the drink makes it. I'd just as gladly be sipping
on water with ice cubes, almost.

Drink in hand, its condensation making it feel like I just grabbed
it out of a cooler, I turn in my booth, and look over to the bar.
Presently there are two men there, each one to himself.

I look first to the one in the green tank top: he's drinking a
jack and coke, and his body screams of athleticism, sore muscles
that are contented to be sore, they've been given their workout;
he plays on the college football team, he's having a good season
but he's not doing well in his classes, one teacher in particular
isn't cutting him slack like she's supposed to for a good player
on the college football team, she might really screw things up for
him; on his phone, which sits out on the bar in front of him
beside his drink, he's looking through an ebook, open to his
physics reading assignment for today, he's really not getting it,
he knows he's going to have to backtrack through the book a long
ways to catch up; shaking it up and going out to read at a bar has
been a nice change of scenery but it hasn't helped him understand
the material better. I wish I could help him, but, I've never been
a science whiz myself, unfortunately. Not one of the gifts I have
been graced with.

I look to the other guy at the bar, the one in the white collar
shirt: he's drinking a beer; on his phone, he's looking through a
spreadsheet; he supervises an assembly line that is currently
producing little assorted nut snack things; it's going well enough
for them, but he's going over all of the data he can about it,
making sure that there's not something he's missing that would
give lie to it actually not going well; but, so far it's all
checking out, it all does seem to be shaping up to be a really
positive production cycle for them. He doesn't know it, since his
back is to me, but I lift my glass up towards him and silently
toast to his success. I then have another sip, and set the glass
back down on the far side of the table from me.

As it so happens, I don't know either of these men--Terry and
Jason, are their names. I'm a regular here at Ivory's, here most
nights out of the week, back here in my booth. They're both first
timers. I have never met them, here or anywhere else, nor have I
heard of them secondhand. But I'm also not guessing when I say all
this, about Terry's struggles in his physics class and Jason's
studious interest in his team's figures. Nor am I guessing about
the fact that Terry just took a sip of his jack and coke that hit
him all wrong and has made him queasy.

I was twenty three, working in a movie theater and going nowhere
fast in life, when it switched on like a light bulb. The ability
to look at someone and read their mind. I think the first time it
happened, I had been sweeping up popcorn in the lobby when I
glanced up to my manager who was clear on the other side of the
lobby behind the counter, and I heard her clear as day that she
wanted me to hurry up and come take her spot because she was
already working way over and her feet were killing her. I shouted
over that I'd be over soon, because, I was kind of zoned out, and
I'd thought, without thinking about it, that she'd said all of
that to me out loud. And she never talked about it after, but, I
realized that that didn't add up, that would be a lot of oddly
detailed information for her to convey at a raised voice, and I
didn't remember her voice being raised. I think that was the first
time it happened. But, in any case, once it was on, it was on, and
it got real overwhelming real fast.

Believe me, I thought I was a lunatic. I was pretty sure I had
gone schizophrenic. But I did get a handle on it. And it took no
stroke of genius to monetize this new gift either. I'm trespassed
from every casino in Las Vegas, from the strip all the way out to
the micro casinos tucked away all throughout the suburbs
surrounding. But I made my millions there before leaving.

I reach across the table and grab my fruity drink again, have
another sip of the cool cocktail, and then set it down again. I
turn my head back down to my notebook as I hear another new person
entering. I take up my pencil, and am back to scratching in the
details of this same little room as I overhear the new man
ordering a glass of whiskey.

I'm not even done with the next strut in this room before I hear
him order a second glass, and I hear Liam, tonight's bartender,
cut him off.

That gets my attention pretty quickly. I glance up at the man.
He's standing there at the bar, dressed in black cargo pants and a
black long-sleeve shirt, and a black scarf that I assume is for
its value in fashion, and not as a way to keep warm in this stuffy
bar that is already a furnace in this hottest summer weather.

This man just drank the entire glass of whiskey as though he was
gulping down water after a jog. I can feel his stomach and throat
burning, but indeed, he was completely genuine in his intent on
having a second glass. He is trying to get d-r-u-n-k, and he knows
what his limits are, and he would like to get to them. He usually
drinks at home, and would be glad to tonight, but but for the fact
that he just woke up less than half an hour ago, saw it was late
enough that all of the liquor stores would be closed on a
Wednesday, and so he got dressed, and headed out for the part of
downtown where the bars are. He realized upon stepping outside
that he was overdressed, but he was on a mission.

I search for why he's trying to get drunk.

So, the way it works, basically, is that I have access to his mind
in all of the same ways that he does. At a glance, I get all of
his surface-level thoughts that he's thinking, right as he's
thinking them. Hell, I don't even have to glance, really: if I'm
in the same room as someone I can kind of hear it whether I'm
looking or not. If I'm right next to someone I can definitely hear
it. It's why I prefer the likes of Ivory's, instead of a place
that gets busier. Crowded rooms get... very... very... loud. I was
glad enough to get out of Las Vegas, I'll tell you that in a
heartbeat. But, besides his surface-level thoughts, I can also
attempt to recall things, basically as well as he himself would be
able to recall things--actually a little better, because, while he
may be a layman in the art of thinking, I am for better or for
worse a bit of an expert. So, no, I would not be able to pull the
memory of his birth from out of his mind, because that memory does
not exist anymore, the data is not there, no one has it, himself
or me--at least, the birth as experienced from his perspective.
Were his mother here, I assuredly could pull that one out. But,
that's not the question at hand, anyways, I'm not trying to pull
out anything nearly so far back. Trying to think for him about why
he wants to get drunk, that is quite easy. And he won't know that
I'm doing it, doing this information gathering. Right now, as I am
digging deeper and learning that he's trying to get drunk because
he is a pervert and feels deeply ashamed about it, he is
completely unaware that I'm getting those thoughts from him, his
mind is only on trying to weigh how many more bars are open down
the street, and whether it will be worth it to try to bribe one
more drink out of this bearded and unimpressed bartender in front
of him.

He decides that he'll chalk this one up to a lost cause, and play
the next bars a little bit slower. He glances down at the change
he got for his first drink, which is sitting out on the counter.
He takes the bills, and leaves the coins, and then turns and heads
for the door.

I flip the covers of my notebook closed, drink the last of my
fruity sweaty drink, and then stand up and head out after him.

As I'm going, I can sense my exit from a lot of perspectives.
Through my own eyes and other senses, of course--my feet touching
the ground with each step, my own sense of balance. I can also see
myself leaving through Liam's eyes: he wonders how in the hell I
do it. Every instinct in his thought processes tells him I'm a
predator, but his conscious mind can't help but also remember his
surprise that every time someone I've walked after has returned to
the bar, they've been nothing but happy to see me again. I can
also feel my exit in the peripheral awareness of the two at the
bar, they sort of hear my footsteps and have vaguely noticed
Liam's attention looking my way, but neither of them makes
anything of it, they were more interested in the other guy who is
already out the door, they're just paying enough attention to make
sure there isn't trouble--good instincts on both of them, some
people are very dim and would not even be clocking that kind of
thing subconsciously.

Stepping outside, it actually feels a little cooler than in the
bar--I'm sure the weather hasn't actually improved any, but at
least the slight breeze is, well, something. Chris's black
scarf--his name is Chris--blows out to the side in a suddenly
stronger breeze as he walks: I feel the breeze as him, and then a
second later the breeze has arrived at me, and I feel it as myself
too.

I start following after him, keeping my footsteps quiet--I am
successful in that effort, I don't register in his awareness
whatsoever. He's aware of the cars on the street beside us, but
only because the headlights annoy him a little bit, having to walk
with them coming the other way right next to him, blinding him.
One of the cars honks, and he's annoyed that he can't see the
situation through all the glare of the headlights, because if
they're honking about him how would he know it anyways, and why
would they honk at him anyways, he didn't do anything, dammit.
These might not sound like flattering thoughts when I lay them
bare like this, but, actually, they are exceedingly normal. Anyone
else walking down this street would have better than even odds of
thinking the same or worse. I stare at him as we go down the
sidewalk towards the next bar, and I make sure I've fully
understood the dimensions of his thoughts that I had started to
unpack while we were inside.

He is in a dark place right now. He feels a huge amount of self
loathing. He carries a secret that he hasn't told anyone else. He
thinks it's a bad secret. He watches porn on the internet of
animals. And he's seen a lot of it. He's seen videos of male dogs
sticking it to men and women, he's seen videos of men sticking it
to male and female dogs. Stuff with horses, stuff with goats,
stuff with sheep. It seems like a fairly limited amount of this
material has ever made it to the internet. I say that for two
reasons. One is that I can see Chris has rewatched a lot of these
videos, often when he's searching for them the same ones come up.
The other reason is that I've seen these same videos before in
other people's memories. I can't say I've ever gone to the web for
that kind of stuff myself, but I recognize some of these scenes, a
man on a bed sticking it in a great dane's pussy, a woman sucking
a weird red dog cock as someone off screen holds it there for her.

By the time we're nearing the entrance to the next bar, I have
gathered a lot. Firstly, that he has seen so many of these videos,
and that's his secret, this is the only thing he gets off on and
he's ashamed of it. His shame stems from the fact that so much of
this material is rape, if not overt sexual murder, of the animal.
He has seen videos where the animal is tied in restraints, and is
trying to get away, but is forced. He has seen videos of men
sticking it in a chicken, and while I can't find any memory of a
video showing the chicken dying, I would agree with his thoughts
on those videos, which are that the chicken in question seemed
greatly pained and probably didn't have her health held in high
regard by someone who would do that to her. Chris has also seen
videos that he does not consider to have been abusive, where the
animal seemed like he or she was having a lot of fun getting to
fuck a pervy human. And I would agree with his thoughts on those
videos too: in those videos, it does seem like the animal had a
great time. I would go even farther than he has, and say that it's
fucked up for his sake, and for the sake of people like him, that
all of these videos, the abusive and the okay, seem to all be
shuffled together on the websites he goes to as though they are
the same kinds of videos, when they are really, really not. In any
case, he still feels shame around those positive videos too, for
the fact he can never talk to anyone about it.

Well, he thinks he can't talk to anyone about it. I'm going to get
it out of him though. Helping people through their sexual damage
by leading a good example is kind of my thing.

Oh, the other thing I have gathered, about Chris, is that his
damage isn't anything worse. He's never raped an animal himself,
he's never had sex with anyone at all, two legged or four. And as
far as porn goes, animals are his sole interest, which, have no
doubt, I've been in the thoughts of people who have seen worse,
and I'll leave it at that. We are all flawed. Chris is flawed too,
but he is not as far gone as he believes himself to be. And I
would see him set on a better path. I follow him into E's, the
next bar down the street from my usual post at Ivory's.

As he goes up to the bar, I loiter around inside by the door, grab
a newspaper off a wire rack that's just inside, and make some idle
to-do about fanning myself with it. No one notices me much, I can
say with confidence.

Look. I know how this comes across. Am I here to get my own rocks
off? Yes. But if getting my rocks off on helping others is a
crime, then I would submit that there are much worse criminals out
there than me, your honor. It's true, I have used my gift as a
means of getting around, and often times early on, it was a
selfish interest, I will cop that every day of the week. But
listen. Putting it in someone who's agreeable but distracted and
not all that enthusiastic herself? It's sort of a bore, when half
of the experience like it or not is in her mind too. I learned
that if the other isn't over the moon, I'd have usually been
better off staying home and pleasuring myself alone. On the other
hand, tickling someone's most sensitive interests, letting them
run free with their kink that they've never gotten to indulge in
before, and reading them the whole time like I'm them, now that's
something, and it's fun just about every time. Feet, spanking,
role play, whatever their schtick is. Am I a foot guy? Not on my
own. If I let a foot guy perv on my feet, do I feel his tinglies?
You betcha.

Chris sits down at the bar. When the bartender gets to him, he
orders a glass of whiskey, and sets some bills out on the counter.
The bartender takes a couple of the bills and leaves the others,
and gets Chris his drink. Chris does take his time with this
one--at least, he does a better job of taking his time than at the
last bar, where he more or less chugged his 90 proof glass. This
time, he is taking measured pauses between his gulps.

I come forward, and have a seat next to him--not directly next to
him, the bar isn't crowded tonight, so I leave one stool between
us. I keep it light, order a beer. The bartender has it to me in
no time, easy.

As I'm having my second sip, Chris is ordering his second glass.

The bartender looks at him. She's teetering on getting it to him
or not. He almost has it, but then he ruins it for her by trying
to grab his wallet out of his pocket, and stumbling off of his
stool clumsily onto his feet. He still tries to hold out the
money, but she tells him to take it easy for a little bit, and
turns away.

I slide off of my stool and onto the one I'd left between us, and
lean over to him all conspiratorially, and say, "They're strict
around here."

He's pleasantly surprised to have someone on his side, but he
leaps on it, and answers, "Yeah. I came here to drink, now they're
not serving drinks?"

I suggest to him, "Probably too many lawsuits, from people who
can't hold their liquor."

"Mannn I can hold my fuckin liquor, they shouldn't ruin it for the
rest of us."

"You said it," I agree. I'm not even blowing smoke, too much. I do
agree, different people have different limits. Some people could
sniff what Chris drank tonight and not be responsible to be left
unattended. Chris here, if he has his way, is barely warmed up. I
ask him, and I actually haven't read his mind on this so I
actually am asking him, "Do you like amaretto?"

He has no idea what that is, and takes a swing at answering, "I
don't smoke."

I wear an amused little smile to myself, and tell him, "It's
booze. It's 20% and it tastes like tootsie rolls. I have way too
goddamn much of it in my fridge at home, if you wanna blow this
place and hang out at mine, drink until we're silly, laugh our
tits off watching dumb internet videos, that'd be a good night in
my books."

I drink from my bottle as he decides. The bait is very strong, and
don't I know it. I've just suggested one thing he knew he needed,
booze, and another thing that I knew he needed but he didn't
realize it until I brought it up, which would be friendship,
comradery, a pal, someone to have fun with, hang out. He thinks
about what the odds are that I might murder him, and he figures
the odds are about ninety percent that I do, but he also makes up
his mind that he doesn't care. I suppress a sigh at that. There
are a lot--a lot--of depressed males walking this earth who would
walk into something that might kill them just to prove a point,
even if that point is something as petty as, "I knew it would, and
I don't care." I am glad to see he has no intention whatsoever of
killing me, though it is also a little sad to see he doesn't even
think he would if I tried to kill him, he would probably just take
it. But, it's good inasfar as I don't have worries for my own
safety, or for taking him to where I live. I have had to slip away
from hookups in the past when I realized that that wasn't the case
with some people who at first had seemed nice.

"Is your place far from here?" he asks.

"Up the hill, about three blocks."

"Really?" he asks, mind flashing to images of passing by the
houses in that area, and recognizing that they are mostly
mansions, not to mention the location, right on downtown.

I lie, and tell him I hit it huge on the lotto and am mostly just
pretty bored these days. I do tell him the truth that my place
isn't one of the huge houses you'd see from the main street, it's
a more normal modern house tucked away down one of the residential
blocks.

A short time later, we are walking across my front yard, up to the
door. I fetch a key out of my pocket, unlock the place, and step
inside first.

He steps in after me. In his head he is solemnly resigning himself
to whatever may happen to him tonight, but that is quickly
replaced with other more giddy thoughts when he sees my living
room: there's the couch and TV, where I predict we'll be spending
some time, but past that, I have a bunch of instruments set up,
which immediately catches his interest.

"You play?" he asks, walking towards the equipment.

"Not uh," I start, and then I lose my train of thought. Normally
one on one I'm better than this, but, let's say it is a learned
and practiced skill to not get sidetracked when you're thinking
for two or more. And Chris just got really excited at seeing all
of what I have--keyboard, upright piano, guitar, bass, drum kit.
He plays all of it. Some of his go-to's on each are rushing
through his mind, he's eager to touch but wants to make sure I
won't be bothered. I start over, "Yeah, I play."

It's actually more of a science experiment to me, or something
akin to that. I have been in the thoughts of a great many people
who can play musical instruments. Seeing someone's thoughts about
something doesn't necessarily make me an expert in it. I took all
of the normal math classes in high school, and just being exposed
to the teacher talking about the subject did not make me
automatically understand all of it inside and out, I barely
scraped by with passing grades--at the time I thought it was on
pure luck, in hindsight I do realize that if high schools actually
failed all of the students who didn't grasp the subject matter
they were supposed to, graduation rates would be bleak. So,
anyways, with this rock band setup, I'm not so much trying to pen
the next pop hit or express my soul through music. I'm more-so
seeing how much actually has rubbed off on me with this subject.
How much I can access if I really put my mind on it. So far, the
answer is that more of it has rubbed off than I would have
guessed. For something I never had a knack for pre-mind reading,
I've made a lot more headway on this than I have on calculus.

"Are you in like, a band?" Chris asks.

"I'm not against it, but no, I just play by myself. Notebook over
there on that desk has some of what I've been composing if it
interests you at all. I'm gonna grab drinks, feel free to play
whatever you like if you want."

He is very pleased about the permission to touch the instruments
and the knowledge that I am going to get drinks, and he actually
is very passingly interested in my music as well, which is more
than I would have guessed. He asks, "Sheet music?"

"Yeah."

"I'll check it out," he says, "but, I won't be able to play it
without having heard it first. I only know how to, kind of read
that stuff as a refresher."

He's not weird for that. That actually makes him pretty average
among musicians. I give him a little play salute as I walk off
down the hall, deeper into the house towards the kitchen.

Behind me, I hear the fuzz of the amp kicking on, shortly followed
by some metal licks.

In the kitchen, I have a normal fridge, and then I also have one
with a glass front that is more akin to what you'd see in a
supermarket. In the glass-fronted one, there is, indeed, an absurd
collection of booze, a large percentage of it being amaretto. It's
a personal favorite. A bit like drinking candy that also makes you
tipsy. I could drink the stuff all night every night, and, for
some periods of time, I more or less have done that.

I grab two bottles, and a couple of glasses from the cupboard.
Holding the glasses pressed between my arm and chest and holding a
bottle in each hand, I return into the living room and all of the
metal guitar sounds. Also returning into Chris's thoughts, he is
pretty self-pleased that his guitar work is sounding good, he's
aware it ought to be impressive.

Hey, as a budding musician who can't do what he's doing but can,
directly, appreciate the talent that he's got behind it, sure, I'm
impressed. I tilt back my head, and give him a loud, "AWOOOOO!"

He caps off his jam with a few fast strums, and then flips
something on the guitar that turns it off--I hadn't been aware of
that switch, and I make a mental note, that seems handy to know
about.

I sort of make a show of slightly lifting the glasses and bottles
in my arms.

Chris sets the guitar back on its stand, and comes over.

"Take either, should be the same," I tell him.

He grabs a bottle and a glass, freeing me to hold my own in each
hand too. With two pop!s, our bottles are open and we're each
pouring our first glass.

He's wondering if he should say anything.

I help him out, and make a toast: "To a fun night."

His mind blanks for half a second, but he smoothly enough
retrieves the appropriate response: "Cheers."

We clink our glasses, and then each have a big, long drink.

Hits. The. Spot.

I start walking past him towards the upright piano, and I mention
as I go, "More where that bottle came from whenever you want. Your
pace."

"That is, a dangerous offer," he says honestly.

"I trust you," I say, less honestly. I do trust that he has a good
sense of his own limits, I got that off him pretty much right
away, but I also got that he has a habit of pushing them. So, I
don't trust him, but I do trust that if I have to cut him off,
he'll inadvertently tell on himself.

I take a seat on the piano bench, and set my glass and bottle on
the ground beside myself.

I say over my shoulder, "I know I promised something to the effect
of watching silly internet videos, we can get to that of course.
Humor me with a song first?"

He's stoked, but gives a subdued, "Yeah. What did you have in
mind?"

As soon as I turn forward to face the keys, I feel him
secretly--"secretly"--down the rest of his glass.

I pick up my own glass for another sip to keep up, and answer,
"Improvised, play what comes to you. Original, something you
heard, whatever you're feeling."

"Sure."

I lay the bed of a comfortable, approachable piano melody, to see
where we go from there.

Competently, he finds the key we're in, and lets a few chords
drone out at opportune moments. Then, after the melody has come
around a few times, he stops with the droning and starts up a
chugging on the guitar, dnn dnn dnn dnn dnn dnn dnn dnn, and I
sense that he wants me to give him more to work off of. I throw in
the flourishes he wants--exactly the flourishes he wants, little
stings on the high keys here and there and switching up the rhythm
to something more... he thinks of it as 'jazzy,' I don't know if
that's right, but certainly something more shaken up than what I'd
started on. We play back and forth, it's a dialogue, and he's into
it. He's having memories of himself in high school and another boy
with curly brown hair, Caleb, the two of them a few times found
themselves alone in the band room--some kind of detention? I can't
break this flow to unpack it completely right now--but he and the
other boy played instruments back and forth and really, really,
almost magically, seemed to be able to communicate their
intentions back and forth, and play more or less exactly what the
other had hoped would be played. This is reminding him of that. As
we're going and the notes are flying, Chris launches into one of
the movements of Freebird, and I cackle with amused joy, not
letting myself slip up, seizing this victory of musicality by the
horns.

When his solo is over, I start letting us glide to a gentle
landing with this, letting things ring out.

He is very emotionally open right now. Let loose from standing
tight and upright in public, he is getting to make loud music,
show off, flourish, he could do a lot of things he normally
wouldn't be in a habit of right now.

I get up from the piano bench. As the last of his chords is still
ringing in the air, I stand up, walk to him, and over the humming
guitar, I lean in for a kiss. He reciprocates, although he's never
kissed anyone before, he doesn't fully know what to do being this
close with another person's face, doesn't know what to do against
another human's weird rubbery muscly mouth and lips, against my
stubble. He's curious to try it though, for a little bit.

I don't dwell on it though. As he's getting towards really over
thinking it, I back off.

He's still very open. If I started unzipping his pants, he
wouldn't say no--I can say that very confidently, because he is
imagining me doing just that, and he would very much like that,
less for the pleasure of it even, and more for the sake of not
being a virgin anymore. He wants to be rid of that label, to not
have to call himself that. He would like, when other people talk
about sex, to not have to think about it as some kind of
hypothetical.

And I could give that to him. And I might. But, later. If I can
behave myself, that will be something for if we meet up again on
another day. Tonight, I want to help him with the other thing. The
porn thing.

I slink an arm firmly around him, a sort of hug, my hand going up
across his back and resting on his opposite shoulder. But I say to
him, "We eh, might have skipped the part where we talk about this
first."

He gives a little laugh at that.

I ask, "Am I getting ahead of myself?"

He does think that I am very much getting ahead of myself, but
that he's glad I am. Even still, he becomes embarrassed at the
idea of being the one to suggest it goes any further. Sheepishly,
he suggests, "We could... do more..."

I slink off of him. He switches off the guitar again, and as he's
putting it back on the stand, he awaits me setting the bar for
where we're going to go, what we might do, what's on the table. Oh
hell, I'm a sponge, what's on the table for me is quite a lot more
than what there would have been before this gift, before I was
more or less forced to be at least halfway into what any person
I'm around is into. But, again, I make sure not to forget myself,
my intentions.

"How about this," I start. "Are you gay?"

He immediately flushes at the prospect of having to answer that.
Many, many, many, many images flash across his mind of seeing male
humans and male animals doing each other in the butthole or
sucking each other off. It's also not lost on him what he was just
about to be down for, with me. But somehow, the idea of getting
off to human males with animal males, or the idea of himself being
swept up in the moment with another man, somehow all of that jars
with the idea of "being gay." The label isn't one he feels is
quite appropriate to himself. There is another one he has settled
on, a while back, that is a bit more vague, a bit more apt for
him.

He tells it to me: "I'm kind of more pan than gay, so I mean, kind
of gay."

I go and retrieve my glass and bottle, and he does the same. As
we're each topping off our glasses again, I say, "How about this:
I don't want to seem like I'm taking advantage of you. Got you
drunk, and all that."

He is quick to chime in at that, "Oh I don't feel like you were--"

"I know, I know," I tell him. I am though: I am getting him drunk.

I sigh. If I were to stab someone on the street with a knife, that
would be assault with a deadly weapon. If I were a surgeon and cut
someone open with a scalpel to perform life saving surgery on a
patient, that would be me doing my job. I like to think of what I
do as somewhere admittedly in the middle of those two things, but
a lot closer to the life saving than the assaulting. I AM doing
this with the intention of saving him--suicide has crossed his
mind a lot more than it does most people's. And I may not have a
degree, but by whatever unknown forces, I have been given the role
of world's biggest authority on what other people are thinking.

So yeah, what I do is sleazy. What surgeons do is gruesome.
Sometimes some people are allowed to do things that other people
shouldn't. Hopefully the end result is for the better.

I have a sip from my refreshed glass, and tell him, "I'd like to
know you better anyways."

That sets him on edge, social nervousness prickles his skin.

"What you're into," I add.

That is a relief in his book, for a second, and then he actually
thinks about what he is into, and now it's making him nervous
again. He takes a gulp from his drink.

As he drinks, I suggest, "If you wanna get off, we could each have
a seat on that couch, and you can pick something to put on that
you're into, and we can watch it together, drink our drinks, make
a night of it. How's that?"

No longer wanting to be on the defensive, he forces a little
smile, and asserts, "I don't know what you're into. People have a
large variety of limits, and stuff. I don't want you to be bored,
or like, freaked out."

He says it thinking he is the biggest freak in the world, so
anything I might suggest I'm into, he can match it.

"I like to explore new things all the time," I tell him, and then
I sip my drink. "You won't freak me out."

He is hyper aware that I did not answer his implied question about
what I'm into, and he does indeed call me on it: "Name your
favorite thing."

I tell him, "I don't want you to feel like you have to conform
your interests to my interests. I look at a lot of different
stuff. No shame. None. Lately I've been looking at a lot of
furries. You know them?"

He is unbelievably stoked that we are even in the same ballpark.
Worst case, he figures, we watch some furry stuff, and he'll have
an okay enough time getting off to that, he won't have to be
faking it too much, not nearly as much as if we watched something
human-on-human.

He is not able to stop himself from a huge smile, and tries to
half cover it with his glass as he says, "Yeah I know what furries
are," and then he has a drink. In his mind, he is picturing a
couple of videos he's seen of someone in a fursuit getting mounted
and fucked by a dog.

He notices his hardon is pressing against his pants. I can feel it
too.

"Care to get more comfortable?" I ask, glancing down at his crotch
and back up to his eyes.

He wanders over to the couch, and sets down his drinks. "I've
never JO'd with another guy before," he tells me. "I don't know
what's, like, polite, I guess."

He briefly considers if he's really doing this, and then he
decides it sounds fun and he definitely is, and he peels down his
pants and underwear and kicks them off, and is ass naked on one
side of my couch, still wearing his shirt and scarf, his prick
completely stiff. I join him, sliding off everything from the
waist down too, and taking a seat on the other side of the couch.

I grab the TV remote and press the power button, though this TV
takes a little bit to load up.

He asks, "So you wanna watch furry stuff?"

"Nah hotshot, I wanna watch what you wanna watch."

"I uh, don't think you do."

"If I don't I'll tell you you were right. No harm in suggesting
it."

That first part, laying it up to him as a challenge, really lands
with him. I've given him his permission, his excuse, to tell me
something really wild and out there.

He comes out with it: "Animals. Actual animals. Bestiality
videos."

What a weight that is, taken off his shoulders. It's like it has
been a mission, for years and years, to keep that information a
secret at the cost of anything else, and now the mission is done,
and if I but let him know it's alright, then he will be able to
truly relax for the first time he ever has. I have been in the
minds of people who at one point in their lives sat accused in a
court of law, in a trial that really could have gone either way,
and so I know what the feeling is, when the jury has come back
with a verdict, but the verdict has not yet been read. He more or
less feels the same way, after revealing that about himself, and
now awaiting how I am going to take it.

With an amused smile, I say, "Oh, alright," and I take a sip of my
drink.

Chris goes straight for his bottle, and takes what in his mind is
a victory drink. I'm glad for him. He's earned that.

I press him, "Is that your thing?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah, that sounds pretty hot, alright," I say, and begin toying
with myself. "What kinda animals are you into?"

"Um. Dogs, mainly."

Nodding, I say as though learning all of this for the first time
and being very intrigued, "Okay, okay. Got a website for that or
anything?"

"Are you sure you want me to look it up?"

"Yeah, that's fine," I tell him. I go to the web thing on my TV,
and hand the remote over to him. It occurs to me then, we are
missing something. I say to him about the bestiality website,
"Look that up, I'll be right back with lube and more drinks."

With a smile, looking back and forth between the remote and the TV
screen, he says, "You got it."

I step away from the living room very pleased with the way this is
going, glad for Chris, and looking forward to the rest of the
night. We'll watch some videos, we'll bust, and when it's all said
and done, I think my companion for the evening will have been all
the better for it.

I skedaddle up to my bedroom and grab the basket of assorted lubes
that I keep on the dresser. I think back on all of the memories I
have been privy to of Chris jacking it. From his muscle memory of
how the container on his lube works, and the knowledge of what it
feels like when he rubs it onto his shaft and how it holds up in
practice, I actually know exactly which kind he uses, it's one of
the very common store brands. But--professional poker player
here--coming back downstairs with just that kind for him and just
my kind for me would be a tell. Maybe not much of one, it could be
a coincidence, but by this point, I don't want to give him any
kind of prompt to question how I know things. I return down the
stairs with the entire basket, stop back into the kitchen for a
couple more bottles of amaretto as well, and then with my arms
full return once more into the living room.

Chris is sitting there leaning back into one corner of the couch,
stiff as ever, giving me a smug grin. I turn to look at the
television, and there indeed is one of his bestiality websites
that he's called up. I nearly lose my balance, coming back into
his presence, like stepping from solid land onto a rocking boat:
he has downed the rest of his bottle, and is definitively drunk.

I set everything down on the ground in front of the couch. We have
a giggle at all of the different kinds of lube I have--some stuff
is good for some activities some stuff is good for other
activities, what can I say. He does grab the one he usually uses
and tells me as much, but then he asks if I recommend something
different. The one he usually uses is fine.

Lubing my own tool, I start to stroke it as I face the screen.
Chris, absolutely thrilled to be doing this, starts doing the
same, with the remote in his other hand. He starts navigating
through the site.

I say to him, "Wow, so many videos. I didn't know so many people
were into this. Which of these do you like?"

He highlights a few for my interest, telling me this one looks to
be a man taking it from a male dog, that one looks to be a man
giving it to a mare, et cetera.

We make a night of it. Everything goes according to plan. We watch
through some videos and he is utterly euphoric, firstly just from
watching the porn itself, secondly from the booze, and, thirdly,
as a new twist for him, the acceptance he feels within himself,
what was once a shameful knowledge in him is now a smug knowledge,
he is my teacher, or so it is good for him to believe. We both
bust. He eats his without thinking about it, and then is briefly
mortified at the idea that he might have just done something that
would ruin my opinion of him, but I stick my tongue out at him and
then eat mine too. I order us pizza, we each take turns washing up
in the bathroom. Chris learns my name when the pizza guy says it:
Dean? Yup, Dean here, thank you. Over pizza, Chris and I chat some
more about the videos, what's out there. I lay the seeds for a
better path for him. Are there others like you, I ask him. Are
there communities. Basically, hey, I see there's a lot of porn,
obviously some people are making this and even more people are
hounding after it, so to speak, so what's the deal, why don't I
ever seem to see people talking about this, do you not have any
friends who are into this. He intends to look into all of that. He
doesn't tell me so, he just goes along, says yeah I don't know,
it's weird, it's fucked up that things are like this, I don't know
what to tell you. But he is looking forward to seeking those
things out.

After our food, we go for a second round of watching through some
videos. Chris helps me--"helps me"--steer clear of the videos that
seem abusive. We chat openly about that, ah, no I hate that, I
just want to see everyone having a good time, we agree.

After we've each finished a second time, Chris is very sleepy--he
thinks it's because he didn't get enough sleep earlier, in my
expert opinion it would be because of the orgasms and the large
amount of food earlier and the booze, but what do I know. I get
him a couple of blankets, and he falls asleep on the couch.

In the morning, he is gone.

I hope to see him again down the road.

--

1. Is Dean a reliable narrator or an unreliable narrator? Why do
you think so?

2. Dean justifies his actions by comparing himself to a
professional surgeon, rather than somebody cutting people open at
random. Are Dean's actions in this story actually ethical?

3. What comparisons can be made between Chris's sexual interest in
animals as a human, and Dean's sexual interest in humans as a mind
reader?

4. Dean appears to possess a very large amount of amaretto, which
he describes as being 20% and tasting like tootsie rolls. Does
this say anything about him? Why or why not?




[4]

Super Soldier Mega Spies

Setting

It's the year 300,000,000, and humans have long since lost all
affinity for harmony, nature, or animals: their singular goal as a
species is to colonize the universe and its varied landscapes and
lifeforms at all costs. This is where YOU come in! A
conglomeration of elite intelligences at the center of the
universe has agreed that it's time to send you and some other
super soldier mega spies in to sabotage human endeavors on various
planets. You and your teammates may look like such innocent beings
as cute red pandas, little bipedal robots, or squishy green
aliens, but beneath the cute veneer you and your colleagues are
lethal assassins and adept saboteurs.

Materials

Minimum: One deck of cards and one 6-sided die, which the table
can all share.

Optional: One deck of cards for each player, two 6-sided dice for
each player, and a pencil and paper for each player.

Rules

In Super Soldier Mega Spies, one Game Master leads a Player or
Players through a quest to reclaim a territory from human
supremacy, setting scenes and presenting obstacles.

A Player Character starts with 5 HP and a number of GFY points
equal to their level. Each Player may choose to represent these
values by tokens, such as a stack of nickels for HP and a stack of
bottle caps for GFY points, or by marking these values on a sheet
of paper or on a digital document. Each Player Character should
have a name (examples: Linda, Sir Hopsalot, The Mysterious
Vanishing Ewe, Keith,) an appearance (examples: a Golden Retriever
with a large sunhat, a frog who is blue with black bumps, a white
sheep who is usually semi-transparent and stands on her hind legs,
a koala double fisting vodka,) a weapon (examples: a sword,
karate, wicked fire magic, insults,) and some things they are good
at (as many as you want to say.)

Out of combat, the GM's job is to describe the current
surroundings and to guide Players towards the way forward, perhaps
encouraging them to make use of the things their characters are
good at along the way.

In combat, the GM's job is to talk hella shit as the Enemies.

When combat begins, all of the Player Characters go in whatever
order they decide, then all of the Enemies go in whatever order
the GM decides, then back to the Player Characters and so on until
combat is resolved.

When a Player Character attacks an Enemy, the Player rolls one
6-sided die, and the attack deals one point of damage if the die
shows 4 or higher. If 3 or less, the Player may describe their
character's fumble and how they're going to save it, and then roll
a second die: if the total of both dice is 6 or higher, the attack
deals one point of damage. The GM may, however, decide that
Enemies are invincible unless a certain attack is described that
circumvents that Enemy's reason for invincibility. Most Enemies
should have 1 HP.

When an Enemy attacks a Player Character, the Player draws a card
from a deck of cards. If the drawn card is a face card, the attack
fails. If the drawn card is an ace, the attack fails and the
Player may describe how their character manipulates the attack to
effect the environment to the character's advantage. If the drawn
card is a joker, the Enemy deals one point of damage towards
itself. If the drawn card is a number card, the Player Character
takes one point of damage, unless the Player announces "Simon says
I dodge!" with Simon being something that the table determines at
the start of the session (examples: Simon is the name of any
celebrity who the table then imagines as a dog, Simon is any furry
media content tag, Simon is the description of any NPC in any
video game.) Each Simon may only be used once per session. The
deck of cards is reset and shuffled whenever a Player decides.
Players may each use their own deck of cards or use a communal
deck.

A Player Character may instantly defeat an Enemy using GFY points.
The number of GFY points required to defeat an Enemy is determined
by the GM, and should generally be 0, 1, or 2. The Player may
inquire freely as to the number of GFY points the GM will require
to defeat a particular Enemy. Player Characters gain 1 to their
max GFY when they gain a level, with all points refreshing to max
upon a level gain and at any time the GM decides.

Player Characters gain a level upon completing milestones in their
quest, such as clearing a dungeon.

A Player Character's HP returns to 5 upon gaining a level and at
any other time the GM decides. If a Player Character drops to 0 HP
at any time, that character is defeated, and the Player may
introduce a new character to join the party at the next
appropriate opportunity.

Happy human hunting, super soldier mega spies!




[5]



Ducks

Ducks in pairs on logs and shores
Ducks in tandem flight
Ducks in V's of ten or more
Ducks in love with life



Fort Boysnuggle

Fort Boysnuggle
A fort for boys to snuggle in
The boys can be humans or dogs
They can have a vagina or a penis
But they must say they identify as a boy
While in Fort Boysnuggle
Fort Girlsnuggle will be on Wednesdays and Fridays
Fort Enbysnuggle on Thursday and Sunday
Fort Bring Your Own Gender Identity on Monday



Dog Pee

I think it's pretty cool that my dog can pee where he wants to.
On people's yards, next to the sidewalk, wherever.
I think public urination should be a right, not a crime.
It's not like a big deal, but like, I do think that.



Passing by a T intersection in a gravel road by a pasture

This morning was very cool
but it has since begun to heat up
and I am now overdressed
in three layers of clothing:

long sleeve shirt,
sweater,
winter jacket.

I can see vapor
rising off of a big puddle in the road
like this land's breath.



New Recording 5

Feel the cool spring-scented breeze
tingle across your drunken face
as you and a dog stumble your way
through the woods.



Grocery List

Go outside and bite the plants: Go outside and pick off little
parts of the plants that you see and bite down on them in order to
learn their taste and give their power to yourself. With
deliberateness bite down on the plants that you find while
outside, slowly crush the planty fibers between your upper set of
teeth and your lower set of teeth and meditate on the flavors that
come about because you have done this. If you need
recommendations, here are some starting points you may consider
depending on local availability: a pine needle; a big fistful of
grass; a leaf from a tree; two other leaves from two other
different looking trees or bushes; a small berry, just one of
whatever the first type that you find is, no more than the one; a
fresh, green twig; an entire flower at once; a lump of dirt; a
lump of dirt from somewhere else. When you bite these things, keep
them in your mouth for at least a minute or two; The point is not
to eat, but to learn more than there may have seemed there to
learn from initial visual impressions. If there are poisonous or
dangerous plants where you live, maybe don't or at least bring a
friend. But if you live in like Wisconsin go for it: Go outside
and familiarize yourself gustatorily with the world that you have
a place on.



Queer Dogs

Some dogs like humans
(Most dogs who like anyone like humans)



Squirrel

squirrel squirrel squirrel
climb climb climb
yay
good job



Apparent Loneliness

Hanging out with friends,
one makes a joke at my expense
about how I am single,
I have no sex life,
I am alone.
I am happy to swallow it
and know, myself,
how wrong they are.
My love with my dog--
my sexy, beautiful, affectionate, caring dog--
demands no public displays.
It does not need validation or certificate.
It can be for him and me alone
and be good:
everything that either of us needs.



Partners In Really Emotionally Healthy And Cool Crimes

I would really recommend becoming jerk off buddies with a dog if
you happen to know one who would be down with that and there's any
overlapping availability in both of your schedules.

He or she might even give it a few licks,
kiss you for a little bit,
or let you throw your arm around him or her for a sec
and let you give him or her a few affectionate strokes
on the back
while you're all squirmy and snuggly.
Even barring these things,
if he or she is chill about you taking care of yourself while they
   hang out,
but he or she would rather not get too paws-on about your
   masturbation themselves
then even just having someone else there in the room who you're
   friends with is fun.



Feeling It

Drunk and really feeling this mattress
you did a big leap onto the bed
and laid down with me.
Smushing my balls around with one hand
I nuzzled into your side.
Realizing how much I appreciate this,
I grabbed my notebook and felt-tip pen
and on the bed beside you I wrote down this poem.



Sniffs

I think most dog people would get something out of with your dog
while he or she is lying down
respectfully lifting their tail
and lying down with them
rest your face in front of their butthole
and just lie there with them
flaring your nostrils
and taking in the smells over time
seconds, minutes,
as you get to know the rear end
of their digestive tract
a whole lot more intimately
smelling their odor and occasional gas
each fart smelling a little bit different to the others,
hitting a little bit different to the others.
There is no need to lick or kiss,
to pleasure or to entertain--
just stay there,
lying down with your face in his or her butthole,
sniffing,
sensing,
taking in,
and all in all generally observing what it is like back there.
Zoo or non zoo,
I think you will feel closer with your dog afterwards.
The dogs already know each other like this, by their smells,
but they have better noses,
so as a human you gotta get real close and personal up in there.



Memo

100% optional "this dick" proposal--
it's there if you want it.

Aw, thank you.

Good dog.



Air Conditioning

The air conditioning unit is an extremely un-subtle droning
as my boyfriend and I lie together in bed,
each of us naked head to toes.

Neither of us is really trying to fall asleep yet.
We snuggle and we make out,
human tongue and doggy tongue dancing
in this cool, naked bedroom.

Someday tonight we will go to sleep for real
and wake up well rested.



Dogs

Dogs



Still Dogs tbh

still Dogs tbh
kissin em
walkin em
pettin em
givin em personal space if they want it and being happy to know
   that they're happy
givin em good food every day that's healthy for them and that they
   like
listinin to what they got to tell you about
tossin em dog treats or handing them to them depending on their
   preference at that moment
tossin or handin em a second or maybe even a third dog treat
   because you like them so much
takin naps together
hangin out
dogs are great



Maternal

Snuggled up into your tummy
I think about the fact that you probably drank from your mother.
I wonder whether you remember that.
I wonder whether you hold in you some maternal instinct
that makes you accepting when I want to nuzzle into your stomach.
Whatever you are,
maternal or stud,
you are perfect.



Untitled Maturation

Wet dog smell
Getting hair in your mouth
Things that once seemed bad
Now nice



Moment

Hanging out on the bed
Dude and dog
You're worried about the dishwasher
I'm here for you
All the security and space you need



Memento

Cuddling
nostrils flared
to sniff your fur as deeply as possible
I am stricken with sadness
as I remember that you will die.
There will be a point in my life
after which you will never be there.



Untitled Vague Green Bug

Out walking the dog
Vague little green bug jumps over onto my eyelashes.
You can hang out there for a while if you need to little
   individual.
There's no worries.



Metal Bit

When we walk
I often wonder whether the clasp on your leash
will hold forever.
As I commit this thought to writing,
I also wonder whether it ought to.
I do mostly use it to stop you from getting hit by cars.



Communication

There are depths to interspecies communication that I know seem
hyperbolic to those who are deaf to the words of their dogs.
The other day a dog I was playing around with said something
to me that I swear if I were translating from canine body language
into English was "Get over here Nerd" before then smugly taking
my hand and using it to make himself cum. He was very pleased with
himself, and how should he not be, after pulling off such a move?



I Get It

I assume some people are jealous
of how often I get to pet a dog;
of how often he rolls over
for me to rub his belly;
of how often in the morning,
first thing,
before either of us has fully woken up,
the first thing my dog and I will do is snuggle;
of how often we kiss, and how thoroughly,
lip pressing to lip, his enormous tongue
licking my eyelids,
my tongue,
or the back of my throat;
of how much he trusts me;
of how nonchalantly we touch each other's dicks;
of how awesome his knot is,
big and red and veiny, throbbing,
a sign of such satisfaction;
of how much he likes to go out and walk with me;
of how happy he is when I come back home
from grocery shopping or from getting us fast food to share;
in short--I get it--
some people are jealous of how much my dog and I love each other.



An Interest

Dogs evolved from wolves
and so many breeds of dogs exist today
because we took such a pointed interest
in their sex lives.

Is it any wonder that they
should have a sexual interest
in us



Superlative

I cannot overemphasize
how good dogs smell,
how beautiful they look--
their structure, their coats, their facial expressions--
how fathomless their capacity for kindness,
how contagious their expressions of joy,
and how soft their fur is
to hold against yourself
or to pet.



ZETA

Zoophiles for the
Ethical
Tongue kissing of
Animals

            hehe



(Shh Secrets For Zoosexuals Time)

(Most people don't actually care you guys.)

(It's really only a smaller-than-it-would-sound number of noisy
   bully types who make such an alarmingly big panic out of it.)

(Treat it like playing minesweeper.)

(Proceed with caution
but don't think that it is impossible to proceed.)



Police Dogs

Make dog love not dog war.



Suddenly Cognizant Seconds Apropos Of A Life That While In That
Moment Cliche Is Being Well Lived

Seeing a sunset
Feeling immersed in a good book
Getting a message from a friend
Touching warm laundry
Relaxing in a hot tub
Walking through a dapple forest trail
Making out with a dog's butthole
Taking an accomplished huff of a breath after a hard day's work
Creating little arts like paper airplanes or doodles
Drinking a much desired glass of water
Hearing a new song that you really like
Hearing an old song that really takes you back
Making out with a dog's butthole a second time
Finishing dusting and vacuuming a room
Biting carefree into an apple or a plum
Snuggling with someone you're in love with