Chapter 3 – The Liberator

	Trying to describe to you what it felt like to have a metal collar soldered in place around my neck is impossible.  You can’t imagine the fear, the complete and utter betrayal and anguish I felt in that moment.
	The fact is, I was lied to.  Most ‘indentured servants’ were, otherwise they were never really given a choice, because they were too young to make their own choices.  Lochan once told me that fully half of indentured servants are sold as children.  It makes sense.  Children are easy to manipulate and control, and that’s all being a servant is.
	I was uneducated and ignorant.  I couldn’t read then and I still can’t today.  I signed my life, or rather, what was to be several years of it, away.  I couldn’t even sign my name.  They just had me dip a finger in ink and mark it.
	‘Indentured Servitude’ is just a workaround for the clans to avoid the decree of a treaty entered into after the last major war between our country, Mataa, and the Dog Lords to the North.  That’s all I know them as, although Ahsan knows a bit more about what their country is called and how they identify themselves.
	I’m sure they had a lot of reasons for wanting to take our lands away from us and ‘civilize’ them, but the big complaint they gave was their holy duty to abolish slavery wherever it existed in the world.  I know nothing of their religion, but from what little I understand, it’s not much different from ours.  They believe some peoples are born to be great, and a lot of others (the vast majority) are born to be poor and suffer their whole lives, to support the great people above them.  The only real difference is that the Dog Lords seem to think the people at the bottom should be free.  I can’t really argue with them there.
	But Mataa was built on the backs of slaves.  It’s so important to the clans that rule our country, they were willing to fight a war over it.  And I guess they lost, or came close enough to losing that they felt they had to sign this treaty.  So now Mataa is still ruled by the clans, but it has no slavery.
	Technically.
	Indentured Servitude may as well be, in most cases.  Workers are indentured with a contract, which most of us can’t read.  Contracts are drawn up normally for debts, or taxation, or because you’ve committed a crime.  Some extremely stupid people. . . like myself. . . sign their lives away despite having no debts or crimes to repay, because we’re fooled into it.  I was told that the contract I was signing was a labor contract with a caravan headed west.  At the time, I was desperate enough to make my way across the country that I didn’t question it enough.  I should have.  I did all of this so I could pursue my wife and son, and signing that contract is what’s kept me from finding them all these years.
	A lot of the places that buy your contract will charge you more for room and board than you can make in a day, so you’re trapped for life.  And a lot of the clans that have access to the Divine, an incredibly addictive drug they somehow make from flowers, will intentionally hook their workers on it, so we’re forever in debt, forever addicted, and forever servants.
	And then they put a collar on you.  A metal collar, with no hinge, no opening, no way to remove it.  There’s a seam on both sides where it was soldered, but I have no idea how it’s split again.  The collar’s just big enough that it can be locked around your neck in two pieces, but just small enough that you can’t pull it back over your skull.  I’ve seen servants who’ve destroyed their jaws trying.
	What’s worse, the collar has a space to hammer on a tag, on which they emblazon whatever clan or house owns you.  It’s like a marker for hunters, so they know where to take you to collect their bounties.  
	The collar is hard, often impossible to hide, and even if you escape your plantation or house like we did, you can never be free so long as you wear one.  
	But every now and then, an indentured servant is lucky enough to actually pay off their contract and legally free themselves.  After all, if the system was entirely inescapable, it would literally be slavery, and that would violate the treaty.  So the clans have to let some of us go.
	I’ve only known a few people who’ve ever completed their contracts.  But every servant knows the word ‘Liberator’.  They are, just as they sound, the ones who liberate us.  The people who know how to cut free a collar.
	I know little else other than that they exist.  And that I would dearly love to find one, and beg him for freedom.  The problem is, like nearly every other person in these lands. . . they work for the clans.  So unless the clans want you free, no Liberator.
	Unless we can find one and force him to do his work on us.

	The first settlement on the edge of the desert that we find our way to is barely more than a well with a few places to tie your camels up around it.  But it’s still a test for our newly-acquired disguises and the bluff we’ve decided to go with.
	The dholes we’d attacked, robbed, and murdered half of, had turned out to be spice and coffee merchants.  Which in retrospect, made their ‘lavish’ coffee drinking a lot less egregious, and a lot more practical.  One of many reasons I regretted everything we’d done that night.
	But, as Anala had been reminding me every hour of the past day, what was done was done and my choices at this point were leave the only group of people who would tolerate my presence and whose goals vaguely aligned with my own, or stick it out and remind myself that we were all flawed and damaged.  I’d killed my own father, after all.  I’d assaulted my wife and chased her away from me, and with her my son.  And now I was suffering for it.
	The types of people I’d fallen in with were all a part of that.  I could only hope that in the future, I’d reclaim my family or make a new life, and I could put this all behind me.  
	Moreover, I had to hold it together for Ahsan’s sake.  He hadn’t been doing well since we’d left the oasis.  I think some part of him had honestly hoped we could just stay there forever.  But the incident with the dholes had really darkened his spirits, to a point I’d only seen immediately following Lochan’s death.  And when Ahsan was low, let alone angry, he could become. . . unhinged.
	So I’m trying to stay calm.  Stay focused.  Keep my eyes towards the horizon, and where Ahsan and I will go from here.  The others, well. . . at some point we’ll probably part ways.  But we’re stuck together for now.
	The plan, as far as we’ve worked it out at this point, is to pretend to be a retinue of guards for a traveling spice merchant.  None of us can pass, being of ‘lesser’ peoples, save Anala and Ahsan.  And perhaps Lavanya, but only if she was accompanied by a male lion.  The problem is, we all have collars save Anala.  So she has to, by default, take up the role as the merchant.  Hardly much of a stretch, considering she’s sort of become the person most of the people in our group are looking to for leadership, anyway.
	Anala wants to head towards this Sura compound she knows of.  It’s apparently sort of a trade depot, not a plantation like the one we came from or a noble estate, but a place where a lot of their wares are measured, packaged and sent off.  Mostly, it’s where they process and package the Divine for sale in the cities, being as that’s the most important trade good the Sura grow and sell.
	The thing is, servants are essentially ‘trade goods’ as well.  So as it turns out, this place is where a lot of the clans’ contracts are written up, where new servants are bought and sold, and most importantly. . . where their collars are put on and taken off.  Anala seems certain the Sura Clan’s Liberator is at this place.
	I don’t even doubt her.  All of her information sounds correct and I don’t see any reason she’d lie to us.
	The thing is, Anala is insane.  She wants to wage war on the entire Sura clan because one of them shot an opponent she was engaged in combat with and ruined her ‘perfect battle’.  Not her exact words, but that’s it in a nutshell.
	I don’t know much about the Al’Dahia, the Order of Anala.  I know only what Lochan told me, and what little I know of the Goddess from the small pieces of religious learning I got as a child.  I know Anala is a fire Goddess, infamous primarily for engulfing her husband in a pillar of fire that he burns inside of to this day, and burying him in the earth.  I think in some of the myths he sometimes rises up from the ground to seek revenge against her, and that’s why the earth spits fire sometimes.  It all sounds awful.  I don’t know why anyone would want to worship her.
	But a lot of the Gods and Goddesses in the hyena pantheon are terrible, so what do I know.  I’ve come to the conclusion at this point that hyenas just like terrible things.  They literally erect statues to them and worship them, so you can’t argue with me too much.
	Apparently enough hyenas want to worship her that there are various temples across Mataa to her, full of females wanting to become priestesses.  They take on Anala’s name, tattoo the undersides of their eyes red, and devote themselves to war, combat, and all things unpleasant.  I can’t explain it, but there’s no denying their fervor and faith, now that I’ve seen one in person.
	The thing is, Anala may have left her Clan and taken up arms beside us to fight the same people we are, but she did it for completely different reasons.  And I don’t want to die for her reasons.
	For now, I’ve tentatively agreed to her plan to head west, because it’s the direction I was planning to head anyway, and because we really can’t go anywhere without someone who has a bare neck.  I can’t say I know why the others agreed to it, whether or not they really buy into her idea that we can find this Liberator, or whether they’re just wanting to travel with her for the same reasons I am, but for now, we’re all agreed.
	So we’ve hitched our stolen camels, with our stolen wares and stolen coin, to this watering hole for now, and so far no one’s given us so much as a second glance.  It bodes well for the rest of the trip, but I’m trying not to get my hopes up just yet.
	It’s early in the day, the sun’s high in the sky, but it’s absolutely baking hot and now’s exactly the sort of time we really need to rest the camels, so we’re doing so.  Most of us didn’t sleep at all last night anyway, so we could use the rest.
	I have no appetite after the events of last night, but I drink as much water as I can stomach and sit beside Ahsan, who’s been quiet as the dead since last night.  Raja’s taken this opportunity to ask Anala a few questions about the place we’re heading to, and for the most part I’ve tuned it out.  But when he gets to asking questions about the Liberator himself, I listen.
	“I’ve heard a lot of men who think they know what it is,” he says, “but the stories are all different.  I’ve heard it’s a man, but I’ve also heard it’s a tool.”
	“It’s both,” Anala states.  “A Liberator is nothing without his device.  The collars cannot be removed without it, and only the Liberators are trained to use it.  One without the other is worthless.”
	“But I remember the man who put on my collar,” Lavanya speaks up.  “He wasn’t anyone special, and he didn’t seem to use any special. . . tools.  Just a pair of forge tongs like the kinds the blacksmiths use for horse shoes.”
	“Putting on a collar requires next to no skill,” Anala waves a hand.  “Any minorly accomplished blacksmith can manage it.  The collars are made in two pieces, and soldered with a small piece of metal heated enough that it can be shaped into the grooves before they’re pushed together.  The metal doesn’t need to be hot enough to melt when it’s placed, just hot enough to be shaped, so the danger to the servant is minimal.”
	“You know a lot about this,” Lavanya states evenly, but there’s suspicion in her tone.
	“During my time serving the Sura, I observed many servants being contracted and collared,” Anala responds with no trace of guilt.  “I found it interesting.”
	“Interesting?” Ahsan growls quietly.
	“Did you ever see them remove a collar?”  I speak up for the first time, wanting to break the tension in the air and get the conversation back on track.  I don’t care who’s ‘in charge’ of our little group right now so long as we’re cohesive.  We need a focus.  For me it’s heading west, but this apparent Liberator is in that direction too, so as long as it keeps us all moving west towards this goal, or any goal really, I’m in favor of it.
	“Once,” she replies.  “A house servant who brought the linens into the guard house.  When I asked for her one day, I was told she’d paid off her contract and that she was being set free that day.  I was curious, so I went to watch.”
	“Is the process something we could duplicate with something jury-rigged?”  Lavanya asks, as usual cutting straight to the point.
	Anala shakes her head.  “The tool is very particular, and it has to be heated to the perfect temperature. . . hot enough to cut the collar, but not to scald or kill the servant.  There’s a fair amount of fur loss, though.  They trimmed around the collar before it was cut, to avoid the fur catching fire.”
	“I’d shave my whole damned body if it meant getting this thing off,” Raja mutters, irritably picking at his collar.
	“So we need the tool, and the man,” I say.  “Any chance of just finding one that’s cooperative?”
	“If that were the case, don’t you think there’d be a lot more loose servants running about?”  Anala asks with an arched eyebrow.
	“Well, if their collars were cut off, no one would know they were servants,” Raja points out.
	“If even one Liberator went rogue, the whole system could collapse,” Anala shakes her head.  “One man with the right tool and the knowledge to use it could set free entire plantations, could enable servant rebellions and cause untold financial harm to the clans.  No.  They are a very well-guarded secret.  The Liberators are a carefully-selected group of people- hyenas, to be specific.  None of them were ever indentured, so they hold no bias against the practice.  But all were uplifted from low castes, or fallen families, so they owe the clans they work for, and are earnestly loyal to them.  They are secretive and rare.  The fact that I know the location of even one is a blessing.”
	“For us,” I point out.  “You aren’t collared.  You’ll forgive me for saying this Priestess, but you have no real investment in helping us find this man.”
	“I have seen you fight for your freedom, jackal,” she looks around our camp.  “All of you.  Your ferocity is inspiring.  There are grand battles before you, and devastation in your wake.  I am absolutely certain Anala means for me to have found you, to join you, to be a part of the war to come.”
	“War?”  I narrow my eyes at her.  “Since when is this a war?  We want our freedom.”
	“How many others across Mataa share your sentiments?”  Anala asks in a low voice.  “How many thousands. . . tens of thousands. . . perhaps hundreds of thousands?  The melee at the Sura plantation was not the first of its kind, but you won.  Do you know how unlikely that was?”
	The growing excitement in her tone is giving me that deep unsettling feeling again.  And thankfully, most of the others look unnerved by it, too.  Except Raja.  I’m starting to see some of the same fire in his eyes that I’ve seen in hers.  It’s worrying.
	“You are going to play a pivotal role in a great battle to come,” she says with certainty.  “Anala tells me so.  I can feel her fervor, her kinship with all of you.  She wants me to be here.  To raise my sword for your cause.  I served the Sura Clan for nearly a decade and never felt such desire as this.  Your freedom. . . is my war.  It is as much my purpose now as yours.”  
	No one has a response to her impassioned speech.  For a time, we all just sit in silence.  Judging by the looks on my companions faces, they don’t know what to make of it all any more than I do.
	She sounds serious.  But then she always does.  And there’s no doubting the woman’s unhinged, but some of what she said. . . .
	Could she be right?  Are we on the verge of something bigger than just our own freedom?  I want to believe, but. . . .
	One thing is certain.  She was right about our success on the plantation.  Lochan stressed the unlikelihood of a servant revolt succeeding to me, and I’d lived through more than enough failed escape attempts in the past, and heard of many more, to know the odds were in fact miserable.  Even servants who escaped were almost always caught within a day.  
	We’d been free for weeks now, and not only that, we’d struck a heavy enough blow to the Sura Clan that they had already committed some serious resources towards getting us back.  Lord. . . Sachsen, I believe his name was. . . the Sura Clan’s Spymaster and the very same man who’d wanted to buy Ahsan, was apparently charged with retrieving us.  Whether he’d taken a personal interest because of his grudge against me or his obsession with Ahsan, I couldn’t say, but to have someone of his apparent importance in charge of finding us was not the norm.  Usually that sort of thing was left to fortune-seeking hunters.
	So maybe Anala is right.  Maybe we are on the precipice of something a lot bigger than we all realize.  What’s seemed a miserable couple of weeks, losing friends and suffering injuries, has actually been a monumental success against overwhelming odds.  Maybe finding this Liberator isn’t as insane as it sounds.
	Maybe that’s exactly how Anala wants us to feel, so we go along with her plan.
	If so, it seems to be working.  A War Priestess making such a passionate, morale-boosting speech isn’t something an indentured servant experiences every day.  Even I’m somewhat won over.
	Ahsan has a far-off look.  Again, I’m not sure what he’s thinking.  It’s possible he wants to believe her- until Lochan died, I would’ve said he had more faith in the world than I do.  Now, I just don’t know.  A lot has changed for him.
	“A collared life is no kind of life,” Raja says, turning his head upwards to stare into the sun, the stark light making the gold in his fur turn almost white for a moment.  “I’m with you, Priestess.  Any chance at freedom is worth the risk.”
	Lavanya is quiet, but she eventually nods solemnly.
	“It’s a long journey,” I say resolutely.  “But I’m willing to make it with all of you.  I’ll decide whether or not I want to be a part of this. . . war of yours, Priestess. . . once I see what awaits us.”
	“It is your war,” her brows narrow over her red-ringed eyes.  “Whether you realize it now or not, jackal.  You began it.  You may not live long enough to finish it. . . none of us may. . . but you can only run from it for so long.”

	“She’s mad.  This whole idea is mad,” he murmurs from beside me, puncturing the silence between us.  We’ve taken another of our walks, this time around the edge of the small well community.  I’m certain by now that the others know why we occasionally leave the group, but I can’t bring myself to care.  
	It’s dusk.  The sky is dissolving from blue to purple, darkening steadily like cloth being dyed.  We’ve decided to stay the night here, it didn’t seem worth it to venture another few miles into open road away from a source of water before darkness fell.  Besides which, we’re all still exhausted.  None of us managed much sleep the night we attacked the dholes. 
	Gods, I hate thinking about it.
	I look to Ahsan, sighing.  “I think everyone accepts that, Ahsan.  But she’s also charismatic sometimes, and she’s feeding them promises of freedom.  Even I want to believe her.”  I pause, wondering if he’ll join me in that sentiment.  
	He doesn’t respond.
	I let out a long breath.  “It’s to the west.  We’d be heading towards the ocean.  It’s where I want to go, it’s where you want to go.  Let’s just ride it out for now and see what happens.”
	“You want to do it,” he says quietly.
	“Ahsan. . . .”
	“You really think we can take on an entire Clan?”  He asks disbelievingly.  
	“It’s not the entire Clan-“
	“There will be a hell of a lot more guards than there were at the plantation,” he insists.  “This is where all their goods change hands.  Their coin.  Drugs.  Servants.  Everything of value to the clan.”
	“We survived the plantation, though,” I point out.  “And we have Anala-“
	“Lochan didn’t survive the plantation,” he says vehemently, staring straight into my eyes.  It’s moments like this I’m reminded that we’re actually the same height.  Ahsan just has this tendency to seem small most of the time.  Except when he doesn’t.
	I let out a long breath.  “I know. . . .”
	“So who’s it going to be this time?”  He pushes.  “You?  Me?  One of the others?  All of us?”
	“Ahsan, what do you want me to say?”  I ask softly.  “I want to be free.”
	“Then we should leave all of this,” he says emphatically.  “Make our way straight to the sea, find a ship, and never look back.”
	“My son-“
	“We can find your son without having to take on the entire Sura Clan!”  His voice is still quiet, but emotional.  “Do you really want to keep following the others?  Neither of us wanted to go after those dholes, Kadar.  I know you were as uncertain about it as I was.  But they don’t care.  What makes you think they’ll care about us, if it means one more sacrifice to get what they want?”
	My eyes lower sadly from his.  “When did you become so distrustful, Ahsan?”
	He looks offended.  “I can see what’s happening around me, Kadar-“
	“No, I mean,” I sigh.  “I don’t mean you’re wrong.  You shouldn’t trust Anala, or Raja, or even Lavanya. . . we know so little about her.  You probably shouldn’t even trust me.  I just,” I look back to him, “wasn’t expecting this from you.  Towards Anala, maybe.  But I honestly thought you’d have more hope.  I thought if anyone amongst our group would keep heart, it would be you.”
	He gives me a long, silent look.  “Kadar,” he says finally, “I’ve never had hope.”
My heart sinks at his words, but I’ve long suspected the hyena’s kind, caring disposition was hiding a lot of darkness.  He’s been subjected to so much.  I had a glimpse at the anger when he attacked the Matron.  The sadness, the loss of faith in people, was bound to show itself eventually.  You don’t beat a man so thoroughly into submission without taking away his want for something better.  He’s adapted to a cruel world.  
“You and Lochan were the first real. . . kindness. . . I’ve ever experienced,” he continues.  “And he’s dead now, thanks to the Sura.  You’re all I have left.  If I lose you to them too, I. . . I don’t know what I’ll do.”
I lean forward and put our brows together, taking one of his hands in mine.  We share a long, slow nuzzle, and I feel a pang of guilt for what I’m about to do.
“Stay with me through this,” I plead.  “I can’t be without you, either.  I need you.  I promise, I won’t let them take me away from you.”
“You can’t promise that,” he says through partially grit teeth, squeezing his eyes shut.
“No Sura hyena is going to kill me,” I promise again, with as much forced confidence as I can.  
“Kadar-“
“Please, let me explain why,” I insist.  I tip his chin up and wait until he’s looking at me again.  Once he is, I take a deep breath.  “I think. . . at least, it’s been my suspicion all these years. . . that my wife sold herself to the Sura, years ago.”
“What?”  Ahsan looks earnestly confused.  “How do you know?”
“Because I used the same contacts she did to try to make my way to her,” I say.  “And the sellers and con men tend to work for the same clans.  The ‘caravan’ I was supposed to work for was headed for the exact same city she’d told me she wanted to head for.  The Sura Clan is massive, it makes sense they’d control most of the indentured trade along their routes and in the cities they have the most power in.”
Ahsan looks dubious.  “It’s still only a guess.  You aren’t even sure she contracted herself.”
“It’s the only way she would have had the money to leave where we lived,” I say with certainty.  “You don’t understand how poor we were.  And she left with little more than the clothes on her back.  I looked for her for weeks along the Hyronses before I broke down and decided to find a caravan.  She left, Ahsan.  She left somehow, and I tried to trace her steps, and I ended up indentured to the Sura.  What does that tell you?”
“You still don’t know,” he insists quietly.
“It’s all I have,” I say.  “And the trail is years cold by now.  I will never find her if I simply head west and look.  I need to know where she went.”
Realization dawns on him.  “You want to go to this place because it’s where all the Sura servants are collared and recorded,” he says.  “Not because of the Liberator.  You want to look through their contracts?”
“Lochan kept all of our contracts in meticulous order at the Sura Plantation,” I remind him.  “And he mentioned that they make copies sometimes.  Maybe they have a log or something, too.  Like merchants with their wares.  It’s worth looking, at least.” 
“It might be,” he murmurs.  “It. . . might not.”
My throat tightens.  “If you had a child, you’d understand.  I have to try.”
“You can’t read,” his voice slips into a whisper on the last word.  Then he looks up at me.  
I’m not sure how long we stare at one another in silence.  I should feel worse for putting this on him, but he doesn’t look angry.  I know the moment he’s made up his mind, and I feel a swell in my chest when he finally smiles, just the barest upturn of his muzzle.
“You saved my life, Kadar,” he says.  “You showed me how to be. . . more.  I love you for it, and for everything you are besides.  I’d be honored to help you find your family.”
I want to tell him how, especially in moments like this, he fills the part of me that family is meant to.  How my heart stops when he says he loves me, and I still can’t find the strength to say it back.  How weak and cowardly he makes me feel sometimes. . . but how strong he makes me, too.
I can’t.  Again, I can’t.  As usual, words are much harder than action, for me.  So I kiss him.  Because it’s something I can do.
	We’re on the outskirts of this nowhere watering hole, without another camp, let alone a building, anywhere within sight.  Without exchanging words, we both seem to know what the other wants, and one kiss leads to another, to panting between open muzzles, to grasping at one another with our paws, to ending up a tangle in the sand.
	Everything with Ahsan seems to happen this way.  Naturally, usually without words, often whenever we can find a moment.  Which has been less and less, since we left the oasis.  If having Raja as a hut-mate had been challenging, traveling with a group has been even worse.  We have next to no time alone, except when we make it like this.
	I’m glad for the lack of words, honestly.  Being physical with another person has never come easily to me, and neither has finding the right words to express myself.  Put them together and you have the person I am today. . . a man uncertain what sex and intimacy is supposed to be for me.  I’m not sure if the disaster that was my marriage, or more specifically my marriage bed, is why I can’t seem to face the idea of being with a woman again, or if that’s an inclination I had all along.  I’m not sure if I ever want to be with anyone again that way.  The thought of putting someone beneath me brings back so many terrible memories of being with my wife. . . being forced by my parents and the expectations of the world around me to be a man and sire pups, but being made to feel like I was forcing her every time.  It may have forever stained the act for me, and I’m not sure if feeling that way is wrong.  Am I meant to get over it, somehow?  Or should I accept it as part of myself now?
	Ahsan and I are able to do other things that I enjoy, that don’t bring those feelings up inside me.  He never pushes for more than that, because he knows how I feel, but I know his needs go deeper.  I can feel it in the way he clings to me and presses our bodies together when we’re like this.  His legs work themselves between mine, his hips rock into mine, and sometimes I feel that desire, long-buried inside me, to push back.  But it’s always eclipsed by that wrong feeling, and no matter my resolve, I can’t seem to shake it off.
	Tonight we simply entangle ourselves and rock against one another until we’re gasping and spent, and it’s thoroughly satisfying, as it always is.  I try not to think too hard on whether or not I’m falling short for him as we lie together beneath the stars, his lean body wrapped around mine and partially cradled in my now relaxed arms.
	But the thoughts come, as they always do, and this time I muster the courage to speak on them.  I’ve failed to tell him so many things.  This is easier than some of the really emotional stuff.  I should at least try.
	“I wish,” I say around a dry mouth, “I could make love to you, Ahsan.  I really do.”
	He looks up at me, his eyes still hazy from the near half hour we spent finding our pleasure with one another.  “You can,” he says simply, an offer that’s been both spoken and unspoken for some time now.
	I give a weary sigh.  “I honestly don’t think I can,” I murmur softly.  “Or if I do, I’ll not enjoy it as I should.  I just hate the idea of mounting someone again.  I know why I do, and I know it’s irrational-“
	“It’s not irrational if it’s how you feel,” he says softly.  He turns in my arms at that, and presses his wider muzzle up against mine, his breath warm on my cheek.  His calm affections have always soothed me when I’m torturing myself inwardly over something.  Before long, I’m relaxing again, trying to put my worries aside and just enjoy the moment.
	“You know,” he speaks into the nape of my neck, “it doesn’t have to be you.”
	I arch an eyebrow uncertainly at that.  Is he insinuating he could simply find another lover?  I’m sure he could, and I suppose if I’m not going to provide him what he wants, it would only be fair to allow him to, but. . . still. . . .
	“I don’t,” I pause.  “What do you mean?”  I want him to clarify before I assume.
	“I mean,” he says in a tentative tone, “it doesn’t have to be you. . . that mounts me.”
	His meaning occurs to me only after I’ve run his words through my head a few times.  And then I feel both foolish, and hopeful, all at once.  Foolish, because all this time, I’d never even considered the possibility.  And hopeful, because for once, the thoughts I’m having don’t feel wrong.