The Estate is just as I remember from a season before, sprawling over the densely-wooden hillside, ensconced in lush, fragrant gardens of hibiscus, palm and fig trees.  It’s dusk as we approach, the setting sun painting the lavish grounds in warm hues.  The figures gathered in larger and larger groups the closer we get towards the front gates all look like they’re standing astride a fire, their bodies rim lit in orange and yellow.  Some of that has to do, of course, with the sheer amount of jewelry, both cheap and expensive, they’re wearing.  Everyone brings out their finery, whether it’s truly fine or not, for the Baroness’s gathers.  She only holds two a year, when she’s here towards the beginning and the end of the fair weather trade winds.
It makes me wonder what becomes of this place in every other season.  Presumably, the servants and gardeners who live and work here simply, well, live and work here.  For all that she has seemed to enjoy my company and the company of many other collared men over the years, I know the Jaguaress herself owns no collared servants.  In some of our more intimate moments, I’d asked her about it, and she’d told me that she finds the practice, while practical, ‘not to her taste’.  I’m not sure where she stands by it morally, but at the very least, she seems to see it as tasteless or vulgar.
A sentiment which she does not share when it comes to hiring male attention.  I can hardly blame her.  She’s a woman of means and power, and other than amongst the hyena clanswomen, one of the few Matriarchies in Mataa, a woman’s position and means are always eclipsed by her husband’s.  The Baroness was a widow, her husband had lost his life out on the seas long ago, during a bad storm.  Remarrying would mean she’d forfeit her Trade Empire to whomever she wedded, and that was clearly a sacrifice she was not willing to make.  So if she desired male attention now and again, and wanted to keep everything strictly transactional. . . I could certainly see her perspective on that.
Dhaval didn’t realize it yet, but he’d finally had a run of good luck.  I couldn’t have selected a more easygoing, pleasant woman for his first female client.  He was all but guaranteed to make her happy, regardless of his performance or clumsy charms.  In my dealings with her over the years, I’d found her to be one of the ‘good ones’, if one can say that.  She always knew what she wanted, wasn’t afraid to tell you what that was, wasn’t prone to anger or frustration, and paid well.  Odds were good he’d just spend the night rubbing her back and feet and pouring her wine until she was ready to get fucked, and whether or not he performed well there, she’d probably still pay for a return visit.  She’d taken some delight in the beginning when she’d first started seeing me, ‘breaking me in’, as she’d called it. . . which essentially just amounted to instructing me on how she preferred things, until I’d gotten it just right.  She was a patient woman, provided she wasn’t challenged.  And Dhaval wasn’t going to challenge her.  He’d do whatever she said. . . and that’s ultimately what got her off.
He was nervous, of course.  I attempted to assuage his concerns as we moved through the crowd into the main dining hall, until the Baroness herself joined us.  Madame Manjusha introduced us all, and then the tiger was shown off by the Jaguar, hand in hand, and I watched him go, trying to give him a reassuring smile.
But of course, my mind isn’t here. 
In a way, I’ve never been here.  I’ve never really existed in this place, or any other, as far back as I can remember.  I’m a non-person, an object, a transaction, and I can hardly remember a time in my life when that wasn’t the case.  There are flickers. . . dreams.  Memories I can only truly see when I’m in the throes of the Divine.
I’d bought and smoked my daily share before we’d left the brothel, but of course, it was never enough any more.  The strain of the Divine we grew in the back lot was intended for our customers, and the Madame made sure we packed it light.  It barely touched me.  It kept most of the pain and the nausea at bay, but only barely.  I had a contact in the Harkalla District that could get me what I needed most days, but tonight, I didn’t simply want to sleep.
I wanted to dream.
I’d seen him on my way in.  Jigurandae.  He was unmistakable, with his sleek black hide, his spots just barely visible beneath the obscuring shadow of his unique coloration, like stars obscured behind thick clouds.  In truth, the man’s very nature mirrored his mysterious fur.  I’d known him for over a decade now, but I knew next to nothing about him, except that he was a leopard, he partook in the Divine but didn’t seem to traffic in it except in trade, and he liked to talk in strange, dark riddles.  His approach to the drug was wholly different than my own, more like worship, or meditation.  He truly seemed to believe that the Divine was. . . Divine.  That it could take you beyond the mortal coil.
I’d never questioned him enough on his beliefs to fully understand them, nor did I think that even if I had, he would have divested enough for his mindset to make sense to me.  And maybe that’s the way he preferred it, or maybe he truly was on a different plane of consciousness, or something.  I don’t know.
What I know is, his drug. . . is strong.  Very, very strong.  And right now, ascending to another plane of existence is about the only possible escape from my current existence, which is all I want in the world.
As I move across the crowded banquet room towards him, I can feel the promise of what’s to come humming through my body, and it’s both exhilarating and terrifying.  But more than anything, it’s freeing.  My life is an oppressive, smothering weight that’s been tying my soul to this island, to this existence, for far too long already.  Saying to myself ‘it’s time I leave’ is just so. . . simple.  Obvious.  It should be more frightening than it is, I suppose, but all I can think on is the relief.
And regardless, discovering there are somehow more horrors in store for me in a few days’ time, and a realistic chance that death may come whether I’ve accepted it or not, is. . . liberating, really.  I have a choice, for the first time in a long time.  I can do this on my terms.
“How now, jackal?”  He greets me, blowing out a puff of smoke – just tobacco, as I approach him.  He looks handsome as ever, if you’re into men who look like they’d be profoundly bad for you.  Sleek, well-groomed dark fur, emerald eyes that remind me of the depths of the dangerous jungles on this island, gold littering his body in all the right places.
“Alive,” I reply tiredly.  “Beyond that. . . .”
“We journey until we’re lost,” he rumbles in his deep, yet soft voice.  “Until we no longer wake in this world.”
I give a soft huff, closing my eyes for a moment.  “My journeys won’t take me far enough, anymore.”
“I’ve vessels of the mind that can take you as far as you wish to go,” he murmurs, waving his hand vaguely through the smoke he’s creating.  “If you’ve the means to procure them.”
My throat constricts.  There it is.  The offer.  I don’t know why I thought there was a chance he’d not offer.  He’d never turned me down in the past.  He wasn’t a dealer, precisely. . . I dealt with them often enough to know.  He really was exactly as he professed to be, some kind of spiritual ‘guide’.  But his tours cost the coin the drug was worth, and the company of one to enjoy it with.  I’d always gotten the feeling that if I were a scholar instead of a prostitute, we’d talk, or debate.  But, I was a whore, so I hadn’t much else to offer.
“I have Amurescan crowns. . . and myself.  You can have both,” I offer.
“I’ll take both,” he accepts with a mild smile.  “But, the scent of the Divine is on you now.  Not wise to travel too far.  Hard to find your way home.  You could easily get lost.”
There’s some earnest concern there, I think.  Or I’m imagining it.  He’s warning me I could die.  A dealer wouldn’t have bothered.
“We journey until we’re lost,” I reply, stoically.
His eyes widen marginally at that.  It’s probably the most profound reaction I’ve ever gotten out of him.  Those same eyes assess me for a while, peering into me.  For a few moments, I’m honestly afraid he’s about to back out.  I do not know what I’ll do with my evening – with my life, or what’s left of it, if he does.  Resort to the dealers in the Harkalla District again?  
“If you return,” he says at length, “you must tell me where you’ve gone, and what you’ve seen.”
He puts out his cigarette, and gestures to me to follow him.

His fur smells of smoke and spice, and his breath tastes like good tobacco.  I find myself wishing he’d shared that cigarette as he pushes me down into the dusty, neglected pillows and mats adorning the floor of the disused hookah parlor we’d found in the east wing of the manor.  The room is dimly lit at best, light only streaming in from the nearby gardens, which are so lit up with lanterns at night for the party it may as well be late day.  
The light falls across our intertwined bodies in a streak, bleaching out my fur to a brilliant gold and his a dull yellow.  His jowls curl up slowly in a smile as my paws explore his fur, the contours of his body both beneath and above his clothing, and I think. . . if this is to be my last customer, I’ve done well for myself.
I would have liked it if the Admiral had resisted the desire to pry into my life on our last visit, and just pulled the proverbial stick out of his ass already and fucked me.  But that wasn’t to be.
So I put my years of training and professional experience to use, and give the black leopard a damn good show, rising up to stand over him as I remove my long, crimson red loin cloth, the one I’ve worn to so many of these functions over the years, the twinkling bits of costume jewelry and just about everything down to my collar.  He leans back and watches, those green eyes assessing, always assessing me.  What’s going through his mind, I couldn’t venture to guess.  I’ve never even been sure he really finds me attractive. . . or men, for that matter.  When we’ve been together in the past, the most we’ve ever done is touch one another, often just through our clothes.  He drifts in and out, of course – we both do.  The Divine has that effect.  And all the while he’s always given me this somehow sly. . . knowing smile.  Like no matter what I’ve done for him, he’s seen through to the core of it somehow, and is above it.  Beyond it.  Like he’s just letting me do my job, because he knows I can’t do much else.
“Do you even enjoy this?”  I ask him, feeling emboldened, suddenly.  This isn’t a normal client.  This isn’t a normal night.  I don’t need to worry about something as paltry as ensuring he’s happy enough to return and give more business to me.  I don’t need to flatter him, or fake my way through this.
“Do you?”  He counters, flicking an ear and giving me that same, knowing, almost smug expression.  It’s starting to irritate me a little.
Calm, I remind myself.  We haven’t smoked yet.  Although the first thing he did when we found this room was prepare one of the hookah for us.
“You’ve always accepted,” I say with a shrug, as I lean down and straddle his waist, running my palms up his now bare chest.  He’d shrugged his robe aside while I undressed.
“You’ve always offered,” he smirks.
“I have little else to offer,” I point out.  “And you don’t charge enough in coin.”
“It isn’t about the coin,” he rumbles, his own far larger paws sliding up my arms.  “By now, I’d hope you’d know that.  I’m no pusher.”
“I know pushers,” I nod, giving a soft huff of a breath as his paws reach my inner thighs, his thumbs curling around my hip bones.  “So what are you then, Jigurandae?”
He peers up at me silently for a few moments.  I decide to push him.
“I deserve to know,” I say emphatically, “who my ‘guide’ is, do I not?”
“Hmmm,” I both hear and feel the vibration through his chest.  And then that smile slowly reappears.  “You do,” he agrees.  “Whether it be your final journey or not.  You do.”
I wait, poised over him.  
“I am a Shaman,” he states it softly, almost lyrically.  
“A holy man?”  I ask dubiously.
“Not of your gods,” he replies.  “Not of any god.  Mine is an old faith.  A belief.  In the self.”
“The ‘journey’ you’re always referring to?”  I guess.
He nods, sagely.  “Long before. . . it came to be used for the insidious purposes it is now, trapping people of every walk into this cycle of use and abuse, the Divine was. . . well, where do you think its name came from?”
	“I’ve long wondered,” I admit.  “I assumed it was because of what some see when they’re. . . under.”
	“Religious visions are frequent, because so many are religious,” he says.  “Everyone’s journey follows their experiences.  Their wants, their needs, their faith.  We see our life through that lens.  The Divine does not open us up to some. . . greater power.  It opens our inner eye, allows us to see our own path clearer.  That’s all it is.  Clarity.”
	He leans up, his large, dark muzzle lifting towards mine.  Something in his eyes draws me in, tumbling down into the green depths.  
	“I knew from the moment I met you that there was something. . . buried,” he says, his voice a rasp of a whisper.  “Some deep wound, like a piece of you is missing.  You’re searching for it.  That’s why you need the Divine.”
	“I need the Divine because I’ve been hooked on it since I was a kid,” I say with a sigh.  “And because a bear stepped on my back.  Look, you never answered my question.  Do you want me, or not?  Because if not, let’s just-“
	“This, too, is part of your journey,” he says, surprising me.  He doesn’t usually interrupt.  
	“What does that mean?”  I ask, uncertainly.
	“This,” he says, cupping my sac, and stroking a hand up my sheath.  I’m partially hard, given what we’ve been doing.  My body’s a well-tuned instrument by now, after all.  “It is part of your pain.  Your path.”
	“And you. . . as a Shaman. . . want me to deal with that ‘pain’. . . ?”  I ask, uncertainly.  “Because it’s part of my ‘path’?”
	“I have only ever gone so far with your body as you’ve offered,” he states.  “Because you’ve offered.  It seems to be something you wish to reclaim.”
	It took me a few moments to digest that.  Was he right?  Or was he just being self-indulgent?  All of this could be bullshit, after all.  He’d hardly be the first dealer to trade drugs for sex, then insist he had some deeper purpose.  It wouldn’t even be the first time a holy man did just that.
	“What is it you’ve been looking for, all this time?”  He purrs up at me.
	“Relief,” I reply, quietly.  “From pain.  It’s always just an escape from pain.”
	“True,” he says.  “But that isn’t what you’re looking for.  Tell me.  When you’re in the Divine. . . what are you looking for?”
	I’ve yet to escape his gaze, but my mind. . . my mind. . . it’s suddenly so far away.  Maybe it’s because I’ve already smoked today.  Maybe it’s Jigurandae himself.  The man’s hypnotic, even when he’s speaking nonsense.  Perhaps he truly is a Shaman.
	“My past,” I say, the words coming unbidden.  I lower my head slowly, my eyes slipping closed.  I can feel his hands on my body, like so many other hands have been on my body. . . fingers sinking deep into my fur.  There is something about it that pulls me backwards.  Draws me back through my experiences, pulls at something ingrained in me.
	I know he isn’t one of the men who’s hurt me.  He isn’t trying to cause me pain.  But everything about this. . . doing what I’ve done for so long. . . going through the motions. . . .
	I feel the familiar metal ridges of the hookah wand in my hand, his big paw closing around mine.  
	His voice is in my ear, but I’m not honestly certain how close he is any more.  I haven’t opened my eyes.
	“Travel back through your pain,” he growls softly, his voice fading into the hum of memories.  “I will guide you. . . as far as I can.  Once you are dreaming, you must walk alone.”