By Touch

	I’m not even sure if he’s going to come, but I find myself tidying up.  Not just the cabin, but myself.  Both of us are in serious disarray, owing to a few years of intentional solitude.  
	Not that I’m ever really alone, here.  Paranoia is my ever-present companion, being the target of the Cathazra’s predatory gaze at all times.  Their wyrms don’t often engage us inside our own walls, but I’ve caught my share of poisoned darts.  I’ve taken to wearing leather armor beneath my clothing just about everywhere I go.  
	Beyond that, it’s just hard to get any time to myself, between all my duties and the endless throngs of worried, pissant Pedigrees and their hangers-on who seem to think they warrant my attention.  I barely have the time to make the rounds of the walls or check on my ships, let alone deal with fat lords who are too worried over their business interests in this accursed place to realize we’re at fucking war.
	I hang my head over the sink, snuffing a bit of water out of my nose, and shut my eyes for a bit, trying to clear my head.  You’d think in a place with this much water catching a bath more often would be easy, but the water here has to be boiled before you can do anything with it, and boiling a barrel’s worth of water is a pain in the ass.  I bathe in the ocean sometimes when I can, but the salt sticks in my fur and even though the scent of it makes me feel more at home . . . like I’m actually at sea, and not trapped here in this hellish colony . . . I figure the fox might not share the fondness for brine that a sailor would.  He’d probably prefer the scent of pine, or clean snow, or mountains or something.  That’s about all they have in the northern reaches of Carvecia, which if I’m correct, is where the small tribal foxes come from.
	Not that I’ve done research on foreign foxes.  Not at all.
	We’re about a thousand miles from the nearest pine tree, if not farther, but one of the shops in town had soap that’s scented with mint, and I figure that’s close enough.  It’s a plant, at least.  And unlike so many of the plants in this horrid place, it’s familiar.  So at the very least, if the fox doesn’t show up tonight, the purchase won’t have been wasted.  I can just smell like mint for a while.
	I brush out my fur like he’s going to show regardless, taking extra care to keep the jagged edges from coming back, at least for a bit.  I cleaned my teeth on a fresh bone earlier, and finished off the meal with carrot soup.  I find it leaves my mouth neutral, and inoffensive.  
	I look myself over in the mirror, and consider brushing my neck ruff back a bit more, when I realize how ridiculous my preening is.  I like to look good, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but the fox is blind.
	Not to mention, I don’t go through this much fuss for . . . well, really no use lying to myself about what they are . . . the whores in town.  All two of them.  The piteous lack of men I can safely see in this place is one of its many charms.  Neither of them are even terribly attractive to me.  There’s the badger, whom I mostly go to at this point to purchase my oils from.  Once with him was enough.  I’m not specist, but the muzzle’s just not right.  Couldn’t get past it.
	Then there’s the canine.  I honestly have no idea what breeds are thrown in there, but he’s shoft, slim and long-furred, with draping ears and a speckled coat, and altogether it’s not really my cup of tea, but at least he’s a canine.  And he’s quite good at his job.  If he wasn’t also seeing every other nameless gay man in the fleet, I’d probably see him more often.  But in this place disease is rampant, and I’ll only see him after his monthly visits to the physician.  Even still, I haven’t seen him in over half a year.  It just lost its appeal eventually.  I’d rather be seeing the men in my fleet, soldiers and navy men like me.  I know we have a few who share my preference, but I’m not allowed to find out who they are, or they’ll find out who I am, and . . . well. . . the rest has played itself out too many times in the past for me to count.  Except this time I have a lot more to lose.
	The fox is hardly my preference, either.  I like foxes, they’re close enough to canines and they tend to be very agreeable.  But this fox is foreign even by my standards, with a thick, choppy accent and a body covered in tribal markings that break up his fur into bizarre shapes.  He looks like a savage, and not a particularly slim one, at that.  Northern animals all tend to be stockier.  And he’s blind.
	Not to mention spoken for.
	But he’s utterly charming, sweet, and even if he’s not my ideal, his looks are exotic and nothing like I’ve ever known, and there’s a definite appeal to that.  What’s more, he made his preference, and his interest in me specifically, known without any apparent shame.  It’s rare I’ve met anyone so bold, and his brashness just made it so easy to extend the invitation to him.
	It’s not as though I said, ‘Come visit me so we can be nude together,’ so there’s still plausible deniability.  If for whatever reason I was mistaken, or if his attachment to his other lover is stronger than I thought it was, we can simply share a drink or two and talk.  To be honest, that wouldn’t even disappoint me.  I’m certain at least that he’s gay, and it’s rare I get to talk to any other men like me and learn how they manage, let alone someone from another country.  His story must be interesting, and I’d love to hear it.  From what little I know, it’s just as difficult for two men to be together across the sea.  I know little about the tribal societies, but his lover at least dresses and acts more like a Colonist, and they follow the same religion we do.  The only country I know where men can love one another openly is Mataa, and even there, it’s only appropriate as a dalliance.    
	The place is as clean as it’s getting, which is to say it’s not.  Moisture seeps into everything it can on the Dark Continent, and I can smell mold somewhere between the walls, or embedded in the poles of my cabin.  It’s unavoidable.  I keep the place fairly sparse, save some necessary, comfortable furniture and my possessions.  Johannes convinced me early on that I needed to take one of the larger houses in the Pedigree district or risk being laughed at.  I’m not sure why it’s necessary I take up so much space when I’m one man, and not a man who sees a lot of visitors, at that.  He summed it up with ‘it’s expected’.  
	I prefer to thwart expectations, but I couldn’t bring myself to give enough of a damn when it comes to dealing with Pedigree bitching and whining, so I just told him to pick a house for me, and he did.  It’s distinguished in that it has two stories, with a large sitting room and dining area adjacent to the kitchen and a closet or two on the main level, and my bedroom and a guest room on the upper floor.  The second floor has proven only to be an inconvenience, since it’s harder to heat in the chill of the night, and bakes like an oven during the day.  Thankfully, I’m never here during the day, and more often than not I tend to pass out downstairs in the dining room, near the hearth.  Or wherever I fall when I’m drunk.
	I have the small potbelly stove roaring upstairs now, so it won’t be frigid.  Not that I’m expecting we’ll head to the bedroom.  Just you know . . . in case.
	I brush a paw down the overly-crisp edges of my leather vest, or at least that’s what I tell myself I’m doing.  I’m so skilled a liar, I can almost convince myself some days.  In reality, my paw pads end up at their desired location eventually, running down the seam of my britches.  It has the opposite effect of what I intended, which was somehow, impossibly, to convince my sheath to calm down a little.  The light brush only made things worse.
	Not expecting anything to happen.  Right.  There goes the lying again.
	The knock on the door nearly makes me jump out of my skin, and I have to take a moment or two to compose myself.  The fox knows me so far only as the confident Admiral with the cool bearing.  He’s never met Luther, the scruffy son of a herdsman, a vagabond and fugitive hopping ships across the world to escape the fallout of his many ill-fated relationships.  He only knows Admiral Denholme, the same man near twenty years later.  I’m supposed to be distinguished, now.  Intimidating, formidable, a Pedigree by marriage if not by blood.  He never met me back when I was terrified to tell my then future father-in-law that I’d slept with a whore I’d thought was a work acquaintance of his.  Even if it turns out he was . . . in a way.
	Not my finest hour, or his.  But whenever I get too full of myself, I think back on how pathetic I felt then, and it knocks me down a peg or two.
	No reason he has to know that man, though.  Whatever comes of tonight, we’ve no need to get to know one another too intimately.  He’ll be leaving soon, and I will probably . . . die here.  If I’m being honest with myself.  A little light conversation.  Maybe a little light petting.  God, that’d be grand.
	Okay, so maybe my hopes are up when I open the door.  But then I look down, and he’s there, smiling hesitantly up at me with his big, fluffy tail half-wrapped around his ankles, looking for all the world like he’s afraid he found the wrong address or that I’ll eat him where he stands.  And I just want to pick him up and carry him upstairs.
	The fox definitely isn’t some lithe, sinuous golden beauty, but he’s wrapped up in the sort of charm that just makes you want to protect him from the world.  I hesitate to use the word ‘cute’, but . . . vulnerable?  No.  That makes me sound like some kind of predator.  
	“Admiral?” He asks questioningly, as if he’s uncertain.  
	Of course he’s uncertain, I realize suddenly and admonish myself.  He’s blind.  And he came here, to a house he’s never visited before, in a city he barely knows, and he can’t even confirm by sight that he’s got the right one now that he’s here.
	“Yes, I’m sorry,” I say quickly, opening the door further.  “Did you have any trouble finding your way here?”
	“No,” he says with a quiet confidence that astonishes me.  “May I come in?”
	“Absolutely,” I say a little too enthusiastically, and remind myself to dial it back as he steps gingerly through the threshold.  I watch him take small, silent steps inside, forever amazed with how fox tails just seem to glide effortlessly a few inches over the floor.  It’s mesmerizing.  He navigates his way into the center of the main living room, only needing to tap his walking stick once against a chair I probably should have pushed closer to the table, and turns to regard me with his ears, his multicolored white and brown fur catching yellow at the edges in the warm candlelight.  I find myself wishing I could see him in his winter coat before he leaves, but it’ll never grow in in this weather.
	“Pardon my asking this,” I say as I shut the door quietly and take a few steps forward, extending my hands towards him to take his cloak as he unshoulders it, “but . . . how exactly did you find your way here?  I gave you some basic directions, but-”
	“I told you I’d be fine, did I not?” The fox replies as the worn brown cloak slips entirely off his – God, bare shoulders – he’s not wearing anything at all over his upper torso.  Another northern custom, I’m sure.  The markings extend down his shoulder blades, flexing with the movement, looking vaguely like the curve of wings.  How quaint.
	I smirk a bit.  “Secrets of the blind?”
	The fox chuckles.  “Not really,” he waves a hand, in a distinctly effeminate way that makes me oddly wistful inside.  I have to put up the masculine front every second of my life, it’s bizarrely exciting to see someone who doesn’t bother.   “I made it my business to learn the city with the help of a companion of mine when I first arrived, so I’d never get lost in it.  Once I made it to your district, it was simply a matter of making one left, and sniffing you out.  Not as difficult as you’d think.”
	I snort back a laugh, and he seems to realize it a second before I say anything, quickly apologizing, “Not that – I’m sorry, that came out wrong,” he insists, turning his entire body to ‘look’ at me, even if his eyes don’t really find me.  “Your scent is just distinctive, it’s not bad-“
	I shake my head, not bothering to cover the mirth in my tone, “It’s fine,” I assure him.  “We all reek here.  This place isn’t meant for fur.  Likely why the natural denizens here are reptiles.”
	“Actually, you smell,” he sniffs visibly, “a lot . . . less like you, at the moment.  I was a bit concerned I’d gotten the wrong address when you answered the door.”
	I laugh.  “Alas.  I went through some trouble to be less offensive-smelling tonight, and it seems to have backfired on me.”
	“Hardly,” the fox smiles.  “I can still smell you beneath the mint, and your voice is just as distinctive.  And someone with good hygiene would be a nice change of pace for me.”
	“Right,” I say.  “I forgot you’re a Physician.  Place is a shithole, I’m sorry.  We do the best we can, but . . . sailors.”
	“Hm?”  The fox blinks, then his ears blush a bit.  “I’m a ‘healer’, actually.  I can’t exactly call myself a Physician, but ah . . . actually I was more referencing . . . my other lover.”
	Other lover.  Well, that just about confirmed what he was here for.  I try vainly to push down my excitement.  I’m nearly forty, I should be able to muster some patience and poise, and ease into the evening slowly, give the fox a chance to get comfortable and for us to talk-
	“So where is your bedroom?”  The fox asks, just then.
	“Uh . . .” Shit.  Cool, in-control Admiral routine blown.  I’m profoundly caught off-guard.  
	“Sorry, bed?”  He amends, tilting his head a bit and blinking his big, pale eyes up at me, innocently.  “Rude of me to assume you’d have a separate room.”
	“I – no, I do,” I manage to say without stammering, thankfully.  “It’s just, uh, it’s upstairs.”  Shit, again.  Blind.  I didn’t think of this.  “I can help,” I do stammer then, because I want to say ‘carry you’, but I’m aware how patronizing that sounds the second before I say it, “lead you?” I say instead.
	He smiles, in that way some people do when you’ve said something stupid and you just don’t realize it yet.  “Just take them ahead of me, and I’ll have no trouble following,” he assures me.
	So we do.