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CW: This piece is a work of historical erotica. While the geography of late Victorian London is generally correct, the author has taken significant liberties with the portrayal of early philosophy of psychology, sexology, and psychoanalysis. This story is a work of fantasy and elements have been tuned to heighten eroticism in situations featuring uneven power dynamics.

Moral Folly

by Miriam Curzon

Originally published in: Fang 6. Edited by Ashe Valisca. Bad Dog Books, 2015. Paperback/E-book

"Power operated as a mechanism of attraction; it drew out those peculiarities over which it kept watch. Pleasure spread to the power that harried it; power anchored the pleasure it uncovered. Pleasure and power do not cancel or turn back against one another; they seek out, overlap, and reinforce one another. They are linked together by complex mechanisms and devices of excitation and incitement."

--Michel Foucault

The History of Sexuality Volume 1: An Introduction

* * *

"Your paper is fanciful and unprofessional," my advisor, an elderly stag, scowled at me from across his desk, "This is amateur work without proper research or logical connections. You presented an objective conclusion from a subjective observation. What you claim as a shared cause of madness--regret--is unjustifiable in contemporary scholarship."

I bit my lip. Father always told me our kind belonged on the scaffolds, scaling over the peaks of buildings with our paws caked in mortar. We were the elite masons and bricklayers like our forefathers. If we were intended to be elite thinkers, God would not have created our bodies that are so adept at climbing. After all, no other creature can out climb a squirrel in London.

"I am concerned, Mr. Morris, you are close to your final exams and thesis, but so far you have only displayed a merely adequate level of work. You have practically squandered your benefactors' contributions to this institution."

My heart dropped in my chest with each passing word like I was drowning in a pond. Honestly, how is madness not fueled by regret, I was full of regret and despairingly close to hysterics. Quite a lot in common with the sedentary, soldiers, the senescent, the dispossessed I studied, maybe that was my path. I had thought that University College with their embracing of secularism, of foreigners, of females, of the coming new century would be a welcoming environment. Even here, at the end of a century of industrialization and scientific revolution, power remained with the elite pedigrees and not the red-furred bricklayers.

"You should think about what is best for you and your kin, I doubt you can afford to continue here should you fail to earn satisfactory marks from this department."

I nodded, my ears folded and my eyes downcast. Father would be furious, already mad that I opted for a course in Philosophy somewhere other than a proper Church of England university; after all, what would Queen Victoria say?

"Are you listening, Mr. Morris? You better shape up because right now you are not graduate material."

I was used to anger, but not this dispassionate disappointment. Facing bitter anger daily at home, I could handle, but this detached response to my failure had my stomach irate. I barely managed to contain tears, which flowed following the meeting. On a bench in Russell Square, I cried in the shade of an oak tree as paws pattered past.

A shadow approached me and through my tears the glint of a polished silver case caught my attention. The case made a soft click and popped open to reveal a row of finely wrapped tobacco. "Have a cigarette," a thickly accented voice said.

I plucked one from the edge of the case and wiped my eyes on my jacket sleeve. He looked to be slightly elderly, a dormouse, more common on the Continent than here, with bits of white mixed into his predominantly gray muzzle. The case closed and he tapped the end of his cigarette against it. "May I sit?" he gestured to the space beside me on the bench covered by my tail.

With a quick flutter and shuffle my tail draped over the edge of the bench into the patchy grass. I rolled the cigarette between my claws. The dormouse sat beside me, sliding the cigarette case into the inner pocket of his velvet jacket and withdrew a matchbox. His dress was of moderate means, better than mine, and professional. The match flashed into life, and he cupped the stick and gestured to me. I leaned over and the cigarette flared to life, filling my lungs with the burning smoke. Cigarettes were a luxury I could not afford, but I had my fair share from other generous individuals and some friendlier acquaintances. He lit his own and extinguished the small torch with a flick of his wrist. "My name is Dr. Ernst Schreiber. I am new to London."

Between his name and accent, he must be from one of the central empires in Europe. He offered his paw, and we shook, his whiskers twitched as he let out a puff of smoke. "Christopher Morris," I answered.

"I know you, Kristof, I have read your last paper."

He continued after a pause for a drag on his cigarette, "Very interesting. Clearly thought out, albeit completely wrong. Although it is not wrong to engage in experimental abstract thought, these British universities are hardly the place for such things."

Schreiber's words continued, accompanied by the sharp intake of smoke and the drawn-out exhalation of tainted clouds. "You claim that regret is an underlying symptom of the troubled mind, but that is wrong or perhaps the wrong word."

With another long pause he leaned back against the bench resting his right arm along the back of the bench behind me and rested his left leg on his knee. He took another deep draw and exhale of tobacco. "I believe the term sexuality is better suited. Sexuality of both mind and body."

Ash fell from my cigarette, forgotten between my right index and middle fingers. With one last drag, Schreiber stood. "Come to the seminar. Tomorrow at 7:30. I think you will find it interesting."

His cigarette crumpled beneath his rubber sole. "It was pleasant talking with you Kristof," he offered his paw again and we shook, "Until tomorrow, then, 7:30."

I watched the thin furry tail disappear into the flow of bodies cutting through the garden. Sex. The cigarette fell to the ground, and I stomped it out. How could that be possible? Sex is sex: an act of acceptable procreative means. Impure acts based in lust. Or monetary transactions. Of course, I heard that institutes of philosophy and psychology in the Continent were examining a connection between deviancy and madness, but not here in London. Such matters were of a legal nature, not a psychic or philosophical debate. Throughout the three-mile walk to home in East London I continued puzzling over Dr. Schreiber's assertion. My puzzlement continued until I found myself on a stool in the lecture hall at 7 in the evening the next day.

The lecture was brilliant. Halfway through the seminar, my already perked ears jumped. "A young scholar of this university suggested the underlying symptom of madness, as he referred to mental distress, is an extreme case of regret. While his theory is wrong, he was on the right path. Mental illness has an underlying cause relating to an individual's psychosexual development. For many of the poor, sex is a commodity for personal survival, a traumatic break from the survival of the species. The rich hysterics suffer from the repression of sexual instincts, demands placed upon them by their parental authorities. The soldiers are troubled by an imbalance between their exclusive male camaraderie and healthy marital relations. The aged suffer from the loss of sex and either repress memories of their sexual history or overindulge in memory and fantasy."

The flaws of my thinking and conclusions glowed bright and certain. Every stipulation I had made, I re-examined. My walk home was a flash of theorems. At the end of the walk the only reasonable conclusion I could make was Schreiber's clear genius. His theories were so clear and understandable, but most certainly unpopular.

The next day, I sat on the stairs to the college while finishing half a cigarette from my acquaintance Charles, who just finished imparting on me the aim of Kantian ethics and economics. We shared little in common, but we both were among the few from East London. He had to rush off to meet his fiancée, a concept I had yet to consider. Each hasty tobacco flavored breath came as the door of the college opened and closed. There was little else to do but wait and see if Professor Schreiber walked past. He had no office I could find and even if I knew his address, I surely could not show up unbidden. My cigarette down and I then had no method of calming my nerves or keeping busy.

Without the tobacco, my tail jolted whenever the doors opened, or someone would walk up the stairs. I did not know if I would find him coming or going from the building. My ears swiveled with each Continental accent. Some time long after the death of the cigarette he appeared from the front door. Similar in attire to the day we met, he started down the stairs, papers under his arms and his gaze pointed at the ground. "Professor?"

Schreiber did not even look in my direction. I walked over to his side and matched pace with him. "Professor?" I repeated.

He glanced at me, his whiskers bristling. "Sorry?" His eyes opened wider when he saw me. "Oh right, you. Doctor, please. I am a doctor first."

"Certainly, Doctor Schreiber."

He shuffled the folder of papers around and grabbed me with his free arm. "Come Herr Morris, join me for a pint."

Before I could utter any mark of protest or disinterest. Schreiber guided me by arm through the crowds down passed Woburn and Russell Square. Along Montague Street past the British Museum, and a few blocks more to High Holborn. Holborn I was familiar with, but I rarely ventured south of Holborn. My tail buzzed with psychic terror when Schreiber guided me further south down Chancery Lane. I looked around, ears twitching, when we reached the intersection and headed east along Fleet Street. Horror stories, fact and fiction always unnerved me. I could not ignore the stories, but I could avoid the places. Places like Whitechapel, Covent Garden, and, of course, Fleet Street. We stopped in front of the dark paneled windows of a tavern called the Old Bell.

The dark and dimly lit tavern was hazy with smoke and the smell of sweat. With the promptness of a regular, Schreiber crammed me into a corner of the bar with an ale before both of us. Between the loud murmurs and laughter my ears had trouble locking onto the sound of the doctor's voice. He clapped a paw on my back as he took a swig of the dark ale. "What did you think of the lecture, Kristof?" His silver cigarette case hit the bar with a delicate clink.

"I was quite fascinated, sir." In an instant I held a lit cigarette in paw.

"That is what I am paid for, son."

I saw him glance at my untouched glass and back at me. "What grabbed your interest the most?"

There was another glance to my untouched glass, which I picked up in my free paw and took a deep gulp of the malty bitter ale. The ale was strong with a slight burn in my unaccustomed throat. "I was quite drawn to your explanation of psychosexual trauma as the basis of sexual deviancy."

His ears perked along with his hunched shoulders. My ears picked up a long, but hesitant sigh. "It is not so simple, dear boy," he said with a shake of his head. "Psychosexual trauma and deviancy are certainly linked, but they do not share a definitive causal relationship. There are plenty of deviants without a history of trauma, there are plenty of traumatic histories without expressions of deviant behavior."

Schreiber turned toward me, and I felt my tail press between my back and the wall. He wagged his cigarette at my chest. "You see... out there, in the world-" he paused, punctuating his thought with exaggerated gestures,"-in society, in politics and religion, deviancy describes acts deemed-unnatural. But in our field of research, we cannot take deviancy as an unnatural act without scientific evidence that these acts are, indeed, unnatural."

He paused and blew a cloud of smoke. His head turned and stared at his glass for a period before taking a drink. "Take for example the subject of sexual inversion, or homosexuality as it is oft referred to in Vienna. Current research in Austria suggests that there is a natural element to the desire for the same sex. No trauma or psychic link can be made between all of the test subjects to suggest otherwise. Here, right now, there is-without a doubt-at least one invert. There are also, without a doubt, a pawful of males who have experienced a temporary state of inversion."

Before he could continue, I took a deep drink of ale and a hearty intake of my cigarette. "Doctor Schreiber, please be my advisor," I blurted out, throat still charred from the shock of smoke and alcohol.

After a period of silence, cigarette puffs, and a drink of ale, Schreiber put a paw on his papers and a paw on my shoulder. "If you have another pint, and help me with my research, I will."

Euphoria resounded through my chest. "Unpaid, of course," he added.

I clamped on his paw and shook vigorously. This would save my degree. In a few years I could have a paid position and be well on my way to a doctorate. I ended up having two more pints with the doctor. We parted a few hours later near Aldgate. For my first ride on the underground, I was drunk on ale and unparalleled excitement. Somehow, I managed my way off the train at Old Street. In the gutter outside of the station I had to steady myself against the brick facade as I vomited, an unsuspected turn of my stomach. My stomach soured, my throat dry and irritated, the taste of bile and old ale in my mouth, I walked the remaining block home, happy.

* * *

Three Years Later

I completed my degree as I had originally intended to, much to the faculty's surprise. My thesis on comparative philosophies of deviants was well received by many and with guarded suspicions from others. In honor of my work, and my desire to remain working in the field, the college rewarded me a salary to continue my work with Dr. Schreiber. As I proved a constant with the doctor's work, I became more personally involved with his life. He introduced me to his wife, Ana, a stout dormouse who, despite her motherly appearance, did not dote on me as others of her sex, age, and demeanor. On the contrary, they treated me with respect, as one would treat a fellow colleague. They were the ones I shared my academic accomplishments with as my own parents never had much to say. In my mind there could be nothing better than being treated as an equal by Dr. Schreiber who I held in deep love and admiration. More so at the crest of a new field of inquiry just as the 20th century was upon us. Excitement replaced my nervousness, which opened plenty of analytical talks of Jack and Todd at the pub on Fleet Street. During one of these talks that Dr. Schreiber invited me to assist him in his more clinical work with patients. A week later, I sat on a stool behind Schreiber, facing the patient, in a long rectangular room.

For the first hour or so, I simply observed the patient while copying down verbal exchange and the male badger's facial expressions. This was the first time I had to transcribe Dr. Schreiber's spoken words and his accent led me to several words spelt with his heavy Bavarian accent. Otherwise, I was invisible. Aside from the occasional glance from the extremely gray badger, I felt I did not exist, as I expected. Then Dr. Schreiber's words caused my heart to skip, and I missed what he said. He repeated, "Herr Morris, would you be so kind as to remove your clothing."

"Doctor?"

I felt the veil lifted, both Schreiber and the patient turned to me. "Go on, my boy."

I searched the dormouse's face for mirth and play, but all I saw was the straight muzzle and eyes, not even his whiskers showed sign of gaiety or want. My limbs were heavy as I placed the stenographer pad on my stool. I hung my jacket on the rack by the door and unbuttoned my vest. "Dr. Schreiber, I am not sure I feel comfortable undressing," I said, turning around.

Schreiber had turned back to the badger, the badger still stared at me. "Keep going," Schreiber replied, without glancing toward me, "This is important for both research and diagnosis."

The badger shifted, still sitting on his paws, his dark beady eyes still watching. I shrugged off my vest, and without further question I disrobed until I stood nude, facing away from both the doctor and patient. "Sir?"

"Now go back to taking notes, Kristof."

Schreiber did not remove his eyes from the patient. I took notes as before, but now I could not be more visible. The badger's eyes stayed on me until the questions had finished and I had redressed. Not once had Schreiber turned to me. When the orderly came to collect the patient, he left the room visibly aroused. I handed my notes to Dr. Schreiber when I was dressed again. "Thank you, Kristof, you were most helpful. I hope I can rely on you again."

I opened my muzzle to speak, but all I managed was a nervous gurgle. After I cleared my throat, I asked, "What are you researching?"

For the first time since I had undressed, Schreiber turned to me. "Let's discuss this over a drink at my house."

I followed the mouse silently out of the hospital and to the train to Aldgate. The flat he shared with his wife was above a grocer's shoppe. His study was small and filled with the stench of tobacco and near rotten fruit from the window beside his oak desk. I sank into the smaller of two chairs and Schreiber stood by the window. He picked up a matchbook from the brass ashtray beside his desk. For a moment he just looked out the window and shuffled the matchbook in his paws. "I apologize if I made you feel uncomfortable, Kristof," he began, turning to face me, "but this was an experiment that could only happen once. The patient was committed for displaying homosexual tendencies, but also shows a high interest in mixoscopophilia. He has admitted to experiencing sexual pleasure in the viewing of young nude male bodies."

He paused to retrieve a cigarette from his case, leaving it open on his desk. "I am trying to determine whether his desire to watch naked males is symptomatic of repressed desires or an independent act of sexual deviancy."

"So, one conclusion is his psychosis is rooted in repressing his natural desire, assumably of inversion or pederasty. The other conclusion would be-"

"Exactly! A deviant act unrelated to his natural desire."

I rubbed my temples and stood up.

"I hope I have not offended you."

"No, sir," I replied, "I find chairs uncomfortable."

"Not enough room for that bush of yours," Schreiber grinned.

I nestled up to the window and plucked a cigarette from the case. "Isn't this a bit extreme? This is a new area of research. The Continent may lead in advances in psychology, the concept of sexual inversion as natural may be correct, but the Crown still recognizes inversion as a deviant act against nature. How can you hope to prove your theory when we don't yet recognize any deviant act as natural?"

"The Crown, the government, these are all symbols due to be replaced. Science and philosophy will advance. The field is new, yes, but growing by the day. You and I, our colleagues across Europe, we are the ones that get to draw this line and we cannot be fickle or squeamish, we have to be thorough to produce cognizant arguments backed by scientific evidence."

Schreiber beckoned me and I leant forward as he struck the match to light my cigarette. As he proceeded to light his own, I perched myself in the open window, allowing my tail to hang out to be buffeted by the wind. He looked at me with those eyes I had come to know as sincere and serious. "I asked of you what I have because I trust you. I hope my trust was not misplaced." He kept his gaze even with mine, our cigarettes smoldering in our fingers.

I did not think this was an issue I could or was even worth challenging. His eyes searched me and for the sake of the last few years I answered, "no."

Schreiber's face lit up, his whiskers and tail wiggled, and he pulled me from the window into an embrace. I felt warmth and respect from my elder and I hugged back with my admiration. "You can trust me, Kristof, as I do you."

The next several ninety-minute sessions with the badger, Schreiber experimented using me. Sometimes I would be naked prior to the patient's arrival, sometimes I would partly undress, and sometimes I would not undress at all. I continued to take notes, both for the doctor and myself, and settled into this method. Soon enough, I realized I no longer cared that I was naked, or that I assumed the symbolic position of the badger's desired object. Honestly, I came to enjoy myself, which seemed to encourage the badger even more, so much so I could smell it clearly. Rather than sitting on the stool with my knees together, my normal position, regardless of my dress, I would sit with knees ajar.

After a month, it became clear that the patient's mixoscopophilia was likely a symptom of repressed homosexual desire. The days I remained dressed, he would enter aroused, but would shuffle uncomfortably in his chair, eyes darting between the doctor and me. When he left, he walked with a dejected shuffle, his gaze fixed at the floor, any sign of arousal gone. Schreiber's concluding experiment caught me by surprise, the badger's wide eyes showed a similar response. "Would you masturbate for the patient?" he asked with the same tone and decorum as his initial request for me to undress.

I sat on the stool; my knees locked together. The request frightened me, and the notepad fell to the ground and the pen rolled across the tile floor. My shoulders hunched over, and I buried my paws in my naked lap. Blood pulsed in my cheeks as I hid my nakedness from the badger. The request thrilled me, which is another reason I covered my lap. The patient was the deviant, not me. My promise of trust weighed heavy in my mind. I opened my legs again, revealing my paws clutching my swollen sheath and emerging arousal. With a brief glance at the back of Schreiber's head, I locked eyes with the patient and withdrew my paws from my sheath. I gave the badger an unobstructed look at everything. His eyes widen as more of my shaft surfaced. The air filled with a mix of masculine odors. Throughout the act, the patient's eyes locked with mine. The gray irises shifted only when the badger rocked hard enough the chair moved, unable to provide any relief to the tent in his trousers. Like I had done occasionally for the last decade at home in the darkness of my shared room, beneath my blankets, just as my elder brothers had. Like I had more frequently in the past month, I masturbated.

Through the hot beating of blood in my ears I heard Schreiber's accented questions. "You are agitated. Do you find my colleague's actions arousing?"

"Yes."

"Do you wish you could touch yourself?"

"Yes."

"Do you wish you were masturbating my colleague?"

"Yes!"

"Have you ever masturbated another male?"

"No."

"Have you fantasized about masturbating another male?"

"Yes."

"Did these fantasies start during puberty?"

"No."

"From before?"

"Yes."

"Thank you, I think we have reached a good stopping point. Most enlightening. Herr Morris, you may get dressed."

Stop. The words echoed in the pounding blood. The patient's eyes remained on mine, but felt different, almost pleading with me not to stop. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and bit my lip. I stopped. Before the orderly arrived to take charge of the badger, I was fully dressed. My heart pounded. I drew my jacket tight around my stomach, pushing the rushing blood and arousal deep inside. Some slow minutes later, Dr. Schreiber patted me on the shoulder and left. Alone, I walked around the room to the chair where the badger sat, damp with sweat and thick with musk. I turned and walked to the chair where Dr. Schreiber always sat. He had sat there and calmly requested me to perform a sexual act in front of the patient. Not once in all these weeks did he turn in my direction. I steadied myself against the oak chair and took a deep breath. My body still ached, and I wanted to finish right there on the spot. I tasted the faint fruity tobacco laced scent that followed Schreiber. There was something off, something spiced and malty, like the bitter ales we would share at the tavern. My stomach convulsed and my tail went erect. I rushed out of the room, embracing the stench of the hospital corridor.

That night the memory and the ache remained. The room was empty, my brothers off with Father at a worksite on the southern coast. Despite the freedom of a seldom-empty bedroom, I could not shake the lack. The memory of the badger's eyes staring into me would not leave me. Those eyes, burning with desire, kept my stomach in knots and my sheath aching for a touch I could not fulfill. With quiet steps on old floorboards given to creaks, I crept passed my parents' bedroom and left my home. I weaved through the quiet streets with only my father's old wool coat covering my bedclothes. A voice nagged in the back of my mind. This is wrong. I should return to my bed, but I persisted through the blocks to the park. This late at night, there was only the occasional vagabond fighting the cold of the coming winter. I knew I should be frightened. That was the feeling I knew, walking out in the dark of East London with streets still lit by the somber amber gas lamps. Instead, I felt only a tantalizing excitement of eyes in the shadows.

I pressed my back into rigid bark of a barren oak. With the dirt path just on the other side of the tree, I grasped my aching sheath and closed my eyes. I sought the memories of the last month, of this afternoon. The badger's eyes and scent, the feeling of being watched and Schreiber, always turned from my naked body. In the chilly air, my erection burned in my paw. My lip tasted of the blood pounding in my ears and heart. The wind would rustle the leafless branches, which sounded like someone could be close by, watching. With my eyes closed, anyone could approach and watch as I committed this heinous act. What if it was the patient? What if it was Schreiber? Nonsense, of course, but in my mind, reason was replaced by a rampaging desire. I imagined Schreiber sitting in front of me, his back to me like always. His head began to turn, and my back slid down the tree until I crouched above the roots and dirt. Then his eyes met mine, just as the patient had. There was something wrong with me, I knew. When I came, it was different from all the times previously. I clung tightly around my coat and ran. There was a line and I had crossed it.

The next day I did not go to the hospital, I spent a few days salary on cigarettes and matches. On the steps of the university, I smoked through the chimes of Big Ben. My stomach felt wrong, my fur was a mess, my eyes drooped. I counted the clock chimes with each discarded cigarette. By the time I was out of cigarettes, my throat burned, and the four o'clock bell rang. Lungs protested the walk to the hospital and the flights of stairs to his office. The door was open, and I could smell his presence in the room. My legs seized in the hallway just before the doorway. They burned, my muscles trying to force me to turn around. The same feeling, I had just before my last meeting with my former advisor in university.

"Mr. Morris don't just stand out there. Come and tell me why you were not here for today's session."

My tail whipped behind me, frazzled by Schreiber's interruption. I skulked in, the weight of shame holding my head and tail down.

"What seems to be the problem?"

I slid on to the stool I should have been on for the last several hours. "I'm not sure I am comfortable with what you have me do anymore," I muttered.

"We will try some other methods, then. Our approach worked for Robert, but we certainly cannot expect the same result from the same exact methods. What brought on this change?"

"Worked for whom?"

"Robert, the badger we have been treating."

"He's cured?"

"I would not say he is cured, but we pinpointed the source of his madness, and I prescribed a course of action to occur outside of the facility. Now, would you explain this change in your position regarding treatment?"

Frustration burned in my throat like the last half-dozen cigarettes. "I am not comfortable with, well, masturbating in front of patients. It is wrong."

"There is nothing wrong with what you have done. These are experiments, this is science, and it worked. Therefore, there is absolutely nothing wrong with sexually stimulating a patient to produce results."

"It's wrong!" my lungs burned, and I coughed heavily, my voice stressed from a cigarette too many.

Schreiber straightened up in his chair. "Something is wrong," he paused, "but not our method of treatment or your feelings about the treatment. Please explain how you arrived at your conclusion."

"It's wrong," I protested quieter.

"What is? Masturbation? Sexually stimulating a deviant patient?"

"I enjoyed it! I was embarrassed, at first, but then I enjoyed it. I wanted him to watch me. I masturbated in the park, last night! I enjoyed it! It's wrong!"

I gripped the edge of the stool between my knees as Schreiber relaxed back into his chair. He pulled out a watch and looked at it for a moment. "It is getting late; I must insist we continue this conversation at my home."

My heart pounded in my chest. My limbs and muscles would not move. My jaw ached. My mouth was dry. My legs moved only when I felt the warmth of Schreiber's paw on my shoulder.

The trip to his flat was a blur. Not the fast kind like on the underground train, but the kind that is slow and unfocused, viewed through a droplet of water on a windowpane. He sat me in his study with a cold bottle of ale. "How many brothers do you have?"

"Three."

"You are the youngest, correct?"

"Yes."

"Did you share a bedroom?"

"Yes."

"For how long did you share a room?"

"I still do, only my eldest brother moved out."

"When did you have your first orgasm?"

"I guess, thirteen?"

"Where do you normally engage in onanism?"

"Our bedroom."

"So, you regularly masturbated in bed in front of your brothers?"

"We all did, sometimes, in the dark." I sipped from the bottle.

"Then would you not say that mixoscopophilia was a fact of your sexual development?"

"I suppose it was, in a way."

"Now was there any precipitating event to last night?"

I took a deep breath. "I could not sleep. I kept thinking about everything that happened and I was so aroused, but just the fantasy was not enough."

"Were you alone in your room?"

"My brothers are all out for a job."

"Well, the reason you went out to the park to masturbate last night was because, real or imaginary, your brothers were not there to watch you. A simple case of mixoscopophilia, which will likely diminish when you get married."

"I thought about you!" I shouted.

"Shh. Calm yourself."

"I thought about you, watching me, while I masturbated, in a park!"

Silence followed my declaration. I turned away from Schreiber and felt my eyes start to water. That was when I felt warm breath and bristly whiskers against my forehead. He took the half empty bottle from my grasp and placed a handkerchief. "That is simply a natural progression of our relationship and your sexual desire. How is your relationship with your father?"

Schreiber was back in his chair watching me. I wiped my damp face. "My father? I really don't see or talk to him much."

"Yet, you live in the same house."

"He is busy running the business."

"A family business, I assume?"

"Yeah."

"A family business that you are not a part of."

"No, I wanted to go to university, Father did not like it, especially a secular school, but Mother convinced him."

"I am fairly certain that you must have subconsciously constructed me as a replacement father figure, after all, I have no sons, and have come to regard you as a father may regard a son."

"But my behavior, my... desires," I complained, "They are unhealthy!"

"What makes you say that?" Schreiber asked, propping his head up with his paw.

"The badger."

"He was committed for his behavior."

"Well, shouldn't I be committed?"

"I do not see why. You are not a danger, and I can provide any counseling you may need. I honestly can say that I doubt you would benefit, in anyway, from a sanitarium."

There was a knock on the door. "Just a moment, Ana," Schreiber said.

"Yes, dear, dinner is ready."

The doctor stood up and walked over. He pulled his handkerchief out of my grasp and looked at me. "Stay the night, son. I would like to show you something. Come by my room after bed."

He placed a paw on my shoulder and squeezed.

After dinner, Ana provided me with some of Schreiber's sleepwear and bid me goodnight in a small white bedroom. The bed was lumpy and stiff, the sheets threadbare and weathered. I pulled off my shirt and sat on the bed corner. The only light in the room was the small gas lamp on the bedside table. Schreiber's shorts were big on my slim waist and his nightgown only just reached my waist. I folded my clothes and placed them in a pile on a small wooden chair. Outside the tiny porthole window all I could see were faint outlines of buildings in the darkness. There were tiny lights, a mix of old gas and new electric lamps, toward Tower Bridge. My ears perked up; I could hear a faint sound similar to the creaking of wood.

I turned from the window and walked to the doorway. There were soft noises coming from the dim hallway. At the end of the hallway, a door was slightly ajar accompanied by a faint amber glow of a gas lamp.

I figured it must be Schreiber and walked down the hallway. As I approached the slightly open door, my nose wrinkled at a strange, unfamiliar scent. When I glanced into the gap, I came whisker to whisker with Schreiber. "Be quiet and watch, just there," he whispered.

I nodded and he walked away from the small opening in the doorway. He approached the bed and I saw Ana sitting on the bed, her back against the headboard. Her thighs parted as Schreiber slipped between them. They shared a kiss, nothing more than a simple peck, but full of tenderness. He caressed her cheek. I steadied myself against the doorframe. Schreiber slipped his shorts off, and I pressed my free paw tight against my stirring groin. I caught a flash of pink and a tawny sheath below his belly. His paw slipped over the pink flesh, giving it a few strokes. My own member had slipped out and down one of the legs of my shorts. I gripped my erection with my free paw and watched Ana's back arch. Schreiber glanced to his right, and then buried his muzzle in his wife's neck. His hips began a slow thrusting motion that soon sped up. I doubled over, pressing down on my erection and abdomen. My eyes did not move from Schreiber's pistoning hips. Ana's hind paws entwined with the doctor's, his tail waving in the air with each thrust. On occasion, Schreiber's head would turn to the right before returning to Ana's neck or chest.

After several minutes, I had to bite my fist, the pleasure mounting deep in my abdomen. I slid down to the floor, my paw covered in hot semen. I took a tentative lick, not wanting to wipe the remains of my orgasm on my fur or the doctor's clothes. As I finished licking the distasteful solution on my paw, I looked up. My eyes locked on his, the taste of my shame still on my tongue. Schreiber returned to his lovemaking, and I sat on the floor, dumbfounded and aching from arousal until they finished. They put out the lamp and I fumbled my way back to the room. Throughout that night I repeated the act, theirs with my mind, mine with my fist, and licked clean my spilt seed time after time.

Sometime well into the next morning I was awoken by a timid knocking at my door. I tucked myself back into the shorts and pulled the gown down as far as I could. The room smelled as I would expect male squirrel semen.

"Christopher?"

"Just a moment," I answered.

I could feel the blood in my cheeks, and I knew the stench permeated the room. For a brief moment I paused with my paw on the doorknob, trying to moisten my dry mouth. The door opened and Ana greeted me, her own spot of redness in her cheeks. "Ernst wanted me to give you this," she said, handing me a folded piece of paper, "I am about to head to the market, would you like something? Tea? Coffee? Something to eat?"

"No, marm, I should get home before Mother worries."

Ana nodded and walked away. I sighed and changed behind the closed door. The folded sheet of paper just had a date, time, and location in Schreiber's ill written hand.

"My office, tomorrow, 16:00."

I slipped out of the house in my own clothes before Ana left. The short ride to Old Street I spent mostly asleep. My loose tucked shirt and unbuttoned waistcoat reminded me of the drunk and rakish few I would see in the morning on my way to university. Unaccustomed to partying or staying out late I never quite understood the meaning to their appearance. Now, in their place, as clear as day, the disheveled look is an apparition of shame. After all, what is the point of putting yourself together after a night of deviance. I felt dirty, and perhaps if someone else saw my signals and recognized them, I would feel lighter.

Mother was out when I got home. Evidence enough that I was not too missed. Father and my brothers were still out in Brighton. I slumped through the house and curled up around my tail. Muzzle nestled against my thick bush, a common pose of younger years, I slept straight through to the next day. Two nights without much sleep were more than I could survive.

The next day, in Schreiber's office, I was greeted by a smile. "Feeling better?"

I shrugged as he guided me to my stool. My stool was moved. Today it sat in front of Schreiber in the position of the observed not the observer. "Have a seat, we should continue our discussion."

I climbed on to the stool and hooked my hind paws around the stool legs. Schreiber just looked at me. Under his continuous gaze, I began rocking on the seat. His head cocked to the side and the chair started to rock with me, only flicks of my tail stopping me from tipping too far.

"I see there is some pleasure in mixoscopophilia."

I stopped rocking and the stool came to a sudden stop, my body swinging dangerously forward. "But I cannot say how much enjoyment was the act of mixoscopophilia, itself, or a subconscious response to engaging in a deviant act."

"Can't they be the same?" I asked, "Maybe mixoscopophilia is only enjoyable because it is taboo."

Schreiber sat further back in his chair, resting his leg on his knee. "So, the act of deviancy is empowered simply because it is deviant? I think that just might be a good hypothesis. Although, it does little to solve our little puzzle."

"Did it feel any different? Watching, rather than watched?"

"I don't know," I confessed, "I liked watchi..."

I blushed and fell silent.

"You liked watching, but was your evident desire built on observation or fantasy of being?"

"What do you mean? Fantasy of being?"

"Imagining you were a part of what occurred rather than a witness."

I shook my head. "I don't know, sorry."

"Well then, what did you focus on?"

"You, sir."

"To be me in coitus, or with me?"

"With..." I paused, the realization of what I said immediately apparent, "With you."

Dr. Schreiber visibly twisted in his seat, switching his crossed legs around. "Well, I guess that pushes us closer to a conclusion, but muddies the water, so to speak."

I felt itchy. Itchy and hot. He just looked at me and stroked his whiskers, expressionless. "I didn't sleep much that night, it was like an opiate. I kept going after that first time looking through the crack in the door. Back in the room I masturbated several more times, I couldn't think of anything else."

I shifted in the stool this time, the cotton trousers trying to contain the memory of two nights ago. "Shouldn't the next be an experiment? See if my symptoms are a matter of simple mixoscopophilia or inversion? Whether you are a fixed or symbolic object?"

The dormouse sat bolt upright, but hesitated, his lips parted and silent. I was confused. Never in the years we have worked together has the doctor ever been so a loss for words. "Shouldn't we test to see where my delusion lies? Whether my desire is based in deviancy or inversion? If it is limited to you and who you are in my fantasy?"

"I suppose, I could contact Robert. I believe he is about the only subject we could have at this time."

"That would work, but, sir, you are already here, shouldn't you be a part of the test as well?"

Schreiber looked up at me, his leg falling from his knee to the floor. Blood pounded through my body. I slipped off the stool and stepped towards Schreiber. Each step followed the next in a slow march. My throat felt dry, my clothing insufferable, itchy and hot. When I slipped into his lap he shivered. Deep-throated whimpers followed as I settled my weight onto his thighs, my legs astride his belly. My tail shook from his heat. I leaned against his chest and wrapped my arms around his neck. The embrace felt queer. It did not feel like I imagined it should feel. There was no tenderness, the way I witnessed him and his wife embrace in their bed. Instead, it felt almost as I would imagine hugging my father in his lap.

I began to untangle myself from Schreiber when I felt a light touch on my lower back. Another one followed the first touch, light and quick. Schreiber's paws settled on my back, still just a light touch. I stopped moving, now perched on his lap with just my wrists on his shoulders. With brutal force he pulled me against him. He buried his whiskers in my neck just above my collar.

Teeth brushed my fur. Nostrils flared against my throat. Schreiber grabbed the back of my head and pulled back. His tongue traced up along the fur of my bare neck to my muzzle and kissed me. The back of my head burned in his grasp. My cotton pants stretched tight against my groin. Overcoming the shock of Schreiber's sudden passion, I squeezed my thighs around his waist. His paws slid to my front and pushed my coat off. Before the coat hit the floor, he was undoing my waistcoat. Schreiber ran his paws back around to my back, underneath my waistcoat and pulled at my tucked in shirt. I pulled my arms back, flinging my waistcoat off. He licked around my muzzle, pulling my shirt up over my back. Our lips parted and Schreiber tossed my shirt behind him. Schreiber buried his paws in the fur on my back, raking his claws against my spine.

It soon became all too apparent that my pants were in the way and difficult to remove. Schreiber managed to hook a claw in the waistband, but my thighs stopped them from moving too far down my hips. He managed to create enough space to stick a paw down my front. I gasped against his whiskers and his tongue darted in my parted muzzle. His paw slipped along the underside of my shaft and cupped my sack and sheath. With his free paw, he steadied my hips by grabbing the base of my tail and his claws followed the curve of my rump. I shivered in Schreiber's grasp, his paw squeezing my equipment and freeing my bits from my trousers. For the first time since he first touched my back, his muzzle left mine.

Schreiber pulled on my tail, and I felt his claws press into the cleft of my rear. His other paw pulled up and I followed, my hips rising as he pulled. My heart jumped in my chest as I felt his whiskers tickle my sheath. I steadied myself on his shoulders. Schreiber bent further and drew his tongue along my sack and up my sheath to the flesh of my member. Then I lost my grip on his shoulders and my thighs went slack. The immense shock of pleasure at his tongue, followed by the warm wetness of his mouth overwhelmed me. I fell backward, slipped from his grasp, and hit my head on the floor. My vision blurred and blackened, I could no longer hear the pounding of our blood or our labored breathing.

When my sense returned, I was on the floor, a pile of clothing underneath the soreness burning in my head. My pants were gone, along with my underclothes. Schreiber knelt next to my head, peering down at me. While I lay naked, he remained fully clothed. I could see his protrusion in his pants, the dark brown cloth nearly black at the tip. His scent was spicier, maltier, a vague remembrance of three days ago in this very room. The dormouse dropped a paw to my chest and stroked along my breast and stomach. I reached up toward him and took a hold of his waistcoat. With my strength, and his help, I returned to his lap, the lump in his trousers pleasantly pressing against my perineum. This position allowed me to hook my thighs around him, my sheath, reawakening, pressed against the slight round of his belly.

I kissed him and his arms wrapped around my back. Schreiber's waistcoat was dispatched with urgency, followed by his shirt. His muscles flexed in my grasp, and he stood up, grunting into my muzzle. My thighs latched tighter, and I slid my arms up under his arms. His hot breath tickled my whiskers. I heard ruffling cloth and the clang of his belt striking the floor. I wanted to feel his bit and bobs. My desire overwhelmed my logic and I let go of his shoulders. Schreiber was there to catch me as I almost slid from his hips. His equipment burned into my paw. The mouse's body quaked against me. We dropped back to the floor, Schreiber sliding between my thighs. I loosened my grip around his hips, allowing him freedom of movement.

His fur tickled my bare shaft as Schreiber shifted position. I was soon engulfed again in his muzzle, this time with no fear or possibility of falling. Sitting up, I stroked his head as his tongue lapped at my tip. My eyes pinched closed, and I bit back a moan. My orgasm hit with no warning and Schreiber drank my semen. We parted, both breathless, chests heaving from exertion. "Ernst." The name escaped my muzzle before I could stop it.

He wheezed softly and coughed. "I saw you do it the other night. Never tried it myself."

"Ernst," I repeated and threw myself at the kneeling dormouse.

I did not wait or tease but slipped his member into my muzzle. Ernst collapsed forward on to my back, forcing more of the shaft in my muzzle and along my tongue. My hindquarters slid back, and I ended up laying chest down along the floor, my head deep in his lap. I could feel his plump sack pressed between my chin and his upper thighs. The scent of his crotch filled in the flavor draining down my throat. Ernst whimpered against my spine. He caught a loose flap of skin between his teeth and nibbled. I gurgled and choked as the flow of seed welled up in my throat. "Stop," Ernst moaned, sending vibrations along my spine.

We decoupled, his member glistening with a mixture of saliva and semen. Ernst steadied himself on his knees, shoulders heaving. He glanced up at me with a smile, his cheeks flushed pink. Without a word, he crawled to me on his knees. I leaned back as he crawled on top of me, hips slipping between my thighs. The slippery shaft slid across and beneath my sack. Ernst buried his face in my clavicle and then buried his member in my rump. I let out a hoarse cry. He had hilted inside of me. His hips began to move. I wrapped my arms and legs around his body, blinking tears from my eyes. Trying to forget the pain, I forced my mind to remember the sight of Ernst taking his wife. He was between her thighs thrusting, she was beneath him moaning and writhing in pleasure. I tried to picture myself in her place, as one feeling pleasure from penetration, but the pain overwhelmed the fantasy with each motion Ernst made inside of me.

Ernst knocked me back to reality when he pulled at my right leg. I unwrapped my legs from his waist but held on to his back with a vice like grip. He pulled on my leg and grunted, "Roll over."

He maintained a grip on my hips as he helped me roll on to my stomach. The next time he pushed in my body convulsed. Sparks shot through my body and out through my sheath. My penis, which had retreated amidst the pain, emerged with each of Ernst's thrusts. On my hands and knees, I began to moan each time I felt the dormouse's member buried inside my gut. Ernst wrapped his arms around me, hooking one around my chest and one around my hip. Each time my body jolted from a thrust; the tip of my member would just touch his one paw. I soon began thrusting my hips on my own, trying to get as much of the foreign touch on my hardness as I could. He shifted behind me, and I felt his thighs pushing against mine. The thrust became deeper and shorter, but faster.

Without warning, he grunted into my neck and enveloped my hard stick from sheath to tip. I was pulled up and back against him by his other arm, which grabbed my left breast. He pressed his muzzle into my neck and under my jaw, licking or drooling, I could not tell which. Ernst hoisted me back until I felt the firm muscled thighs beneath me. Once again sitting in his lap, I bounced with each thrust. With each thrust my slick member slid in his paw. My hips moved independent from my brain, seeking out as much pleasure from Ernst's hardness. We devolved into a writhing heap. Pleasure and desire could be the only powers that kept our bodies in place. When Ernst flooded my rear with warmth, I erupted, spurting my seed over the floor, his paw, and my stomach. He slowed and I could feel the rapid rise and fall of his chest against my back. I eased myself off the quaking member, grabbing it as it left my body.

Ernst convulsed at my touch, a reaction I mirrored when I turned and settled in his lap, brushing my tender rod through his fur. After a few pumps of my fist his member retained its rigidness. Kneeling over the dormouse I kissed him and slid back on to his hardened stick. Mine made a mess of his stomach, leaving the fur damp and sticky. His moan echoed in my mouth, and we began the dance again. This was something far different from what I witnessed in his home. We continued into the night, overwhelmed in the pleasure possible in our union, our descent into depravity and madness, a celebration of the power in pleasure.

* * *

"The pleasure that comes of exercising a power that questions... the pleasure that kindles at having to evade this power... the power that lets itself be invaded by the pleasure it is pursuing... power asserting itself in the pleasure of showing off, scandalizing, or resisting... these attractions, these evasions, these circular incitements have traced around bodies and sexes, not boundaries not to be crossed, but perpetual spirals of power and pleasure."

--Michel Foucault

The History of Sexuality Volume 1: An Introduction