Chapter 11: Handy Calamity

“Huh-bwuh!” Gila snorted, then shivered as he saw the ceiling of a residential room. He breathed loudly, his vision twitching with the throbs of his heart. The rhythmic hiss of George’s CPAP machine whispered in the background. Lying supine, Gila automatically fumbled for the nightstand and pulled his phone from the charger.

His calendar said he had work today in two hours.

He hadn’t gone to work yet.

He hadn’t gone to work pantsless, wearing only a diaper.

He hadn’t … dammit; he hadn’t even topped his husband that morning.

“Geez,” sighed the cat, slapping his phone back down. The balls of his palms massaged his eyes, then forehead. The dream still hung in his mind: the confusing embarrassment of exposure; the sudden, dirty release; the condescending smirk of another male as he was treated like a toddler.

He swore he could still smell it, too: that fresh, earthy funk of a necessary evil, executed in a dramatic, contentious way. Gila debated what he’d do with his free time; he could either read before work or perhaps get in a game. Heck, maybe he’d take a walk to rattle the nightmare off.

He reached for his smartphone and rolled in the bed. A cold rush hit his hips and he looked behind him: apparently he’d slept with the blankets off. Maybe he’d kicked them off in his unconscious frenzy. Gila rolled back to review any notifications, then got hit with another cold shock around his groin. There was also a shift of mass underneath: perhaps he’d rolled over on his tail.

The fresh, fishy aroma hit his nose again and his eyes opened with sudden alertness.

“Wait,” he whispered, then set his phone aside to feel down his body. It was still dark, and he daren’t wake George until he appraised the situation. His briefs—proper tighty-whities—were tautly tented with morning wood. They were also cold and wet, and this wetness spread to the bed around him.

His fingers shaking, he returned a pair to his nose to sniff. The musky, salty scent of urine sparkled in his nose and his heart sank. In disbelief, his paws went down to his crotch—fully soaked—and retraced the large wet spot surrounding his groins.

He’d pissed the bed. Nightly enuresis; Gila was officially a bedwetter.

George hissed with his breathing machine, still taking long, somnolent breaths.

“Jesus Christ,” Gila quietly gasped as panic set in. What could he do? How could he mitigate the situation? Could he carefully, sneakily, pull the sheets back over his side and wait for George to go to work? He could explain the laundry later: the sheets were getting musty from all the sex they were having; that was the ticket!

But George was getting suspicious of the accidents he was having … and George didn’t have to work early today. He could cover the sheets, then go to work, and when he got home he’d take care of the bed. But cat piss cooking for eight hours would produce a perfume that would provoke anyone within sniffing distance of the bedroom. One change of clothes for George and bam, “Honey did you pee the bed? Like maybe during sex, it squirted out, or …?”

Preponderance of evidence, whammo. “Book him, cuff him, and give him a warm bottle, boys!”

“I’m not a diaper-baby, God damn it,” Gila growled.

But it wasn’t just cat pee he was smelling in the air. His fingers, now cold from urine and fear, reached down past his moist pouch. Gila spread his legs and felt a mass shift between and against his cheeks. Sure enough, his fingers traced not the inward curve of his rump, but an outward, lumpy projection. It formed to them as he pressed.

“Oh God,” he softly moaned. In morbid curiosity, he slid his feet closer to his buttocks and spread his thighs. His hand traced down the soft, prominent mound, then around each side, forming in his mind a frightening picture of the significant amount of soil he’d pushed into his briefs. This was a full movement from yesterday’s dinner, as was the puddle around him a full bladder yield. Anything and everything in the anterior chambers of his waste system his body had emptied into his permeable briefs and therefore, their wedding bed.

His heart fluttered and his hands trembled. Gila’s mind went into rapid risk assessment.

Okay, so we get out of bed, shower, laundry. We know at the very least, I have to confess to George that I wet the bed. Where will that lead? I don’t know. Spending the night in … oh lord almighty. Diapers. I’ll take care of my undies, and throw them away because we like Bulge’s anyway. Or … I’ll just do it at the laundromat in Leakguard. Oh boy; the ghetto. Time to get up—eugh, I’m still hard.

“Morning, babe,” George droned, rolling over. His meaty paw fell on Gila’s stomach and stroked his soft, dry belly fur.

Shit!

“H-hey, honey,” said Gila. Options were now cut by ninety-eight percent. He could get out of bed in a hurry, saying he had to use the toilet, then just shower as usual. But oh, the conversation…

“How’s my handsome man doing?” he asked. His paw slid lower, circling Gila’s navel. A few inches lower would find his cold, soaked waistband.

“Oh, doing good, baby; had a funny dream but now it’s morning.”

George’s paw stroked his lower belly. “Funny how those go. Remember any of it?”

“Ah, you know. Just a big mind dump from the day before,” he said. Gila cringed at the word “dump,” feeling the soil cling to his buttocks. As soon as George took off his machine, the scat would be out of the bag.

“Therapy of its own, in some ways,” the gecko said, yawning in his mask. “Other times it’s more like seeds of discord, all the mind’s paranoia.”

“Yeah,” Gila chuckled. His hips were feeling cold with the clammy underwear clinging to him. “Crazy how that works.”

“Too bad we’re still strong,” said George. His paw slid south and a gasp hitched in Gila’s throat. The fingers glided over his waistband, then up the small spire stretching the front. “Oooh, feels like you’re feeling strong, too.”

“Ah! Heh, you know how morning wood goes,” the cat nervously chuckled.

An earthy growl rumbled from the gecko. “Oh yeah, that I do,” he said. Still laying on his back with his head toward the ceiling and his eyes closed, George opened Gila’s double fly with practiced fingers and extracted his erect member.

Gila’s fur spiked as the gecko’s large fist wrapped three of its fingers, along with its thumb, around his cock and started stroking. “How about I make you feel real good before work?” asked George, rubbing his length.

“D-do I have a choice?” Gila asked. The intimate touch sent shimmering zaps of pleasure into his hips. George was jerking him off in wet and messy briefs, and it felt amazing.

“Mmmh, feels like you already chose,” purred the gecko. “Cum for me. Make a nice fountain.”

That final word blended with his dream from the night, and Gila remembered himself freely pissing into the air while he lay in a soaked, soiled diaper. The fantasy tickled his brain with slick tentacles, and the cat felt his balls tensing up. “Oh, baby,” he huffed, “make me cum.”

The males surged forward in their hungry exchange. George’s cool hand pumped Gila’s dick, and the cat thrust his hips into the welcoming paw. The motions of his groin rubbed his wet briefs and his dirt against him, and Gila’s shaft tingled as it accelerated toward orgasm.

George moaned and flipped the sheets off himself, revealing his own hefty length. His other paw stroked the massive organ, requiring two, almost three lengths of his fist as compared to the fingers running up and down Gila.

“Holy shit,” Gila whispered, and he abandoned all sense. The cat sprang up in the bed and crawled towards George’s lap. His briefs wobbled with firm mess, refreshing the carnal male scent of his leavings. He patted George’s fist and it yielded to his own paw and mouth. The gecko’s fingers continued their massage on Gila’s crotch, stroking his prick and occasionally reaching down to fondle his balls. With his loins suffused in electric pleasure, the cat drove forward with desire.

He leaned down and stretched his jaw to encircle his husband’s shaft. The first few inches went in easy, then his tongue and tonsils were crowded by its girth. Relaxed and receptive to the gecko’s powerful body, he took a quick breath and slid his face down. The thick shaft spread his throat and stifled his cough, penetrating his upper body until his neck’s angle molded to its slant. George’s hand was fast and insistent, fluttering Gila into a thrusting, sucking beast.

The gecko reached down and started gripping and tugging his own balls. His hips shook when he pushed up into Gila’s silky pipe. Both males were getting more frantic with their actions, chasing their climax like predators with eyes dilated.

“Hmmh!” Gila whined, and he pushed down on George’s cock until he had to hold his breath. The leopard gecko hissed, wrapping one fist tight around his balls as he tugged the cat’s prick with a few more pre-slicked strokes.

With a jolt, Gila burst first, his thighs wobbling as his crotch spurted long, thin ropes over the sheets in front of him. “That’s right,” George growled. When he felt hot, viscous wetness coat his hand, he moved his paw under Gila and grasped his balls. The cat jolted and sprayed, landing a few on his husband’s hips.

Gila choked as he felt two fingers press behind his balls and into his mess. “H-huh?” asked George, but his climax soon took over. The prodigious girth occupying Gila’s throat throbbed and erupted, gushing deep into the cat’s stomach. He squirmed as the organ pulsed and flooded his gut, carefully sliding his mouth up so he could take breaths between gulps. His hips curled inward as George dug further into his clay, squishing the mess against his undercarriage.

Gila kept sucking and gulping, taking deep draughts of air and cum alternately. George initially smiled in his mask, reveling in the lovely dual climax between lovers, but then Gila saw his eyebrows knot and fold like faulty scaffolding.

“Ahh, baby, that was nice,” he sighed. His hand moved toward his CPAP hose and the cat intercepted it, interlocking their fingers in the pretense of love. Then George’s other hand kept fishing, his fingers crawling back between his legs to cup and stroke his soiled lump. “Honey, these aren’t your balls; did you lose a plug…?” he asked.

The gecko’s hand exited from between the cat’s thighs and reached for the mask. Gila was falling off a cliff; the gravity was inevitable. “Honey, wait!” he cried. The shout was so urgent that George paused and opened his eyes. He looked toward his husband, who at first was just his beautiful cat with a slight belly and classic briefs, but then he noticed the off-yellow discoloration around Gila’s hips, and behind his drippy erection was two mounds: that of his balls, and then something else.

George’s other hand, that on his balls, was too fast. “Baby, what the heck—” he said, and then cracked his mask open. Any remnants of that sentence vanished as the musky twang of bodily waste assaulted his nostrils, and George sprang out of bed in a panic, barely disconnecting his machine before accidentally flinging it across the room.

The gecko now stood, naked with a large half-erection hanging over the bed, and took in the scene with dilated, reptile eyes. He coughed as the semi-fresh outhouse grunge filled his sinuses, and hurriedly put a pillow over his snout. George paced on his side of the bed, looking back and forth between the floor and his husband, whose shitty briefs were hanging from his backside.

“What the hell is going on, love; what the hell?” he asked, his tone not angry, but enormously puzzled. “What the…” he started, throwing a paw out. Gila’s knees were in a large dark spot on the bed, with a distinct opaque smear in the center. He looked at his own hand, and saw that his fingertips had bright brown smudges on them. “Oh, come on!” he growled.

The husky, muscular gecko stomped to the bathroom and threw his pillow in the hall. He coughed a few times as the tap turned on, and Gila heard him pump the soap dispenser several times. “Jesus Christ; it’s under my claws,” he grumbled. “The fuck’s going on around here … God damn it …”

The water turned off and he sniffed. The water came back on and the soap dispenser pumped. “Stuff never comes out; don’t know how my brother does it. It’s only natural; babies do it all the time. We didn’t evolve just to melt at our own—”

The water snapped back off and the towel ruffled. George continued his mumbling as he scrubbed his fingers. Gila heard the snap of plastic packaging and the toothbrush holder jingle. Then there was the sound of bristles going back and forth, more water, and more soap.

Gila didn’t know what to do, so he shamefully slid off the bed. His tail went between his legs, mushing the soil against his buttocks. His eyes went back and forth between the hallway and the bed, watering not only from George’s seething confusion, but the omnipresent musk of piss and mess humidifying the room.

The gecko finally came back out, his eyes cut by his eyebrows and his shoulders up. He looked like a homunculus or hulk, the way he stomped and filled the corridor. George stopped at the threshold of their bedroom, his “pure” hand pointedly pinching his nostrils. He glared at Gila.

“Are you having a medical problem or do you have a fetish?” he asked.

“Wh-what?” asked Gila. His penis was still hanging out of his fly; self-consciously he tucked it back in and shivered as his fingers touched his soaked briefs.

“Are you deaf or avoidant?” George demanded, then waved his “unclean” paw. “Let me rephrase. What’s our love life gonna look like moving forward? Will it even be in the same direction?”

“Ah! Um, what are my options?”

George took a pointed breath through his mouth, his ridged eyelids squeezing closed. “Help me understand. Fifth time in two days. I don’t even poop that much normally.”

“I mean, perhaps I have an active body—”

“Not the point. I’m sure most rabbits can make it to the toilet. Not every city is as ‘welcoming’ as Puerto Panuela.”

Gila’s fur crawled. He remembered the billboard bragging about ‘luxury briefs,’ and his dream from last night. Was it a wet dream or…? “I don’t know why. Greed, maybe.”

George opened his eyes, one of his brows going higher. “Doing something that you shouldn’t, or can’t do in a polite society? You know how rank hell it would be if everyone was crapping their pants in the mall.”

Gila shivered. “I know, and I’m sure I’ve inconvenienced a few people with the bad smell—”

“There’s a reason people will say something ‘smells like shit.’”

“And you, most of all—”

“Most frequently of all.”

“Of that part, I’m most sorry. I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

“You’ve already had an encounter with the Praetorians and security,” said George. His posture was softer, and while he looked wonderfully attractive with his marbled musculature and deluxe genitalia, it was strictly off-limits while his nose was shut and his brow was furrowed. “What’s next? The police? Your boss?”

“I—” Gila stuttered. A shiver was coming on; the heat of sex was dissipating and he had soaked, soiled, saggy briefs hanging off him.

The doorbell rang and an authoritative, though musical knock sounded as well. “Praetorian PMC! Please open up in the next five minutes,” called out an authoritative, familiar voice.

George nodded and flinched to move into their humid bedroom. He turned around and traveled half the staircase. “Hey, it’s George, here! You need anyone in particular?”

“Husband can also sign for the package!” proclaimed the panda through the door.

“Hey, Prae Stevies!” the gecko laughed. His tone was exactly on the other side of the planet. “One sec; lemme get presentable.”

George thumped back up the stairs with remarkable reptile speed. He snapped his fingers and pointed toward the closet. “With your …” he stuttered with a growl, “With your cleanest hand, get my bathrobe.”

Gila rapidly nodded, desperately clawing for any molecule of redemption, then ran to the closet. His dirtiest hand he used to keep his undies up, his load flopping side-to-side as he shuffled, then he moved their clothing by their hangers—not the shoulders of fabric—and plucked George’s massive, towel-fabric bathrobe from the lot and gasped as the garment swung toward him.

He jumped back and hit the doorframe. His tail flattened against the wood, and his mud smashed against him. Gila winced, and hobbled out of the bedroom massaging his lower back. He held the robe out as far as his arm would reach, which was pretty decent with his almost-six foot frame.

George watched his husband waddle toward him with his calamitous underwear, and secretly reminisced about their sweet morning moment before the disaster. He didn’t know whether it was a betrayal, fraud, or just a shit-Icarus flying too close to the sun. The gecko’s heart skipped when he realized that sex under false pretenses was technically a crime.

“Thanks,” he said, transferring the garment and handing the hanger back to Gila. He went downstairs, donning the robe like a cape, and opened the door. “Officer Camaren!” George said brightly. There was a clap of hands for a manly shake and congenial greetings after that.

Gila stood in his crapped briefs and surveyed the bedsheets. He sighed, stripping the bed and balling it all up. The mattress cover, too, had a yellow stain and the faintest nucleus of brown. They’d purchased a waterproof one, not for incontinence but for sweat, and the cat thanked his lucky stars. There was only one staircase to the lower level, so for now Gila tossed it all in the hamper. The bedcover, thankfully, had not been touched, not even by the few squirts of his fraudulent orgasm. He went to the shower, absolutely shivering with hot-cold perspiration, and began the arduous process of stripping himself of his soiled underwear, flushing the solid matter, and rinsing them in the sink. He wrung them out, then rinsed the basin out until it was white again.

Then into the shower he went, turning it on hot and gritting his teeth as wet muck fell from his rump in indecorous splats. He scooted the piles to the drain and smooshed them down the grating with his foot, then scrubbed all over himself extra deep, almost drawing blood with his claws.

“Honey,” George called out. Gila heard the front door thump close and a few plastic packages whump against the floor. “Mind if we talk before you go to work?”

“I’ll be right down!” Gila replied. Dry, fluffed, and naked, he emerged from the bathroom and turned toward their bedroom. With his nostrils cleared and cleaned with the wonderful scent of shampoo in a hot shower, the hallway now seemed infused with his filthy accident. Acrid pee and earthy scat hung in the air, and he snarled to himself as he decided not to don a new pair of briefs, since of course now they were becoming a symbol of absolute, dirty degeneracy.

He ran down the stairs and George was standing in front of three clear packages with his arms folded. Gila stopped at the top of the stairs, and the gecko waved him downward. Like a guilty child, the cat slinked down their carpeted staircase, his tail up behind him like a question mark.

Before George sat three labeled packages, with three different styles of fonts. The first was “Clean Undies!” and had his Praetorian-washed briefs from Bulge’s. The second and third made Gila’s throat knot: “Briefies™” and “Armour by American Apogee Adult Diapers.”

“Oh, shit,” sighed Gila.

George paced, his paws migrating into his armpits. “I’m not gonna force you to do anything. Love ain’t based on ‘thou must’ but then again, it’d be a really good idea to regularly change the oil in your car if you don’t want to fuck the whole thing up, if you get my meaning.”

“Honey …” said Gila.

The gecko pushed the diapers toward his husband with his foot. “Speaking of really good ideas.”

The cat jumped back as if the bag was a large spider. “Love, if you take out the last two days, I can control myself.”

George rolled his eyes. “‘If you ignore my DUI, I’m a really good driver.’” Gila hissed and the gecko held up a paw. “Here’s my ultimatum. You can wear them to work, but you don’t have to. Because there’s a tail-catch in the back, you can slide them down for solid movements … in the toilet. On the other hand, here’s your Bulge’s underwear, all prepped and fresh to perk up your tasty parts.”

Gila squat down to grab them and George put a toe on the package. “Honey, look up at me,” he said, and the cat obeyed. The muscular gecko was absolutely enormous from this angle. “I do not want to hear even the faintest whisper of a bladder or bowel accident unless it’s a verifiable medical emergency. Even then, I’ll have questions as to why it took this long for you to seek treatment. The lightest whiff, love, and I’ll have to reevaluate.”

The cat’s vision blurred as he mentally located their wedding rings, then he pointed toward the bedroom—an unfortunate coincidence. “Those bands said we made a vow for eternity! Not until those rings rust can we amend.”

“A vow is a promise with material considerations,” said George. “And the last two days, your material has been an enormous consideration.” He kicked the middle package toward Gila, the Briefies™ absorbent male underwear. Looked like briefs, peed like a diaper. “We don’t have any kids. There is nothing but love keeping us together and you have seriously been testing that with your recklessness.”

“What?!” Gila gasped. His eyes were suddenly hot.

George’s flickered. “I’m losing respect for you,” he said, then walked past him toward the garage. As the cat’s vision filled with moisture, he heard a very wet sniff from the gecko as he trudged back upstairs.

The cat stared at the three packages like he was staring at three different handcuffs. He gathered them all up in his arms, then trudged upstairs. Gila stopped in the hallway, hearing George spraying their bedroom up and down with SO2 Scrubber. The smell was quickly evaporating; he wished the tension would as well. There was a rustle of clothing, the shadow of a massive man moving, then his short, bulky husband reemerged in a normal tank top and work jeans.

These jeans still had their crotch; they weren’t the sexy ones. As George passed Gila, the cat pressed himself against the wall. The gecko’s arm came out and patted him on the shoulder—a wordless, weak reassurance.

Gila shook his head at himself and went into their bedroom. He ripped all three packages open, then went through them thinnest to bulkiest. The Bulge’s low-cuts were lovely, and friskily kept a semblance of male shape as they hung from his fingers. He … didn’t deserve these. Gila folded each like a flag and respectfully put them aside. The Briefies™ were strange: they were soft like normal underwear, and did an excellent job of disguising the absorbent crotch and rear to feel like fabric. The cat looked at the ripped package and saw the tagline: “Keep the respect of traditional underwear while keeping yourself safe!” He whined and felt a couple tears dribble. Nah, he really wasn’t in the same county as “respect.” This was a last-stand mechanic in his Live Serviceman game: either the boss was dead or his team was.

“Jesus fuck,” Gila said to himself, turning to the final package. “Armour by American Apogee: The Diaper that Fights the War on Bowel Terror!!!” There was even a little American flag on the rear waistband. “Am I really wearing an adult diaper to work? Like Ronald?”

There was a knock on their bedroom threshold. George was back, with a quiet look on his face. “Darling, Prae Stevies is still here if you have any, y’know … questions. He gave me, um,” the leopard gecko said, reaching in his back pocket, “a cleaning kit just in case something happens. They got little disposable brushes and wipes with tiny bristles. Just, um … if there is a real problem.”

George tossed the bag onto their dresser and left the room. Gila’s chest hollowed and his neck muscles tightened: this was the meekest he’d ever seen his husband. The man who’d started a local franchise; the man who’d been one of the first gay mayors in Idaho: and Gila was blasting his kneecaps right out from under him!

“Jesus,” Gila growled, pulling out one of the thick white pads. The plastic was smooth against his fingers, and it squished like the seats in George’s fancy truck. A keen electric shock went through Gila: this adult diaper would save their marriage.

“Hell yeah,” he whispered, folding it out like he was opening a gun case.

The cat paused when the thing spread out into a strange origami hourglass. “Fuck,” he said, then yanked the package toward him to read the instructions like a little girly woman.

You know it might be simpler if you just don’t shit your pants, he thought.

Yeah, well the first rule of exploring the Arctic is don’t freeze. Rule two is wear something just in case it’s cold, he said back to himself.

Gila did eventually succeed. He initially tried laying down, but then getting his tail through the catch, and then laying back down on his tail, was a complicated mess. Instead, with the diaper secured to the base of his outer spine, he pivoted and pinned it back against a wall, then brought the front up between his legs as per the pansy-boy instructions.

His dick was rock hard.

“Oh, you too there, eh bud?” he asked, then covered the little protesting prick with a grand blanket he taped to his hips.

Then he turned toward the mirror with his arms folded. On the plus side, it was a gigantic white brief: he loved those. On the other, well … nah, there was no other side.

He was fighting a war on bowel terror for the patriotism of his gay love.

“Hell yeah,” he said, then waddled to the closet to get his clothes. Gila’s “fat-jeans” were from two inches ago when he was getting really good deals at the fancy Big Caligula’s Pizza location in Spreadings. These fit overly-well over the thick diaper, and cinched up nicely with his belt. They looked a little baggy in the mirror, but for today, precaution was king. On went his work-polo and for the most part, he looked quite normal.

Gila squinted at the mirror, turning left and right, trying to find a tell-tale bulge in his pants, and he thought he caught it in the back: he definitely had diaper-butt, but then he blinked and he couldn’t find it again. He took a deliberate, slow breath.

“I guess this is how Ronald does it,” he muttered, then swished downstairs. His heart fluttered because he could hear his own diaper. Swish, crinkle, swish, crinkle it went. “I’m gonna be in a loud store,” he reasoned to himself, “only caution would be the breakroom, and even then there’s the fridge condenser and the fluorescent and the HVAC.”

To be honest, he could barely hear George’s aging knees unless his ear was right against them. He exited out the front door and saw Prae Stevies sitting in the passenger side of his patrol vehicle with the door wide open. The buff panda spotted the cat and nodded toward him.

“Decide to go with the Briefies™ today?” he asked. His voice echoed in the neighborhood, making Gila wince.

But then he smiled; he knew Camaren was just buttering him up. “No; the full Armour.”

The panda clicked his tongue. “Niiiiice. I can’t even tell you’re wearing one of American Apogee’s premier products of the year. You know it has space-age polymers that got our astronauts to Mars, and back, on only three changes?” he bragged, thrusting his fingers up with the “ok” sign.

Gila’s brow raised; he didn’t know Dyperpunk was the way of the future. “I … didn’t know that, but wow, good job on them.”

“You need anything else, bossman?” asked Cam. It felt exquisitely good that the panda wasn’t talking down to him anymore.

“Just another day pickin’ capitalism in the corpo fields.”

Camaren snorted, exiting the SUV so he could get to the driver seat. On the way, he clapped Gila on the same shoulder as George had, and the cat felt himself filled with fire. The sculpted male waited until Gila made eye contact, then said, “Sing me a good spiritual while you’re there.”

The two laughed and Gila even got a fistbump. The cat turned back toward the house with a massive grin on his face, then spotted George in the open garage, leaning on the wall. Gila’s ears went down, but then his husband called out, “Hey honey.”

“Yeah?”

“Kick some ass today,” he said, then before going back into the house, asked, “You want breakfast?”

His fur bristled at the thought of an awkward silence around the table. “Nah, it’s okay! I’ll grab something on the way.”

“Careful of that fast food,” George jokingly warned.

“I’ll try!” answered Gila.

“Try real good now, y’hear?”

“I will!”

“That’s the spirit.”

Energized at the opportunity to make things right, Gila jogged toward the garage and got into his car, a meager Something Whatever that had roll-up windows in the current century. He heard a knock at the window. George was standing there with his backpack.

Gila rolled down the window.

“Hey,” George said, holding the bag out. “I packed you the cleaning supplies and an extra … y’know … in case you need it. Actually packed two; pays to be prepared.”

Gila took the bag with a blush and opened it. The supplies were all there, as George promised, and he had even gone the extra length to cover them all with an extra pair of pants.

“Hey,” Gila said, meekly smiling. “Thank you.”

George gently slapped the roof of the car. “Hey. You’re welcome.”

The cat gulped. While his husband had gone to the wonderful lengths of making sure everything was a-okay, his affection was definitely tempered.

“I’ll be good,” Gila said, and George nodded with a half-smile.