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for Rianitsu

I Know What It Is You Want

by _SeHT

Why did I agree to come here? he asked himself for what felt like the millionth time that day. I hate conventions.

His mate had talked him into coming, selling it as 'an attempt to bring you out of yourself a little, my love'. But the thought of spending three days and four nights in close proximity to so many people, surrounded by them on all sides and bombarded with noise, stray thoughts, flaring emotional bleed-through and the other myriad ephemera of social interaction gave him progressively worse nightmares, until, the night before they were due to depart, he barely slept at all. The morning they left their house in a small Vermont town to travel down to the convention he could barely keep his eyes open and his stomach was a single acidulous gargle.

His mate, naturally, loved it. The people, the opportunity to catch up with folks, eat, drink and be merry, dance the night away, not sleep and keep going on full... this was what his mate did best. But him... Don't get me wrong, he thought to himself, I'm not an utter recluse... but all these people, all these... these furs... He simply couldn't understand them, the draw, the pull of all this... this...

This what?

Oh, I have no idea.

"Come on, love! You've got to see the artist's hall!"

"Have I got to?"

His mate's face fell a little. "Well, no, I guess not..."

Sigh. "But you'd like me to."

"Not if you don't want to."

Once he could have taken that at face value but not any more. With a groan he lifted his tired body up onto his tired legs and feet and tramped slowly towards the dealers' hall. As he anticipated, as he feared, it was thronged already and passage between the tables was slow and torturous. Most of the artwork was of the overtly furry kind, with slender, cute, perfectly toned young males having sex with perfect erections; hyperithyphallic males and females with breasts like stars; gorgeous females and perfect males fitting together... and sex, sex, everywhere sex. Not just on the tables, either, but everywhere: the reek of sex planned, thought of, dreamed of, performed. As he glanced across, trying to make a way down one path, he saw a slender guy wearing a cheeky grin and a wolf-printed t-shirt looking at his mate, and his mate looking back at him. There were three in the bed...

There seemed to be a current flowing around the room and he gave himself to it, letting it carry him until it broke and eddied for a moment and he was deposited more or less bodily in a quiet corner of the room where there was nobody except the person manning a lone stand. Several extremely famous and popular artists had been placed more or less together and naturally they drew all the attention. For the moment he had a little calm and he availed himself of it, walking over to the stand and giving the female running it a thin, tired smile. "Hello."

She gave an odd bow of her head and smiled as he began to browse the selection on the table. It wasn't huge, and consisted entirely of short comics based around Ancient Egyptian themes: Gods coming into the real world, or people going back to meet Gods. Some of the stories were set in the old times themselves. He flicked through, interested, fatigue momentarily forgotten.

"I see you like my stories."

"You drew these?" A nod. "They're beautiful."

"Thank you; one tries. Are you an artist?"

He shook his head and laughed. "No!... No, I'm no artist." He set one book down and selected another. Anubis again. I know he's cute, but there are other Gods besides him. "I never could draw... don't know why. Just can't. I write, though," he added as an afterthought and a touch defensively. "Sort of. Sometimes." Anubis again, Bast, Anubis, Horus, Anubis, Anubis -- Anubis! What is this, "Anubis 'R' Us"?

"Writing can be art, as well," she chided him gently. A stray glint of light illuminated her eyes and they sparkled gold. She was beautiful, he realised, now that he took time to consider. Amber eyes were set in an almost aquiline face beneath red-brown hair, and long arms ended in strong-looking hands with perfect pointed nails. She was wearing a velvet dress in a mixture of colours: red, gold, brown... On one of her fingers was a gold signet ring, although it was too dark to make out the inscription. If I were a little more confident... she is beautiful. "After all, it was in Ancient Egypt - quite literally, if one thinks about it." Her lips curved into a warm smile that made him shiver nonetheless and put him in mind of a bird-of-prey about to pounce upon an unsuspecting meal.

"True," he said, "but try telling that to most of them... If there's no sex in the first two pages they just move on and find something where there is sex in the first page, or at least the promise of it..." He managed a growl. "Welcome to the instant gratification age."

Was she grinning? "I take it you disapprove?"

"Well... yeah. There's no room for plot, for character... Why do two people meet, have sex and decide they're going to 'be in love' for the rest of their lives when they're barely out of school?..." He saw that she was grinning, now. What the hell; may as well bury myself properly. "It's stupid, is what it is. It's... argh, it pisses me off! Nobody's interested in anything more than getting themselves off, in blowing a wad, any more than - than -- than people are in anybody but bloody Anubis! There are more forms of art than drawing, and there are more Egyptian Gods than that jackal-faced walking erection!"

She'd stopped grinning by this point, he noticed, and was giving him a very strange look. Oh fuck; I'm in for it now. She's probably the High Priestess of the local We Love Anubis franchise. Her gaze rested on him for a moment, considering. "Such as whom?"

It took him an appreciable time to reply and when he did he found he could barely look at her. "S-S-S..." Why am I stammering?! "S-S-Set..."

"Set? Sutekh?" He nodded; it was all he could manage. There must have been wisps of smoke curling from his cheek, so hotly was he blushing. "Why him?"

"I... I don't know, ma'am." Gone was the easy, vulgar familiarity he had slipped into. Her gaze was compelling, powerful and piercing and he wilted beneath it. "He... he is so handsome, powerful... Saviour of Ra, God of the Desert, of storms and winds, of destruction and chaos..."

"And you find that arousing? Look at me. Look at me," she repeated as he hesitated and his head turned almost without him being conscious of it. Her gold eyes fixed on his green eyes, her gaze drilled through them in a moment, stripped his soul down like a malfunctioning engine and laid him bare beneath it. A thought of Set entered his mind and his body responded, adrenal fear flushing through his system at the possibility of pain and yet his sex, so small beneath his overweight belly, so imperfect in his eyes, began to twitch and swell. Set, his mind whispered. My Lord... oh, My Lord...

He blinked several times. Behind the table, she was smiling at him and her eyes shone warmly. "Here," she said, reaching into a box of bagged comics on the table and drawing out a slim volume to hand to him. "Try this one; I think you may like it." On the cover, an image of Set, facing him directly, pointed muzzle grinning. The plastic covering glinted in the half-light and he could have sworn that the image of the Dark God had blinked. Impossible, surely.

"Thank you, ma'am," he said, reaching into one pocket for his wallet. "How much -"

She had raised a hand and shook her head. "Read it first... If you like it, you can pay for it later. I shall be here - or, someone will."

"Thank you, er..." He looked around for a name and found none. "Thank you." She nodded and, clutching his treasure closely to his chest, he plunged back into the milling crowd. Behind him, quite unseen, the stand had vanished along with all the boxes and comics, and where the elegant woman had stood was quite another figure entirely. Proud and radiantly beautiful, she was dressed in robes of purest white, enhanced by gold and blue ornaments, and in place of her aquiline face there was the head of a red kite, one eye fixed upon her recent customer as he made his way from the room. A moment later, she too faded away and was gone.

*

I can't believe it... a Set comic!

His groin was aching by the time he reached his room and found the text message on his phone (which he'd left by the bed, of course) inviting him to a 'friend's place' for the night. He knew what that meant: food, silliness, alcohol, probably some dope being passed around and then a sexual free-for-all until such point as everyone passed out. The time on the note suggested it had been sent only a few minutes after his mate had dragged him into the dealer's hall. Trying to get rid of me. Makes sense. So he deleted it, turned off the phone, stripped and went to shower.

Outside, the city was winding down for the day. The sounds of vehicle horns drifted up on the thick summer air that was thick with smog, pollen and humidity. People hurried by, running from building to building, ducking in and out of dry, air-conditioned coolness, anxious to avoid spending too much time on the baking streets. Traffic shifted slowly forwards and backwards down the streets as workers headed home for the weekend and the first revellers made their way into the city. He could hear it over the spray of the shower and the steady thumping of his neighbours' bed against the wall as they fucked and groaned; he could imagine the sight of it all, the noise and bustle and grind and grime and sweat and fumes and angst; he found himself increasingly glad that he didn't live in a city. There were some perks to being a freelancer and the ability to live in a small town was one of them. But if it costs me my mate...?

Clean and cool, he returned to the bedroom to dry off. He flipped the radio on and turned the dial to find NPR: momentarily the sound of voices reporting and discussing the day's events filled the room. He found himself arguing for and against points as he listened to the latest news, his glorious find forgotten for a moment and lying flat on the other side of the bed, the image of Set facing upwards, staring sightlessly out at the world.

Now that he was clean and the conventionists next door appeared to have finished copulating for the moment, he could settle down on the bed and turn his attention to his find. The comic slipped smoothly from the plastic covering and he stared at it as he held it, feeling the smoothness of the uncreased cover. The Dark God of Egypt stared at him, a small, knowing grin on his face. "I know what it is you want," it read in curving, papyrus-esque text. Just that alone, the smug, certain expression on Set's face, was enough to cause his uncut penis to twitch and begin to stiffen. Fingers trembling, he opened the comic and let NPR fade into the background as he began to read.

It was a story about a young male from a small town who attends a local temple to become a scribe. The other boys know what they want to be from the moment they arrive there, but this young male has no idea. He applies himself to his studies and eventually becomes a scribe in the Temple of Set. Every day he prostrates himself before the great statue of his god and begs and prays for guidance, but none comes. Then one night a voice in his dreams bids him return to the Temple if he would learn his future; obeying, he dresses and runs to the Temple, entering to find Set standing before his own statue, waiting. The boy throws himself to the floor, prostrates himself, and Set laughs... reaches down and pulls him up. The boy's skirt has fallen open somewhat to reveal an erection, and Set laughs more, but it is a kind laugh. "Is this what you want?..." he asks, taking one of the boy's hands and guiding it to the front of his skirt, pressing, outlining a massive bulge. The boy's eyes are limpid and he simply moans, begging, falling to his knees to worship his God with hands and mouth and eventually the softness beneath his tail, over and over again, each spilling their seed countless times into the sand. Daylight fading in through the Temple door, Set stands and draws the boy to his feet. "I know what it is you want," says the Dark God, and the boy replies, "Yes, My Lord..." The two of them, naked, walk towards the naos, fading away and vanishing just as the first light of dawn shafts into the room...

... on the final page, an image of Set, wearing his jewellery and his skirt which has fallen open to reveal his balls and sex, fully engorged and drooling, surrounded by a small harem of perfect catamites and young females, all aroused and 'worshipping' each other, including, nearest to Set, the young male whose story we have just read; in the background two massive male tigers, fully nude and armed with spears, both fully hard, guard the entrance to the room 'at attention'. And Set looks out of the page, his expression knowing, arrogant, proud, louche... "I know what it is you want..."

He set the comic down on the other side of the bed and slid further down. Next door they were fucking yet again but he didn't care for his hand was working himself hard. "I know what it is you want... I know what it is you want... I know what it is - oh - nngggh - what it is - aahhhh - Sseee -- Ssssseeeee --- ohhh, SSSSEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEETTT!"

*

He awoke several hours later from a profound and total sleep, having fallen asleep where he lay in a post-orgasmic stupor. His cum had dried to a thin crust on his front, but he paid it no more heed than the softness of his cock. The curtains were open and the sky beyond dark but for the glitter of stars; light from the cityscape flowed in to bathe the room in reflected mercury cold.

Rising from the bed, he glanced at the clock and was shocked to discover it was a bare minute or two before midnight. The radio had turned itself off hours ago, whether during his self-love or his sleep he neither knew nor cared. After a brief visit to the bathroom to attend to the call of nature and procure a wet flannel with which to wipe his smeary front he wandered over to the window and looked out at the night.

For a city, it was surprisingly quiet. Mind you, I don't know this burg, so I wouldn't know what passes for 'noisy' around here, either. There were a few people walking up and down the pavement beneath the summer-leafy trees, and from somewhere in the far distance came the howl of a police siren Dopplering past. A car eased its way down the road as he watched, slowing on its approach to the crossroads where the lights were against it. All he could see were buildings, the odd advertising hoarding atop them, a marshland of vents, aerials, roof access doors and lift housings, almost as far as the eye could see.

There was a quiet creak from behind him, the sound of a bed yielding to weight.

"Oh, you're back, are you?" he said. "I didn't hear you come in. Party not what it was expected to be? not enough dope and casual, unprotected sex for your liking?" His voice was cold and he couldn't stop the hate and anger from creeping into it. It was how things seemed to be between his mate and him now, and he had no idea how to fix it. Where did our love go? he asked himself with a sigh. "Not enough cute, pretty boys with big dicks?"

"Depends how you define 'cute'. And big dicks aren't a requirement."

His heart stopped: that was not his mate's voice. The voice that he had just heard was deep and resonant, rich like the most sumptuous dessert and warm as newly-baked bread. Slowly, he turned around into the room and his heart, which had just dared to recommence beating, stopped again, for there on the bed, on his side, lay --

"My... my God..."

"You may call me Set if you prefer." Those long lips quirked into a playful smile.

"My... my God..." He was speechless, unable to find any words; unable, even, to cause his brain to function beyond the brainstem's basics. There in front of him, lying on his side in the bed in a hotel room, was an Egyptian God... Not just any God, either, but Him... Him... God of the Desert, God of Storms, Strength of the Pharaoh and Protector of the Barque of Ra... "S... S..." He was lying where he had laid the comic earlier. Part of his brain tried to insist that he ask this rude and impertinent stranger to move, to get up off the comic as it was sure to be ruined and it wasn't even paid for yet. What few of the rest of his higher brain functions were coming out of shock just giggled quietly to themselves and rocked back and forth a bit.

"S... Set..."

"That's right... that is my name." There was that playful grin again. He hadn't moved, apart from to speak. Has he even blinked? Surely I'm hallucinating this? If he doesn't blink, then I must be... "Now you seem to have mastered that, perhaps we could move onto polysyllables."

His faculties returned to him in a rush, the shock of parsing the existence of a God of Ancient Egypt lying on his bed having been flushed from his system. "Set! My Lord!" One knee seemed just to collapse and he knelt forwards on it, leaning his body fully towards Set to prostrate himself as he had seen the young boy in the comic do. "I beg forgiveness... I am not worthy to behold you." Something surged inside him, something he had not felt before.

"Arise." The single spoken command pulled him erect again, back to his feet. Set was smiling, though those eyes set in that black face regarded him unblinkingly. There was a pause similar to the one he had experienced downstairs, only this time he felt no fear but an utter willingness to submit. His soul blossomed and opened, a beautiful flower of truth for Set to behold. He would stand here forever, display his heart to this God, this paean of manhood lying semi-naked on his bed; light glints upon his jewellery, lazuli and sapphire blue, red of ruby and emerald too, chased with gold their grace to hold... gold contrasting with black hide, darker than the shadows and the night, strong, wiry arms and slender fingers ending in sharp-pointed claws... Oh, to stand here forever...

"... that we've got that out of the way," Set was saying. Since when was he sitting up?! Gods, I must seem such a prat! Set sat on the edge of the bed, his pointed muzzle tipped slightly upwards to regard him. "Hello? Set calling; is anyone receiving?"

He blushed violently. "Sorry, Lord Set. I was..."

"I know where you were. It's all right. Here... come and sit down." A hand patted the edge of the bed and he crossed over and sat down, curling himself over a bit in a belated attempt to cover his nakedness and hide the shame of his flabby, hairy, disgusting body and his small prick. "I won't say 'I suppose you're wondering what's going on', because that would be too cliché. I know you're wondering what's going on."

"Either that or I'm dreaming," he heard himself say.

Set laughed. "You could be... You could be having a lucid dream, yes. But how could you tell? If you pinch yourself in a lucid dream, you hurt. You're inside the system: there's no way to tell. But you're not dreaming, I assure you." He could feel the nearness of Set's body, feel the heat from his body flowing through the air to caress him, smell the scent of the God who sat on the bed next to him... rich and potent, like storms and thunder and dry sand shifting in the breeze, the caress of stone and the ache of a distant oasis.

"So how are you here?"

"Because you wanted me to be. Because I wish to be."

"I wanted you to be?"

"Yes." Set gestured at the packet on the bed that had held the comic. He saw that the slim volume had been placed on the pillows, out of the way, and somehow that was more comforting than if the book had vanished. The image of Set, too, was still on the cover. "Don't tell me that my wife was wrong about all this. You met her earlier."

A brief flashback... the woman at the stall. "That... that was Nebt-het?"

The proper name brought an approving grin and a firm nod from Set. "It was indeed. She saw you enter the room and thought she would set up a little introduction for you. It isn't often one encounters someone who so longs for us, these days."

"I thought lots of people did. Everybody loves Ancient Egypt."

"People love what they think of as Ancient Egypt. They like the memes: sarcophagi, Tutankhamen, animal-headed gods, the Sphinx, pyramids and pharaohs. But they're just memes, just ideas. Something to think about, to compare the world with. Something to hang on the wall or stand on the desk. That's all."

"But this is a furry convention... There must be a hundred people here who want Anubis to come and fuck them through the mattress. One picture of Anubis and there's enough wet underwear around to turn the Sahara into a bayou."

Set laughed and the sound seemed to come from somewhere in his chest, rolling up out of him in waves. "Oh Aser, what a mental image!... So why aren't you adding your loincloth to the stack? Don't you like Anpu?"

"It's not that, Lord, it's just... He is attractive, he is handsome and virile..."

"But?" A gentle prompt and a smile.

His voice was a whisper. "... but... I prefer you."

"I'm honoured."

A beat. "I... I thought that was my job."

Set chuckled. "Ah, there is life after all. That's good."

"Well, it isn't every day I turn around to find an Ancient Egyptian god lying semi-naked on my bed." More's the pity...

"It isn't every day we can." Set rose to his feet and stretched. His muzzle tipped up towards the ceiling and he arched his back, pushed his arms out to their maximum extent and gave a prodigious yawn. White fangs in neat rows contrasted brightly with his black hide, and inside that there was a long, slender tongue. "It isn't every day we're allowed to. Even we have rules to obey."

"Rules? But you're gods." He found himself easing down onto his side and resting on one elbow, looking up at Set. Gods... he's beautiful. "Surely gods don't have to follow rules... how can you be omnipotent if you have to follow rules?"

"Oh, but we're not omnipotent. We have our limitations, despite what Iahaweh would have you believe. He's been trying for millennia to find a way to work around them and he still hasn't managed it yet. It's his pet project."

"So... how come you're here?"

"Like I said: you wanted me to be. Because you begged for me to be. Because it was the dearest dream of your heart... Because when you released your seed you called my name." Set moved over and knelt on the floor. "Because I wanted to be here."

"What about Nebt-het?"

"What about her? She has her own to look after." There must have been a disbelieving frown on his face, because Set reached out a hand to come. "Come; come and see."

He took the hand and was amazed at the smoothness of the skin of the fingers that curled around his own. Set drew him from the bed and together, hand in hand, they walked towards the window; as they approached it seemed as though the world beyond was just another vision in a television screen, for mist swirled within the thin layer of glass and the view was obscured. A moment later a circular area appeared in the mist. Within it, he could see a bedroom, dimly lit, and in the bed a male was lying on his back, reaching up to grasp the breasts of a beautiful woman with long, bronze, feathery hair and the head and face of a kite. She was straddling him, rocking back and forth on his hard penis, taking him deeply into her as they shuddered, she tipping up her head and crying out --

"See? And besides her... Bast." Another vision, another room; it could have been in the convention hotel since it was similarly decorated. In a bed, two females and a middle-aged male, one female with the head of a lion and a supple, predator's body. He was licking deeply into the female's sex while she lapped on Bast's moist folds, and Bast in turn had taken the male's penis into her mouth, carefully avoiding those needle-sharp fangs, and was nursing on him.

"Heru..." Another vision, but this time outdoors. In a clearing, beneath a lambent moon, a male with the head of a falcon was making love to a female; she was spread beneath him as he rocked steadily into her, slowly and tenderly.

"Hathor..." In a small room, a small house, a woman with the head of a beautiful cow was was being mounted by a middle-aged male, his smallish penis easing into her. Her eyes were kind and warm as she spoke words they could not hear.

"... and Anpu..." Definitely a room in this hotel. On the floor, clothes discarded; just visible in one corner, flung over the back of a chair, part of a fursuit. And on the bed Anpu was riding another male, sliding his long canine penis in and out, in and out, in and out, while the young male beneath him clawed at the bed, his own cock fully engorged...

The vision in the glass faded and he turned to see Set standing by the bed, grinning at him, arms folded across his chest. "Did you like what you saw?"

He didn't answer; what could he say? Instead, he crossed the room silently and, not taking his eyes from Set's face, knelt before him.

"I know what it is you want."

Those words sent a surge of lust through his body so great that he thought his entire soul would explode. His sight blurry with desire, he saw his hands reach up to caress the hem of Set's skirt, noted himself feeling the rough softness of the linen and the cool cleanness of the jewellery adorning it, realised his fingers had found the clasp and were releasing it... and in the soft rustle of the skirt to the ground - in the revelation of Set's large, fully erect and somewhat pointed, barely-even-vaguely-human black penis jutting from the swollen sheath above a pair of large testes, the total lack of body hair even here, the sweet drool of thick precum, the surging rush of pheremones - the world fell down.

"I know what it is I want... I want you, my Lord..." Then he lowered his head and let his mouth begin to kiss the tip of Set's cock, and began to worship.

Through the night, that long magical night, they worshipped each other. Little by little they learned each other's pleasures, each other's desires. Their hands found hard cocks and balls ever swollen with seed despite copious release bare moments ago. Their lips found each others and they kissed, passionately and urgently, tenderly and sweetly; Set's long, flexible tongue eased its way into his mouth and he reciprocated as best he could with his own tongue. Their mouths found each other's cock, ever ready and drooling with urgent precum, and bobbed up and down, suckling and licking while the other moaned and thrust against the pleasure. And, through the night, his body became more slender and strong, his touch was surer and his fingers lengthened just a little; his eyes were keener and his hearing sharper; his balls were more large, more ready and more full and were tucked a little less closely to his crotch; his penis became longer, harder and readier, more sensitive and more willing; and when he released his seed it jetted out in long, powerful, virile bursts.

And Set found his secret place, that soft entry beneath his tail, and gently and carefully mounted him, easing that long and pointed cock into him slowly; he lay on his back and closed his eyes as Set's length spread him wide and began its application of precum to his insides, the itch within him that had been building and unsatisfied for so very long finally satisfied, his soul receiving its communion as they came together at last and, uncaring, roared and screamed out their fulfilment to the world.

*

"Will I ever see you again, Set?" He lay on his side, his head pillowed on Set's slender chest and one arm over his midriff, just above the sheath into which that mighty penis had at length retreated. There was cum splattered everywhere and he was lying in a puddle of it, but he didn't care.

"Do you want an honest answer to that?" Set's voice sounded even deeper than before; he spoke drowsily, contentedly.

"What do you think."

"I think you want to see me all the time. I think you think you want to come with me to Aaru, and be my consort."

He said nothing: this was too close to the truth for any form of comfort.

"You should know now that you cannot... It is not for us to end your life before its time. And we cannot cross over to see you, except at the appointed times."

He felt like crying. To have experienced this night, beyond joy, beyond passion, beyond anything he had ever known, to have lain with his God, and now to have it snatched away from him in the space of a heartbeat was more than he thought he could bear. He started to pull away from Set, but Set's arm tightened around him and held him close.

"Let go."

There was a low growl. "Do you want to argue... with me?"

"No. Just..."

"I will not let go of you. Not until you cease to act like a spoiled brat and accept this night for what it is, and start to see the many blessings that have been showered upon you. Now lie still, before I pin you to the bed."

Sorrow was replaced by anger as he lay against his lover, unable to get away, unable to flee the perfect presence beside him. I'll never have this again, he thought. Never lie against Set, never love him through the night... It's all I've ever dreamed of, and I'll never have it again... Yet little by little the anger and sorrow faded, and he was able to see them for what they were: an instinctual reaction to opposition, to being unable to have what he wanted, when and how he wanted it. What was it he had said to Nebt-het, a few hours ago? "Welcome to the instant gratification age." And so, he realised, it was, and he was as much attainted by it as anyone else, as much at fault as any other. And, slowly, the blessings Set spoke of began to appear in front of him: he had a good life, a pleasant house in beautiful surroundings, a mate who, despite it all, was still faithful to him. He gave a soft mewl and whimpered his mate's name.

"See?" Set's voice was quieter still than before, sleepier, and he had relaxed his strong grip sometime in the past few minutes. "See how much you have, without knowing it? Your mate, who still loves you despite you hating him - and why? One lie of omission, one night of forbidden passion..."

He mewled again and scrunched up his eyes tightly, but to no avail. He could see standing in front of him a young couple, deeply in love, exchanging rings and then moments later pulling each other close while a crowd of people watched and then applauded... It was he and his mate: he was watching his own wedding-day. "Oh... I love you... I'm so sorry..." Tears flowed from his eyes and into the fur of his muzzle. "I'm so sorry... I'm so sorry... oh, my love... My Lord - Set - I... I'm..."

"It's all right... it's all right." Set reached around and pulled him close. "It's all right... I know what it is you want..." And Set held him through the brief remnant of the night and into the first ghost of dawn, as his tears dried and his weeping ceased, and his breathing slowed, and he was asleep.

A few hours after dawn, the door to the room opened, and closed quietly behind a slenderish male. He stripped off, glanced at the sleeping figure in the bed and vanished into the bathroom. The sound of water running from a shower over a body and splattering heavily to the floor filled the air for a long time and eventually disturbed the sleeper sufficiently to roll over in bed and nudge a comic book which fell to the floor with a soft fluffle of pages.

Shortly thereafter a handsome young cheetah emerged from the bathroom, briskly towelling himself down before slipping into the bed beside the black-and-silver fox who was already there. He glanced at the sleeping male and sighed.

"Set?..."

The cheetah glanced over. "No... it's me," he said with a quiet sigh. "Just me. And before you ask, yes, I went to the party."

Only silence came from the other side of the bed, and so the cheetah sighed again and eased himself down, rolling onto his side to face away from the fox. "Well... good night, then."

"Benton?..."

"What?"

"... I'm sorry..."

The cheetah lay still for a moment in shock and then rolled over in one liquid, feline movement. "Say that again."

The fox opened his eyes, green eyes, and looked straight ahead. "I'm sorry... I'm sorry, Benton..." More tears sparkled in his eyes. "For everything!... Oh... oh Gods, Benton, I'm sorry!... I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!..."

"Come here, Teller... Come on, it's all right." Benton reached forward and grabbed his mate, pulled him to his slender body and held him close as another paroxysm of weeping wracked him. "Shush, foxy, shush... it's all right. I forgive you... I forgave you long ago."

"Benton..." The fox hiccoughed. "Benton... I love you."

The cheetah smiled. "Oh, you silly fox... I love you, too."

And, as the two mates pulled each other close to sleep the morning away, near the ceiling two ostrich feathers appeared and drifted slowly down, rocking back and forth in the air, to land in silence on the bed.