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Negative Capabilities, Part Two:

Christmas Endings

Six:

Back to the Grind

Practiced as the raccoon-dog was at concealing signs of surprise or annoyance, he still seemed flustered to see the guest was actually who was announced, and he knew the wolf knew he was flustered, too.

"Shinjuki-sama." The lupine rose from his exaggerated bow flashing a wide but good-natured grin. "Shibaraku desu! But really, the Hokkaido office, when you could have picked any? It's so cold out here, and lonely."

"Often, not so much as I would like it to be." Shinjuki frowned sternly and straightened his tie. "Well, ookami-san. There is a rumor you are traveling the world visiting old friends, charming them no doubt into giving you grants, keys to vacant apartments, and who knows what else. I was surprised to hear that you are still researching a new version of the same topic. Some of us have made rather more progress in life and now have more... mature and settled... ideas about the world."

"Did you ever solve the koan you got in San Francisco?" the wolf asked, declining to answer him directly.

The raccoon-dog stood up and turned around. The wall behind his desk was glass, and it looked out over the cubicles below. "Do you see this?" Shinjuki gestured out at the many workers scurrying about beneath them, at the blinking, continually changing electric tally signs posted at the edge of each group of ten cubicles, so each project team could see the status of any other team's projects at a glance, all very un-American, the wolf had to admit. "My predecessor in this directorate had his office built where there used to be an overlook platform and a glass wall installed so that he could see what all the employees were doing at any time. His desk faced the other way, and he used to note, when time permitted him, the times that people arrived below, and the times that they left. On my first day here, I turned every piece of furniture in this office around. If I am to ask these people to work hard, I do not want to see, what time they come, and what time they go. I need only for each of them to see, what time I come, and what time I leave."

"That's well-done," the wolf said, but Shinjuki raised a paw to silence him and continued his speech. "The point is, I am not an American New Age playboy, ookami-san, to mistake the world of koans and meditation for a game world separate from and irrelevant to that of responsibility, money, commitment. I would not," he turned to look at the wolf's nose directly, forcing the lupine to blush, "stymy my teachers with my brilliance, solve a koan meant to be pondered for a year in a few days' time and then run off to parts unknown with a grin on my face, thinking I have nothing left to learn. I have heard that you have made some recent experimental progress. I wish only to give an old friend good news on such an occasion. And the good news that I can give you is that if you can secure commitments from enough of the others to make your circuit, the issue of whether you can secure mine becomes moot."

Again the wolf started to speak, one paw tugging at the bottom of his pierced ear, a nervous tic. "Shinjuki-sama, I knew you would be the most difficult to convince, because you are right, I behaved foolishly, those many years ago. No apology is sufficient, but... That's why, though, I need you, more than anyone else, to understand the importance of what I am trying to do now, to know we've come full circle. My techniques have dramatically improved, and the whole process is, it's much easier to modulate reactions now. Unorthodox though this sounds, you surely understand how... what enormous educational applications there are here? Imagine, if Zen were not only about, relaxing enough, to see through the holes in a thicket of contradictions that limits us, but if one could... well... by opposing... end them. Your English, French, and Spanish I hear are still perfect, after what, a month or six weeks each in a few places in North America, because during that learning time, your brain could switch between fully developed, logical synthesis, and the tremendous, rapid-absorption capacities of a youn..."

"Enough of that," the raccoon-dog said abruptly but without raising his voice. Although he stood a full 18 inches shorter than his interlocutor, the impassive Shinjuki had only to twitch his ringed tail to dominate the room. "I am convinced that you have grown more eloquent, ookami-san, not more serious. This organization is committed to the scientific applications of virtual and intensely-experienced imaginative realities. Science generally involves documented and duplicatable results produced consistently in different environments over a long period of time. We are not interested here in games and parlor tricks that could not be incorporated into a systematic program, and our board most certainly..." The raccoon-dog paused and tilted his head downward and his eyes up, just enough so that his glasses slid down the bridge of his nose and he looked over their lenses into the wolf's gray pupils directly. "...would not want to hear about various extracurricular uses... of your techniques."

The raccoon-dog sat down and returned to the papers on his desk and smiled gently. "I would like to catch up socially, while you are here. Accordingly, I am pleased to invite you to the weekly tea ceremony at my residence, this Wednesday evening," he said, adding, as he revived his sleeping computer with a tap of his paw, "On the off-chance that you've planned to stay in town that long."

After making polite excuses and retreating, as he walked alongside Shinjuki's secretary on the way out, through the teeming mass of workers, the wolf looked up again at the glass wall of the office, to see the raccoon-dog seated, back to the window, hunched over his desk and calculating diligently, at once the motor and the monitor of all that went on in the teeming office one level below. "Oh, the old days," the wolf remarked to himself, with a deep, nostalgic sigh. "Kids back then had to grow up... so, so fast."

*************************

At the same time he used his shoulder to press the phone receiver against his ear, Jaice, aiming the toy dragon in his left paw, clicked a button on its head to launch its projectile-fire into the action figure perched near the edge of his desk, watching with satisfaction as the struck villain fell backwards like a plank.

"It's not a problem, Mr. Morrone, it's an opportunity," the fox spoke agitatedly into the receiver as soon as he heard an opening. "I am just telling you, now, what the focus groups told me. That's right. Yes, our college demographics say that young people think this. It's not my opinion. Okay? The lupine market feels under-served generally by both the graphic and traditional novel markets right now. They feel like they're lumped in with canines all the time. Huh? No, the normal build is pretty different, actually. And to be fair, I'm just trying to explain this point of view, I don't endorse it: but look at how the Leader of the Pack series is going, I mean it's a very appealing title for them, but we have Sasha, is... a wolf-dog, Buck is a husky... What? Yes, I meant Jack, I'm sorry, I just misspoke, I did know that." Jaice groaned inwardly. That mistake meant he would have to show his hand early to convince the writer he was serious about this. "We're having this conversation because we, at least, our marketing director and I've sold rights on the idea that there could TV potential here, if we do it this way."

The fox held the phone away from his ear for a moment and and put down the toy dragon in order to make a circular motion with his paw, indicating to a rabbit who'd been waiting at the door that he didn't know when he'd be free, and his colleague hopped off. There was nothing strange about having licensee products on his desk-though it was better to keep them gender-specific, so he was playing with them somewhat half-heartedly. Wearing a shirt and tie, his thoughts kept wandering to the Pancake Patty series. The fox returned the receiver to his ear and turned to check his e-mail. Since he was mainly listening, he read the one from Fenton:

"Hi J., Did you like making breakfast this morning? ;-) Hope you made it to work on time. R & I will be home for dinner at 6:30ish. Don't forget to pick up more milk and eggs on the way home. Hugs, F."

The fox rolled his eyes. Well, if he left at 5:30, that gave him half-an-hour to get home and half-an-hour to cook. He opened the calendar on his PDA, and absently pulled up the daily shopping list under "List for dramatic rights." Right now it just said "Get: diapers, sm + med," but he added, "Milk, eggs."

"Yes," he snapped to attention to conclude the phone conversation, "yes, I think another treatment is an excellent idea. I mean, Jack can just be from the wrong side of the tracks; this is set in England after all. He doesn't have to be a dog. I'm telling you, there is no new wolf-on-wolf stuff coming on the market in the next six months that I know of. As soon as I can set up a meeting with rights, I'll let you know."

Jaice hung up and dialed an office extension. In a second, the rabbit was back at his door, and the fox stood up, straightened his tie, flicked his tail, and slid his glasses back up the bridge of his nose so they were securely in place. He could feel, on standing up, the warm dampness in his diaper, but it was all in the front center absorbent area, so there was no risk of leakage, and he knew there'd be no odor. "Okay, let's get lunches," he said to the rabbit. "By the way, Jane said you have advances in on the Pancake Patty Little Girl's First Cookbook? Do you mind if I steal one? I have a dinner date who thinks she's adorable."

Seven:

Round-Robin

"I take another pawn." Fenton moved his knight and grinned broadly. "Don't forget the knight can jump over things."

The mouse bit his lower lip in a pout. "This is no fair!" he said. "And of course I know that! I am ranked very high in chess! I have like a yellow belt!"

The raccoon laughed. "You don't have belts in chess, mousie, although I'm sure if you did, yours would be yellow. Be more careful of your pieces. You know how this game works, and because of that the more pieces you lose, especially big pieces, the harder it could get for you to concentrate."

The mouse looked at the four pawns, knight, and bishop, laid out sideways next to his side of the board and stuck his thumb in his mouth, sucking on it thoughtfully as he moved his other paw over each piece, considering his next move. "Mmmhmm!" he exclaimed, his thumb still stuck in his mouth, and moved his bishop. "Theck!"

"What?" Fenton blinked and looked down at the board, surprised. "Well, so it is. I guess you're not all gone yet."

The mouse fidgeted in his diaper for a moment. "Fennton..." he said tentatively.

"Yeah, little guy?" The raccoon patted his head.

"I don wanna be all gone. 'S scary. You know I have homework to do and stuff."

"Ah," the raccoon moved to the other side of the board and put his arms around the mouse's shoulders. "I understand, hon. And you don't always need to let me win, you know."

The mouse removed his thumb from his muzzle and looked up at the raccoon's nose. "Well, don't get confused, I don't want to beat you either cuz then I'd have to change your diapers and stuff, and that's an awful big job for a mouse."

"Mmm," the raccoon mocked looking disappointed. "All right, little guy, not everything has to be an age game, you know? We can just hang out, too. Would you like that?"

The mouse nodded.

"All right, well, there's a museum near here, let's head over there for a bit."

"You mean the dinosaur museum?" the mouse asked suspiciously as he got to his feet. "Those are for kids."

"No, no, I was thinking the modern art one behind it."

"Ooh!" The mouse's ears perked up. "Jackson Pollock is my favorite finger painter."

The raccoon smiled. "Mine too. You should do art history with my professor next semester."

Romney got to his feet, then suddenly tagged Fenton and ran out the door. "Last one to the museum is a rotten egg!" he called back, over his shoulder.

*************************

The next morning was like the one before; Fenton and Romney awoke, huddled together in bed, to Jaice, wearing a pink apron over his diaper, pacing anxiously outside the bedroom door.

"Finally!" the fox yipped and waved a spatula in the air. "Breakfast is gonna get cold, and some of us have jobs to go to!"

The raccoon yawned and felt for one of the mouse's ears, locating one after a few blind gropes with his paw and then petting it gently. The mouse only squeaked.

"Oh, c'mon! Out of bed! Tuck and roll and check and change, people!" Jaice tugged on the comforter, but the mouse and raccoon were wrapped up in it, so hard as he tugged, he just ended up sliding down onto his bottom on the floor.

"How about breakfast in bed, foxie?" asked the raccoon with a yawn, and the mouse squeaked agreement without stirring.

Jaice stood up and stamped off, muttering to himself, "For you two, you mean. Some of us aren't in bed..."

About ten minutes later, he returned with pancakes and orange juice in sippy cups on plastic trays to the sight of Fenton, having flung the comforter off the bed, kneeling above the sleepy mouse and checking both the front of the rodent's diaper and feeling the back of it with a paw.

Jaice stuck his tongue out. "If he messed I'm not waiting around. Why can't you guys manage to get up early on a day without Saturday morning cartoons, anyway?"

Fenton shook his head, yawning, "Just oatmeal. It's kind of clumped up. Would you take him up for a bath while I get dressed?"

Jaice grumbled as he bent over and the slowly awakening mouse clambered onto his back, and he tucked the rodent's paws under his arms, and headed out of the bedroom. "Heehee pony ride!" the mouse squealed, his eyes snapping open. "Gallop horsie!"

The fox squirmed, but made an exasperated whinnying sound and trotted half-heartedly.

"I'm a cowboy!" Romney declared, as Jaice entered the bathroom and started running the water, the slight rodent, the front of his diaper slightly yellow and the back of it bulging, still perched on his back.

"Dismount!" Romney squeaked and began easing himself down Jaice's bent-over back until he reached the always-closed toilet seat, and released his grip on the fox to let his padded bottom rest on it.

"Is Fen gonna give me a bath?" the mouse asked.

Jaice closed the drain and added bubbles to the running bath water as he nodded. "Umm hmm. Some of us need to go get ready for work."

"Foxie," the mouse swatted at Jaice's backside randomly, rocking his weight back and forth, trying to flatten the mildly uncomfortable oatmeal clumps in his diaper. He didn't even notice that his swatting had knocked the tapes loose on one side of Jaice's diaper, until the fox's right paw darted down to grab at the dangling right side of the right diaper as it came loose.

"Hey be careful!" Jaice yipped, but the water and bubbles had risen high enough that the unfastened right side of his diaper was covered in them. The fox groaned.

"Whatcha worried about?" asked the mouse. "It's just a diapie, take it off, and get a new one!" Intending to be helpful, Romney reached for the other side of Jaice's diaper, and, as the fox tried to twist in time to stop him, he went tumbling into the half-full bubble bath with a shallow splash, his diaper floating up to the surface of the bath water and drifting to the other side of the tub from him.

Jaice popped his head above water thrashing his paws about amid the bubbles giggling. "Bubbas!" he exclaimed.

The mouse blinked uncomprehendingly and slid off the toilet, easing his way to the edge of the bathtub. He poked at Jaice's nose with his paw and frowned. The fox looked up to see him frowning and felt worried; from down here in the bathtub, the mouse looked enormous, and his arms were crossed. Was he in trouble?

"My bath. Out," the mouse said, and the fox's ears collapsed and he looked up helplessly and with contrition. "Out!" he repeated, and Jaice scampered out, bubbles covering his fur and whimpered apologetically, patting down the wisps of bubble-bath caught in his fur with his paws.

Romney, who was used to being smaller than both Jaice and Fenton, decided to test the limits of this strange turn of events. "Bad foxie," he said, "down!"

He blinked again as Jaice bent over the toilet and whimpered again. This strange reversal didn't seem natural. For sure this would get things back to normal: squeezing his eyes shut, he struck the fox's bottom, fast and barely touching, with one paw. When retribution didn't come immediately, the mouse slowly opened his eyes. Jaice did nothing except let out an exaggerated whine and squirm, remaining bent over the toilet seat. Emboldened, the mouse slapped his bottom again, harder; the fox's only response was to stick his thumb in his mouth and suck on it to stifle his own whimpering.

"Ahem..." Fenton, dressed for school, entered through the open door and reached around the two oversized cubs to stop the running water. The raccoon looked at his watch and the twitch of his ears betrayed a modicum of alarm. He moved quickly to push the mouse aside, towel off the quailing fox. With his foot he opened the cabinet under the sink and then tossed the used towel over Romney's head. Ignoring the mouse's squeaks, Fenton bent under the sink and rapidly removed the needed materials, powdered Jaice, spread out a diaper beneath him, flipped it up, pulled the sides tight, a little unevenly, and taped each as far as he could. Then he tapped the fox's nose and ears softly.

Jaice lept up, panicked. "What time is it?"

He saw Fenton's watch-it was 8:15-he could make it if he moved fast-and without further comment the fox dashed out the door in a blur of red fur, white plastic, and soppy pink frills. The raccoon, now worried about running late himself, grabbed the mouse's paw, pulling him along behind as he dashed off in another direction. Romney fumbled along as he was tugged behind; soon the towel fell off his face and onto his free arm, and then the mouse tried to look back over his shoulder, craning his head to look after the vulpine one of his babysitters, curiosity bright in his tiny, beady eyes.

Eight:

The Great Mouse Detective

"And that, of course, reads, Nous. The true fifth element," the wolf flashed a toothy grin and then turned back to the dry-erase easel, pointing at parts of his diagram. "Mind. Not the brain-that's biological; not the soul-that's individual; but a shared space of consciousness, a substratum that exists, like Ptolemy's celestial ether, between all of us, regulating our psychological orbits in ways that go well beyond material-political means of social determination, but aren't theistically determined, either. Obscured by Cartesian dualism for centuries, then again by Kant's belief that not only could we not think outside of phenomenal filters, but also that those filters themselves were numinal things inaccessible to human analysis-or manipulation. If we can get away from MRIs, from the idea that everything originates from a programmed piece of the biological brain, we'll realize the limiting power our expectations of normality can have, the degree to which they shape reality, and how easy it is to reconfigure them, using the simplest tools, vision, language, sensory stimuli. All by tapping into that primordial soup that exists in between all of us, Mind. Anaxagoras was on to something, like you always said."

There was uneasy shifting in the small audience, actually the audience of two. "Forgive my skepticism, wolfy, but this sounds awfully familiar." The kangaroo patted the head of the dozing child in her pouch. "I'm glad you've braved the crocodiles and come all the way out to Australia to see me, I really am, and you know philosophy of mind is a particular interest of mine. But I'm not quite sure what's different about your theory now, than five years ago-other than that you've finally joined the ranks of the literate and learned a little Greek."

"Darling Clementine," the wolf bent over and hoisted up his laptop case onto the coffee-room table, plugging it in, starting it up and pulling up selected files by way of illustration as he spoke, "someday even you'll have to admit that the human mind has come a long way since the pre-Socratics. I'm working with a perfect subject this time, and I can't tell you how rapid the progress is. No more false starts; things take permanently with him. I was hopeful when he came to me: He's imaginative, he participates constructively in the process, we communicate effectively enough that it's minimally disruptive to his ordinary life, and he can do exactly what I need him to do, hold what are completely, from a societal point of view, logically contradictory ideas about who and what he is, in suspension. He's still embarrassed by some of the contradictions, yes-which means the ideas still have their inherent original force-without that tension, it would all have become rote-but there's no crippling or deep-rooted anxiety, no psychological instability. He has a modestly creative job, but his level of negative capability is much greater than any outward metric would indicate. It is.... sheer, astonishing luck that I found him."

"It always is," remarked Clem knowingly. The kangaroo watched carefully as the wolf spoke, but in truth she wasn't really watching the various graphics he pulled up. She was mainly watching the wolf, whose manners she had always considered warm and well-intentioned, but now seemed softer, less stagey, and more effusive.

"Most important, though, is he's the first ever who seems able to communicate the effects to others, and further their progress," the wolf tugged at his earring and tapped at certain images on the screen, enlarging them as he spoke. "Usually, mutual reinforcement can't be found, and that's when everything begins to break down. Group work is almost always a disaster even among the similarly-conditioned. But this guy... He's what I need, Clem. He doesn't 'surrender' to me so much as he collaborates. To be honest, for some recent remote work, I hardly had to do much more than put him in a group and watch him go. He's also..." the wolf fumbled, making a vague elliptical motion with his paw as he searched for a word. "He's not jealous, or suspicious." After a moment's pause, he added, "Your commitment, Clem, would be the last I'd need. I'd have the resources lined up to take Jaice around the world in stages. Three weeks here, four weeks there, meets with compatible subjects in each place, and I finally get a bead on what could be accomplished in terms of language, cultural absorption, determine the degree of genetic influence on things like the perception of nature and time, application of math and counting systems... Everywhere I've been, everything I know... I want to see what sense his little brain can help make of it."

The kangaroo smiled and raised her teacup to her lips with both paws, taking a slow sip from it. "Sounds nice, wolfy, but pace Jules Verne, around the world is still a long trip to do right: Are you really sure this project will last for more than six months?"

The wolf took a deep breath and nodded slowly, insistently. "I'm not going to run off on a treasure hunt or get caught up in the family intrigues of whatever boys I'm tutoring, if that's what you mean. I've never been closer to the other side than I am with him. This research has to be with Jaice. If you want to see my reports about him..."

Clementine set her teacup down thoughtfully and stared down into it for a moment. "Save the numbers for Shinju, if he didn't slam his door on your tail. You know I believe in intuition, wolfy, above the benumbed acquiescence to reams of data that usually passes for analysis. Yes, I can help with this one. And I have at least one, maybe two someones, who might be comfortable doing script work with you... provided I sit in on it, so I can unravel anything that may have to be unraveled afterwards. Let me get the schedule of days I'm on leave that Cody will also be with his dad in Melbourne, and we can sketch out some times."

The wolf stood up and moved to hug her, but, given the dozing child, thought better of it. "Clem, my darling, this is the last stop I need; you've saved my Christmas-for the second time," he said, his tail swishing twice, softly.

"Precocious little wolfy." Reaching up without rising from her seat, the imposing kangaroo patted the top of his head and grinned maternally. "Freethinking, freewheeling pup. You're still one of my most talented students. I always hoped that you'd one day make your breakthrough."

***************************************

Finals were around the corner. Fenton was out at a study group that night, and Jaice returned late from work. Romney appeared to be taking more of a Zen approach to finals, that is to say he was sitting on the couch energetically manipulating a Nintendo controller, an open and half-eaten box of pizza (extra cheese) on the cushion next to him.

Jaice decided not to say anything, given the events of the morning. He started to creep behind the couch toward his room, only to be halted by a loud squeak. "Fopsie!" the mouse said, twitching his nose. "Can you get me a soda please?"

"It's a bit late, for a cub your age, isn't it?" Jaice responded. "It will keep you up."

Romney bit a piece of pizza in defiance. "There is something for you in the kitchen, too," he said.

Jaice shrugged and decided to investigate. He went into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and found, next to the soda, a sippy cup with his name on it, filled with what looked like chocolate milk. He took out, and sniffed at it, only to see another behind it. There was a whole row of them, about five reaching to the back of the refrigerator. He took one in one paw and the soda bottle in the other, poured Romney his soda in his own sippy cup (there were only a few glasses without lids to be found, and they were on the highest shelf), closed the refrigerator door, and went back into the living room, passing the cup of soda to the mouse, and sipping at his own drink. It was thick.

"What is this?" he asked.

"It is a chocolate-milk-flavored nutritional supplement," the mouse answered, parsing his words carefully.

Jaice frowned as he took a deep sip of it to determine the taste better. "Like a protein supplement?" he asked skeptically. Until he got into one of his dresses, that wouldn't sound very appealing.

He sipped it again and had swallowed most of it before Romney nonchalantly answered, "More like a laxative. You should have three a day."

The fox coughed and fumbled the labelled sippy cup, recovering enough to catch it in his other paw before it landed on the floor or spilled. "I'm sorry, what? And, I should do what?"

Romney continued playing the game as he said, "I have decided to pursue a career as a cowboy, and I would like a pony. Horses, unfortunately, mess a lot. According to Zoobooks."

Jaice shook his head, and snickered softly. "All right, you've had your fun, little guy, I drank one. See?" he downed what was left of it. The mouse paused his game and turned around to watch him. "Ha ha. Squeak squeak. You got me. Now, back to normal, relatively speaking, come on, let's get you into some PJs."

Jaice hadn't gone very far before his stomach started churning. His stomach was already a little upset from working through dinner and grabbing something from the vending machines. It also occurred to him that the laxative was probably supposed to be diluted with a lot more liquid than Romney had mixed with it.

He turned bright red and bent halfway over as he felt a hard, straight, warm push into the back of his diaper, an object that half-lodged there and refused to complete its exit. He knew as he sat down, it would gradually become squishy and spread around, but at the moment, it was uncomfortable, and he couldn't be entirely sure, if he had actually gone, or was frozen at the moment of being about to go and trying to push it out. "Uhh... heh... I, uh..."

"Are used to having more control of when and how you go that way. I know." The mouse nodded as he voiced his professional-sounding assessment.

"Look, kid," Jaice said, somewhat unconvincingly trying to recover his dignity as he slowly straightened up, and felt more excrement push itself out and around the underside of his tail, into the rear of his diaper, which suddenly felt very heavy. "I'll let you ride me around tonight, but this is one-time only."

The mouse beamed as Jaice took off his work clothes, folded them, and placed them on a chair in the back of the room, and, wearing only socks with daffodils on them and his diaper, walked over in front of him and got down on his knees. "All fours," the mouse squeaked, and Jaice obliged, only to have Romney put his feet up on his back and resume playing Nintendo.

"Good footrest too!" he remarked, wrinkling his nose. "Even if it does smell a bit."

Jaice grumbled. Since he was allegedly a horse, he guessed, he turned his head and tried to see if his nose could reach far enough behind his shoulder to reach either of the mouse's feet. It could, so he rubbed it, and made a quiet whickering sound.

"Hee! Tickles!" the mouse squealed. A favorable reaction would probably end this sooner, so Jaice kept doing that and occasionally nuzzled the mouse's paw a little more fondly, and licked at it a few times as well, which caused increased giggling.

"G'pony!" the mouse reached a breaking point in the game and set aside the controller, returning a greater share of his attention to Jaice. He shifted his feet and his weight so they parted around Jaice and touched the floor, and he lowered his own crinkly bottom onto Jaice's back, swatting at the fox's sides with both his forepaws. "Gid'yup!" he said.

Jaice slowly stood, half-crouching, on his rear legs, and held his paws out in front of him palms downward, starting a slow, prancing motion, and whinnying as he took the mouse around the room, and toward the bedroom. "Bad pony! No bed!" the mouse squeaked, digging his feet into Jaice's side, and the fox reversed direction. Jaice found himself swishing his tail rhythmically as he trotted around, which was unpleasant since it stirred the hardening mess in his diaper a bit. Right now, he had to be careful to keep leaning forward at the right angle so Romney wouldn't tip back or fall off. He probably should, he thought to himself, look into getting reins or a bridle, just so the little guy had something to hold on to-for his own safety-just in case this happened again.

Jeez, what was he thinking? Abruptly, Jaice stopped next to the couch and shook the rodent off, letting him fall on to it with a surprised squeak. "Enough. It's getting ready for bed time," he declared.

"Mmmmm," the mouse shook his head. "You need to take another lax'tive."

"I just took one!"

The mouse nodded. "Right, and evvy day you need three. You aren't going to tell Fenton I'm making you take them neither."

The fox rolled his eyes. "We've been over this. You're not making me take them, because I'm not going to take them. I..."

At that the mouse darted, lightning-quick, to the mostly naked Jaice, and unfastened the top tapes on each side of his diaper, causing the fox to quiver and grab at both sides of it with alarm.

He caught it in time-he stood there, his knees bent, each paw holding up one side of the messy diaper, wearing daffodil socks, and did his best to look down at the mouse threateningly. The rodent giggled. "Fenton migh' not be pleased with you losing bowel control around here. I've heard him complain about messy diapers. If he finds out I am making you take a lax'tive, I could get in trouble. But, if he finds that out, someone is in serious risk of running around the neighborhood talking baby talk and drooling on everyfur in two miles of here."

Jaice was flummoxed. He fumblingly tried to refasten the tapes on both sides of his droopy diaper using only the index finger and thumb of each paw while the other digits held the diaper in place. "Neeeeigh?" he said, helplessly.

Nine:

White Christmas

"Jeez, Jaice," Fenton took the most recent duffel bag the fox had carried down to him; the exertion of carrying it down the stairs had left the fox, who was wearing a baby dress and a diaper, panting, sodden, bulgy, and, as a result, also unmistakably aroused. "It's a good thing you take chlorophyll."

"Mmhmm. Total baby foxie," Romney, standing behind Fenton, stuck his tongue out at the hapless vulpine. "Glad we straightened out who is second-in-charge around here. One more load and, then, you can do the one thing in your diaper you haven't done yet."

"Yetthir," the fox answered with a sigh, and trotted back up the stairs.

"So... does it snow in San Diego ever?" the mouse squeaked to Fenton.

"We'll have enough white," the raccoon tussled the rodent's headfur. "I have all manner of cute stuff for you. Santa might bring a sailor suit, mebbe. I've thought you'd be cute in one of those since you beat me at badminton. Which is a totally girly game, by the way."

The mouse squirmed, surprised.

"Oh," Fenton blushed and patted the mouse's head. "Mistake. Right. That was at pre-frosh camp, before this arrangement started. You're my end of the deal, short stuff. I asked for you specific. That shouldn't be such a surprise to you, is it?"

The mouse bit his lower lip and looked down at the floor. "No, I thought..." he grabbed one of Fenton's forepaws with both of his and squeaked. "Jaice's Dad asked me to agree to most of what would happen before he did anything at all. Including that it would be one of a few guys, and I picked you. I thought I knew first!"

Jaice came back down the stairs and delivered a suitcase to Romney. The mouse nodded and said, "Good foxie. All wight-ya can have your fun!" The fox lay down on the couch, and felt the front of his wet and messy diaper with a paw, then began rubbing. Before long, he had turned over and was humping one of the cushions rather forcefully. The mouse looked up at Fenton, feeling a last-minute tinge of guilt; his instructions hadn't been to top the fox, after all-at least, he didn't remember anything like that? "Is he gonna be okay, y'know, for Chrimmas?" he whispered to the raccoon.

The raccoon didn't answer directly, but walked over to Jaice and stroked the fox's head affectionately. After a few more minutes, Jaice collapsed, spent and shaking, on his stomach on the couch, a new, third stickiness added to his diaper. His tongue lolling out of his mouth, he looked up, wide-eyed and adoringly, at each of his two roommates in turn. These days, he was having trouble getting excited unless his diaper was warm at both ends, so he was grateful the mouse had been secretly helping him make that happen more often. He hoped pony rides and homemade cookies were sufficient thanks; he would have taken over his chores if he could, but from the beginning Fenton had already been sweet enough to put the foxie in charge of all cooking, cleaning, and laundry to bolster his (now quite solid, Jaice mused) sissy credentials.

"Gonna mith you guys," he panted.

Fenton patted the fox's head. "Sure you don't want to come with us, Jaice? We could sleep a third."

Jaice shook his head. "Sowwy, guys. I 'preciate it, but gotta be there for Daddy. And gotta get the tree up. He can't come home to an empty house."

Fenton frowned and sat down on the armrest of the couch. "You know, Jaice, I'm not... it's none of my business... little guy... but, my Dad said he hasn't heard from your Dad since a few weeks ago, when he pushed back his flight because he just had to see some... some Ainu artifact a few towns away from where he was, or something. And he didn't answer the last message asking if he was still..."

Jaice nipped at Fenton's forepaw playfully. "Da obviously coulden' check his e-mail where he was at, is all. He said that wudd happen a lot."

Romney, a bit timidly piped up, "You know... uh... you could just leave a note for him with a map with a big red X on it! Yay, Dad, you're home! Here's where I'm at.... in California... so see you there..."

Both Fenton and Jaice turned their heads to look incredulously at the mouse, who concluded bashfully and lowered his head, "Like... a... tweasure hunt."

"Seriously... kit," Fenton said. "No classes, office closed, we could have some real fun, and you know, as soon as your Dad, as soon as he sets foot in an airport, he'll get a voice mail and the e-mail telling him just where you are. I bet every airport in the world is wired these days. Anyway, some of the stuff I got for Romney, he's gonna have kind of a hard time lording it over anyone in..."

"Fenton," Jaice interrupted the raccoon calmly, propping his elbow against the armrest of the couch, and pushing himself up into a sitting position. He reached over with his other paw to stroke the younger fur's arm, as though to calm him, and straightened his shoulders as he looked up at the raccoon, saying in the measured tone and with the patient good humor of an adult with long practice at polite refusal, "It's a sweet offer, and I appreciate the thought, I really do. But I already said: I just can't."

*****************************************************

The wind howled around the warm perimeter of the house with lupine intensity. A fire crackled in the hearth, as the windows outside were covered back up by a fresh snowdrift. Outside, it was lonely, and it was biting cold.

Inside, Jaice rubbed himself closer against Dad's warm body, his new pony-emblazoned skirt getting all bunched up around his doubled-up diapers, and he resumed flipping through the stack of Christmas cards on his lap.

"And this one, number 25, came from Australia!"

"Twenty-five? When did you learn to count so high?" Dad asked incredulously, and the fox answered, "I used my fingers and toeses, and then I used one paw again!"

"Very good!" The wolf scratched behind the fox's ears with his left paw as he took the envelope from Australia in his right and sniffed it fondly. "That's an extra special one."

Jaice resumed flipping through the stack. For weeks now, he'd been visiting the house every Sunday, collecting the mail and answering what he could, but saving the Christmas cards for Dad to open when he got home.

There were the usual ones-from Fenton's father, Jaice recognized that address-but then the next wave started coming from the strangest places: Brazil, Iceland, Montreal, a village in Wales, Prague, and in the couple weeks after that places Jaice found unimaginably exotic: Nepal, a diplomatic APO address in Beijing, a bathhouse in Seoul, even a stiffly formal postcard of the sun rising over Mt. Fuji from a corporate office in Japan whose message area was blank except for a preprinted bilingual tag "Wishing everyone good health and prosperity" with a kanji signature stamped beneath it. Some of them were addressed just to Dad, and some of them were addressed to Dad and Jaice. Jaice didn't open them, but he had been keeping them in a pile and recording a running tally as empirical evidence of what he already knew to be true: that he had the best Daddy, in the entire world.

"Is these all of your friends?" Jaice asked.

"Well, a lot of them are old friends, colleagues, or teachers, yes, and they all want to meet you," Dad opened his robe a bit so Jaice could rub against his fur directly, and the fox cuddled in. "Daddy has a lot of stories to tell you about them...umm... some may have to wait until you're a wee bit older."

Dad read the card from Australia and then took the postcard from Japan, turning it over and around a few times to see if there was any other mark or message on it. When he found none, he stared off into space for a minute, until Jaice batted at his nose, and the wolf came back to himself with a start. "Hey, princess," he said absently. "I'm sorry I didn't keep in touch better. I hope you weren't worried."

Jaice giggled and nuzzled the underside of his Dad's whiskery muzzle. "You're silly, Dad. You said you'd be back for Christmas, so I knowded you would be. It just made Christmas that much betters." He paused for a moment and bit his lower lip before adding, "I am wund'rin' about your plans for next years, though."

"You're looking at them," Dad indicated the stack of cards, "Next year is going to be super-special. We start working through these, you and I."

Jaice scratched his head quizzically and fidgeted in his soggy diaper. "I don' get it; whatcha gonna do? Answer Chrimmas cards?"

Dad grinned widely, exuberantly. "Gonna do what I try to do every year," he said, "Keep the serpent from eating its own tail. Join battle, in the war of imagination against determinism. In short, save the world. That sort of thing."

"Oh," Jaice looked crestfallen and stared down at his skirt, puzzled. "I don't think I'm big enough to help with any of that, right?"

"Au contraire, little foxie," the wolf reached down to put a strong, gentle paw beneath Jaice's muzzle, and titled his own head as he turn the fox's head up, so that their eyes looked into each other's directly, reaching down further as he did to feel the front of the fox's diaper with the back of his other paw. "Can I tell you a super-classified top-level secret?"

Jaice's eyes lit up and he nodded eagerly. Since he was wearing a dress, spy games sounded very appealing, and he was ready to run and grab his brand-new water gun on a moment's notice. Dad pulled him close, and said, "I was reminded recently that any attempt to save the world requires having someone handy who can save you in turn when the occasion demands it. I'm afraid in my case, you're the only kit for that job."

Jaice bounced up and down on Dad's knee. "Really really?" he asked.

"Really really. I don't want to go on a trip without you again, Jaicee."

The fox squealed and threw his arms around Dad. "Special Agent Jaice!" he exclaimed.

Dad ruffled the oversized kit's headfur. "My hero," he said with a smile.

End.

If you got here, hope you enjoyed the trip. And, happy holidays! All non-threatening comments welcome, here or to [email protected]