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_ "I desire to perish, and yet I ask health._

_I love another, and thus I hate myself." _

- Thomas Wyatt

It was raining that night, the kind of heavy shower that sounds like a mallet on sheet metal. Everyone was packed so tightly into the bar I could hardly move. Ahead of me, Luka was attempting to navigate back to our table with two drinks, though the crowd kept jostling him and causing him to spill. The front of his shirt was soaked in beer.

"You look good," I said, draining my already half-empty glass. "You should do that every day."

He rolled his eyes and lit a cigarette, exhaling dramatically. Outside, a drenched crowd hurried up the street, heads ducked. The semester had just let out, and despite the weather everyone was desperate to get nice and drunk. Luka stubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray and pulled me towards him. Even through the smoky haze of the bar I could still smell him, earthy and sweet like a forest floor.

"Don't look, but that wolf over there has been eyeing you up for twenty minutes now." I made to turn where he was gesturing, but he caught me. "I said don't turn around, idiot. He looks like trouble."

I bummed one of Luka's cigarettes. "I'm gonna try and grab another drink," I said unconvincingly. His eyes narrowed. Luka has a bullshit meter with pinpoint accuracy; even on my good days, I could never get one past him. He thumped me on the shoulder but let me go, and as I waded through the crowd I managed to snag a look at the guy he was talking about. He stood alone in the corner, a few empty bottles scattered around his table, and stared at me intently. We locked eyes and I quickly dropped my head. I knew what Luka meant at once. He was handsome, certainly, but he had a feral look about him that told me he was after one thing. He looked to be at least five years older than me. His eyes were a glowing yellow. I felt them bearing into me even as I ordered another beer. When I turned around, he was still staring, utterly unashamed. I made up my mind at once. As I headed towards his table, I saw Luka shake his head exasperatedly and flatten his ears. He only did that when he was really mad. I tried working on an excuse, but before I knew it, I was standing at the wolf's table.

There was a moment of silence so intensely awkward I almost left. Then he leaned in towards me.

"Ren," he said, extending a paw. He was tall and broad, the sort of build you'd see in a swimmer or soccer player, wearing a v-neck black shirt and jeans that were both too small for him. His biceps pushed at the fabric. I extended my own hand and shook uncertainly.

"I'm Nara," I said. "Why were you staring at me?"

He laughed, a short aggressive bark that cut through the crowd noise. "It's hard not to. You and that fox are the only people in here worth looking at." He motioned towards Luka, who was glaring daggers at us.

One hour later and I stood in his apartment, my head swimming with alcohol. It was sparse, with only a few pieces of furniture. Luka sent me a text--u asshole--and I felt a pang of guilt. I was his ride home. Then Ren stepped out of his room, his shirt off, and I forgot all about it. He lit what appeared to be a joint, took a long drag, and passed it to me, letting the smoke billow out from his snout. I hesitated.

"Relax," he said. "It's just weed." Again, he made that loud barking laugh. I felt an intense desire to please him that I couldn't explain. I took the joint. A few drags later and I was in a right state; the room was spinning haphazardly. He was watching me very closely. I felt as though even if I wanted to leave, I couldn't. The world seemed to shrink. Everything that mattered was in this apartment. I passed him the joint but he tossed it aside, and before I knew what was happening, he pushed me down onto the couch and towered over me. He bit my neck and lifted off my shirt, his muzzle trailing down towards my swiftly growing erection. It was a weird sort of pleasure, a mixture of guilt and satisfaction. Guilt because I told Luka I wouldn't get mixed up with any more awful guys. Satisfaction because out of everybody in that bar, he picked me. He wanted me in a way nobody ever had. I came into his outstretched claw with two short, shuddering jerks. As he stared up at me, eyes like floodlights, I knew instinctively I was expected to return the favor. He passed me the joint. The room sputtered out of focus.

When I woke the next morning, Ren was gone. I was sprawled across the living room couch, completely naked. My body felt as though I'd jumped in front of a freight train. I remembered, with a horrible sinking feeling, that I had left Luka out to dry just for a quick fuck. He certainly wouldn't be happy.

After making sure I was alone, I snooped around the apartment. The door that I assumed led to Ren's room was locked, but in the bathroom I found a bottle of aspirin and hopped in his shower. Details from the previous night kept popping in and out of focus. His eyes. His laugh. The hunger in his movements.

The storm had mostly passed over, leaving only an oppressive grey drizzle that followed me throughout the walk home. He didn't live far, only a couple of blocks, but the aspirin hadn't done much for me and I wanted to make it home before I threw up. Luka's car sat in the parking lot, which meant he hadn't left for work. Which meant my hangover was about to get much worse.

I was only in the door a couple of seconds before he poked his head out.

"You fuckboy," he said savagely. "You stupid shit."

"Listen."

"I had to walk home in the goddamn rain. Nobody could give me a lift."

"I'm really sorry."

"I told you to ignore him."

"Then why the fuck did you point him out to me?"

He moved into the kitchen and started making coffee with as much aggression as possible. "I just thought you'd get a laugh out of it," he said finally. Some of the venom seemed to have faded from his voice. He looked, if anything, sad. "I didn't think you'd go and fuck him."

"It wasn't that great," I lied. "I don't think I'll see him again."

He didn't respond, just dumped three heaping scoops of sugar into his coffee and sat down at the kitchen table. Outside, I heard our various neighbors leaving for their jobs, the slamming of car doors and the revving of engines. Luka looked as if he were choosing his words very carefully.

"You can sleep with whomever you want," he said. "But it seems like I'm the one who always winds up fucked." He had a point. This wasn't the first time he'd been left without a ride because of my sex life. But all the same, the image of Ren sliding his tongue down my chest kept punching its way through my brain. I wanted to call him, to see him again right away.

As it turned out, I didn't see Ren all summer. Not for lack of trying, though. I showed up to his apartment twice, knocking and waiting outside, but he either wasn't home or didn't want to see me. Luka stayed mad at me for four days--a new record--but eventually things settled down. I worked part time at a coffee shop and spent most of the summer drinking with Luka or walking around the empty campus, enjoying the uncharacteristic silence. During the school year, our campus was especially crowded, full of students pushing and bustling their way to class. It felt nice to smoke a cigarette and stroll up and down the streets, taking in the trees and cobblestone buildings, without worrying about anything else. Plus it gave me time to think about Ren.

It's hard to say why he burrowed so deeply into my thoughts. It seemed I couldn't go a day without remembering our encounter, the power of his movements and the weird feeling that possessed me as he stood over me. During those few drunken hours, the only thing that had mattered was pleasing Ren, making sure he liked me. It wasn't even the sex; he certainly wasn't my first one-night stand, and honestly not even the best. Every time Luka and I went to the bar, I scanned through the crowd, hoping to see him standing in the corner and watching me. I even asked the bartender if he saw Ren at all, but no dice. As more and more time passed, I started to resign myself to the fact I would never see him again. The notion made me sad, though I couldn't say why. I wondered how often he thought of me.

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

Twice the deer knocked at Ren's door, and twice he ignored him. He looked through the peephole, noting the anxious way the deer wrung his hands and checked his appearance on a smartphone. He was tall, almost as tall as Ren, but very thin, with unusually short antlers and a slightly disheveled appearance. Ren could not, in all honesty, explain why he did not answer. Once Callie had been over, but she would not mind; she even teased him about it, staring through the peephole and cackling wildly.

"He's cute," she said. "You should let him in."

Ren only grunted.

Their night together was nothing noteworthy, just a drunken fling, and Ren had every intention of seeing him again, maybe even sober this time. But watching the thin figure standing outside his door, he felt a peculiar sense of nerves. He never got nervous.

Summer was Ren's least favorite season. Most students enjoyed the freedom--no class, no real responsibility, maybe a part-time job at best--but the wide open expanse of days filled him with boredom.

I could have a boyfriend, he thought. I could see Nara.

But he shook the thought away as quickly as it arrived.

He tried his best to think of Nara as "him" or "that deer," trying to distance any sense of emotion. Giving something a name gave it a power over you. Ren had long decided that the best way to deal with feelings like these was to ignore them. Dwelling on a crush--and it was, he finally admitted to himself, indeed a crush--made you stupid, made you act irrationally, made you push aside everything else in favor of pleasing the other person.

Callie picked up quickly on his embarrassment.

"You like him." They were standing out on Ren's balcony, watching the slow crawl of 5pm traffic along a major road. She lit a cigarette and stared at him intently. "And don't lie to me either, because I can tell."

He said nothing, just watched the cars march slowly and purposefully, like a colony of ants, towards their destination.

"Why him?" She would not let this go. Once Callie found a sore spot, she rubbed and poked at it until it bled. It was something he liked about her.

"I don't know."

"Yes you do."

"Everyone else in that bar was too obnoxious. I just wanted a fuck."

"You could have called me," she said playfully.

This was true. Callie and Ren had what she liked to call a "utilitarian" relationship. They were not dating, and likely they never would date, but they used each other to satisfy their needs. Both of them agreed that sex and love were two different animals entirely.

She tossed her cigarette butt off the balcony edge, watching with satisfaction as it fell through someone's sunroof in the parking lot. "Did you charm him?"

He was hoping she wouldn't ask this. His mind raced as he tried to think of a lie, but it seemed his silence gave him away.

"Oh, you fucker," she said. "You charm him and then ignore him? That's mean, even for you." They stepped back inside and she instantly pushed him onto the couch, climbing on top of him and unbuttoning her blouse. Callie was easily the best looking fox at university, with a narrow, elegant face, burnt red fur, and a shock of black hair kept in a messy pixie cut. "You fucker. You bad, bad wolf." She grinned and slid him inside her. Ren found he could forget about Nara for a bit longer.