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Around Aunt Doreen's milk farm, none of this shit is hardly ever earned, but I find it better just not to think about it most of the time. You just take, take, take, push yourself back up, and smile at whoever sees you. You make sure they don't really care. You make sure everybody's still nice and comfy in their own world and you move on.

You pray nobody else still cares.

See, it's Apollo's birthday now. We made it.

Squatting under a bessie, milking her uncomfortable tits, draining her til she's feeling better—this is where we were when we heard the shot. Doesn't seem like we'd be able to hear it this many miles over, but we did. It rang through clear to us. We didn't figure what the hell it was for, at first. Aunt Doreen called them, made sure everybody was all right—everybody was not all right.

Ain't seen Lewis since then. Ain't heard anything more about Ronnie's day. Makes my job easier—making sure Apollo's day goes better. Hard to go worse.

Apollo's sitting slouched at the end of all our stalls, leaning his ungroomed self against the very last one. He don't really watch me work today, and he ignores Aunt Doreen the same as she works toward the other end of the barn. Don't think any of us are really looking for small talk.

“It's such a shame," Aunt Doreen mutters anyway. “I told Tammy it was a bad idea. I just hoped it wouldn't turn out like it did."

Hardly the best topic we could start for squeezing milk out from another person's bosom. I'd rather talk to just Apollo. Tell him more than just a Happy birthday this morning 'fore we kept moving down the status quo. Ask him what else I can do for him today.

“They shouldn't have shot her," Aunt Doreen says. “Wasn't her fault."

As much as I'd like to tell her to please stop talking, it gladdens me to hear she's not just talking about it being a shame that Ronnie got burned. Some days, I don't know what to think of people like me.

I don't say anything back. I look, but I keep my mouth shut. Apollo still don't pay any attention, either, and he don't say nothing to me behind Aunt Doreen's back. I want to ask him if he wants some more mac and cheese tonight. Fuck if Auntie finds out, right? Nothing she can do after he's already eaten. Ain't it worth the risk?

But it's only a risk for Apollo, ain't it? Not for me. Suppose I'd just get yelled at. He's the one something might happen to. Makes me wonder what risks are still worth taking.

One, at least. Something I'll share the blame for. Something nicer than the rest, long as I'm still good enough for it.

Clover didn't even get a burial. There's no way she did. I only wonder how her body was disposed of. Will Harley bury me when I surely die before her? Is that too much to think about when I should be grieving, I guess? Harley's right. We didn't even know her. Didn't even try.

It feels like I just want to follow Harley's lead today. I don't know where else to go. So we leave the barn for now, her ahead of me, the morning milking finished. Now it's time for in between chores. Feed store? Right. It's that day of the week.

The two of us and Joshua load up in the truck. It feels almost strange not to see Rosalie's motorcycle parked behind it anymore, but she's left for good. Probably for the better, right? I'd like to think that, but really, probably not. Now Lewis and I are the only realistic people Harley can have again.

Is this a little grim? Am I focusing inward, taking the picture away from the scenery of rolling bumpkin plains as we ride? Sorry, you. It's gorgeous out here, at least. The sun is shining, the clouds are there in general, and birds are making noise everywhere. It's pastoral. Trust me. It's idyllic. It's all the wonderful scenes you've read from the thoughts of someone greater. It'd be even better, I bet, if I looked out the window to see any of it.

We get there. Harley's the one who opens my door, and I step out beside her. It's my own four legs I need to rely on.

“Good morning, good morning, Bobby-Lou. How's that news lookin' today?"

Joshua leads us inside, calling to the man behind the counter as soon as the door opens this time. Harley's next inside—or would be, but she pauses at the door for me to scoot by her. Now's the time I would be reminding you what this place looks like, or what knick-knack Bobby has added, but honestly?

That same old poster for electric rat removal, always there, every time, is all I see.

Bobby just looks up from his paper like we've never even left, no change in his voice, trawling the same way as ever, “Well, hello, Oh-Pines. How's y'all's day going this morning?"

“Doing just fine today. It's a fine day, and we're feeling it," Joshua says. “Not doing nothing special, though. Just here for the bessies' mix again."

Bobby pulls his elbow off from his paper and stretches himself straight, rapping his knuckles on the counter like a showtune we can't ever skip. He turns for the back room, but not before Harley leans onto the counter and says, “Bobby—is she okay?"

Shit, what? I'm not up there. I can't see if 'Luster' is okay or not. What happened to her?

“Well, Harley, 'okay' is relative. She's still acting the scamp. Tried to get out again when she thought I wasn't looking, but I was ready for her this time. Truth be told, I'm not quite sure what I'm supposed to do with her when she keeps acting like that. She been vexing me."

“That's exactly what you got to do, Bobby-Lou," Joshua pipes in. “She ain't goin' learn no other way."

Harley just keeps frowning. “You ain't keepin' that too tight on her?"

“Oh, no, she's comfortable. Just not so much as she usually gets to be."

The leash. Maybe I don't need to see that. Maybe she doesn't want me to see it.

Even with Joshua leaning himself even farther over the counter, resting his weight, Harley doesn't pull back to tell me anything herself. We've spoken once today so far. Then again, what even would we say now if we could?

I wish it wasn't my birthday. It gets less special every year.

Bobby comes back fast as ever, big bag of nutrients crinkled under his arm, no trouble for him to press it up onto the counter beside the register. Harley takes it over her shoulder, Joshua gets his wallet, and Bobby—

“Shame about what happened up at the Hendersons', isn't it, though? Just feels like none of that needed to happen, I think."

We never get out of here without the peanut gallery commentating something.

“Shit idea from the start, I said," Joshua grunts. “They ain't had no business trying to break in one of those things. Bad enough we had to keep it long as we did. There weren't no other outcome could've been, I'll tell you now."

And Bobby says, “And to think, it could have been worse. I spoke to Miss Henderson on the phone just yesterday, and she told me that Veronica is recovering all right now, but they're all shaken badly. Poor girl's hardly come out from her room at all since then. We can only pray when she might get better from the trauma, isn't that right?"

Ah, yes. Ronnie. The girl who got someone killed, from what I've heard. And with so little effort.

“Of course, Bobby-Lou. She'll get better, though. She'll toughen up. Everybody's got to learn the meaner side of life 'fore they can really grow up."

Oh. I guess that's true, isn't it? That's a good nugget. I should remember that.

Harley walks back down the dog food aisle toward the door, more strolling than heading outside. She holds the bag steady with one arm, but with the other she brushes a finger across all the bags on display. It's some different brand than I recognize she stops on, looking back to the counter as she says, “Uncuh Josh-ya, sorry, I need some of this, too."

Joshua just looks over his shoulder. “Your fella need a refill already?"

“No, uh, I just—I'd like to try this one for an in between. Think it might be good for treats."

Without explaining to you how that's clear bullshit, what I really notice is Harley's one lip tucked over the other and her trying not to blush.

“Well, you'd be right about that, Harley," Bobby says, leaning so far over the counter I can see his old smug shit again. “That's a consistent formula. Trustworthy long as I've been around, believe me."

“Course we believe you, Bobby-Lou," Joshua says. “Bring it on up, then, Harley—but you still get to carry it."

And to think, we actually got out of there with nothing creepier from Bobby-Lou than him probably peeking at my ass, or daydreaming about Apollo's, or whatever that is that he does. Either way, I got what I need for my special job today.

Maybe it's okay that Apollo and I ain't got to talk more yet. Saves more of the surprise. Makes it special again. Helps me keep my trap shut about the plans I got before the two of us can just—forget about everything else tonight.

“Harley, get me out those hamburger buns, will you?"

Already, Aunt Doreen's back to her strong old self. We didn't talk about it at all yesterday, and now after she's grieved a little this morning, she's just fine and dandy again. But yeah, sure, I get her out those hamburger buns. She's just cooking us up some patties on the stove for lunch, and I got nothing to do but wait for them.

Don't panic. These ones are tofu.

And Uncle Joshua's just lounging back at the table already, nose in his newspaper and boots stretched out one over the other as far as they go. He's the only one with a glass of strong enough for suppertime resting in front of him. He ain't got no cares about it.

Apollo's sitting on the other side of the table, right under the corner where Aunt Doreen and Uncle Joshua can't get a look at him. Just sitting. Doing nothing worth taking a look at. He's just staring, the scruff from his brow strewn crooked as ever over his eyes like he ain't see anything but what he's thinking.

It's the old brand of his kibble I come up to his bowl with. As much as it don't feel right giving just this to him today, I pour it in. He comes over anyway. He munches. Hardly gives me a second look.

I linger over him and his bowl. Right now, this feels like the right moment to sneak him something onto his cheek, or his lips—the right time to make sure nobody's paying attention and to dare it.

Except it really don't feel like the right moment at all.

Apollo just munches. Plays the good pet. Doesn't rock the boat just now. Maybe doesn't want it, anyway.

I push back up, look back over to the kitchen.

“Auntie, y'all still got that tent packed somewhere in your closet, ain't you? You mind if I get that out?"

Aunt Doreen stirs the grease in her skillet, looking back to me over her shoulder. “We do, but what're you going to be doing with it?"

“Want to sleep outside tonight. Ain't done it since I was a kid, and, uh—feels like a good time for it again."

Aunt Doreen smiles. “Oh, I remember that well. You and Apollo, camping just out in the yard, feeling all grown up that you got to spend the whole night without either of us looking over your shoulder."

“I remember you looking over my shoulder anyway," I tell her. “So, you mind?"

“Go for it," Aunt Doreen says, looking back to the burgers to flip them. “Not like we have any secrets hiding in our closet from you."

A little ominous for my tastes, but I'll take it.

Uncle Joshua pulls over the next page of his paper and adds, “But you'll be the one puttin' it together yourself this time. I ain't messin' with that shit again."

“Yes I will be, thank you very much," I tell him.

Apollo keeps munching, and I make my way down the hall—except for poking back around the corner, telling Aunt Doreen, “Don't look over my shoulder again, please."

She just scoops the burgers off her skillet and chuckles, “We won't, goodness. So testy."

I don't raise my voice none. I let the words carry my meaning.

“Need the time alone tonight, if you don't mind."

Because tonight, I'll make Apollo want it.

Stars. Same ones everyone gets to look up at. Constellations we all share, that we could be watching at the same time, and whatnot. This is supposed to be the real beauty of the country: no light pollution; just stars. As far as the sky stretches over your eyes, just white stars and a black canvas.

Harley's getting the tent set up alone. She insisted. Thinks not letting me help her is a good part of the present, not that I'd be of any help with these stubby paws. I just get to watch either her or the stars, both out of reach.

So continues my observer status for my own new year of life. This is what it will still be like. Neither of us deserve this.

“How they look tonight?" Harley says behind me. “Figured any new constellations yet?"

We can talk freely now. All the doors and the windows of the house creak loud enough that we'll hear them open all the way over here, and she's set the tent up between us and the house so that whatever we do won't get spotted. It's our time again.

But I just don't have the chitchat in me to answer. Maybe I'm still a child. Maybe I'm lonelier than I should feel. Here with me, Harley's the only one who's got the right to feel lonely.

Harley stakes the last side of the tent and comes over to sit beside me. I've picked my laydown at the top slope of our little hill just away from the house, the same spot where Clover spent her time with Rosalie. Not on purpose.

“Got us a bag of what we need out here after the others went to bed," she says, smiling a little… too much for her bedroom eyes. “Can't be as loud as we like, but I got a thing or two might make up for it."

She reaches behind for the backpack she filled. There's a rustle out from it first, then an echoed sort of shaking. I only tilt my chin over to see. Harley pulls out my food bowl, washed clean, then a lidded plastic cup of kibble rattling in her hand. She sets those down by my side, smiles a little smaller now, and crawls on her hands around to in front of me. She resettles as close to before me as she can, tucks her knees under herself, straightens her back but not her neck. She raises her hands over her thighs, and she thinks I can't see the blush coming back to her cheeks under the moonlight.

Happy birthday, Apollo!

Her lips are clutched tight together, but her hands wave around each other a little enthusiastic for the words. I push off from my back and lean up for her presentation.

Tonight, she tells me, I'm just your pet.

Oh.

You can treat me however you like, she tells me. She pats the bowl. If I'm a good girl, you can feed me a reward.

So this was the present.

Now her smile turns wider again, and before crawling back to the backpack, she says, But first—

There's less of a rustling from it this time. Harley just pulls open the front pouch, slips out a mirror and some lipstick, and pops off the top of the latter. She brings it to her mouth, wipes it back and forth and up and down, and puckers to the glass in her other hand.

So this is the present.

Do I sound disappointed? I am. She shouldn't—it's that she shouldn't have to settle for this from me.

Harley crawls back to my front, a minty sheen of green apple now decorating under her gaze. That gaze stares into mine. She settles herself into the same tight pose, knees in, mouth shut, and says, First, I want to show you just what a good girl I can be.

Oh.

It's already working.

She bends at the waist, wipes her fingers over the fur still obscuring me, and tickles my bare flesh with the breath of her nostrils. She opens her lips again just barely, and the way she puckers to my dick—she's amazing.

I don't like it.

I know exactly how he likes it. This is what I know to do best. Let me do my work, and I'll show you just how big Apollo's cock gets.

Draw my tongue up along his tip, circle around it, quit playing—I drink deep like a long sip down the whole thick of him. I stuff my cheeks with his cock, all the skin and slime wrestled snug inside. He's a perfect fit in my throat. I smear a green kiss all the way to his base, slide it back and forth, and let the mark of just how deep I can take him shimmer in the moonlight when I pull back.

That green impression of my lips is just how far I need to press every time now. Go ahead: picture my gussied-up mouth sucking Apollo's fat pink cock until the fur on his crotch is rubbing up against my nose. Picture my lips sucking half an inch closer to his balls, sucking the half an inch back to my teeth, holding him until his cock's squeezed the breath in my throat too tight. Picture my hair spilling past my shoulders and my hands tucked on the grass and my face dedicated to sucking off my master.

Picture it. Look at it. Look at me beneath him.

I need somebody to appreciate it all.

Apollo's getting bigger. Wetter. I taste more than my spit lubing up and down his skin now. Once his precum's dribbling down my tongue, squelching past my uvula, that's when I press my gagging louder. I let the wet smacks forced out my throat speak for me.

Then I gasp back out all at once, springing him to my withdrawal, the tears just now dipping down my cheeks. This ain't when I stop—no matter what breath I need, I kiss his dick all over again down the underside, tonguing him right between the sac and the tender shaft waiting to fuck me again. I take him across my jaw, down my chin. The strings of his juices dribble down my face from above, and I let them rub over my skin like they might soak into me.

Apollo watches me with the same sharp attention in his eyes as ever, keeps his gaze furrowed and set in control of his breathing, but the tough look in them is missing as he keeps his paws to the grass. His eyes are beautiful when he's looking into mine no matter what, but he's supposed to be tugging me over his cock by himself by now.

That's okay. He'll still want to. I can do better.

I draw myself to an inch away from his skin so just my tongue graces his nerves now. My lips gasp past him, but their slippery green glory keeps away until he's willing to take them by force. No, just my tongue slides under his cock.

Picture me staring him down, mouth open, licking him barely out of reach down his whole length, tasting every twitch and pulse echoing up his spine. Picture the growing musk from his bulging cock, leaking out from him and spilling into me, wafting into my brain and making my face beg even while it plays keepaway.

Picture the kitty cat on her knees, lapping patient for her real treat. Frame that shot.

Apollo sighs in all his breath, watches sharp, but his paws just keep to the grass. I can wait. The taste of his skin crawling over my tongue is enough for me before the moment he's ready to take charge of this night.

That moment comes when he frowns. He paws into my hair, rustles his claws over my scalp, and pulls my kiss warm and toasty all the way back down to the first frenching I gave his cock tonight.

This is the important part. Eye contact—that's what Apollo likes while he fucks my throat, me watching him have his way with my tender parts. Keeping still, giving him all the control. Just puckering up, making sure every next swipe he orders is a fresh new sheen applied to his thickest flesh.

He wants me. When he fucks me, he wants me, and that's because of me. That's all I need out of this.

Then he comes, and the moment finishes.

He drags me by the locks to swallowing everything he musters, thumping his balls at my chin and pumping his cum down my walloped throat. Every pang twitching down my skin as he pulses in me is a memory planted in my nerves of giving in. Getting controlled. Having someone I love who wants me that way.

This is enough for me. I swear it is.

But I can't breathe on his seed alone, so my eyes water as Apollo tugs me slow and steady off from the tip of himself. Past the gasping, past the crying—I look back into his beautiful eyes and I just want this to be enough for him, too.

At least let me be able to give him a happy birthday, right?

But I'm the one who gave in. Some master of humans I make.

Harley just straightens herself up as soon as I let go of her. She wipes the back of her hand over her mouth and bundles her fists over her knees, smiling big again like it's all according to schedule. I'm supposed to say something now. That's what she's waiting for. I can't think of anything right, so my paws just—I don't know.

That was good.

It's all I got.

Harley keeps smiling for me anyway, but there's no way she bought it. She brings up her hands and waves them cheery around each other, asking, So am I a good girl, master?

I definitely can't think of anything right, but I have to answer. I know it's wrong even before I say it.

Stop signing, Harley.

I already fucked up as her smile fades. She whispers, “What's wrong?"

You can speak; I'm not deaf. You can—literally speak. You don't have to talk like a pet the way I have to.

“I'm not—"

Goddammit. I'm the one who started that look on her face now. This is my fault already again.

“—that's not what I was signing for."

But I've opened the loudest voice in me from the back of my mind. The voice that's been waiting for its turn. That's the part that says, No? Then what's the dog food for? Is what I have to eat every day just part of our fetish now?

And Harley looks to the sealed kibble, and not back to me. Her hands bundle tight over only her thighs now, and she says looser, “I just wanted to—"

She tightens her lips. “Just wanted you to feel better. About having to eat that, about having to pretend, about… everything."

I can't feel better here, I say. Someone was just murdered and no one gives a shit. This place is poisoning my soul. All I want is to get the fuck away.

“I know," she says. Her voice cracks even in the middle of her pause. “But I don't know how to give you that…."

The tears running down her face now are the kind I never—I didn't ever want to be the one to put there.

That voice that got out is my selfishness, isn't it?

Harley, I say slower, all I want is for us to get away. I would rather take our risks anywhere else in the world. College might not—maybe it wouldn't be enough, either, but it couldn't be worse than this place. They could shoot me dead in their halls if they pleased, but it would still be better than dying here.

“That's not goin' happen anywhere!" Harley says quick. “I won't let anybody—they'd have to go through me. It's never goin' happen."

I want you to have better, too, I say. If you apply somewhere and just—take me with you, at least—you could find someone better there. I'm not going to hold you down. You deserve that.

Harley tilts her face through her stare. She cracks, “Are you breaking up with me now?"

I don't want her to look that way, and I wish I wasn't the one who—I don't know what I'm complaining about when I'm the one who really is making her feel this way.

I know that I can't fulfill your needs, and that you deserve better than me, I say. I saw the way you looked at Rosalie, the way—how she could handle you, physically, if she wanted. How she could hold you down without any of your help. How she could get into more than three positions, how she could—how she could use both her hands on you and still communicate.

And I don't know if any more of what I've said is the wrong thing, but Harley looks at me straighter now. She fixes her gaze firm, and her lips tighten even as she doesn't stop crying.

“Rosalie?" she says. “I didn't want Rosalie, I want to be her!"

She catches her voice just as quick as it raises, whispering to a hiss the next second.

“Course I was staring at her! If I had a rack worth a shit, maybe you'd actually want to play with mine. If I had hips like hers, if I looked half as good—maybe I'd be worth more sexually than just my holes."

The words can't come fast enough for me to just tell her—

Harley, that's never been the way I've felt about you.

“You can't meet my needs? I can't meet anybody's," she says, grinning through the pain in the worst way. “You think anybody else wants me? Maybe Lewis? I'm the only girl in the county he knows. Course he wants a chance to fuck me."

Then the hiss falls out from even her whisper.

“I'm the only girl in the county you know, too."

I hold back my paws. I don't know the words in them to tell her—that she's wrong? That I love her so much more than that? Is that really enough?

Harley, I never—

It's the only words I can think of that spill out now.

We grew up together. I fell in love with you through every moment of that time. I never thought about being so close to someone until the first time you kissed me, and then I never wanted to let you go. Just you. Everything in me is what you lit. You're the one who's gotten me through my life sane, not with the sex—just walking beside you. Sharing with you. I don't know the right way to say how much I love you, but please—I do. So much.

Harley listens to my whole rambling while choking back anything more from herself. At the end, after a sniff that gets away from her, she just mutters, “I'm sorry I couldn't give you a better birthday."

What day it is doesn't matter, I say. But how much I love you is how much I know you deserve someone better than me.

She wipes at her eyes and holds back the rest of her tears greater than I ever could. Her other hand meets my paw, and she says, “Well, I ain't goin' find anybody better, and it ain't 'cause of what fuckin' options I got, Apollo. Please don't talk shit about yourself. That ain't what you deserve."

I leave my paw in her hand. Whatever else I have to say, it's not as important. Just the warmth she offers me now is enough.

“I thought it was the best we could get here," she tells me quieter. “I thought I could help protect you here, make it good enough. I was wrong. I mean, obviously, but… I'm sorry."

She looks me in the eyes, draws closer to mine.

“I'll get us out of here."

She presses our foreheads together, nuzzles closer yet. Her voice keeps barely steady as she says, “I'm goin' stop pretending to everybody that you're anything less than who I love the most, Apollo, and nobody's goin' stop that."

I want to tell Harley never to risk that—never to risk herself like that—but I want to never tell her that, either.

She kisses my cheek. I don't care what else has been in there—I draw her lips to mine. We hold it together, taste each other, share this warmth, and don't care who watches. My paw finds her other cheek, and her hand lays over mine. She dances in my mouth, and I hope that green apple stains me everywhere it laps.

But Harley peels away from our grasp. Even as I paw her back toward the sweetness, she holds herself out of reach for just a breath.

“Can I be a good girl now?"

Sorry, you. We do actually still care who watches. What happens next is private.