Acceptance
Ai took a deep breath and pulled the skin on her leg taught between her thumb and index finger, her other hand holding the needle against the soft flesh of her outer thigh. She exhaled and drove the needle in, right through to the...
The Favor of A Patron God
The Favor Of A Patron God After Kauva undressed herself and threw her robes into the corner, she collapsed onto the plush sealskin blanket that covered the floor of the courtesan's meeting room. The lioness's chest rose and...
Old Flames
Isaac laid sprawled out on his air bed, head propped up by his coat, and his pants around his thighs, brown moving boxes surrounded him like a ring of garden...
The Ritual
Sola stood naked, mesmerized by her reflection in the clear water of the bathhouse's marble floor when Bjorn barged in with a handful of towels. She didn't react--her adolescence spent in the temple bathhouses had conditioned her to her own...
Nine Cuts
_All things your soul and the birdsong_ _Must be sliced up and laid out for the judges_ _Daydreams mating-drive and fear of death_ _--Rolf Jacobsen, Knives, Knives_ _So the world would be harmed if anything in it were free from...
Winter Break
Ethan kicked his pants and underwear off from around his ankles, awkwardly wedging a toe under the bunched-up legs of his cargo pants so he could peel them off while his hands were occupied. The tiger settled back in his bean bag chair, legs spread...
The Pilgrimage
By the time Esa walked out of the forest and into town, he had lost all feeling in his cheeks, the blood long ago fleeing his extremities. The cold air felt like fire in his lungs, triggering violent, painful coughs between breaths. The tiger cursed...
Swords to Plowshares
After the war was over, there came an era of reconciliation; bonds of peace forged with monuments, trade agreements, gifts of gold and crops...
Getting Out In Nature
The forest always brought Amanda home. Dewdrops fell from wind-shaken treetops, baptizing the top of her head and falling on the expanse of fern, moss, and earth. Virgin soil crunched underfoot as she delicately stepped over a colony of mushrooms...
The Mentorship
Bureaucracy moves like a water wheel during summer: slowly, and with little current to push it, yet it still spins. That was something a priest told me years ago, an offhand comment that was filed away into a vast library of...
A Perfectly Normal Couple
Leo let out a contented purr, his tail giving a flirtatious flick as his boyfriend hugged him from behind, a pair of paws traveling down his belly. The lithe leopard felt those wondering hands reach his semi-erect length, as his tiger gently worked...
Learning To Like It
"And that was the story of how I ended up in a hospital in Gjøvik at 2AM. Took me a year to get over my fear of circuit breakers." Angie slammed her margarita down on the table, ice cubes and lime peel clattering around in the empty glassware. The...