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David glanced at the computer monitor that sat on his desk, looking at the calendar that was pulled up. He scrolled a finger down the agenda view and found who the next patient was. Nyeusi Rigby, the entry said, and David let out a soft groan when he read the name.

Nyeusi Rigby was a hybrid, a genetically created species that were humans and animal mixed, and a species that David had never worked with. Nyeusi had called earlier that morning, and David had agreed to meet with Nyeusi. David began to wonder, though, why he had agreed. Ultimately, David knew why he had agreed, but he was afraid to admit it to himself.

David had agreed to the meeting because of how Nyeusi had sounded. His voice had a tone of defeat in it, almost to the point that it seemed like he had given up. Apparently Nyeusi had called other psychologists and psychiatrists, and all of them had turned him down. It had been more than that, though. David had an almost morbid curiosity about hybrids. He had seen them many times when he walked around New York City, but he had never spoke to any of them. It had been this curiosity that ultimately caused David to have scheduled the appointment.

"David, you are an idiot," he said to himself as he sat back in his chair. "You know nothing about this Nyeusi guy, yet you agree to meet with him. You are too damn soft. You cannot get so invested in these cases, especially cases that you have no knowledge of."

David heard a soft ding and glanced up at a monitor that overlooked the waiting room. He glanced at the time and chuckled. "Well, gotta give Nyeusi one thing: He's on time, unlike half my other patients." David took a breath before he got up and headed out into the waiting room.

"Mr. Rigby? I am Doctor David Coronado," David said, as he extended his hand to shake Nyeusi's paw.

"Doctor Coronado," Nyeusi said, as he took David's hand and shook it. David was slightly relieved because Nyeusi's paw looked like it could have easily crushed David's hand but Nyeusi's handshake was firm but not painful. "Pleasure to meet you," Nyeusi said as he released David's hand.

"Please, feel free to call me David, everyone does."

"Very well, David," Nyeusi said, as he smiled. "Call me Nyeusi. Mister makes me feel old." Nyeusi looked around as David led him back to the office and when they reached the office, Nyeusi laughed. "Well, I didn't believe you were actually in an old restaurant and that your office would feel like the backroom you either ended up dead in, or dealing with things that are not quite above board. Also, isn't a doctor supposed to wear a suit and tie?"

David's office was in what used to be an Italian restaurant, which was all he could find when he started looking for office space. His office itself was furnished with just a folding table and two folding chairs, along with the monitor that hung on the wall and the monitor that sat on the folding table. David was wearing a pair of blue jeans, and a button down shirt that was half untucked.

"All I could find for office space," David admitted. "Just moved in a month or so ago, and this is really just a trial office, so the less I have to move out the better. As for wearing a suit and tie: I never really liked wearing them, and besides my patients feel more comfortable with me dressed this way." David shrugged and sat down at the table. "Please, have a seat, or if you are more comfortable, you are welcome to stand in the corner," David said, playing on the back room comment.

"I think I will sit," Nyeusi said, as he pulled the chair out from under the desk and sat down in it. "I am far from muscle, so I wouldn't quite fit standing in the corner."

David settled in his chair and looked over Nyeusi. He has dressed in a pair of business casual slacks, and a polo shirt. On his feet was a pair of black, nicely polished, leather shoes. David wasn't sure what he expected when he had talked to Nyeusi on the phone, but this was not it. What had been most striking about Nyeusi, however, had been his dark sense of humor of the surrounding environment.

"Well, Nyeusi, why don't we start with why you called me. What's going on that made you look for a psychiatrist?"

"Well, I wasn't really looking for a psychiatrist specifically, more just a counselor or someone I could sit down with and talk to. Your listing made you sound like you fit the bill so I figured I would give you a shot." Nyeusi paused, as his eyes looked up towards the ceiling in thought. "My wife suggested I look into talking to someone. About a year or so ago I stopped drinking, for the second time. Awhile after I stopped drinking, she said she noticed a change in my mood, and I started to notice it as well, though I was trying to ignore it."

"Tell me about these mood changes," David said as he leaned back in his chair and crossed his right leg over his left. "Do you get angry? Hyper? Depressed?"

"I don't know if I can really tell you about them, to be honest. I don't really pay much attention to them. I don't get angry, I can say that because I very rarely get angry. I think it's just that I want to be left alone, and not be bothered with anything going on around the house."

"When you say you want to be left alone," David says as he interlaced his fingers and put them behind his head. "Do you mean that in an 'I want to hide under the covers' way?"

Nyeusi shook his head at that. "No, nothing like that. I just want to go out on the deck, and watch the world go by without someone coming up to me with some issue, or whatever might be going on at the time."

"So you just withdraw," David stated as he nodded his head. "That's a sign of depression, which could explain why you drank and why not drinking is bringing it back. When you drank, what did you drink and how much did you drink in a day?"

"Well, when I started drinking it was whiskey, which was what my old man drank. Whiskey...I guess I would go through a fifth a day plus whatever I would order at the bar. When I moved back in with my brothers, I started drinking beer. When I was drinking beer, I probably drank twenty-four bottles in a day, maybe more. Never bothered counting, to be honest."

David raised his eyebrows in surprise. He had dealt with alcoholics in the past, but Nyeusi bordered on the most extreme end of the spectrum. "How long did you drink before you would quit, and what made you quit?"

Nyeusi rubbed his chin as he thought over the question. "Well, the whiskey I drank starting as soon as I could drink legally and I quit eleven years later I guess. The beer I started drinking when I was thirty-three, and I stopped last year so maybe nineteen years. The whiskey I quit because I finally saw just how much I was drinking. The beer I stopped because my wife suggested I might want to, and so I did."

"Your wife sounds like a good person if all it takes is a suggestion from her and you just quit drinking. I would like to hear about her, but before that, I want to hear about you. Tell me about yourself. What do you do for a living, what do you like to do in your free time, any hobbies. Give me your elevator pitch, so to speak."

Nyeusi had laughed at the elevator pitch part before he shrugged. "There isn't a lot to tell, to be honest. I've been married for two years now...or it will be two years in October to a golden retriever named Jamie. I have two brothers, a black lab named Dylan, and a border collie named Kes. Live in a little place out in Brooklyn, and I have lived there for a good while now. Mostly retired, though I run an apartment in Old New York though that doesn't take up a great deal of time. I also have a stake in Rigby's supermarket but that is solely for emergencies, so I don't do much with that. Outside of that, I either am sitting out on the deck watching the world go by, wandering New York City, or out on my motorcycle. There you go, my elevator pitch as you called it."

David nodded and then begin to rub his chin lightly. The mention of the apartment had caught his attention. David had rough luck with apartments when he had moved to New York, and ended up in New Jersey with a long commute and just a bedroom. He debated if he should ask for Nyeusi's advice for a moment before he decided it was worth a shot. "You mentioned running an apartment, would you be open to maybe offering a little advice? It won't take away from your time here today."

Nyeusi laughed at that, as a grin formed on his muzzle. "A little unusual, isn't it? Doctor asking his patient for advice. Go ahead though and ask. Can't guarantee I can be of much help, but I will see what I can do."

"You would be surprised," David said with his own chuckle. "Sometimes a patient does something interesting, and a doctor can be curious." David cleared his throat, as he thought about how to ask this without it sounding like a hint. "When I moved here, I tried getting into some apartments, and every one I tried would reject me. I have a broken lease on my record, and that was what the application system would return as the reason for denial. I wonder if you might know of a complex that is more forgiving and might give someone, like me, a chance."

"Broken lease...one of the worst things to have on your rental history. That falls just below rent owed," Nyeusi said as he tilted his head back and thought through the apartments he had known of. "To be honest, I don't really track other apartment complexes. They are not in competition with me because Old New York is still pretty heavy hybrid...in fact, I can count the number of humans there on one paw. Most apartments, from what I have heard, reject instantly on a red flag. In fact, the system that most complexes use, including mine, has that set as a default. I turned that off and do look at the situation around the red flag before rejecting someone. NOW, before you think this means you should apply at my complex, do remember you would be one of the few of your kind there. Some would happily talk with you, others would watch you like a hawk for awhile. It would be, potentially, uncomfortable for you and may not be better than what you have now because of that. That all said I cannot turn you away because of who you are so if you applied I would have to look at your application."

Nyeusi lightly tapped on the desk, with his fist, a couple of times, before he reached into his pocket and pulled out a business card, which he slid over to David. "That is the information on my complex. If you get to the point of sheer desperation, you could apply, but I wouldn't do it unless you got very desperate, or were in dire straits. Sorry that I can't be of any more help than that."

David had shaken his head before he slipped the business card into his back pocket. "No, no need to be sorry. I just figured it was worth a shot." David glanced at the time and waved a hand at it as if it had been bothering him. He then thought about it and looked back over to Nyeusi. "I know I said that I wouldn't take away time from you for answering my question, but the next questions I would like to ask could take a good bit. Now, while I am perfectly content to spend hours chatting, I am certain you have other things to do, and I have a drive back home. Would you be offended if I asked that we end this session?"

Nyeusi glanced at his watch and noticed that it was already nearing an hour, and the appointment had only been meant to be thirty minutes. He shook his head, smiling softly. "No offense taken. I got a bit of a hike myself, and Jamie will be getting home shortly."

"Thank you for that," David said, as he smiled as well. "I can say, quite honestly, that it has been a pleasure meeting you. I also think your wife may be right that talking to someone, like myself, will be of benefit to you. As we talked, I noticed a change in your body language. You were relaxing, and your mood was coming up a bit. I'm sure that, if we continue talking, it will not always be that way because parts of our lives are very difficult to drudge up, but at least today that was the case." David reached over and brought up his monthly calendar on the monitor. "Did you want to schedule another appointment now?"

"Would you be offended if I said I wanted to think about it for a few days?" Nyeusi asked. "There are a few things I have to really think about before I decide on continuing to meet with you, and I do want my family to have their say as well since I will be talking about them."

"No offense taken," David replied. "I understand it's not easy to talk to a stranger about your life. When a family is involved, it becomes even more uncomfortable. Just give me a ring when you want to schedule another appointment, all right?"

"I will do that," Nyeusi said as he stood up. "Thanks for your time, though. I appreciate you taking a chance to meet with me. Oh, what do I owe you?"

"Nothing," David said as he reached over to flip off his monitor. "It was a short appointment, and I wasn't certain if we would continue. If you decide to continue, I will get your wallet ID and just take care of the billing. Normal rate is a hundred per session."

Nyeusi stood up and chuckled. "Hundred a session to sit and listen to someone whine. You are underpricing yourself," he said with a grin. "Well, thanks for your time again, and I should know what I am doing in the next few days. Have yourself a good evening."

David watched as Nyeusi headed out of the office. "Just like us," he mumbled to himself before a thought occurred to him. Nyeusi had made a joke about the office being like backroom and him not being muscle. David wondered if that was actually a joke, or if that had been lived experience. He put his hands behind his head and leaned back. "What kind of life have you lived, Nyeusi?" he asked himself.

---

Nyeusi grinned as he made his way up the driveway to his home. There was only one car in the driveway, Jamie's, and when he glanced at his watch, the grin he had got a bit bigger. He headed into the house, set the two dozen roses he had bought, on his way home, on the stairs that led up to the bedroom, and slid his shoes off, before he set them down as quietly as possible.

He picked the flowers back up and put them behind his back. He made his way up the two sets of stairs as quietly as possible, before he stopped just before the last step that led to Jamie and his bedroom. His grin turned into a smile when he saw Jamie undressed, probably getting ready for her shower. He waited until her back was turned, then made his way up into the bedroom.

He slowly snuck up behind Jamie, and reached his free arm around her chest, where it settled just below her breasts. He then, before she was able to react, licked along her muzzle and said "Hi."

Jamie jumped when Nyeusi's arm wrapped around her chest, but not fast enough to have avoided the lick. She glared at Nyeusi for a moment, before she smacked him against the back of his head and glared at him. "Don't you EVER do that again," she said, though she was fighting back a giggle when she said it.

"Do what again?" Nyeusi asked, feigning ignorance. "Lick your muzzle? Say hi? You have to be more specific when you tell me not to do something again. Also, you realize that smacking me like that doesn't do a lot, right? Not much up there to smack around."

"You know damn well what I mean," Jamie said, as she pulled away from Nyeusi's hug. "Scared the living crap out of me, and you know damn well you did it. You know, sometimes I wonder if I married a cub." She then smirked, reached out and grabbed Nyeusi's ear pulling on it lightly. "How about this? This work better?"

"Ow, ow, that's my ear...ear...I need that," Nyeusi said as he did his best to pull away from Jamie. Jamie finally released he grip on Nyeusi's ear, and he rubbed the ear that Jamie had been pulling on. "So abusive," Nyeusi said as he laughed and set the flowers on the small table they had in the corner of the room. "Peace offering?" he asked as he nodded to the flowers.

Jamie looked over to the table and walked over before she picked up the flowers. She smelled them and smiled softly. "Well, it certainly is a start. These are gorgeous. Where did you get them?" she asked, as she filled a vase that sat on the table with water, carefully unwrapped the flowers and placed them in the vase.

"Well, I was on my way back from my appointment and found a little flower shop. Figured I would stop in and buy you some flowers while I was out. I haven't bought you flowers in a while, so I figured it would be a nice surprise."

"Oh, that's right that appointment was today," Jamie said as she sat down at the small table, and carefully set the vase in the center of the table. "How did that go?"

"Oh, it went alright, I supposed," Nyeusi said as he sat down at the table. "David is a nice enough guy, though his office is spartan to say the very least."

"Do you think you can get along with him?" Jamie asked, curious.

"Oh, I think I can get along with him well enough," Nyeusi said shrugging his shoulders. "Then again, this was one appointment, and a short one at that. Probably will take a couple of appointments to know, for sure, that I can get along with him."

"Well, what did you two talk about?"

"Not a lot, actually," Nyeusi said as he thought back to the appointment. "We mostly talked about my drinking, and then a bit about what I do. When I brought up the apartment, he asked if I knew a place that would be lenient on a broken lease he has. Against my better judgment, I gave him a card for the apartment. I did tell him that that was a last ditch, dire straits type situation, though."

"Why did you tell him that it was a dire straits situation? You have a couple of apartments opening up, and if the reason for the broken lease is valid why not offer to show him around Old New York and show him the apartment?"

Nyeusi reached into his front pants pocket and pulled a pack of cigarettes out. He removed a cigarette from the pack, lit it, took a long inhale, and then exhaled the smoke through his nose. "If I said that, he's going to take me up on that offer. You don't ask someone if they know of a place that is lenient on rental backgrounds unless you are seriously looking for a place. Now, he may very well see this as either his only option or an easy option and want to apply. The problem is, he has only been in New York for a month so he hasn't been around hybrids for long. He's going to be smack dab in the middle of a hybrid city and not have a clue about us which is going to, much like Rebecca, make him feel out of place. I don't feel like having to break another lease, and go through all that work a month or two down the road."

"What if he is different than Rebecca, though? What if he gets used to the environment right away?"

"What ifs," Nyeusi said as he tapped his cigarette on the edge of the ashtray that sat on the table, "is not how I want to run a business. I need to know he will be comfortable."

"Bring him here," Jamie suggested before she started giggling. "If he can tolerate us, he can tolerate any hybrid."

Nyeusi glared over at Jamie, an eyebrow raised. "Are you saying that we are odd or something?"

"Odd? You don't think that the fact I have seen more dog asses here than I did the entire time I was dating is odd?"

"No, not at all," Nyeusi said, shrugging. "It's been that way for as long as I can remember, and I doubt it's changing. Besides, it's not like we are a bunch of nudists. It's a once in awhile thing and besides you coming down in just a nightshirt isn't much better, you know?"

"Hey, at least I am covered, unlike you three. Aside from that, yes we are odd. I am not saying it's a bad thing, but we are a bit different, you have to admit that."

"Well, as for you being covered," Nyeusi said as he looked over the naked form of Jamie, "I am getting a pretty damn good view right now," Nyeusi said, which got him a glare from Jamie, a glare which he ignored. "As for us being odd, I really don't see it that way. Comfortable living together, good friends and we like to have fun now and then. Nothing that odd. Besides, inviting him over here will be a feat unto itself. You know how Dylan is about strangers in the house."

"Excuses, excuses and more excuses," Jamie said as she got up and grabbed a towel off a stack. "I think you just don't want a human invading your space. Admit it, you just don't like humans." She leaned over and lightly kissed Nyeusi before she headed off to the shower.

"It's not that I don't like them," Nyeusi said to himself. "More that they are the reason that I exist, and for that, I won't forgive them." He took a drag off the cigarette, which had nearly turned to ash, and then smashed it out in the ashtray. After he had smashed out the cigarette, Nyeusi lit a second cigarette and slipped a purple velvet covered box out of his back pocket. After he had opened it to look at the contents, he closed it and buried it in the bottom drawer of his dresser.