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It was a cool mid-autumn morning when I answered the knock at my door to find a tall, huge, broad-shouldered, solidly-built, cerulean-furred lion filling the entryway, his lavish indigo mane swept back in a jaunty manner. His maroon and gold athletic pants looked new, a matching jacket (sans hoodie) open to reveal a seemingly form-fitting white A-frame shirt. "Good morning, sir!" he said, proffering a paper bag with a familiar logo on it. "I've come to you today with an incredible offer. You get these thoroughly delicious, freshly-made bagels, complimented by fresh cream cheese in two equally wonderful flavors, and all you need do is agree to take care of me for the rest of my life."

"Tempting!" I admitted. "Flavors?"

"Two asiago cheese bagels for savory, two French toast bagels for sweet, bacon/scallion cream cheese for the former, and honey walnut cream cheese for the latter. An absolute orgy of delicious decadence for your taste buds."

"SOLD!" I shouted. "Get your furry tail in here!"

Chuckling, the great lion bent over my mere six-foot frame and hugged me. "How are you, Tristan?"

"Pretty much okay, Aleksandr. Hungry, after hearing that description," I said, grinning. "Shall we have those now, or later?"

"Now is good; I've come from a workout at the gym. Don't worry, I showered."

"Oh pooh," I said, heading for the kitchen. "Here and I thought you were going to seduce me with pheromones."

"Nah, that's cheating." The lion set the paper sack on the dining table, took off his jacket and put it over the back of one of the chairs. "Besides, I figured the bagels would probably do it."

"You figured right." I brought plates and spreaders and set them down. "Drinkables?"

"Milk?"

"Two-percent?"

"Done."

I grinned, enjoying the ease of the banter we'd established for ourselves over the past several months. "I think you might prefer skim, but I just can't get used to milk that doesn't have milk in it."

"They say it's an acquired taste. Or perhaps I just haven't any taste."

"Hey! You chose me as a mentor, and I think that shows terrific taste."

The lion bowed, teasing but never mocking. "A thousand pardons, sempai."

"I should think so, too!" I set the glasses on the table. "Sit, kohai, and learn truth and wisdom from the Ancient One."

"I hear and obey."

I paused. "Boy, that was loaded with entendres! Good dreams for Tristan tonight!"

Aleksandr laughed heartily and placed a couple of bagels on my plate, happily licking his fingers after doing so. In some ways, ours was a very odd friendship, born of my having the questionable taste to read Dostoevsky on the predominantly-gay section of beach this past summer. Aleksandr, playing volleyball with friends, came to rescue me from the misplaced ball that flew almost into my face. Our conversation began when he - Aleksandr Pyotr Marseyavich Mashchenko, first U.S. born son of Russian parents - wanted to find out how much I knew about Russian writers. From there, our meetings grew to two or three times a week, to talk about books, movies, music, anything, everything. Quite apart from being perhaps the most magnificently muscular male to walk the planet since Hercules, he was also fiercely bright, with insights and arguments that made him a fascinating fellow to talk to. It was that which helped me to resist the excruciating pains of wishing he were more than a friend.

His chuckle interrupted my reverie. "What?" I asked him.

"I don't want this to sound wrong - I love to watch you eat. You enjoy it so much."

"Perhaps too much," I said, patting my bear's belly softly.

"None of that!" Aleksandr said in a firm yet friendly tone. "We talked about that."

"Yes, we did." I smiled ruefully. "Sorry."

"As your punishment, you're to take some extra cream cheese on your asiago cheese bagel." He handed me the spreader. "Naughty boy!"

I put on my best Stan Laurel face. "I'm sorry, Ollie!" I took more of the bacon-scallion cream cheese and decorated my bagel with it. Unlike most people who use cream cheese as if it were butter or margarine, laying only a thin layer across the top, I use it like cheese, in large portions. Unless you're down on fats, it's actually better for one's diet than, say, a Belgian waffle with four ounces of maple syrup. Which, now that I think about it...

"Well," I said, enjoying the flavors, "as Robert Heinlein told us, 'Moderation is for monks.' And I don't think I'd pass the celibacy tests."

"Few of us could." The lion smiled, and I rallied myself against the temptation to pursue the idea further. "So," he said jovially enough, "you said you had something special for today."

"I do indeed." I wiped my fingers on a napkin; I didn't quite trust myself to lick them. "I hope you're not afraid of Virginia Woolf."

Aleksandr chuckled. "One helluva play, although not something I could stomach as a steady diet. Of course, the play really isn't about Woolf, is it?"

"Nope, but I thought you'd enjoy finding out about her. C'mon, I've got a film all cued up for us." I rose indicating the living room area a dozen feet away. "I'm going to make a confession to you: Your sempai is imperfect after all. I really haven't read Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, to my shame. I've started and failed three times thus far."

"Why is that?"

"It's brilliantly-written stream-of-consciousness. Unless you're really in the mood to read slowly, carefully, and follow the long and distracted twists and turns of human thought, it's a tough book to conquer. It's on my list, though, along with the book that this movie is based on."

When I held up the DVD case, the lion took it from me gently. "Oooh, The Hours! I wanted to see this when it was in the theaters, but you can imagine how that went over with my volleyball pals. It was instantly designated not merely a 'chick flick' but a 'geek chick flick,' simply because it showed three fully-clothed women on the movie poster. I was a senior in high school, so naturally I couldn't be seen going there." He grinned. "I'm looking forward to seeing what I missed."

"Hooray for DVDs," I grinned. "Get comfy. You know the background of the film?"

"Three stories," he said, taking his cue from the back of the DVD case. "Strongly influenced by Woolf's novel, Mrs. Dalloway, which she's just beginning to work on, in one of the story lines in the film. The modern story line is very similar to the plot of Mrs. Dalloway, with ... Meryl Streep's character, isn't it?" I nodded, and he continued. "She's preparing for a party, much as Mrs. Dalloway is, for a guest of honor who isn't really looking forward to it. And the third story is set in the 50s - a woman with the apparently perfect home and family, who is considering taking her own life."

"It's got some tear-jerker to it, but it's a great film. Ready?"

"Almost." He bowed and waved for me to sit on the sofa, at my "usual end" (I keep my remotes and such things on the small table at the right). He smiled at me, sitting a bit to my left, then pivoting around so quickly that I yipped in surprise. All 6'9" of him took up the entire sofa and more; his large hind paws hung over the opposite arm of the sofa, and he put his head on my belly, his great indigo mane spilling over me in a lavish fall. He took my left arm and placed it over his shoulders, wriggled happily against me and grinned. "Now I'm ready."

For a long moment, I couldn't move. I was all too aware of having a large slab of very warm lion in my lap - or as much lap as a pot-bellied bear can have. My arm across his shoulder was as natural as could be for any two people who were used to cuddling with each other, and perhaps that was the point - we weren't, at least not up until that moment. We hugged in greeting and in farewell, and we weren't shy about brushing up against one another if it occurred by accident, but we didn't go out of our way to have such contact. I knew that our relationship wasn't intended to be a physical or sexual one; we were friends, and we shared our thoughts with one another. He was curious about things that I knew a lot about; we jokingly referred to each other as sempai and kohai, or master-teacher and apprentice (more or less). Truth is, I was learning from him at least as much as I was teaching him. In all this, however, I knew that the one thing I had to avoid was falling in love with him. That would just gum up the works.

He looked up at me, gentle concern on his beautiful face. "Are you okay with this, Tristan?"

"Sure," I said, smiling as best I could.

His eyes held mine softly. Without the slightest hint of malice, he said, "Let's try that again."

From the very first moments of our friendship, we had helped each other look closely at what we were feeling. We promised each other that we would look at our emotions and share them, and that they would never become a secret or a barrier between us. I breathed slowly for a few moments, nodded. "I want to be," I said. "I want to be okay with this. I'm just not sure..."

"Do you want me to sit up?"

"No," I said, checked my emotions, and said it again. "No, I really don't. I like feeling you cuddled up like this. As long as you're comfortable."

"Very comfortable." He rubbed his head against my belly as if to confirm this. "You're a big warm teddy bear, Tristan, and I feel perfectly ready to watch a great movie. Shall we?"

"Yes," I said, a smile on my muzzle. "Let's."

And we did. I was horribly self-conscious for a little while, but the magic of the film itself took over before long, and I found myself wrapped up in it. Aleksandr and I shifted a little once in a while, but overall, we stayed still for most of the movie. We were both taken in by the superlative performances, and I could feel Aleksandr tense himself when he saw Ed Harris sitting in the open window of his penthouse apartment. Knowing what was coming, I put my paw on his shoulder a little tighter.

Harris deserves special acknowledgement simply for falling. He doesn't "throw himself from the window," as most plot descriptions would tell us. He sits in the open window frame, utterly calm, without any fear or even intent, so far as we can see... and then he simply rolls to one side and slips out of the window, without a sound. Aleksandr actually whimpered, bringing an arm to wrap around my belly, squeezing me as if to hold on to me. I let my paw caress his beautiful mane briefly. I could see a tear trying to form in his eye. He rearranged himself slightly on the sofa, cuddling still closer as we watched the film to its bittersweet end.

He rolled his head up to look at me, smiling. "Stinker," he said.

I grinned, clicking off the television with the remote. "All part of the service."

He turned more of his body toward me, away from the television, and wrapped an arm around my middle. "That was a wonderful film; thank you." He squeezed me, then just relaxed there for another moment. I actually wondered if he might fall asleep. I wondered if I would like for him to do that. I wondered if I was sweating, or casting off bad scents, or scents that told too much about what I was feeling, what I was wanting. I wondered what I was doing with this great and wonderful lion all but sprawled in my lap. I wondered how I dared to have him be so close to me, or how I dared to think that he would want to be...

"Tristan?" he mumbled sleepily.

"Mm?"

"Would you... pet my mane a bit?" His arm snugged me. "I'd like that."

I knew that I would too, and I was terrified. That's the only emotion that I can really describe it as. I was terrified. My left paw still on his shoulder, I reached out with the other paw, trembling more than a little, and I touched his indigo mane. It was softer, silkier than even I'd dreamt of. At the first touch, he pushed his head against my paw a little, as cats will do. The gesture was so affectionate; I actually smiled a little and kept petting him. He made a sound almost like a purr, a rumbling of satisfaction, of contentment. I stroked his magnificent mane gently, slowly, caressing him as a lover might do...

Something inside me shattered; I felt myself starting to cry, the pain so deep that I couldn't stop myself. My chest must have hitched, even though I fought the feeling. Aleksandr's eyes flew open, his brows knitted together. He started sitting up. "Tristan? What is it, what's happened?"

I squeezed my eyes shut, tensing my body, telling myself not to cry, not to give in to it. I shook my head, unable to speak. Aleksandr, sitting next to me, tried to pull me into his embrace. I shrank back, jumped out of my seat, started to run out of the room, stopped myself. I promised him I would never run away from him, or from my feelings, or keep them a secret from him, but how could I say, how could I tell...?

"Tristan, please. Come back and sit down." He moved to the far end of the sofa, putting his paws in the air. "If it's something I've done, I'm sorry. Please. Talk to me."

Shaking my head, I tried to squeak out some words. "Not you," I managed. "Oh gods, I'm sorry..."

I stood there like a fool, not giving in to the crying and not being able to stop it either. He waited for me to regain myself, silent, more patient than I had any right to expect. Eventually, I moved to the end of the sofa and flopped down on it. I tried to breathe more slowly, get myself under control. I had to use words, and that meant that I had to use my brain, and it felt like my brain had moved and left no forwarding address.

"I'm sorry," I said again.

Softly, the lion said, "No need to apologize for having emotions. Or for expressing them." He paused, and in a voice almost too quiet to be heard, he asked, "Can you tell me what you're feeling?"

"I'm ashamed."

"Why?"

"For wanting you too much." I shook my head. "Aleksandr, you are so... open, so giving of yourself. I really liked cuddling you. I loved petting your mane. Oh gods, I've wanted..." I knew I'd start crying again if I continued, so I waved a paw at him to ask for his patience a little longer. I closed my eyes, wiped the tears away with the back of my paw. "I think I'm just overreacting. I'm sorry for all this drama queen nonsense..."

"Tristan," he all but whispered, "your feelings are your feelings. If I thought you were just playing for attention, I doubt we'd have gotten to know each other at all. It's okay. Tell me more. Tell me what's going on."

I sighed. "You've given me a tremendous gift today. No, not the bagels." I managed a small smile. "It felt good to be so close to you. I just didn't want to read too much into it, but I found myself really wanting you again. It's been like that since we met, you know that; it's been fine for the past few months, and for some reason it sort of snuck up on me today."

Aleksandr took a long moment to reply. "Did all this happen because I... did I presume too much?"

"No," I shook my head. "I just... let myself want too much of you. I know you didn't intend to hurt me, and I know you didn't intend for it to... well, mean too much."

He cocked his head to one side. "Do you know all of my intentions?"

I looked up sharply, surprised by the serious look on his face. "No, I just..." He held my gaze, not accusing, not angry. "Aleksandr... I just let myself want more than you want to give."

"What if I did want to give more?"

A weak laugh escaped my lips, feeling false and fear-filled. "I couldn't ask that of you."

The pause was so long that I looked at Aleksandr, feeling more and more as if I had just destroyed our friendship. I had asked too much, wanted too much and he...

"Do you not want me?"

I felt my jaw drop. "I want you more than anything in the world, and I know that I can't have you."

"Why?"

"It's just... it's what we talked about on that very first day that we met, when you said that what you really wanted was a friend, someone to talk to..."

"Someone to look up to, someone to learn from." He paused. "I've learned a lot from you. And I've learned a lot about myself too. Maybe I haven't learned enough. I've hurt you, and I didn't mean to. Tristan, I truly didn't mean to."

"It's my fault."

He smiled slowly. "If you mean it's your fault that I'm falling in love you, you're right."

I wasn't even sure that I was breathing any longer.

"I've been thinking about it lately." He looked down at his paws in his lap. "Loving someone doesn't necessarily mean being sexual with him. In a way, I began loving you on that first day. You gave me so much... you may not even know it. When we first started meeting, I was a little afraid of you."

"You were what?" I whispered.

He raised his eyes to me, smiling a little. "Tristan, you've got an amazing mind. I wasn't sure I'd be able to keep up with you. I thought I'd have to have an internet connection just to understand the words you were using. I didn't, though. You made me feel very comfortable talking with you. You never once made me feel stupid or ignorant."

"Aleksandr...!" I was aghast. "You are a brilliant young fellow! You already know a great deal, and whatever you don't know... the questions you ask, the knowledge that you absorb, you're like a sponge, so curious, so..." I shrugged, helpless with lack of understanding. "You are brilliant. I'm the one who needs the internet to ensure that I can answer your questions! Oh, Aleksandr, do you have any idea how incredible you are?"

The lion leaned toward me a little, the small smile still on his handsome muzzle, his great mane shaking slightly. "No. That's what I mean, Tristan. No one thinks of me like that. You do. You make me feel like so much more than I've ever thought I was. You believe in me."

"Yes," I said. A fresh tear threatened to appear in my eyes. "With all my heart I do."

"Then why," he whispered, "can't you believe in you?"

I could only look at him.

"I chose you, sempai," he said. "And I feel so strongly about you that I started wondering... I wanted to show you that, to show you how I feel. Tristan, I've never had so much feeling for anyone before, not even..." He trailed off, looking down, embarrassed. "I've sold myself cheaply in the past. I've had lovers, more than one; I've had relationships, and sometimes, they were also lovers. But you... I felt so strongly about you that I wanted to... well, to touch you. To cuddle with you. Maybe to see if I could know what it's like to touch someone that I felt so strongly about."

"But you know you didn't want me as a lover."

"I didn't want to bed you that first day, if that's what you mean." He looked at me candidly, softly. "Because I wanted something else from you. And because we've spent this time as we have, I find..." He sighed, smiled at me. "I didn't know what to do, so I decided that I would just cuddle you. When you offered the movie, the moment just happened." He paused again, so that I would hear his words particularly. "I liked holding you, Tristan. I liked that very much."

"So did I." I wiped the rest of the tears away. "I've been afraid to want you, Aleksandr. I didn't think you would... that you could want me. And I care about you so much, about the friendship that we've built... I didn't want to risk losing that." I felt a laugh try to come up, and it came out more as a hiccup. "Are you saying that we both want each other?"

He smiled. "It sure sounds that way to me."

"Would you..." I wasn't sure that I could ask it. "Would you kiss me?"

The great lion moved closer to me, took my paws in his, looked at me sweetly, and said, "No."

I gaped at him.

Quickly, he moved his paws to hold my face gently. "Because you wouldn't believe it. If I kissed you now... sometime after I left today, you'd somehow convince yourself that it wasn't real, that it was out of pity or obligation. Tristan, I want to take you in my arms and kiss you a thousand times, but I know it's not right, not yet. Remember how we talked about that, in literature? The first kiss, and how important it is?" He smiled a little. "I learn my lessons well."

He was right. Despite the huge warring of feelings inside me, I knew he was right. Had we been lovers long prior to this, a moment like this would ideally result in the sweetest of lovemaking. We were not lovers - yet. And that thought by itself filled me with astonishment and wonder. We could not take that step together, not now. Not yet.

I managed a small smile. "Okay, kohai. The Master needs a lesson. What, exactly, should we do next?"

"Do you want me to go?"

Quickly, I shook my head. "Not yet. If you have time..."

"There's time." He smiled. "I'll stay."

"Good." We sat for a few moments, just holding each other's paws, not speaking, not even sure we could ever move or speak again. We were bound together, he and I, the great young lion and the venerable old bear. At some point, we'd have to make a choice and do something, but for the longest time, we simply sat, perhaps amazed that we were together, and happy, and able to share this feeling. And that, I realized, gave me the answer.

Squeezing his paws gently, I released him and padded over the piano. I adjusted the bench and, despite its mild protest, sat down. I played a few rambling notes and chords, to warm up my fingers, then began a very familiar opening. When the time came, I began to sing...

"She hangs her head and cries on my shirt... she must be hurt very badly... tell me what's making you sadly..."

I felt the song in my heart and my head, resounding with emotion. I felt myself singing, and singing well, because it was for Aleksandr, and because he said that he liked my singing. And as I sang, I felt the great lion move slowly to my side, and kneel beside me, and put his arm gently, protectively, around my middle, as he began to sing with me...

"Open your door, don't hide in the dark... You're lost in the dark, you can trust me..."

He looked up at me: "'Cause you know that's how it must be..."

I leaned close to him as we harmonized: "Lisa, Lisa... sad Lisa, Lisa..."

Our voices joined. It was good.