The Real World
Cansi wasn't even sure what a muskrat was, much less why a silent one would be unusual enough that someone would name an inn after it. But the Silent Muskrat was the first inn he'd come across on his way to Divalia, and as it transpired that they needed someone to clear tables, and he needed a way to earn money, he hadn't moved on in two and a half months.
He would be soon, though. There were only so many nights one could clear dirty dishes and mop up vomit before one decided there was something better for one to do. He'd thought that an inn would be the perfect place to meet exciting people, travelers on adventures who would need a young rabbit to carry their packs (though he couldn't lift much), or cook their food (he couldn't cook, but he'd watched Butch in the kitchen for hours), or tell stories (all of his stories began, "this one time, back home," and ended with his audience remembering a prior engagement).
Night after night, Cansi scanned the crowd, and hovered near the tables of the most interesting-looking people until Butch yelled at him to get back to the kitchen. He kept his ears perked for discussions of quests and obstacles, of rescue and mercy missions, of happy-go-lucky soldiers and stories of danger. Night after night, all he heard was tired merchants complaining about the road conditions, or merchants' bodyguards talking about where bandits had been sighted and what routes they should take to avoid them. Once, he thought he heard a fox and a coyote talking in low voices about a "purse of gold," but it turned out they were talking about the "first cold," figuring out how long they would have to travel the next day to make it through the mountain pass before the snows came.
"Do you ever get exciting people in here?" he asked Butch one night, when all their patrons were asleep upstairs in their rooms. "Mercenaries for hire on adventures, or...or explorers in search of uncharted lands."
Butch, a tall stag missing part of one antler, squinted at him. "Exciting people ain't much for payin' on time," he rumbled. "Always gettin' chased on or called out and run out forgettin' about the barkeep. Ain't good for business."
"But do they ever stop here?" Cansi almost wailed.
Butch rubbed his chin. "Sides," he said, "ain't no land hereabouts ain't been charted one way or t'other."
"In my books," Cansi said, "there's always something new to discover."
Butch pointed out to the main area. "Aye," he said. "Go discover whether ya missed any dishes. I'm tired."
Cansi had the small room at the top of the stairs, and the only exciting thing he'd discovered about his room was a gap between the floorboards that allowed him to look through the ceiling into room four, just below him. Like everything else at the Silent Muskrat, however, the initial promise of excitement never materialized out of drab reality. He sometimes got to see one of their guests naked, but most merchants were pudgy and unattractive, and mostly what they did when naked was sleep. Once, room four was occupied by a brawny wolf who, when undressed, had Cansi pretty excited to the point that he was pawing himself good, until the wife of the merchant next door slipped in for a breathless tryst, which punctured his fantasies about the wolf. He couldn't get to sleep that night until the music of panting and moaning below him had stopped.
"I can see why your last helper ran away," he told Butch one night, chewing on a thick slab of black bread. The storm outside rattled the windows and drove the customers upstairs; having been stopped early by the weather, they wanted to get an early start the next day. Butch had declared that nobody else would be coming through that night, so after Cansi'd finished the washing up, they sat down to dinner at a table rather than trudging exhaustedly up to their beds.
"Oh, aye?" Butch dipped his bread into the stew. "An' why might that be?"
"It's so boring here!" Cansi set the bread down and stared into his soup bowl. Normally, he liked the stew from the bottom of the pot, all thick with vegetables and spices that'd sunk to the bottom. More and more, recently, a different kind of hunger had gnawed at him.
"Boring for some." Butch shrugged. "Mayhap that's why, an' mayhap not."
"Why did he leave, then?"
Butch swabbed at his bowl again. "It's them books a'yers, fillin' yer head with ideas."
Cansi scowled at his lap. "I like the books," he said. "They're the only things keep me from going crazy. You wouldn't understand."
"Reckon not," Butch said amiably. He pointed out the window. "Road's that-a-way. Why not take off y'self?"
"Maybe someday," Cansi mumbled. "Don't wanna go by m'self."
Butch reached across the table and dipped his bread into Cansi's bowl. "Why not? Came here by y'self."
"That was different." Cansi pushed his bowl to Butch's side.
"Finished?" Butch took the bowl without waiting for an answer. "Well, if ya take a fancy t'move on, I just ask ya let me know."
"Sure, I will." Cansi took Butch's bowl. "Wouldn't leave you to clean up by yourself."
Butch leaned back in his chair, eating from Cansi's bowl and rubbing his antler against the wall behind him. "Managed before you got here," he said.
Cansi grinned. "I know, you don't need anyone. That's why you pay me three coppers a week, right?"
"All I can afford." Butch grunted, sopping up the last of Cansi's stew.
The pounding rain and howling wind took the place of their conversation. Butch folded his arms across his stomach and looked at the blackness beyond the torches at the window. Cansi got up, taking the other empty bowl, but he didn't go to the kitchen directly. He stood beside the table, following Butch's gaze to the outside.
Butch turned his long nose and dark brown eyes up to Cansi, antler scraping along the wall. One hand rubbed the side of his muzzle. Cansi shifted the bowls in his paws, drawing Butch's attention. The stag reached out and took them. "I'll take care of those," he said. "Go on up to bed."
"Thank you." Cansi walked to the stairs. He turned and raised a paw to Butch, who was still sitting in his chair. Butch turned and waved back. "Night," Cansi said.
"Breakfast an hour before sunrise," Butch said.
Cansi walked up the stairs and rolled his eyes. As if he didn't know that.
He settled down in his straw bed after checking who was in room four (a damp bear, sound asleep) and covering up the hole as much to keep the smell out as to keep his light from showing. Up on the top floor, the rain and wind would have made any conversation impossible. He shivered and pulled the blanket around himself. Tonight, no adventure books or war stories. Tonight, he wanted something warm and comforting. He reached out to the stack of books and carefully extracted Male Season, by P. Zinsky. Turning the cover gently, he ran his finger down the well-worn front page and began to read: The day boiled with the kind of heat Kinta knew inside and out, the kind of day where he wanted nothing more than the blissful comfort of a sweetly chilled tea from his father's inn's dark, dank cellar and the sugary kiss of his best friend Tyler...
The storm cleared the weather for many days, bringing sun and wind and the first chill of fall. When Cansi had run away, it had been just after such a storm had swept away the spring, soaking the ground in preparation for the long, dry summer. The Silent Muskrat, on the banks of the Galicea River, had a somewhat wetter summer than Cansi was used to, but even so, his window overlooking the river allowed him to watch its decay from a lively, sparkling companion to the shallow and dull creature that had greeted him the morning before the storm. Now, full from the torrential rain, the Galicea foamed and hissed its way under the Silver Bridge, past the inn.
The five days since the storm had calmed it, but only somewhat. Butch told Cansi that there'd been rain up in the mountains too, and that they were still seeing the runoff. "Won't drop again 'til after the first snows," he said. "Then she'll freeze round the edges."
Cansi's ears perked at that. "Enough to skate on? We had a pond back home. This one time, I was skating with my friend Valya, and we heard a crack."
Butch pulled some carrots from the larder and chopped them with a sure, swift hand. "Aye?"
"We were scared," Cansi said. "This one time, a mouse cub fell through the ice and froze to death. Valya kept kicking at the ice trying to make it crack and I was all going, stop it!"
Butch tossed him the end of a carrot and slid the rest into the steewpot. "An' did it crack?"
"Nah." Cansi chewed on the carrot end. "Hey, y'know what my ma always used to cook with our carrots?"
He'd never dared to advise Butch on cooking before, and the look he got was enough to make him wish he hadn't started. But the barkeep merely said, "Aye?"
"Uh," Cansi said, "Woodwort."
Butch glanced at theshelf of herbs and took down a thin-leafed, wilted bunch. He held it to his nose and then to Cansi's. "This?"
The smell brought back his mother's kitchen. For a moment, his heart ached. "Aye," Cansi said.
"Hm." Butch sniffed it again. "If the customers complain, I'll tell 'em to take it outen your hide," he said without anger. He dropped the leaves to the chopping block, and almost before Cansi could object, the herb was chopped and in the pot.
The customers did not complain, in fact, but that wasn't the reason Cansi would remember that night. Rather, he remembered the woodwort because of what happened later that night.
With the onset of fall, merchants packed the inn, late travelers rushing to beat the storms. Cansi saw his first nobles that week as well, an old pair of foxes that Butch told him were the Lord and Lady Dewanne. That night, no nobles graced their door, but the main room was packed with so many people that Butch pressed Cansi into serving as well as clearing and washing. He had to concentrate to remember who'd ordered what, but he made few mistakes. By the time things settled down, Cansi was proud of himself, wondering whether Butch would let him serve more often. He wasn't even thinking about how nobody had shown any interest in him.
"Someone excitin' in," Butch said, ladling out stew into bowls.
Cansi cut slices of bread to go with the bowls. "Where?"
"Back wall, cougar an' skunk." Butch crumbled cheese into the bowls. "Writer."
"A writer?" Cansi stopped, the knife poised in his paw. "Who?"
"Got the name," Butch said. "Think you know it."
Cansi waited. Butch kept fixing the bowls, apparently finished with talking. Finally, Cansi broke the silence. "What was it?"
Butch hummed as though trying to remember. Cansi fidgeted, trying to be patient. "Oh," Butch said. "Zinsky."
The knife dropped with a clatter. "P. Zinsky?" Cansi squeaked.
"That's it," Butch said. He handed two bowls to Cansi. "Take 'em their food."
"Really?" Cansi reached out.
Butch held the bowls, looking down. "Steady them paws," he said.
Cansi wiped his paws on his shorts and held them out again, making an effort to hold them still. "I'll be okay," he said, his voice still high.
Butch put the bowls in his paws and looked him in the eye. "Might not wanna talk too much."
If Cansi hadn't known better, he would've sworn Butch was grinning.
He set the bowls down on the table and looked back and forth between the tall, muscular cougar in the soft leather jerkin and his companion, a pudgy skunk in a red velvet doublet. "Thank you," the cougar said, while the skunk just dove into the stew.
When Cansi didn't leave, even the skunk looked up from his bowl. "That'll be all," he said. "Thanks."
"My name's Cansi." Cansi's voice trembled. He clamped his mouth shut and looked eagerly at the cougar.
"Pleased to meet you, Cansi," the cougar said gravely. "That will be all."
His mouth opened and shut, without any sound. People at neighboring tables turned to look at him. His paws, empty of bowls, twisted around on themselves.
The skunk put his spoon down. "Is there a problem?"
Cansi couldn't look away from the cougar. Those wise brown eyes, those soft paws--who else could have written those tender stories that kept him warm at night, that had driven him to this inn? "I love your books," he blurted out.
The cougar and skunk looked at each other. "I haven't written any books," the cougar said.
Cansi stared at them and then whirled to look at the kitchen. His ears flushed pink. "Butch," he muttered.
The skunk coughed. Cansi turned, ready to apologize, but the skunk spoke first. "I've written some books," he said.
Cansi's eyes widened. "You...you're P. Zinsky?"
"That's the name I write under." Zinsky seemed gratified at Cansi's reaction.
"Oh, Herba," Cansi said. "I'm sorry, I didn't think you'd be..." He stopped, looking at the skunk's unfashionable clothes and portly figure.
"A skunk?" Zinsky smiled. "Happens all the time. I don't write much about my own people. Everyone assumes I'm a fox, or a raccoon. But those were only my first loves."
He and the cougar shared a smile, while Cansi stared. "I just love your books," he said again. "They've meant so much to me."
Zinsky bowed his head. "I greatly appreciate hearing that," he said. "Do you have someone special of your own?"
Out of the corner of Cansi's eye, he saw Butch trying to catch his eye, gesturing to a table of impatient weasels. "No," he said, wanting to say something more profound to this author who was taking an interest in him. "Not yet. I gotta go." He took a step back, still grinning, and waved, unable to make himself leave.
The pair smiled, not touching their food. Cansi took another step back, as if waiting for them to ask him to join them. They remained silent, but Butch, coming up to Cansi's side, did not.
"Looks like these fine customers got their food okay," he rumbled, putting a hand on Cansi's shoulder. He pushed the rabbit toward the table of weasels. "Sorry if he's bein' a bother."
"No bother," Cansi heard the cougar say as he stumbled to the table of un-famous, uninteresting weasels. He was no bother! That was practically an invitation to come back and talk to them.
"That was P. Zinsky!" he gushed to Butch in the kitchen.
"Good job there ain't more excitin' folk in here, or no-one'd get served." Butch pushed a tray toward him, loaded with three bowls of stew and one of raw vegetables. "Table in the corner, the mice."
"I can't believe it," Cansi said. "He's here. Why would he be here? Maybe he's on his way to Corcorov. Or Bilinky."
"Reckon it's one or t'other," Butch said. He nudged the tray closer to Cansi.
Cansi picked it up and then set it down again. "Where are they? What room?"
Butch squinted at him. "Ain't given them a room yet."
Cansi's heart pounded. "Mind if...can we give them four?"
He thought for sure Butch knew why he was asking, the way those brown eyes bored into him. But Butch didn't even ask why, just shrugged and said, "One room pays same as t'other."
Cansi pranced to the table of mice, dropped their bowls in front of them with a flourish, and then had to get ale for the weasels and for a party of foxes who looked exhausted, and by the time he got a chance to get back to P. Zinsky's table, some of the merchants were already heading upstairs.
"Where are they going?" he hissed at Butch as a stag and his lupine bodyguard clomped up the stairs.
"Eight an' nine," Butch said. "I ain't forgot."
Cansi beamed. "Okay, I'm gonna go tell 'em." He dashed over to where P. Zinsky and his cougar friend were just tipping back the last of their ale.
"Your room's all ready," Cansi told Zinsky breathlessly, hopping from foot to foot. "It's room four, that's the one just up the stairs and to the left, it's just at the top of the stairs so you don't have to carry your bags all the way down the hall and the window looks out over the river, it's really nice. Not at this time of night, but if you like to look out your window in the morning..." He stumbled over his words and stopped, looking for some sign of approval.
"Sounds delightful," Zinsky said. "What do you think, Marcellus? Time to turn in?"
"One more round." The cougar put his tankard down. "The fire's still going and the fox looks about to tell a story."
Zinsky nodded. "Another round for us, and bring them over to the fire, if you would."
"Of course, of course!" Cansi took the empty tankards. "We get some wonderful stories here by the fire. There was one badger who went on for hours, all these tales of life in the capital. But he's not here now. But I'm sure they won't be as good as your stories."
Zinsky shook his head. "I doubt my stories would be appropriate for this audience."
"Of course they would!" Cansi surveyed the thinning crowd. "They're so beautiful, everyone must love them."
"If only." Zinsky and the cougar laughed together. "I wouldn't be stopping in roadside inns, that's for sure. No offense to your wonderful establishment."
Cansi lowered his voice. "I was surprised to see you here. I would have thought a writer as popular as you are would be traveling in a large caravan and sleeping in your own traveling bed."
"We're saving up to buy a caravan," Marcellus said. "Until then, it's mounts and inns. But the stew was quite good."
"Yes, did you make it?"
Cansi's ears flushed. He hopped back and forth again. "No, no, Butch made it. He's the owner and he's trying to teach me to cook, but I keep dropping things or burning things or getting the wrong seasoning." The word "seasoning" reminded him. "But I suggested the woodwort in the stew!"
"Well, we enjoyed it greatly," Zinsky said. He rose, Marcellus following. "We'll be over there, when you get the ale."
"Oh. Of course!" Cansi hefted the tankards in his paw as though only now remembering them. "I'll bring it right over, Mr. Zinsky, I promise."
The rest of the evening, Cansi kept a close eye on Zinsky and Marcellus, rushing to collect their tankards as soon as they were empty and offering refills. He tried to talk to them again, but they didn't pay much attention to him, as one after another of the visitors told boring stories of some girl they'd bedded, or the journey through the mountains. And P. Zinsky just sat and listened. Cansi grew contemptuous of the others, hanging on these silly tales when there was a master storyteller sitting quietly in their midst.
With the end of every story, Cansi hovered nearby, hoping that P. Zinsky would speak up. One or two of the guests would head up to their rooms, but even at the end of the evening, when nobody volunteered to speak, the skunk remained silent. He and Marcellus got up with the rest and thanked Cansi and Butch, leaving the common room mostly empty.
Cansi had never worked so quickly. He had been clearing tables all night, and once most of the guests had gone to sleep, he fairly ran between the common room and the kitchen. "Easy," Butch said as he dumped another armload of plates and tankards into the large sink. "Don't break nothin'."
"I'm almost done," Cansi said, panting. "I'm just tired. Would it be okay if..."
Butch waved. "Aye, best you get to bed. Want you up before sunup, y'know. I'll leave bread an' butter, an' you know how to make tea."
"Sure!" He dashed out the door, so fast it shut before he'd finished calling, "See you in the morning!"
The old wood boards on the second floor creaked with the steps of the guests settling in, against the background of low murmurs. Nobody wanted to talk too loudly, not only for fear of disturbing sleeping neighbors, but for fear of neighbors who might be listening rather than sleeping. Cansi paused at the landing, near the door to room four, but all he could hear was the voices of Zinsky and Marcellus, no distinguishable words. He padded softly up the stairs to his room, closed the door, and threw the latch as silently as he could manage.
Heart pounding, he picked up the small rug on his floor. The crack in the boards beckoned with a soft light. He knelt, but hesitated before putting his eye to it. He'd never spied on anyone he knew--or knew of--before. But he wanted so badly to know what P. Zinsky and his companion talked about, whether they were more than just traveling companions, and whatever else he could see. It was as if he were opening a window into the reality of one of his books, and that curiosity won the day.
He pressed his eye to the crack, and jumped back. P. Zinsky, dressed only in his white undershorts, was lying on the bed staring up almost directly at him, arms crossed behind his head. Cansi sat up, heart going double time, but though he strained to hear any sound from the room below, all his ears caught was the soft rustling of Marcellus walking around the room. Slowly, he bent down again and peered down.
Zinsky had lifted his head, now looking across the room. Marcellus stepped into view, wearing nothing at all. Tail snaking behind him, he swayed his hips, approaching the bed. Zinksy put a paw out and brushed it up and down the cougar's thighs. Below the firm muscles of his chest, Cansi could see his sheath bobbing, and the size of the pink member protruding from it made him suck his breath in. It was...it was like something out of a P. Zinsky story. Cansi reached down and squeezed his own sheath, which was (he estimated) about half the size.
Marcellus purred, his tail curling lazily from side to side. Zinsky's paw moved up to cup the sheath, bobbing up and down. Cansi slid his paw into his pants and mimicked the motions of the black fingers on his own sheath, although he was able to get even his small paw all the way around his with ease, and there was a good inch between Zinsky's thumb and finger as it slid up the shaft, pulling it down so that Cansi could see that it was half the length of his forearm. He gaped.
As Zinsky stroked, the cougar's purrs grew louder. He reached down and rubbed the skunk through his cotton underthings, right where Cansi could see the ridge of a hard sheath. His breath hissed through his teeth. He gripped himself tighter, his erection throbbing in his fingers.
Marcellus and Zinsky weren't in any hurry. Cansi had to slow his paw down, to stop himself from coming in his pants while the pair below were still stroking lazily. He panted, just cupping his erection in his paw until Marcellus slid his paw inside Zinsky's underthings, pulled them down, and applied his muzzle to the exposed shaft. Cansi couldn't resist giving himself another squeeze and stroke, and with every motion of the cougar's muzzle over the slick shaft between Zinsky's black-furred legs, he had to stroke himself again.
He was so worked up that he was shaking within a minute, his legs tensing as he crouched over the floor, unable to look away. Even when he tried not to look at Marcellus's muzzle, his eyes were drawn to the cougar's shaft, which Zinsky was now stroking with more force. Cansi's paw kept pumping, even though he wanted to make it last. He gulped and clenched his muzzle shut, curling his body in on itself, his breath coming in short gasps. He felt his release building and then exploding in his paw, splattering the inside of his shorts.
When he extracted his paw, dripping, from his pants, Marcellus had swung around to straddle Zinsky on the bed. Cansi had not closed his eyes once during the transition, even during his climax, watching hungrily with his lips pressed shut to keep the moans in. When Marcellus leaned back, Cansi got a perfect view of his muscular chest and taut stomach.
The cougar leaned forward, kissed Zinsky on the nose, and then settled back. Cansi saw the skunk's length disappear as the cougar settled himself down on it. Echoes of the same smile that spread across Marcellus's muzzle flickered through him, faintly arousing even in the wake of his climax. Holding his sticky paw in the air curled under his chest, he pressed his eye to the floor.
Zinsky kept hold of Marcellus's huge member, black fingers moving up and down it as his hips thrust up into the cougar. Marcellus leaned forward and held Zinsky's shoulders, his muscles rippling under the short fur as he held his body above the skunk's. The two of them moved together, slowly at first, then faster, making no sounds except for soft moans that Cansi was sure only he could hear. He could almost picture himself atop the skunk, his own pink length showing against the large white belly, plump black-furred legs supporting him from the rear. He'd never had anyone inside him, but he'd played with his own fingers, and he was sure his imagination supplied the rest of the details correctly.
He felt the same thrill he saw in Marcellus, tensed his muscles in imitation of the cougar's rippling body, panted when he panted, repressed moans that were echoes of the cougar's throaty noises. By the time Marcellus squirmed, clenching his teeth and forcing breath out and back, finally arching his back and squeezing Zinsky's shoulders in a spray of release on the white-furred chest, Cansi had gotten himself so aroused that he was hard again.
While Marcellus licked Zinsky across the muzzle, grinning wide, Cansi reached back into his shorts and grabbed himself again. He pumped hard, panting, as Zinsky teased Marcellus with tweaks of his long member. The cougar squirmed, laughing softly, and pinned Zinsky to the bed by his shoulders. Cansi usually took a little while to work up to his second time, but the combination of imagining himself atop the skunk and seeing Marcellus's immense member spurting his climax had him on the edge almost instantly.
He wanted to wait to see Zinsky finish, to share in his climax as he had Marcellus's. The problem was that the skunk didn't seem to be in any hurry, and Cansi wasn't going to last long. Well, he thought, if he hurried, maybe he could time his third time. He pumped his paw along his shaft until he was tense, gasping with each stroke. He had just closed his eyes, curling his body in again, when Marcellus said, "Not tonight, huh?"
"Guess not," Zinsky replied.
Cansi opened his eyes. Marcellus had lifted one leg over Zinsky and now stepped carefully off the bed. He reached down and caressed the still-hard shaft, then leaned over to give the skunk a kiss. "Tired?"
"That and I had some ideas."
Marcellus grinned. "Always with the ideas," he said.
Zinsky chuckled. "I still enjoyed it."
Cansi couldn't hold himself any longer. With a groan that he hoped the paw across his muzzle would muffle, he came again, spraying the inside of his shorts with a second coat. The second time was always less intense but more drawn out than the first. By the time he relaxed again, tongue hanging out over the floor, Zinsky and Marcellus were no longer in view. Gone to fetch water to clean up, no doubt. The inn did not have dust baths, but being so close to the water made it easy to have a water bath. Butch left a fire and kettle in the back for just that purpose.
If Cansi looked out the window, he would probably see the pair going to the bathhouse, but he was too tired, his head spinning from his releases and what he'd seen. So Marcellus couldn't satisfy P. Zinsky? Maybe he needed a rabbit instead. That thought brought a smile to his face as he crawled into bed and closed his eyes.
Even with the late bedtime, even having worn himself out, he still got up an hour before sunrise. Trained himself well, or a slave to habit, he supposed. He'd always been able to wake up whenever he needed to. He threw the dirty shorts into a corner and dressed quickly in the half-light, then knelt for a quick look through the floor.
Zinsky was sprawled on the bed, Marcellus's arm draped over him. Cansi sighed, and had actually stood up before his mind registered what his eyes had seen. He had to drop back for another look to make sure, and yes, there were sheets of paper covered with writing on the small table. Writing that, no matter how much he squinted, he couldn't read. Zinsky must have stayed up and written--that's what he'd meant when he said he had "ideas"!
Cansi wrung his paws together. The idea that there was another story sitting down there on the desk, just a few feet away from him and yet out of reach, kept him frozen where he was. He put his eye to the crack one more time, but even as the sun came up, even if he wouldn't get his pay docked for not showing up on time, he didn't think he'd be able to read any of the writing.
He paced to the window, in case the sun had decided to hurry up the sunrise, but the morning remained dark. He would get in trouble if he stayed up here much longer.
But the pages remained on his mind while he cleaned tables, swept the floor, and heated up the oven. Butch came down to put the dough in the oven and start chopping potatoes. Cansi didn't say anything until Butch asked, "Good night?"
"Yes," Cansi said absently as he walked back out into the main room.
The first guests had come down but didn't want any breakfast, so he walked out to help them get their mounts ready. When he came back inside, he spotted Marcellus lounging at one of the tables. Ignoring the other guests, he walked immediately over to the cougar.
"Good morning," he said. "Will Mister Zinsky be joining you this morning?"
Marcellus gave him a curious look. "Mister Zinsky is sleeping in," he said. "I'll have bread and honey, and something hot to drink."
"Of course, sir." Cansi bowed. He hurried back to the kitchen to put together the bread and honey, and poured a mug of tea.
"Just one order?" Butch said. "Thought I heard more folks out there."
"They weren't eating," Cansi said quickly, pushing back out to the main room. He delivered Marcellus's meal and then circled the table of weasels, ignoring their waves and heading right for the stairs.
The door to room four swung inward silently under the gentle pressure of his paw. Checking again to make sure nobody was watching in the hall, Cansi slipped inside.
Smells overwhelmed him: skunk, cougar, sex. He had to stop and breathe them in. P. Zinsky lay on the bed, snoring gently. Cansi shivered at the intimacy of it, being so close to the sleeping author. Without realizing what he was doing, he took a step toward the bed, his fantasies coming back to him in a rush.
Don't be silly, he told himself, even though his heart was pounding. He walked quickly to the desk and looked at the papers on it. The sun had come up enough that he could read the scratchy writing on the top sheet.
the heat of the sheets. "Oh," was all that the ecstatic hare could bring himself to murmur. His insides felt as warm as if the wolf had taken every part of him and cupped it in his paws, breathing love and warmth into him until his whole body was suffused with the slow embers of passion's flame.
The wolf's satisfaction showed in the gleaming stretch of his smile. "Oh indeed," he rumbled, his deep thrumming voice catching at Vinlay's stomach and slowly subsiding sheath.
That was where the page ended. Cansi could read a little of the covered pages, but not enough to give him any sense of what had led up to that last part. Frustrated, he tried to move the top page aside so he could read the next one.
The rustle of the paper sounded loud as a crackling fire to his ears. He winced and braced himself, but there was no movement or sound behind him. Slowly, he relaxed and began to read the page.
He was lost in the story when a voice behind him made him jump. "What in Darkness are you doing here?"
Cansi jumped a foot off the floor. The papers went flying. He spun around to face Zinsky, who was propped up on one elbow, looking more bemused than annoyed.
"I, I, I just came in to clean," Cansi staammered. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to disturb you."
Zinsky looked pointedly at the papers on the floor. "I'm resting. Come back later."
"I'm so sorry." Cansi's ears flushed. "I won't...I mean..." He gulped and bent to pick up the papers.
"Leave them," Zinsky said. "I'll get them later."
"It looked like a great story," Cansi said in a rush. "I can't wait to read the rest of it."
"You'll have to," Zinsky said, "seeing as how I haven't written it yet."
"Oh, I know, it's just that it's so real," Cansi said. "I don't know how you do it. You must have a lot of experience."
Zinsky's expression relaxed. "It's more imagination than experience. But don't worry, you'll have plenty of experiences of your own."
"If, uh, if you'd want to experience, I mean, to have more experience..." Cansi trailed off. In his mind, he saw the skunk, frustrated from the previous night, sweep back the covers, revealing his naked form and wordlessly inviting Cansi to join him. With each second that passed, that vision faded, replaced by the awkward reality of Cansi having offered to sleep with someone who clearly had no interest in him and was, despite his literary gifts, searching for the best way to express his disinterest.
"Thanks," Zinsky said finally. "But I'm very happy with Marcellus."
"Really?"
The word had slipped out before Cansi could help it. He knew it had been a mistake the instant Zinsky's eyes narrowed, the smile dropping. "Yes, really," he said, his voice colder.
Cansi knew he should leave, but he couldn't go without explaining himself. He was starting to feel that Zinsky suspected he'd been spying on him. "It's just," he said, "you said you had more imagination than experience, and it...it sounded like..."
"Like what?" Zinsky's voice did not thaw.
"I'm really sorry!" Cansi's legs twitched with the growing urge to run. "I wanted so much to..."
Zinsky rolled back, lying on his back and covering his eyes. "You wanted to be in one of my stories. You wanted to be closer to me. This is as close as you're going to get out here in the real world. Please go now. I'm very tired."
Cansi stared at the shape under the covers. Again, he saw the image of the naked skunk he'd seen last night superimposed on it. His sheath throbbed, his breath coming quickly. His arm reached out but his legs still wanted to run. If he could just show P. Zinsky what he could do, just overcome that first resistance, then he was sure things would get better after that.
"Are you still here?" Zinsky growled.
Cansi's legs finally won the battle. He ran for the door and almost fell down the stairs. His ears felt as if they were on fire. He couldn't look toward the table where Marcellus was (he hoped) still sitting, nor could he acknowledge any of the other guests calling him on his way back to the kitchen.
Butch didn't say a word when he stood there in the middle of the kitchen with the door swinging closed behind him, just pointed to the stack of plates of bread and honey. Cansi gulped air and held up a paw. "Just a second."
The stag lifted his floured hands from the dough he was kneading and looked down at Cansi until the rabbit had to look at the floor. "Folks're waitin' for their food," he said. "Understand?"
"I can't go back out there," Cansi said.
Butch tilted his head. "I ain't taught ya to make bread yet," he said. "Don't reckon there's much other work t'be done around here."
Cansi's heart, which was just beginning to slow, sank to the pit of his stomach. He'd never really thought about it, but now he wondered how much work there really was to do around the inn. Had Butch kept him around out of pity? Had he repaid him by getting so caught up in his own fantasies that he wasn't even doing the minor duties Butch had given him? He'd wanted to get out so badly, and now all he wanted was a safe place to hide. The flagstone beneath his feet had a huge diagonal crack in it, one he'd caught his pawpads on a dozen times. Each time, he'd cursed it, but now he found he knew it so well that it seemed a familiar friend. But even that didn't give him enough courage. "I...I can't," he whispered.
He expected Butch to tell him to pack his things, to get out of the kitchen. Instead, the stag snorted. Cansi smelled flour, just before the heavy hand landed on his shoulder. "Ain't nothin' so bad it's worse to face it than t'run."
Cansi looked up into the deep brown eyes. Butch pushed him toward the stack of plates. "G'wan," he said. "Go."
The force of his push took Cansi one step toward the plates. The support in his eyes moved the rabbit the rest of the way. He gathered the plates slowly, took a breath, and stepped over the crack, out the kitchen door.
Marcellus was still sitting alone. Cansi avoided his eye, keeping busy with the guests who needed food, or help with their mounts. He came back from the stables to find Marcellus's table empty, but his relief was short-lived when he pushed open the door to the kitchen and found the cougar there, with P. Zinsky, talking to Butch. The conversation came to an abrupt halt when Cansi opened the door, which was enough to tell him what the subject had been.
"Sorry. I'll..." His ears burned again. He folded them down and ducked out.
There was only so much he could do in the main room. Fortunately, he only had to wipe off the same table twice before Marcellus and Zinsky came out of the kitchen, traveling bags in their paws. They didn't look at him even once as they left.
He waited the whole day for Butch to send him home, his feet dragging over the stone floors that felt colder than they ever had. He took extra care to make sure all their guests were comfortable and well-fed, partly in some faint hope that dedication to his job might make up for his one massive mistake, but more because when he wasn't focused on his work, he was reliving the awful, awkward, hideous moments of that morning. Already it felt as though some other rabbit had taken over his body, that it was some other Cansi who'd spied on his favorite author, broken into his room, propositioned him, and almost groped him without his permission.
It wasn't until they were cleaning up at the end of the day that Butch said anything to him that didn't involve the running of the inn. Cansi had asked if he were done for the day, and Butch said, "Aye," but then he said, "C'mere and sit down."
They sat, Cansi noted, at the very table Marcellus and Zinsky had occupied the previous night. Butch had brought a bottle from the kitchen and two mugs. He filled both and slid one over the rough wood. Cansi's nose smelled the sharp tang of cider.
"Merchants paid in stock last week," Butch said. "Love a good case of cider. Haven't offered it to th'guests yet." He raised his mug.
Cansi raised his automatically in response, and drank. The cider was as sharp as its smell, but the strong apple flavor warmed his mouth as the alcohol did the same to his stomach. "It's good," he said. "You should offer it. You could charge half a silver for this."
Butch grunted, setting the mug down. "Six coppers a mug, two silver a bottle," he said. "But aye, good thought." He went quiet again, observing Cansi so steadily that Cansi kept taking sips of cider until he got a small rush of dizziness and had to set it down.
"I don't want to leave," he said.
The stag nodded. "Was wonderin'."
"It'll never happen again."
Butch arched an eyebrow. "What's that, then?"
Cansi swung his head toward the stairs, then back at Butch's serious expression. "That...last night--I mean, this morning...whatever Mr. Zinsky was telling you..."
"Said you "entered his room without permission and did not immediately leave when asked." Thought I should be aware."
Cansi nodded. "I won't do that. Ever again."
"Reckon he won't be stayin' here no more, so doubt you'll have th'chance."
"I mean..."
Butch raised a hand. "I know what'cha mean. I'm thinkin' it's best t'remove the temptation, so you'd best move out of yer room."
"Out of my..."
"Aye." Butch rested his elbows on the table, his long muzzle on his hands. "To somewhere where there ain't no way to see what y'oughtn't."
Cansi's ears folded all the way down and back. "I didn't see nothin'," he mumbled.
"G'wan," Butch said. "Known about that crack f'years. Used it m'self once or twice."
"So I'm to sleep in the stables?"
"Didn't say that."
Cansi reviewed the layout of the inn in his head. "You're going to turn one of the guest rooms into my room?"
"Can't afford that, nope."
"I'm to sleep in the kitchen, then, I suppose," Cansi said bitterly. He deserved it, but that didn't mean he had to like it.
"That what ye want?"
"No. But I know sometimes the hired help sleeps in the kitchen."
"An' how would ya know that?"
Cansi met Butch's eyes. His boss was certainly enjoying this, the way he kept staring at Cansi. "It happens in my stories."
Butch leaned back in his chair. "So," he said. "Was that one o'that Zinsky's books?"
Cansi blinked. "No." Hurt stung his heart. It wasn't enough he was being moved to sleep in the kitchen, Butch had to torment him by bringing up Zinsky again? But he deserved it, he reminded himself. If he wanted to stay, he would have to take it. Butch always treated him well--better than the innkeepers treated their hired help in his stories.
"Did that Zinsky ever write one in an inn?" Cansi shook his head, imagining what P. Zinsky would write if he did, now. Probably the rabbit in the story would get to sleep with the famous author. "Nothin' with an ol' innkeeper gettin' together with a young 'un he hired to help out and started likin' more an' more?"
Cansi felt lost, now. "No," he said. "Nothing like that."
"Mm. Pity."
Cansi tilted his head. "Why?"
Butch shrugged. "Might like t'read it and find out how he went about it. Got no idea how t'proceed, m'self."
"Yourself?" Cansi gaped. "You mean...you...me?"
Butch reached up to scratch at his antler. "Can have yer old room back if ye'd rather not. I'll block up th'crack."
Cansi opened his mouth and then closed it again. Thousands of words seemed to be jockeying for position in his throat and he couldn't get any of them out. He finally said, "You...and me?"
Butch pushed his chair back and stood. "I'll work on th'crack tomorrow," he said. "Mind don't go spyin' on that pair o' badgers tonight."
Cansi leapt to his feet. He reached for Butch's hand. "Wait." Butch's fingers curled slightly around his, but the stag made no other move. Inside, Cansi couldn't help but feel that this really was like his own P. Zinsky story. His first instinct had been to accept, to leap into Butch's arms and kiss him, but the morning's encounter still rattled uncomfortably close to the surface of his thoughts. And kissing Butch would be strange, wouldn't it, out here in the real world? "I...dunno how I feel," he said. "But I like you a lot. Can I...can I stay in my room for now, but maybe we can..." He searched his memory of P. Zinsky stories. "Maybe take some nighttime walks down by the river? And see how things go?"
Butch's fingers tightened around his paw. "Mm," the stag said. "Aye. That would work."
"Time for a short walk now?" Cansi felt it wasn't just the buzz of the cider warming him anymore.
"Aye." Butch yawned. "Short one." He looked down and Cansi saw, on his muzzle, the slightest curve of a smile. He smiled back as they walked to the door and Butch led him into the night, out under the sign of the Silent Muskrat, to the river and the new adventures beyond.