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Cooper Household
Upmarket
Corus
And yet again I prove myself a liar failing to keep away from a journal. I suppose I should give in and take up the habit properly as I once did back years ago in my Puppy days as opposed to dabbling with an entry or two here or there as I’ve done in recent months. There’s hardly any harm in it, after all, aside from the cost in ink and paper, but I spend enough of that on my maps that a journal will hardly make a dent in the coppers I’ve allotted to such things.
And, truly, the journal is, I think, something good for me, needful even. It’s a bit of privacy just for me to release my thoughts and worries much the way the dust spinners release the weight of what they’ve heard to my ears. Mayhap talking suchlike makes a looby of me, but when I mentioned it to Farmer, he seemed to understand what I meant, and even more picked up a few extra journals and inks himself on his way home from a Hunt just yesterday. Seems I’ve no excuse not to write in them anymore.
I find I like that privacy. Our lovely home isn’t often quiet, not with rats and dogs and Dogs and my Lord and even other higher ranked folks gathering here, often without so much as a by your leave before they show up on our doorstep. I love having them here, truly I do, but it makes it hard for a mot to think on occasion. Writing in a journal feels like those rare quiet evenings just me and Farmer, him embroidering away while I tend to the evening’s meal or, now, write in this journal. It’s alike to the feeling I often had with Pouce cuddled up and purring the hours away.
Gods, I still miss Pounce now he’s gone away. Our friends still try to tell me surely, he’ll come back soon, but I remember him saying his punishment could be decades or even centuries. Part of me is certain I’ll not see him again in this life. But mayhap I’m wrong. I have been before, and it’s often the best parts of life I tend to fail to expect.
I’ll not get another cat any time soon though, that’s for certain. At least not deliberately. Pounce was a perfect example of the way cats often choose their person whether said person intends to have a cat or not.
That’s another nice thing about this journal, I can work through things like missing my cat or being confused about something without having to explain it out loud to a body before I really understand it.
That’s what had me reaching for my journal today most like. We had another visitor last week, one from a sight farther away than Nipcopper Close and the Dancing Dove. Dale Rowan, it was, all the way from Port Caynn for business and dropping by to see us while in Corus.
It wasn’t the first time Farmer had met him, of course, though it was the first time certain histories were discussed a bit more in detail between my husband and I once Dale left for the evening.
“I can see why you liked him, Beka. He’s a fine figure of a cove, isn’t he?” Farmer said, casual as you please, as if he’d not said something almost to the word that my former betrothed Holborn once did, though certainly in a kinder tone than that one’s words. A more appreciative tone, at that. I couldn’t quite figure what he meant by it, and I told him so. Something I would have avoided with Holborn, but then there’s a great deal I can be more honest about with Farmer than I ever could with Holborn. It’s part of the reason I married him after all. Farmer merely smiled at my question and laughed a little. “Truly Beka, were I not a married cove, I might have tried to catch his eye myself and more than once.”
I blinked, more than a little confused. “But you aren’t a bardash?” I thought that obvious given the marriage and what we got up to in our marriage bed and all.
He shrugged, still smiling the way he always did and tugging at my heart. “Did you think it was as simple as a bardash or a honeylove and nothing in between?”
“Well, I never thought about it, but I’ve not heard of anything else to speak of,” I mused, going over the folk I’ve known who didn’t find the expected gender attractive. Nothing struck me, but perhaps I’d just not looked for it. Certainly, hadn’t looked for it in my husband. I hadn’t thought there was anything to look for. I began tentatively, “Are you that something in between then?”
“Mm, I am at that,” Farmer agreed. “There seem to be less of us, or at least less that speak on it or put a name to it. I’ve heard honeydash and barlove, but I don’t tend to use them for myself. I just find myself attracted to folk regardless of gender most times. It’s about who they are as much as anything else, you see?”
I pondered it. “I suppose so.” I signed and scratched my head. “I’ll think on it. But, no matter what, you’re not… You’re not lacking for anything being with just me, are you?”
Farmer stood and came over to me, leaning it to kiss me slow in the way that always sets my head spinning. “I lack nothing with you, Beka. Don’t you ever think it. I would have fallen in love with and married someone eventually; it just so happened that you’re a mot. You’re more than enough. Never worry about that.”
Then he leaned in to kiss me again which led to quite a bit more than kissing, and I certainly had no more worries about whether my husband was happy with me for the rest of the evening.
And truthfully, I don’t worry overmuch about it even now. It’s the conversation itself that nags at me. Have I really been so observant as to miss how other folks love? I train in such observations after all, and I feel near to ashamed I’ve been blind in this matter.
Because the more I ponder it, of course, love would be more complicated than that, even if one thinks there’s a nice clear category to put someone in. After all, the bardash I know and love best, Nestor, can’t fit as closely into a simple box as someone who “only” dallies with coves as I might think considering Okha’s own complicated gender. And would Okha be considered a bardash when feeling so much a woman? Some might assume so, but I wonder now, knowing there are other options, other ways of being and loving that I hadn’t considered.
I’m still pondering it all, wondering what I’ve missed and how I might learn more so that I might be a better Dog to anyone of such persuasions I might come across. A better friend, too. And a better wife, though Farmer insists I am the best of wives already just as I am.
Cooper Household
Upmarket
Corus
Several Days Later
As if my looby husband hadn’t managed to set my head spinning after our discussion earlier this week, one of my dearest friends upended it even more last night all without even trying. Our band of friends from the Dancing Dove stopped by for supper, Rosto the beggar wanting some of the bread rolls my husband gets from the baker who lives next door as he often does, and I found myself thinking on what Farmer and I had talked of, only this time in regards to our friends and what they themselves might feel about such things. Not that I dared to ask them, of course, but I couldn’t help looking at them with new eyes.
When we met, Rosto was bedded up with both Kora and Aniki, and I’d thought at most he switched between them or occasionally enjoyed both in his bed at the once. But I hadn’t considered that the trio might be matched about in other ways. As in, did Kora and Aniki enjoy each other just as much as Rosto? I’d never seen a sign of it, but then I hadn’t really been looking. And in any case, Kora had paired up with Ersken not long after, and it seemed clear she’d only cuddled with him after that. And gods knew, both Aniki and Rosto supported the match. I never saw any jealousy or resentment for her moving on from their arrangement.
I’ve never been as able to love that freely any more than I’d thought on the other ways folks might be attracted to each other. Mayhap that’s part of why I hadn’t looked for such things before?
In any case, all of this was on my mind while we ate dinner with our friends, and I found myself watching them all while we orbited around the room and each other. I watched how comfortable Kora and Aniki still were with each other, and how Rosto hardly noticed if he had his hand on a mot’s shoulder or a cove’s, completely confident in himself no matter what. And Farmer, simply happy to be home with me and those whose company we enjoyed.
Little by little, though, I realized I was watching one of our guests more than the others. Again and again, it was Aniki’s form I caught my eyes drifting toward without really intending to. Aniki’s always drawn the eyes in my opinion; she’s tall and powerfully built with that graceful strut just this side of too arrogant to be attractive. It’s not often a mot leaves me feeling almost delicate – I know how strong I am thanks to a proper Dog’s training – but Aniki almost seems to all but tower above me light the walls of the city do.
It's an interesting feeling. One I realized that night I’d never much let myself think on as it felt almost dangerous to do so.
And, as I thought on it, I’d often watched her in just such a fashion, drawn to something as simple as her stretching out her hands and arms to keep them limber while we sat about talking or the casual way she leaned against a wall or a doorway, confident to take up as much space as her tall frame required with no self-consciousness about it at all. Every inch of her told the world of her competence and prowess with arms.
I’d seem many a tough looking cove move out of her way as she strolled down the street on an afternoon, Aniki hardly noticing they did so except to accept that deference as her due. It wasn’t quite the arrogance someone like Lady Sabine possessed, but it was close.
And there was something captivating about it.
Not that I considered myself captivated, exactly. Did I?
Worrying over it kept me quiet well past our dessert of fresh cool plums Kora brought as her portion of the night’s offerings. I dare say our guests noticed I was even shyer to speak than normal, but that’s the best part about long time friends, they knew me well enough not to poke at me about it. If I continued in such a way over their next visit, I knew I’d have one or all of them trying to tease me out of my silence, but for now, they allowed me the time with my thoughts.
Or at least our guests did. Once they’d left, however, my husband turned to me and raised his eyebrows, a grin slowly forming on his face. “So,” he said slyly, “Aniki, then?”
“I – it’s not like – I mean, I don’t –” I groaned and covered my face, out of words and helpless to stop my giggles, drawn out of me by his bright laughter as they so often were. “How did I never notice?” I finally half wailed, burying my face in his shirt.
Farmer, bless him, didn’t tease me at all, just let me babble my confusion out in his arms while he silently supported me.
There’s a reason I love him best, after all, no matter who I might or might not be attracted to.