Page 65 of Feral Werewolves

This morning, we’d woken up together. We’d slept in the sun room on the big cushions, and everyone had been in favor of putting our penises into Clementine every which way upon waking, but I had said that no, today was the day we were going across the wall to get Clementine’s stuff, and everyone had grudgingly come out here for breakfast.

Now, Kestrel was explaining the schedule to Clementine, in a particularly gruff voice, probably because he was having blue balls. “Yeah, so if there are four of us, we can alternate with cooking every fourth day, and then we can see about the other chores. I’ll figure it out and come up with something that seems fair.”

“Why don’t you write them all down or something?” said Clementine. “Maybe we could have a chart posted, because I cannot keep track of every fourth day. No way.”

I tightened my grip on her. She was my new favorite person in the universe. I kissed her temple. “Fuck, I love you.”

She glanced at me, amused. “Um, I love you, too, butwhat prompted that?”

“I’ve been saying stuff like this, but Kestrel just keeps making fun of me for it,” I said. I grinned at him. “You going to call her a toddler, man?”

Kestrel was cooking eggs on the stove, and he shot a dirty look over his shoulder at me. “I don’t have time to make up a chart. I already figured out the damned schedule, and it’s not my fault that you can’t remember it.”

“Mmm,” said Clementine. “It’s totally reasonable to waste valuable computing brain space on something that could be written down somewhere.”

“Burn,” I said, laughing.

Kestrel turned from the stove again, gesturing with the spatula. “It’s not like it’s hard to remember this shit.”

“For you,” she said.

Kestrel considered that and went back to the stove.

“Anyway,” she said, “I get it. If I need the accommodation, I’ll take point on that. I can make the charts.”

“I’ll help,” I said, kissing the nape of her neck.

Lazarus was taking toast out of the toaster. “I don’t want to be put on a fucking schedule.”

“There’s that issue, too,” said Kestrel, gesturing with his head at Lazarus. He did not turn around.

“Okay,” said Clementine. “Lazarus is not on the schedule, then. Just you and me, apparently, Paladin. We’re the ones with executive function damage, apparently.” She giggled.

“Look,” I said, “I mean to do things, I really do, it’s just that my brain gets cluttered with all the things and I forget.”

“Of course you do,” said Clementine. “Only freakish type-A randos like them don’t need help in this way. They would never have invented planners or calendars or whatever if most people didn’t need to be reminded of this stuff.”

I grinned. I really liked her.

“Lazarus gets offended if you assume he can’t do everything perfectly, all alone, and on the first try,” said Kestrel.

“I do not,” said Lazarus.

“I mean…” I shrugged at him. “You do.”

Lazarus set the toast on the table, along with some of our homemade butter. You could get margarine from the rations, and we used that in a pinch, but we all preferred the real stuff, even if we did have to churn it ourselves. “I don’t.”

Kestrel shrugged again, elaborately. “See?”

Lazarus pulled out a chair at the table and sat down. “Who said you got the tithe in your lap, huh?”

“The tithe?” said Clementine, mock-offended. “I have a name, you know.”

“She’s an independent woman with a will of her own,” I said. “You want to ask her to sit in your lap, just do it.”

“No,” said Lazarus. “I asked you because it puts pressure on her to make a decision and worry over if she’s favoring anyone and all of that. That’s not fair to her. One of her, three of us. We can’t make her feel caught in the middle all the time.”

“Yeah, okay, I get that,” I said. “But she should make her own decisions, too.”

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