Author's website: http://www.mindspring.com/~bluecham/

Disclaimer: I don't own anything at all. Literally. This isn't even my computer.

Author's Notes: Thanks to all those who keep sending me fb. You're only bringing this on yourselves, you know. This one took maybe two hours, but at least I gave it a go-over for some clarity points the morning after the night I wrote it.

Story Notes: Uhhh.can't think of any, but my memory is notoriously inconvenient.

This story is a sequel to: Talking to the Dog V: A Many-Splendoured Thing

I've been going on the assumption that Dief is midsize between all the various dogs who played him; some were much larger than others. Draco, the Kowalski-era dog, was not one of the bigger ones; he weighed only fifty pounds or so. (Though he was definitely the biggest scene-stealer. He just loved everything, man. 'Course, he was less than a year old for some of his scenes, which I think dog breeders consider still pretty much a puppy.) Dief is slightly larger than Draco in my head, and he has a ruff like Draco (I don't think Lincoln had one) but he's not quite not as big as the biggest dog who played him, whether it was Lincoln the poor Alzheimer's-having dog (well, *some*thing wasn't right, because eventually even commands like "sit" were just too baffling for him to comprehend and they had to fire him) or one of the stunt dogs, or the pilot dog, who was gigantic and whose name I don't know.

"Mngf," said Dief, as Ray laboriously switched the half-wolf from one shoulder to the other, settling his slightly drooly head carefully, hoping that would get him to stop snoring. He wondered if this was what parents went through with colicky newborn babies that couldn't sleep except on a shoulder or forearm. Nah. For one thing, the colicky newborns couldn't possibly weigh so damn much. Diefenbaker was not a small critter. And hopefully the newborns had better breath, though Dief's was considerably less general-dog-breath now, and more antiseptic.

He picked up the remote and changed the channel again, not that it was going to make any difference. The hotel only had basic cable, and since this didn't happen to be Star Trek night or anything-else-worth-watching night, and it was too late for prime time anyway, that meant about a hundred channels of infomercials. Some blow-'em-up movies, some piece of crap about hunting wounded things down, blah blah...

Not that he would have been interested in what ShowTime et al would have been broadcasting at this hour. God, the women in those softcores had the ugliest tits in the universe. There were things that were not meant to meet in this life, and bags full of silicone and a human being's boobs were two, or four, or however you counted, of those things. You couldn't cuddle up to that, you'd put your eye out. He wondered if there were a man out there--or a woman either--honestly turned on by the sight of a woman whose tits were literally the size of softballs and pointed straight up. He guessed it might be different if it were a *guy, a she-male or a transsexual, who wanted boobs--couldn't get 'em any other way, except hormone shots, and who knew what else that might do to you, but then if--good Lord, what time was it by now? Was Dief ever gonna wake up enough Ray could stop watching him and sleep, too?

"Glg," said Dief. He pulled his tongue in and smacked it a little. "Ugh." Hm, awake this time, sounded like.

"You there?" Ray started to lower Dief; he was going to be careful, make sure not to bump anything sore...then finally gave up and put his back into it. No, Dief was not small. Fortunately Dief didn't seem to consider Ray's handling of him to be particularly rough, or if he did he gave no sign.

They ended up lying next to each other with their heads and upper bodies on the stacked pillows Ray had been leaning against, Ray still holding Dief around the shoulders with his lowermore arm. He stroked the wolf-dog's head, reached over him to the nighttable and grabbed a Kleenex to blot at the rheumy wolf-eyes. Diefenbaker blinked at the blotting, trying to help get rid of the gunk and wake up a little at the same time.

"Bleagh," said Diefenbaker, fairly distinctly.

"Yeah, I'll get you some water in a second."

"What army camped in my mouth..."

"I always get that after bein' under anesthesia, too, but in my case they tell me it's the tube, partly."

"Mm," Dief said, and Ray supposed he was meant to take that whatever the hell way he wanted to, since Dief was obviously not in the mood for detailed discussions of modern medical procedures. He started to get up, beginning to pull his arm from under Diefenbaker.

"No," Dief whimpered, unfolding his foreleg to throw around Ray's neck and hold him there. "Bed's moving."

"Oh. Um..." Ray lay down again, wrapping his top arm around Diefenbaker too. "Okay, but if you think you're gonna spew, or the seas die down and I can get up and get you some water and towels and stuff, say so."

"'Kay," Dief whimpered again. He hid his face in Ray's neck. "Thank you."

"It's okay, Dief," Ray said, lightly stroking the thickly furred back. Not too heavily; when his own stomach wasn't doing that well, he didn't care for being jostled himself, thanks very much, no matter how kindly the jostling might be meant. He assumed it was the same for anybody with a stomach and a one-way digestive tract.

"Why'd we have to--ulp--come all this way to--ulp--get my teeth cleaned anyway? And who suddenly decided they needed cleaning? I've never had my teeth cleaned."

"You also say you don't need your shots. And we came all this way 'cause my brother's been bringing all his family's dogs to this guy in Evansville that he says is the best and that's what Fraser wanted for you."

"I have a vet. To my humiliation. In Chicago."

"It makes Fraser nervous when you have to be sedated, and he wanted someone with experience at--"

"I didn't even need to be knocked out!"

"Calm down, Dief, c'mon." Ray shushed gently with sounds and hands. "We couldn't exactly tell them that. Besides, the way they do it it'd probably have hurt, and you'd have moved or bit out of reflex. You did need to be knocked out, okay?"

"Nobody's explained yet why I needed my teeth..." Dief subsided into grumbling.

"'Cause you been eaten' crud. You've had to have your gut unplugged and a bunch of other stuff, too."

"So this is, like, a punishment."

"No, so this is like takin' care of you. Now shut up." Ray cuddled Dief close and he shut up. Pretty soon he was dozing again, drooling on the pillow.

"Disgustin' wolf," Ray sighed, smiling at the sight. He kissed Dief between the eyes and went back to watching bad TV, sighing.

"It was too," Ray insisted, twisting the wheel with unnecessary force as they ascended an on-ramp.

"It was not," Dief sighed, "and that's the last time I'm saying this. I understand, and really, I'm glad you trusted me enough, to get all this stuff out on the floor about the little fling Fraser and I had--"

"It wasn't a fling!"

Dief sighed. "Okay, I'll give you that one, it wasn't--but that's only because I was too young and stupid to realize it wasn't a fling, not because I'm a wolfdog and he's a human."

"Will you stop with the trying to act like you bein' a dog doesn't matter?" Ray clutched, shifted and off they went up the freeway.

Dief made a small noise of complaint in response to both the movement of Ray's leg, upon which the quadruped's head was pillowed, and the sudden increase in their speed; sick people do not need extra g-forces, Ray reminded himself with a disgruntled noise at his own thoughtlessness, thinking of the Ice Queen, and stroked Dief carefully, checking his arrangement with the blankets stuffed in and around them both in the front seat, in apology. "Sorry. Nothin' but straight north for a ways here. Little fresh air?"

"That'd be nice," Diefenbaker mumbled, and Ray cracked the passenger window just a tad, minding the difference between a "little fresh air" and a "breathsucking gale". Especially when one was feeling ill.

"Water or anything?"

"I'm fine for now, Ray."

They were silent as Ray played radio roulette for a while, until he settled on some softly blued piano-based jazz, apparently in deference to his passenger's currently non-bangable head.

"Okay," Ray finally essayed, "you're not saying it was...normal, you're saying bestiality isn't the right word for it."

"Bestiality was definitely not the right word for it, and no, it wasn't normal--for your species--but I still don't think you're getting my point."

"Well, if you admit it wasn't normal--"

"Don't use the word 'admit', it makes me argue just for the sake of doing it."

"--then what is your point?"

"My point is that bestiality consists of an adult human--a creature which can give informed consent--having sex with a nonsentient animal, who, by its very nature, is incapable of giving informed consent. Correct?"

"Yeah. I mean...oh, man..."

"Whatever it is, just say it. You'll feel better when it's over."

"No, I'll feel squirrelly when its over. I mean, even when the animal is not like you--by which I mean not sentient--but, um...and it's the animal's...um..."

"...but the animal starts it and is obviously quite happy to get into it with the human..." Diefenbaker obviously realized it could take the whole drive back to Chicago to get the one sentence out if he didn't help.

Contrarily, this just made Ray crankier. "...it's still bestiality because consent and informed consent is not the same thing."

"That's right, it isn't. We could get into it about types of uninformed consent, here, but I think we're going to have enough trouble just with this. Okay. So, what you're saying is that it was bestiality--"

"I said I give on that, okay? It wasn't bestiality."

Starting over, Dief said "You said initially that it was bestiality because I am a wolfdog, correct?"

"Well, yeah. That'd be the first thing anybody'd think."

"Anybody human."

"Uh, oh."

"Well, at least you have the grace to realize you made a majorly bigoted mistake with that one. Want to try to fix it?"

"Um." Ray drove and thought while Dief squirmed his blankets a little more comfortably. Then he offered "I thought it was bestiality, initially, because you and Fraser are two different species."

"The first day you heard me talk you demonstrated that you knew what the word 'miscegenation' means."

"Okay, okay, I jumped on the bestiality thing because Fraser's human and you're a dog and you guys did it. By any normal--"

"Ahem."

"Dief, come on, by any standards anybody--"

"Any human."

"Dief, don't make me beg."

"Okay, okay...look. The problem you're facing here is that I am sentient. As far as you know, I am the only sentient animal you've met who was not a human. That's an important point to remember, too, you know; humans are animals, too, with definable paramaters of behavior and such as well."

"Yeah, we're animals, we're even mammals and a bunch of other stuff we have in common with wolfdogs and a lot of other species. I got that. Keep going."

"I only meant that if you kept it in mind, it might make all this a little easier to understand. As far as you've experienced, humans are the only animals capable of giving informed consent; and even then, only certain humans, right?"

"Right."

"Okay. So what if you ran across an animal who wasn't human--or was someone like a human kid or a human not usually considered to be in command of all their facultiesor whatever--but who was sentient and capable of giving informed consent? Who did meet the criteria?"

"Okay, I'll suppose it. But you didn't meet it. Them. The criteria."

"What criterion didn't I meet? And I don't want to argue about whether I'm of sound mind or this conversation will never be over. By any sane standards, Fraser isn't of sound mind either."

"Okay, okay...uh...age. You were less than a year old."

"I am not human, Ray. For my species, the number of months I had reached qualified as late adolescence, which in humans is late teens to early twenties, and believe me, wolfdogs are messing around like bunnies by late adolescence, so--"

"You were too ignorant about sex to even realize that Fraser wasn't gettin' off!"

"So? Could you tell if a woman you were with was necessarily having a good time when you were, speaking in terms of parallel ages, here, the same age? Or, in your case, younger?"

Ray spluttered a moment. "It's not the same!"

"Why not?"

Silence reigned in the passenger compartment of the car, relieved by engine noise and soft jazz.

"You loved Stella," Dief said softly, "I loved Fraser. You knew zip when you got started at that kind of thing and wouldn't have known if she was having a hot time or counting ceiling cracks, when you first started. Same with me. The only way to be sure would have been if it were a bitch in heat, or I couldn't have kn--"

"HA!"

"Calm down, Ray, I'm not done. Wolfdogs, and wolves, and dogs, do it when nobody's in heat, too. Neutered animals of all kinds do it, just for fun, including humans with no gonads. Like I told you before, mating's a biggie, heat is important, but it's a long way from everything. Besides, I happen to know that although most human females go through a stage in their cycle where they want it more, it isn't a true heat, because they're actually less likely to conceive at that time than at--"

"There, see? It's different--"

"Ray, shut up until I'm done. Because of that, the time of increased sexual desire in a human's cycle is not considered a true heat--so human women are, at least by some standards, considered to always be in heat. They are always, shall we say, receptive. To what they want, I mean, not to anything that comes along. Are you following me, here?"

"Yeah," Ray sighed, "but I got no idea where you're going and I don't think I wanna know until we get there and I'm not sure about then, either."

"Okay, as long as we're on the same page. Now then. We have established that for my species, I was of age, and of sound mind. Right?"

Ray drove.

"Right?"

"Okay!" You were of age, just young. You were of sound mind, just inexperienced. You even..."

"...loved Fraser."

There was a small pause, and in an equally small voice, Ray said "Dief, are you in love with Fraser?"

There was a silence, and Ray was a little bit ashamed that he was glad it was on that damn knowitall wolfdog's part this time.

Dief said softly "If Fraser had been born a wolf, I could have been in love with him. I guess the species thing, in that way, is something I can't get over, either, and I'm not real proud of that."

"So...you'd have been a gay wolf?"

"Ah, hell, Ray, I dunno. There are such wolves, it's just that wolves don't care. Anyway, you can't deny a person's species is a pretty stinking huge part of who they are. Fraser couldn't have been born a wolf, he wouldn't have been Fraser, he'd have been someone else. But if...if enough of him had been, I'd have mated with him. And we mate for life, you know."

"I know," Ray said softly, and stroked Dief's head and shoulder gently. Whenever they were having an argument, if the fact that they both loved Fraser came up in it, it kinda stopped the argument part cold, even if not the discussion part. Fraser had that effect even when he wasn't around, sometimes.

"Anyway, there are gay animals, you know that," Dief sighed, trying to get back on track, "though most are bisexual by the human definition of the words, which, really, don't apply very well to anybody but humans. So, moving right along, what we have here, by your instinctual definition, is a case of bestiality. Do you agree that that definition comes from your gut and not from your head, considering the circumstances?"

"I already agreed that, Dief."

"Yeah. So the word you're after is--"

"--miscegenation. Yeah. And that's just a technical term. If two different species go at it, that's what it is. It doesn't matter if one of 'em's human or can do the informed consent thing or any of that stuff. I mean, a horse fucks a cow, you got miscegenation, no humans involved even."

"But when I fucked the drinking fountain, it wasn't."

"You're a DOG! Dogs do that stuff."

"I hate to break it to you, city boy, but so do horses and cows. Ever see a cow top another cow when the bottom cow's in heat? You kinda wonder what the point is, but evidently they get something out of it, 'cause boy do they ever--"

"Oh, geez," Ray sighed. "I feel sick."

"Fresh air, there, studmuffin," Dief suggested, and Ray cracked his own window just a little, too, and took a few deep breaths.

"Better?"

"I wouldn't go that far," Ray grumbled. "But I wanna get this outta the way before we see Frase again, so go on wherever you were going."

"Okay." Dief thought a moment, then said "Technically, yes, when Fraser and I did it, it was miscegenation. We're two separate species that can't reproduce together, end of story. But it isn't really--because we're both sentient."

Ray made a little whimpering sound. "How isn't it the end of the story?"

"By and large, horses and cows aren't sentient, though you'd be amazed how smart some of them are even so. Fraser and I, though, are sentient. Both of us had the power to give informed consent, and we gave it. Now, I gave it because I was too green about sex to realize that Fraser was basically just holding me while I got my rocks off, and he gave his because he loved me and didn't want to upset me or embarrass me. But that wasn't coerced consent."

"But if he didn't want to embarrass you, isn't that coercion? Kind of?"

"Did anybody, at any point, tell him 'Let this dog hump you or you'll regret the consequences'? Did he, at any point, feel threatened--or even a little pushed--to do it?"

Ray muttered "No."

"Then he gave informed consent. He did it to spare my feelings, but it was uncoerced consent, and it was informed. A lot more informed than mine was, I might add. I mean, he knew the score one hell of a lot better than I did. You wouldn't believe what an idiot I felt like when he finally told me it'd been...he'd been...letting me. Geez, try that for a kick in the ego. Letting me. Because he could see that I obviously didn't have the first clue that he wasn't getting any actual sex out of it. It embarrassed him, yes, but you can embarrass that man by eating your entree with your salad fork. And it only embarrassed him about that bad, too."

"Can't fight that," Ray muttered. He was trying not to think about some episodes with Stella where she'd finally had to break down and tell him that Ray, old boy, you ain't as much of a stallion as I been makin' you think you were. Besides, Fraser had told Ray flat out that at no point had Diefenbaker's getting off on him made him feel violated. Just socially uncomfortable, and uncertain how to handle the situation, which was something Fraser ran into about every other day. "So you're saying that the word 'miscegenation' doesn't apply either, even though you both felt like a couple of dorkwads after he told you."

"Well...technically the word does apply. We can't reproduce together because our species are too divergent, and that's what that word means; I'm saying that the meaning most humans attach to the word doesn't apply. Do you get me, here?"

Ray inhaled deeply, his hand moving gently in Dief's fur, and then let he the breath out in a whoosh. Then he said "You're saying that what you and Fraser did was more like a couple of humans falling into a sex thing and then not really knowing how to get out until somebody says something to stop it, and then they both feel dumb."

"And you know as well as I do that that happens every day."

"Yeah. Unfortunately, I do."

"So are you okay with it now? I mean, really, you oughtta be more okay with it than Fraser and me are, because we're the ones who made major boneheads out of ourselves, you know?"

"Dief..." Ray sighed. "It's a tough thing. I mean, it's even tougher than you and me here in my car having this conversation. Having any conversation. I can talk to you, man, you know?" Ray's voice was taking on a note of desperation.

"Mmmm," Dief half-groaned in acknowledgement, because Ray, in his disturbance and distraction, as they cruised along the darkening freeway, was letting his petting hand roam up and down, deep-fingering in Dief's belly and side fur, giving Diefenbaker, who was doing his twice-yearly undercoat shed, something similar to the hairwashing like Ray and Fraser had exchanged a few days earlier--not sex, no, but God, it felt soooo good.

Ignoring the response, Ray was continuing "That oughtta be enough to send anybody screaming for the nearest psych ward--I dunno, maybe that you humped Fraser there for a while shouldn't be that big a deal against this, just the talking thing. I mean, it shouldn't. Dogs hump things. Even wolfdogs. I guess it's just that if it'd been any other dog, he'd just have dumped you off, but you..."

"...special circumstance," Dief agreed, wriggling around to let Ray's wandering hand get at more of his belly. Enough hair was being sucked out the open windows that one would think Ray might've noticed it, but he was in a bit of mental distraction at the moment.

"Like Fraser keeps saying, he doesn't know just what makes you different, or how many of you there might be, or even if it's us or something, or what, though I guess he thinks you think I'm kind of okay enough to talk to. He made it sound like that once, anyway..."

"You're okay enough to talk to," Dief groaned, rolling a little more to the other side, so his other flank could get some attention. The scar there always liked a little rubbing, it kept it flexible. "Oh, yeah, you are. Mm. Keep talking."

"You're a great person," Ray was puzzling, his petting hand automatically seeking and destroying knots of fur and tension, rubbing soothing patterns down Dief's spine, while the wheel hand tapped out a rhythm to accompany his monologue. "You saved Fraser's life I don't know how many times, I think three so far or something, you got this great sense of, of civic responsibility and shit. You're even beautiful, you're this really beautiful animal, and everybody wants a piece of you, everybody thinks you're the shit, nearly as much as Fraser. Well, nearly, yeah, I mean, we're talking Fraser here. But close enough. But I just...I can't, you know? I just got this thing. I don't understand it. I thought...it's weird, yeah, you talking, and me listening, and you listening to me and understanding better than most of the humans I know, and I love you, I really love you, you know? I mean, how often do I say that? How often have I ever said that? I just don't go around saying that, that is not a thing you hear a lot in the land of Ray, that whole I love you thing. But you make me feel good..." he seemed at a loss.

By this time, as Ray reached a pause in his soliloquy, enough of his actual meaning had reached Dief for the wolfdog to perk up his ears and actually hear something. "Ray," he inquired, squirming around a little and trying not to bump his sore jaw against anything, "is something wrong? What's the matter?" He managed to get his feet under him and licked Ray's cheekbone gently, with the soft, just-moist end of his tongue, right above Ray's beardline where the skin was smooth and sunbrowned.

"It's just--okay, like--Dief, I can say shit to you, right? I can say shit and you won't freak out, right?"

"Um....yeah. I've said a lot of freaky shit to you, after all. If something's the matter--and something obviously is--yeah, sure, fire ahead. Here I am, all ears. Something about what we've been talking about?"

"Yeah, it's about what we've been talking about. I mean, I've been thinking about it--the, the thing, the sex thing, with you and Frase, since I found out about it a few days ago, and all the arguments you've just given me are the same ones I been havin' with myself ever since I got over the initial gaaaaah, y'know?"

Dief gave him a wolf grin, then made a grimace that would ordinarily have been the beginnings of a snarl but in this case was only a grimace, and closed his mouth, licking his lips a couple of times. "Damn, my mouth's sore. Yeah, I know you must've been thinking about it, to want to get it all hashed out with your head before we see Fraser again. What specifically? You feel too weird to look him in the face or something 'cause he had sex with a dog?"

"Uh...no, but that's kinda in the right neighborhood. I just...it's...if you are who you are, and he is who he is, and...why should it bother me at all? Just your body? Just you bein' a dog? Is that it? Like, it totally doesn't matter who you are, I can't take him gettin' close to you that way just because you got four legs instead of two? Isn't that like people who hate gays because the gays aren't in the right body to wanna get close that way to the people they love? I mean, you watch Star Trek, right?"

"Uh, if I'm at your place."

"Oh, yeah, Fraser...anyway, people from different PLANETS get it on in that show, right, and nobody thinks anything about it. But those people are supposedly no more human than you are."

Dief was quiet a moment, then said "Well, no. They look more like humans, but that has more to do with trying to put on a TV show than with anything approaching what extraterrestrials might really look like. And speaking technically, since I evolved on the same planet you did, I'm probably closer to being human than anyone from another planet would be."

"Right. But as long as they're opposite genders, nobody gives a damn, right?"

Dief was quiet a moment. Finally he wondered "Ray...what the hell is going on in your head right now?"

"I guess I just..." Ray suddenly shifted and pulled over to the side of the freeway, his hands gripping the wheel tightly.

"Ray. What's wrong?" Dief demanded, after getting back up onto the seat and into his pile of blankets. "Tell me."

"I don't wanna have sex with a dog and I feel bad about it!" Ray cried out, then let his forehead hit the steering wheel with a thump. "Why do I feel bad that I don't wanna have sex with a dog?!"

"Ray."

"What." Ray banged his head against the steering wheel again, with an accompanying grunt of discomfort.

"Ray, there's a side road up ahead a little ways. I want you to put the car back in gear and take us up there. We can probably find a quiet spot to pull off the highway for a few minutes."

"Um. Uh, yeah, that'd...that'd be good, pull the...yeah. Be good." Ray proceeded to do as instructed, and they found a small, dirt-surfaced turnaround, surrounded by fir trees, about an eighth of a mile up.

"It's not something you're supposed to feel bad about," Ray complained. "It's supposed to be normal. That's a nice person, to not want to have sex with a dog. I mean, not only is it gross, there's the dog to think about. I mean, depending on what you do to it. Some people do really sick things..."

"You don't want to do anything sick to any nonsentient animals, do you, Ray?"

"No! I don't! Never have, never will, it's a gross, gross thing, an' I want nothin' in the world to do with it, right?"

"Right," Dief said softly. "That's all the same. None of that has changed. There's just this one dog you know. This one dog. He's a friend. He's your lover's other best friend--"

"Well, me and Fraser ain't technically--"

"Oh, bullshit, who cares what you've done or haven't done, for all practical purposes you're lovers, coming once courtesy of each other's assistance won't change anything about the way you feel for each other. It's just that this one dog can talk with you, and you like him, and it's making you question some things that--"

"Like why shouldn't people hate me for bein' bi? I mean, Fraser ain't got the right body for havin' sex with me, accordin' to those people. And you ain't got the right body for havin' sex with Fraser, accordin' to me. Dief, I grossed out bad. Just like a fag-hater. I wasn't worried about who got hurt, or even if anybody had got hurt at all, I was just grossed out, no good reason, just...God. Just..."

"He told me about it, Ray, you don't have to--"

"I guess I coulda figured that, he tells you everything. But it wasn't like 'Oh no, Frase's other best friend used to fool around with him and they're still, like, livin' in each other's pockets', and it wasn't like I was jealous or morally outraged 'cause you couldn't give consent--'cause I knew you could--it was like, 'Oh Christ, Fraser fucked a dog'. A dog he loves, his own dog, the dog he hangs out with, it wasn't like he got slipped a controlled substance or even just did a couple weird-ass things when he was younger, he...he--"

"Let me have sex with him."

"More than once. I grossed out, and I oughtta still be grossing out if this were any kind of regular situation or if I were any kind of regular guy, but I'm not grossing out now, not about what happened with you two, but if I'm not grossing out, if I understand what happened with you two, then why...why--"

"Why don't you want me, you mean?" Dief wondered, head atilt. "If you can accept what happened with Fraser and me, then you should be able to want me? Is that it? It's got to be all one way or the other?"

"No, no--well--it's--" Ray panted a couple of times and tried again. "It's the reason. The reason I don't want you. Or wouldn't want you, even if it weren't for the talking thing, the friends with you thing. I just...couldn't, I just couldn't do it with a dog. No matter if he were sentient or if he wanted to or if--I mean," Ray looked near tears. "Frase wouldn't'a hurt you like that, 'cause you didn't know any better--but I'd'a shoved you off me, Dief, I woudn't'a just let you get your jollies on me like that."

"Most humans wouldn't have, Ray. Try to remember that Fraser is not an easy man for anyone but humans, and only particular humans in particular situations, to freak out. He's almost unfreakable. As I've told you before, it's only warm human relationships that send him up the nearest tree in pants-piddling fear. Anything else, he just stays cool and deals. And I'm not human."

Ray slumped. "Look, I know this sounds really stupid..."

"It's not stupid if it's upsetting you this much."

"Dief..." Ray pressed his lips together, folded his arms and leaned back in the seat, eyes closed. "I'm gonna ask you something hypothetically speaking and please don't tell Fraser."

"Is it about him?"

"No."

"Doesn't concern him in any way?"

"...well, only if you really really reached, so--basically, no."

"Then I won't tell him."

"Would you?"

"Would I...?"

"I mean, if I wanted to. And you knew I wanted to, and I...would you...just would you? With me?"

"You mean...do I find you attractive? Would I because I...wanted you, rather than just because I wanted to? Would I want to do it with you the way I wanted to do it with Fraser because I love him?"

"Uh...yeah, I guess. I got no idea what it's like to be a dog. I don't know what you look at me and see. "Cause I look at you, and I see this...uh, dog. Not that that's bad, you're really--I mean--" he sighed in frustration.

"You said I was a beautiful animal," Dief said quietly. "Really beautiful. And you said I was your friend."

"Yeah," Ray said, and had to stop and sniff. "Oh, man. Just I didn't mean beautiful like..."

"Ray, if it makes you feel better, I happen to think you're a beautiful animal, too. But I think you know the answer here; I pretty much demonstrated it with Fraser. Because of the...unusual relationship he and I have, I don't try that with humans any more, because I was able to...sense from him that it...that it was just different with you people. He was able to get it across to me, finally. But if it weren't for Fraser, I'd never have known you, so it's not a question that really--"

"Answer it."

"I'd have to...Ray, is it really that--"

"Answer it, ya damn fleabag!" Ray sighed, slumping again, and said "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. But if I was to say yes. If for some reason the sky opened up and choirs of angels were singing Ray wants Diefenbaker--"

Dief was forced to cover his face with both paws.

Ray managed a watery grin. "Yeah, kind of not the right sorta image, I know, but anyway. Would you?"

"Ray..." Dief shook his head, a habit Ray had no idea where he'd picked up, 'til Dief answered the question himself by saying "I'm still groggy and strange from the anaesthetic or I'd probably lie right now, but the truth is--yes. You said you thought I was a great person? A beautiful animal? I think you're one, too. So is Fraser. And I love you both. Vecchio, too, though he's not quite as classically fine-looking an example of his species, I've got to admit. Anyway, I already told you, I've thought about what Fraser would be like as a wolf, even though it's kind of an impossible question, you can't take away somebody's species as part of their identity and have any idea what they would have been like without it. But I wondered anyway, whether I'd have mated with him, I told you that." Dief sighed tiredly. "So the upshot of all this is--yes, Ray Kowalski, IF you somehow managed to convince me that you really wanted to, which to put it mildly would not be easy, I would ask you to show me what to do to make you feel so good your whole family'd grin when you came. Though I already have a pretty damn good idea--don't ask Fraser how I know. And I'd show you what to do for me, though when we're not talking about a female dog--mating with a bitch is more complicated, physically--it doesn't take much, as you've probably noticed, and as Fraser could certainly tell you."

"Um, yeah, and God and everybody."

"True. See? Your species is different. I'm not human. I'm sentient. Not wanting to have sex with me for being a dog is not the equivalent of 'Sure, I got nothing against them, but I wouldn't want my sister marrying one'." We have very, very different ideas and feelings about sex, and that would matter even if I were human. Sure, you grossed out at first, but that's to be expected. You're not a bigot because you won't fuck a dog."

There was a long silent moment.

Then there was a soft, damp snort from under Ray's pile of misery and the words "That'd make a good bumpersticker."

Dief slumped into the blankets and Ray's lap. "Yeah. Ray, please take me home. Lavish care and attention and crullers and cable TV on me. Just don't fuck me, Fraser would stroke out."

Ray smiled at Dief's exhausted attempt at silliness. "Hell, I'm sorry. You're tired and sick and I'm dropping all this crap on you--"

"If there's one thing I've learned about humans, it's that epiphanies happen when they happen. And you can't refuse to deal with them unless something more urgent, like gunshot wounds, or falling off cliffs, is going on. Fraser gets hit with one of these things and hey, fuck the world, he's getting off, and he's not getting back on until he deals with it, know what I mean?"

"Yeah," Ray sighed, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand and turning the ignition key. "I know what you mean. All that vanishing into the frozen wilderness 'til he gets his head together and stuff. Or even his office or whatever."

As they pulled back onto the freeway, Ray was saying softly--the only reason Dief could hear was Ray was holding him up against him in one arm, in the bundle of blankets, having finished gear-shifting for a while--"It's just...the accepting it thing. Accepting this is real. Up 'til now it's been too...I dunno, too--unreal, uh, that makes no sense--I mean, it's been, accept it or die, you know, like 'how could there possibly be a steamroller coming down my hallway'? You don't stand there and say 'this is impossible', you get out of the way and figure it out later."

"Right," Dief yawned.

"But I guess it's...it's been enough time...I'm out of the way of the steamroller and I got no choice but to think about it, you know? And ever since this thing with me and Frase...I told him the same time that...you started talking to me, and then I found out about what you and Fraser used to do--"

"What I used to do. Fraser just let me."

"Yeah, well, that's not how he puts it. Anyway, I guess it...all came together in my head. Like, are you a person like me, or not? And if you are a person like me, a sentient person, and it's okay for me and Fraser to be together, then what right do I have to have a big gross-out at the idea of sex with you if what matters is the person, and not the package? You see what...what I mean?"

"Yes, Ray," Dief said, snuggling against him. "Rub my back some more."

Ray automatically started to rub, then paused. "Uh...it doesn't...I mean...it doesn't, you know, bug you when we touch you, does it?"

"Bug...? Oh. Ray, Ray, Ray, Ray--I'm not human. As far as I'm concerned, there are a million ways to show you that I love you and sex is only one of them, no more important than any of the others. You don't want sex, we don't have sex. We do something else. Involving pizza, say. Or cuddling when we miss Fraser. Anything, Ray. After all this time, after all the things you've seen me get it on with, haven't you figured out that sex is not the same thing to wolfdogs that it is to humans? It's just not that....relevant to absolutely everything, the way it is with you."

"Well...I thought....you guys do mate for life..."

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean we don't fool around with anything that happens to wander past. Mating has a lot more to do with pack hierarchy than who fucks who, with wolves. Or Siberian Huskies."

"Is that what your mother was?"

"Fraser thinks so--well, it's one of his guesses. In any case, the mate of an alpha is the other alpha of the pack. A pack is led by a mated alpha pair, but that doesn't mean they don't screw around with whatever they want."

"So if you and me and Fraser are packmates, who's the beta?"

"It's irrelevant, really. Living in human society I'm a de facto beta anyway. I mean, think about it. Any animal but a human, living in the world of human technology, is essentially handicapped; nothing is designed for us. We always have to have help for the most simple things--finding food and water, even--and we always have to do what we're told, or risk being thrown out of the human community or killed out of hand. It's simply a matter of survival."

"Kinda like non-alphas in a wolfpack, down to the lowest rank," Ray muttered. "What about you bein' part dog? Would that matter? Fraser's wondered if he should have...you know. If you'd stayed with the wolves...? If you'd...maybe be happier. More fulfilled, you know. You guys weren't communicatin' quite as clearly when he first came to Chicago, from what he says, and he sometimes wonders..."

Dief opened an eye and peeked up at him, then closed it again. "I could go into a big long Fraserlike explanation on it, but it's irrelevant, Ray. I am who I am. And who I am has chosen to be with Fraser. I don't always like where we end up, but I can't imagine life without him."

"I can't either," Ray said in a tiny whisper. "God, I really can't."

"Fraser's right about one thing, but not the way he thinks--living among humans has corrupted me," Dief sighed, resnuggling into a good position against Ray. "There are things I envy you sometimes."

"How d'you mean?" Ray said. "If you didn't mean the stuff Fraser's always goin' on about how spoiled you are by civilization. That 'essentially-handicapped' thing, you mean?"

Dief chuckled. "No. When I'm with other dogs, or cats or whoever, it doesn't come up, we suit each other fine; but I spend a lot of my time with humans. When one of you strokes another one with your hand--obviously, my inclination's to do it with my tongue, but you all have those short, thick tongues that you only use for talking and eating and having sex, they're not...I dunno, prehensile, like our tongues and teeth are; you use your hands. And sometimes I'll see Fraser just...touch your head, or your face, with his hand, or you'll pet his shoulder while you're passing by, and...I see what happens to your faces then. The way you turn all soft...go all gentle and easy..." he yawned. "And the way you touch me, like now, I'd like to touch you too, like that, the same way, make you go all..." he yawned again, "...easy..." his "voice" was fading.

Ray was quiet for a moment, then said "Don't take this the wrong way, but if I could ever stand the thought of having sex with a dog? I'd want it to be you."

"Don't count me out yet. Remember my..." yawn, "...prehensile tongue..."

Ray's voice was warm, and his hand kept moving, reordering Dief's shedding undercoat. "Don't make me throw you out the window, y'damn furbag, 'cause you know I will."

"I love you, too, Ray."

End Talking to the Dog VI: By Any Other Name by Blue Champagne: bluecham@mindspring.com

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