by Kyell Gold
And if the fox had heard that, what would he think?
He accepted Aziz's evaluation of his things without question, which was another bad sign: people from Devos Musjid Al-Islam, when they came to give Aziz their business, often haggled over a few dollars, not necessarily because they wanted to save the money, but because that was how things were done. Like prayer, it was a custom that eased their interaction, made them feel closer. But when Aziz offered the fox thirty dollars, prepared to go to forty if necessary, the fox simply nodded his head and accepted the cash.
When he was gone, Aziz turned back to the sale document. He signed his name decisively, then sealed it in an envelope and called the courier.
12
Severance
That evening, Aziz met Doug at the café as usual. After greeting his friend, Aziz tried to keep up his end of the conversation while staring around the café looking for Gerald, until Doug snapped his fingers and drew Aziz's attention. "You don't have to decide about Coronado right away," he said.
"What?"
"Come out and visit. Talk things over with Halifa. Don't sit and brood about it."
"Ah." Aziz seized on the excuse. "I will. It's a large change, you know."
"For me too." Doug smiled. "That's why I'd like to have you along. It would be nice to have one familiar muzzle out there."
"I understand the feeling." Aziz sighed.
Doug checked his phone. "Say, shouldn't you be getting to your mosque?"
"Yes, I should." Aziz got up. At least he could go to his store and pray there if he decided not to go to the mosque. "I'll see you tomorrow."
Tonight the breeze brought the smell of rain, and with the humidity came the amplified smells of hundreds of people. A coyote pressed a Neutra-Scent tissue to his nose as he passed Aziz, and were Aziz possessed of a long, sensitive nose, he might have been tempted to do the same. Back in Madiyah, the drier air kept smells more localized; a fennec friend of his had never complained about smells even in the middle of the busiest market.
He turned the corner, where Tanska sat behind the counter of the pastry shop, working at her register. Aziz paused at the window with the CLOSED sign in it, then walked on.
At his store, he paused again, but only for a moment. It could be that the red fox from the mosque had not heard him, and even if he had, maybe he would respect Aziz's privacy and keep it to himself. Spying was frowned upon in Islam, and most Muslims did not have Aziz's familiarity with other people's lives. In any case, for Aziz not to go to the mosque would be to appear guilty. He should go and act as though everything were normal, because it was.
He entered the mosque guardedly, but nobody paid him any special attention. He washed with the rest of them, made his way to a spot on the floor, and relaxed as the imam led them in prayer. The familiar words calmed Aziz, took him out of himself and let him focus again on his faith, his part in the world around him.
But when he got up, he noticed the red fox standing with a pangolin and a fennec, their muzzles close together and talking urgently. The fox turned to look at him and the other two followed. Aziz's fur prickled. Tail lashing, he followed his first instinct and headed for the door.
Outside, his panic subsided somewhat, replaced by regret and some anger. If only he hadn't been so careless, talking about relationships in his store where anyone might overhear. And he hadn't even done anything wrong. It was Gerald's assumption that he was gay because he'd come to a gay bar, watched a gay couple's honeymoon tape. Because he was having problems with his wife and had rejected his gay son. Because he'd let Gerald make that assumption.
(Because he'd felt comfortable talking to Gerald, because he kept picturing the tight stretch of the cougar's t-shirt over his chest.)
And that was all it was, an assumption. Even if Aziz admitted to himself that there had been something about that tape, about the way those two kissed, even about the troubles in their marriage that made him feel akin to them in some way, that didn't mean that he himself was gay. He loved his wife--or had. They'd had a cub together, and he'd always enjoyed their lovemaking.
He stopped at the street corner across from the Homeporium and looked up its walls. Blue glass reflected the stores across from it, warped but recognizable, almost artistic in the blue color palette. At the ground level, shop signs and posters set into the walls now stood as dark as the stores they were advertising. Above them, the blue glass face was broken up by patios, a few occupied; a wolf couple held wine glasses and looked out over the city, a raccoon and Dall sheep stood and talked while another sheep leaned over the railing. There was a penthouse level, but although it was lit up, Aziz saw no movement there.
The main entrance to the Homeporium was through the large open gate at the corner; from Aziz's store he could see the gate but not beyond. Here at the crosswalk, the open colorful atrium at the core of the large tower lay beyond two department stores squatting like a Scylla and Charybdis through which any visitors had to pass. The stream of people was fewer now that all the tourists had returned to their hotels, but a few, most likely residents, strolled along the red flagstones that led into the heart of the Homeporium. Aziz took a breath and crossed the street.
On the other crosswalk, the smells were different. Aziz's neighborhood had a comforting scent of all the people who lived there, the age of the buildings, exhaust of cars, the trees, and some less pleasant odors, all mixed to form a background scent that he thought of as home. Here, subtle misters set into the cornices that ran across the first story of shops breathed a soft floral scent (lavender probably; it was what everyone used, but it was faint enough that Aziz couldn't tell) that complemented the actual flowers planted in circular gardens around which the paths wound.
Aziz stepped between the large stores--those were still open, though people were leaving and nobody was entering, so likely they were closing soon. The display windows held slender female mannequins of varying colors to show how the blue dresses they wore would look on a russet fox, or a yellow leopard, or a grey wolf. He stopped to look at the leopard mannequin, envisioning the dress on Halifa. She would never wear it; it revealed too much fur and she was still modest in her tastes.
Farther into the Homeporium itself, the C-shape of its apartment towers blocked out Aziz's view of the surrounding neighborhood, but the grand interior took all his attention. A sculpture of sheltered staircases and railings whose paint wasn't chipped or worn rose around him, with shops strategically placed for easy access, fountains and benches, and brightly colored canvas roofs that remained stretched over many of the paths from the previous day's rain. Aziz felt as though he'd walked into a museum, an exhibit showing what the future was like.
He had to consult a map to find the food court patio, and then another to find out which of the stairs would take him to it. When he arrived into a cloud of frying grease and pizza smells, he found Gerald easily, sitting alone at a table. For a moment, he paused and watched.
The cougar was finishing off a burger. The curl of his arm and the swell of his bicep under the t-shirt sleeve as he lifted the last bite to his muzzle fascinated Aziz, and then his tongue licked over each finger and the cheetah's own fingers curled and twitched in response. Gerald's muzzle turned his way; Aziz, conscious that it looked like he was spying, hurried forward.
"Hey." The cougar raised his eyebrows as Aziz walked up. He picked up one of the clump of fries covered in cheese on his plate and gestured to the chair opposite him. Aziz sat, curling his tail around the chair leg out of habit. "You going to get some food?" Gerald asked. "I'll wait."
None of the cartoonish food stands around appealed to him. "I'm fine."
"Cheese fry?" Gerald pushed the tray toward him. "The places here are all wraps and salads and healthy shit. There's just the one place that makes cheese fries, but they're pretty good."
Aziz shook his head. "Thank you." He set both his paws on the table.
They looked at each other for long seconds, and then Gerald said, "So why do you care
what's going on in my marriage?"
"You told me some of what was happening," Aziz replied. "But Ben obviously still loves you. That camera--that tape--" Gerald's brow lowered at the reminder. "They meant a lot to him," Aziz hurried to say.
"They do, yeah."
"But not to you."
Gerald sighed. "Not as much. Look, we had some good times. We loved each other. Who could expect that to last forever?"
"Isn't that how the vows go?" Aziz held up a paw. "Halifa and I are bound together forever, but that was back in Madiyah. My married friends here say 'until death parts us' but there is a lot of divorce, too."
"Can you not get divorced?" Gerald inclined his head.
"We can. In Islam, it is merely a matter of the husband saying to the wife, 'I divorce you,' though you have to say it three times for it to be final. It's called ṭalāq. Couples who feel the need to divorce are encouraged to attempt to reconcile before finalizing it, though."
"And you haven't yet?"
Aziz's back began to ache. He stretched and then relaxed it. "We aren't unhappy exactly. We live our separate lives and sleep in the same house and share ownership of the business. It isn't worth the energy to divorce."
"What would be worth the energy?"
"Well..." Aziz hesitated. "Adultery is a terrible sin. So if one of us felt attraction outside the marriage--no, more. If one of us wanted to start a relationship with someone else, then we would probably ask the other for divorce to pursue it. But that would mean complicating the business, the house..." He trailed off, thinking of the beach in Coronado. "I don't know that another relationship would be worthwhile. Can we fall in love again this late in life?"
"Of course you can." Gerald's ears perked. "Sure. My mom and dad split twenty years ago and mom just got remarried a couple years back. She's really happy with this new guy, too."
"Thank you for reminding me I'm old enough to be your father."
Gerald laughed. "Why does that matter?"
"I don't feel like your elder. I feel like we're going through the same thing, only I have almost thirty years of marriage behind me instead of three." Aziz exhaled and stared down at his paws. "It's harder to throw that away."
"You're not throwing it away, though." Gerald leaned forward. "How you feel now doesn't invalidate what you used to have. That's what I keep trying to tell Ben. He thinks that we were in love once and so we should always be, and if we're not it's because one of us did something wrong. And he blames himself, of course, because he loves me." The cougar's voice acquired a soft growl. "I keep telling him that we changed, it's nobody's fault. He doesn't care, doesn't want to listen. Love is pure and good and all that."
"Love is good," Aziz said.
"Sure, but...you can't force it."
"But you can work for it. That's what I feel." He looked up to the night sky, city light reflected off clouds, the light of the moon nowhere to be seen. "That if I'd worked harder, maybe tried more to be involved in her activities, maybe we wouldn't have drifted apart."
"Or she could've tried to be interested in your activities," Gerald said.
"She was, at first. She's the one who reached out for more things. I was happy to keep my life as it was. She's going out and finding causes to champion, new adventures...I only wanted to keep my store."
Gerald nodded, licked cheese from his fingers, and then said, "Look, if I'm out of line, I'm sorry, but...if you're gay and you were never attracted to her, that can be hard."
"I'm not." The words emerged automatically and fell cold and flat to the metal table.
The cougar raised his eyebrows. "You're not gay? I mean, bi maybe, but the way you've been looking at me, the way you were talking..."
Aziz shook his head. "My apologies. I shouldn't have snapped. What I mean is...attraction was never an issue. I loved her. We have a cub."
Gerald smiled. "Hell, I've slept with females too. It didn't excite me, and more, I never felt the connection with any of them that I felt with Ben. Being gay doesn't mean you hate females, or throw up if you see one naked or something. It means that when you feel that spark, it'll most likely be with a guy. So maybe you are bi. Bisexual, that is. I know with your religion it's hard, but it's a fact of biology. Whatever god you believe in made you that way."
"I'm not, though--I mean, I don't know if--" Aziz exhaled. "Islam doesn't condemn anyone for feeling attraction to the same sex. They condemn for acting on it. But in many of the stories of Islam, gay people are known--it's actually supposed to be a dangerous temptation in many of our stories, believe it or not."
"But you don't see it that way?"
He heard again the chanting of the crowd, the dimly familiar cheetah on the rooftop, the terror in his young stomach. "I learned other lessons when I was young. There are many different Islamic societies all around the world, and mine was..." He sighed and shifted in his chair to ease the weight on his back. "It's just not possible to be gay and Muslim in many places now. Most places." Here, though, in Port City in the twenty-first century?
"Yeah. Ben grew up in a Catholic family and he found a lot of stories about the Catholic church blessing relationships between same sex partners in the Middle Ages or something. Didn't cut a lot of mustard with his family at first. They're cool with him now, but what did it was him, not some stories about the church."
"Does he still go to church?"
"Uh." Gerald shook his head. "No. Neither of us do."
"I go every day. I just came from my mosque."
The cougar sat back in his chair and looked around. A few of the fast food places were rolling down grates over their windows, and only a well-dressed fox couple shared the patio with them, several tables away. "If your religion isn't letting you be who you really are..."
"I've told you, that's not the problem."
Gerald sighed. "Look, I had this bro in the army, he was the same way. He was married to his high school sweetheart, he swore up and down that he was straight. But when he'd talk about her, he was never like, 'she's so sexy,' unless the other guys were talking about their girlfriends. Then he'd latch onto whatever they were talking about. Like if Andy was talking about his girlfriend's tits and how much he liked getting his paws on them, this friend of mine would say his girlfriend had really nice tits too. But it was never--it was never how much he enjoyed it, you know?"
"I'm not really comfortable with this vulgar talk," Aziz said, because he was also annoyed that Gerald was presuming to know him.
"Sorry. But you see what I'm saying?"
"I don't see how it relates. I told you attraction wasn't an issue."
"Right." Gerald dabbed one of his last fries at a rapidly congealing pile of cheese. "You're also not trying to impress a bunch of horny early twenties guys. You're mature enough to recognize that part. My buddy, though, when he found out I was gay--I was pretty open--he was a jackass about it for a while. Like, asking me all the time if I missed sucking--uh, if I missed oral sex. Asking if such-and-such guy was 'hot' to me. Saying he didn't get how a guy could find love under another guy's tail. Like, way more explicit stuff than he ever said about his girlfriend."
Aziz folded his arms. "He was gay, is what you're saying."
"I think so. I mean, we got really drunk together when we got back Stateside before he headed back to Pensa, and he told me that the whole time we were out there, he wanted to ask me if he could suck--sorry. You know."
"I get it." Aziz waved a paw, trying not to betray the uneasy stirrings of desire the language and images were provoking in him.
"I told him I was married and I wouldn't have let him. He wasn't my type anyway--I like predators. But he kept saying I was so lucky to have someone to do that, and then he told me that he and his best friend in high school used to fool around until his friend wanted to make it more serious and he told the guy to fuck off--sorry--because he wasn't gay."
"Charming."
"Yeah. But he wished he could have someone like that again. Someone he got rid of by hi
s own choice." The fox couple rose to leave. Gerald glanced over and extended his paws out on the table, taking a breath and letting it out slowly. "Anyway. The point is that he had a lot of reasons not to admit that he was gay, but it didn't change the fact."
Aziz cleared his throat. Gerald had believed that he was gay when they met at Founders, a lie of omission that Aziz had allowed to continue. What if that lie had been a truth hidden so deeply that Aziz himself had not been able to feel it until another pointed it out to him? They were alone now on the patio, him and Gerald, and there would be nobody else to hear his confession. He stared at the cougar and tried to imagine for a moment that his fascination was in fact physical attraction, that this handsome, muscular soldier was as desirable to him as his wife had once been, years ago.
Dangerous, he thought, his heart speeding up. Not allowed. Wrong. But that wasn't the question; the question was whether he wanted it. "What I feel isn't material," he said both to Gerald and himself. "I can't act on it."
"So you're trying to fix my marriage as a sort of proxy?" Gerald didn't wait for an answer, but leaned forward. His voice dropped to a whisper. "When you watched that video, did you wish it was you?"
The cougar stared into his eyes and Aziz couldn't look away. "Did you wish it was you with Ben? Or with me? Whatever you imagined us doing after you shut it off...do you want me to do that to you?"
The stirrings became full-on churnings in his gut, the heat lower. Aziz kept his eyes steady and his paws on the table. "I told you, I'm married."
"Okay, then, not any of the sex stuff. Just to hold you, to look into your eyes that way."
The "yes" caught in his throat. He swallowed. "We are both married with vows to keep."
Gerald's eyes didn't look away, but the cougar smiled and leaned back. "I'm only trying to help. The sooner you admit to yourself that this is what you want, the easier it'll be. It won't be me, but maybe you can divorce your wife and find a companion you'll enjoy spending the next few decades with instead of being bound to a promise you made years ago."
