Control

	I think cracking an egg into a sizzling pan is probably one of most aesthetically pleasing moments out there.  But simultaneously, one of the most anxious.  If you get it just right, which isn’t generally considered to be hard, what you get is expected, uniformly perfect, and satisfying.  And most of the time, that’s precisely what you’ll get and how it will unfold.
	But then, there are the times it goes wrong.  You crack the egg too early, dribble some on the edge of the pan, break the yolk, or God forbid. . . drop it.  Then, what was comfortingly familiar, what was expected, is all ruined in one frustrating moment.  And you’ve got nothing but a mess, and possibly wasted food.
	It’s that moment when you’ve got the egg in your hand, before you’ve cracked it, when you’re holding this perfect thing, encapsulating the possibilities. . . that’s when the tension is at its highest. Odds are good, you’ll be fine.  You’ve done it so many times before, and it’s rarely gone wrong.  It’s almost anti-climactic, but still a relief when that fragile peace is broken, only for all to go well.
	It’s just another egg.  Like the last one, and the one before.  This won’t be one of the times it goes badly, you tell yourself.
	I don’t know at what point in my life I began associating holding a pistol with holding an egg.  It’s a ridiculous metaphor, when you really break it down.  But now it’s an inescapable tangent my mind wanders, whenever I make breakfast.  And it means I think back on each. . . and every. . . single time I’ve pulled the trigger in my life.  And all the times it went as expected.  All the times I hit my mark.
	All the lives I’ve taken.
	It’s satisfying, even though I know it shouldn’t be.  Because it meant I was going to live.  It’s natural to want to live.  It’s natural to want to be good at what you do, right?  To pierce the dead center of the target.  Who wouldn’t feel satisfied by that?  
From reflecting on the perfect shape of sizzling eggs, to wondering why I enjoy it so, to holding an uncracked egg in my hand and recalling how I’ve long compared that moment to a trigger pull, to. . . ultimately. . . asking myself it it’s really alright that I’m glad to be alive instead of so many others. 
	All of this, I think of while I stand over our potbelly stove, in our peaceful cabin, holding my daughter in one arm, her small body buried against my loose sleep shirt.  I think of it while I flip the egg, and look towards the open doorway into our bedroom, where my bear is bumbling about in his usual morning shuffle, half asleep.  Our other daughter sits at my feet, yipping contentedly as I tease her with my tail.  She’ll get a hold of it soon enough. . .
	Would I ever confess to him how often these morbid thoughts go through my mind?  Dozens of times a day, I’m reminded of one thing or another.  It’s incredible what pathways my mind will take to remind me of the darkness my life here now was birthed from.  I hear some people live in a constant state of denial.  It sounds nice.
	Not me.  Oh no.  My mind will not let me forget.  No matter what I’m doing, it always finds a way to remind me who I really am.  What I’ve done.
	The door creaks, and I don’t look up.  He’ll join me soon.  He’s remarkably attuned to my thoughts and my feelings, these days.  There was a brief lull after my absence, after my trip to Amuresca, where we had to re-learn one another again.  But we fell back into it easily enough, picking up where we’d left off in those frenzied months on the run from my father’s legacy.  More than anything, I’ve noticed that Tuli’s wiser, now.  Damnably so.  My bear did a bit of growing up and while I’m happy for him, it makes it harder to keep my troubles to myself, when there’d be no use in burdening him.
	What’s done is done, right?  And you could look at my life, measure out all the good and the bad, and probably come out with a net gain of good.  I’d like to think so, anyway.  So maybe living all those times, instead of allowing the other man to kill me, was for the best.  Not just for me, but for the many people I’ve been able to help on account of. . . well. . . on account of being alive.
	Maybe I just want to think that.
	Heavy footsteps.  I fix my expression in place.  There are conversations worth having, and those that are really just re-hashing.  And I don’t want to do that now.  It’s a nice morning.
	Strong arms wrap around me from behind, his bulk leaning against me while carefully navigating around our chortling daughter Amka, who prefers to be on the floor for some reason, even when I try to put her in her chair.  We’ve just long accepted at this point that she is averse to staying anywhere you try to put her for her own good, and have molded our lives and our habits accordingly.  Always on the lookout where you walk, in our house.
	I tip my head up, and his muzzle brushes mine.  I can feel the smile there.  “Smells good,” he rumbles.
	“Smells like eggs, I’d wager,” I say, plating the first few and setting Anna, our other daughter, down beside Amka.  She has long since gotten my tail, and is petting it in the way she does once she’s caught it and doesn’t know what else to do with it.  But once her sister joins her, the two of them wobble to their feet and pad off towards the table, likely going for the toys I set down there for them to play with earlier in the morning.  These little carved fish Tulimak made for them.  They’re whistles too, but they never use them as that.  They have names and stories for each of them, and I’m fairly certain. . . some kind of ongoing fish drama that’s on its hundredth tale by now.
	His paws rub down along the sides of my torso, settling near my hips.  There’s nothing untoward about his touch, he just likes to hold me whenever he has a chance at it.  That’s probably my fault for leaving him alone for several years while I settled my inheritance.  But I’d be lying if I said his every touch doesn’t still elicit something in me.  Feeling his big, work-roughened paws, including the tips of a few claws beneath the hem of my shirt – accidental I’m sure, but still – I’m not too ashamed to admit, that always gets to me.  Knowing the strength there from personal experience, but feeling how gentle he always is with me. . . 
	I bump him with my hips, signaling that I need him to give me some space, and he obliges after kissing me between my ears.  I smile up at him, and crack a few more eggs, glad for his presence.  He has this ability to calm my racing mind.  Makes me overthink less, focus on the moment more.
	“You were going into the village today, right?”  I ask him as I flip the second set of eggs.  
“Yeah,” he says, watching our girls.  Then he looks back to me, peering around me to our dry shelves and the dough box resting on our counter.  
I notice where he’s looking and give him an apologetic shake of my head.  “It’ll have to be just eggs this morning, I haven’t made dough for bread in a few days.  We used the last yesterday.  Sorry, love.”
“Could you make some today?”  He asks hopefully.
I chuckle.  “I had a stew planned, but. . . we’ll see.  Maybe, if I can find the time.  I’ve got to weed the back acre.”
“Oh,” he says, deflating all of a sudden.  It’s a real change in tone, and I know it isn’t just because he wants bread.
“It has to be done, Tuli,” I say, my voice tight.  I didn’t want to argue over something this morning.  I haven’t explained why exactly, and I don’t plan to, but I’m already nursing a headache from the tailspin of thoughts I was in earlier.
“I don’t. . . disagree,” he says, obviously working hard to keep his voice level.  “Just,” he sighs, going silent for a few moments.  When he speaks again, it’s a murmur.  “I don’t want to get into it again.”
“Good,” I say, laying the remaining eggs out on a plate and bringing them over to the table, setting them down.  “Then let’s eat.”
He and I each balance a girl on our laps and try, to no avail, to avoid them getting egg in their fur.  The struggle to keep the two coyote cubs clean is a futile one we always end up losing by the end of the day, but Tuli’s good enough to fuss over them each night at the wash bucket so I don’t have to.  I’m usually cleaning up our little dining area by then.
Bit by bit, we learned how to adapt to one another’s lifestyle and peculiarities.  Like, I can tend to get exasperated throughout the day if the girls are getting dirty, and that means frequent breaks to clean them up, followed by them inevitably getting into something again a few minutes later.  Tuli realized pretty early on that if I knew he’d reliably wash their faces, paws, and brush their fur out each night, it would mean I’d fixate on it less throughout the day.
Not that I don’t still insist on washing faces and hands throughout the day.  They’re pups after all, and I remember losing so many friends to disease in the Risers.  You have to be careful with pups, their little bodies just can’t tolerate an illness as well.
But if I know he’s going to take care of this one thing, I fret less about when I’m going to do it, and worry less in general when, say. . . I’ve just got done getting them cleaned up, and they somehow find muddy snow to burrow in.
We eat our breakfast, which while a bit sparse for Tuli, is more than enough for me and the girls.  I’m absolutely certain he’ll get some flatbread when he goes into the village later, so I don’t worry too much.
He lets the conversation about the weeds drop, which I’m glad for.  So, I see him out the door with a smile, and I’m rewarded with a scooped arm around my waist and a kiss.  The girls tumble past us out the open door into glaring daylight, giggling as they bound for the steps down the porch.  That cuts our kiss short, as Tuli calls to them, “Careful!”
“I’ll keep an eye on them,” I promise, even though it doesn’t need to be said.  “They like playing in the back acre anyway.”
He sighs as he watches them navigate the steps all on their own, making it to the muddy spring ground triumphantly, and immediately bee-lining for a puddle from last night’s rain.  It looks shallow, so I’m not worried, but damn if I didn’t call it.
“Girls, you’re worrying your Bearpa,” I scold them around a grin.  “Look at him, he’s turning white.”
They both laugh at my ridiculous statement, and Tuli glares good-naturedly down at me.  “Look who’s talking,” he tuts at me, reaching up and brushing his knuckles over my muzzle, where he swears I have flecks of grey fur coming in.  I have yet to see any of these mysterious grey furs, but maybe I’m fooling myself.
He makes for his village, where I’m sure he’ll be working on fixing nets all day.  Riveting.  I, meanwhile, have a field to weed.  The spring rains and the increasing temperature here seem to be a signal for the cold, barren land to just. . . explode in life.  I’ve honestly never seen anything like it, in all of my travels throughout the rest of the world.  It’s like everything is just poised, waiting to erupt from the ground, knowing it has a short window to flower and spread its seeds.
I could make some kind of analogy to Tuli and I during our first few months together here, but I won’t. 
Life in the North Country is hard.  And I say that as someone who was prepared for it to be hard.  I’m a city boy after all, this is a world of brutal, rugged terrain, isolation and self-reliance I had little exposure to until my first journey here half a decade ago, and I would have surely died then if I hadn’t caught Tulimak’s eye.  
It isn’t just the weather.  It isn’t just that you have to grow, catch and prepare most of your own food.  It isn’t even that our domicile is lacking.  I love our cabin, and growing up as poor as I did in the city, it’s not as if I was accustomed to posh surroundings.
It’s the fact that you’re so far from all modernity.  We have Tulimak’s tribe – my tribe now, or so they tell me.  That one’s still hard to grasp, being a foreigner and all.  But I welcome it.  We’ve also got Odina, and her family.  And there is a Carvecian settlement nearby, albeit a rustic one.
It’s more that if we need anything pressing, anything that would be prohibitively expensive in the settlement, or just can’t be found anywhere but in a larger town or city like Broen, we’re days of difficult travel away from it.  If one of the girls were to get sick and we needed a Physician, the closest is in Broen.  
That sort of knowledge. . . weighs on you.  It can be terrifying.  And it makes you worry.  It makes you very, very focused on avoiding everyday disasters.
	And for someone like me, that means that everything has to be done just so.  No half measures, no time-saving shortcuts, no taking it easy when there’s something that needs doing.  Everything that can be done to avoid hardship, to avoid running out of food or risking illness or injury. . . gets done.
	So, I’m weeding our back acre, a plot of land we carefully cleared for the purposes of growing corn, squash, beans and carrots, and if we can get them to work for us this year, potatoes.  Our seedlings began making themselves known a few weeks ago and I have made it my mission to ensure they succeed, with every bit of my very much newfound farming knowledge.  Which isn’t much, but I know one thing. . . weeds leech the soil, or so say Tuli’s sisters.  Which means they won’t be tolerated.  Not in my acre.
	Our seedlings are so small, so fragile.  Obviously, I don’t hold them on the same level, but I do think of them in the same light as our little girls.  They’re small, vulnerable, in need of protection right now.  Whatever I can do to help them flourish, so that they stock our root cellar and feed my actual children this winter, I’m going to do.  No matter how painstaking.
	I’ve had to weed the entire acre, every week or so.  Sometimes more often.  Since the thaw, the weeds have been rampant.  Seems like more take hold every day.  I walk the rows with the girls darting around me in the field, playing with the few flowering ones they’ve picked themselves – I try to encourage them in that – and we keep that up until they’re obviously getting a little hot and tired, at which point I bring them in for some water and a rest.  I prepare us a lunch for later, ready some dough in the kitchen and cut up everything for the slow-cooking stew, and then we head back out.
	It’s light outside for another hour or so at least, when Tuli returns.  We’re getting into longer days, finally.  I’m still out in the field at that point, but the girls are sitting under the nearby elm tree, playing with their rock collection.  I think Amka’s been developing a little grift on her sister to get the best rocks, they’ve got a whole economy going on.  My back is aching by this point, but I’m too amused watching my girls to reflect on it much.
	If you’d asked me when I was young what kind of a life would make me the happiest, what I wanted the most out of my future, I never would have landed on this.  I probably would have said something like ‘an estate full of servants doting on me hand and foot, endless amounts of money and a fat, happy wife’.  
	I suppose Tuli is getting a little bigger around the middle.  And I have literally more money than I can give away now, try as I might.  So, not too far off?
	He goes to sit with our girls as I finish up.  I can tell they’re all getting a bit impatient with me while I’m finishing the last row, but I’m committed.  Even if I could finish it tomorrow, I’d rather have it off my mind.  They can play with rocks for a little while longer. . . .
	When I’m finally done, I stretch my arms above my head and bow myself backwards for a moment to ease the tension in my lower back, then make my way back towards my family.  They’re quick to rise, Tuli picking up both of the girls in his arms, his muzzle set in a flat line, just on the verge of irritation.  I figure he’s probably going to let it pass, like he did this morning.  I’m wrong.
	“Five days,” he says, staring at the field.  “It hasn’t even been five days since you last cleared the weeds.  I remember because that’s the last time I went into town.”
	I shrug, taking one of the girls from him and turning back towards the house.  I’m really more about avoiding conflict with my bear, diverting the subject, talking around arguments before they really get going, than outright engaging in them.  It’s not that I can’t enjoy a fight – I just don’t like fighting with him.  If we get back to the house, I can turn his attention towards the stew I’ve got simmering in there.  That ought to get us past this.
	He continues talking at my back as we move.  “It isn’t necessary, Finn.  It isn’t even necessary to do the whole field twice a month.  The seedlings will be fine.”
	“I don’t do this on a schedule,” I insist.  “I just take care of it when it needs to be done.”
	“You can’t keep a field this large neat and tidy,” he insists.  “I know that’s how you prefer things, but crops don’t work like that.  They’re outside, we’re in the rainy season, the weeds are just going to keep coming up.  You only need to clear some – whatever’s really threatening the seedlings.”
	“They’re all bad for them,” I say, marching back towards the cabin.  “Bad for the soil, your sister said-“
	“We spread a lot of manure from the coop and the pony paddock, Finn,” he says, exasperated, “we are going to have weeds.  If you want to clear the whole field every now and then, fine.  But this is verging on manic, and you know it.”
	“I got the dough made and the stew ready, and the girls and I had a good time,” I state plainly.  “What does it matter?”
	“You’re clearly sore,” he points out.  “You’re working yourself to death on this field, love.  And you don’t have to.  Whatever difference it’s making, it’s negligible.  You just can’t bear to be idle-“  
	“I’ve got two little girls and a house to manage, my writing,” I wave a hand.  “I’m hardly idle.”
	“That’s exactly my point,” he says with a frustrated huff.  “I don’t expect more from you than you’re already doing, I’d rather you take the time you have here to rest sometimes, just take a moment with the girls that isn’t spent while doing another task.  I think you’re just used to a faster-paced life, and I understand that living out here for you is. . . an adjustment.  But that doesn’t mean you have to invent ways to over-burden yourself.  We have plenty of real hardships, still.  Save your strength for those.”
	“I’m trying to avoid said hardships,” I explain with a sigh, as we make it to the cabin and begin up the porch.  “That’s the whole point.”
	“Finn,” he moves up beside me and pulls open our door, looking down at me, “I’m a lot more worried about that church they’re building in the settlement nearby than whether or not we’ve got too much clover in the back acre.”
	My chest tightens a bit.  “So am I,” I confess.
	He moves inside with me, a paw rubbing at my lower back.  “I don’t want to have the additional worry that you’ll throw out your back, or be too tired at night if and when someone comes knocking to ‘save our souls’.  You’re the canine. . . and the sharper of us, if I’m being honest-“
	“Agreed.”
	“I’m relying on you to help us navigate a great many things in our lives,” he says, looking down at me with pleading eyes.  “I thought it was endearing at first, how much you threw yourself into building our homestead up.  But at this point, I’d settle for you not being exhausted every night.”
	I smile a bit.  “I’m not. . . too exhausted, if that’s your worry.”
	He doesn’t seem amused.  “I know this is just part of who you are,” he says, and the way he says it, it sounds like he really means it.  My bear has given his all to understand me, throughout our time together.  He really tries.  And I certainly don’t make it easy, holding as much back as I do.  “I’m just worried you’re going to work yourself into an early grave, trying to do what you think you must for me and the girls.  And what’s more, I highly doubt that’s the only reason.  Ever since I’ve known you, you’ve used work to punish yourself.  You might not think that’s what you’re doing, but. . . I think on some level, you feel like if you’re not exhausted and hurting at the end of the day, you haven’t earned the right to be here.”
	He’s silent for a few moments, obviously awaiting a response.  When I don’t give him one, he continues a bit more sternly, “You also overwork yourself to avoid thinking about the things that bother you, and so that you don’t have time to talk to me about whatever’s troubling you.  Finn.”
	I had started to set the table and ladle out our stew by that point, busying myself with a task he could have easily helped me with.  It’s not as though he prefers to be served.  The fact that I’m literally going about doing ‘the thing’ he was talking about. . . while trying to avoid talking about said thing, is probably ironic.  If I cared to reflect on that.
	“Finn,” he says again, his voice getting that timbre it does when he wants my attention, and by God he’s going to get it.  
	I turn, facing him with as neutral an expression as I can.  He’s standing beside the table, with our girls clambering up onto their seats.  We’d been speaking lowly and calmly, we always did around the children.  But his declaration of my name had finally seemed to get their attention and now all three of them are staring at me.
	It’s impossible for me to look away when the three people who love me most in the world are staring at me so imploringly.
	“I’m not asking you to stop working hard for us,” he says, far more softly.  “I’m just asking you to slow down sometimes. . . or they’ll be grown and our age will be upon us, and all you’ll remember is the struggle.”
	I like to garb myself up like I’m some figure of mystery, a deep well of unfathomable feelings and dark memories.  But I feel paper-thin around him.  It’s a blessing and a curse.
	“What do you want me to say, Tuli?”  I ask tensely.  “You know me better than I know myself.  Clearly.”
	“Something’s been bothering you, all day,” he says knowingly.  “I noticed it this morning-“
	“Bloody fucking hell,” I growl out, my gutter slang slipping out with my frustration.  “It’s a good thing I’m not the cheating sort, you’d know somehow before I did.”
	“They are going to start repeating you soon,” he says, arching an eyebrow and looking down pointedly at the girls.
	I sigh, cocking a mirthless half-grin.  “I was saying worse at their age.”
	“Spirits, I hope you’re exaggerating,” he roles his eyes.  “Look.  Whatever it is, you know you can tell me.”
	“It’s just more of the same,” I mutter, setting the pot down on the table.
	He gives me a few moments.  Then presses, “That could be so many things, Finn.”
	“Oh, you know,” I shrug, setting out our bowls of steaming stew.  I notice despite our conversation he still sniffs his appreciatively.  Another win for housewolf Finn.  I might not be great at talking about my feelings, but I’m getting this whole domesticity thing down, at least.  
“How I’m a contract murderer who somehow slipped the arm of justice,” I continue, “and now I get to live my nice, quiet life with my loving family, when so many others didn’t.”
	Well, there it is.  I don’t know what I’m expecting, but of course, he immediately understands.  The smoldering intensity of his compassionate gaze is unfair, really.  What did I do to deserve this man?
	“You did what you had to in order to survive,” he says.  “The cruelty of your situation then, the way you were manipulated and used as a weapon by the men who held power over you – that isn’t on you.  You had a right to live, to ease your mother’s suffering-“
	“God damn,” I mutter, “can we not again?  We’ve had this conversation so many times.  It’s never going to stop bothering me, Tuli.  No matter how many times we go over my lack of options, back then.”
	“Fine,” He says, surprising me by cutting the whole tangent short.  Usually when we do this, he goes on easing the burn of my guilt for ages.  And maybe some selfish part of my mind really did want him to continue.  “But for all that it matters, I’ve forgiven you for who you used to be.  I’ve accepted you for who you are now.  And the fact that you dwell on it all to this day is frustrating for me, because I love you and I hate to watch you suffer – but I’m also relieved to know you’re repulsed by those memories.  It’s right for you to be.”
	“Harsh,” I chuckle bitterly, stirring my stew and watching the steam rise from the bowl.
	“I wish you’d think about it that way,” he says, stroking Amka’s ears as he blows on a spoonful for her.  “A man who isn’t haunted by the lives he’s taken is turning cold.  I worry about that sometimes, when you get distant.”
	“Trust me, my guilt. . . my shame. . . is still red-hot,” I assure him, quietly.  
	“I’m sorry,” he says.  And as usual, I can tell he means it.  “I wish I could take some of it from you.  I want to help.”  
	“Just let me work it out in my own way,” I tell him.  
	He sighs.  “Is there any way we can do that without you working yourself to exhaustion every day?”
	“I already told you I’m not exhausted,” I insist.
	“And I’m sure you have no plans for yet another day-long, unnecessary task tomorrow?”  He counters.
	“Well,” I stammer, “that stump in the pony paddock really needs to get broken down and dug up. . . .”
	“Oh, spirits,” he groans, tipping his head back.  “Finn, you’re awful with an axe.  I’m sorry.  You’re going to end up with blisters on your hands, it’s going to take you all day-“ 
	“It needs to get done and you haven’t had time-“
	“The ponies don’t care about the stump, love,” he says, exasperated.  “Please.  I’m begging you.  There has to be a better way for you to quiet your mind.  Help me help you.”
	I take a while to consider his words.  Resistant though I am to course-correcting, I. . . I’d be a fool not to see his reasoning.  At the very least, one thing above all of the others that he’s said stands out to me.  I do need to be at my best to protect my family.  And I have been very tired, lately.  The work keeps me focused, keeps my thoughts from straying, the way they do when I cook eggs.  But he might have a point that not all of it is. . . strictly necessary.
	One of the other challenges of living like this on the frontier is the peace, itself.  Sometimes you’re just waiting.  For a trap line, for food to grow, for the seasons to change.  It’s easier to occupy myself when he’s with me, but he’s gearing up for fishing season now and he’s been gone most days.  The girls are great company, but not exactly conversational yet.  
	It’s so hard for me to give up the control I’m accustomed to having over my new life and my environment.  And this place bucks you at every turn.  Inconsistent weather, stubborn weeds, elusive fish.  Tuli takes it all like he’s bobbing easily in the waves, riding the ups and the downs.  Like his otter family.  I keep trying to find a way to tame it, I suppose.  I’m just so afraid of going back to the life I used to lead, where I had no control whatsoever.  And I’ll do anything I can not to go back to that, even in my memories.
	I need to learn to let go.  Not forget, but. . . also not fixate.  And it’s really damn hard to walk that line.
	There’ve been a few times I remember it coming easily, that release of control.  Always with Tulimak, with the man I love.  I can’t say I trust anyone else in the world as I trust him.  And that’s made it possible – in a few select instances – to surrender.  To trust.  To let go of the guilt for a little while.  Most of those times, it was metaphorical control, of course.  Allowing him to make a major decision for us, accepting that I might need help handling my pain, my problems.  
	Sometimes, though.  Sometimes it was very literal.  
	He notices the change in my expression, and looks at me dubiously from across the table.  “What?”  He asks, in a worried tone.
	“I know how you can help me,” I say, cheekily.

	“This doesn’t solve a thing, you realize,” he grumbles as he turns the key in the lock on the old, worn pair of manacles we keep very well hidden from the girls in a box high on our bookshelf.  
	The feel of the old, smooth metal settling heavily around my wrists brings with it a wave of nostalgia.  A ship, a perilous trek, the most difficult and most rewarding months of my life, when my connection with Tuli was poised at all times on a knife’s edge.  And with it, an intense renewal of those blossoming feelings I had for him.  Laced with fear, yearning, passion.  Lord, and the sex. . . ‘explosive’ sounds trite, but I can’t honestly think of a better word.
	“You’ve said yourself we can’t very well ‘solve’ my guilt,” I smirk, testing the manacles with a tug, while he loops the chain around the bedpost.  “I’ll feel it for however long I continue being a good man, etcetera.”
	“I said I loved you and accepted you,” he settles down beside me, the bed tipping with his weight, “and that I’d help you through it, whenever these feelings surface.  But this. . .” despite his words, his paw rubs around the curve of my hip, over my clothes, “. . . this seems like more avoidance of those feelings.  And also, a thinly-veiled excuse to make me do this again.”
	“You enjoyed it last time,” I point out.
	“Until we realized we didn’t have the key.”
	“We have it now,” I insist.
	He sighs, his paw moving around to stroke me through my britches.  “You weren’t the one who had to go all the way to Odina’s stead in the middle of the night.  That was awkward.”
	“To be fair, I couldn’t.  I was the one chained to the bed.”
	“This had better work,” he growls out, gripping my growing erection through my britches, a keening sound slipping free of my muzzle as he squeezes it lightly.  “I can’t help but feel I’ve been played.  I expect you to be all kinds of relaxed after this.”
	I give a long, shuddering breath, leaning my muzzle back into our blankets.  They smell like us, our scents mingling together, settling a hazy comfort into my skull.  My arms are bound behind me still, and he’s looped the chain with little give.  With his arm around my hip caging me, there really isn’t much I can do except. . . lie there against him, and let him do as he pleases.
	“All joking aside Tuli,” I breathe out.  “This really does help.”
	He goes quiet for a little while, undoing my belt at last and beginning to unbutton my britches.  “Really?”  He asks.  “I mean. . . I suppose. . . whatever brings you relief.”  He sounds dubious, though.
	I chuckle a little breathlessly.  “It’s not just. . . this.  Being tied up.  It’s more knowing I can trust you.  Knowing I’ve got you, that I’ll always have you, if the bad times come again.  If there’s another crisis. . . .”
	“Hmmmm,” he hums, his muzzle nuzzling into the ruff of my neck fur.  “You should already know that.  Also, we should’ve taken your clothes off, first.  I can’t get your vest or shirt off, now.”
	“Don’t bother,” I huff out, when his paw finds my length.  He’s got my britches down just enough to free me, and that’s fine.  I can feel his own manhood, hard as a rock despite his protestations, pressing against my backside.  He’s still in his breech cloth, but I know from experience how easily he can push that aside enough to get the job done, without needing to remove it.  And I have to admit, I really enjoy making love when we’ve both still got our clothes on.  Awkward though it may be, it reminds me of those frantic moments we caught together years ago, when we had so little time together.  I was manacled for a few of those nights, too. . . 
	God, I’m hard.  He’s stopped stroking me for some reason, but I can’t turn around to see what he’s gotten up to.  A sudden scent, an oil I’ve come to know well by now, confirms what I’d suspected.  He’s not just going to stroke me off with his paw.
	“Ahhh, Tuli. . .” I groan, when I feel his slickened length pressing up beneath my tail.  ‘Groan’ probably wasn’t the right word.  More like a whine, really.  Am I that foregone?
	He hasn’t even really gotten me ready.  And that kind of turns me on more?  He’s usually so diligent.  Maybe this is a bit of a release for him, too.  We’re not usually the ‘fight and fuck’ type of couple, but sometimes. . . .
	His muzzle is against my ear.  He asks once.  “No?”
	I couldn’t possibly deny him at this point.  But the roguish part of me wants to play with him a little.  “I’m not supposed to be the one in control, here.  Right?”
	He pauses.  Then I feel him pressing up beneath my tail, his girth parting me wide, if slowly.  “Right,” he rumbles.
	It’s a lie, of course.  Tuli would absolutely stop if I asked him to.  But that’s part of why I can let go, let my body uncoil, accept him.  Even if I’m laid barren before him, restrained and at my most vulnerable – and I’m really forgetting here if it’s a metaphor for my feelings or just the fact that I’m physically bound, but what does it matter?  With him, and only with him. . . it’s okay to give up control.  He’ll never take more than I’m willing to give.
	Or in this case, give more than I’m willing to take.
	He usually stretches me some, so those first few inches burn, and strain my body.  But it’s satisfying, in the same way that hard work, that sore muscles can be satisfying.  And once he’s buried in me, brushing up inside those deep spots only he can hit, I am gutturally moaning for more.
	He takes slow, measured strokes inside me, making me feel every inch of him, huffing his own pleasure into my ear.  I don’t touch myself – I can’t, and he doesn’t offer.  He just grips my hips and builds his pace up, and I stifle my moans into the pillow as well as I can, hoping we don’t wake the kids.  
	My climax hits me like a wall, pulverizing my every fiber and making my body feel numb in its wake.  I cum for what feels like ages, spattering my side of the bed and even the wall the bed’s against.  How long has it been since he last took me?  We need to make more time for this.
	Tuli plants himself in me deep when he finishes, and I know with certainty we’ll need to wash more than the blankets, once he pulls out.  Downside of keeping your clothing on. . . .
	But for now, we can lay in the aftermath together, boneless and satisfied.  His paws roam my body, my own still bound and helpless.  My mind. . . blissfully blank.
	It’s not enough to erase the past.  Nothing ever is.  But Tulimak helps keep me centered in the present, and provides me with far more pleasurable distractions than the ones I cook up.  If and when I let him.
	Maybe over time, I can do that more often.