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admiration. It is true that I did not lust after the dancers in the way the squirrel and the skunk and their compatriots in devotion did, and yet I leaned out of the window as though I were any other resident of the quarter, the better to see the scene below. The thought crept into my mind, father, that perhaps I might grow attracted to those dancers, and thereby learn to be content with a female companion, as you have so often wished. Now I know that it is no use pretending that my tastes draw me to the female form. I am as God made me, and I have done my best to live a virtuous life with what I have been given.
     
    “Hey.” Meg had closed her laptop.
    Sol jerked his muzzle up from the phone. “Huh?”
    “I said, I’m going to burn one and then go to bed. You want a hit?”
    “Nah.” Sol got up and slid the phone into his pocket. It was warm against his fingers, the weight of it comforting against his thigh.
    “Mom made some brownies, if you want. No smoke.” She tapped her nose and then slid a practiced paw into her purse, coming out with a small tin that said ‘Solar Mints’ on it. “C’mon, after the day you’ve had, you could stand to relax a bit. Hang out, chill.”
    Sol’s own nose twitched with the memory of one bite of Mrs. Kinnick’s brownies, months ago. “Y’know, you shouldn’t—”
    Meg yawned loudly and obviously enough to shut him up as she pried the case open and tipped a small, hand-rolled cigarette into one paw. “Fine. Save it, narc.”
    Now the smell of the marijuana made Sol wrinkle his nose. “What if someone at school catches you?”
    “You can’t smell them inside that tin, right? Who at school has a better sniffer?” She had a lighter in her other paw that he hadn’t seen her get out of the purse. “Last chance.”
    “See you tomorrow.” The lighter flicked as he hurried out her door, closing it carefully behind him.
    The lights in the living room had been turned down or off. Meg’s parents still floated in the pool, lit only by the movie over their heads. Sol tried not to look, but in the brief glance he couldn’t avoid, he saw only the dark and light of otter fur amid the reflective water, unmarred by any clothing. Mr. Kinnick’s towel was certainly no longer in evidence. He lowered his head and half-ran through the dark, flower-scented space.
    “Good night, Sol!” Mrs. Kinnick waved to him, or at least he sensed the motion.
    He probably wouldn’t be able to see anything in the flickering highlights over the dark of the pool, but he kept his head down anyway and just raised a paw. “Night, Mrs. Kinnick. Night, Mr. Kinnick.”
    If they said anything else, it was lost in the closing of their door. Sol walked along the street of old stone houses with the scent of algae and waterfowl in his nose, toward the dark mass of trees where fireflies blinked quietly, waiting for him.
    Jean’s story, now, that was a story. Young noble, being seduced into sin by an older friend, and gay as well. Sol didn’t have anyone here to seduce him into sin, nobody else he even knew was gay, and nowhere in Midland to go that was as exciting as the Moulin Rouge or Montmartre at the turn of the century. They didn’t have a gay club for Sol to stand across the street from and stare guiltily at. The closest they had to sidewalk cafés were the Starbucks a couple blocks from the school; the closest thing to street artists were the old ladies who made yarn puppets and sold them in the mall. No, being gay in Midland in 2012 was just an endurance test, the challenge of whether you could pretend to be normal until you got out.

Chapter 3
    The lower story of his house was dark when he opened the door, except for the kitchen; from the foyer, he saw the light around the corner of the doorway. He paused and lifted his nose. The only scent on the air was that of his mother, and the sweetness of lemon. The wall held the scents of his father and brother, too; he touched his nose to the stone and