Job meeting at bar

The lights in the bar were warm. Two hanging lamps turned the beams and the bottle shelves amber. The glasses were barely half full, and the talk was still on rations and shift schedules.

The three of us sat around the round table. The two lionesses had coordinated logistics in this district for a long time, and I matched what the workshops were short of with what they had spare. There were no superiors here, and no assigned ranks. The work was to keep supplies moving, see that people had enough to eat, and pass skills on. Whoever had more experience held the pace for that round. Afterward we were still friends. The lionesses were saying the southern kiln had fired two extra loads of brick this week, and asking whether I could borrow a break from the carpentry in the north.

That was the shape of the talk. Work exists so the market, the water, the grain stores, and the clinic keep turning, and so everyone can live steadily. Someone with experience sets the pace. The rest take a stretch in their own time, and if a gap opens, people cover one another. Some work to live. Some work to meet friends. Some work to push a craft a little deeper. We were sorting who could watch the grain-store door next week, who would walk a new apprentice through the shelves, and who had already written up the kiln notes.

Halfway through, one of the lionesses stopped. Her eyes went past my shoulder.

Two wolves stood at the bar. Gray-brown fur, broad across the shoulders, both from this district. I knew them. The older brother had brought the younger one out for a drink. The younger was not drunk. His eyes were still clear, and his speech was steady. The alcohol had simply reached his body first. His penis had come fully out of the sheath, hard and glossy, hanging heavy between his thighs, the balls drawn down with it. Standing like that must have felt awkward. He lifted his hips, braced his forepaws on the wood, and swept his tail aside.

Then he started to sway.

Not the loose sway of someone drunk. A deliberate rock, one beat after another. His waist moved with it. The fur around his anus shifted open, and the flushed opening tightened and loosened. A bottle on the bar gave a small sound.

All three of us looked over.

The older brother had been turned sideways, talking with the barista. He looked back, saw it, and set a paw on his brother’s waist, palm flat in the fur, black claws held in, the pressure not light.

“Stop it. Please keep calm. I know you’re excited.”

His voice was not loud. It just cleared the sound of a glass meeting the table. He wanted the swaying to stop. Not from shame. People come and go in this bar, and a body kept moving like that gathers eyes. The younger brother heard him. The sway stopped. His paws stayed on the counter. But he turned his face toward our table and smiled, lips parting over his teeth, eyes bright. After the smile, his anus kept contracting and relaxing, the pink edge twitching against the white fur. He knew we had seen him. He did not flinch.

The older brother’s look went flat. Not a shout. The look of a brother who had watched him for years: you know better than to add more. The younger brother sighed and gave in. His ears tipped back. His head dropped until his nose nearly touched his forearm. His brother’s paw stayed on his waist a moment longer, then lifted.

They did not break apart after that. The older brother turned back in and kept talking with him, voice lower, now and then glancing over to say something to the barista. The glasses were still there. The drinks were still being poured. The alcohol had not worn off, so the younger brother’s penis did not draw back in. It stayed hard under the raised hips, shifting a little with each breath. He kept his head down and listened, and he did not sway again.

In the lull, the lionesses turned back to the brick kiln. I wrote the north-district carpenter’s name for next Wednesday on the back of a coaster. The lamps were still warm. At the bar the two brothers were still talking, and under the light the younger brother’s penis was still hard.