Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 6

horse.
    ****
    After that first afternoon in the meadow, Jax and I had turned it into a weekly thing. We'd go somewhere secluded and shift, then chase each other until we were exhausted. Sometimes we dozed, his chin on my back, his breath warm against my coat.
    It had been a long time since I'd changed regularly. Shifting took a lot of energy, true, but the effects of going too long in either horse or human form were often worse.
    So it was nice to know that once a week, I'd get to gallop. I'd graze. I'd scratch my back against a tree.
    Jax appreciated it even more than I did. "It's nice to do this without any obligations," he said.
    I wasn't sure what he meant, so I asked.
    "I used to show," he confessed.
    I'd figured.
    Showing was when a shifter signed a contract with a non-shifter, allowing that non to use the shifter— in animal form— for some type of entertainment. Circuses, obedience trials, equestrian events, gator wrestling, movies, TV… People could make a good deal of money passing shifters off as authentic animals, and would split the money with the shifters according to the terms of the contract.
    Reese the Wire walking Dog, the lions in a recent blockbuster set in Africa, Ivan Iron's Amazing Counting Lizards— shifters, all of them.
    I could tell Jax was embarrassed, and was careful not to let any judgment show. "Nothing wrong with that."
    He snorted. "You don't think it's prostitution? That I jeopardized the safety of all shifters with my selfish behavior?"
    He was reciting some of the most common condemnations the shifter community bestowed upon those who showed.
    Showing contracts included confidentiality agreements— the nons to whom sifters hired themselves couldn't tell others. And it was in the nons' best interest not to. The last thing Reese's handler wanted was for the public to find out her wire walking dog was really a lithe young woman shifter in fox terrier form.
    The more nons that knew shifters existed, the more dangerous for us. There were already strata in shifter communities. Delineations based on breeding and occupation (those who showed and pets were considered the lowest of the low). If we couldn't even achieve equality within our own population, what chance did we stand against potential discrimination from the non-shifter majority?
    "You did what you had to do," I said.
    "I wanted the cash."
    "That's okay."
    Jax looked away. "The guy I worked for, he did a traveling performance. A Wild West thing. I let him ride me, James. I let him spur me. I bucked on command."
    "It's okay."
    "It doesn't bother you?"
    I put my hand on the back of his neck and rubbed. He kept his head lowered.
    "How'd you end up drunk in a library in North Carolina?" I asked.
    Jax blinked. "He got sick while we were in Asheville. I came here. Didn't know what else to do, so I started drinking. Didn't change again until I met you."
    "If you don't live some of your life in shifted form, you'll go crazy."
    "How much of your life have you spent changed?"
    "Most of the year I was sixteen" I said. "I ran away from home then. Parents knew what I was and didn't care for it. It was just easier to deal— and survive— as a horse. I lived just north of the state forest until some hiker spotted me and suddenly everyone was looking for this lone horse."
    He laughed. "What then?"
    "Then I changed back, sorted myself out, got a cheap ass apartment and my GED, took a job at the library. Changed maybe once a month, and only for a few hours."
    "Date much?"
    I started at the question. "I, uh, there was someone, for a while. A shifter. Rat, how weird is that? Rats and horses are totally incompatible in Chinese astrology." I was rambling, avoiding the words that came next. "He passed away, though."
    "Shit. Sorry, James."
    I nodded. "Me too."
    He brought up Derkin every now and then after that, which surprised me. Usually if I knew someone had lost a loved one, I was uncomfortable bringing it up around them.
    "I'm not gonna tell you Derkin would want you to move on," Jax said one night after I turned down drinks from a blond at the bar. "I'm not Derkin. But I want you to move on. You're carrying this sadness inside you. I mean, what happens when you fall off a horse? You've got to eventually get back—"
    "Don't you dare say it."
    "Come on, let me." He laughed. "Just once. To get it out of my system."
    I grunted.
    "You fall off a horse, you gotta get back on."
    ****
    I'd answered an ad in the paper— cryptic, but I'd learned to