"I'll be fine," Manu insisted. He was still naked except for a fresh dressing on his foot, lovingly supplied by Regina and Soleil, who had spent more time than was strictly necessary putting the antibiotic ointment on his wound. "I'm doing alright at getting around on these things," he continued, pointing at the crutches leaning against the wall next to him.

We were up a little early, at least for a Sunday morning, since Regina wanted to be back on campus to get to her church service. I wasn't about to deprive my dancer of the sanctuary that she'd sought after so diligently. We'd all turned in early, anyway, after all the evening exertion. After helping me to bed, Soleil curled up on the couch with Rita, and that's where I found them in the morning, naked and cuddling, Soleil tucked up under Rita's breasts, their feet mismatched in an amusing way. Though they were about a year apart in age, Rita looked much older, in her sleep—maybe even older than me—and Soleil looked small and child-like. The result was an odd image; the two really did look pet and owner. I didn't want to wake them, so instead I went to shower.

Regina met me there and decided that she ought to be the one to clean me. I didn't take much convincing, I could see how significant it was to her. And, considering we were both naked, and that we'd just slept cuddled together naked, and all that had happened the night before, and considering that her hands were on almost all of me, it was a surprisingly chaste experience. It didn't mean anything to either of us, sexually, for Regina to be washing my breasts, but it meant a lot to her as an act of service.

I found it surprisingly meaningful, myself, to receive that service. I didn't know what to make of that.

I also wondered if or when I'd ever feel that lack of shame in my body that Rita had talked about. I hadn't been too concerned about it the night before, but when it was just the two of us and her hands were on my soft stomach and my chubby thighs and my thick arms, I couldn't help but compare myself to the extremely hard body of my dancer.

We stood there a moment, hands on each others hips. Her kiss in the water pouring down told me that she didn't care anywhere near as much as I did. We looked in each others' eyes, and I could see the fire there as she said, "I love you," again. She didn't wait for a reply she knew wasn't coming, just reached past me to turn off the shower.

Rita and Soleil came in as Regina was finishing towelling me off. The four of us exchanged embraces and kisses and 'good morning's, and Regina and I went back to the bedroom.

Soleil and Rita were a little noisier than we were. The noise made Manu stir. Regina helped him roll onto his back and shifted the sheets in an open invitation which I accepted, waking my boyfriend by slipping onto his unconscious erection with a little bit of noise myself. Regina performed more service by using her hands the way an exhausted Manu might have used his, kneeling behind me and caressing my hips or reaching in front and holding my breasts.

I decided that I really liked a good fuck in the morning.

I didn't achieve an orgasm then, but it didn't matter. The act itself was a relief of tension and an affirmation of the link between the three of us. It was enough to feel Manu cumming inside me, and then for Regina to come back to us with a washcloth to do the cleanup. I'd get my turn before long, I was sure. Though I admit, as Regina passed the washcloth over my labia, it was very tempting to ask her to go further.

I didn't know what to make of that, either. Men and submissives, Rita had said, and there was one of each in the bed with me. Well, one man, two submissives.

That was when Soleil came in to help with care of Manu's foot, and I grabbed my clothing from the floor and excused myself to talk with Rita and get myself dressed. At least, I'd planned to talk with Rita, but neither of us seemed to find much to say, and an easy and comfortable silence settled in the living room as we both put our clothes back on. The now-familiar sound of Regina and Soleil giggling and talking came from the bedroom, and Rita and I smiled at each other.

The girls (I suddenly started thinking of the two of them as, "the girls") emerged, naked and grinning, with Manu supported between them, Regina carrying his crutches. My clothes had been in the bedroom; everyone else had dropped theirs in the living room, so the girls put Manu in the armchair, and Soleil started to dress while Regina brought him a chair from the kitchen to prop up his foot, we discussed plans for the day, and Manu all but shooed us out the door from his seat.

I got Manu's keys, Soleil and Rita headed to call the elevator, and Regina stopped before leaving the apartment. "Manu, you mind if I keep our poet for a bit? If it's okay with you, I mean," she said to me.

"Uh, no," Manu said. "What's up?"

"If you're good with it, I'd like to take you to the church service with me," Regina said a bit nervously. "Just... I think you should see sanctuary, maybe?"

It made a certain amount of sense. "I guess I could. Especially if you're coming back here with me after, saves me a trip back and forth."

"Coming back?" Manu asked.

I gave him a snarky little smile. "Can't take care of you all by myself. Especially if I don't have to."

"I don't really need looking after."

"Doesn't matter. Unless you have a good reason that you want to be alone..."

He knew I meant alone together, not just alone by himself, and I saw the slight hesitation, and then maybe he remembered what being alone together with Regina had meant less than an hour before. "You know, I think maybe having someone to help you help me isn't the worst idea."

The two of us laughed. "See you soon," I said.

"About two hours," Regina added. "After the service I'll want to change and grab some things, if it's okay."

"Planning on staying over again?" Manu asked. I could hear something between curiosity and hope in his voice.

"Eh, you never know, right?" Regina said as we stepped out into the hallway.

Rita and Soleil hadn't waited for us at the elevator. Regina walked with me to the stairs. My phone pinged with a message; it was Rita, letting us know that they were waiting out front instead of in the parking area. Regina held the door for me as I finished an acknowledgement and we headed down together, hand-in-hand.

I could feel the energy coiled up inside her, as if she wanted to flip over the rails and race to the bottom. I could feel the contradiction there, too, because she also wanted very much to walk with me.

"You doing alright?" I asked as we passed the third floor.

"Never better," she said, and it was very true.
She lives in contradictions
And loves without restrictions
Avoiding derelictions
While doing all she might

She squeezed my hand as we continued down the stairs. The two of us were warmed by each other's fire, and it felt good.
She speaks her firm convictions
Her body's best depictions
Devoid of any fictions
Outshining every light

Regina hummed her pleasure, shivering. "I can't wait for more of that."

My turn to squeeze her hand. "It's nice having fans."

We hopped in Manu's car and headed around to get Rita and Soleil, who were lying on the damp grass when we pulled around, and we all drove in an easy silence back to campus. It was less that we didn't know what to say than that we didn't have anything to talk about. I dropped Rita and Soleil back at Ellen Barker, and drove off with Regina.

The Anglican Chapel of St. Margaret was almost as far from Barker as you could get and still be technically on university grounds. It was tucked in a quiet, wooded spot I knew from wandering around campus when I was bored or curious through the past few years. There was a walking trail that led past the back of it, a small parking lot at the front (paid, of course, there wasn't a free lot left on campus) and it's just within sight of a much larger three-storey building full of liberal arts classrooms. The chapel itself wasn't too impressive to look at, but that was part of its charm. I gather that it was built just before the second world war and that the church wouldn't allow the university to buy the land it sat on, so they came to an arrangement, and as a result, the university has a theology department, or something like that. I'm certain that far too many of the details are lost in legal contracts in the basement of the university's archives. The point is, the chapel was a small building with the footprint about the size of a decent suburban home that was probably never meant to hold more than maybe a hundred people, with a tall profile and a lot of stained glass. It looked like a church, sure, and it looked like a small church that had a lot of money and work put into it.

The interior didn't shed that impression. It wasn't gaudy, nothing was truly distracting, but everywhere I looked in the entranceway there was some sort of imagery. Walking in the main double doors led to a small foyer or entranceway where we could leave wet boots and take off heavy coats in worse weather. The walls were dotted with paintings, depictions of scenes from the Bible, I assumed, except that each of them were clearly depicting marginalized groups in places where I was used to seeing white men. Seeing a replica of Leonardo's Last Supper made entirely of women of colour, with a matronly Black figure at the centre of the table, was oddly moving. There was another of the wedding at Cana, with an indigenous Jesus turning water into wine at a marriage ceremony between an two Indian men. The message I took from all that was pretty straightforward: These stories are for everyone.

That was definitely not the message I had taken from my previous experiences with organized religion. And really, it wasn't the message that I could take from the Presence, either: some were called, some (like myself) were not; some were empowered, some were not.

Regina slipped up behind me while I was thinking. "I like it here too," she half-whispered. "I lingered in here long enough last week that I had to rush in during the opening prayer."

My eyes drifted over a vision of the Tower of Babel being put together by a group of diverse and varied individuals with outfits that ranged from what I assumed to be period-appropriate to what I could only describe as very modern and very kinky. The sweaty man with the visible top-surgery scars wearing a speedo and swinging a sledgehammer in particular fascinated me, and then it occurred to me: there wasn't a whole lot to distinguish whether these people were building, or demolishing the tower.

I couldn't quite parse the symbolism there. Maybe it wasn't supposed to be coherent, which makes a certain amount of logical sense when discussing the moment where humanity's language was 'confounded' into all the various forms of communication that we've had since.

My thoughts were interrupted as the door opened and another young woman walked in. She nodded and smiled to us and continued straight on in to the rest of the building.

"We should probably go in," Regina said, checking her phone. "The service is supposed to start in a couple minutes, right?"

I nodded, not entirely sure that I wanted to go in, but I had agreed to be there with my dancer, so I followed her, trusting her to know the etiquette.

The sanctuary—the actual sanctuary of the chapel, not the figurative sanctuary that Regina and I had discussed—was two stories high and longer than it was wide, with a central aisle between two columns of ten pews, each long enough to hold about eight or ten people, and then three pews of the same type on either side turned ninety degrees and facing towards the middle of the building where a podium stood just before a raised platform with three steps running the width of the building (with a ramp on the right side that was clearly a late addition) where a wide altar sat in the middle of the building underneath a large wooden cross. Behind that was a screen of wooden posts with a door at either end. A wooden wall of some sort blocked a small part of the view behind there.

There were three people already there, sitting in the sideways-facing pews: the young woman who had nodded to us earlier, head bowed, long hair covering her face; a dark-haired Indigenous man who seemed to be in his middle age, in a business suit, sitting with perfect posture and his eyes closed, and an elderly Asian woman who was, I swear, knitting. The three of them were sitting on the right side of the aisle from where we came in, and pretty far apart. Regina and I sat near to one another on the left side, at a distance that I would describe as 'friendly.' Two books were in a small shelf in the pew in front of me, a book of hymns and a book of prayers, both looking fairly well-used.

A young white man came in, in a bit of a rush, just after we sat. He seemed relieved, breathing a sigh before walking over and sitting the front row of the front-facing pews, near the podium. We all sat together, apart, and in a comfortable but anticipatory silence. Regina bowed her head, while I just looked around, taking in the atmosphere. I hadn't been to a church service, a normal Sunday service... I thought back. Ever, since my brief religious upbringing was spent in Sunday school, not in the worship service.

The doors opened again and a blur stormed in. I noticed the colourful clothing first, a rainbow riot of bright red canvas, purple corduroy, green cotton, capped with canary yellow, and all that brilliance against dark hands and face. His movements were swift and a sort of graceful fumbling as he made his way down the aisle.

"I am sorry I'm late," he said in a voice that was much calmer than his demeanour suggested. "I'll be right there." He paused to notice me, gave me a nod as he passed, and said, "Welcome here," and that's when I heard his accent. I was hardly able to react before he headed behind the screen. I watched curiously as he emerged again a minute or two later wearing a long white robe and a long rainbow scarf-like object dangling down on both side of his body past his hips, looking far more composed than he had only a short time before.

He took a breath, raised his arms in an open posture, and said, "Blessed are you, gracious God, creator of Heaven and of Earth! You are a source of light and of life for all creation, and you have made us most wonderfully in your own image. Therefore with hearts and voices upraised we praise and glorify you together, saying:"

And then the other five in the room, responding to the cue I didn't know and reading from their prayer books taken from the shelves in front of them, began speaking together with the priest.

"Glory to God in the highest, and peace to all people here on Earth,"

And something about the chanting, the six voices raised saying the same words in slightly different times and in slightly different ways, set me off. I couldn't stay still, I couldn't... I couldn't stay. I had to move. I had to get out. I was panicking, it felt like taking Zeyla up the elevator, it felt like listening to the music I didn't like after listening to Fly from the Flames, I couldn't even manage to sit until the end of the prayer, the words You alone are the Holy One, you alone are the Lord chasing me out of the chapel as though they were a personal attack.

I stood in the bright sunlight and felt the warmth of it against the chill in my mind, and said, out loud, "What the fuck was that about?"

The sun and the breeze didn't offer me any more answers than my own heart did. I paced around the little half-full parking lot, walking circles around the edges for a few minutes. The door to the chapel opened.

Regina popped out.

"Hey," she said softly.

"Hey," I replied. "Shouldn't you be inside?"

She nodded. "It's the readings at the moment, it's all good. I can read 'em later if I want, right? Besides, it's the sermon and the eucharist that I come for." She took a step towards me. "You okay?"

"I dunno," I said honestly. "I don't know what's wrong or why, but I just... after only a few seconds, why I just couldn't be there. I think I have to work that out for myself, and..." I smiled at her. "I don't think it will help my state of mind to know that I've taken you away from your comfort. I'll wait out here, I'll be here when the service is done."

Regina smiled back at me. "I understand. Thank you." She hesitated, as though I was about to collapse in the next instant if she only waited a moment longer, and I understood that that moment was there for care and for comfort—and for respect. I didn't quite understand that respect, then, but it amounted to thankful joy that I would come with her, and that I would be so truthful as to not continue to keep myself in that safe space when I didn't feel safe.

Regina disappeared back into the chapel, and I resumed my patrol of the lot, walking in circles to search for something that definitely couldn't be found in that lot. That was alright, I wasn't searching in the lot, I was just physically in the lot. It was nearly half an hour later when I realized that my phone was still silent, and that was about the only progress I'd made. Regina had sent me a text ten minutes before, letting me know that the service was half over or so and that the priest had asked after me. I sent her a thank-you and put the phone's notifications back on, and then continued my circular journey, thinking and wandering and hoping that the answer would just... jump out at me.

"Answers don't do that," I said to myself.

But still I wandered.

I ended up sitting on the grass with my back against the chapel, when I heard the door open. Somehow, Regina knew exactly where I was sitting and came over to me. She smiled at me, holding out a hand, and I took it, letting her help me to my feet, marvelling again at her effortless strength. At some unseen, unknown signal, I wrapped Regina in a hug, which she reciprocated quickly.

"I'm sorry," I apologized.

"Don't be," she said softly. "Let's go back to the apartment and pamper Manu, yeah?"

I nodded, letting her go. "Why don't we go get some supplies, first?"

I was a bit surprised at how well I could drive while holding hands and pushing down anxiety.

After a quick stop at the dorm to change clothes and for Regina to pack an overnight bag just in case, we were headed to the grocery store for the supplies that I had in mind. I had decided that if we were going to spend the afternoon and evening with Manu, a home-cooked meal was in order. One that wasn't necessarily covered in spice, if Regina and I were cooking.

We pulled in to a small supermarket, very quiet on a Sunday late morning, and Regina moved like a woman on a mission. I didn't know exactly what she was gathering food for, specifically, but she seemed to be certain. I supplemented with salad and dessert, working on the same wavelength without really communicating. I aimed to recreate the effect of the salad that Manu had made, more or less; some sweetness, some heartiness, and maybe put less seasoning on it, and as for dessert... I didn't really know, so I grabbed some lemon pudding and some aerosol whipped cream. Simple and tasty. Regina gave me an odd look that I couldn't read when she saw that in the basket.

I stood politely in line behind her as she put chicken, peppers, and onions on the counter at the checkout aisle, and then she started grabbing things from my basket. "Hey, what are you—"

She just shook her head. "On me," she said, and her tone offered no room for argument.

I raised my free hand in surrender. "I'll pay you back," I said.

She nodded. "You will."

There was something eagerly ominous about that statement. I both looked forward to and dreaded what she meant by it. Her words from the caf floated back to me as she pulled out her credit card: My momma taught me that we don't make people work for free, and that goes double for people that make stuff we like.

My brain started thinking about what kind of poem I could write for supper. Or after.

Regina carried three reusable bags' worth of groceries to the car and put them in the back seat while I planned the route back to Manu's apartment complex. She got three bags of groceries out of the back seat while I made sure the car was properly parked and locked. And despite me telling her that she could take the elevator without me and that I'd be fine, she hauled three bags of groceries up six flights of stairs, and still she had to wait for me to catch my breath and catch up.

I envied the athlete, not just for her physical ability to climb the stairs, but also for her patience. I doubted I'd be so calm if I had worked so hard to be so much in shape and someone like me was slowing me down. I'm pretty sure Regina could have gone up and down the stairs at least twice in the time it took me just to go up once, and throughout she never gave the slightest indication of annoyance.

We made our way to the apartment and I unlocked the door. Manu was sitting where he had been when we left, still naked, his head tipped backwards, his laptop playing soft folk music beside him. I hesitated, but the music didn't do anything to me, so I led Regina in. The music seemed to inspire her, though. She put the groceries down as she took off her shoes, then grabbed one bag and spun her way balletically into the kitchen. When she passed me as I moved into the kitchen, she pressed her shirt into my hands. When she came back with the next bag, she was completely topless, and she put the bag down in seemingly the same motion that she dropped her skirt. Somewhere on the way to the last bag, she took off her socks, and the spin that came after she put down the bag landed her right in front of me and gave me only one thing to do. Almost without thought, I pushed her panties down, and she whirled out of them and started putting the groceries away, her body moving in gloriously artistic ways.

That's mine, my mind said. I sat in a kitchen chair and just... watched. And Regina definitely didn't seem to mind. I think she liked my possessive instincts, or maybe just liked being possessed. Didn't really matter, we were both enjoying what was going on in that kitchen, and if Manu had been awake I'm certain he would have approved, too.

As much as I could understand anything that was going on, I understood her impulse to be naked. I'd felt the same so very often in the past while. And oddly, despite being the only clothed person in the room, I didn't feel out of place, and I didn't feel any pressure to change that. I could, if I wanted to, but I didn't have to.

I barely noticed that all the groceries were away and that Regina had moved on to making sandwiches before she put one on the table beside me.

That made me wonder if Regina's body and simple, even unintentional movements were art enough to be inspirational, to create the fascination that my poetry could. I found myself eating the rudimentary peanut-butter sandwich while I watched not what Regina was doing, but how she was doing it, the way her muscles moved, the way she reached for things, the economy of the unconscious choices she was making as she washed off the knife she'd used, the subtle and even unthinking care that allowed her to dry off a simple utensil with a way that screamed, 'this body belongs to a dancer!' Her calves were involved. The muscles in her tight ass. I don't even think she was aware of such things. And yet, I could tell that those simple shifts of weight, the way the training took over, were efficiencies, saving minute amounts of energy as she moved through the world. I could only imagine how those little efficiencies would benefit her on the soccer pitch, a thousand little benefits adding up to the strength and coordination to make a late-game surge when other players were a bit off their step, a bit slow in their exhaustion.

And oh God the ways those little benefits could add up in the bedroom.

A glass of water appeared next to my plate, and a dancer appeared kneeling before me, head bowed, hands on her knees. I didn't know what do to about the latter; an instinct to pat her head and call her a good girl felt extremely dehumanizing, and I didn't want a pet. I wasn't even sure that I wanted a dancer, but that moment was already long past. I took a long drink of my water to cover my thinking, at which point Manu took the decision out of my hands with a loud snort and cough.

We both looked over as he opened his eyes. "Mm," he said, his voice rough with sleep. "I must still be dreaming. You don't see beautiful things like that in real life."

I smirked at him. "Get used to it. This is the real life we lead now."

"Never would have imagined it," he said. Then he tried to move and winced. "Oh right. Well, clearly I'm not dreaming. The foot's still—"

Regina was up instantly. I'd never seen anyone move so quickly and yet so unhurriedly. She leaned in and gave him a kiss, her hand trailing up his thigh unnecessarily but to beautiful effect before she went to the bathroom to get Manu's medicated cream.

Manu and I shared a look, a kind of embarrassed-for-our-friend bemused half-smile, a sort of shock at a useful but somehow-unwelcomed enthusiasm, as if reacting to a nerd oversharing really interesting information that neither of us wanted to admit actually enticed us. Inexplicable, in the current context, but still there.

It made a certain amount of sense. We weren't supposed to want control over others. We weren't supposed to want help from others. Independence was the goal, always, but there we were: Manu with a nurse and me with a servant, and one with such incredible willingness to nurse and to serve that it seemed improper to deny her the opportunity.

I think we tacitly agreed. Neither of us wanted to want the help, but we didn't want to stop Regina, and despite ourselves, we did actually enjoy having the help. It really felt good.

Men and submissives.

And I wanted something different from each of them.

I said nothing, and Manu said nothing, as Regina returned. I watched as she knelt and removed Manu's foot dressing, and I was able to see for the first time the damage I had done, or at least the repairs of the damage. A long, jagged, angry line with stitches running across it, from his heel moving up towards his middle toe.

My mind was drawn to one of the paintings I'd see that morning, depicting Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. I couldn't remember the precise details of that one, but I could very easily imagine a Black female Saviour washing an Indian Peter. Though I doubt that Jesus would have been quite so naked, or Saint Peter quite so aroused.

Harder to understand in that moment was how much it made my heart sing to watch them. I would have thought that seeing as I wasn't personally involved (I wasn't even naked, though I did double check to make sure) it wouldn't have meant much to me, but seeing my dancer nurse my boyfriend, and seeing my boyfriend enjoy being nursed by my dancer, made me happy in a way I'd never really felt before.

I pondered that as I finished my water. I wondered if Tempest or Lyric felt that way about their little clan, or if I would continue to feel that way if things expanded. Vaguely, I wondered if the Presence felt that way about all of us, and what the companionable joy of a spiritual essence might actually look like.

Regina re-wrapped Manu's foot, wiping her hand on a dry part of the bandage. She then helped him to his feet, and escorted him and his crutches to the bathroom, while I was left to sit there and ponder just how comfortable I'd become with everything that was going on in my life, and just where my anxiety attack from that morning fit in with all of that.