There is Something I Must Do

12 min · Sept 25, 2025 · Fiction

Warning, this story contains content that some readers may find disturbing.

I have a plane to catch. But before I go, there is something I must do. I swirl my drink around and around on the countertop. The smell of Kentucky rye lifts from it, its peppery spice snapping at my long muzzle only to be soothed by the undertones of white oak. It’s a drink I usually share with someone, but I think that tonight, I am alone.

I know this bar I think. The walls are veneered in thin plywood, deeply darkened with a mahogany gel stain to give it the appearance of something finer. Its dark surface consumes the weak light that suffuses the room. Red lamps hide behind latticed wood panels carved in the style of confession booth windows mounted atop the bar. Rows of half empty bottles are up lit in a soft white glow; an altar where, for a small fee, one can wash away the sins of the night. Portishead’s “Roads” plays from the jukebox. The machine is broken, returning to the start of the track at the end of the second chorus, reliving the climax again and again.

Yes, I’ve been to this bar before. But I thought it was in a different town, a different place. No matter, I have all the time I need to get to the airport. I just need to get this one thing done. Plenty of time to enjoy this drink. I lift the tumbler to my lips and let the whiskey slide down my tongue. In first flush, there’s the chemical kick of the ethanol, and the hot spice of the rye grain. The heat of my body warms the whiskey, mellowing it. From the spice emerges a warm caramel, sweet and delicate. In the surface of the blushing liquid, I see the warp and weft of my reflection stretching out the sharp lines of my Doberman features. I look younger there, and I wonder if the youthful energy I once felt is simply trapped at the bottom of the bottle.

I think in passing how it’s unusual for the bar to be this empty. In the corner, on a high shelf behind booths of faded red velvet, is a taxidermy red fox. It stands awkwardly, as if one leg is slightly longer than the others, lips pulled back over it’s teeth. I can’t tell if it’s snarling or smiling at me, pushing me away or beckoning me closer. It reminds me of someone I knew once, someone who was important to me. Someone so important, time has only left me with the image of their face but not their name. After all, a name is just a word. A short summary of everything someone is. And when you know someone completely, you have no need for the summary.

Beside me, a white ermine raises a martini glass from the counter and tilts it to his lips. The liquid inside is clear but seems to draw the pallid light of the bar into itself. Its queer luminosity draws my gaze in an effort to comprehend it. It seems to contain colours that were never in the light it inherited; cool pale blues and sunkissed yellows. A twist of lemon peel bumps against his tongue as it he draws from the liquid. The glow of his drink settles into his white fur, the edges of his face a hazy penumbra against the gloom of the bar. The dark lines of his lashes split and open, revealing milky red eyes. They take me in, pupil dilating and focusing upon me. My tongue feels dry, constrained to the narrow width of my muzzle.

“Why have you never brought me here before tonight?” he asks.

I weigh my tumbler in my paws, as if imbuing its physical form with the question. The blunted tips of my claws glide across its crystal surface, finding no purchase.

“I don’t think I knew you when I used to come here” I reply, finally. He nods slowly and takes another delicate sip of his drink.

“Do you know me now?”

His eyes watch the lemon peel in the martini glass roll and sink to the bottom of the liquid, languishing there. I focus my eyes on him again; his delicate cheekbones, the rounded soft curves of his petite ears. I search in the deep recesses of my mind, plunging paws into the thick oils of my memory, but bringing nothing to the surface. For the second time this evening, a name escapes me.

“No, I don’t think so.”

My words don’t seem to perturb the ermine, who returns to his drink. Faintly, I remember that there’s something I need to do, and that I should probably get started on it soon. But the ermine’s presence alone seems to pull my attention away, pulling my mind along like water down a drain. I allow my eyes to wander along the soft lines of his face, along the jut of his neck from his shirt collar. The fur there looks twisted and matted, which seems odd for someone of such pristine delicacy. A black leather bolo tie hangs neatly from under the collar, riding the rise and fall of his chest as he breathes. The shirt itself is buttoned up under a black leather bike jacket, loose in the shoulders but cinching in at the waist. The supple black hide clings to his form, suggesting at an equally supple midriff. A familiar thirst creeps into me, one that could not be satisfied with a stiff drink alone.

“Perhaps I could get to know you now?”

He smiles tightly. It reminds me of someone tying a bow on a gift they feel obliged to give.

“I think you deserve a chance to remember.”

He turns to face me and I stare into his colourless eyes, blood red pools observing me closely. He’s close now, so close. And soon, our whiskers brush one another’s. It is an intimate touch; each person feels different against your whiskers. Feeling him brush against mine swirls the oils of my memories, lifting the sediment of my mind up to the surface. Before I can pull any of these pieces to the forefront, his lips are on mine and I’m tasting him. The sharp tang of the gin strikes first, before my nose fills with his animalic musk and the heady leather of his jacket. In that moment, I know him. How could I not? He’s the love of my life, my partner.

We linger in the kiss, lost in knowing one another again. Now, I don’t know how I could have forgotten him. I press a hand against that midriff I know so well, the pads of my paw gripping and snagging at the leather, feeling the dull glow of his warmth underneath. Hot breath passes between us, a mixture of juniper and malt that pleases me. It’s him, and it could only ever have been him.

I draw back from him, seeing him again with clarity that only understanding can provide. His knowing eyes are half lidded, and his breath is short, the pink of his tongue lingering between his lips. I recognize the way his fur creases around his eyelids. I recognize the way he absently rubs his paw in circles on the bar while he’s thinking. The stuffed fox watches, red light refracting through its glass eyes, smiling down at us.

“How did you find me here?” I ask.

“I can always find you.”

It dawns on me that it would be unusual for us to be apart. But if he can always find me, I suppose that things must be ok. I raise a finger for another drink for the two of us, and soon a pair of full glasses are placed in front of us, one crystal clear, another deep amber brown. I feel at ease again. My narrow tail swishes behind me and I take a swig from the fresh glass.

“So, how have you been? I’ve missed you dearly.”

Something flickers behind the ermine’s eyes, the way the projection screen flickers at the end of a cinema reel. I was expecting the same warm joy in him that I feel in me, so it’s hard to parse what I see instead. It seems dim, deep, and sad. The sight slows my tail.

“I’m as well as I can be, I suppose. How’re you?”

There’s a knot in my stomach now. The wood paneling on the walls seems to suck in the sound as well as the light. The jukebox sounds distant and muffled, as if I was listening to it playing in another room. I open my mouth to reply, but my tongue feels like it’s not quite meant to be there, and the wrong words come out.

“I feel fine. I’m fine.”

I have the odd sensation that there is a slight delay between me moving my lips and the sound arriving at my ears, as if the words are being changed midway. The ermine just nods, but his eyes shimmer with moisture that wasn’t there before.

“I suppose you don’t remember yet.”

“Remember? Remember what?”

But of course, in that moment, I do remember. I remember the pounding, driving rain. I remember the smell of bread left discarded on the table. I remember his body cooling on the warm carpet of our home, bent and limp and broken. I don’t remember how, nor why. The jukebox is oh so faint now, but I can hear its whirring mechanics as if I had my ears pressed against it. A high-pitch mechanical keening, like the cry of an infant. Across the ermine’s shoulder, shadows swim across the stuffed foxes face, veiling its uncertain features. A sucking pit opens in my gut.

I feel the warmth of his pad on my cheek wiping away tears as I heave and sob, bent double in his lap as if in prayer. Each tear wracks my body, the way heavy rain pulses on a tin roof in rolling oscillations during a gale. Each convulsion squeezes more tears from me until I’m gasping for breath. His hands cradle my cheeks, soft, pink pads clearing the tears as soon as they arrive. I stay there until I have no more tears left, left only with short, twitching tremors.

“Isn’t there something you need to do?”

I blink through the tears. He’s right, there’s something I need to do before I can leave. I don’t know how much time has passed, but I know I need to get it done soon, otherwise I’ll be late for the airport. But groping around in my mind, now I’m not sure what it is. I look up at him, my eyes red and bloodshot.

“Yes. But I can’t remember what it was.”

He nods, knowingly. Without another word, he takes my hands in his, the way a priest holds the hand of a sinner in confession. He draws my paws close to him until they rest upon his chest. I can feel the life in him, the pulse of his heart under his sternum, the rise and fall of his breast with every breath. The tips of my claws trace the thin lines of his pectoral muscles which twitch and shift under my touch. I want to linger there, but he keeps drawing my hands up, pawpads sliding into the grooves of his collarbones. I’m reminded how well they fit there as my hands journey onwards, up the crook of his neck.

And there I stop, frozen. My fingers slide between the twisted, matted fur and feel the welts and bruises underneath. Tears threaten to spring from my eyes again. How could someone wreak such destruction on something so fragile? My long muzzle rises, inches from his own rounded one, and I see my pained expression reflected in his.

“Who did this to you?”

The ermine smiles sadly and presses the edge of his muzzle against the edge of mine. Our whiskers brush again, measuring the short distance between us in minute quivers. I feel my own whiskers sway back and forth with the breeze of his breath. A small kiss lands on the wet fur of my cheek.

“You did, my love.”

He does not need to say it, because as he says it, I know that I’ve known it all along. My fingers tremble as I feel them slide into the grooves of his damaged skin. Each finger slides into place, the memory of my brutality etched into him. I remember how I found him, how I’d heard the moans of honeyed pleasure unfurling like smoke down the corridor, how I’d opened the door and found him reclined under another man. I feel the heat of the rage I’d felt, dulled now, as if I was feeling the heat of an incinerator through a glass screen. I feel my fingers start to squeeze.

I feel him gasp, a short throb of his neck under my thumbs. His eyes lock on mine and a whisper escapes him.

“There’s something you must do.”

I don’t want to, not again. But each time I try to pull away, my fingers only tighten. The taxidermy fox watches us from above, snarling in disgust. The ermine’s paws wrap my wrists and I feel his fingers twitch, the pads quivering against my short fur there. The white light of the bar counter occludes and fades, leaving us only in the crimson red of the bar-top lights. His fur fades into muddy brown; reminiscent of dried blood. But his red eyes glow, bulging and swelling from their sockets under my force. I feel his fear again in the rapid pulse of his blood underneath my fingertips.

The twitching turns to trembling, the trembling to desperate flailing. Paws beat against my arms but I do not stop, for there is something I must do. I must do it because allowing myself to forget would be a blessing too kind. So I watch as I squeeze the life out of him again.

Now even the red lights begin to dim, the final weak sweeps of my ermines’ arms barely reaching my eyes. They recede, like shadows in the fog, until there is nothing but oily blackness and the limp weight of a body between my fingers. I have done what I needed to do. And now, I have a plane to catch. But before I go, there is something I must do.