June 12, 1936:

        Jian closed up his office for the day and locked the door before heading down the corridor.  A briefcase now occupied his left paw.  One part of his new job he hadn’t anticipated was the increased volume of work to go along with his new responsibilities.  There were reports in the case that Lee insisted needed to be read, summarized and on his desk by Monday morning. 
        Apart from typing up confidential memos and report summaries, he didn’t spend much time at the typewriter any more either.  That routine job was given to a member of the secretarial pool who Jian had selected personally.  The pretty little canine wouldn’t offend Lee at all.
        She was nowhere near what he found attractive.
        Well, there was plenty of time for that now.  Two whole days.  He wondered absently what he should do with the extra day off.
        Sleep in?  That was certainly an option, and he thought that he could use the extra rest. 
        Work on the reports?  He would definitely do that.  He was still new to his position as Lee’s principal aide, and didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize it.
        Lost in thought he barely managed to dodge two other staff members as they passed him.  His ears swiveled as one muttered, “Whore,” and kept on going.
        Jian stopped, glancing back at the pair.
        The feline’s ears burned at the word, his tail thrashing as he considered confronting the man about the insult.  His temper even almost got the better of him and he considered having the man fired for insubordination. 
        The moment passed, leaving him wondering.
        Was he really going to have the man fired?
        He’d never experienced the taste of actual power before.  The sensation was dizzying, like his first drink of rice wine.
        Almost intoxicating.
        And . . . oh so tempting.
        Jian shook his head, his conscience reasserting itself, and kept going.  Lee had told him that he had earned his new position, not slept his way into it.  And with his increased pay the other staffer was understandably jealous.
        I may indeed be a whore, Jian thought with a bit of sour humor as he stepped out of the building and into the early-evening twilight, but at least I’m not cheap.
       

        Jian decided that Saturday morning to stay in bed and read the materials he had brought home with him.  It felt like a perfectly logical – and completely decadent – way of enjoying the morning while still working.
        The reports, ten in all, covered quite a few aspects of life in Kuo Han, from the tax rates (adjusted slightly upward among the middle classes) to steps for the nation’s defense (the purchase – very secret – of advanced artillery from Vostok).  Jian pored over them and the background information supplied with each, then paw-wrote his analysis.  He paused and looked over the economic forecast spreadsheet again.
        There was an entry for ‘Discretionary Funding,’ which seemed to derive its income from no source but amounted to almost a quarter-million Kuo Han taels.  Quite a sum of money, and there was no description of what the funds might be disbursed to, or under what circumstances. 
        Jian frowned as he thought, then almost started laughing. 
        Of course.
        Much of Kuo Han’s economy and government ran behind the scenes, and occasionally bribes or other inducements were necessary to make sure things ran smoothly.  If the entry had been labeled ‘Bribes’ instead of ‘Discretionary Funding’ he wouldn’t have given it a second thought, so he initialed the spreadsheet and moved on.
        But it seemed like quite a bit of money.

        By the time he was finished it was almost time for the evening meal.  His stomach had been growling at him so much since lunchtime that Jian fancied it loudly demanding if his throat had been cut.  He closed the reports up in his briefcase, stowed it safely under his bed in case his apartment was robbed, got cleaned up and dressed, and went out to eat.
        He bypassed his usual haunts; he was on his first actual weekend off, and decided to celebrate by spending a bit of his extra pay.  When he’d told his friend Ming about his new assignment, the other feline had suggested a couple restaurants down by the waterfront where the seafood was fresh and the prices reasonable.
        Ming was as good as his word.  The second place he recommended obviously catered to the foreign crowd and was spacious and well-lit.  The fare, fish and lobster, were still alive in large glass tanks, and after being shown to a seat Jian was invited to pick out what he wanted to eat.
        He chose a lobster, adding that he wanted it served with vegetables and rice, and accepted a small decanter of rice wine and a bowl of soup while he waited.
        The dinner was everything he could have hoped for, the lobster firm and sweet and the vegetables crisp.  The two sauces served with the meal were touted by the waiter as specialties of the house, and Jian made certain to pass on his thanks to the chef.
        He also remembered to tip, a fact that caused the waiter to grin and wish him a good night.
       

        He walked along the waterfront, occasionally dodging beggars until he found their leader.  A soft word and a few taels, and he would no longer be molested by the urchins and ruffians who prowled the docks.
        Wangchung’s harbor was a vast semicircle almost seven miles wide, and by the time the sun was fully down behind the western mountains Jian needed a drink.  He was in the foreign quarter, which offered amusements of various natures to visiting sailors and tourists.
        Good; he could practice what English he knew.  He might even learn more, which would make him even more useful to Lee at work.
        One sign stood out, garish fluorescent lights proclaiming the establishment as the ‘Old Sea Dog Bar.’  From the sounds inside, it was doing a thriving business and he was certainly thirsty.  Jian stepped up to the open doorway, glanced inside, and walked in.
        There were a few curious glances, but all in all no one seemed to take any notice of him.  He walked over to the bar and took an empty stool. 
        The bartender, a Chinese feline like himself, asked, “What will you have?”
        Jian thought a moment.  It was too hot for strong liquor.  “Beer, please.”
        “English, or Rain Island?”
        The feline blinked.  “What’s the difference?”
        The bartender smirked.  “One’s warm, the other’s cold.”
        “Ah.  A cold beer, please,” Jian said, and a bottle, opened and dewy with condensation, was set in front of him along with a glass.  He paid the bill and poured.
        The beer was a fairly clear yellow; looks like urine, he thought.  An experimental sniff and a sip convinced him otherwise and he drank thirstily.  While he drank he looked around.
        The bar was a great deal more than just a place that served drinks.  Sounds from a back door proclaimed a gambling den, while the presence of two pimps and several of their women promised other activities upstairs. 
        Looking at the women reminded him of what the man had called him in the hallway the previous day, and he looked away.
        What he saw at a corner table made him blink.
        Two men were sitting at the table, a weasel and a rat, both wearing dark blue jumpsuits.  As the rat spoke the mustelid leaned across the table and kissed him.
        The fact that the pair were obviously inverts was not what intrigued Jian.  During the Empire, homosexualism was allowed so long as it did not interfere with the Confucian requirement to have a family.  That, after all, was what got Jian driven out of his family home – the fact that his aversion to women would result in a childless marriage.  After the 1912 Revolution, inversion was officially frowned upon by the Kuomintang as something that impeded the nation’s progress.
        And Western nations were known to be rather unforgiving to those who publicly displayed affection for the same gender.
        The rat noticed Jian staring at him and his partner and said in very bad Chinese, “What you looking at?”
        The feline picked up his beer and walked over to the table.  “Excuse me,” he said in heavily accented English.  “I do . . . not mean offense.”
        The weasel smiled and waved him to a chair.  “None taken.  Gordon and I were talking.  My name’s Richard.”
        “Jian.”  He sat down.  “I saw you kiss.  You are English?”
        Both of the furs started laughing.  “No,” Gordon said, “they do their kissing in private.  We’re from Rain Island.”
        “Oh?”
        Richard indicated the silver chevrons on his and Gordon’s sleeves.  “We serve aboard the Bakunin.”
        The feline nodded in comprehension.  There had been a notice that the destroyer was visiting Wangchung to show the flag and demonstrate solidarity with both the KMT and the Communists (ordinarily a very difficult prospect for most nations, but Rain Island was on fairly good terms with both sides).
        Between the three of them they managed to have a conversation.  It appeared that Richard and Gordon had just been talking.  “You and he are – ?” Jian asked.
        Gordon and Richard looked at each other and the weasel chuckled.  “No, just friends.  I take it you are - ?”
        The feline dipped his ears in a blush.  “Yes.”
        “I get it.  Hard to get by in some places if you’re like us.  Rain Island’s freer, more open than a lot of countries,” Gordon said.  “If Dick and I loved each other, we could even get married.”
        Jian almost choked on his beer. 
        Inverts marrying? 
        The conversation drifted into a description of the Anarchcracy, and it was close to ten o’clock before Jian excused himself and left the bar.
        The two sailors had given him a great deal to think about.


        Lee Piao lifted his wine glass and regarded his wife’s profile through the red lens thus provided.  Ching was still attractive, the musk deer realized, despite two children and several lovers of varying tastes.  Some of those tastes tended to extremes.
        He included himself in that category.
        “Ching, my dear,” he said.
        “Piao.”
        “I have been thinking.”
        “Really?  How very novel.  What about?  That little cat you warm your bed with?”
        “Actually, yes,” he admitted.  “I had thought of retiring one day, you know.”
        “Oh?”
        “Yes, my dear, and maybe taking you and the children to live in France.” 
        She gave him a startled glance and directed all her attention to him.  “You’re joking?  If so, you’re hiding it well, Piao.”
        “From you my dear I only hide certain things.  It had occurred to me that we have enough set aside – “
        “Skimmed from Lord Allworthy.”
        “Set aside so that we may go away and live in comfort.  I know your tastes – I gave you some of them – and I think we can do quite well.”
        “So what does that have to do with your new pet?”
       


to be continued