Jacob immediately knew that after he stepped outside, he should have made Kirin change out of those tight, tight shorts and into something more modest. Others were staring at Kirin and thinking things they should not. Kirin made sure Jacob attached the chain to his neck before they stepped outside and now everyone knows that Kirin was his. Jacob clasped his hands together while holding the restraint, hoping to get to the eating place as quickly as possible. Kirin seemed to be taking little steps as if to flaunt himself or to torture Jacob. But with his head turned away shyly from anyone’s gaze, he appeared to do neither on purpose.

A little stream of saliva trickled out of the side of his mouth from the fume of cooked meat and pure hunger in his stomach. Jacob lifted his head. It came from a place directly in front of him and Jacob wiped his chin when he could see himself reflected in the display glass. Beyond the reflection, meats of all kinds were strung up in long links. One length of links was playfully simulated like a chain attached to the severed neck of a roast pig.

Jacob and Kirin were immediately seated as soon as they came in. The eatery was empty save for one couple on the other side of the room. They sat across from each other like handsome gargoyles content to look at just each other. Looking back at the entrance, the place looked like a mix between a meat market and a restaurant, with all the loins, rumps and pure beef displayed in cases for everyone’s perusal.

An attendant walked by, handing both menus to Jacob and walked away until they decided what to order. Jacob handed one menu to Kirin. Kirin bowed graciously and took it with both hands. Jacob looked carefully at the menu that read more like a dictionary than a listing for food. Anything featuring meat was listed in that menu. As Jacob was engrossed in the immense selection of meat entrees, Kirin held the menu up to his face but did not read it. He used the menu as a simple screen to observe his master trying to decide what to put in his mouth. Kirin watched Jacob’s eyes. They dilated from fascination and wisps of tangled hair played with his eyebrows. Jacob swept them away when they tickled his eyelashes. Kirin looked for the gleam in his eyes, even if they did not gleam for him. He watched in secret to see them gleam for a piece of meat.

Jacob looked up behind his menu to catch Kirin looking at him. For a moment, he thought he had some blemish on his forehead that caught Kirin’s attention. But when Kirin made no attempt to look away, Jacob was caught in his gaze. His eyes were so attentive that for a moment, he could not read words. Jacob could do nothing but look at his golden eyes that flashed only for him. Here they peeped behind the horizon of the menu like two oncoming sunrises bathing him in the light of eyesight.

"I’ll come back later; it looks like you haven’t decided yet," said the attendant who stood silently by.

Jacob broke out of the gaze and shook his head a little. "Oh no, I’m ready, I’m ready," he insisted.

The attendant turned to face Jacob. "What will you have?"

"Hmmm… I’ll have bacon and eggs. Sunny side up. And toast. And juice." Jacob decided on juice because he already had his fill of milk last night. He looked over at Kirin to see if he would somehow be offended, although there was no reason why he should be.

"What kind of juice, sir?"

"Golden juice…"

"Excuse me, sir?"

"I mean, orange juice. Orange juice." What was I thinking, thought Jacob.

What was he thinking, thought Kirin.

The attendant smirked. "What about your boy?" the attendant asked Jacob, not even turning to face him.

"Kirin?" Jacob uttered, nodding with his head indicating that the choice was his. Kirin bowed his head and thought for a moment before he decided what we wanted. He looked directly at Jacob and then decided.

"I will have the specialty of the house," he said softly but clearly.

"What did he ask for?" the attendant asked Jacob.

"He wants the special."

"Certainly. You are too kind," said the attendant as he took the menus from Jacob and Kirin and left to get their order. Jacob watched as the attendant walked away. Kirin watched Jacob watch the attendant walking away.

"If I didn’t know any better," said Jacob when the attendant was out of sight, "I would think that he didn’t want to talk to you."

"Master is quite observant."

"Why? Do you know?"

"Master wants my intrusion again?"

"Intrusion? You mean your opinion?"

Kirin nodded his head.

"It can’t be an intrusion if I’ve asked for it. So what is it?"

"I’m sorry…"

"Stop that! That’s so annoying!" The only other couple from across the room heard him and stopped to look at them.

Kirin bowed his head. "I’m sorr --"

"I don’t even know what you’re sorry for!"

"My opinions are worthless."

Jacob took a deep breath. If Kirin kept doing this, he wouldn’t feel like talking to him anymore. Jacob thought for a moment and said, "Kirin, when I want you to give an opinion, give to me. Understand?"

"Yes, master."

"And more importantly, don’t apologize for doing anything I ask for. If you want to say something, say it. Understand?"

"Yes, master. I’m sorry." This is going to take some time, thought Jacob. Why should this be any different from Allman?

Kirin thought very carefully.

"My service is lowly," Kirin said silently, almost ashamed. "Or he is jealous."

"I don’t get it."

"My body was made for a purpose and so was his. We were made… differently."

Jacob kept quiet. He didn’t know how to respond to that. Kirin adjusted the collar on his neck and the rattling of the attached chain was the only noise in the room.

The rattling seemed to act like a bell. When the rattling stopped, the attendant came out with one glass of water and set it in front of Jacob. Nothing stood out about the attendant as with Kirin. Average pretty boy. Probably taller than Kirin and his skin was milk white, a shade darker from the albino boy whom he saw yesterday at the rides. Looks like he never had to shave in his life, but the same went for Kirin.

And he had no collar. Jacob only noticed this as the attendant walked away.

"Excuse me," Jacob said, standing a little to hail the attendant before he disappeared again. "I want another glass of water. For Kirin here."

As if for the first time, the attendant took time to look at Kirin. He nodded his head and disappeared. After a few moments, someone else came out with a tray of water glasses. He stopped by Jacob and Kirin’s table and set the glass before Kirin and quickly went to the other side to deposit the remaining glasses with the couple at the other side of the room.

Kirin felt so ashamed for being so inconvenient. He looked at Jacob only through the glass of water that was set in front of him. He rested his head on the back of his hands that were lying flat on the tabletop just so he would be able to look at his master through the glass.

"Are you tired, already?"

"No, master. Just hungry," Kirin admitted. Looking though the glass magnified Jacob. He filled the entire glass. When Kirin backed away from the glass a little, Jacob slimmed down into a single line, almost nonexistent. As much as Kirin adjusted his head, there was no middle ground; Jacob either filled the cup or disappeared from it. When Kirin reached to touch the glass, Jacob always withdrew from the glass. Condensations of the glass dripped off Kirin’s fingers like tears and lost themselves in the grains of the table.

"Me, too."

"What master?"

"Me, too. I’m hungry, too." Jacob looked at Kirin directly through the glass. This time the face did not go away when Kirin touched his glass. "How long does it take before we get our food?" Jacob drank his glass of water but after drinking half of that glass in one swallow, he was still hungry.

"Any time now, master."

"That quickly?" Kirin nodded. "What do they do? Nuke it?"

"What’s ‘nuke?’" asked Kirin, his head still looking at his master through the glass.

"You don’t know what ‘nuke’ is?"

"No. Forgive my ignorance."

"Hmmm… well… it’s a bomb that makes this mushroom cloud…"

"What’s a bomb?"

"Oh, well, a bomb is a weapon…"

"What is a weapon?" Kirin shook his head. "I’m truly sorry for being so ignorant."

"No, no. It’s okay. Really." Jacob snapped his fingers when he made a connection Kirin could understand. "It’s like the whip you gave me in our room."

"It’s for discipline," said Kirin finally getting it. "And it makes pretty clouds." Kirin thought for a moment. "How does master discipline people with clouds?"

Jacob shrugged his shoulders. "We just… do."

"Oh…." Kirin continued to admire him with his eyes through the glass of water. Jacob looked at Kirin and smiled a bit. He didn’t know why. But at that moment, the smell of cooked food wafted through his nose.

At the same moment, Jacob and Kirin both bit their lips. Kirin’s head rose from the table as the attendant approached them. The attendant sported the tray of food in one open palm like a graceful lop-sided scale that should have tipped over unto the floor. Kirin readied himself by placing the cloth napkin from the table on his lap. Jacob barely caught Kirin’s motions from the side of his eye and quickly did the same thing.

The attendant placed the plate of bacon, eggs and toast and the glass of orange juice before Jacob in one fell swoop. The bacon curled, dripped and sizzled while still on the plate. The tall glass of orange juice was filled to the top with a coating of frost at the rim. The slight prod of the sunny side up eggs with a fork made the pair of huddled yolks jiggle like…

Jacob immediately looked up from his plate and crossed his legs. He looked over to Kirin, whose plate was already served and sitting quietly before him. It smelled more appealing than his bacon and eggs and Jacob silently reprimanded himself for not going over the menu more carefully.

"So is that the special?"

"Yes, master. It is the specialty of the house." A stuffed sausage, fully pumped with stuffing from a Thanksgiving turkey and coated with caramel sauce.

Jacob dove right away into his plate, tearing at the bacon strips with his teeth. The butter and jam on his toast didn’t even have a chance to melt yet when he scarfed the slices down his throat. Jacob smeared the eggs with ketchup when he suddenly noticed Kirin’s hands. They weren’t on the table. They were still in his lap. He did not even touch his food or prod it with his fork.

"What’s wrong? Eat!"

"I… I’m…" Kirin stuttered as he looked down at his food. "I’m not hungry…"

"Why not?"

"I… I…," uttered Kirin turning his head away. He could not explain it himself.

"I don’t believe that," Jacob responded, as if he were calling his bluff. Kirin looked a little depressed, but his hands moved from his lap to the edge of the table. Kirin himself was so hungry that he was no longer hungry. Emptiness filled him. And if it continued to fill him, it would hurt him soon.

Oh no. You are going to eat it, thought Jacob as if it were a command. as if it were a command. You are going to eat it and like it. Jacob set his plate aside and scooted his chair closer over to Kirin. He grabbed his knife and attempted to cut the sausage into smaller pieces, but the skin or the filling of the sausage was so tough, the knife could not even make a single slice.

"How do you eat this thing?" Jacob wondered out loud.

"With a fork," Kirin said quietly.

How come a knife can’t cut this meat? Hmmm… Without asking any more questions, Jacob followed Kirin’s suggestion. Jacob jabbed a fork into the one section of the entrée and managed to pierce it with less effort than the knife. Jacob was holding the entire sausage with the fork, unable to serve it to him any other way. He put it in front of Kirin as the caramel sauce dripped down the edge of the meat.

"C’mon, open for me," Jacob said encouragingly as he hung the piece of sausage before Jacob’s lips.

Kirin nodded his head and opened his mouth as his master commanded him to do. He opened as wide as he could, to please his master. Jacob felt he was kind of awkward at this, so he just pushed the long meat slowly through Kirin’s lips. Kirin seemed to accept it all. Even if he objected, his mouth was too stuffed to protest. Jacob pushed even further when the thick sauce started to drip off of Kirin’s chin. Jacob held his breath while Kirin held his. When Jacob thought he could push no more, Kirin closed his eyes and took a large bite. He chewed politely with pursed lips. The extra sauce drizzles from his lips and splatters on the napkin on his lap.

Jacob gulped. He was just reminded why Kirin was here.