I put the kettle on and found what I had in the kitchen, which wasn't much, some bread, hard cheese, a few eggs the previous occupant had left behind that I was choosing to trust. I cracked them into a pan and looked over my shoulder at Caleo who had followed me in and installed himself on a kitchen stool with the ease of someone who treated other people's kitchens as a natural extension of his own territory.

  "So…" I said.

  He looked at me.

  "How did you end up with a dog dick?"

  He brightened immediately and sat up straighter, the expression of a man who had been waiting for exactly this question and had strong feelings about the answer. He csped his hands together on the counter.

  "Funny story," he said.

  "I assumed," I said.

  "I was sixteen," he began, with the comfortable tone of someone who had told this story before and still enjoyed it. "My theoretical studies were progressing well but I had identified a significant practical problem. The historical literature on Vitalist bonding was fragmentary, as I mentioned, but consistent on one point — a primary bond partner needed to be physically compatible with the Vitalist in question." He paused. "The texts were quite specific about Vitalist anatomy. The authors were clearly drawing from personal experience and were not given to understatement."

  I stirred the eggs.

  "So I understood that whoever eventually located a Vitalist would need to be equipped for the practical requirements of close colboration," he continued. "And I looked at myself at sixteen and made an honest assessment."

  "You were sixteen," I said. "Nobody is equipped at sixteen."

  "I was particurly unequipped," he said, with the serene self-awareness of someone who had fully processed a piece of information and moved past it. "Average in every dimension. Which is perfectly adequate for ordinary life but not for the work I intended to do." He accepted the cup of tea I slid across the counter with a nod. "So I went looking for a solution."

  "A growth potion," I said.

  "I had been saving money for two years with specific intent," he said. "There's a woman in the lower merchant district — she operates out of a shop that doesn't advertise, you have to know to look — who produces specialized preparations. Enhancement work, primarily. Reputation for quality, discretion, and minimal questions."

  "How minimal?"

  "She asked my age," he said. "I told her. She looked at me for a moment with the expression of someone who had heard worse reasons and sold me the potion." He sipped his tea. "It was everything I'd saved. She was very specific about the instructions. Full dose, no halving, lie down before it takes effect, and do not panic."

  "Did you panic?"

  He smiled. "Immediately," he said. "Well, not immediately. The first few minutes were warm and pleasant and I thought this is perfectly manageable. Then it became less manageable and considerably more arming and I said several things to my bedroom ceiling that I won't repeat." He paused thoughtfully. "The knot was the surprise. The length I had anticipated from the product description. The knot was not in the product description. I feel that was an oversight on her part."

  "That seems like something you'd want to know going in," I said.

  "She ter told me it was a standard feature and most clients considered it a bonus," he said, with the tone of someone who had filed this information under things that were true but had taken some adjustment. "I have made my peace with it. It grew on me, no pun intended." He tried the eggs and looked pleased. "The process took roughly twenty minutes. By the end I was on the floor conducting a private conversation with myself about the nature of commitment and Maximus was — " he gestured expressively, " — present. Comprehensively and permanently present."

  I thought about my time in the forest four days after arriving in this world. Bracing against a tree. The ring seated at my base and my cock becoming something else in real time and the sounds the forest had absorbed without comment.

  "I understand the experience," I said.

  Caleo looked at me with sudden curiosity but didn't push it. Good instinct.

  "So you had Maximus at sixteen," I said. "And then you needed to actually be able to use it."

  "Correct," he said. "Which presented a new and significant practical problem. I had the equipment. I had no one to use it with and no immediate prospect of finding anyone suitable. And beyond the question of Maximus specifically — " he set down his cup and folded his hands on the counter with the posture of someone shifting into a more technical register, " — the literature was clear that proximity to a Vitalist required genuine physical preparation. Not just tolerance. Actual trained capacity."

  "So what did you use?" I asked. "To train with."

  "Progression," he said simply. "I was systematic about it. Started small, worked up incrementally over a long period, kept notes on progress and adjusted when something wasn't working."

  "How small?"

  "My own fingers initially," he said. "One, then two, then three. I spent about two months at each stage before moving forward. The goal wasn't just accommodation under pressure — it was genuine resting softness. The muscle learning to be open rather than learning to open when asked. There's a meaningful difference."

  "I noticed," I said.

  He looked pleased. "Thank you. After fingers I moved to purpose made implements. A local craftsman who also didn't ask questions — there seem to be several of those in this city, which I appreciate — made me a graduated set. Small to rge, six pieces, each one a meaningful step up from the st."

  "How rge did the set go?"

  Caleo held up his fist and looked at me.

  I looked at his fist.

  "The sixth one," he said, "was about that." He paused. "I spent eight months on the sixth one."

  I opened my mouth and closed it.

  "And Maximus himself?" I asked. "At what point did that become part of the training?"

  "About eighteen months in," he said. "Once I had the foundational work established. Though Maximus presented his own challenges because of the knot specifically — the shaft was manageable with sufficient preparation but the knot is a different proposition entirely. I have not yet fully resolved that particur problem." He said this with the mild frustration of a researcher encountering a persistent variable. "It requires a level of preparation that I haven't consistently achieved. I can get it in under ideal conditions. Reproducibly is a different matter."

  "Ideal conditions being?" I asked.

  "Extended preparation, the right state of rexation, and frankly the right frame of mind," he said. "It's as much psychological as physical at that point. The body knows it can accommodate it but the instinctive response is still present." He picked up his tea. "I'm working on it."

  I thought about this morning. The knot pressing against my asshole from the outside with each thrust, firm and insistent, my body having strong opinions about what was and wasn't happening. I thought about eight months on the sixth implement in a graduated set.

  "So you also use your own dick on yourself?" I asked. "As part of the training?"

  Caleo paused with his cup halfway to his lips.

  He set it down.

  "The geometry," he said, "is not straightforward."

  "No," I agreed. "It isn't, I have some practice myself." I said with a smile.

  Another beat. Caleo looked at his teacup. Then at me. Then at his teacup again.

  "I am," he said, with great dignity, "considerably more flexible than I appear."

  I stared at him.

  "I'd like to see that," I said.

  "The knot presented the same challenge internally as externally, naturally, so it served a dual training purpose. Two problems, one solution. It seemed efficient." Caleo said.

  I put my face in my hands.

  "How long," I said into my palms.

  "The shaft component from early on," he said. "The knot I managed properly for the first time about six months ago. Reproducibly about two months ago." He sounded genuinely pleased about the two months ago part. "The flexibility required is significant but achievable with consistent stretching. I do a full routine every morning."

  I lifted my face from my hands and looked at him across the kitchen. Golden curls, blue eyes, the gymnast's body, sitting on my kitchen stool with his tea and his complete absence of embarrassment about any of this, having just described three years of the most dedicated and systematic personal research program I had ever heard of.

  "Caleo," I said.

  "Yes?"

  "You are the most insane person I have ever met," I said. "And I woke up in a forest four days ago with a magical horse cock ring and no pants."

  He considered this. "That does sound like relevant context," he said.

  "It is," I said.

  He smiled at me. Full Caleo smile, warm and genuine and slightly unhinged around the edges, the Martin Short energy at full morning brightness.

  I smiled back despite myself.

  "Right," I said. "Tell me about your father."

  The inner mp turned down. He set his cup on the counter and the smile became something quieter and more real underneath it.

  "Yes," he said. "Alright."