My human has washed twice today, which is how I know something is wrong.
It stood before the coward in the wall, the flat one that holds a second human, and turned and turned, pulling fabric here, smoothing it there, seeking the second human's approval instead of mine. Absurd. The second human has never once fed it.
Then it left. It always leaves, this is the great unforgivable habit of its life, but tonight it left smelling of a small glass bottle it spritzed onto its own neck, coating over its true scent, the warm bread-and-salt smell I have spent years pressing into with the side of my face to mark it as property. Mine. Now some other creature will smell only the bottle and think this human belongs to no one.
I know what it wants. I have watched it want things. It wants another human to look at it the way it has never once earned from me: the long soft stare, the leaning-in, the full and total attention with no glowing rectangle between them. It calls this "a date." It has forgotten it already has a creature at home who could provide the exact same stare and simply chooses not to.
It came back late, alone, and sat on the edge of the good blanket with its shoulders low, waiting, I think, to be found interesting.
I climbed into its lap without invitation, turned three times, and settled with my back to its face.
Let it learn tonight what the other human already knew.
That is how the wanting starts.