My human led me nowhere today, then sat down on it.
A long wooden slab, bolted to the ground so it cannot be moved, cold and hard and set at a height that means nothing to anyone with sense. There are slats. Gaps between the slats. A civilized creature does not offer its belly to gaps. My human offered its whole self, spreading out on the thing, tipping its face toward the sun as though it had invented warmth.
I have a windowsill for this. I have three of them. They are warm from the inside, private, and I do not have to share them with strangers who smell of bread and other people's dogs.
But my human wanted to be seen sitting still. That is the entire function of the bench: a stage for doing nothing where everyone can watch you do it. It sat. It watched other humans walk past who were also, apparently, going nowhere in a great hurry. It sighed the long sigh it does when it thinks something is peaceful. It reached over and put one hand on my back, absently, without looking, the way it touches things it assumes will always be there.
I let the hand stay.
Not because I enjoyed it. Because the wood beneath us had gone warm at last, warm from my human's body and the low sun, and I had decided that warmth was mine now, the whole slab of it, ours by right of occupation.
When my human rose to leave, I did not move. It waited. Then it sat back down.
Good. It's learning where the seat of power is.