"I didn't think he'd be able to say no."
"He's been practicing."
"Practicing?"
"He tells you no sometimes, doesn't he?"
I thought about it. "Sometimes he won't repeat conversations to me, or tell me things. He says I'll get mad at him, and so I should ask the other person."
"You wanted, no, demanded, that Nathaniel be more responsible for himself. You made him get his driver's license. You've forced him to be less dependent, right?"
"Yeah."
"But you didn't think what it would mean, did you?"
"What do you mean?"
"You wanted him to be independent, to think for himself, to decide what he wanted out of life, right?"
"Yeah, in fact, I said almost exactly that to him. I wanted him to decide what he wanted to do with his life. I mean he's only twenty for God's sake."
"And what he's decided he wants to do is be with you," Jason said, and his voice was softer, gentle.
"That is not a life decision. I meant like a career choice, maybe go back to college."
"He's got a job, Anita, and he makes better money as a stripper than most college graduates do."
"You can't strip forever," I said.
"And most marriages don't last forever either."
My eyes must have gotten too wide, because he hurried with his next words. "What I mean is, that you treat everything like it's a forever question. Like you can't change your mind later. I don't mean to imply that Nathaniel wants you to make a honest man of him. That never came up, honest."
"Well, that's a relief, at least."
"You'll need a pomme de sang for years, Anita. Years."
"Jean-Claude said maybe in a few months I'd be able to feed from a distance, and not need the up close and personal stuff."
"You've made progress on going longer between feedings, Anita. But you haven't made much progress on truly controlling the ardeur."
"I controlled it on the dance floor," I said.
He sighed. "You shut it down on the dance floor. That's not control, not really. It's like you have a gun, and you can lock it in the gun safe, but that doesn't teach you how to shoot it."
"A gun analogy? You've been thinking on this for awhile, haven't you?"
"Ever since Nathaniel told me that you hadn't been allowing him release during the feedings."
"Allow? He didn't ask, and how was I supposed to know he wasn't even doing himself in private? I mean, I didn't tell him not to."
"You can play with yourself, and it feels good, but it doesn't meet the real need."
I pushed my back tight into the tree, as if the solid wood could catch me, because I felt like I was falling. Falling into a chasm so deep that I'd never get out. "I don't know if I can do Nathaniel, and still look myself in the mirror in the morning."
"Why does doing Nathaniel bother you that much?"
"Because he confuses my radar. I have friends, I have boyfriends, I have people who are dependent on me, people I take care of. I do not fuck the people I take care of. It would be like taking advantage of your position."
"And Nathaniel falls into the taking care of category?" he asked.
"Yes."
"You think by having sex that you're taking advantage?"
"Yes."
"That's not how Nathaniel sees it."
"I know that, Jason, now." I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against the roughness of the bark. "Damnit, I want the ardeur under control so I don't have to keep making these kinds of decisions."
"And if I could wave a magic wand over you and you instantly could control the ardeur, what then? What would you do with Nathaniel?"
"I'd help him find a place of his own."
"He does most of the housework around your place. He buys your groceries. He and Micah do most of the cooking. Nathaniel taking care of the domestic stuff is what allows Micah and you both to work all those hours. Without Nathaniel, how would you organize it?"
"I don't want to keep Nathaniel just to make my life easier. That's like evil."
Jason let out a big sigh. "Are you really this slow, or just driving me crazy on purpose?"
"What?" I said.
He shook his head. "Anita, what I'm trying to say is that Nathaniel doesn't feel used. He feels useful. He doesn't need a girlfriend, because he thinks he already has one. He doesn't want to date because he's already living with someone. He doesn't need to look for a place of his own, because he already has one. Micah knows that, Nathaniel knows that, the only person who doesn't know that seems to be you."
"Jason..."
He stopped me with a raised hand. "Anita, you have two men who live with you. They both love you. They both want you. They both support your career. Between the two of them, they're like your wife. There are people in this world who would kill to have what you have. And you'd just throw it away."
I just looked at him, because I didn't know what to say.
"The only thing that keeps this little domestic arrangement from being perfect for all concerned is that Nathaniel is not getting his needs met." He stepped in close to me, but the look on his face was so serious, that it never occurred to me that kissing was coming, because it wasn't. "You've set up the dynamics so that you wear the pants in this trio, and that's fine, it works for Micah and Nathaniel. But here's the hard part about wearing the pants, Anita, it means you get to make the tough decisions. Your life is working better than it's worked since I met you. You've been happier, longer, than I've ever seen you. Micah, I don't know that well, but Nathaniel has never been this happy in all the years I've known him. Everything is working, Anita. Everybody is making it work. Everybody but..."
"Me," I said.
"You," he said.
"You know, Jason, I can't say you're wrong about any of it, but I hate you right this second."
"Hate me, if you want to, but I'm tired of watching people have everything their heart's desire and throw it away."
"This isn't what my heart desired," I said.
"Maybe not, but it's what you needed. You needed a wife in that old 1950s sort of way."
"Doesn't everybody," I said.
He grinned at me. "No, some people would like to be the wife, but I just can't find a woman who's man enough to keep me in the style to which I have not yet become accustomed."
It made me smile. Damnit. "You are the only one who can say shit like this to me, and not have me pissed at them for days, or longer. How do you get away with it?"
He planted a quick kiss on my my lips, more brotherly than anything. "I don't know how I get away with it, but if I could bottle it, Jean-Claude would pay a fortune for it."
"Maybe not just Jean-Claude."
"Maybe not." He stepped back, smiling, but his eyes had that serious look again. "Please, Anita, go home, and don't freak. Just go home, and be happy. Be happy, and let everyone around you be happy. Is that so hard?"
When Jason said it like that, it didn't seem hard. In fact, it seemed to make a lot of sense, but inside, it felt hard. Inside it felt like the hardest thing in the world. To just let go, and not pick everything to death. To just let go and enjoy what you had. To just let go and not make everybody around you miserable with your own internal dialogue. To just let go and be happy. So simple. So difficult. So terrifying. I turned away from him then, and walked back to the car.
NATHANIEL was leaning against the side of the Jeep watching us walk towards him. He was leaning with his hands behind him so that his weight trapped his hands behind him, pinned between his hips and the Jeep. It wasn't just intercourse that Nathaniel hadn't been getting with me. Nathaniel had other "needs" that I was, if possible, even less comfortable with. It made him feel peaceful to be tied up. Peaceful to be abused. Peaceful. I'd asked him why he enjoyed it once, and he'd told me that it made him feel peaceful. It made him feel safe.
How could being tied up make you feel safe? How could letting someone hurt you, even a little, make you feel good? I didn't get it. I just d
idn't get it. Maybe if I'd understood it better, I'd have been less afraid to go that last mile with him. What if we had intercourse and it wasn't enough? What if he just kept pushing, pushing me to do things that I found... frightening? He was supposed to be the submissive, and I was his dominant. Didn't that mean that I was in charge? Didn't that mean he did what I said? No. I'd had to learn enough to understand Nathaniel and some of the other wereleopards, because he wasn't the only one with interesting hobbies. The submissive had a safe word, and once they said that word, all the play stopped. So in the end, the dominant had an illusion of power, but really the submissive got to say how far things went, and when they stopped. I'd thought I could control Nathaniel because he was so submissive, but it was tonight that I realized the truth. I wasn't in control anymore. I didn't know what was going to happen with Nathaniel, or me, or Micah. The thought terrified me, so I thought about it, really thought about it. What if I found Nathaniel a new place to live? What if I found him a new place to be? A new life?
I rolled it over in my mind as we walked across the pavement. I thought about sending him home with someone else, letting him weep on someone else's shoulder. But more than that, I thought about getting under the covers with only Micah on one side, and no one on the other side. Nathaniel had his side of the bed now. I hadn't realized it until that second, hadn't let myself realize it. The three of us enjoyed reading to each other. For Micah and me it was a revisiting of childhood favorites, for the most part, but for Nathaniel most of the books were new to him. He'd never had anyone read to him before bedtime. Never had anyone share their books with him. What kind of childhood is it without books, stories to share? I knew that he'd had an older brother, who died, and a father who died, and a mother who died. That they'd died, I knew, but not how, or when, except that he'd been young when it happened. He didn't like talking about it, and I didn't like seeing the look in his eyes when he did, so I didn't push. I didn't have a right to push if I wasn't his girlfriend. I didn't have a right to push if I wasn't his lover. As his Nimir-Ra, he didn't owe me his life story.
I thought about not having Nathaniel in the bed, not for feeding, but not having him there to hear the rest of the book we were reading. The thought of him not being there was painful, a wrenching kind of pain, as if my stomach and my heart both hurt at the same time.
He opened the door and held it for me, because this close to the ardeur, it wasn't always good that I was driving. He held the door and was as neutral as he could be, as I moved past him. I didn't know what to do, so I let him be neutral and I was neutral, too. But as I buckled my seat belt in place and he closed the door, I realized that I would miss him. Not miss him because my life ran smoother with him than without him, but I would simply miss him. Miss the vanilla scent of him on my pillow; the warmth of his body on his side of the bed; the spill of his hair like some tangled, living blanket. If I could have stopped my list there, I'd have sent Nathaniel to his room for the night; he did still have a room where all his stuff stayed, all his stuff but him. But I couldn't stop the list there, not and be honest.
He'd cried when Charlotte died in Charlotte's Web. I wouldn't have missed seeing him cry over that for anything. It had been Nathaniel's idea that we could have a movie marathon of old monster movies. You have not lived until you've sat through The Wolfman, Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman, Curse of the Werewolf, and Face of the Screaming Werewolf with a bunch of shapeshifters. They had heckled the screen and thrown popcorn, and howled, sometimes literally, at the movie version of what they knew all too well. The wereleopards had all complained that at least werewolves had some movies, that once you'd named Cat People, the leopards didn't have any movies. Most of the werewolves had known about the 1980 version, but almost no one had known about the original in 1950. We had another movie night planned where we were going to watch both versions. I was sure we'd spend the night complaining, cheerfully, at how far off both films were, and get eerily silent when it hit close to home. Alright, they'd be eerily silent and I'd watch them watching the screen.
I was looking forward to it. I tried picturing the night without Nathaniel. No Nathaniel coming and going out of the kitchen with popcorn and soda making people use coasters. No Nathaniel sitting on the floor, next to my legs, half the night spent with his head on my knee, and the other half playing his hand up and down my calf. It wasn't sexual, he just felt better touching me. The entire pard, and pack, felt better touching each other. It was possible to be up close and personal without it being sexual. It really was, just not usually for me.
Which brought me back to the problem at hand. Funny how the thinking led back to it. Tonight when the ardeur finally surfaced, what was I going to do? I could exile Nathaniel to his room, legitimately, because I'd need to feed tomorrow, too. I could save him like for dessert. But we'd both know that that wasn't it. I wasn't saving him, I was saving myself. Saving myself from what, I wasn't sure, but it was definitely about saving me, and had nothing to do with saving Nathaniel.
He didn't want to be saved. No, that wasn't true. Nathaniel already thought he had been saved. I'd saved him. I'd been treating him like a prince who needed to find his princess, but that was all wrong. Nathaniel was the princess and he had been rescued, by me. As far as Nathaniel was concerned, I was the prince in shining armor, I just needed to come across, and then we could all live happily ever after.
Trouble was, I was no one's prince, and no one's princess. I was just me, and I was all out of armor, shiny or otherwise. I just wasn't the fairy-tale type. And I didn't believe in happily ever after. The question was, did I believe in happily for now? If I could have answered that question, then all the worry would have been ended, but I couldn't answer it. So as Micah drove us towards home in the October dark, I still didn't know what I'd do when the ardeur finally rose for the night. I didn't even know what the right thing to do was anymore. Wasn't right supposed to help people, and wrong supposed to hurt people? Didn't you make the right choice because it was the right thing to do?
I always felt squeamish about praying to God about sex, in any context, but I prayed as we drove, because I was out of options. I asked for guidance. I asked for a clue as to what was the best for everyone. I didn't get an answer, and I hadn't expected one. I have a lot psychic gifts but talking directly to God is not one of them, thank goodness. Read the Old Testament if you don't think it's a scary idea. But worse than no answer, I didn't feel that peace that I usually get when I pray.
WHEN we reached our house, Micah and Nathaniel got out of the Jeep first. I followed behind, slowly, still not sure what I was going to do.
The living room was dark as I entered the house. The only light was from the kitchen. One or both of them had walked through the pitch-dark living room and only hit a light switch when they went to the kitchen to check messages on the machine, which was on the kitchen counter. Leopards' eyes are better in the dark than a human's, and Micah's eyes were permanently stuck in kitty-cat mode. He often walked through the entire house with no lights, just drifting from room to room, avoiding every obstacle, gliding through the dark with the same confidence I used in bright light.
There was enough light from the kitchen, so I, too, left the living room dark. The white couch seemed to give off its own glow, though I knew that was illusion, made up of the reflective quality of the white, white cloth. I was pretty sure the men had both gone to change for the night. Most lycanthropes, whatever the flavor, preferred fewer clothes, and Micah didn't like dressing up, not if it included a tie. I walked into the empty kitchen not because I needed to, but because I wasn't ready to go to the bedroom. I still didn't know what I was going to do.
The kitchen held a large dining room table now. The breakfast nook on its little raised platform with its bay window looking out over the woods still held a smaller fourseater table. Four had been more chairs than I needed when I moved into this house. Now, because we usually had at least some of the other wereleopards bunking over due to an emergency, or, often, j
ust the need to be close to more of their group, their pard, we needed a six-seater table. Actually we needed a bigger one than that, but it was all my kitchen would hold.
There was a vase in the middle of the table. Jean-Claude had sent me a dozen white roses a week, after we started dating. Once we had sex, he'd added one red rose so it was actually thirteen. One red rose like a spot of blood in a sea of white roses and white baby's breath. It certainly made a statement.
I smelled the roses, and the red one had the strongest scent. Hard to find white roses that smelled good. All I had to do was call Jean-Claude. He was fast enough to fly here before dawn. I'd fed off of him before, I could do it again. Of course, that would simply be putting off the decision. No, it would be hiding. I hated cowardice almost worse than anything else, and calling on my vampire lover in this instance was cowardice.
The phone rang. I jumped back so hard that the roses rocked in their vase. You'd think I was nervous, or guilty of something. I got the phone on the second ring. It was for Micah, a Furry Coalition emergency.
One of the shifters had had an accident. He was in the hospital emergency room right now. But the cops were making noises about taking him to a so-called safe house.
They were actually prisons for lycanthropes. Once you went in, they never let you out.
Someone had to go and get him before that could happen.
Micah got on the phone long enough to take the address and name of the hospital down, then hung up. He looked at me, face careful, neutral with an edge of concern. "I'm okay with you and Nathaniel being here alone for the ardeur. The question is, are you okay with it?"
I shrugged.
He shook his head. "No, Anita, I need an answer before I leave."
I sighed. "You need to get there before the wolf loses it. Go, we'll be all right."
He looked like he didn't believe me.
"Go," I said.
"It's not just you I'm worried about, Anita."
"I will do my best for Nathaniel, Micah."
He frowned. "What does that mean?"
"It means what it says."
He didn't look happy with the answer.
"If you wait around for me to say, Oh, yes, it's fine that I'm going to feed the ardeur and fuck Nathaniel; the wolf in question will have shapeshifted, been shot by the cops, and maybe taken some civilians with him before you even leave the house."