Love and Whiskers

by Olivia Myers

  Her shirt was off, and Jebá lowered her to the ground. Felicity felt the coolness of the cavern floor against her back. As Jebá began to mouth her breasts with teasing bites, she could feel the last of her inhibitions dissipate. She pulled off his shirt quickly, and he tore off her shorts and underwear in one motion. Felicity had never known energy like the one surging through her now. Without hesitation, she accepted him, wrapping her legs around his back. Jebá then began to mutter words in Barasana along with her name. She could barely hear him over the moans his thrusts were eliciting from her body.

  Holding her face in his hands, he kissed her passionately as she felt them both start to climax. It was just one of many. By the end of it Felicity was nearly drunk with pleasure.

  “I think I love you,” she heard herself mumble.

  He fell silent for a second. As she cursed herself for screwing the moment up, he replied, “I think I may love you too, Felicidade.”

  They began to kiss again, as she felt her hand touch a rough spot she’d skimmed her fingers over during their lovemaking. Now able to see it in the stream of light shining through the falls, she discovered it was a long scar. The image immediately triggered the image of the jaguar she’d seen, its large fangs smeared with blood.

  Gasping, she moved away from him and backed up against the wall. She grabbed the knife from the table. “Do I need to be afraid of you? Why did you bring me here?”

  Jebá looked confused and then saw that his scar was exposed. “I can explain, Felicidade. Please don’t be afraid.”

  “You – you were the jaguar? The one that saved me? That can’t be! That doesn’t make any sense!”

  “It’s true,” he said. “I am the last of the jebá-beca shaman. I am both jaguar and man.” Before she could protest again, Jebá got on all fours. His bronze skin turned to fur, and his hands to claws. The only thing that remained was his green eyes. That was the last thing she remembered as Felicity’s mind faded into blackness.

  ***

  She awoke to find herself back at the villa in her bed, surrounded by Pedro, Maria, and Lupita.

  “Thank goodness you’re awake!” Maria cried.

  “What happened?” Felicity asked. Her head ached, but her legs and arms were pleasantly sore. She remembered the joyful time she’d spent with Jebá, and then…

  “Jebá says you took quite the spill. You got heat stroke and passed out cold!” Pedro said. “Good thing he was there to call us.”

  Felicity bit her lip as memories of his transformation returned. “Yeah. Lucky.”

  Feeling awkward, she looked away from all of them, but her gaze landed on Carol’s closed bedroom door. “Wait, where’s Carol?”

  Lupita wailed, “She is gone! They took her! That boyfriend of hers took her!”

  “What?” Felicity shouted.

  “She’s been missing ever since Lupita checked her room this morning,” Maria said, nearly in tears. “We already called the police and had them check out Davi’s club. But it’s empty. Everything is gone. The only thing they found was a broken down jeep with a logo –“

  “Selvagens Verdes,” Felicity finished for her.

  Pedro and Maria left to go talk more with the police, bringing Carol’s laptop in case it held any further clues. Felicity sat up and thought of what she could possibly do. There was no way that she could even stand a chance of going up against the gang, even if she found them in the jungle again.

  As she glanced at the book on her desk, Felicity saw the image of the jebá-beca. The textbook she’d read said something about the jebá-beca helping people. Carol needed help. Felicity only had one option left, and she was going to take it.

  ***

  Practically throwing her bills at the cab driver, she ran towards the back of the facility and a ways down the path Jebá had taken her. Not knowing whether or not he could even hear her, Felicity began to yell his name. She continued until her voice was hoarse. As she prepared to give up, she heard a low growl behind her. It was him.

  “Jebá, I know it’s you,” Felicity said as she came closer. “The Selvagens Verdes took a girl, my roommate, Carol. I need your help. ”

  He turned away with a sniff.

  “I know you must be angry at me. I didn’t understand. I still don’t. But please help me find her. You’re the only one who can.”

  The beast stopped but didn’t turn.

  “I’ve been an idiot,” she was crying now. “I turned my back on Carol just because I was angry, even though she needed my help. And then I doubted you. I know I don’t deserve it, but please help me stop them.”

  Felicity felt him suddenly embrace her as a human. “As you wish, my Felicidade.”

  ***

  Despite his insistence that Felicity stay behind, she hadn’t. They had ended up investigating the site where they’d first met. He had tracked their trail deeper into the jungle and into the vicinity of an old temple. It was not of his tribe’s temple, but Jebá was still angry at its desecration. Hiding in the shadows, they had watched the men load a group of slow-moving girls into a series of vans. Carol was nowhere to be seen.

  Jebá had instructed her to circle around the back and find Carol, as he created a distraction. He roared and lunged at a nearby man, attracting the attention of everyone else.

  Taking the opportunity, Felicity sneaked inside the back door as a guard ran out to assist the others. Looking through the dusty, dark rooms, Felicity finally found Carol lying on a bed, half asleep.

  “Felicity,” the girl mumbled. “You were right…”

  “It’s okay, Carol, don’t talk. I’m going to get you out.”

  “You stupid girl.” She heard a deep voice behind her say, as a gun cocked. “As if I’m going to let an ugly runt like you make a fool of me.”

  At gunpoint, he man forced her outside.

  “Why didn’t you take Carol?” she asked.

  “That idiot Davi had used her up. Customers do not want damaged goods,” he replied coldly.

  Felicity didn’t have time to dodge as the butt of his gun hit her face.

  “Now I will teach you why you must respect Enzo Torres.” With an emotionless face, he grabbed Carol and threw her into the mud pit nearby where she slowly began to sink. He moved to shoot Carol in the face when an explosion suddenly blasted. Huge pieces of the temple crumbled down. One of them landed on Enzo.

  Bullets whizzed past, as Jebá in jaguar form rushed around, alternately dodging and attacking the Selvagens Verdes. Felicity watched in horror as a hidden man took aim at Jebá.

  “No!” Felicity shouted. “Be careful!”

  The man, surprised, swung around and aimed at Felicity instead.

  And now her she was - bleeding and about to die. The world around was fading to gray. Her arms struggled to hold Carol aloft.

  Stubborn until the last, Enzo had managed to get up again. He hobbled towards Felicity with a machete raised. Before Enzo’s blow could land, however, he was taken down by a snarling Jebá. The man let out a final scream as the jaguar’s gaping jaws closed on his throat.

  With the help of one of the Barasana guards who had decided to assist Jebá in the rescue mission, Felicity was finally able to pull Carol out from the pit. Carol was looking less pale than she had been when they had first seen her, but she was still out of it.

  Their leader gone and most of the gang dead, the Selvagens Verdes surrendered to the police as they began to swarm the area. A few ran, but they were quickly brought down with arrows from Basarana archers. With a final nod to Jebá, the Barasana disappeared into the brush. He himself stayed as long as he could before the paramedics loaded both girls into an ambulance.

  ***

  The bust had gone smoothly afterward, and they had recovered many of the missing women. One of them had even been Lupita’s sister, Juliana.

  Felicity had been lucky to survive, though she had lost a good amount of blood. Unfortunately, Professor Johnson made it clear that she still needed to finish her projec
t. As she was stuck in a hospital with nothing else to do, putting together a final report was rather easy.

  Carol had been fine for the most part, but the girl was understandably traumatized by the incident. She had opted to go home early, and in her eyes Felicity could see the experience had sobered her. The two parted rather well, with Carol thanking her for helping to rescue her.

  On the last day of the semester, Felicity was finally released for a short reprieve in order to say last goodbyes. Though still weak, there was nothing else she would rather do than see Jebá one last time. Felicity didn’t want to leave, but knew she had no other choice. Sadly, she went back up to the old facility towards the same room where she had first met him.

  “I am glad to see you are all right, my Felicidade,” he said as he kissed her.

  “I wish I could stay with you,” Felicity said, embracing him tighter.

  “We will see each other again.”

  “I wish I could be sure of that.”

  “Perhaps there is a way.”

  Leading her out the door, they traveled out to the village once again. She was surprised to see a crowd already there. They were in a circle surrounding a large fire pit. A gap opened and Jebá led Felicity down the center, toward the billowing flames. As they walked, tribe members threw flowers and feathers at their feet.

  The tribe’s spiritual leader struck her staff on the ground, shouting at the sky. She looked back down, and surprisingly smiled at them both. She then commanded something at Jebá.

  Holding Felicity’s hands and looking into her eyes, Jebá spoke three words. “Beca, yage, mene.”

  After a nod from him, Felicity repeated them herself, “Beca, yage, mene.”

  At that moment, the fire raged upwards, turning an intense white-blue. The crowd around them began to yell and sing. Even though Felicity may not have known their language, she knew one thing: she was married now. Her new husband carried her back to his house. As they undressed so they could become one once again, she made a solemn vow to return. She would finish her degree and come back to her husband, no matter what it took. Felicity knew in her soul she could never remain confined by the life she had once lived. Her place was here and it was with him.

  THE END

  Nailed

  Rachel felt her body twitch a little when the judge banged his gavel. And just like that, she thought, it’s all over.

  She rose from the table with her attorney to walk out of the courtroom, only to run right into John as he was leaving his table. He flashed one of his classic smirks of satisfaction as he brushed past her and out of the courtroom. As she watched her now ex-husband and his attorney leave, she breathed a sigh of relief. The divorce proceedings had been tough.

  It was clear to Rachel that while there was no love lost between them, it was hard to face the reality of her failed marriage. Eight years ago, she was certain that there was no couple happier than the two of them. They met in their senior year of college, when Rachel was just realizing that her soft brown curls, green eyes and curvy body made her a knockout. John was bold enough to ask her out within the first five minutes of meeting, and was the only man that had ever brought her to orgasm with his expert stroke. All this screamed “Mr. Right” to Rachel, so she jumped in headfirst and married John 6 months after their first date.

  While the first few years together were blissful enough, it wasn’t before long that John began to spend less time with Rachel. His rise up the corporate ladder took him on business trips more and more often, and left her alone to try to find happiness. She put her degree in marketing to work for her and ran a consulting firm for small businesses out of the other half of the duplex that she and John bought after their first anniversary. The longer John stayed away, the more she fell in love with her work. But she knew that he was slipping from her; the time they did spend together became less about just being happy with one another’s company and more about playing the routine of husband and wife. The fire between them cooled in the bedroom as well. By their final year together Rachel felt nothing when John entered her, and went through a script of moans while her mind drifted to her client list or what she planned to wear the next day, just waiting for him to finish. Fortunately for Rachel, by then those “intimate” moments were few and far between.

  Even when he wasn’t traveling for work, John was never home much, opting to spend countless hours at his office. Rachel always assumed that he was busy working on another big deal until six months ago, when an unclosed email window on their home computer revealed the truth: John hadn’t lost his passion. He’d just been saving it for his new assistant, and the pictures of him inside her mouth were the deathblow to a relationship between two people who never really knew one another.

  Rachel mourned the loss of her marriage; there were very few tearless days between serving John with papers and this final day of court. But as her heels clicked along the marble floor of the courthouse, her sadness began to melt away, and the future began to come into focus. She was without a husband, but she certainly wasn’t without assets. Her business was going to get even more of her attention, and she had given John an option: he could pay alimony or surrender their duplex. He graciously opted for the latter scenario and moved himself into a condo closer to his office.

  Now that she was single, Rachel could consolidate her living and working area into the same apartment of her duplex, and rent the other apartment for some extra income. By the time she made it out of the courthouse and into her car, she had the ad written on her smartphone and posted to the online bulletin board for rental properties. As she drove home, she smiled with every ding from her phone’s email alerts. By the time she pulled into a space in front of her building, she had twenty emails in her inbox.

  That following Saturday afternoon, Rachel closed the door on her next to last applicant interview and sighed into her favorite wingback chair in her living room. Fuck me, she thought. This search is way harder than I thought it would be. Now in her early thirties, she had become much more discerning, and there was nothing appealing to her about living next to any of the stoner college kids, uptight spinsters, and creepy older men that arrived on her doorstep throughout the day. The rent was attractive enough to cater to a wide range of applicants, but Rachel knew what she wanted: A calm, collected tenant that paid their bills on time.

  The doorbell rang, signaling her final appointment of the day, and she was certain that she wasn’t going to get what she wanted. Well, let’s get this one over with, she said to herself as she opened the door.

  “Hello,” the young man on her stoop said. “I’m here about the apartment.”

  Rachel blinked a couple of times to make sure her eyes weren’t playing some evil trick on her. In front of her was a good-looking, articulate person who clearly stated what he wanted.

  Well, this guy’s one up on the competition so far. “Hello,” she said. “Let me show you the place.”

  She opened the screen door a little and he took the handle, holding it open for her as she stepped outside.

  “I’m Conner,” he said, smiling and extending his hand. Conner had those looks that most guys see in magazines and spend hours and money trying to harness. He was a head taller than Rachel, with a perfectly tousled head of black hair, which was only complimented by a set of piercing blue eyes. His smile was kind, and was punctuated with a pair of dimples that probably won him sweets as a child, and most likely acted as a flawless lure for the ladies.

  Rachel slipped her hand into his to greet him, and the gentle but firm squeeze gave her a jolt that she hadn’t felt in a very long time.

  “You must be Rachel.”

  “Yes,” Rachel responded, silently recovering from her unexpected response. “I’m glad you could make it out.”

  “Absolutely,” Conner said excitedly. He nearly jumped off the stairs of Rachel’s stoop and walked across the lawn to the empty apartment. “I’m just amazed that it’s still available.” He stepped further back on the lawn, to tak
e in the whole building in one glance. “It’s a great property in a really cool neighborhood. I’d love to live here.” He strode back across the lawn to the empty apartment, stepping right up to the front door and peering through the small window into the front room. “It looks like the place has been occupied recently.”

  Rachel laughed as she pulled the keys out of her pocket. “Yes, it was.” Her answer couldn’t pull Conner’s face from the window. She jingled the keys and said coyly, “Um, you know, Conner, I can give you a better look with these.”

  He turned his head with a puzzled look that faded into embarrassment when he realized what she meant. He chuckled and stepped away from the door. “Sorry, I just get so excited about places like this. I’m a contractor, and I fall in love every time I run into a place like yours.”

  “Oh really,” Rachel said as she turned the key in the lock and opened the door. “My ex always talked about getting this place fixed up, but I never knew of any problems.”

  “Well, there are lots of problems that you probably can’t see,” Conner replied. “A building this age is bound to need an upgrade on its electrical and plumbing – the city is changing some codes on what’s acceptable.” He planted his feet where he stood, and rocked back and forth on the hardwood floor, listening to it creak. “And these floors could use some work too.”

  Now Rachel felt full of embarrassment. “Oh wow,” she said. “I had no idea. I just thought the place was old and charming. I didn’t know it was a death trap.”

  Conner laughed and shook his head. “It’s not that critical, but yes, the place does need some work.” Rachel thought that he was going to say his goodbyes and leave, but instead he continued to follow her around the space, taking a full tour. When they returned to the front room, he looked at Rachel and said, “Look, Rachel. I can’t walk away from this place. So let me make you a deal.”

  Rachel was wary, but intrigued. “Okay,” she said. “What are you offering?”