by Eden Winters
“Are you telling me Seth’s gay? How could you know such a thing?” No matter how strong her power to know the truth in people, truths most others would never see, surely her reach couldn’t extend to someone so far removed.
The weak sound she made could have been a chuckle. “Down at the library, the Johnson boys showed me what they call a ‘social media site’ on the Internet. Seth is a photographer and takes lovely photos, he’s interested in men, and he’s single.” A crease appeared above her brow. “He changed his status to ‘it’s complicated’, once, whatever that means. Although I can’t understand why folks tell everything about themselves for strangers to read, I did learn a thing or two about my great-nephew.” An expression of sheer satisfaction momentarily smoothed her wrinkles. “He’s the spitting image of his daddy.”
What? The old lady lay on her deathbed, trying to play matchmaker? “Are you suggesting I date your great-nephew? The passel won’t accept such a thing! Remember what happened to the fox shifters when their leader chose a male mate.”
Back in the sixties a handful of independent foxes had shown up seeking protection and guidance to form their own skulk. Their ranks swelled, close to fifty now, but without Irene’s intervention, a battle for command of the skulk a few years ago might have raged out of control.
“Ah, but the old Reynard wasn’t strong enough to retain power. Andy Coleman is much better suited for the job.”
Dustin’s stomach churned, as it always did when someone reminded him of the skulk’s current Reynard, and what Dustin had personally given up to secure Andy’s leadership. The vixen Andy had married to appease his people was expecting twins, due in late fall.
“You could always do as leaders have in the past,” Irene murmured. “Name Monica your official mate and keep a male lover. If he doesn’t interfere with passel politics, they’d accept such an arrangement. Plus, Seth’s a McDaniel. They have to respect the name.”
The mere thought soured Dustin’s stomach. “Such an arrangement wouldn’t be fair to me, him, or Monica.”
“Ah!” The lady smiled, the uplifting of her mouth easing pain lines from her face. “You admit there is someone?”
“Not anymore,” Dustin murmured.
Irene ran her knotted fingers gently against Dustin’s cheek. “You still miss your Reynard.”
No use denying. “Yes, ma’am.”
“He chose tradition, took a vixen for his mate. It wasn’t personal, and he still thinks highly of you.”
Dustin nodded. “We remain friends, nothing more.”
Irene tugged Dustin down to swipe her chapped lips against his cheek and whisper, “You deserve better.”
Picturing Andy and his missus, laughing, happy, and planning the arrival of their twins, Dustin closed his eyes, willing the residual hurt from his mind and heart. “Yes, I do.”
Dustin stayed at Irene’s bedside until the sun began to set. He didn’t need to see the moon edging over the rim of the world—lunar power pulsed deep within him. Irene’s widened eyes and her fingertips scrabbling against Dustin’s face told him she sensed the moonrise too.
“One more time,” she whispered. “Help me!”
Having seen her naked on most full moons, and being her doctor, Dustin didn’t hesitate to help the elderly lady disrobe. The coroner, on the other hand, suddenly found the drapes of great interest.
“I have to go,” Dustin said, slipping off his jeans and T-shirt. He wore nothing underneath. The less clothes the better. The passel had no problems with public nudity.
“Dusty! You better get out here!” Monica shrieked from outside the door.
Torn between his duty to the passel and the need to be with his leader when she breathed her last, Dustin hesitated.
Irene relieved him of a tough decision. “You go on. In a few moments, they’ll need you more than I.”
“I’ll be with her,” Ralph said, stepping up to the bed.
Pressing his lips to Irene’s forehead, Dustin replied, “Until we meet again, my Jill.”
A transformation that years of med school couldn’t explain rippled through Dustin’s body, shortening his limbs, elongating his snout, multiplying his teeth, and judiciously applying a tail. He squeaked and scurried off, grateful to Monica for pulling the door ajar while she still possessed human hands.
Outside the door pandemonium reigned, furry bodies scampering around Irene’s kitchen, devouring any food in sight. Two fat, gray possums scuffled over an olive. Dustin ordered, “Follow me,” and barreled through the hole in the wall, sidestepping a puddle of water from the leaky water heater. He blazed a trail outside, where the passel would engage their beastly sides until dawn. “June bugs beware!” Dustin chirped, wading into a moveable, or rather, moving, feast.
From sundown to sunrise, Dustin reveled in his animal nature, keeping a cautious eye out for others of his kind. Unseen, nonshifting guards hovered around the perimeter, alert for predators.
The sixteen-year-old Johnson boys, the passel’s newest full-fledged members, had shifted for the first time six months prior. They’d proudly visited Dustin’s office to show off their recently learned ability to shift at will. Dustin only hoped he wouldn’t be called to the county high school anymore to explain when one accidently lost control in gym class. He’d done a heck of a lot of lying to the other students to convince them the three brothers had merely played a prank, and Eddy Johnson hadn’t actually turned into an animal during a volleyball game. A bit of fast-talking and a little smoke and mirrors involving the football team’s mascot, Petey the Possum, had effectively covered the trio’s shenanigans—for the time being.
One other needed watching over too, and Dustin moseyed over to the spot where he’d sensed a relatively new member snuffling around in the grass. One night a pretty young bride, wanting to share everything with her new husband, had said, “Bite me,” a phrase with a literal meaning in Possum Kingdom.
Those not born with the Channing-Frost virus—colloquially referred to as the changeling virus—in their blood were prone to more animalistic instincts, resulting in unfortunate accidents like the one involving Seth’s mother. Without her human knowledge, she’d merely stood in the middle of the road, mesmerized by a car’s headlights. Seth’s father had raced back to save her, too late. Both died in possum form. Empty caskets lay buried in the First Baptist Church of Possum Kingdom’s cemetery, a proper burial held to appease Seth’s “Yankee” grandmother. As an added precaution against history repeating itself, Dustin had put this bride to work in his practice as his receptionist, maintaining an ever-watchful eye.
Not for the first time, Dustin wondered where Seth was, what he was doing, and hoped he was happy doing it.
Daylight came and Dustin straggled back to the house. He crept naked into Irene’s bedroom and slipped on his jeans.
Ralph sat beside the bed in a brocaded chair, eyes red from a combination of tears and lack of sleep. He stroked a still, furry body on the bed. “She went quickly,” he said. “Without pain.”
A stack of forms lay on the dresser, and Dustin, heart heavy, signed on the appropriate lines, making Irene’s death official before shoving the documents back into the envelope and handing them to Ralph.
“Would you like to come with me?” Dustin scooped up the tiny body, hugging his beloved leader’s remains to his chest and lightly stroking an ear. A single tear slipped down his nose, splashing against her fur.
“Yes, please.”
Together the two men stepped out into an early summer day. Men and women in varying degrees of nakedness fell in stride beside them. Dustin’s steps slowed as he trudged toward his destination, a small pond situated on the back of Irene’s property. Beneath a pin oak, he placed the body into a prepared hole and then paused to take a deep breath. While her second-in-command had every right to tend her body, the moment Dustin lifted the waiting shovel and tossed the first bit of earth into the hole, he announced his intention to provide a successor for Irene, either by choo
sing a viable candidate or assuming the role himself. He heard a few murmurs from various passel members, some favorable, some not, but chose to ignore them for the time being.
After flinging in the ceremonial shovel full of dirt, he relinquished the tool to Monica, who vouchsafed him by adding her own contribution to Irene’s burial.
The elders stepped up, one by one, saying their good-byes. After each member of the passel had spoken their piece and tossed in dirt, they drifted away, leaving only Dustin, Monica, and the coroner. Dustin placed a stone marker over the grave, to keep other creatures from digging up the remains, and then stood, brushing his hands on his jeans.
A light breeze cooled his sweaty brow and he gazed down at the new grave, kept company by several others. Though gravestones in a cemetery in town bore the names of Seth’s parents, their actual bodies rested here, along with Irene’s brother and his wife, Irene’s father and mother, and an uncle. Dustin had paid for a marker for Irene in town, in keeping with tradition, to preserve shifter ways from the blissfully ignorant.
“It’s peaceful here,” Monica murmured.
“The family chose this spot for a reason,” Dustin replied.
“What do you suppose will happen if Irene’s great-nephew inherits and sells the farm? What will happen to her and the rest buried here?”
“I reckon I’ll have to buy the place.” He’d go in debt up to his eyeballs to keep Irene’s heritage from falling into the wrong hands.
Dustin, Monica, and Ralph stood over the grave, each lost in their own thoughts, sniffles and the occasional sob marking their shared mourning.
Picking his way through tall grass back to his truck, Dustin spotted one of the Johnson boys. “Hey,” he said. “How about you and your brothers clean up Irene’s house before her nephew arrives?”
“Sure,” the boy said. “Let me go find ’em.”
Chapter 2
“Must I wear this hideous sack of a dress? I look fat!” A string bean of a woman stood in front of a green screen in Seth McDaniel’s studio. No way in hell could anything make the chiffon-swathed waif look anything but underfed. As Seth’s Aunt Irene used to say, “Someone give that poor child a biscuit.”
“Jut your hip out a little more, and remember, smile!”
The spoiled rotten brat of a model sneered.
Seth used a threat he’d often employed in the past. “Do you want to make the cover, or wind up buried on page thirty next to an ad for adult diapers?” The model’s overbleached teeth made a strained appearance. “Much better. Now, a bit more to the right….” Seth clicked off a series of shots, weighing the time spent playing nursemaid against money earned for the magazine spread and wishing he’d never taken the assignment.
When a friend first suggested the shoot, photographing high fashion seemed a great way to get his name out to the right people, possibly help him graduate from weddings and bar mitzvahs and take a step up to more serious work. Besides, the friend hadn’t specified male or female models, allowing Seth to indulge in many happy fantasies before the first arrived, tapping high-heeled stilettos and screeching demands. Each model he’d worked with had complained bitterly about everything from his studio being two degrees too chilly to him not supplying a diva’s favorite chocolates. After he’d special-ordered the expensive treats for the next day, his diva du jour spotted the distinctive satin-bowed box and squawked, “What are you trying to do, make me fat?”
He’d bitten his tongue, dreams of advancement reduced to simply hoping his business survived the women’s scathing complaints. In contrast to diva tantrums, providing photographic evidence of bar mitzvahs seemed like a dream job.
Once he’d shot enough pictures to hopefully prevent ever having to deal with the woman again, he dismissed her, poured himself two fingers of tequila, and sank into his favorite chair, grabbing his phone.
For the entire shoot, the damned thing had chirped and vibrated, making Seth antsy to connect with the outside world. He’d received several texts, mostly message board entries, e-mail notifications, and a few hits from the social media sites he belonged to—idle chitchat, nothing directly for him. He’d also received two phone calls: one from a number he didn’t recognize, the other from a number he did.
Hitting redial, he prepared for the latest installment of “The Michael and Seth Show,” as he privately called their sporadic relationship; a pattern of on-again-off-again dating with more twists and turns than the Tour de France. A month had passed since they’d even spoken. Seth’s erstwhile love interest picked up on the first ring. “Hey, Seth. How’s it going?” Michael’s voice didn’t quite offer the welcome Seth hoped for.
Seth took a deep breath, trying not to appear overeager. After all, Michael had broken up with him, not the other way around. “Good. How’re things with you?”
“Better than good, actually. Listen, I have something I’d like to talk to you about. Are you free for dinner?”
A shared dinner sounded promising. “Sure, what do you have in mind?”
“Pick whatever you’re in the mood for.”
“I’ve got the perfect place in mind,” Seth replied, determined to keep an open mind and hear the man out. “I’ll text you after I make reservations.”
“Okay. Any place you choose will be fine.”
“You’ll like this place, I promise.” Seth hung up the phone, already planning to change his All About Me status from “single” back to “it’s complicated.”
Seth banged on the strings of his air guitar, belting his heart out with the AC/DC tune firing from his stereo speakers.
Rap, rap, rap, came from the wall in his living room. “Okay, okay, I’m turning it down!” he hollered, crossing the floor to reduce the window-rattling volume.
His favorite playlist now barely audible, he boogied his way into the kitchen in socked feet, grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator, and downed the contents in one go. “Ahhh…,” he exclaimed, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. He tossed the empty bottle in the general direction of the recycling bin, missing completely.
He shimmied into the bedroom and entered his seldom used closet in search of a button-down shirt, totally at odds with his normal attire of band T’s and blue jeans. Tonight was a special night, and he’d even taken extra time showering and shaving, hoping Michael might appreciate his efforts.
He paired a light-blue dress shirt with dark-blue slacks, then slid his feet into a pair of loafers to complete the outfit. Next, he picked his way over piles of laundry, both dirty and clean, a discarded paperback, and four pairs of shoes on his way to the bathroom mirror for a cursory inspection. His normally straight and cooperative short brown hair stuck up at odd angles. Seth wet his hands in the sink, attempting to rearrange the mess to acceptable levels. He pulled back his lips and performed a “teeth and nose” check, or rather, in his case, a “teeth and beak” check. Both passed muster.
A splash of cologne and then Seth darted across town, parked two blocks away, and trotted to the front door of Swanky’s—a place he’d normally consider out of his price range. Michael arrived by cab a scant moment later. “Perfect timing.” Michael pulled Seth into a somewhat stiff hug. “Let’s go in, shall we? I’m starving!” He held the door open for Seth. “I’ve missed you,” he said, voice dropping to a murmur. “I’m glad you agreed to see me tonight.” The unique combination of familiar soap, shampoo, and cologne scent brought back memories of past sleepovers.
The maître d’ tilted his head to the side, regarding Seth with interest. “Do you have a reservation?”
Seth shook the man’s hand, passing over the tip he’d promised for securing a reservation on such short notice. “McDaniel. Table for two.”
“Right this way, gentlemen,” the man said after taking a discreet glance at Seth’s payment. He led the way to a table at the rear of the restaurant, snapping his fingers at a passing waiter.
Michael muttered something to the waiter too low for Seth to decipher no matter how har
d he listened. The waiter shuffled off. “I ordered us a bottle of wine,” Michael replied to Seth’s raised-brow query.
“Is this a special occasion?” Seth scrolled through his mental appointment calendar, hoping he hadn’t somehow missed a birthday. Nope, they’d celebrated Michael’s birthday in March, three months ago, the last time they’d been out on an actual date. Maybe Michael intended to come back for good. A flush crept up Seth’s cheeks. Maybe he should have cleaned up his apartment a bit.
“Maybe.” A smug smile played around Michael’s full lips.
Seth loved Michael’s smile; it certainly boded well for later. “What’re you going to order?” Seth stared at the handsome man seated across from him.
The waiter approached with a bottle of wine. “Sir,” he said, holding out the bottle for inspection. Seth glanced up, nearly swallowing his tongue when he noticed the vintage. He wasn’t well versed in wine, but any bottle bearing such a fancy label had to cost well over a hundred bucks. What could be special about this evening?
They sipped wine and studied their menus over a plate of crudités. “How have you been?” Michael asked.
“I’ve been okay, I guess. It’s been awhile. What’ve you been up to?”
The waiter returned and Michael placed his order. “I’ll have the veal scaloppini with braised asparagus and artichokes, and a baby field green salad with raspberry vinaigrette. Hold the olives.”
That was one thing Seth liked about Michael—except for their now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t love affair, he always seemed to know exactly what he wanted, even if those wants changed rapidly and without notice.
Throwing caution to the wind, Seth pinched the extra inch around his middle. He could always put in extra time at the gym tomorrow. “I’ll have the same.”
They enjoyed pleasant small talk over dinner. Michael showed pictures of his sister’s new baby, and Seth shared a few anecdotes from his model shoots.