by Sam Hall
“It doesn’t make me feel uncomfortable. They aren’t hovering over me, hemming me in, or being overprotective. Rather, it’s like they…just see me, and what I need, when I need it. And they seem so bloody happy to do it, as if they like caring for me.”
“And that’s the sickening part?”
“It’s not sickening.” My eyes dropped, and I worked my thumbnail into a seam of the chair I was sitting in. “It just puts me on edge.” I looked up now, able to meet her steady gaze without effort. “I just keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. Rick was sweet at first, bringing me flowers, taking me for lunch on my breaks. If Peter… If they…” There it was again, that cold hard sensation where it felt like my breath froze in my lungs. “I can’t…” My voice was little other than a squeak amongst the deafening rattle of my heart in my chest. “If they choose to hurt us, they’ll kill us, and I won’t be able to stop them.”
The roar that came from me was earth shaking, filling the room to every corner. I was out of my chair, pacing, feeling my body coil like a steel spring, ready to leap into action. I watched in horror as my fingers contorted, long talons starting to protrude.
“That’s enough now.” Ophelia stood before me, her eyes glowing phosphorescent green. Her voice was calm and even, but still, I could feel the power throbbing within it. “You’re showing Flick that you’ll protect her. That is good, but you’re scaring her right now. She needs time to adjust before her shift. Do not bring on her first heat. Not yet.”
It felt like a tide inside me receded, pulling whatever that had been back deep down, until I was all that remained. I blinked and looked around the room, feeling hollow and light, and then burst into tears.
Ophelia sighed and then pulled me into her arms, holding me as I sobbed.
I cried because I had no choice, and I cried because I did. I cried because it was all so bloody confusing. If I hadn’t been shovelling the emotional fallout of Rick’s attack, I’d still be struggling with this strange new world, and right now, it was another burden. Yet I cried because the burdens I’d been so used to carrying had been taken away from me. I cried because I’d never been allowed to, because I could right now with impunity, and because the door opened and Peter rushed in and wrapped me up in his arms. I cried because I wanted to abandon myself completely to his monolithic strength, to grow around him like a vine on a tree.
But I’d never let myself. I needed to be my own tree.
12
We settled into a bit of a groove after that.
Peter and Aidan moved in, bringing more and more belongings over, until there was nothing more to bring. We didn’t mark it in any way, but they lived here now, in our quiet house. We all slept together in my bed, though Kade had begun to slip out and sleep back in his own after the nightmares stopped. We lived in a serene bubble of endless movies on the TV, lying curled around each other on the couch, always a steaming cup of tea on the coffee table, just resting, healing, waiting.
The first morning I’d woken to find myself in bed with two attractive men had been a difficult one. I’d stretched sleepily, clad only in one of Peter’s shirts again, before opening my eyes to see Aidan—not Kade—watching me. He didn’t move, didn’t say anything, but those hazel eyes studied my face, then skimmed down over every part of my body that was revealed by tossing off the covers during the night. But his eyes returned to mine, searching for signs I was OK, I was willing to bet. They did it a lot when they thought I wasn’t looking, touching base with each other with some kind of secret guy language.
I stared back, which was better than letting my eyes wander. The guys were wearing less and less to bed lately, stripping down to what felt like the flimsiest of sleep shorts. They weren’t really, but the stretchy grey material—that I’d seen many women on social media call male lingerie—clung to both their muscular forms.
Not that I looked. Whatever a pack was, we had it going on in here, with Kade at the centre of it. I made sure to keep my eyes above the waist at all times.
But Kade wasn’t here right now.
Aidan smiled, slow and lazy, the sleepiness not entirely gone from his eyes, his breath coming in long and even, almost as if he breathed me in. His hand slid across the bed, stopping well short of touching me, but the offer was clear. Then I heard the groan.
My eyes went wide when a hand went around my waist, flattening against my stomach, and Aidan’s eyes followed its progress. They went even wider when I felt lips against my neck, a strangled gasp fighting its way out of me. Aidan’s head jerked up, and he rolled into a seated position, ready to intervene, but my hand slid out and grabbed his.
“Experiment and play, Flick,” Ophelia had said at one of our sessions. “You are entirely safe. Consent is queen in Sanctuary. All boys and men are taught no means no from a very young age. Both of them would be delighted to let you explore things a little, I’m sure. What do you have to lose?”
“But what if they—”
I stopped, all of a sudden feeling awkward talking about sex with someone who could have been my grandmother.
“Get hard? Want to have sex? That’s their responsibility, isn’t it? If they feel out of control or uncomfortable, they’ll withdraw. Consent is for men as much as it is for women. If you don’t want to have sex, don’t. If you don’t want to touch them, don’t. But I think you do.”
Those merciless grey eyes cut straight through me, through all my excuses and explanations, until there was just me.
Aidan cradled my hand between both of his, nodding his encouragement as a sleeping Peter grew bolder. If you’d asked me if one hot guy would egg me on in responding to another hot guy before I came here, I’d have thought you were on crack, yet here I was. His eyes shone with a curious mix of lust and compassion as Peter thrust something weighty and hard against my butt, his hand pushing me back to meet him. And I wanted him too—that was the shocking part. His sandalwood scent filled my nose, drowned me within it, until my eyes closed and I just felt. The kisses grew into sharper, nipping things, something that had the burning venom filling my mouth. His hand slid down, nestling so close to where I needed him to be, making me ache that much harder.
This was a beautiful, hard, clean thing. It was so different to my other sexual experiences as to be almost something else entirely. I wasn’t nervous or worried, thinking about all of the flaws in my body while trying to ignore his. It wasn’t a brutal act of dominance, to hold me down and insert himself in me, or just plain, banal, loveless exchanges of fluids. Had I ever wanted it this much? Had my body ever responded so completely and enthusiastically? I just wanted Peter’s fingers on my clit and Aidan’s mouth on my lips and then one of them to peel down their shorts and—
“Mum! Aidan?”
Peter jolted awake with a snort, my own eyes flicking open to see Aidan’s gone hazy with need. He moved his arm quickly to hide his straining hard-on, but I caught sight of it. I cocked an eyebrow, something that had him grinning again. Peter, however, wasn’t so pleased.
“Oh shit, Flick!” he mumbled, wrenching his hands, then his body away as if stung. He scrambled off the bed, jamming on a pair of jeans. I rolled over on my back, only remembering to push the hem of his shirt down when he paused, his eyes sliding up my bare legs.
“Mum?”
“I’ll go,” Peter said abruptly, then he was out the door in the next breath.
I frowned, feeling a pang deep in my chest, but Aidan pulled me towards him, pushing my hair back from my face.
“Don’t overthink it,” he said. “Pete… Let’s just say he has his hang-ups as well.”
“Hang-ups that include running away from me like I was a savage beast, wanting to claw his clothes off?”
“Yup.” He scanned my face, still stroking me. “You know he’s into you. You would have…been able to feel it.”
“Ah, yeah…” My eyes dropped down to his chest.
“We’re all going to have to give it time, even if it feels like it's gonna kill me.�
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“Yeah?”
I glanced up to see him smile. His tongue flicked out to pass over his full bottom lip, and I watched its movement.
“Flick…” he growled, a low sound that felt like it vibrated through my every cell. “I need you to know I really, really want to kiss you.”
I had something flippant to say about that, but it died when I saw what burned in his eyes. All Ophelia’s statements made sense now. Had anyone looked at me with such a need before? Like he could taste me in his mouth before we’d even touched?
I leaned forward on impulse, his eyes heating up as I paused, but he waited, his breath little more than a weak whistle, waiting for me to close the gap. I moved slowly, so slowly I could hear the quiet separation of his lips, the shift of his tongue and then…
The door slammed open.
“Mum! Aidan! You said you were making me pancakes for breakfast, remember? You were going to try to make them look like Yoda or Boba Fett?”
“Right,” I said as Kade draped himself over my shoulder to put his face in mine.
“Pancakes,” Aidan said with only a little resignation. “I couldn’t possibly stuff that up, could I?”
“Don’t you dare!” I replied. “The house still smells from your last experiment.”
He reached over and swiftly dropped a kiss on my forehead, a sensation that burned long after he pulled away.
“First one in the kitchen gets to cook!” he called out, yanking on shorts and making for the door.
Kade and I lay around on the couch, the morning cartoons playing in the background. The guys had gone out for something, but I hadn’t really been paying attention. It was nice, nicer than I would have let on, just having my baby lying along my side, my fingers in his hair.
“Why didn’t you ask Peter to make you pancakes?” I asked as explosions of fast paced action played out on the TV. He looked up at me for a moment, then focussed back on the screen.
“Peter looks after you. Aidan looks after me,” he said, as if it was that simple.
“So you don’t think Peter can look after you as well, or Aidan with me?”
“No, that’s just what they do.”
“But have you ever asked him? Maybe he’s waiting for you to show that you want him to.”
“Hmph.” He shrugged. “I guess. Ophelia said that too.”
He’d been seeing her as well several times a week, and the nightmares had been dropping dramatically. He wasn’t out of the woods yet, but he was improving.
“Mum, Mila and Kiralee said in Sanctuary, I could have more than one dad. Is that true?”
“Well, yes, if I wanted—”
“OK, I’ll ask Peter next time then.”
13
“Alright, Kade, bedtime!” I called out from the kitchen. Days had passed, and Aidan and I were doing the dishes.
“But Muuuum…”
“You can play army men in the morning. Brush your teeth, it’s bedtime.”
“It’s not army men. It’s intergalactic extreme task force—” he said, appearing beside us.
“It’s bedtime, is what it is. Let's go.”
“Fine!” And with that, he stomped off to the bathroom.
“Fine,” I mimicked as I turned back to the sink.
“Um…strong willed kids turn out to be great leaders?” Aidan said with a grin.
“Then he’s going to be the supreme overlord of the world. Are you reading him a book, or am I?”
He flicked his hands to get rid of the suds and sidled up to me, putting his hands around my waist and watching for my reaction. I hoped he could sense the flare of excitement I felt as he did so, but not the fear.
I knew I had nothing to worry about with either of the men, but it always came anyway—the tension. Ophelia and I had talked long and hard about it. She compared it to a phobia. I’d endured severe trauma at another person’s hands, so my body was geared up to expect to be hurt when people touched me. But that wasn’t all of it. She’d been pleased to hear about our little interlude in the morning, seeing that as a breakthrough.
“It proves something I always knew, Flick. Your body is primed to anticipate pain, but also pleasure. Part of it remembers back before Rick, when you took lovers or had relationships. It is a difficult thing to manage, but you have two strong instincts—to move towards and to move away from physical proximity and touch. Tap in to how you’re feeling as we’ve discussed in the past. Don’t get caught up in the thought spirals. Acknowledge and recognise how you feel in the moment. If the overwhelming urge is to move away, then do so. You can use some of those scripts we practised to make this clear to the men, but don’t feel pressured to do so. I have spoken to them about what is required from them to stay in your house. They know the deal.”
I took a deep breath in and then let it out slowly, something that had Aidan smiling encouragingly. I brought my awareness back to the kitchen, to the glare of the lights and the slight crackle of bugs hitting the lights outside. I felt the cool dampness on my hands from the tea towel, the pressure of the bench against my butt. And I felt Aidan.
He smelled kinda woody and citrusy, like clean, washed male. He put one hand next to mine, then the other, slowly closing in on me, until I could feel the line of his body thrumming above mine.
There—a flicker of fear, of anticipation, of excitement, all rolled into one. I wanted to run the fuck away, but also lean into him and take that kiss he’d asked for. Directed by that, my eyes flicked to those lips, the reddish blond beard around them, and watched them part slightly.
Do I want this? I thought. Just a kiss. It doesn’t have to mean anything else. Kade will want us to read him a book, and we’ll have to lie down with him until he sleeps.
I had my out, and somehow, the fact that this would have a limited time before Kade called out made it easier. I didn’t have to worry about later or tonight or whatever. Kade took that away from us. Which allowed desire to roar up, smothering my fears for just a minute, and let me feel. I moved slowly closer, and then, as awkward as a teen, I kissed him.
“Mmph…”
I let out a helpless little moan as soon as our lips touched. It was as if a forgotten part of myself had been let out and she was hungry. My skin felt famished, wanting and needing our bodies touching. I buried my hands in his hair, pulling him closer so his body crushed against mine. Another moan came out when he ground his hips against me, his hands wrapping around me, not super tight, more cradling me, like I was something precious. Our lips opened, our tongues tangling, tasting each other. My Tirian shifted inside me, looking out at this new contender, and she just nodded. My teeth scored his plush bottom lip, sucking it into my mouth, and my fingers scraped his scalp until his moans matched mine.
“Mum? Are you gonna read me a story?”
We jumped apart as if stung, to find a smug little boy standing at the entrance to the kitchen, his favourite book in hand. He looked at me, then Aidan, and smiled in a way that wasn’t entirely childlike.
“I was… We were…” I said lamely.
“Aidan is pack,” Kade said.
And that was that.
“I want to try sleeping in my bed tonight,” he said confidently, though this was followed by a quick flash of fear.
“You don’t have to, Kade,” I said. “It’s a big bed. You’re always welcome to—”
“The nightmares aren’t coming anymore. I’m better now,” he said, his hand going to his throat. “We’re safe here.”
It was a statement and a question both.
“We are, love. If that’s what you want to do, jump into bed, and we’ll come and read you a story, OK?” I replied.
And so we ended up on Kade’s narrower bed, one on either side of him, as we took turns reading him chapters of The Hobbit.
I watched his eyelids drop lower and lower as Aidan read about Gandalf rescuing Bilbo on the back of an eagle. He had the covers pulled up over his shoulders, snuggled down tight, something he liked to do now,
irrespective of the weather. ‘Denning’ was what Ophelia had called it—creating a safe little cocoon to relax in. And he was. I drank in the sight of his body going limp, his complete abandonment to exhaustion, and never wanted to see him any other way again.
I’d heard a lot about a mother’s love before having Kade, but it hadn’t made sense until I’d had him. I wasn’t hit with the tidal wave of maternal affection others had described. I was so anxious and harried by looking after him and not provoking Rick, I’d had little chance to enjoy him. But it snuck up on me, slowly but surely. Kids needed everything from us, and I wanted to give it to him. My focus wasn’t just me—it was him, always him. This distance created by the incident had hurt so freaking badly. I hadn’t realised how much until I had moments like this. When he sought me out and luxuriated in my attention, relaxing into me. I leaned over and pressed my lips to his forehead, pulling back to see his brow crease momentarily.
Aidan stopped, watching my every movement.
“You know I’ll always be there for him,” he whispered.
We just stared at each other for a moment as I saw something I’d never really seen in anyone’s face—a need to keep my son safe. Rick’s parents were the fun grandparents, who took him out when they felt like it and hyped him up on sugar, only to dump a totally dysregulated child off on my doorstep as they carefully looked past any sign of abuse in me. I nodded and then jerked my head at the door, and we tiptoed out.
He caught my hand as we walked down the hall.
“Flick…”
And the fear was back. This was the time that mums and dads spent together, after having put the kids to bed. They sat down on the couch and watched a show, maybe cuddling up, or they… My eyes flicked to the darkened entrance to the room I’d… No, to my room. His eyes softened when I turned around.
“It’s OK, Flick. Nothing’s going to happen unless you want it to.”
“What’s happening?” Peter walked in the front door, surveying the two of us. “Where’s Kade?”