"Unless you have a problem with Louie being furry once a month, yeah they're mundane."
She frowned, and dragged her coffee cup back toward her. "Not really, I mean I've seen the whole show, and I don't do animals. He's okay with that, because most nonshifters draw the line at doing their significant others in animal form. You know it can be transferred via sex in animal form, if the sex is rough and you get some fluid in an abrasion." She said it like a lecture, or a warning, without thinking about it.
"I did know that."
"Oh, sorry, you're the preternatural expert, not me." Again, that trace of bitterness. When had she first gotten mad at me? How far back did it go?
"No, really, Ronnie, it's good to share information when you know someone else is dating the lunarly challenged."
She looked up then. "Did you just say 'lunarly challenged'?"
I nodded. "The latest PC phrase."
"Since when have you been PC?"
"Since I heard the phrase and thought it was funny as hell." I was still leaning against the cabinet, because there was way more anger in her toward me than I understood. The vampire thing I could sort of understand, but her problems with me letting men into my life, that seemed harder to work around.
"Lunarly challenged, I'll have to tell Louie. He'll get a kick out of it." The moment she said it, her face fell, and the weight of it all came crashing down on her. "Oh, shit, Anita, what am I going to do?"
"I don't know." I came back to sit at the table and patted her hand. If it had been Catherine, she'd probably be clinging to me for support, but Ronnie had my issues on closeness, so we didn't hug as much. Alright, Ronnie had my old issues on closeness, except about sex. I'd never understood why if you don't want someone hugging you for comfort that you'd be okay with fucking them, but that was just me.
"I don't want him just gone from my life, but I'm not ready to get married. I may never be ready to get married." She looked at me, and there was such anguish in her eyes. "He wants children. He said, one of the reasons he's happy that I'm not a shapeshifter is so we could have children. Anita, I don't want children."
I squeezed her hand and didn't know what to say.
"I'm a private detective, and I'm thirty. If we got married we'd have to start thinking about kids right away. I'm not ready."
"Do you want kids, ever?" I asked.
She shook her head. "I grew out of wanting two kids and a white picket fence about five years ago. I don't think I ever really wanted it, but it's what you're supposed to want, you know."
"I know."
She looked at me with her serious, sad eyes and asked, "Do you want kids?"
"No," I said, "my life doesn't have that kind of room."
"No, if you had a different job, would you want to be a mother?"
"Once upon a time I thought I'd get married and have a kid or two, but that was before."
"Before what, Jean-Claude?"
"No, before I became a vampire executioner, and a federal marshal. Before I realized that I'm probably never going to get married. My life works for me right now, but it wouldn't work for a child."
"Why, because you don't have a husband?"
"No, because people try to kill me on a semiregular basis."
"Speaking of violence, what happened to your door?" she asked.
"Gregory broke it down because I wasn't answering the phone and he heard screams."
"Why did he hear screams?"
"Without mentioning vampires, I can't tell you the story."
She sighed. "I thought Jean-Claude was a passing thing, your one big fling. You know, he's the bad guy that you have this great sex with, then you wise up and move on." She looked at me, and she really looked at me, searching my face. "He's not a fling for you, is he?"
"No," I said.
She took in a lot of air, then let it out slowly. "I'm not saying I want or could handle all the details, but tell me enough so I know what happened to your door."
Even edited down, the story took a while. We were just past the point where Richard dumped me royally, when Nathaniel and Gregory came into the room.
Ronnie had her face all set for massive sympathy, and was actually reaching out to offer a hug, when she saw them. Her face froze, and her arms just stopped moving, as if she was suddenly a statue in that kid's game.
Nathaniel was nearly naked, wearing only a leather thong and a whole bunch of straps across his upper body. So many straps that for a moment it gave the illusion that he was bound in some way. He padded into the room, looking totally comfortable in his nearly nothing bondage gear. That might have been what stopped Ronnie in her tracks, or then again, it might have been Gregory. He was still in leopardman form, and still totally nude. He wasn't happy to be nude anymore, but he was still naked except for his very natural fur coat.
From the look on her face, I wasn't sure Ronnie had really seen that much of Louie in ratman form, or if she had, he'd been more discrete than Gregory was being. He had three straps in his clawed hands and was looking at the rivet on the end of one of them as he glided through the door.
"Hi, Ronnie," Nathaniel said, as if she wasn't staring at him open-mouthed. "Anita, have you seen my punch?"
"Your what? "I asked.
"It's a punch for reattaching leather rivets. I forgot that two of the straps came loose last time I wore this."
"I don't even know what a leather punch looks like," I said. I sipped coffee and watched both the men, and Ronnie's face. She was trying to recover her cool, but the effort was visible and near painful to watch.
"Sort of like a big stapler, with one of those round things on the top." He knelt down to open up the tool drawer. This flashed the back of his body to us, and there was a lot of back to flash. The thin black stripe that was all that covered his ass didn't exactly cover anything as much as it emphasized what was there.
If I hadn't had Ronnie's reaction to watch, I'd have been more distracted myself, but I was enjoying her total failure to hide what she was thinking. There'd been a time when Ronnie had been the more sophisticated of the two of us, and I'd been the one who blushed all the time. She wasn't blushing, she'd actually paled, but the shoe was very firmly on the other foot. She hadn't been around much, so she hadn't seen Nathaniel in maybe six months. Her reaction told me that it wasn't just me who'd noticed the shoulders and the extra muscle development. To someone who hadn't seen him in half a year, the changes must have been even more impressive.
"What makes you think a piece of sewing equipment would be in the kitchen?" I asked, and my voice held that first hint of amusement that I was trying to hide from Ronnie. It was kind of nice not to be the one who was embarrassed for a change.
Nathaniel moved from drawer to drawer, talking without turning around, his hair still up in its high, springy ponytail. "Zane borrowed it to fix his leather jacket and never put it back. You know how Zane is, he doesn't think. He's got to stop borrowing my stuff, if he can't put things back where they belong."
Zane was one of my wereleopards, and he tried to play dominant, but he really wasn't. And Nathaniel was right, Zane never seemed to put anything back where it was supposed to go. "I don't think you'll ever teach him to put things back," I said.
"You could wear it without these three straps," Gregory said. "Most people wouldn't notice." He touched one of the straps on Nathaniel's back, gave it a little flick. "I mean there must be over a dozen of them."
"I'll notice," Nathaniel said, and he kept opening drawers. "If you were Zane, where would you put a punch?" I think he was asking it of no one in particular.
Ronnie had managed to stop gaping. She'd closed her mouth and was trying to look like it was no big deal that two nudish wereleopards were wandering around my kitchen. She watched them covertly out of the corners of her eyes. I don't know if it was because she was embarrassed or because I'd called one of them my boyfriend. Girlfriend rule number one, you don't lust after your best bud's boyfriend.
I got up to help them lo
ok. Nathaniel had said it looked like a stapler. Even I could recognize a stapler, so I started opening drawers, too.
Nathaniel found it in the drawer that was supposed to hold only big spoons and oversized Cookware. "Why here?" he asked.
"It does look like a really big stapler, maybe that's why." I offered it up as the best idea I had.
Nathaniel was shaking his head, making his hair dance around his shoulders, in a way it never did except in that very high, tight ponytail. "Whatever the reason, he is not allowed in my stuff anymore."
"Sounds fair," I said. I was looking at all the straps. "You look pretty secured into that outfit, how do you strip out of it?"
He smiled at me. "Are you trying to get me out of my clothes?" He made it sound like teasing, but underneath was something that wasn't teasing at all. I wished I hadn't said it, because he wanted me to want him so badly. I didn't know how this game worked, and I'd never been good at flirting, not really.
I ended up blushing, which I hated. "No," I said, and it sounded whiny even to me.
He could have said a half-dozen things that would have made it worse, but he had mercy on me. "You get it off the same way you get it on." He slid his left arm through the front of all those straps, then raised his arm up his chest, along side his neck, and did something with his shoulder that I couldn't see from where I was standing. The straps just peeled down, and suddenly he was nude from the waist up, with the straps hanging around him like the petals of a black leather flower. "The straps come off completely, but it takes time to reattach them, so you'll have to come tonight if you want to see the whole show." He smiled gently, to take some of the sting out of my embarrassment. I wasn't sure why I was embarrassed, unless it was because Ronnie was there, or I was worried about having to come across soon. Who knew, pick one.
"Your shoulder," Ronnie said, in a strained voice, "didn't that hurt what you did to your shoulder?"
He shook his head, sending all that shining auburn hair flying. "No, I'm double-jointed."
Ronnie was having trouble with her face, like the expression that was wanting to come there wasn't one she was willing to have. "How double-jointed are you?"
"Ronnie," I said.
She shrugged and gave me a look like, Sue me, I couldn't help it. "Well, you won't tell me. You just told me today that he's moved from food to boyfriend."
"Ronnie," I said again, a little more urgently.
She made a face. "Sorry, sorry, I'm not myself today. I'm babbling more, like you usually do."
"Oh, thanks a lot," I said.
"You do babble when you're nervous or horny," Gregory said.
"Stop helping me, Gregory."
He shrugged, which looked odd on the leopardman shoulders, not bad, just odd. "Sorry."
"Do you want me to answer her question?" Nathaniel asked, in a careful voice.
"Answer the question, don't answer the question, I don't care."
He cocked his head to one side, the expression on his face clearly said that he knew that wasn't true. He was right, I'd have preferred him to not answer the question. He'd given me the opportunity to be his master and tell him not to answer, but I'd blown it. I'd abdicated the throne he seemed to want me to take, and if you're not in charge, you can't control what happens.
He walked over toward Ronnie, and he made sure he swayed that luscious ass at me as he moved. Sometimes I wondered if Nathaniel knew how beautiful he was, then he'd do something that let me know he knew exactly what he looked like. Like now.
Heat crept up my face just watching him walk, and I finally decided why the embarrassment. I'd promised to mark him, but what he wanted was intercourse, and watching him move across the room like an ad for a wet dream made me all squirmy and uncomfortable, like being a teenager again and having "those feelings" for the first time, and having no one to talk to about them, because good girls weren't supposed to have feelings like that.
He flicked his head and sent all that hair spilling over Ronnie, and away, like a curtain that she'd walked through, except she was sitting still. It looked as if he'd slapped her instead of teased. He stood up very straight, very tall, beside her chair and clasped his hands behind his back. "To answer your question, I," he began to raise his arms backward, "am," his arms went to the middle of his back, and kept on moving upward, "very," until his straining clasped fingers were even with his shoulder blades, "very," his arms rotated all the way up so they pointed at the ceiling, "double-jointed." Then he slowly put his arms back down, but it wasn't Ronnie he was looking at when he finished.
I didn't blush, I paled. I felt trapped. Trapped by what? That was the ten-thousand-dollar question. Even to myself, I wasn't sure I had an answer.
They left to repair Nathaniel's costume. The silence in the kitchen after they left was deep, long, and uncomfortable. At least for me. I didn't look at Ronnie, because I was trying to think of something to say. I shouldn't have worried, she found just the right thing to say. "Damn, Anita, I mean, damn. "
I did look at her then. "What's that supposed to mean?" My voice was a little shaky to come off as indignation, but it was worth the effort.
Ronnie had a look in her eyes that I didn't like. It was way too discerning. We'd been best friends for years, just because we'd drifted apart didn't mean she still couldn't read me. "You haven't had sex with him yet." She sounded sure, and amazed.
"What makes you say that?"
"Oh, come, Anita, you're never quite this uncomfortable once that bridge has been crossed. For you, intercourse is permission to have a relationship, until that happens, you never really relax around them."
I was blushing again, arms crossed over my stomach, leaning against the island, using my hair to try to hide the blush, and failing. "So you've always known every time I made love to someone?"
"Most of the time, yeah, except with Jean-Claude. He messed up your radar and mine."
I glanced up then. "How so?"
"You stayed uncomfortable around him even after the two of you were having sex together. I think it's one of the reasons I didn't like him. I guess I thought if you were that conflicted, then it wouldn't last."
I shrugged. "I don't remember being uncomfortable around him afterward."
She just looked at me.
I had the decency to squirm. "Okay, maybe I was. But it's not true that I stop being uncomfortable after having sex just once. It takes a few sessions, a little 'monotonous monogamy' for me to truly relax."
She smiled. "Point taken. The best sex is after you've learned a few things about each other." She looked at me, very serious again. "You really haven't had sex with him, have you?"
I shook my head.
"Why not?" she asked.
I looked at her.
"Anita, after the little show he just put on, I'd do him."
I looked at her harder.
"You say he's been sleeping in your bed, with you and Micah, right?"
I nodded.
"For how long?"
"About four months," I said.
"Four months of climbing between your sheets, and you haven't fucked him?"
"Pick a different word, okay? If we're going to have this talk, pick a different word."
"Sorry, okay, you haven't made love to him, that better?"
I nodded.
"Why haven't you made love to him? He obviously wants you to."
I shrugged.
"No, I want an answer on this one. Has Jean-Claude decided to draw the line at sharing you with this many men?"
"No," I said.
"Micah has a problem with it?"
"No."
"Then why not?"
I sighed. "Because when I first let Nathaniel move in, he was like a wounded puppy, something to take care of and help heal. He was so submissive that he wanted someone to run his life and order him around. I've got enough to do to run my own life, so I sort of demanded he change, become more independent. He did it, he's doing really well."
"He's a lot more con
fident than the last time I saw him," Ronnie said. "I mean he's almost like a different person."
I shook my head. "He's a stripper, he has to have a certain level of confidence in himself."
She shook her head. "Nope, had a roommate in college that stripped her way through school on the weekends. She had a terrible self-image."
"Then why did she strip?"
"It made her feel like someone wanted her. Her childhood makes yours and mine read like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. "
"Ouch," I said.
"Yeah, stripping made her feel good and bad all at the same time."
"What happened to her?" I asked.
"She graduated, found a job, found religion, and is now married with two kids and an attitude so holy that you can't have a conversation with her without her trying to convert you."
"They say that no one is as holy as a reformed sinner."
"Stripping isn't a sin, Anita. Being naked isn't a sin, it's the way God sends us into the world, how bad can it be?"
I shrugged.
"Sex isn't a sin either, Anita."
"Intellectually I know that, Ronnie, but part of me just can't shake my grandmother's voice. Sex was evil, men that wanted to touch you were evil, your body was dirty. It was all bad, and the nuns didn't help change that attitude."
"I guess once a Catholic always a Catholic," she said.
I sighed. "I guess." Truthfully, I thought a lot of the damage had been my grandmother's doing, and my stepmother, Judith, who made every touch some sort of favor. Physical touch was not a big thing in my family after my mother died.
"You feel guilty about Nathaniel, why?"
"I'm supposed to take care of him, Ronnie, not screw him."
"Anita, you can take care of someone and still have sex with them, married couples do it every day."
I sighed again. "I don't know why he weirds me out, but he does."
"You want him."
I covered my face with my hands and almost yelled, "Yes, yes, I want him." And just saying it out loud like that made me cringe inside. "He started life with me on the I'll-take-care-of-him list, not the future boyfriend list."
"Don't you and your boyfriends take care of each other?"
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