by Jan Stryvant
Shirley woke him that night when she came to bed, and made her interests rather clear to him. They made love languidly and slowly, because he really couldn’t do much more than that physically.
“Janet wanted to spend the night as well, but I told her you needed your rest.” Shirley told him as they cuddled afterwards.
“I notice that didn’t stop you though,” he chuckled softly.
“Yeah well, you have no idea what I went through. Seeing you dying there, that wasn’t easy, Hon.”
Shadow sighed, “I had to go, Hon, you know that.”
“Yeah well, next time I’m going with you.”
Shadow started to protest, “Shirley ....”
“No!” she said and grabbed his ear, the one that wasn’t injured thankfully, “you listen to me, and you listen good, Sean.”
Shadow’s eyes opened, Shirley normally only used his real name when whispering sweet nothings and words of love in his ears these days.
“You are my mate, and if you’re going to go someplace where you might die, you are damn well taking me too! If I’m not there with you, if I’m not doing my damnedest to help you, then I will forever have to live with the thought that I failed you by not being there when you needed me.”
Shadow turned and looked at her, she was crying. He’d never seen her so upset since the time he had saved her. He could feel it though their bond. She needed this, she was right, he had been selfish.
“Okay, Love,” he said and pulled her to him, “If anything like this ever happens again, I’ll bring you with me. I’m sorry, I just wasn’t thinking.”
“No, you weren’t, but that’s a conversation we can save until later.” She said burying her face in his shoulder getting her tears under control. “I took the bad with the good, Sean; I need to be there for you. I know you’d be there for me.”
Shadow held her and didn’t say anything more.
The next two days he did little more than eat and sleep.
Until Circe slid into bed next to him and woke him up.
“Hey there, Loverboy!”
“Circe, what are you doing here?” Shadow asked yawning.
“Doc says I’m healed enough for a little recreational activity,” she said smiling then leaned over to kiss him. “Take it easy though, wouldn’t want to pop a stitch.”
“Circe, this is Shirley’s and my bed. I don’t think she’d appreciate me screwing you in it.”
Circe smiled and grabbed the phone, “Let’s call her and find out?”
“Circe!” Shadow growled.
“Relax, Shadow,” she laughed dialing the phone, “Believe it or not; your wife and I have reached an understanding.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Boy are you in for a surprise! Oh hi, Shirley, would you tell your hubby it’s okay for him to entertain me? Hmm? Oh sure.” Circe handed Shadow the phone and grinned. “She wants to talk to you.”
Shadow took the phone. “Shirley?”
“Hi, Hon, yes you can fuck her. Just change the sheets when you’re done.”
Shadow blinked. “Umm, you sure hon?”
Shirley laughed on the other end of the phone, “Yes, Dear, I’m sure! She’s actually a fairly nice person and interestingly enough, she really does care quite a lot about you.”
Shadow purred, “Love you, Hon.”
“I know. Have fun, and don’t worry about pushing her out before I get home!”
Shadow handed the phone back as Shirley hung up. “Whoa.”
“Whoa? Is that it?”
Shadow grinned, “Come here, you!” and he pulled her against him.
“Whoa!”
“Don’t you two lovebirds just look cute?”
Shadow yawned and stretched looking up at Shirley, “Come here you ....”
“Hmmm?” she was smiling as he pulled her close. “Oh! What about Circe?”
“She can take notes...” he growled.
Apparently Shirley and Circe really had reached an understanding, because after Shadow was finished, they teamed up and really gave him a workout, then they teamed up on Circe, and finally Shirley.
“I don’t think I can walk ...” Shadow said panting, “just what have you two been up to while I’ve been healing?”
“Just talking,” Shirley giggled. Shadow had one curled up on each side of him; it reminded him of his days at the parties, only better.
“From the way you two went after each other, I’d have to question that.” He purred.
“You know I like women, Shadow,” Circe said drowsily, “and you have excellent taste in yours.”
“Hey, after all the times we’ve abused Janet, you think I’d have problems? But this really was the first time, thought I’d wait until you could enjoy it too.” Shirley giggled again.
“I just never would have expected the two of you to get along.”
“This from the poster boy for bad attitude?” Circe chuckled softly.
“Yeah, but my angel here is Miss Squeaky Clean.” Shadow snickered.
“Thbbth!” Shirley said, “You of all people should know I’m almost as kinky as you, Cat! Now shut up and sleep, we got an hour before Janet’s going to call us for dinner.”
“Uh-huh!” Shadow yawned again and fell asleep.
“So really hon, what gives?” Shadow asked Shirley. It was much later and they were by themselves, Circe had gone back home finally with her daughter.
“With what?” she smiled at him sweetly.
Shadow sighed, “With you and Circe. She’s bad, almost evil. You’re anything but, which is part of why I love you. And here the two of you are as comfy as two peas in a pod. Hell, more so, I’ve never seen peas do what you two did!” he laughed as Shirley blushed.
“Well, even you said that she had gotten a lot better since your daughter was born.”
“Better, yes. But ....”
“Well, we had a long talk while you were unconscious.”
“In a coma you mean.”
Shirley looked a little pained, “It wasn’t really a coma, Hon, but anyway, we had a very long talk. I told her flat out that I’d take care of her daughter as if she was my own if anything happened to her. And it just went from there.
“Eventually we got to the point where she confided in me that her life of crime was getting old. Her animals, her foundation, and especially your daughter were more interesting and challenging to her.”
“Her foundation?” Shadow looked surprised.
“She started a foundation to protect animals from abuse, and take care of those rescued from it. Of course she funded it with her ill gotten gains,” Shirley sighed at the last bit. “But the point is, she’s more than ready to retire from her life of crime, at least violent crime and other assorted nastiness.”
“That easily?” Shadow said, the look on his face rather skeptical.
“Well no, of course not. It evolved over several days, and I admit I made a few threats about what you and I would do if she introduced your child to a life of crime, if she got herself sent up for life and wasn’t there to raise her child, if she scared the hell out of the two of us by damn near getting herself killed. That kind of thing.”
“What, you didn’t threaten her over my almost dying?” Shadow looked at her a bit wryly.
Shirley shook her head, “No. I couldn’t do that, I told her that wasn’t her fault. I’d have done it myself if you hadn’t, it was a child, even if it wasn’t yours I don’t think either one of us could have ignored it.”
Shadow nodded, that was definitely true. “But I still find it hard to believe that the two of you seem to be so close already.”
Shirley shrugged, “I’m a woman, you know she’s never had a problem with women, just men. Plus she can’t lie to me, and well,” Shirley blushed, “I flexed my powers a little on her to let her know that I’m not a pushover and not an innocent.”
Shadow laughed! “You didn’t!”
She looked bashful, “I felt guilty about it, but she’s t
he type that needs to see your teeth before she believes you can bite. So once I got her respect, it all just went a lot easier after that.”
“Yeah, I can believe that, it does sound like her.”
Shadow thought about that a bit and then thought about some of the things he hadn’t told Shirley about himself. He had promised to tell her more and it was time he figured to share that part with her. He looked at Shirley and smiled wanly.
“What’s up, Hon?” Shirley returned the look; she knew he had something on his mind.
“I think that maybe the time has come to tell you about my past. I’m just trying to decide who else to tell, as I’m only going to do it once. I think Tomas has a right to know for all the years he’s stood by me. I’m on the fence about Circe.”
“Any others?”
Shadow shook his head, “No. I really don’t want to spread this around; it’s personal and rather private.”
“So why Circe?”
Shadow shrugged, “I don’t know. Maybe because we’re close? Even if it’s been a forced closeness at times? Or maybe because I think it might help her? Let her see others have been through bad things as well and survived it? I know she won’t tell others.”
“Then tell her too. You two do have a long history, and you have put her through a lot, even if she deserved it!” Shirley said with a chuckle.
Shadow nodded, “Oddly enough she’s one of the oldest friends I have here, though it’s been a love hate relationship from the start.” Shadow stretched and yawned, he was tired again, he needed a nap, especially if he was going to tell this story. “I’m going to sleep for a while, if you could ask the two of them over, say four hours from now? You can hear all the sad facts about your mate.”
Shirley smiled and came over to give Shadow a hug. He really had healed up a lot in the last week, but she could tell he was still far from a hundred percent. Of course the work out she and Circe had put him through in the bed probably hadn’t helped much either.
“Sure hon. Get some rest.” Shirley said and watched as Shadow nodded and curled up on the couch and fell immediately asleep. She left him there and went to the kitchen to use the phone there.
“Tomas? Hi. Could you come by around ten? Oh Shadow is going to tell all, and he thought you deserved to be here. Alright, see you then.”
She called Circe next.
“Hi hon, Shadow wanted you to come by at ten. What? No,” Shirley laughed, “but maybe later if you’re good. He’s going to explain a few things about his life and we both thought you were entitled to know. Hmm, yes I thought so. See you then. Oh! Tomas will be here too, so don’t start anything please, okay? Because Shadow thinks he owes him too obviously. Okay, bye!”
Shirley shook her head as she hung up and thought about it, two people from such opposite ends of the spectrum in the same room.
Shadow sat back and took a sip of his drink, they were in the den relaxing, Tomas and Circe had pretty much taken up positions at opposite ends of the room with Shirley sitting in the ‘neutral’ zone in between. Neither seemed uneasy exactly, each seemed to understand that it was best to interact as little as possible with the other. Tomas was his usual cool and collected self, Circe was much more subdued then she normally was, but of late she had been much less brash. That raised Shadow’s hopes for her long-term survival, Circe was important to Shadow, otherwise he would have parted ways with her the first opportunity that had arisen.
“So, I know a lot of people want to know my story, up to this moment I’ve never told another soul any of it. Not even Shirley.” Shadow nodded to his mate. “This is of course private, it’s not for sharing. So if you think you can’t keep it private, I won’t think less of you if you leave.”
Shadow looked at Circe who nodded, and then Tomas.
“There’s a lot of gray area stuff involved, Tomas,” Shadow warned.
“You mean killing, don’t you?”
Shadow nodded.
“Well I’m not a cop, the rules we fly under are a lot different, so there is no legal or even moral requirement for me to tell anyone anything. I’m good.”
Circe looked over at Tomas, “You serious?”
Tomas smiled at her, “Shadow’s not the only Super out there with a shady past. The powers that be understand that. Besides, some people just need killing.”
Shadow got the distinct impression that Circe’s opinion of Tomas was suddenly undergoing some serious reassessment.
“So, now that we have that all cleared up,” Shadow continued, “One last comment: No sympathies, no pity. This is all ancient history and I’m over it. It’s the past, let it lay there.”
They all nodded once more.
“When I was a child of ten, I was kidnapped by a pedophile, and sexually abused for years by him.” Shadow looked at the expressions of shock on all of their faces.
“You see, the way it worked was he had a boy of about twelve then, who he used to lure you in. Once he had picked out his target, he’d take you home and pretty much brainwash you, tell you a story about how your parents had given you to him, how they were unhappy with you, that kind of thing. As a child I was pretty much defenseless against this, so was the older kid who he’d used to catch me.
“Now except for the abuse and the control he wasn’t bad to me, he treated us reasonably well, and made us think we were happy. He encouraged us to believe in our dreams and told us how when we got older we’d be able to do wonderful things because he had powerful friends who would help us achieve our dreams.”
“That sound horrible!” Shirley said rather shaken.
“He does sound like a monster,” Tomas agreed.
Circe just held her silence.
“It was pretty much a classic case like you see in the textbooks,” Shadow said. “I sometimes think all of these guys get their material from the same source. But a child has no defenses against that kind of thing. And so we believed him. And he’d take us to parties and introduce us to his ‘friends’ who would also tell us the same things, and of course we’d get abused by some of them too. But we didn’t know it was wrong. We just thought it was something we had to put up with, because they were the adults.”
Shadow paused and took a drink from his glass.
“One day I came home and Wayne, that was the older kid’s name, was gone. I asked where he was and he, no I won’t name him and no I won’t call him dad or any of the other things he made us call him, he told me Wayne had gone off to school to be a race car driver. Just like he’d promised Wayne would do when he was old enough.”
“How old was Wayne?” Tomas asked softly.
“He’d turned thirteen a few months earlier.”
“You didn’t find that odd?” Circe asked.
Shadow sighed and shook his head, “This is the way things were supposed to be, we served him and some of his friends and once he judged we were good enough children, we’d get to become apprentices to rich and famous people and live our dreams. Wayne wanted to be a racecar driver; I of course wanted to be a big cat trainer. I had been rather taken with the circus trainer after seeing a show once.
“And then I did the one most evil thing of my entire life that I will always regret, even though I was too young and too stupid to know better. I helped him recruit a new child; I helped steal some other kid away from his loving family. Oh I didn’t know any better, but it happened all the same.”
Shadow knocked back half of his drink, enjoying the bite and burn of the rum as it went down his throat. It still bothered him.
“You can’t blame yourself for that, Shadow,” Circe said, “You were only a child.”
“Yes well, so it went. Another year and a half went by and then one day it was my turn, I was the one who was taken off to live his dream as the golden boy for some wealthy person.
“Only that’s not what really happened. You see, the dream was a lie.”
“What do you mean?” Shirley asked looking even more upset.
“Well you see it’s
simple. They like ‘em young, and once a boy hit puberty, well he’s too old. So you have to get rid of him, and you can’t just let him go, he might realize exactly what it is you did to him, and took from him, and turn you all in to the cops.”
“You don’t mean?” Shirley gasped.
“Yes, I do. They killed them. Why do you think with all the missing children we have today, so many of them never turn up as adults? These sick fucks use the child, destroy him or her slowly, and then when they’re too old they kill them. They had killed Wayne and I suddenly realized, they were going to kill me.
“He had told me I’d see Wayne again, I know now he meant I’d see him when I was dead. And he wasn’t going to kill me cleanly either. He got a bunch of his sick friends and they started to torture me, mentally and physically. Get their last jollies and use out of me. But something happened.”
“The Cat,” Tomas said.
“Yes, the Cat. As you all know I refer to the Cat as a separate entity, he’s not really though, the Cat is me and I am the Cat. We’re one being with two different sides, like a coin. I refer to the Cat as a separate entity to make it easier for people to understand that I’m not really human anymore. Anyway, the Cat saved me.
“What happened was under the stress of my impending death, with all of the pain and horror and terror involved, my super power emerged. I suspect I got the form that I did because I used to wear some leopard whiskers that I had found at the zoo on a cord around my neck. And suddenly these four guys had a hurt and very very enraged leopard in their midst.”
Shadow smiled remembering, his fangs baring unconsciously.
“I will savor that memory for the rest of my days. I was young and inexperienced; it took me a while to kill them. They were so seriously maimed by me that two actually bled to death before I figured out how to actually kill.”
Shadow paused and let that sink in a bit.
“So after that I was pretty much in a state of shock. The Cat knew what to do, immediate survival had been taken care of, long-term survival was next. So I pulled myself together, cleaned up, and went home. For the next week I just existed in a sort of fog. I took care of myself and the other kid. We continued on our normal routine, until the police showed up investigating a ‘gruesome quadruple homicide’, found us there and suddenly realized just what had been going on.