by Sophia Wilde
Volume Three – Learning Curve
Fuck. Fuck and fuck and fuck. This was bad. This was terrible. This couldn't be happening. Not now. Everything was going so well. She didn't need this right now. Helen's voice was still ringing in her head as she was zombie walking her way down the stairs and back into the garden, hoping to find Robert. Still in her jammies, with her hair all messed up from all the pulling at it while she was listening to Helen's message, Cindy looked like a scared little child who had just woken up from a very bad nightmare and went out to look for her parents so that she could slide into their safe warm bed and stay there, where the monsters couldn't get to her.
Monster. Huh. Wasn't that a funny word? Wasn't it funny how right now it was in a monster's arms that she felt the safest? Cindy winced. She really should refrain from calling Robert a monster. Even on the inside of her head, it sounded pretty bad. He was a wonderful young man who didn't deserve this kind of a life. The whole damn thing made her so sad. And now, she of all people was the one who was going to make it worse. She should have been more determined about not taking this assignment. Maybe she wouldn't have met Robert, but at least... She should have told Helen to shove it. She should have... There was no use now. Should have, would have, could have... No matter what she did now, it could in no way undo the past.
It was hopeless. Helen was going to get here in a couple of hours. The clock was ticking the time away, and there was only a small amount of it left before everything would be lost. Her job, Robert's reputation... Well, it actually had been a bad reputation to begin with, but not this bad. Being a werewolf seemed to be at the far end of the thin line between a state in which the people loved to hate him and the point in which the people would become an angry mob chanting protection prayers while coming at him with torches and pitchforks. She hoped so very much that he was still at home.
The walk down the stairs seemed to last an eternity. Every step felt as if it took an entire hour to cross. She was going as fast as she could, but it just wasn't enough. The world was going by her in slow motion, just as she felt that everything needed to be done oh so much faster. There was no time to waste. But time was being wasted.
"Hello, Alfred." – she said to the smiling face of a butler, whose name was James, but who was by now also sick and tired of correcting her. She knew it was one of those typical butler names, but could never quite pick the right one. Alfred. Albert. James. Oh, well. Same difference. He didn't seem to mind one bit. The happy bastard.
"Good morning, miss Cindy!" – said the not Alfred, nor Albert, still smiling sweetly. If he would only get offended once in a while, so that she could know that she got it wrong. No. He was always freaking smiling. Right now it was kind of pissing her off. Little mister freaking sunshine. How dare he be so nice when everything is going so wrong? Fuck him. And fuck everything.
"Master Gray would be out for a few hours today, but he wishes you to feel at home. I will be at your service for the rest of the day." – he continued, with the same bright little smile on his bright little face.
Yes, Robert did tell her he had some important work to do, so she was going to spend most of the day on her own. Okay. So he wasn't here. Big deal. She could handle this. There was still some time. Helen wouldn't be here for a while. A very short while. But at least it was something. It would give Cindy some more time to think. She just needed some peace and quiet.
The big wonderful library. Yes. That was a nice place to do exactly that. Think. It made her feel good. All those books. All that wonderful knowledge and wisdom all those wonderful people had written down in those wonderful books, all stacked up in one place. It was majestic. So maybe it would help her come up with a plan to get rid of her boss. Huh. That didn't sound right, she thought. All of a sudden, she felt like a mobster. Yeah, get "rid" of her. Wack her. Make her sleep with the fishes. She was laughing out loud. No, Cindy. You like Helen. Getting her to go the hell back to where she came from would be more than enough.
Her slight concentration problem was really amusing sometimes. But not right now. The panic mode her brain had gotten itself into was making her babble nonsense. Apparently, she didn't work well under pressure after all. It was time to get serious, and Cindy didn't appear to be able to do that. There she was, at the end of her wits, and her inner child was finger painting the inside of her mind with some pretty disturbing works of art. You are an adult, she kept trying to convince herself. Get it together!
The library wasn't helping after all. Suddenly, all she could think about were things that were very much adult indeed. Things that almost made her blush. Knowing full well that she should not give in to her dirty little thoughts, she went with them anyway. Her breathing got deeper. Her heart started beating faster, as she thought about what Robert had done to her that first night in this very library.
The way he had touched her. The way his warm hands were sliding all over her skin. She could almost feel it now. Right here, on this sofa. The whole room still smelled wonderfully of him. Damn, it felt so good. She got lost in her own mind again. Feeling her entire being vibrate all over at the thought of his strong body on top of hers, she gently slid her hand inside her panties, while she was squeezing her own breasts with the other one. In her mind, they were Robert's hands. In her mind, they were all of him. Oh, Bobby... She could hear her own breath tremble, as she was coming hard, once again, on that same sofa where she had made love to the werewolf for the first time. Her body was shaking while the hand she had put between her legs kept moving. Hard, then slowing down as her entire body slowly started to relax.
It made her feel guilty later on, after the tension had left her muscles, and she was left sitting on that sofa. Right where she started in the first place. Here she was, giving in to the bloody hormones gone wild, while there was some pretty serious stuff going on. Damn it, she had been so wrong. She really couldn't do this without him. She couldn't handle it. Where the hell was he when she needed him? Her messed up mind couldn't deal with all this right now.
She was trying to calm herself down. He'll be home soon. He'll know exactly what they should do. He knew what to do when she came after him, didn't he? His entire family had been like this since forever without being detected, so he must know how it's done. There must be some sort of a manual. A set of rules, being passed on from generation to generation. "How not to be shot by a silver bullet", Cindy could almost see a big leather-bound book with big letters on its cover.
But she knew Helen. That perkiness in her voice was frightening. She was never perky. Unless she was up to something. She must know something. She must have proof. Witnesses? The old lady? No. That couldn't be it. The old lady wasn't the kind to go around screaming wolf. Huh, that was kind of clever, Cindy smiled. Wolf. No, the old lady was just being honest. And, if you asked her about it directly, she would tell you everything she knew without even blinking. No. It still couldn't have been her. Cindy concluded this mostly because she really started to like the old lady.
The old lady knew exactly what Cindy was going through. Kind of. Except Cindy wasn't going to make the same mistakes. No, sir. She was going to keep her man. No matter what it takes. The thought made her feel a bit conceited. What in the world made her think there was a mistake on the old lady's part to begin with? What would possibly make her think she could have done any better if she could have walked a mile in the old lady's shoes? What made her think the wolf could even be tamed? Ever? The thought made her heart sink. Still, she decided to stubbornly stick to her guns.
Maybe it was just that the times were like that. Things were meant to move much slower back then. It's not the old lady's fault that she couldn't have just spread her legs to give the love of her life what he needed and keep him from being suckered into marrying the other woman. Damn. This sounded exactly like that stupid rant about men being men and men having their needs so it was not a man's fault if he succumbed to a beautiful woman. Of course it was his own damn fault! That's what Cindy had always believed.
Except, now, even that belief was being shaken. It was science. Hairy men really did have a high testosterone level, which, in fact, did cause them to have a high sex drive. Which, of course, wouldn't justify any bad sexual behavior on their part. That was still legit.
But what about werewolves? If they could not control their bodies enough that they would be able to avoid being turned into an animal every full moon, could it be that they couldn't even control this? The old lady couldn't have known that. She didn't even have a chance to fight for him. She didn't even have a chance to spend a single night with him. She was denied an opportunity to try and satisfy his bodily needs.
But Cindy could do that. And has already done it. Many times. Many nights. And she would be more than happy to continue doing it for the rest of her life. For as long as she would be able to.So Robert didn't want to have children. She could understand that. She could accept it. She could be happy with it, even.
Now that she thought of it, dis SHE really want children? Was the idea of a family living in a house with the white picket-fence something she had actually dreamed of all her life? Well, it kind of was, she had to admit to herself. But now... Did she really want to be woken up in the middle of the night to go change a smelly diaper? Does she want her body to get stretched out to the point of almost bursting, suffer the delivery, only to have the child one day become the worst kind of a creature imaginable – a teenager?
She knew teenagers. She used to be one. Not so long ago, actually. And she put her poor parents through all kinds of hell. No, thank you. She'd rather have dogs. Dogs were cute and loyal. They were much less of a handful. And they were much more grateful. And won't get up one day, get an idea to tattoo their biker boyfriend's face on their ass and ride away into the sunset. Okay, that one wasn't her, but still.
Damn it, she had gone off again. Who knows how much time she had lost pondering on this scenario of a future that will not happen if her boss comes here and messes it all up! But it didn't matter anyway. What did matter was that Helen was on her way, and if she caught a whiff of a good story, she would bite down on it like a pitbull. She would never let go. And Robert would be in so much trouble. Sweet, sweet Robert.
There was no time right now. She was gonna have to stall Helen for as long as she could. Cindy got dressed and went to meet her boss at the airport of a town not so near by. The ride up there was torture. What was she going to tell her when she saw her? Cindy knew that Helen would get straight down to business. She had to have something to show for. After all, she was here for almost two weeks. Oh, how much Cindy wanted to wake up from this nightmare. Because this had to have been one.
Damn werewolves. She should have never come here. Robert would have been safe if she hadn't. She ruined everything for this amazing man. Stupid werewolves. Stupid Gypsies. Yes. Cindy was in the middle of hating the entire world. This happened a lot. And for a lot lesser reasons. Sometimes, waves of her hatred would start flooding this planet and most of known universe because one of her nails had decided to get broken in just the wrong moment. And she wasn't even the kind of woman who gave a damn about these silly things. One look at her make-up-less face, wildly uncombed hair and miss-matched socks could tell you that.
Robert Gray had managed to make this blasted boring little redneck place tolerable for her, and here he was, about to be burned at the stake. Beheaded with a stake through his heart? Or was that vampires? Anyway, whatever it was they did to werewolves. Damn, she really hadn't done her homework. In the messed up state that she was in, she didn't know a damn thing about werewolves. It was as if a werewolf had fucked her brains out. She smiled at the thought. He may well have done exactly that. And she wasn't sorry about it one bit.
Fine, she'll play it by ear. Helen was a reasonable woman. Mostly. Probably. Cindy would first have to find out what exactly did she know. Maybe she was just being paranoid and Helen just got sick and tired of the big city, so she was coming here to try and slow down. Breathe, Cindy. Try to look at life from the lighter side. Sometimes it really was that simple.
Except this was not one of those times. Apparently, one of the town cops decided to screw being cool-headed for the sake of the people and start freaking out for his own sake. So he called up the newspaper and spilled everything. He was all good to go and sign a formal statement, if they had wanted him to. He might get fired, but at least he wouldn't be torn to pieces. Good enough. Cindy couldn't argue with his logic.
So Helen did have a source after all. And when asked why he didn't just go up to the field reporter they had sent, the source said he wouldn't talk about it any more if it wasn't face to face with the person in charge. So she came down here. She needed some fresh air anyway. Cindy's face turned pale. This guy knew about her sleeping with the wolf, and was about to tell the world. The big stupid world she hated so much right now. What would happen when Helen found out? Fuck. And fuck and fuck and fuck.
But Helen seemed determined to enjoy herself for the time being. It was a tiresome trip and she needed to rest. There was no need to rush. The story could wait for a night longer. Right now, she wanted to shake the boredom away. After she would have had a chance to freshen up and take a nap, they could get together. It was going to be just the two of them girls tonight. And the company was paying. What had she been drinking on the plane? There was something off about this whole business.
Well, whatever it was, Cindy liked it. It was a nice alternative to the strict Helen she was used to. She just hoped it wasn't a trap. But, well, at least it gave her some more time to think. She dropped the happy smiling Helen off at the hotel, and went back up to the mansion. She was still freaking out and really hoped that Robert would be there. He would calm her down. He would make things better. But he didn't.
Yes, Robert was there. He sat in his chair patiently listening to her complain about her boss with a smile on his face. That confident smile of his made her feel silly about freaking out before. Of course everything was going to be okay. There we go, Cindy thought, he really was going to make it all go away. He already had it all figured out. Go. Solve this mess. Save the day. Cindy was all ears.
His solution was simple. He was going to seduce Helen. Cindy's enthusiasm started welling down. She was a woman. Women were suckers for sad lonely rich boys. He was going to drop some crap about being lonely and misunderstood in an ocean of beautiful little gold diggers, and she would eat it up. No matter how clear-minded and intelligent she is, no woman in the world would be able to resist the urge to fix a broken man.
Cindy didn't like this. She didn't like it at all. She grew to think of him as hers. She grew to love him. And now, he wanted to sleep with another woman and was telling her all about it in such a casual way. She had to understand that this was the easier way to do this, he said. It could be so much worse, he said. She would need to think of this as sharing, he said. She was going to be there with him the whole time, he said. All she needed to do was to bring Helen up to the mansion tonight. He was going to take care of the rest.
Wait, was he talking about a threesome? She could still hear his voice droning on in the background, trying to explain, trying to make her see how this was not such a big deal, but she was far gone by now. Was he honestly proposing a threesome to a woman who is so madly in love with him? Did he care so little about her that he would not only sleep with another woman, but also make her watch? And not only that, make her be a part of it? How could she ever be a part of such a thing? It made her so sad. She needed to be alone for a while. She needed to think. A nice long walk should do the trick. A nice, long walk all around the world might be just enough to clear this mess up.
As Cindy's mind was wandering all over the place, the little old lady came to the rescue again. She waltzed right in there and made Cindy feel so ashamed of herself. That poor old lady, who actually did share the man she loved more than anyone with another woman. And not only that, she was grateful for every single one of the little crumbs that fell from that other woman's table. And
what was Cindy doing right now? She was selfishly trying to keep Robert, a man she had only just met, all to herself. Even though he had already told her all about why that could never be.
Well, deep down, she did hope that she would have been all he needed. That she would be able to save him all by herself. No woman could resist the urge to fix a broken man? That sounded about right. Silly little girl. That's what she was. Just a silly little girl. Still living in a fairy tale of her own. Right now, it looked as if Robert was right. Not all stories have happy endings. Not all beasts turn to princes. And not every damsel in distress gets rescued. Life was sometimes funny like that.
Distance. That was what she needed. Lots of it. Emotional distance from this man. He could never belong to her. That was something she needed to accept. But the romantic from within her just wouldn't give up. Come on, child. Didn't your mommy ever tell you that you should share your toys? Besides, where is your sense for adventure? What happened to the good old curiosity? Didn't you always wonder what happened behind the closed door of Helen's bedroom? Well, now you have the perfect chance to find out. First hand. A chance to be a part of that wild life you always knew she led.
Remember? Young studs, chains and whips? You could get a chance to see how the big bad boss got things done. You know you always wanted that. It could be fun. Besides, it's not as if you would have to do it all the time. Just this once. Just for a night. That's what Robert said. Just this once, and then you might just get him back. Then you could keep trying to rescue him.
Yeah. The silly little girl just wouldn't give up. She knew there was a wonderful creature deep underneath the wolf, no matter how scary he was, and it was so unfair that it would never get the chance to shine. It was so unfair that this monster he would become once in a full moon was something that would define the entire course of his existence. And not only his. The children he would never have. The peaceful family life he would never get to experience.