[The Shifters Committee 05.0] Sensual Hero

by Rebecca Foxx

  "Don't even waste your time lying to me," she said snarling at her lover. "I know what you've been doing."

  "I don't want to lie to you," Shelley said.

  Cassidy snickered.

  "Are you sure it isn't too late for that?" She asked smirking.

  Shelley had never seen this sort of body language, and never felt this sort of energy, coming off of Cassidy before. She had her arms crossed against her chest. Her eyes were narrow, her brow knitted. If Shelley didn't know her better, she would have feared that something physical was about to happen to her.

  "Would you like to come in?" Shelley asked, not knowing what else to say and not knowing whether or not having Cassidy and Amy in the same apartment at the same time would be a complete disaster.

  But she had to say something. She couldn't just stand there in the doorway melting under the white-hot rage of her lover, one of her lovers.

  Cassidy pushed Shelley out of the way and stomped into the apartment.

  "Where is she?" Where the fuck is she?" Cassidy said.

  Shelley closed the door and then leaned her back up against it, sighed, and crossed her arms against her chest.

  "Are you sure you want to do this?" Shelley asked.

  Before Cassidy could answer that question, Amy, wearing only a bra and panties sauntered out of the bedroom, walked up to Shelley and wrapped her arms around her. This was definitely the most awkward thing that Shelley had ever experienced in her life. But she couldn't help appreciating, admiring, and enjoying just how beautiful this wild young girl's body was.

  Shelley noticed something that caught her attention. Something that she wouldn't forget for days and weeks into the future. Cassidy fixed her eyes on them. But as she looked up and down the naked form, Amy's young, supple body, the expression on her face began to soften. It seemed crazy to Shelley, but she could've swore that she saw glimmers of last then desire in Casey Cassidy's eyes.

  "Hi," Amy said in her girliest voice. "My name's Amy. Who are you?"

  She extended her hand towards Cassidy who still seemed transfixed by the naked body in front of her. While Cassidy's eyes roved up and down the girl's body, hungrily taking in every inch of her lovely form, Shelly began to think that no matter how crazy it seemed there just might be a way to make this whole love triangle thing work.

  After holding her hand in the air for a few minutes, waiting for Cassidy to take it, Amy decided to take matters into her own hands.

  She gave Cassidy a warm, affectionate hug. Cassidy let her arms fall to her sides, and let the young girl wrap her arms around her.

  Cassidy's anger seemed to have dissipated. But the pain and the sadness was still there, welling up in her eyes. Her lips quivered, as she tried her best to keep her calm. But it was obvious, at least to Shelley, that there was no way that Cassidy was going to be able to remain calm under the pain and possibly shock that she was experiencing.

  "I think I'll go now," Cassidy said, doing her absolute best to keep herself under control.

  As she was walking to the door, she stopped suddenly, sighed heavily, turned around, and fixed her eyes on Amy. This time she didn't look her up and down, just stared directly into her eyes. Shelley had never experienced such tension before. Every single muscle and nerve fiber in her body tingled with anxiety.

  A few minutes after Cassidy left, Shelley and Amy sat on the couch in silence. Shelley had no idea what to say. Amy seemed to be taking things well,. But she didn't know whether that was a good sign or not. Maybe Cassidy's jealousy was the sign that she was much more interested in a serious relationship than the young, frivolous Amy. That would certainly make sense. But there was no way to be sure. She needed to be absolutely honest with the two women in her life.

  But before she could be honest with them, she would have to be honest with herself. She would have to figure out, amongst all the jumbled thoughts and emotions, what was real and what was not. What would last, and what was ephemeral and superficial. That wouldn't be easy. She could already feel that burden weighing on her spirit, churning in her stomach, pounding in her head.

  "Want to head out to a bar?" Amy asked, smiling devilishly. "You could probably use some music and drinks, don't you think?"

  Shelley threw her head back on the couch and closed her eyes. The only thing she wanted to do was go to bed.

  After Amy left, Shelley went to her bedroom and threw herself down on the bed. Sleep didn't come easy to her that night. She tossed and turned, gnashing and gnawing, slamming her fists into the mattress and screaming like an enraged animal for everyone in the apartment building to hear. She was lucky that nobody reported her to the police. They probably would've taken her away in a straitjacket.

  In order to get to sleep, she had to finish off the magnum bottle of wine almost half of it, all by herself. After several hours of solitary drinking, and listening to sad love songs. She was finally was finally able to get to sleep, but not in her bed.

  The next morning she woke up with half her body hanging off the couch. She looked like an absolute mess. She was completely naked. She looked around the apartment, holding her head, trying to withstand the pain of the thumping headache. She couldn't remember the last time that she had such an incredible hangover.

  She was always the responsible one when she went out. She always knew when to stop, always knew her limits. She wasn't the kind of person to stay in the bed past 630 or so in the morning, even when she was on vacation from her teaching duties, which at this time she was. There was still another week before the Christmas break ended. She was grateful for that.

  There was no way that she would've been able to make it to a class, or grade papers, or do anything else related to her job. There was only one thing on her mind: The love triangle.

  She wished that she could've found a silver lining to the situation. But there didn't appear to be one. Then the slight smile broke out across her face, as she thought about Amy strutting into the living room naked and impudent, not giving a fuck like always.

  It was hard not to admire such an attitude, even if it did seem a bit out of place and inappropriate at times. As she was enjoying those memories, a feeling of nausea took hold of her body. She doubled over in pain and then ran down the hallway butt naked. She dropped down to her knees, and placed her head directly over the toilet bowl, as the first jet of puke spurted from her mouth. For the next 10 minutes, she stayed in that position, on the floor, puking, sweating, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  She could feel her throat burning. Why did she have to drink so much? It only made things worse. In her pot smoking days, she wouldn't of had a problem dealing with this hangover. Light up a joint, take a few tokes, and everything would've been all right. Pack a bowl, light it, puff puff puff it, and everything would've been all right.

  Once she'd started working at the university, she'd been very wary of using any sorts of drugs. Not because she was afraid of getting drug tested or anything like that. That wasn't part of the university's policy. They weren't really interested in what you did away from the school. And plenty of teachers probably did drugs: pot, coke, heroin, who knew what else.

  She didn't want to worry about running into any of her students, while she was walking around town stoned. Over the last several months, throughout the California educational system, there had been a really hard crackdown on teacher misconduct. In years past, when administrators and colleagues might've turned a blind blind eye to some dubious conduct, now they were quick to report it.

  The University was working hard to create a culture in which everybody was constantly willing to rat each other out for something in order to save their own ass. If you had seen conduct unbecoming of a professor, or conduct that may be deemed illegal, or out of step with the teacher's legal obligations, then you, just for witnessing something and not reporting it could be held responsible later on and suffer a very serious disciplinary punishment.

  When she had finally finished throwing up and had completely emptied her
stomach of its poisonous fluids, Shelley sat sprawled on the bathroom floor, butt naked, saliva dripping down her chest in between her big, full breasts. Even as disheveled as she looked, there was definitely a curvy sexiness to her. No wonder she had two lovers.

  She probably could've had a lot more. And then she would have an even bigger disaster on her hands.

  Chapter 7

  After showering and thoroughly brushing her teeth and washing her mouth out with Listerine, Shelley left her apartment. It was the Christmas break but in Riverside it was almost 80° out. She had on thong sandals, a sundress, and big, bug-eyed sunglasses.

  She needed a bit of time with herself, time to think, time to try to figure this out. She went downtown to the historic Mission Hotel. It was a popular attraction for tourists and for locals as well. She went up to the roof, which looked out over downtown Riverside.

  How long would she stay in this small Southern California city? The longer she stayed there, the more she felt like a loser. All those poor people who couldn't afford the rents in gentrified LA, being pushed out in the places like Riverside.

  There were definitely sections of town that you wanted to avoid, particularly after dark. And it was important not to walk around with your cell phone or laptop out.

  Every week there seemed to be a publicized incident of a student getting robbed while they were talking on their cell phone or carrying their laptop underneath their arm, making themselves easy targets. The Shelley knew better. So she never had any problems with robbers in Riverside.

  That didn't mean there weren't times when she was afraid, very afraid, that something was about to go down, especially if she was around groups of rowdy youngsters on a weekend that night or early in the morning.

  For the past two hours Shelley had been texting and calling Cassidy. She hadn't responded to any of the texts or calls. If they didn't talk soon Shelley didn't see how they would be able to continue the relationship. All she wanted to do was to sit down and have five minutes to tell her side of the story.

  It was around the time when Cassidy would be leaving her office, so Shelley figure that the best thing to do would be to go down there. She couldn't wait anymore. She was burning up inside, going crazy with guilt and regret. She parked her car a couple blocks away from Cassidy's office. Before getting out of the car, she closed her eyes and took several very deep breaths, trying to channel some of the inner calm that her yoga breathing practices used to give her.

  But it had been years since she'd worked on those breathing exercises. Maybe that was part of the problem. When she was seriously into yoga, going to classes 5 or 6 times a week and contemplating becoming a teacher, opening up her own shop, she hadn't had much need for human companionship. Dating held little interest for her.

  But things had changed so much in the last few years. A somewhat serious knee injury had sidelined her from yoga for almost a year. She was just never able to get back into the habit even though it had been such a big part of her life for so long.

  She didn't feel that she would be able to live without these two women in her life. She'd gotten so used to their different energies, highs and lows and interesting experiences that they had together. She wanted the to continue to grow and blossom. Maybe they could all get together. As crazy as that seemed.

  Shelley saw Cassidy coming out of her office building, high heels stomping towards the parking garage. For a moment, all Shelley could do was stand there and admire how sexy, and powerful Cassidy looked in her professional attire. What a serious, dominant, intellectual woman, Shelley said to herself. Just the type of person that I want to be with.

  She hurried down the street, desperate to reach Cassidy before she got into her car and zoomed off.

  "Cass!Cass!Cass!" Shelley yelled out, breathlessly as she ran down the street.

  The first two times that Shelley yelled the name, it hadn't had any effect. Cassidy hadn't stopped walking, determined as always to get to her destination without stopping, without paying attention to what was going on around her.

  But the third time that Shelley had called the name, it had finally had its desired effect. Cassie stopped dead in her tracks, but didn't turn around right away. She seemed to be bracing herself, preparing for a difficult encounter. Shelley slowed down, when she saw that when she saw that Cassidy had stopped walking. She was out of breath, exhausted, but relieved.

  Maybe Cassidy was going to give her another chance. Maybe all was not lost for them.

  Chapter 8

  In the middle of the sidewalk, the rush hour traffic buzzing around them, the two women stood in silence, staring into each other's eyes. Shelley had expected to see hatred and bitterness and rage in Cassidy's dark green eyes. But that wasn't the case at all. There was a completely different energy coming from this very serious professional looking woman. There was a sadness, a gentleness, a vulnerability about the way she looked at Shelley.

  Shelley couldn't form any words. Her mouth and brain just couldn't seem to coordinate anything. Finally all she could do was shake your head and come forward and open her arms wide and squeeze Cassidy tightly to her, as tightly as possible. Cassidy quickly reciprocated the affectionate hug.

  There was something more than affection, deeper then love, there was a sort of desperation about the way the two women held onto each other, as if they could feel themselves being pulled apart, they were willing to fight as hard as they could to stay together.

  20 minutes later in a coffee shop, Shelley and Cassidy sat across from each other at a small circular table. They were holding each other's hands, smiling into each other's eyes, brushing tangles of hair from each other's faces. They were also attracting the attention of the other café dwellers, who couldn't help but notice the tender loving affection going on between the two women.

  "I just wish that you would've said something," Cassidy said. "It's totally reasonable. We never talked about what exactly we are."

  There was a brief moment of silence.

  "So what are we?" Shelley asked.

  Cassidy sighed, shrugged her shoulders, and looked away. She seemed very uncomfortable. And once again Shelley couldn't help noticing the vulnerability that she seemed to be showing. This was a whole another side of Cassidy, one that she found fascinating. At that moment she realized that they really didn't know each other yet. And that wasn't a bad thing. Far from it. It was actually really exciting.

  "Do you still want us to be a couple? Shelley asked nervously, her voice quivering.

  Cassidy cocked her head and smirked.

  "I thought you were intelligent," she said. "Guess I was wrong."

  "Okay," Shelley said. "And that means?"

  "It means: of course I want talking relationship with you. Why the hell do you think I'm still here talking to you? I walked into your apartment and there's some naked, barely legal 18-year-old running around."

  Shelley lowered her head and blushed with shame. If only Amy had stayed in the back and let Shelley handle the situation, things may have turned out differently. But unfortunately, Amy could never make things simple. She always had to complicate matters, doing something immature, and foolish. And now Shelley had to pay the consequences.

  "I'm really sorry about that," Shelley said. "She's fun, really fun. But a little immature, you know?"

  "Kinda like you, you mean?"

  Shelley's mouth gaped wide open. Sometimes Cassidy could cut right through her bullshit. This certainly felt like one of those occasions. Shelley felt an incredible rush of emotion. She quickly brushed off the insult. When Cassidy talked like that it meant that she was horny, ready to play, to get down between her legs and begin licking her clean, licking her wildly, licking her to a mind-altering orgasm.

  "Oh yeah," Cassidy said. "There's something that I wanted to tell you."

  For a moment Shelley was worried. What could it be now? Has she done something else wrong to upset the balance in the relationship and jeopardize their future together? Cassidy could clearly se
e that Shelley was hot and bothered and anxious.

  That was just the way she liked to get her. There was so much fun to be had together when she kept her on her toes, a little bit uncomfortable. Those sorts of emotions added just the right level of spice to their sexual encounters.

  "Well, come on tell me," Shelley said in a pleading voice.

  She really couldn't take anymore. She had the urge to get up from her chair and rush out of the café crying. But she was trying her best to fight those emotions. She still couldn't believe that Cassidy had dared to suggest that she was immature. How ridiculous! But the last thing she wanted to do now, after she'd been accused of something like that, was to lose her cool. No, she wouldn't let her emotions get the best of her.

  "I just wanted to tell you that that girl, that 18 barely legal 18-year-old," Cassidy said. "She was fucking hot."