Cat Scratch Fever

by Sophie Mouette

  She took a few minutes to do a Google search on the next company, an unfamiliar biotech firm. Their areas of research included developing medicines from rain-forest plants – so they took an interest in the environment – and genome research. She got on the phone prepared to talk about the scientific aspects of the captive breeding programme and managed to reach someone who had a few minutes to listen. They really had said no to the benefit; the local office was small and didn’t have the budget for that sort of thing. Once the scientist-type on the phone heard about the breeding programme, though, she directed Felicia towards their parent company in Massachusetts, which sometimes made grants to support environmental projects. It wouldn’t help the benefit bottom line, but any money that could go directly to the breeding programme would free up money for other things.

  Couldn’t Richard have done that? She shrugged. Maybe not. Fundraising wasn’t his area of expertise. She couldn’t expect him to have the instincts she’d honed over years of work in the area.

  Still, by the end of the day, Felicia was scratching her head. She hadn’t managed to reach every corporate contact on the list but, of those she had reached, most claimed not to have been called before, or said Richard had blown off a meeting with them. Most had still said no – more people always said no than yes – but she’d got a few decent-sized pledges and a fair number of warm maybes. And two other companies and one wealthy individual were considering the $10,000 naming opportunity.

  Even odder, the people who admitted they’d talked to Richard seemed surprised to hear about the cubs or other good news from the Sanctuary. They didn’t know about the Pallas’ cat kittens that had been born in late April, the Siberian tiger cubs at the National Zoo that had been fathered by their Khan, or the summer education programme for local kids, with fees from those who could pay subsidising places for poorer children.

  ‘It sounded like this benefit was a desperation measure,’ one company president said. ‘Like you were on your last legs. We don’t like our investment going to stave off creditors, but we’re glad to support such good work if we can.’ And he’d ended buying a table so he could bring visiting Japanese colleagues to view the cubs.

  What had Richard been thinking? She’d given him a script and they’d rehearsed how to deal with questions about the Sanctuary’s financial challenges by talking about the new life they were giving to endangered species. He’d not only bollixed the script, but also he seemed to have gone out of his way to do so.

  Time to have a little talk with him. Or maybe a big talk. It must have been a misunderstanding, but she was having trouble seeing how such a smart man could be so stupid.

  He didn’t answer when she called. It was after 5 p.m., so that wasn’t unexpected, but she had this wonderful mental image of her anger blasting through the phone and blistering his fingers when he tried to pick up the receiver.

  That said, the message she left, although painstakingly polite, would probably blister his ears if he was at all perceptive.

  * * *

  Felicia was still thinking about the oddity of it all at home that evening over a dinner of takeout Thai drunken noodles and a follow-up letter to people who’d pledged that day. She realised she was brooding too much when it occurred to her she was neither writing nor tasting the bold flavours of chillies and basil.

  Very well. She shut down her laptop, picked up her dinner and walked resolutely out of the kitchen that served as an improvised office into her small, rather bare living room. Maybe she could find something cute and mindless to distract her on TV.

  Instead, she found herself curled up on the shabby dark-green couch contemplating the fact that, after two years in Addison, she still hadn’t got around to hanging pictures in the living room or getting a real couch instead of this dorm-room special. And, at this point, it hardly seemed worth the effort. If the benefit failed, she’d just be moving again.

  When the phone rang, she thought it might be Richard calling to explain until she realised it was her cell and she’d never given Richard her cell number. Instead, it was José’s familiar voice. His first words, even before hello, were ‘Everything’s fine.’

  Once she started breathing again, he continued, ‘One of the vets from town and Mel’s assistant are keeping an eye on things so Mel and I can take a breather. So, Mel and I were wondering…We have this bottle of champagne to celebrate and were wondering if you’d like to share it with us.’ He sounded oddly hesitant.

  While Felicia was still getting out ‘Sure!’ there was a tussle on the other end of the phone. Mel, apparently, won.

  ‘What José means,’ Mel put in, sounding more confident than José, ‘is that we spent an awful lot of time on cub-watch talking about how much fun we had the other night and we were wondering…’ And suddenly she got shy as well.

  It was left for Felicia to say, ‘Sure. Bring that champagne on by and we’ll see what happens!’

  She had a pretty good idea what would happen, but it was always best to leave these things open-ended in case they didn’t go according to plan.

  And then she scurried off, grinning and blushing, to change the sheets, sweep empty take-out containers into the trash and see if she could find three champagne glasses. She already knew that finding ones that matched was a lost cause.

  By the time her friends arrived, the place looked almost decent.

  She hadn’t seen José since Noelle went into labour, and it looked like he hadn’t managed to catch up on sleep. But he was still on a high a day later, clutching a bottle of Iron Horse Cuvée from Sonoma and grinning from ear to ear. Like a proud grandpa, Felicia thought.

  Then he set the bottle down on a bookcase by the door and delivered a thermonuclear kiss, actually lifting her from her feet.

  OK, not grandpa, unless grandpa had a prescription for Viagra.

  Toes barely on the floor, she put her arms around his neck and melted into him. He was kissing like a starving creature eats. Felicia briefly worried that Mel might be upset by his enthusiasm, but then the other woman’s arms slipped around her from behind and insinuated themselves between the two tightly pressed bodies. One reached up, cupping one of Felicia’s breasts. The other headed down. Felicia felt its teasing pressure against her own crotch, but she surmised the main action was going to José.

  Sandwiched between two very attractive bodies, Felicia lost all desire to think. Given the angle, Mel couldn’t really do much, but simply feeling her there made Felicia all fluttery.

  She could definitely get used to this threesome thing. She’d always have a bias in favour of the male anatomy, but the more she experienced them, the more she realised tender breasts and soft female lips (both sets) had a lot of appeal. Especially when there was also a hard male body to enjoy at the same time.

  She cupped her hands around José’s butt. She hadn’t really had a chance to do that the other night, although she’d enjoyed the view.

  Yup. His cheeks felt as nice as they looked, even through denim. They’d feel even better without the denim in the way, but that would mean letting go.

  Mel snaked around to Felicia’s side. José moved his arms, pulling the zookeeper into his embrace and turning his kissing attentions to her.

  Felicia shouldn’t have worried about Mel feeling threatened or excluded. Although each of them had an arm around Felicia, their focus changed as soon as their lips touched. They weren’t deliberately shutting her out – Mel still caressed her breast, José still stroked her – but she was clearly secondary to their pleasure in each other.

  She was aroused, but not so much so that she couldn’t think. So…was she upset to be an afterthought?

  The answer surprised her a little. She wasn’t. This was all about having a good time, as far as she was concerned, and she was honoured that two people she liked so much, and who could have celebrated privately, wanted to share their good time with her. If they were a little more into each other than they were into her, well, lucky them.

  * * *
r />   Although the rest of Felicia’s condo was decorated straight from big-box stores in a style she’d once described as ‘early overworked and underpaid’, she’d put more effort into the bedroom. A queen-size brass bed in a clean modern design – a simple arched head-board and footboard filled in with two bold curves – dominated it. The linens, high-count Egyptian cotton in a striking shade of peacock blue, had cost her more than her second-hand couch and had been worth every penny. Several Orientalist prints adorned the walls, colourful, sensual scenes of a Middle East that never existed outside of artists’ fantasies, where all the men were hot-eyed and handsome, all the women were curvy and seductive, and everyone was wearing more jewellery than clothing. On the dresser, a large, Victorian-looking bouquet – something she’d picked up at a farm stand on the way home one evening – added a subtle scent of roses and mimosa to the room. (The bouquet was a little ragged around the edges, but she’d figured no one would notice.) She’d tossed all the dirty laundry into the closet just before they’d arrived and pushed the door shut.

  ‘Nice!’ Mel said, rewarding her efforts at decorating the room that her mother had suggested leaving for last.

  José didn’t say anything, although he looked around and nodded approvingly. Then he started unbuttoning his shirt.

  ‘Let us help with that,’ Mel purred. ‘Come on, Felicia.’ And the mood, already charged, shifted into overdrive.

  Felicia set the champagne down and closed in for the kill. She went for the shirt buttons. Tempting as it was to pull the shirt open quickly, get it off him, go right for the nipples, she didn’t. She worked slowly, playing with the buttons like a burlesque dancer might. As she opened each one, she pulled the shirt open a couple of inches, stroking and kissing the newly exposed skin.

  Mel, meanwhile, had knelt down to work on the belt and zipper. She apparently had a little trouble with the belt buckle at first; Felicia didn’t take her eyes from what she was doing, but she heard a bit of giggling and a ‘Damn’ before the belt slipped open.

  The sound of the zipper was magical, or maybe the magic was the noise that José and Mel both made as she came closer to exposing him. Felicia did look down for that. Mel had pressed her cheek against him, letting José feel her warm breath tease him through the thin fabric of his briefs. The long slender cock was mostly erect, forming a lovely line. Mel ran two fingers down it, then planted a delicate kiss on the head.

  José drew in a sharp breath.

  Felicia had two buttons on the bottom of the shirt left to go, but she figured her teasing had gone on long enough. She opened them quickly and, with a little help from José, wriggled the shirt off.

  Getting the jeans off took a bit more effort, but that allowed both women to get in on the unwrapping. When he stood before them wearing only his blue bikini briefs and the smug smile that a man who’d just been undressed by two attractive women deserved to sport, Felicia and Mel looked at each other. ‘You take the right side?’ Mel said.

  A matter of seconds and he was wearing nothing but the smile. Fully naked, he seemed a little nervous under their scrutiny, glancing at the artwork on the walls instead of meeting their eyes. But he still looked smug – and aroused. His whole body looked filled with the same delightful tension that animated the impressive erection that jutted in front of him.

  So tasty. José had some streaks of white in his black hair and she knew he was older than she and Mel were, maybe in his early forties, but his body didn’t show it. He was slim all over, his muscles sleek rather than bulky, his skin a delicious dark-honey colour, only slightly lighter where it was normally covered by clothes. She hadn’t noticed the other night that he didn’t have tan lines; she wondered if that was just his darker complexion or if he sunbathed naked when he had a chance. Now that was a lovely thought.

  He wasn’t as broad shouldered as Gabe, though, she noticed. And a bit of chest hair would make him all that much yummier.

  She shook herself mentally. It wasn’t polite, somehow, to compare the man she was actually with to someone else. Not to mention the fact that she’d never had a chest-hair fixation until she’d met Gabe. Somehow that tantalising glimpse of golden fur had got under her skin – and then the full view had finished her off. She was fixated on that body, that leonine gold-tipped pelt, that more sharply defined set of muscles. Even two days without really seeing him hadn’t minimised the impact.

  Before, she’d always liked smooth chests and slim catlike bodies. Hadn’t she?

  To prove to herself she still did, she stroked her hands down José’s torso, not concentrating on the nipples yet, just on the feel of his skin under her hands. Heated silk over…not steel, but something resilient, warm, yet just as solid. She wanted to think of a good word to go with the ‘heated silk’ image, but the sensation flowing from her fingertips seemed to short-circuit something in her brain. Forget metaphors: this was the male body in a particularly fine form, and her female body appreciated it. Appreciated it as in wanted to lick, kiss, nibble and otherwise taste every available inch of it. That lovely uncut cock, for instance – but all in good time.

  All right, then. Just because she was a little fixated on Gabe didn’t mean she was broken.

  She let her hands roam back up, brushing the taut nipples, feeling her own tighten in empathy. Mel moved to join the action.

  ‘Hey,’ José said, laughing. ‘Someone’s overdressed for the party. Or should I say two someones?’

  If José’s unveiling had been slow and teasing, the women, by some unspoken agreement, undressed in a flurry of flying garments. Not that Felicia had much to striptease with anyway; she’d changed into a little Indian gauze sundress when she’d gotten home, trying to beat the heat, and that and minuscule panties were all she had to contend with.

  Mel grabbed the bottle of champagne. ‘Anyone for a drink?’

  Felicia started to say no. Then she met her friend’s eyes. Mel glanced from the bottle to José’s body and back again, and that was enough to communicate the idea to Felicia. ‘Sounds good!’ she said.

  Then she helped Mel tip José back on to the bed. Not that it was a lot of work; he was more than willing to be tipped.

  Mel proved as competent at opening a champagne bottle as she was at dealing with leopards and margays. This didn’t mean she didn’t allow some of the bubbly to foam forth in dramatic (but not sommelier-approved) fashion – it meant that she aimed the alcoholic explosion carefully, getting most of it on José. She then poured some more on his flat belly. Most of it puddled in his navel, but some headed for the thicket of dark hair and the tree trunk of his cock.

  ‘Don’t move,’ Felicia said. ‘It’s harder to lick off the sheets!’

  The sheets were a lost cause anyway but, since the women seemed to have taken control, it might add to his sensations if he tried to keep still. Sort of like bondage without the trouble of actually tying him up.

  They started on laving off the spilt rivulets of crisp gold wine from the expanse of José’s chest. Felicia supposed a sommelier also might not approve of the flavour combination of brut champagne and aroused male. But she did. José’s skin tasted good, very clean, but salty and a little musky, with an undertone of spice, and, leaving aside the way it made her own skin heat in empathy, it actually went well with the champagne.

  They worked in towards the nipples, lapping there for much longer than the amount of champagne there warranted. At first, José was still and mostly quiet, trying to keep the puddle on his belly where it belonged.

  That was no fun!

  Felicia began to apply a little more suction, working with her tongue as she worked with lips and light pressure of her teeth. With a strangled noise, José put his hand on the back of her head. She thought for a second that he was trying to move her, but the pressure of his hand told the opposite: he wanted her harder.

  Her peripheral vision told her that he’d done the same to Mel.

  Oh. My. God.

  Grabbing her hair like that made her c
lench and catch her breath – not the sensation in itself, but the unexpectedness of it. Rough directness from someone normally so gentle was exciting because it showed how much they were affecting him. And that, in turn, jacked up her arousal to a higher level.

  Mel was the first to break off and begin kissing down his torso. This didn’t seem to help José’s level of coherence, especially when she began licking. Her pose was catlike, crouched on all fours like a lion at the watering hole, and Felicia found herself distracted from what she was doing by the visual feast. Mel’s pink tongue moved over the quivering muscles of José’s taut belly. She brushed her lovely little breasts against him, getting them champagne basted in the process. Mel was much paler than José, almost as fair as Felicia on her torso (no nude sunbathing for her evidently, or even bikinis) but her skin had the same golden undertones as José’s and her hair was a similar blue-black. It made for a gorgeous effect, stylised as some kind of tony erotic photography, but brought to earth by scents: sweet flowers, sharp, yeasty champagne and warm, aroused flesh.

  For a bit, Felicia was mesmerised by the beautiful sight. She continued to suck and play with his nipples, feeling herself getting slicker and hotter in response to the sensory feast, but unwilling to risk breaking the spell by taking a more active role. But she could only resist for so long and soon a second lioness joined the first at the waterhole.

  Unfortunately, another tongue lapping at his belly was too much for José’s self-control. He began to twitch, then to jerk around, laughing. ‘That tickles,’ he choked out.

  They persisted until he threw them off. Flipping Mel over, he grabbed the bottle of champagne. She tried to squirm away, but José’s greater strength, and his weight on her legs, kept her pinned down. She was doing a good job of resisting for someone who clearly wanted to lose.

  ‘Help me out here!’ He handed the bottle to Felicia, then grabbed Mel’s wrists and pinned her to the bed.

  Mel’s lovely skin looked even prettier with a champagne glaze. And, as Felicia quickly discovered, girl-skin and champagne tasted just as lovely together as boyskin and champagne, though subtly different, and tasting it sent similar waves of arousal crashing over her.