by Angela Foxxe
I spent my free time searching for nanny cams for some reason for the hair on the back of my neck to stand up. I found nothing, of course. I searched the internet for some cause for my feelings. The information ran the gamut from the perfectly reasonable to the outrageous. I worried about ghosts and brain tumors, about cameras and vampires. I couldn’t have said was it was. Maybe it was aliens. There was no way to check.
At night, I tossed and turned, trying to find a way to solve the problem of the mystery beasts prowling the grounds at night, but nothing came to me. The more I managed to see of the creatures the more certain I became of the fact that these weren’t dogs. I would have seen dogs during the day. I was certain that mountain lions didn’t grow to quite that size, but I knew that I was looking from a distance. I gave up trying to figure it out before my next appointment came. It had become just the way of things, just what was happening outside of my window on a nightly basis.
After I had gotten the confirmation of the pregnancy, I found myself sitting at my window once again, waiting for the creature. For some reason it was starting to make me feel a little more comfortable. I was getting used to the prowling creatures outside of my window. I felt like I was sharing the good news with them and it made me happy to share. I wanted to tell the beast, but I didn’t really know how. I was pregnant, but now it was time to worry a bit. Was the child a product of the insemination or of the night that I had spent with Torrance?
I had to laugh at myself. I had to be the first woman in history that had the legitimate worry about the maternity of my own child. I splashed water at myself as I giggled at the idea of the kind of testing that would be involved in that.
CHAPTER FOUR
That night, while I was watching for my guardian, or whatever it was, I found myself nodding off. Maybe I had not been getting quite enough sleep lately. I was tired. I had to admit that to myself, but still I watched for the creatures. They were out there, but this time things changed.
I saw the fight from the moment it started. Two large bodies flying at each other through the brush. I could hear the howls and yowls, the screeches and scratches. I squinted, wanting to see more as the fur started to fly through the air. A bit of fur actually flew all the way up to the third floor window where my apartment was. It was golden brown and soft. The fight continued and I didn’t know what to do. I knew that I was pregnant, but there wasn’t much that I could do about the situation. I couldn’t run down there and throw myself in the middle of two fighting animals. Frankly, I wouldn’t even know how to start.
As I watched, I could several more creatures joining the fray. For a moment, I could even see a lion as the beast slipped into the light for just a moment. Whatever this was, there were no games being played. This was not some sort of training exercise. What I saw was a fight to the death and I couldn’t let that happen.
I reached for my phone and with trembling hands, I called the emergency dispatcher, who put me in touch with a member of animal control. I could tell that the man didn’t believe me, but I knew that he would come and check it out soon enough. It was his job after all and he wasn’t willing to risk the fact that I might have been telling the truth.
The animals were long gone by the time animal control arrived. They took almost an hour to respond. I guess I should have expected that. I’m not the type of person that’s easy to believe. Let’s just say that when I’ve been filled with a state of panic like I had been, I have a tendency to screech and scream. It makes me seem crazy, at best. As a result, I am sure that the animal control officer must have thought that I was on a special kind of high. Still, I rushed down the stairs and to the door, determined to keep my call as secret as possible.
The officer was chewing gum when I got down to meet him. He was staring at me, looking up and down my robed body. I clutched the soft fabric to my chest. It wasn’t a good-looking robe, the kind of article that didn’t belong in a place like this. I could feel my self-conscious nature rearing its ugly head at me as I stared at the man that who came to take my statement. As I started to explain, I realized exactly on what side of crazy I must have belonged. There was no way that I could have seen the things that I had seen and the agent of the government must have noticed that as well.
“Well Ms. Mueller, I can’t find any lions here. I’m afraid you might have been mistaken.” The words that came out of his mouth betrayed what he was thinking.
“Look, I’m sorry. I must have been mistaken.” I couldn’t find a better way to put that.
“Are you on drugs, ma’am?”
“No, no, I’m not.” I shook my head and his face narrowed. His eyes squinted as he swept them up and down my entire form once again.
“You said you work here?”
“Sort of.” I didn’t feel like explaining it again. “I’m a surrogate.”
“And who are you a surrogate for?” He put air quotes around the word surrogate.
“The owner.”
“Ma’am. I find that hard to believe. You’re telling me that the surrogate is calling animal control on the family dog?”
“It wasn’t a dog.” I whispered. I really didn’t like his attitude.
“Excuse me, ma’am. A lion, I’m sorry. It must have been exactly what you saw.” The sarcasm was dripping from his lips and I wanted nothing more in that moment than to punch him. It was an urge that I had often when men and women in power treated me like I couldn’t be believed.
“I’m sorry to have bothered you.”
“I’m not going to write you up this time.”
“Write me up? For what?”
“Filing a false report, ma’am. That’s illegal.”
I stared at the man. I really didn’t know how to respond, but I was lucky in that moment. Torrance walked up behind me, his face stern as he looked at the pet cop. “I’m sorry officer. It won’t happen again.” The cop let us go and went on his way. He was going to let me go, this time. I was getting a warning. Something about that word, warning, set my teeth to chatter. It was a momentary thing, the type of moment that scared me more than the creatures that had wandered out of my nightmares and on to the lawn.
Torrance grinned when the door was closed. “Crank calls to the cops. I didn’t know that you had that kind of bad streak.”
“I didn’t crank call.”
His face was mockingly serious. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to save you next time.” He shrugged.
“I’m sure you’ll be there. After all, aren’t you always there to save me?”
I almost didn’t catch his response. It had been murmured so low. “You have no idea.”
“I have no idea about what?” My face was growing a little strained. I knew that I wasn’t supposed to hear what he had said, but I had, and for some reason it tripped some strange chord in my mind. The humming of possibilities seemed to rage out of control for just a moment. The panic set in and then it faded. Wasn’t that just the way of things in this day and age?
“Don’t worry about it.” He smiled and placed his hand on the small of my back. With careful steps, he led me back up to the apartment that I was calling home for the time being. He was leading me and something about that made me feel a little strange about the entire ordeal. I looked up at him. “Let’s just get you to bed. You look exhausted.”
“I’ve been watching them.” I whispered it, but I knew that he was close enough to hear the words. “Every night they’re out there. Tonight they were fighting. I was worried. I called the police.”
“Next time you see something like that, call someone in the house. We’ll be there to help you out. Use the intercom, there’s a button to broadcast to every apartment.”
“I’m not sure.”
“Here. I’ll show you how it works.” He walked me into my apartment and gave me a quick lesson with the buttons on the wall. He gave me a way to call for help if I needed it. We even tested it and we had a quick game of intercom tag with everyone else in the house before I plopped down on the
chair. “Do you need anything?”
“No, not really.” It was a lie, but for what I needed in that moment, he wasn’t the right person to give. Still,he must have read my mind because he walked up behind me and placed his hands on my shoulders. He started to rub and I moaned a little bit. “That feels amazing.” I groaned at him, not really knowing how to respond to his touch any other way.
“Why don’t you lay down? You could definitely use this.”
“Is this how you made your fortune?”
“No.” He laughed a little as he helped me out of the chair. I shucked my shirt off. “I got the money from family, but I did take a couple of classes.”
I lay flat on my stomach. “Well I could definitely take the benefit of those classes.”
“Just relax.” His light hands began to work magic on my aching muscles. I felt a thousand worries just start to melt away as he leaned over me, working on the delicate muscles of my shoulders. “Let me do this for you.”
I groaned in response and I could feel his body respond. The stiffness formed, touching my leg as I moved a bit, repositioning myself. “Sorry.”
“No, it’s okay. Don’t worry about it.” He shifted, moving his hardness away from my body.
I moaned again. “Sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. You should be relaxing, not worrying about the way my body is responding.” I could feel his hands warming up against my skin. The heat that they seemed to produce must have been caused by the connections that we seemed to share. There was something that happened in that moment, something magical that seemed to go on. Whatever it was it didn’t require words, it didn’t need them. But somehow we both seemed to recognize it. I rolled over, propping myself up on my elbows and he leaned in, gently closing in. I could feel his hot breath on my skin as his lips slowly moved on mine.
With the first brush of lip against lip, I could feel the fire start with a sudden jolt of lightning that seemed to slam through the ceiling and take us both by surprise. In a moment, our hands began to roam uncontrollably, pushing clothes to the side. It didn’t take long for the clothes to be gone and he began to kiss down my body. He took a moment, pausing at my breasts to kiss and nibble. I groaned and pulled his head closer, and he gladly burrowed his face into my cleavage, an overwhelming lust taking over both of us.
He began to kiss lower, his mouth slowly moving toward the erogenous nexus of my thighs. As his tongue began to lick and scoop and his teeth began to nibble and scrape, I groaned in ecstasy. I needed to feel him, all of him, and his fingers played patterns on my buttocks as he pulled my body in further toward him. I groaned his name and he touched me in places that had been aching to be touched in for so long now.
I looked down at him and my hands began to run through his hair. I felt the waves begin to wash over me and I was running on a sea of something that wasn’t supposed to exist, my own passion was overflowing and I squeezed my thighs around his head. I wanted him and something told me that he would have given anything to climb up my body, but he didn’t do it. He brought me over that cliff again and again, as I said his name over and over again. My cries seemed to drown everything out as the rush burst through the dam and I screamed for him to keep doing what he was doing.
He continued until my body sagged with exhaustion, but he wasn’t stopping there. He rose from his position, wiping my juices off his face as he climbed up over me. My thighs opened and it didn’t take him long to get to where I could feel him pausing at my womanhood. I groaned his name, my power revitalized.
I wrapped my legs around him and reached up to put my hands on his shoulders. The drastic difference in our skin seemed to make this entire thing a thousand times more erotic. He was tanned, but still my dark skin seemed to envelop him, draw him in closer than anyone had ever been before.
I didn’t question it, but this wasn’t something that I had experienced before. I pulled him closer and he began to thrust, to scratch an itch that only he seemed able to reach. It didn’t take us long to crest the last cliff of passion again. After we finished, we both fell into exhausted slumber together.
CHAPTER FIVE
I felt him move and it caught my attention. I guess that it was the fact that I wasn’t used to sharing a bed with anyone, but he shifted out my embrace, his arm slipping out from under me. I feigned sleep. The morning after conversation wasn’t exactly something that I relished, so I let him walk out the door.
Afterwards I rose and pulled the robe over my naked body. I hugged myself and walked to the window, wondering what I was going to do. This was the second time that I had slept with the man who was hiring me to carry his baby and that night he whispered in his sleep. I hadn’t caught what he had said, and I knew that I would never ask.
Instead, I walked to the window, pondering on the effect that this was going to have on my resume. Yeah, I know, that isn’t exactly something altruistic or kind. In fact I was being downright selfish, but with any luck I could hide that for long enough to get my point across. I shuddered when I heard the door close.
I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had stumbled into something a little extreme, something strange that was going on in this house, with this place. I rose from the bed and walked to the window, staring outside, hoping that my feeling was going to fade in time.
It didn’t fade and soon I began to understand why. I watched Torrance step out of back of the house. I didn’t exactly see the entrance. I squinted, trying to see what was going on, but my eyes must have been deceiving me. Torrance stripped down. He was naked. I had no idea where his clothes had gone, but he was changing. His body started to twist and morph, modifying itself to a new form as I watched in terror.
I stared, my awe taking over my fear, as he continued to change. My body froze. I was stuck there. This was the sort of thing that belonged in some horror movie. “What have I gotten myself into?” I watched his body rearrange itself. Bones shifted to new positions. I couldn’t understand it. No one should have been able to do what I was seeing.
This belonged in some movie, not right in front of my eyes. I watched him and I knew that this could be no trick. There was no way that this could be anything than what I was seeing. He was changing form, a large mane coming out of his neck as his body lowered, growing closer to the ground. I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t make a sound. That was it. I had to get out of there.
I was starting to understand now. There was a reason why that the officer hadn’t found any evidence of a lion. There was a reason. The lion had come to the door to meet with him, but the officer had no idea that Torrance was the creature that I had been watching. I shook my head, hoping that what I was seeing was false, trying desperately to figure out what was going on.
I struggled with possibilities. There were so many things that I should have done, but frankly, I just wanted to go home. After all, who would believe me, anyway? I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I had to do something. I flew into action.
There wasn’t much to do, other than to throw my clothes in a bag. I hadn’t brought much, but I made sure to bring my computer with me. I was possessed with a strange fervor as I rushed through the motions. The fear spurred me on and on and I didn’t care how it all looked. I just knew what I had to do about it all. I had to get out of there.
I threw my bag together, making sure to get everything that I knew I couldn’t live without. Everything else I left behind. I had to get out of there. I had to escape. There wasn’t much else that I could do about the situation, but I knew that there was something terribly wrong with my entire life.
“I’ve got to go.” I kept repeating it. I was a mantra that I groaned as I hefted my bag down the stairs. I was watching for anyone, but there was no one around.
It took me a lot longer than I had expected to get to the car, my car. I was getting out. It was time to go. I threw my bag in the back seat and climbed in to drive. My hands shook as I started the engine. Maybe I was going crazy. That’s what I was starting to thin
k, but it didn’t take me long to notice the yellow eyes staring at me from under the brush to the side of the driveway. I was being watched and I knew that this wasn’t going to end well. I had to get out.
I gunned the car, racing down the driveway, but I had to wait for the gate. I felt my stomach clench. Automatic gates always take too long to open. I tapped my foot and the engine revved a bit before I caught myself. As soon as the gates opened enough to squeeze through, I was on my way, escaping into the night air and away from the terrifying realization of the fact that my entire life had shattered. One of two things had just occurred. I had either lost my mind or I had just seen things that no one should ever have to witness.
I drove down a lonely road. I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere along the way. Panic wasn’t letting me think straight. There was nowhere to stop, nowhere to really turn around, but I pulled up over the median and made my way to escape. No sooner had I turned around than I saw it. A great beast alongside the road. It must have been a bear or something.
“I’m seeing things.” I rubbed at my eyes, but it was coming straight at the vehicle. I swerved, hoping to miss the creature, but it didn’t work. I hit the drunk bumps and felt the car start to shudder. I was slowing down and I was no longer in control of the vehicle.
I screamed and everything seemed to go black. It was just a minute, but I woke up to see that I was surrounded by wild animals. I screamed again. The car was stopped and no matter how hard I pressed on the gas, it wouldn’t move. I didn’t know what they had done, but something must have happened.
There was a wolf staring at me, a large golden cat to one side. It might have been a mountain lion or a leopard or something like that, but to be honest I wasn’t paying that much attention. I stared into the eyes of the wolf, trying to figure out exactly what I was going to do about this new world that I had seemed to have entered. I groaned, my entire body shook with uncontrolled fear, but that wasn’t going to do me any good.