by Cara Adams
“That makes sense,” said Gaynor thoughtfully.
“We’ve gotten ourselves quite the little problem if these people are going to keep trying to abduct our females. We live in a community together, but it’s on a farm. It’s not walled and gated, and our people love to run free. If an unmarried woman always has to be shielded by a group of men, everyone is going to get tired of that right quickly.”
“You said, ‘unmarried woman.’ So only single women are vulnerable?”
“Yep. There’s no divorce in our culture. Marriage is for life. And that’s Omar’s point. He keeps saying if we got married, I’d be safe. And I keep replying that I want him and JB. Both of them. And that’s Omar’s sticking point.”
“Two men works fine, if they share,” said Gaynor.
“Uh-huh. Well, Omar hasn’t got the memo about sharing just yet.”
They both giggled, then Ramona got up to get a cup of coffee. When she sat down again she asked, “What about you? You said your two men cooperate okay. How does the wolf deal with that?”
Gaynor hesitated. They’d already spoken of some fairly unusual things—ménages and shape-shifters. She wondered what Ramona would think if she added BDSM to the mix. Well, she could hardly hold back. Ramona had been totally up front about her private life.
“Tor’s a Dom. Cameron and I are both his subs. It works well, as I said. It kind of blew my mind away at the start, but it’s so freeing to have someone in control, someone I trust to plan my pleasure. I’ve never been so fulfilled, so pleasured and cherished before. Of course, finding out Tor’s a wolf has kind of given Cameron and me rather a lot of stuff to think about.” Gaynor blushed and looked at Ramona, but Ramona was nodding.
“Omar’s a Dom. Neither JB nor I are ready to be his subs though. As I said, Omar doesn’t share and I want them both.”
“That is a problem.”
“Until he works out what he really wants there can be no marriage, no mating.”
“Isn’t there something the police can do about the people in purple shirts?”
“The people in purple shirts? Oh, you mean the rogue clan? Not until they do something that’s illegal under American law. After that fight at the basketball tournament, even though at least one man pulled a knife on us, the worst thing that happened was a couple hundred-dollar fines for disturbing the peace. Slap on the wrist really. Luckily Leticia’s father is keeping her at home until all the trouble blows over. She’s much too young and innocent to be stolen away.”
“Do you think they’ll just go away? Really? And who’s Leticia? I don’t recall you talking about her before.”
“Actually no, I don’t think they’ll leave the neighborhood. I think they’ll cause more trouble. That’s another reason why I won’t just marry Omar. There are also several younger girls in the clan. What if the rogue cats go after them? Leticia is a pure-blood panther. Her father’s our Alpha. There’s also Autumn, but she’s only half-panther so likely she’ll be safe. But no one is willing to risk testing that idea.”
“So, what’s the solution? Until the police can catch them committing a genuine crime?”
“Fuck if I know. Some of the men have talked about completely enclosing the farm with electric fencing, but that’s way too expensive, and fences can always be cut. Anyway, that’s enough about me. What are you going to do about your man? It sounds like you didn’t already know he was a shifter?”
“Neither Cameron nor I knew. Apparently he’d been planning to tell us but had thought there was no need to hurry about it. We’re talking about making a commitment to each other, leading eventually to a formal mating, but there are a lot of issues to deal with. Like where we can live with enough space for all three of us and where he’s unlikely to get caught shifting. I don’t even know how the three of us can mate. But we’re in no rush. I’m quite conflicted about everything at the moment. I mean, I didn’t even know shape-shifters were real until the basketball match and I certainly didn’t know I was living with one. At times I feel like I’ve walked into one of our own movies by mistake.” She stopped and said softly, “I love them both. We’ll work it out.”
“We’ve got a farm we all live on, but even so, there’s not a lot of room to run in, because we can’t go near the road and now no one wants to go near the fence line, either.”
“Cameron’s going to talk to some people he knows who live in a BDSM community. He said they had some undeveloped land. But it might not be anywhere big enough for your community.”
“Yeah, an acre or two is not enough. But more than that gets expensive to buy and care for. Oh, well, things’ll sort themselves out.”
“Yeah. Right.” Gaynor looked at Ramona. The situation was a total mess and they both knew it.
* * * *
“Hi, Carey. It’s Cameron. I want to pick your brain. How about lunch at the Wooden Spoon at one today? Jubilee is welcome to come as well, if she’d like to.”
“What, you’ve got another juicy BDSM court case coming up? No worries, we’ll be there. Make sure the coffee’s hot and strong.”
Carey rang off before Cameron could explain it was personal, not a case, but he guessed it didn’t really matter. Carey and Jubilee were meeting him for lunch, and all he had to do was make sure he framed his questions about their community so he got the information he needed without offending them. It should be a piece of cake for an attorney to do that, but he surprised himself how often his courtroom voice carried over into his private life. Oh well, he guessed that’d be true with most professions. He’d overheard a man on the bus this morning telling his wife the capital of India was Agra. He’d just shaken his head, but he was certain no schoolteacher would have been able to avoid telling the man he was a hundred years out of date. Agra used to be the capital of Hindustan, but New Delhi had been the capital of India since 1911.
Cameron folded his hands, closed his eyes, and planned what he’d say. It might not be to do with a court case, but it was something that was important to him, to Tor, to Gaynor and their future happiness. His private life had been in turmoil since Tor had been knifed and had to transform into his wolf to protect himself and them. Cameron just wanted everything to return to normal. He wasn’t stupid. He knew he couldn’t turn the clock back to how they’d been before, but he needed to get the issues dealt with and overcome for them all to move on and reclaim their peace and unity.
Tor and Gaynor had both completed him and made him happier than he’d ever been before. He couldn’t imagine being without them. Weird as it was for a straight man to say about a male Dom, he loved them both equally, though in totally different ways.
As always Cameron chose a table in the back corner of the restaurant where he was certain no one could listen in to his conversation without him being aware of them doing so. Also, as was his usual habit, he sat with his back to the wall, looking toward the door. He ordered a pot of coffee and three cups then remembered Jubilee’s chocolate addiction and asked for some chocolate Oreo cookies as an appetizer. The server gave him a strange look but returned with the cookies neatly laid out on a pretty china plate just as Carey and Jubilee were entering the Wooden Spoon.
Carey immediately looked over to the corner where Cameron sat and nodded at him. Then they made their way through the crowd to the table. Jubilee reached for a cookie. “Yum. You’re a smart man, Cameron, an extremely smart man.”
“Beware of Greeks bearing gifts,” warned Carey.
“I’m not Greek,” complained Cameron at the same time as Jubilee said, through a mouthful of cookie crumbs, “Virgil, in the Aeneid, also modernized as ‘Beware of geeks bearing gifs’ in the Compuserve copyright dispute of the ’90s.”
“Oh, now I’m with you,” said Cameron. The server came then and they ordered their meals. After she left, Carey asked, “What particular section of my brain would you like to pick?”
Jubilee reached for another cookie. “Maybe he’d rather pick my brain. It’s sharper than yours.”
&nbs
p; Cameron jumped in quickly to avert any trouble. “I wanted to ask about how your community works, what the rules are for joining, that sort of thing.”
“Our community?” Carey looked surprised.
“Yes.”
“Does your Dom want to join with us?” asked Jubilee.
“It’s a little more complicated than that.”
“Spit it out.”
“I recently had occasion to meet a person who…had um…paranormal aspects to their persona.” Cameron hadn’t planned on giving so much away so early in the conversation, but he’d underestimated how very perceptive these two people could be.
Jubilee grinned. “And up until then, the great and mighty attorney hadn’t known shape-shifters existed. Wolf or panther?”
Only years of experience in court stopped Cameron’s jaw from dropping when Jubilee spoke. He cleared his throat and said, “Both.”
“One person both cat and dog? That is unusual,” said Carey.
“Actually it was two people. One of each.”
“Oh, not unusual at all. These people are looking for somewhere safe to live, I suppose, and so you thought of us. I’ve heard whispers of a rogue group of panthers looking to acquire female full-blood shifters and not being too careful about how they acquire them. We would need to be very sure the people looking for safety were not spies for the rogue group. They would need to come with exceptionally high personal references. But having said that, we would be amenable to giving them refuge for a short time, until the trouble blows over. Anyone wanting to join us on a permanent basis needs to pass much stricter checks. We’re a community, and each new member has to prove they can fit in harmoniously with the rest of us.”
“Yeah, with so many Doms around, the testosterone goes to their heads some days,” added Jubilee.
Cameron laughed. “Do people buy into the community, purchase their house? How does the system operate?”
“It operates like many other communities. There’s a shared annual fee for communal areas and community-use items like the barn, the dungeon, and so on. Each resident buys an empty home from Carnal Connections, or builds their own home with the help of the community, and agrees to sell it back to us if they decide to leave. Everyone pays their own utility bills and so on.”
“That sounds fair.”
Jubilee finished eating her meal, laid her fork down, and said, “Now, tell me where you met the wolf and the panther.”
“She’s a puma, and it was at a basketball match. A fight broke out during the match, someone pulled a knife, and while most people were busy fighting, a couple of people tried to kidnap her. She’s a friend of Gaynor’s, and Gaynor ran after her, so I followed Gaynor, as did Tor.”
“If she turned into the puma, then who’s the wolf?” asked Carey.
“Tor.”
“No shit! And I’m guessing that was news to you,” said Jubilee.
“Yes.”
“Ever the lawyerly reply,” quipped Carey. “If she needs a place to stay she’s welcome, but as I said, she also needs references. Likely a waste of time as I trust you and Gaynor, but the rules are there to protect everyone.”
Cameron nodded. The meal had gone better than he’d hoped. He supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised they knew all about the rogue panther clan, but hell, he’d hadn’t even known shape-shifters weren’t just out of the movies himself this time last week! And as for adjusting to the news about Tor himself, only his professional persona prevented him from showing just how much that piece of news had disturbed him.
“Once a month we have a BDSM party in the barn. It’s only for people who are interested in the lifestyle, and the entire event takes place in the barn. No one is permitted to leave during the party,” said Carey.
“It’d be interesting if you, Gaynor, and Tor came,” added Jubilee.
“Public-exhibition BDSM. I suppose ‘interesting’ is one word for it. I’ll tell the others,” said Cameron.
While one part of his brain said good-bye and thank you to Carey and Jubilee and called for the check, the rest of his brain was trying to assimilate the idea of a barn full of BDSM enthusiasts all having sex together. Mind boggling didn’t even come close to how he felt about the idea. It was almost as surprising as Tor turning into a wolf.
* * * *
Tor spent his off-shift time on Monday researching kit homes, or “modular construction units” that were delivered in pieces all precut to size and just had to be assembled. They tended to be one-person homes though, and his problem already was that the apartment wasn’t really big enough for the three of them. He understood Cameron’s wish for an office. The man had a lot of preparation to do for his cases and deserved a place of peace, quiet, and privacy to work in.
Next he looked at land sales on the fringes of the city. Unfortunately most of this land was already in neat little blocks designed for tract housing, which would be no better for them than where they were already but with a longer commute. Finally he looked at farm sales and the prices were horrendous. He’d saved some money, bought some shares he could easily sell, and Cameron had mentioned being willing to provide some money, too, but not this kind of money. It was definitely out of their price range. Plus there was still the issue of the commute.
Tor sat back in his chair and thought. Could he live in a BDSM community? He might have to give up some control to the community leaders. Could he do it? What if they didn’t accept his wolf side? What it they wanted to place boundaries on their sex? Threesomes weren’t that common, and neither he nor Cameron was gay. What about commitment? Gaynor and Cameron had agreed they would become a committed ménage, which was the next step in moving toward a permanent bonding, something he wanted above all things, but the devil was in the details. First he needed to be able to provide them with a stable home. Being in a BDSM community would be good, but how would he deal with hiding his wolf?
It was weird. He’d hidden his wolf all his life. Yet now that he’d been forced to come out, he wanted to stay out. He’d suddenly developed a fierce sense of freedom. He wanted to run without fear. He wanted to shift in his home, maybe even play with Gaynor and Cameron in his wolf form as humans and dog—not in a sexual way, just as a family. He’d never had the opportunity to play with other wolves. Gaynor and Cameron were his pack. He was the Alpha, and they were his. He genuinely wanted that to extend to the shape-shifting side of himself.
All his efforts today had come up with a big, fat zero. But there was no deadline for this project. He’d try something else tomorrow. Or possibly Gaynor or Cameron would bring home some helpful information.
* * * *
“We’ve been invited to a public-exhibitionism BDSM party at the BDSM community I’ve told you about,” Cameron said.
“What?” Gaynor’s panties were suddenly damp, her heart was pounding, her palms were wet, and her brain was scrambling to imagine what would happen at such an event.
“Tell me all about it.”
Gaynor tried to analyze Tor’s voice. He sounded bossy of course, but she thought he was curious rather than opposed to the idea.
“Carey said only people interested in the lifestyle are invited and that once the event starts you have to stay in the barn where it’s happening until it finishes. I took that to mean you didn’t have to participate but that you couldn’t quietly get your rocks off outside in private. You either have sex in public or you don’t have sex,” said Cameron.
“I’d love to see a BDSM party, but I’m not sure about people looking at me naked. I know neither of you ever complains, but I really ought to lose ten pounds. Possibly even twenty.”
“No, you shouldn’t. You’re just the right size. No one wants to fuck a size zero,” said Tor.
“Imagine making love to someone who was all bones and angles. That wouldn’t be fun at all. Those really skinny women are great to look at modeling clothes, but not in bed,” added Cameron.
“You’re both so sweet. Thank you for that.” Gaynor’s hea
rt was beating faster. She knew she ought to lose weight, but she got plenty of exercise already, and those extra pounds still clung to her hips and thighs no matter how fit she was.
“Cameron, how do you feel about fucking Gaynor in public, or the three of us doing a scene?” asked Tor.
Cameron spoke slowly, in what Gaynor considered to be his attorney mode. “Since everyone will be doing it, I think I’d be fine with that. I wouldn’t want to try anything for the first time though, but anything we already do, I’d be okay with.”
“So, if we decide to go, you’d both trust me to orchestrate a scene. You’d be good with that?”
Gaynor nodded. This was Tor wondering if their trust for him had vanished because of him keeping his wolf a secret. Yes, she was still more than a bit ambivalent about that. However, as always, in the dungeon she trusted Tor. He knew more about her sexual preferences and what turned her on than she did. Everything he suggested always gave her pleasure.
“Yes,” said Cameron.
“Do you think lots of things will be happening at once? Or will people perform a scene one at a time and everyone watch it?” asked Gaynor.