The Abduction

by Nichole Allen

  She wondered what he meant about a big cat and searched the dark shapes in the park for something cat-like. There wasn’t anything that she could see but he had said that he’d been scratched, not bitten or knocked down. She reached for her tablet and checked the news sites but nothing came up; no sightings or missing wild cats, no strange occurrences in the park. She wondered what the scratch looked like and then realized that she had spent the entire evening thinking about Ryan, again.

  “I am a confident woman, I am a likable woman, I am happy, I am confident, I have drunk too much wine,” she said sighing.

  *****

  Josie couldn’t wait to get away from him and after the day he’d had it was refreshing. He walked back through the park after he’d watched her walk away. He wanted to see if there were any footprints in the park that looked at all cat-like, not that he had any idea what cat paw prints looked like. He soon found a patch of wrinkled grass where he had skidded through it but no footprints at all, not even his.

  His appetite had increased through the day and when he reached his apartment, he knew he needed meat. His body was craving it and he could put it down to the weekend’s sickness or years of dieting but something told him it was something to do with the scratch and his new and improved body. The sandwiches he’d taken for lunch hadn’t been nearly enough but with the attention he had suddenly acquired he hadn’t dared to venture outside the building. Now when he opened his fridge, he saw three packets of meat; ignoring the vegetables he filled the frying pan with various animal products.

  After taking care of his hunger, he ran a bath and spent a whole hour just soaking in the hot water. His thoughts roamed, and he was soon picturing the petite girl who had worked in his office and remained anonymous for over a year. He had a vague memory of seeing her but now, after the supply room incident, he couldn’t remove her from his brain. He was no longer relaxed; he was agitated and slightly aroused. Visions of her soft light brown hair tickling his chest came out of nowhere and interrupted his peace.

  It was while he was thinking about Josie sprawled all over him that something very strange happened. One minute he had one hand on the edge of the bath and the other on his manhood, enjoying happy thoughts, the next minute he had a sudden attack of heightened awareness. It wasn’t a gradual buildup but more of an explosion of sensations.

  His sense of smell changed and a whole new world began to revolve around his nose. He could smell all kinds of food drifting in through the window and it made him feel like he needed to find these foods.

  His vision had also changed, but he didn’t notice this until he opened his eyes. His bathroom was no longer a steamy blur of comfort, it was sharp and clear. When he stood up and peered through the window to savor the scents of the city, he found that he could see a lot more than he could before he got in the bath. The city was alive and vibrant and he felt like a predator watching over it.

  He jumped out of the bath and pulled on his clothes, not bothering to dry his body. He had to get out there, there were things down there that he needed and although he wasn’t sure what they were, they smelled pretty good. He stopped long enough to pick up his keys and then he was out, down the communal stairs and off into the night.

  He started jogging but chasing the smells meant that he couldn’t stick to the path. He ran under the cover of trees and then out again, trying to identify the scents. There were doggy smells, rodents, all kinds of foods, and something else that caught his hunger.

  He ran to the far edge of the park and looked around; he recognized that smell but in his excitement, he just couldn’t remember what it belonged to. He took several deep breaths, glad that no one was around to see him. He knew he must look crazy running around the park like a puppy on heat but everything felt good, or to be more precise everything felt totally awesome and he didn’t want it to stop. He didn’t feel his transformation; he was too entranced with what he was feeling. He didn’t even notice that he was no longer walking on two legs.

  The stream of scent that was driving him wild was coming from one of the apartments that bordered the park in the opposite corner from his. He traced the scent along the walkway and up the stairs, coming to stop outside a flat with a red door.

  He didn’t know why he was standing outside someone’s apartment, but he knew something inside would interest him. He couldn’t seem to drag himself away but stalking a scent was weird and deep down he understood that, but he continued to wait.

  When Ryan woke, it was to a high-pitched shriek. A woman was standing over him with a broom and he saw the anger on her face just before she hit him square in the face with the brushy end. He covered his face and shot to his feet quickly finding out why she was pissed.

  He was naked; he was stark naked aside from his abs that were looking pretty good under the predawn glow. He covered his manhood with one hand while the other fended off the blows that were still coming.

  If Ryan thought things couldn’t be worse than waking up disorientated and naked across the park from his flat, he would be mistaken. The red door next to him opened and a sleepy-eyed Josie peered out. His eyes met hers and they both gasped and then he did what most normal people would do in his situation; he ran like the devil was chasing him, and his junk, no longer covered, was flapping in the wind.

  He had one huge streak of good luck and that was finding his clothes, albeit shredded, on the dewy grass. His keys were still in the pocket of his now unwearable jeans. By the time he rammed his key into the lock, the sun had risen over the horizon and the park was light. He hadn’t seen anyone else on his travels but the one person he didn’t want to see him doing a freaky naked sprint had seen him and he had felt her eyes burning into the back of his butt on the entire dash through the park.

  *****

  Josie had woken to a scream, and it had jolted her clean out of bed. She had grabbed the baseball bat that she hid behind the door and prepared to swing it but when she peered around the door she saw Ryan, naked. She had seen the startled look on his face before he turned around and fled and then she had sneaked a look at his body. It was perfect, in every way.

  After telling her neighbor, Irene, to go back home and put the coffee on, she ran to her balcony and watched Ryan as he grabbed what looked like his clothes and ran across the park, still naked and still beautiful.

  She had no theories on what had just happened, none at all. When Irene walked in and handed her a cup of coffee, she took it but she didn’t stop watching until she saw Ryan disappear into his block. She knew Irene was waiting for an explanation and she knew it would be easier to lie than try to work out what actually happened.

  “What in the world was that young man doing?”

  “He was my date, I kicked him out,” Josie replied hoping the lie wouldn’t come back to bite her in the ass.

  “But why was he naked, and why was he sleeping on your door mat?”

  “It was a game,” she said; she had never been a great liar.

  “I think I’m too old to hear about this,” Irene said.

  Josie never looked forward to work, it wasn’t fun on any given day but she had a feeling that today was going to be particularly hard after catching Ryan in the buff on her doorstep. She really wanted to know what was going on but wasn’t in a hurry to do the asking because that meant getting close to him, close enough to remember what his body looked like underneath his office clothes.

  Ryan was late, and this gave her an extra couple of hours to agonize over what she was going to say. Did she pretend it hadn’t happened or call him a pervert? He could be a nudist or have a sleep disorder that made him get up from his perfectly good bed and wander the streets without any idea what he was doing. The real mystery to her was why her place? Why had Irene found him curled up on her doormat?

  Ryan appeared in the coffee room when she’d popped in. She always waited until everyone else had finished with it. Now she was trapped in the small space with the man she’d seen every inch of on her doorstep just a
few hours previously. She was furious with her traitorous body for blushing when he stood there without any color at all. Why wasn’t he the one to blush?

  “I’m sorry. Please, can you just forget that happened? Whatever you saw, I would like you to wipe it from your memory and please don’t ever mention it, oh and can you tell your neighbor that I’m sorry. She really hit me hard, though, she should be more careful,” he said, and she finally found the blush on his cheeks.

  “Why were you there?” She whispered.

  “I have no idea, none at all,” he said shrugging.

  “Hi Ryan, I missed you this morning,” a tall brunette from the adjoining office said while arranging herself on the door frame until she looked like a pinup having a photo-shoot.

  “Missed me?” Ryan asked turning to face the woman.

  Josie grabbed her coffee, stepped behind Ryan and tried to squeeze herself between the door frame and the wanton slut; it was difficult because the bitch just ignored her presence and Josie nearly spilled her coffee.

  “Josie wait!” Ryan called but once free she was off.

  She kept her eyes down for the rest of the day, eating her packed lunch at her desk and not bothering to fill up on coffee. She could feel his eyes boring into her and the one time she had looked up he’d been staring at her unashamedly and all she could think of was his bare backside bouncing through the park. She had to turn on her desk fan to cool her flush. Drooling over a man in the office who doesn’t know you exist is one thing but working alongside a man she’d seen naked but hadn’t had the pleasure of even a kiss, well that was another thing entirely. She wanted him so much she could barely focus on her work.

  Before she could pack up her things and rush for the door at the end of the day, he was standing by her desk. She pretended he wasn’t there for as long as it was possible but it was difficult when she had to listen to three people ask him for a drink that evening. She wanted to leave her desk in disarray and escape while he was occupied but she didn’t have it in her. She liked how neat and tidy it was in the mornings; she liked her filing and in-trays to be reliable, just like she was.

  “Josie, we need to talk,” Ryan said as she sidestepped him.

  “We did that already,” she replied.

  “No, we didn’t, I talked, and you ran away,” he said.

  “Like you ran away from my doorstep, naked,” she whispered.

  She was starting to get angry and confused and the fact that they were alone in the elevator didn’t mean she wanted to raise her voice. Her very normal life was not feeling so comfortable and she needed to feel more in control. She was just glad that his steady stream of admirers had given up for the day because she didn’t want another close encounter like the one with pinup girl in the coffee room.

  “I’m going to walk you home,” Ryan said as if she didn’t have a say in the matter.

  “I might not be going home,” she hissed.

  “Where are you going? I can come along too; we have to talk. Which way?” He asked.

  “That way,” she replied.

  “So you are going home,” he said grinning.

  The grin reached parts of her that were still focused on his naked form in her head and her knees went wobbly. If she could just keep it together for a while and not get her damp panties in a twist. All she had to do was keep it together and put one foot in front of the other. Ryan slipped his arm into hers and she thought he’d have to carry her home until someone tapped him on the shoulder.

  *****

  “We need to talk,” the man said.

  “Really?” Ryan replied looking back at Josie.

  “Just you and me, not the young lady,” the man replied.

  “I’m busy, what is it about?” he asked and could already catch Josie’s interest out of the corner of his eye.

  “That’s private,” the man smiled and winked at Josie.

  Ryan looked over at her and she was smiling shyly at the newcomer and blushing like a little girl. The man was encroaching on his territory and all it had taken was a wink to make her all girly and sweet. Why didn’t he have charm like that? The man was built like a marine but since his weekend of sickness, he was looking pretty hot himself.

  “I tell you what,” the man said. “We can both walk the pretty lady home and then we’ll have that chat.”

  He linked arms with Josie and she blushed further. Her scent was deepening into something that he’d expect to find in the bedroom and the hot marine guy was the cause. He wasn’t about to let her go. He wrapped his arm around her free arm and could feel the contents of her over-sized handbag digging into him. As they walked towards the park, he wondered what the sharp thing was in her bag and if she would have used it to beat him had she been the one to find him naked on her doorstep.

  “What’s your name, honey?” the man asked Josie.

  “Josie,” she answered in her sweetest voice, the one she hadn’t reserved for him.

  “That’s a pretty name,” he said. “And what’s yours?”

  “Ryan, but shouldn’t you know that if you came here to speak to me?” Ryan could feel the hairs prickle on his neck and his sense of smell seemed to intensify.

  “I didn’t know your name but we’ve met before,” the man said. “My name is Adam.”

  “Adam, I have never met you before and I’m not sure we need to chat,” he said.

  The color was starting to creep up his neck as they reached the park and his memory was way too sharp as he pictured himself streaking across the grass. He was pretty sure that Josie had the same image in her head because she was glowing. He could still smell that musky scent coming from Josie and he wished he could get rid of Adam and his beefcake arms and square jaw so he could persuade her to like him.

  “Ryan, we met just about there,” Adam pointed to the picnic bench that he’d been knocked under by the cat-like animal.

  “Oh,” Ryan said.

  He didn’t know what to think now, but he did want some answers. Adam was not in a hurry to discuss it with Josie and that was probably a good thing because she was thoroughly enjoying his muscular arm linked through hers and as competitions go, this was not one where he’d like to place bets on himself.

  Ryan was starting to sweat by the time they had reached the entrance to Josie’s stairs and it wasn’t from exertion. His embarrassment was mounting and so was the disturbance in his stomach over what Adam was going to say.

  “It was nice to meet you, Josie, I hope to bump into you again some time,” Adam said kissing her hand.

  If that wasn’t flirting, then Ryan didn’t know what was. He felt the urge to trump it with some overblown gesture of his own but his embarrassment stopped him from doing anything brash and he just gave her a little wave and watched her walk up the stairs, taking her sexy smell with her. When he turned to face the muscle-man the guy was smirking at him and Ryan just wanted the ground to swallow him whole.

  “So, you in the mood for a steak? I know the best place to get one,” Adam said.

  Ryan thought about it for a couple of seconds and then his stomach growled. Regardless of anything, anything at all, he needed to eat, and he was craving some serious meat-fest. He nodded and walked beside the huge man back toward the street. Ryan was half expecting him to own a muscle car, complete with cheesy music and car stickers but he clicked the fob in his hand and a small unassuming car flashed back at him.

  “Nice ride,” Ryan said.

  “Better than yours,” Adam replied.

  “I don’t own a car,” Ryan said climbing into the hatch back.

  “Exactly,” Adam said and pulled away.

  It did occur to Ryan that he really shouldn’t have got into a stranger’s car. It doesn’t matter how old a person is or what size they are, they can still be abducted, especially by beefcakes the size of Adam, if that really was his name. When they pulled up outside a restaurant five minutes later Ryan recognized it as one of the places he’d always meant to try.

  “Nice,�
�� Ryan said.

  “It belongs to my family,” Adam replied. “C’mon.”

  After greeting several other men in the restaurant, they sat down at a booth and ordered the surf and turf plus, which was a plate full of protein with some added garnish for decoration and a few fries to balance the meat. Adam didn’t say anything for a while and Ryan started to worry that maybe he was on a date, on a date with a guy who was twice the size of him and obviously knew more about him that he’d like.

  “So, what do you want to talk about,” Ryan asked.

  “Friday night in the park to start with, then we’ll discuss why running naked through the park isn’t such a great idea,” Adam said, still smirking.

  “Damn it, I will never get over that,” Ryan rubbed his flushed face and grabbed the beer he’d ordered for comfort.

  “First, I’d like to say sorry. I couldn’t stop to see if you were okay, obviously, you were and yet you weren’t,” Adam said swigging his own beer as he talked. “I was being chased, and I was looking behind me, I just didn’t see you until it was too late.”

  “What were you chasing? Because I thought I saw a huge panther or something and I’ve looked on the news but there’s no mention of it. Was it someone’s pet?”

  “Pet? Are you mad? I’m not a pet; I’m a pussycat but no one's pet,” Adam replied.

  “What?” Adam was confusing the hell out of him, why couldn’t he just get to the point already.

  “I’m the cat, panther shifter to be precise and that takes me to my second point,” he said and nodded to someone behind the bar for a fresh beer. “I scratched you when we tumbled and it looks like some of my shifter venom got into your system, hence the naked run through the park.”