The Panther's Arranged Mate

by Bonnie Burrows

  “Oh, it helps a lot,” Clara said. “Something about compatibility and all.”

  “What do you mean?” Shanya asked.

  “Well, since some of Shifters’ more animalistic qualities come out around a mating,” Clara said, “It’s better. I’m part cat, so they’re going to be careful who I’m paired with. It wouldn’t be too much fun if I got paired with a rabbit man or a rat—since the animal qualities come out more during a mating.”

  Shanya thought about it.

  “What’s so special about being a pure human, though?”

  “Well, it means that you can just about mate with any Shifter,” Clara said. “There’s also something about breeding, but don’t let them pressure you into it. It’s a bigger signing bonus but there’s the whole being pregnant thing.”

  “What?” Shanya was shocked.

  “Some Shifters are all about the pure bloodline,” Clara said. “So they wouldn’t want me because I’d be bringing in who knows what, but with you, you’re only human. So the Shifter traits are going to be dominant. It makes it easier.”

  “I see,” Shanya said. “Can we go to the Center tomorrow?”

  “Are you sure?” Clara asked her. “This isn’t something that you should just rush into. I’m perfectly fine covering your rent while you think it over.”

  Shanya shook her head. Clara clearly wanted something from her, but she didn’t know what it was. Either way, she had to be independent. She couldn’t let anyone else pay for her. That wasn’t what her mother had taught her her. Besides, people only did that if they wanted something from you and there wasn’t a lot that Shanya had to offer.

  “It sounds easy,” Shanya said. “Just have sex and get paid for it.”

  “It does when you say it like that,” Clara said. “But I thought you weren’t into that kind of thing, you never go out to the clubs with me or hook up with anyone.”

  That’s because no one wants to hook up with me, Shanya thought. She didn’t say that. That would only spur Clara into makeover stage.

  “I never have any money for that,” Shanya said. “Is there anything that I should do for the clinic?”

  Clara sighed. “Not really. I mean, if you really want to get good hits, you’re going to need to bring all that human paper work in. That’ll help. They usually just go for the blood test, but your mom was really thorough, wasn’t she?”

  Shanya nodded.

  “So bring that and maybe wear less makeup,” Clara said. “They have this long questionnaire and they match based on personality and other things, but sometimes they let the Shifter choose.”

  “Shouldn’t I put on a lot of makeup, then?” Shanya asked.

  “No, there’s a different culture around Shifters and the makeup thing,” Clara said. “The pure ones, they’re not like us. They prefer things a lot more natural. So the less make up the better and definitely no contouring. Nothing that would change your face shape.”

  “It’s not run on reviews, is it?” Shanya said. She hoped she wasn’t going to end up being the Uber driver of Shifter sex, always reaching for the perfect 5, otherwise she’d be fired.

  “No,” Clara said. “There is a feedback component, but it’s on your feedback, too. Oh, but the matings tend to be, uh—oh it feels so weird to talk about sex with you. Are you sure you want to do this?”

  “Clara, tell me,” Shanya said. “I need to know.”

  “Well, the uh, matings,” Clara smirked. “They can be very, ah, thorough and long. Lots of sweating, usually last about a day, but once I had an antelope guy and it took him three days.”

  Shanya’s eyes went wide.

  “It was amazing,” Clara said. “He was really good. Anyways, not a lot of time for your routine, so yeah, they definitely won’t be seeing you all made up. And don’t worry, the Shifters have different ideas of what beautiful is so they’re not going to, like, run screaming.”

  Rolling her eyes, Shanya got up. “That’s not what I’m worried about.”

  “Liar,” Clara called after her.

  Shanya fled to the bathroom. She stripped off her clothes. She was going to have to call SMILE Inc. to see what she should do with the uniform shirt. Shanya folded it up nicely and turned on the water. Even with all of Clara’s new money, the apartment was still pretty terrible. One of the problems was the shower. The water took forever to heat up.

  Standing in front of the mirror, Shanya started her nightly beauty ritual. She got out her makeup removing pads and slowly dragged one over her face. This was her least favorite part. Without her makeup, Shanya knew that she was ugly.

  Looking at herself in the mirror was torture, especially after such a terrible day. It was horrible. She sighed and gradually the white pad became black with the foundation. She pulled out a new one and wiped her face until the pads started to come away clean. She removed her eye makeup.

  Touching her hair, she decided that she could go another day without washing her hair. If she was going to wear it loose and wavy tomorrow then she was going to need all the oils she could get. Her hair was light and the constant straightening of it took a toll on it.

  Steam rose from the shower. It was finally hot enough. Stepping into the hot shower, Shanya sighed. The hot water washed over her and she began to relax at last. Taking the loofa from its place in the shower, Shanya poured her moisturizing body wash on it.

  She worked it into her skin. She couldn’t control the color, but that didn’t mean she was going to let it become ashy and gross. She paid particular attention to her dark knees and elbows. Those quickly became even darker if she didn’t exfoliate regularly. She then started scrubbing her back. She couldn’t believe that she was going to sign up to be the sex toy of some Shifter tomorrow.

  Instead of disgusting her, the idea thrilled Shanya.

  If her family found out, they would kill her. Her family was one of the few pure human families on the West Coast. They took great pride in their genes and Shanya was going to throw all of this away. She smiled to herself. They would never find out either.

  Shanya had taken care to cover her tracks. They might know what city she lived in but they didn’t know exactly where and she knew that they had no way of finding her.

  This felt like freedom and that made her happy.

  Shanya switched to her wash cloth as she began to massage the moisturizing suds into her breasts. They were a respectable C cup. The shape was fine. The thing she didn’t like about her breasts were her long dark nipples. Oh, how she wished that she’d been granted with small nips. But her areolas were large and dark. She sighed. Add to that the fact that her nipples were damn sensitive. Sighing again, Shanya continued to wash lower. She needed to make a good impression on these people.

  She honestly wasn’t sure how she could make a bad one, though. They weren’t going to examine her physically. Just an application, a bit of blood work, and she’d be out the door. Maybe she’d even get the advance that day. She could go shopping and not have to check the sales racks—though she probably would end up there, anyway. But at least it would be at nicer stores than she usually went to.

  Shanya used her fingertips to massage her scalp. The heat of the water bore away all the dirt and build up without stripping her hair like a shampoo would. Shanya slipped out of the shower and toweled off. She pulled on her warm robe and crept into her room.

  Clara was laughing at something in the living room. Shanya hoped it was enough to keep her occupied for a while.

  In her room, Shanya laid out all the lotions and potions that she used to keep her dark skin smooth and sleek. For her knees and elbows, she started with an intense moisturizer. That kept her from looking ashy. As that was sinking in to her skin, Shanya picked out a light oil for her face. It was scented with lilac and smelled delightful. She dropped three beads of oil into her palm and used her fingers to apply it to her face.

  Her skin absorbed the oil almost immediately and the stretched tightness that came from the cleansing shower turned int
o something more pleasant. Shanya moved on to her legs. She grabbed some plain lotion and set about working it into her skin.

  Her legs were long.

  She had been a good runner in high school. She had made varsity her sophomore year and excelled at hurdles and relays. Alex didn’t make varsity. Alex didn’t play sports. Alex just got high and skipped school and did everything wrong. And still, everyone paid him so much more attention. It still stung.

  Shanya sighed. It shouldn’t matter. But she remembered feeling that if she just ran fast enough she could make her mother proud of her. It hadn’t worked. Shanya’s name was still on the record list at high school. No one had ever come close to equaling her speed. Her coaches were so proud of her. But her mother didn’t even mention it at parties or when other parents would brag about their children.

  Instead, Shanya was met with constant criticism. She’d tried hard to be perfect, but that hadn’t been enough. Eventually, Shanya realized that her mother would never love her as much as Alex and she’d left.

  She’d thought she’d be able to leave. First she moved away from San Francisco to LA but her parents were determined that she return and she’d almost found herself packed up and forcibly taken home a few times. That had frightened her and she left again, moving ever eastward until she reached the ocean.

  Eventually, her family relented.

  Oh, she was unable to work in her field of Human Studies. Her degrees were all but useless and outside of the Human Research Council there weren’t all that many positions. Even the positions that did exist relied on her family not kicking up a huge fuss. With her degree effectively useless, she’d had to turn to other things to make ends meet. Waitressing, housecleaning, the call center.

  Anything was better than being under her family’s control.

  There she was constantly reminded that she wasn’t good enough. Despite all that she had accomplished, someone had always accomplished more or was getting married or had a boyfriend or anything. Even Alex’s improvements in rehab were lauded more than her degrees or honors.

  No, at 25, Shanya could not live like that any longer and she left.

  Starting on her hair was a long process but one that Shanya actually enjoyed. First she gathered the silk wrap for her hair and then she turned on the humidifier. She always slept with it on. It kept her skin and hair from becoming overly dry.

  Then she set to work on her hair. First, she massaged in the heavy-duty conditioner. She made sure that her hair was covered from root to tip and then slowly combed it out with a wide toothed comb. She needed to get most of the tangles out but she didn’t want to go through it with a fine-toothed comb just yet.

  Starting at the tips of her hair, Shanya worked in the mixture of coconut oil and Shea butter. The ends of her hair had suffered the most and as a result was the driest part of her hair. It was also the most delicate. She made sure that the tips were saturated before working the excess oil into the rest of her hair. About half way up, she switched to the lighter jojoba oil and used that up to her scalp. It was important to keep her scalp from drying out. A dry scalp led to fragile hair and Shanya couldn’t have that happening.

  Finally, Shanya was done. She slipped into the silk pajama set (one of the few things she’d kept with her in all her moves) and settled down into bed. Her room was dull and barren. She’d had little enough with her when she moved in. Most of these things were Clara’s—only now that Clara was working at the Center, she didn’t need them anymore since she’d bought nicer things.

  Shanya usually kept her door closed and Clara had never seen enough to question the complete lack of anything personal in the room. She knew that Clara wouldn’t let it go either.

  Eventually, she’d tell Clara everything. Maybe.

  Shanya sighed. She’d liked her job at the Human Research Council.

  Shifters were considered more interesting and indeed influential. Their history was considered interesting and there were many movies about Shifters as well as books. Human history was considered boring, but Shanya didn’t think so. She liked bringing attention to the small things that had happened during great events.

  She loved anything that showed that the great people of history were just people doing their best to muddle through and make the right decisions.

  But, Shanya thought as she wrapped her hair up in silk, there wasn’t much room for that at the Human Research Council. She had to complete a certain amount of projects first. They were mostly boring and the hardest part was the ones that told her to find arguments that would debunk specific things the Shifter Rights Activists were arguing for.

  That part was annoying. Most of the other researchers agreed with her. To them it was just a necessary part of life. But Shanya hated it. It was horrible. Some of the researchers would make fallacious claims, knowing that those running the Human Research Council didn’t care at all. They wanted sound bites, not facts.

  That was what had really worked to drive Shanya away. She realized that this was why she’d been allowed to continue with her interest in history. She used to think that it was because her family truly didn’t mind her interest. But then it had started to look like they had just chosen something useful that she could do. It looked good to have their daughter working there.

  Fortunately, she hadn’t been expected to make any appearances on television. That was due to change with the book that she was working to publish. Stroking the silk pajamas, Shanya sighed. She’d taken her data when she’d run the first time.

  Eventually, she had had to leave behind valuable sources. Now it was unlikely that she would ever be able to finish the book. But it was hers and she liked the idea.

  Shanya smiled. The book had been her pride and joy. She hadn’t come up with a title but she’d wanted to focus on the Shifter practice of stealing away young women from the villages. She’d come across sources and accounts of those who were stolen away. Even when it was for a short amount of time, the young women and men usually wanted to go back. In fact, there were accounts of them doing everything to escape and return to the Shifters who had initially kidnapped them.

  Her mother had loved the idea when she had heard about it. However, when she realized that Shanya’s angle was exploratory—more interested in finding out how the Shifters picked those who would want to stay than telling the world about how Shifters could probably hypnotize people—she was not pleased.

  Knowing that her mother wanted her to attach her professional career to claims that had been repeatedly disproven scientifically and, moreover, could not account for the effort that those captured went through to return to the Shifters, made her want to publish the truth even more. They couldn’t hypnotize people, but they did have an uncanny ability to pick out and perhaps groom those who were not accepted in mainstream human society.

  However, her mother had not cared and soon lost interest in what Shanya was pursuing. She was still being allowed to write it, of course. But her mother no longer cared. That drove it home that she was only appreciated in so far as she was useful to the Human Research Council. It hurt a lot more than Shanya wanted to think about.

  As the years passed, she reconsidered the angle. She wanted to look at more modern examples of this. It was funny, now she was actually in a position to begin to use her experiences. It was more likely, though, that she would find someone at the Center who had become a mistress. Clara probably knew someone.

  Of course, that wasn’t very scientific but it was all she could do. The diaries of those stolen by the Shifters were hard to come by and most of them had been edited in some way or another. People would change history to prove their point and that drove Shanya mad.

  Besides, the only other alternative was finding people like Cassidy and she couldn’t do that. Like those in the old days, they mostly assimilated into the Shifter culture.

  Sighing, she turned over on her silken pillow.

  It was cold but Shanya was warm and cozy under the comforter. It was cheap material (aside
from those things that her hair might come in contact with) but it did its job and it kept her warm.

  Within minutes, Shanya fell asleep.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “Just so we’re clear, you do have eyebrows under all that liner, right?” Clara said, looking her over critically.

  “Yes,” Shanya said. She’d lined her brows today. She wasn’t going to give that up. She was still wearing makeup, but had made an effort to keep it natural and avoided contouring.

  “Okay, good, wasn’t sure if you had some Viola Davis thing going on, with how everything is perfectly done and all,” Clara said. “I guess the lining is okay. Even the wealthiest of Shifters have heard of the Kardashians.”

  Shanya rolled her eyes. Clara always thought that things were bigger deals than they really were. She was such a drama queen.

  “It’s a big deal,” Clara said. “Anyway, the richer the Shifter you pull, the more money you make. Sometimes they’ll try to get you exclusively and you can get so much money doing that.”