by Geonn Cannon
“Looks like you expected to get lucky tonight.”
“Well, I was going to seduce you. Take the new hair out for a test drive.”
“Sorry to ruin your plans.”
“So far everything’s going really well.” She brushed her tongue across Ari’s lips and pulled her in for another kiss. Ari slipped the blouse off Dale’s shoulders and, as it fell, ran her fingers along the waist of her skirt in search of the zipper. Dale reached down and guided her to it and they dragged it down together. Ari stood up and dragged her fingers over the curve of Dale’s hip.
“Whose am I?”
Dale was fixated on Ari’s mouth but still missed the question. “What?”
Ari said, “Who do I belong to?”
“I’m…” She finally met Ari’s eyes. “You’re… yours?”
Ari moved her hands over Dale’s ass and squeezed. She rolled her hips forward and Dale did the same, pressing herself against the smooth material of Ari’s trousers. “Whose am I?”
Dale smiled. “Mine?”
“Yes.” She kissed Dale and moved her away from the wall, into the bedroom.
“You’re my puppy.”
Ari growled and pushed Dale down onto the bed. She took off her clothes before joining her, and Dale slipped her fingers under the collar as Ari settled on top of her. Ari braced one hand above Dale’s shoulder and put her other hand between Dale’s legs. Dale bit her bottom lip, two fingers still curled in Ari’s collar. Ari pressed two fingers against Dale’s sex and pinned it there with her thigh, moving her hips slowly until Dale matched her rhythm.
“Do you want to be on top of me?” Ari asked.
“No, it’s fine.” Dale was breathless and her eyes drifted shut. “Don’t stop.”
She moaned when Ari’s middle finger slipped inside of her. Ari bowed her head to kiss Dale’s breasts through her bra. Dale released the collar and put her hand in Ari’s hair. She wrapped it around her hand and pulled, her grunting slowly forming into the word “puppy” over and over. She came when Ari shifted two fingers to tease her clit. Ari watched the way her face changed, the wrinkle between her eyes and the pink that rose from her collar up into her cheeks. Her lips pulled back and she pushed her head down into the pillow.
They were both still breathing hard when Dale shifted positions. She lifted her hips and settled on Ari’s thigh before she pulled Ari down on top of her. Ari kissed her and Dale began to move her lower body with her leg trapped between Ari’s.
“Whose am I?” Dale asked.
“Mine,” Ari whispered against her mouth.
“Thank you, puppy,” Dale whispered back. “Now come for me. Please.”
Ari moved her lips to Dale’s neck and sought out a particularly sensitive spot, brushing away the sweat with her tongue before she began sucking on it. Dale cried out helplessly against the assault and dug her fingers into the tight muscles of Ari’s flank, above her hips but below her ribs. It was difficult to tell who was riding whom, but Ari’s spine curved and lengthened in a serpentine stretch when she came. She closed her eyes and trembled as she felt the orgasm wash over her. Her arms were weak and her face was tingling.
She collapsed on top of Dale and panted heavily, aware only when she lifted her head of what had happened. Dale was laughing, one hand on top of Ari’s head and the other ruffling the fur on her back.
“Well,” Dale whispered against Ari’s furry snout. “That has never happened before.”
Ari concentrated and felt her bones popping back into place, shifting from canine to bipedal. The pain was worse than usual, but that was the price she paid for two concurrent transformations in such a short window. Once she was capable of speech she smiled and sheepishly kissed Dale’s lips.
“I guess you just made me lose control. The wolf thought I was letting it out to play.”
“Mm, kinky,” Dale said. “I did like having all that fur on my skin. It was like getting covered up with a nice warm blanket.”
Ari rolled to the side and ruffled Dale’s hair as she settled on the mattress next to her. Dale put her hand on Ari’s stomach and moved it in slow circles.
“What was all that ‘mine’ stuff? Not that I object, it’s just not normal for us.”
“Cecily Parrish. She went on this bizarre power trip. She said she could make me her dog.” She grimaced just remembering it.
Dale said, “Gross.”
“Worse than that is that she called me puppy. I was afraid she’d ruined it, but then I walked in and you immediately took it back. Made it yours again.” She brushed her thumb over Dale’s cheek. “Thank you for that, sweetheart.”
“Sure.”
“Roll over.” Dale did as she was told and Ari spooned her. She kissed the newly-short hair at the back of Dale’s head. She moved one hand down between Dale’s legs, covering her mound, and the other up to her breast. Dale squirmed and reached back to rest her hand on Ari’s hip.
“Again?”
“If you want me to.”
Dale said, “Kiss my neck.”
“But I love your hair.”
“Please, puppy.”
Ari smiled and changed her angle of assault. Dale covered Ari’s hand with hers and guided her fingers until she stiffened, turning her head to stifle her moans in the pillow.
“You can be loud,” Ari whispered.
“Neka’s upstairs.”
“Let her listen.”
Dale chuckled breathlessly. “Maybe another night.” She pulled away from Ari so she could flip around. They embraced and began to kiss lightly, catching their breath and letting the sweat dry on their skin. Dale nuzzled Ari’s cheek and settled against her. “I’ll have to shower again if you still want to go out. We have some Bistro leftovers in the fridge. Portuguese chicken?”
Ari said, “Oh, I could eat some chicken.”
Dale pinched Ari’s hip and sat up. She put on a T-shirt and her underwear. Ari dug a pair of shorts out of the drawer and pulled them on, electing to go topless into the kitchen. Dale was used to her casual nudity, a side effect of her canidae upbringing, and said nothing when she came wandering in mostly-nude. They warmed up the chicken and took it to the dining room table they so rarely got to use. Ari sat, planted her feet in the seat, and let her knees stick out to either side like she was a gargoyle perched on the side of a building. Dale was a bit more proper and crossed one leg over the other.
“You know, there was more to that whole… ‘mine-yours’ thing. Over lunch, Lucy and I talked about her relationship with Diana. She called Diana her wife. She was Diana’s wife, Diana was her wife. And then she called you my girlfriend.”
Dale chewed slowly and watched her.
“I know we’ve discussed marriage, we’ve both agreed it’s not something we needed. But. Girlfriend. It just sounded so unofficial. Temporary. We live together, we work together. You’re so much a part of my life that I can’t imagine it without you. My opinion on marriage hasn’t changed. I don’t think we need a piece of paper or a big church ceremony or whatever. But I want something to prove how committed I am to you. Even if it’s just you and me there.”
Dale smiled. “I would really like that, Ariadne. Like a hand-fasting, maybe?”
“I don’t know. Something. We can work out the details later. I just wanted to run it by you, see how you felt about it.”
“I feel… I feel like it’s unnecessary, because I know how much I love you even when you’re frustrating or we’re angry with each other. I know there’s nothing that would change that. I know what we have is different from anything I’ve ever felt before. I know you’re not just my girlfriend, too. So yeah. Whatever you decide to do, I’ll stand up with you.”
Ari reached over for Dale’s hand. She was wearing her bracelet made of intertwined strands of Ari’s hair and the wolf’s fur.
“So will I have to change my name?”
“Only if you want to. Dale Willow?”
“Ari and Dale Will-fry.”
Ari laughed. “Frillow.”
“Frillow. Sounds badass.”
Dale smiled. “I think we’ll stick with our own names for now.”
“Sure.”
“So what are you going to do about the Totems?”
Ari grunted and shook her head. “I’m going back to the skating rink tomorrow. Hopefully I can talk someone into giving me access to their security cameras.”
Dale said, “They have cameras pointed at the lockers?”
“Sure. People are just changing their shoes, locking up their valuables so they won’t fall out onto the ice. Stuff like that. No one’s actually changing clothes. Weren’t you wondering how I was able to watch them put stuff in and take it out?”
Dale shrugged. “I just assumed you’d perfected that ‘dude’ disguise I keep asking you to try.”
Ari smiled. “You’re not going to let that go, are you?”
“You’d be the sexiest dude ever.”
“I think you just want to butch me up.”
“Mm-hmm.”
Ari laughed and flicked a piece of rice across the table.
#
The next morning, she drove to Newton Ice Rink as soon as it opened. She wanted to try getting the security footage before she had to spend another day rehearsing to be Tony the Totem. The main doors were already unlocked when she arrived, but no one had shown up yet to start skating. She recognized the curly-haired kid behind the counter from her first visit and she struggled to remember his name. She had already recalled it by the time she was close enough to read his nametag.
“Patrick, right?”
“Yes.” He stared for a moment before recognition dawned. “Oh, you were here a week or so back. You were scoping the place out for a birthday party or something. Did you want to leave a deposit?”
“Not exactly. I’m afraid I kind of lied to you. I’m actually a private investigator.”
Patrick’s eyes widened. “In real life?”
“Yeah, in real life. I think someone’s been using your facility to conduct criminal business. I’ve been trying to catch them in the act, but so far I haven’t had any luck. I just can’t manage to be here at the right time. So here’s what I’m hoping you can do for me. I want to take a look at your security tapes. I can do it here so you don’t need to give me possession of them. I just need to confirm it’s happening in order to take the next step with my investigation.”
“I don’t know.” He looked helplessly toward the manager’s office. “We’re supposed to ask for a warrant or, like, an official police presence.”
Ari said, “I could do that. But then it would go in my report, the news might get wind of it, and then this place becomes known as that skating rink where those criminals hang out.”
The odds of anything like that happening were tiny, but she could see it had gotten through to him. He drummed his fingers on the table and then gestured for her to come around the counter.
“If anyone asks, this never happened. What do you need to look at?”
She told him the dates. “Everything we’re about to do is off the record, confidential. I can’t let these guys know I’m looking at them, okay?”
“Sure, you can count on me.”
He led her to a desk made of printed laminate designed to look like wood. There was an old PC sitting on one corner and she grimaced in anticipation of the video’s quality. Patrick put the keyboard on his lap and poised his fingers over it before he started typing. He accessed the security records.
“Okay, those dates again? Times of day?”
She told him and he opened a folder. Rows of thumbnails lined up across the screen. “Oh, wait. These are the days Mr. Muldoon and his friends are here.” He looked at her. “Is Mr. Muldoon the guy you’re looking at?”
“Remember your promise to keep this confidential?”
Patrick looked at the screen again. “Sheesh. I wouldn’t have expected that. Okay, so if you’re looking for him, I have a pretty good idea of where to look. He keeps a regular-ish schedule.” He typed again and opened one of the thumbnails. He scrolled forward until he saw something he recognized, went back, and hit play. Ari watched as a group of people milled about in the lobby. Finally, a man in a windbreaker and a baseball cap approached the counter.
Patrick pointed. “That’s him. He always wears that windbreaker.”
“Tell me he doesn’t wear that cap the entire time he’s here.”
“Uh…”
They followed him to the locker area. He stopped at four and repeated the same procedure at every one: twist the combination lock, open the door, place a small packet inside, then replace the lock.
“He’s here for about an hour, hour and a half every time. Depends on when his boys show up.” They watched as Oborin and Aulie showed up and retrieved the packets from the lockers while leaving packets of their own. They geared up and went out onto the ice. As Patrick predicted, fifty-five minutes later, the team left. Muldoon went back to the lockers and opened them again to retrieve what had been left behind.
“Oh, shit,” Patrick said. “That’s a definite drop. Shit!”
Ari was too busy watching what Muldoon did next. After emptying the lockers, he sat on one of the benches and took an iPad out of his bag. He unlocked it and began tapping the screen.
“He kept a record.” She remembered seeing him with the iPad at the Tukwila rink. He kept it in a bag near the bench. If he kept track of every pickup and drop-off, she could end the case right then and there. She could name every player who had ever bought Cyn while taking Muldoon down as their dealer. “Listen, Patrick, can you take screen shots with this?”
“Sure.”
She gave him her card. “Get as many pictures as you can of Muldoon and anyone who takes the packages out of the lockers he leaves something in. Email them to the address on the card.”
“Okay. Hey, are these guys dangerous?”
Ari started to shake her head, but she remembered Aulie freaking out in the locker room. “I don’t think they’ll do anything to hurt you. They don’t have any reason to if they don’t know about you helping with the tapes. So just keep quiet.”
“Will do.”
Ari thanked him and left the rink. She would be late for mascot practice, but hopefully it was going to be her final day. Her goal now was to get her hands on Muldoon’s iPad so she could nail him to the wall with it.The pictures from Patrick would be a good backup plan or icing on the cake when she took her evidence to GG&M. Once he was out and the players were safe, she could cut ties with the law firm and everything could get back to normal.
Chapter Nineteen
Kimmie was pissed at her for being late, but Ari apologized profusely. The team was already on the ice, running drills from the looks of it. Ari practiced as well but she couldn’t keep her mind on what she was doing. Eventually Kimmie took pity on her and suggested a twenty-minute break. They sat together in the section behind one of the goals and watched the team. Kimmie had a couple of energy drinks and offered one to Ari.
“Sorry about this,” Ari said. “I guess my head just isn’t in the game.”
“Don’t worry too much about it,” Kimmie said. “If you have to force it, you should probably take a step back. Advice for practice, working out, friendships, whatever.”
“It’s good advice.” She took a sip of her drink. Aulie had apparently gotten off Muldoon’s shit list because he was suited up and playing with the others. “Can I ask you something, hypothetically?”
Kimmie nodded.
“How do you feel about performance enhancing drugs?”
“You touch anything like that, I’ll fucking kick your ass out of the building myself.” Her voice was suddenly clipped, like stones clacking together. She twisted to look at Ari. “Are you doing anything right now? Is this a crash?”
Ari held up her hands. “No. No, it really was a hypothetical. I just wanted to know how you felt about it. I think I get the picture.”
“I’m going to
recommend drug testing because of this conversation. Just to cover my bases. I’ve seen mascots and athletes both abuse that shit. It’s like taking a pill that lets you fly, but only straight up, and you can only keep in the air if you keep taking it. Eventually you’re going to run out. The higher you are when that happens, the harder you’re going to hit the ground.”
Ari looked out at the ice. Muldoon’s bag was on the bench, unprotected. He and the team were on the opposite side of the rink.
“I need to level with you, Kimmie. I’m not a mascot.”
“Not yet, anyway. With a little more practice—”
Ari said, “I meant I’m here for another reason. You remember Aulie going ape-shit in the locker rooms? It’s because one of his pills went missing.”
Kimmie looked at her long and hard before she responded. “And?”
“I took it. I needed someone to tell me what it was. Now I need proof that Muldoon is the one who gave it to him.”
“Muldoon?”
Ari put a hand on Kimmie’s arm. She could feel the muscles tensing in anticipation of rising up and jumping own onto the ice.
“Hold on. There’s no reason to go running off half-cocked. There’s evidence. We can take him down for good, nice and legally. All I have to do is get into his duffel bag. There’s an iPad in there with a list. Who bought how much of it and when. I can use that to bring him down and get the players who are using the help they need to get off of it.”
Kimmie chewed her bottom lip and narrowed her eyes. “I can distract him if that’s what you need.”
“If anything goes wrong, you run like hell. I don’t want them taking it out on you if they catch me snooping.”
She didn’t look happy, but she nodded. They stood up together and Kimmie went left, Ari went right. Muldoon and the rest of the team had long since learned to ignore their antics in the bleachers. Ari felt practically invisible, but she was grateful to have someone running interference just in case. She kept her gait casual, grateful she was still in street clothes and not the ridiculous mascot costume. When she got to the players’ bench, she slipped over the barrier and stepped down, immediately dropping into a crouch to approach Muldoon’s bag.