Once I was far enough away from them, I shifted into a Unicorn and pranced through the woods. All of the moisture that had stuck on me immediately started to drip off, and, within a few minutes, I was completely dry once more.
As I trotted home, I kept asking myself, 'What did I do wrong?' Why did Neil's husband not like me? All I said was my name and where I lived. He did respond to that one, as if there was something about the house that made it undesirable.
I had half a mind to turn around and ask him, but I had made up my mind already: just go home and wait until tomorrow to clear things up.
'Clear things up from what?' What misunderstanding was there? If I didn't know myself, how could I fix it?
And fuck, I just needed to slip my dick into that Omega. I hoped he actually wanted it because otherwise, I'd have probably been crushed enough to move all the way back to Washington in shame.
The desire became so intense that my dick started tickling, and this was the worst sensation imaginable. A ticklish dick is nothing to laugh at. As soon as I got home, the first thing I did was piss over and over— only in small spurts, all to get rid of the ticklish feeling. But it kept coming back, and every time I so much as passed my fingers in front of my crotch, I felt it throb and scream out for mercy.
Without much thought, I grabbed my dick and started stroking off until I blew my load. This eased the ticklish feeling, but it soon came back, and I started stroking again and again.
Stuart's name and face was on my mind all day. I couldn't help myself, and having a tingly ticklish dick started getting on my nerves. Fun fact, that's what makes a penis so tingly in the first place— the nerves are aggravated, usually because of sexual desire. And that was me to a T.
It wasn't the entire shaft of my member either. It was just the tip. As an Alpha, I'd never been circumcised, so I wondered if this was one of the consequences, but I thought of some more fitting explanations. After all, the vision had all but told me that this was going to happen.
Why a vision, though? Why had I seen Stuart in my mind's eye?
There was an explanation, one that I could only dream of being true— our souls had yearned for each other, and now that we were in such close proximity, his was calling out to mine. It was like a spiritual cellphone call.
It was at that moment that I realized I still had my cellphone on my hand.
For a moment, I wondered where these things went when I shifted, but that was a topic for another day.
More interestingly, it was still soaked, with rain droplets all over the black matte finish. I was squeezing it so hard that I was surprised I didn't shatter it in my grip.
Finally, once my head had cooled, and I was no longer so flustered, I thought about my plan with Stuart. I said that I'd drop by the next morning. Would I hold myself to that? I had to. It was my honor to keep my word.
And speaking of keeping my word, I finally found a use for that cellphone I was trying to crush.
I called Zeke.
"Y'ello?"
"Hey, Zeke? Yah, it's, uh, it's Frederick."
"What's wrong? You sound confused."
I shook my head. "It's nothing. I'm just getting everything ready, moving things around, and that stuff. I've already cleaned out the kitchen and figured I'd snoop through the attic and basement."
"In the Grover mansion, right? You still want us to move on out at around 8:30?"
"Yeah, that's wonderful. Also, I stopped by our bro's place."
"Oh really? Was he even open?"
"Not today, but I did talk to his husband."
"Did you see their baby daughter?"
I hit my forehead with the bottom of my palm. "Ah, crap. I wanted to, but I had to take a call real quick and left before I could really explore the place."
"Why'd you even go in this weather? It's gonna clear out tonight."
"Yeah, I know. I was just excited, I guess. It's been years since I've been back here." Finally, I said, "About this mansion. What do you know about it?"
"The Grover estate's not that old. I think it was built, like, ten years ago."
"No, I mean, who lived here?"
"Oh, who? I think his name was Jonathan. From what I heard, he was a real piece of shit. He'd use his money to bribe the police and even got Scott arrested this way. But I don't think that he's got that much family still around there besides a few cousins and Omegas. Yeah, I'd say that you might want to keep the doors locked in case anyone from his family thinks he still lives there and tries attacking you."
"Okay. And what happened between him and Neil? Or Tommy?"
"I don't know the story myself, but it was pretty messed up."
This got my heart going and my mind racing. There was a real reason for Tommy to be suspicious. I wondered if I acted way too suspiciously by immediately leaving before telling him that I was Neil's brother. But at least now I knew what the misunderstanding probably was.
I committed to my heart a plan to immediately go to the Steamy Cup and apologize for the brash exit and explain myself. But the rain was now coming down like a carpet bombing, and I couldn't even see all the way down my yard. Thus, I decided to leave it to tomorrow.
"Alright. Thanks. See you tomorrow?"
"Sound cool. See ya."
OXO
I stared at the ceiling as I lay in someone else's bed, some person who was probably responsible for harming either Tommy or Neil. The very thought of it made the entire mansion feel that much dirtier as if I was somehow absorbing the negative vibes of the old owner just by staying there.
The rain eventually stopped. And I eventually went to sleep.
When I woke up in the morning, it was wickedly cold and very windy. The clouds hadn't moved out yet, so it was dreary and yucky.
My kind of weather. Back in our family’s ancestral home in the British midlands, this was prime Unicorn weather, and it was ingrained in our blood.
I stepped out and got in my car, hoping to get some good coffee and maybe a muffin to complete this rare kind of morning.
7:35. So it was 'ostensibly' open. I had an hour before my stuff arrived, so I figured that I'd have to make it quick. To my surprise, I saw a kid sitting in the shop. He was swinging his feet and twiddling his thumbs on something, but I couldn't make out what he was doing. When I first saw him, I wondered if he was Neil and Tommy's child until I realized how utterly absurd that sounded— not even octopus shifter children grew that fast. They could go from babyhood to pubescence in under ten years and then to full maturity by 14. Of course, that was also because octopus shifters didn't live as long as the rest of us, and they were almost always out of the picture by age 40.
Why would they have an octopus shifter child?
Until I then saw Scott standing behind the counter and remembered that he, too, had a child.
I walked in, and a bell jingled.
"Good morning!" Scott said. 'Sex and Candy' was playing on the radio as if to frame what was about to happen, but at the time, it was just a melancholic post-grunge track in the background to us. I was able to see that Scott's kid— Michael, his name was— was playing on a Gameboy Color.
Tommy turned, and then he saw and glared at me, and then he set his hands on his hips when I approached him. "Hey, Tommy was it? I just wanted to apologize for yesterday. I didn't mean to come off like that."
Scott butted in, "What's going on?"
Tommy said, "Guess where this guy lives."
I turned to Scott and said, "Grover mansion."
He leaned on his broom. "Wow. Now that's a messed up choice to make."
"Why? What's so wrong with that damn house? Is it condemned?"
"That's not it," Tommy said resignedly.
"Then what is it?"
Scott pressed and squeezed my shoulder. "Wait a second." Then he flipped off my hat. "Frederick, you son of a bitch! How've you been?" He pulled me in, and we hugged.
Neil came running down. "Fred's here? I didn't expect this."
Michael
also looked up from his game for a few moments before looking back.
Tommy looked over the entire thing.
Neil joined in on the hug, and we were all one big brotherly family. "Ah, it's been too long, man! How was the drive in?"
"It was wet, I'll tell you that. I actually came yesterday." Wow, all of that was suggestive.
Neil said to Tommy, "This is my brother, Freddie. I told you he was coming in, right?"
Reluctantly, he shook my hand.
I said, "We met yesterday, but you thought I was a customer."
Neil looked shocked. "Are you serious? Why didn't you say anything? I would've let you in right away. We don't turn away family here."
"I was in a rush. I got an important call from someone." I was surprised I remembered that fake call to begin with.
Tommy said, "You said that was with the old owner, right?"
"Just the seller. The owner's dead, I think."
"Dead? What's going on?" Neil looked back and forth between us.
Finally, Tommy sucked in and said, "He's living in Jonathan's mansion."
Neil's entire body seemed to lift up for a second, and he leaned back against the counter. "Oh wow. Now that's... You really don't know what that place is, huh?"
"No, not at all."
He looked to Tommy, and he looked back.
"Do you want to hear the full story of what happened?"
"If it's something traumatic, not really. I'm not interested in drudging up painful memories."
Tommy looked away, and Neil noticed this as well, and so he silently dropped it.
Upstairs, I heard crying. It was distinctive as a baby's cry, and I asked, "Is that your baby?"
"Oh yeah, that's Makayla."
Tommy unfolded his arms and looked towards the stairs. "Yeah, you were here, weren't you? When we had that baby shower."
Neil said, "Now you remember! Ha, and I thought you were about to scratch his face off with that face you were making."
Scott said, "It's not that he had no reason to be so antsy, you know."
Neil said, "Trust me, I know. Probably better than anyone." He shut his eyes and looked off into space. "But..." Then he looked back at me. "I also get a little tense whenever someone is upset towards the blood."
Tommy looked away. "He should've said something sooner instead of running off! That was really freaky."
"That's what he said to me too," Neil added. "How it was scary the way you turned and left in the rain right as he asked you about the mansion. Sooo..."
"I get it. I really do. I should've been clearer. And I apologize for frightening you if that's what happened— that was entirely my fault. But listen, I'm here to see that other man, Stuart. Is he here?"
Tommy wagged his finger and said, "Oh! Stuart? He's not staying here, of course. He's crashing at a hotel downtown."
"Is he really? What hotel is it?"
"Well..."
Stuart
I sat in my room at the Cherry Madison Hotel, room 321. The plan was to spend the whole three weeks there, and I had more than enough in terms of a self-allowance to do so, all saved up over the course of many nights waiting tables and sweeping floors. It was a place that had every convenience that I could've needed, including a pool on the first floor— but unfortunately, a cold front moved through. When I was just a little kitten, I was one of the weirder ones because I loved playing around in pools and other bodies of water, but even I couldn't stand cold water.
That was one of the drawbacks of fall. Yes, it got nice and cool, but that also meant you couldn't have any fun outside! And ugh, I'm an outdoor cat. Never liked being cooped up.
I spent the entire night cooped up, though, because I couldn't get that man out of my head. He called himself Frederick, and I spent the night convincing myself that this was the sexiest name on the planet. Even though the short form was 'Fred,' which was one of the bluntest and frank names in English, the kind of name you'd expect from a guy who is hefty and blue-collar. So I committed myself to always calling him Frederick, which gave him a much more high-class and almost aristocratic air that definitely helped with making him out to be something from another land.
The Vancouver accent was distinct in him, though, and I couldn't fool myself into thinking he was anything other than a fellow native, but I was really fine with anything as long as my brain didn't start playing tricks on me. It was the craziest thing— on TV, on channels like Discovery, they'd show off how easy it is to create a false memory to fool your senses and that we make things out to look and sound better than they actually are because we start remembering memories rather than the actual event. So I hoped that, even after only one day of being separated from him, I wasn't turning him into an utterly perfect demi-god who had no equal on Earth. I tried keeping his facial features pure in my mind's eye, and I did my best to make his voice sound as close to the way I heard it, but I couldn't be 100% sure until I met him again.
Today was my lucky day in that regard.
The hotel phone rang, and when I answered, it was Lauren from the front desk.
"There's a man here," she said. "He says that you invited him to something yesterday. His name is Frederick Paulson."
"Oh wow," I went. "Speak of the Devil!"
Quickly, I got up and started getting dressed. I accomplished this by throwing on whatever was on the bed and deciding that it worked, even if it was a hot mess on me. Whatever, right? It was morning. He'd be fine with some messiness.
I went over to the door when I heard the phone again.
"Yes?"
“Frederick says he wants to talk to you in the lobby."
This made me feel even more at ease since I didn't have to get any more dressed to go to Steamy Cups. I was so worried about Tommy, especially the way he reacted to Frederick. It was so unlike him to be that cold and scared, but after Frederick ran off (which I admit was pretty strange to do), Tommy ran back into the lobby and locked all the doors. He spent the rest of the day talking to me about how he thought Frederick was a Grover family spy or maybe someone who had been sent to take him away. But I calmed him down, telling him that Frederick was probably just a high-strung businessman. Maybe he was a shifter. Maybe not. And he had to admit that he had nothing to go off of anyway, so he dropped his suspicions for as long as I was there, though I was made even more curious as to why he was so jumpy. What happened to him with Jonathan that caused him to be so worried?
Frederick looked like a kind enough guy, and I liked that he had called me down to a more public space too, just so he could assure me nothing was going on.
But at the same time, I wanted to pull him back up to my room and get myself some of that sweet Alpha ass. I knew he was a shifter of some sort, but I didn't know what kind.
I hoped he was a Unicorn.
Finally, I got to the ground floor, and there he was, now in a blue blazer and wearing a Fedora.
He looked and waved at me.
"Ah! Stuart! There you are."
We walked up to each other and shook hands. "Frederick, if you recall?"
"Oh, yes, I recall."
He lifted his brow and said, "You do? In that case, you remember the whole 'getting some coffee' thing?"
Staring deeper into his eyes, I put on an even more seductive voice when I said, "We can drink anything you want," hoping he would catch the bait.
He laughed. "I don't mean anything like that, of course. I just was curious as to if you wanted to go through with it. The Steamy Cup is still open— actually, I just came from there and cleared things up with Tommy."
I sat my elbows on a table as well as my fists on my cheeks, smooshing them up. "I'm curious! Talk to me. What's brought you here?"
He blinked. "Oh, me? I'm just moving in. I just came in yesterday. Why, how long have you been here?"
"Just a few days."
He nodded and chuckled. "So we're both newcomers! That's neat." He saw a coffee machine and said, "Did you want to go out, or were you fine with hote
l coffee?"
"Anything's fine with me."
"I think that this is all something else going on," Frederick said. "There's something off about what Tommy was doing."
I fluttered my eyes for a moment until I realized that he was indeed talking about Tommy and straightened myself out. "Oh, oh yeah. I know." Then his words really hit me, and I threw my arms down. "I know! It's frustrating to me too. I'm his best friend, and he won't tell me anything."
He checked his watch— a gold Rolex— and said, "Well, how about we reschedule? I've got somewhere to be in a few minutes now, so, ah... I'll be ready at eight this evening. That sounds good for you?"
"Anytime is good." Then I reached out for him. "So you don't wanna arrive late? Crash that party? Bump some angry hips?"
He straightened his tie and said, "I can't. The arrangement was for 8:30, and it's not a good idea to keep a bunch of Unicorns waiting."
"Oh, you're a Unicorn!"
He grinned. "You weren't there, huh? I'm Neil and Scott's brother." He extended his hand for a shake. "How about we do this again: I'm Frederick."
I clasped both of my hands over his. "And I'm Stuart, sweety. I'm a cat. Hmm hmm hmm!"
"Oooh, nice. Well, I'll be seeing you in about twelve hours. Is that okay?"
"It's fantastic."
He turned, but I pulled him closer and kissed him on the lips, but only a quick peck.
Several of the other patrons there watched and looked confused. What, they've never seen two men kiss before?
Even he looked perplexed! Oh no, had I taken him for gay when he was just interested in a platonic friend?
"Huh" He licked his lips, getting my scent in him. "Well, I'll be seeing you."
Then he swaggered off, and I got to see those hard glutes move.
Lauren walked to me with her bunned hair and short navy-blue skirt and said, "Wow, that had no chemistry at all. It was like watching sand and water mix."
"Ugh! Who asked you?"
She had her hand on her hips and pursed her lips. "He looked interested in you, though, but you weren't playing off each other. You weren't touching each other. You kept eye contact, I'll give you that." Then she looked at me. "It's just two crushes right now."
A New Millennium's Omega Page 3
