by Beth Dranoff
“So ask.”
“I don’t want to.” Sharper than I’d planned. Sam’s eyes narrowed at my tone, the first hint that there might be more to my don’t ask don’t tell than I’d let on.
“Have you ever thought about actually making a choice?” Sam jumped up and started stomping around his room, opening drawers and then slamming them shut again. I wondered if he was going to break anything; I’d heard some definite glass-on-glass contact that last time. “Everything isn’t always about you.”
“I think about others plenty.” I did, didn’t I?
“And me? Do I factor into your life at all beyond a quick fuck?”
I smirked. Couldn’t help it. “Quick? There’s nothing quick about what we do together.”
Sam’s lips twitched, even though he was still irritated as hell.
“Seriously, Dana,” he said. “Do you think about me at all?”
“Of course I do.” More than he realized. More than I felt like sharing right about now.
“I can’t keep doing this.” Sam’s hands clenching and unclenching. He couldn’t look at me.
“Why not?” My voice rose. “I thought we had something good. Why do things need to change?”
“Because they do. I’m not playing here.”
“Never said you were.” It was like pushing words past a mouthful of chewing gum leftover from last year’s Halloween haul. You know you shouldn’t, but you want it, and then it’s there and sticking to your teeth and you’re looking for a way out without gagging. “I’m not either, you know.”
“Not what?”
“Playing. I care about you,” I managed.
That got his attention, as Sam’s gaze turned back to me, his eyes softening at the creases. Then: “You came here for a reason, right?” Sam’s subject change was abrupt. But hey, if he was willing to go there, I wasn’t going to stop him. “You needed something? What happened?”
So I told him. About leaving Jon’s, although I skipped the details of what we’d been doing beforehand; about who’d shown up as I was driving home. What they’d said. Wanted. My words putting distance between now and the topics I wasn’t yet ready to revisit with Sam.
“So the Father of the Year prize won’t be going to Daddy Markovitz,” he said.
“No kidding. One minute he’s helping me, and the next he’s helping himself. Makes me wonder about all of it. The maps, the room, all of his Danyankeleh warnings—and for what? A means to an end? Keep me in circulation so I can get him what he needs?” I picked at an invisible ball of thread at my knee. “I almost prefer Ezra. At least he’s honest about his self-interest. Mostly. He doesn’t try to remind me I should love him first.”
“What do you think of the alternate dimension theory?”
“I think it’s possible,” I said. “But if it’s true—and why would he lie about that?—then that meat suit he was wearing must be a portal of some kind. Or the tattoo. Or maybe both?”
“Perhaps,” Sam said. “If tats are involved, it’s the second time he’s used it. More than once could be a pattern.”
It took me a couple of beats to make the literal dots connect. “Oh,” I said. “My back. Right.”
“And both sets of tats,” Sam continued, “combined with something to do with your blood, could be connected to accessing a portal. Maybe the same portal.”
“Nothing good came out of it last time.” The room was warm, even with the overhead fan on, but I was shivering. Teeth rattling together. Never was too soon to see Alina and her cadre of death and dismemberment again.
I was gripping the arms of the chair; deeper as my claws slid into the upholstery and started shredding. My face itchy where the whiskers poked through, hairs raising into a cowl behind and around my neck. A spiked leather collar, except the points were my hair and the leather my skin. Choking me. I couldn’t breathe. No. My eyes catching the light in the shadows, more contrast than when I’d walked in. The rise and fall of air filtering through Sam’s lungs. His blood as it rushed through the arteries and veins.
His eyes, watching me.
I focused on those eyes. The energy flowing under his skin, matching mine. His pulse. Sam did a slow blink—no threat here, at least not to me. A man. Another blink and he was an oversized orange feline stretched across where the man had been. And then he was on the floor, in front of me, rubbing against my legs. Purring. Sharing his warmth. His peace.
I gave in to the feeling then. Allowed the waves to roll through me, tickling my toes as my bones broke and reformed; fur and sinew and fat and muscle softening the internal blows. Within and without. I released the terror that closed my throat and turned my eyes, my attention, inwards, backwards, facing places I did not want to see. My own fur warming me now.
I let it all go.
Sam’s head bonked mine, but gently, and he made a small chirping sound in his throat. Because I was no longer human on the chair but rather a grey shaggy feline with tufts between her paws and an even larger ginger cat licking at my face.
Our fur had changed colors. I remembered in the part of my brain where I stored such information, like which underwear I had on or what the capital of Canada was, that I didn’t always look like this. I’d seen Sam with white fur before, or maybe it was black. None of that mattered. I knew him, as he knew me, and it had nothing to do with appearances or words or colognes or cars.
He was as I saw myself. The other half of me. The part without which I was the lesser, somehow missing. A longing, a need I realized I hadn’t felt before. When we were. Before we weren’t.
Fuck. Me.
Sam nipped at my ear; this was new. Grabbing my attention with a sudden, different kind of craving.
I butted his head with my own, gentle. Sliding myself alongside him. I looked over and he was watching me. Intent. Prey? I watched him too. Backing away, towards the bed.
Turning at the last moment to jump up. Enveloped by his scent; man and beast and lavender detergent and cardamom chai tea from the last time I’d stayed over. I knew them all; rolling from side to side, spreading the scent of me into his sheets until he and I blended together. No beginning and no end.
The bed sagged as Sam jumped up beside me. Touched his nose to mine, a greeting without threat. Lying down to stretch out alongside me. Nuzzling in. The man inside the beast soothing the beast inside me.
Energy crackled and my fur staticked out in all directions as the cat behind me became man once more. Stroking along my side. Under my chin. Making me purr as he nuzzled in closer and wrapped his arms around me. Holding me without holding me down; I could leave at any time.
My choice.
I chose to stay.
The transition from full cat to full human was harder for me. Less practiced. I breathed Sam in; his lips on the back of my neck the touch point from one form to the next. Mostly there. Not quite. My tail twitched between his legs and I realized that somewhere, somehow, he’d shed the track pants from earlier and was now naked. With my tail tickling his balls.
Whoops?
Based on the growing hardness behind me, Sam didn’t mind.
Easier to focus on that as the fur along my spine, my torso, receded with each inhalation back into my pores. Smoothing and stretching to pinkish. My arms outstretched; starting as fur and pads and claws, devolving into skin. The dual scent of Sam, confusing, with two distinct strands to follow.
As my cat dissolved and my human pushed through, I realized I’d left my clothes somewhere as well. Glanced over at the chair, the floor beneath it. Oh. Yeah.
Too late; we were fully skin on skin now. Against. Between. His lips on my neck, his fingers interlacing with mine. Want. Extricating his left hand to drag light fingernails down from under my chin to the dip between one breast and the other. Brushing the back of his hand against nipples straining to re
ach it. Palm flat on my belly, pressing me into him, as his fingers fluttered towards somewhere hotter, darker. Wet.
“Please,” I whispered. And then: “Yes.”
I heard his bedside drawer slide open. The crinkle of the condom wrapper, a pause as he rolled it on and then Sam was inside me. Whole again. His touch sparking mine, skin on skin, thrusts that pushed beyond and more and crested before receding.
No more fear.
I was home.
* * *
When I woke up again the sun had moved midway up the sky. I was on my own in the tangle of sticky sweat and sex and 600-plus thread-count Egyptian cotton.
Thought maybe I smelled the oily rich tickle of fresh-ground coffee from downstairs. I salivated, licking away the salt and sweet from where it beaded on my upper lip. The pressure on my bladder made a compelling argument for getting out of bed and I padded, naked, to Sam’s solid dark stained-wood chest of drawers circa sometime early mid last century. I’d done it before, but I wasn’t sure how he’d feel about me doing it now. Considering.
My hand hovered over the handle. A girlfriend could do this.
Could I?
Instead I grabbed the top sheet from the bed and wrapped it around my torso, tucking the ends into the fabric before bending down to scoop up my discarded clothing from earlier. Shower. Definitely. An experimental armpit sniff confirmed it—I reeked.
* * *
Several glorious minutes later, I’d scrubbed and lathered and rinsed away Jon, and Ezra, and my father, and Alina, and Sam. Alina. No.
The water was a relief. Hot was good; the liquid mixing with my lather/scrub/rinse/repeat allowed me to release the surface layers of the last several hours of my life from my skin. If only it had the same effect on my memory. Those places I went when I didn’t want to, dangling in my mind by bloodied fingernails that shred to the quick as they scrabbled at the edges of that waking nightmare pit. The one where screams and groans and my own past inaction grasped at my ankles with bony fingers as I backed away and tried to forget.
I giggled, hysteria wrapped in nonsense, the sounds bouncing off the tiles of the bathroom; I slapped my palms flat over my mouth to muffle what I couldn’t control. Too many keen listeners in this house. I had to be careful. Couldn’t let them know what I was thinking, how far from the confident Warrior Dana I’d slipped.
I was gasping now, taking tiny breaths close together, spinning while standing still. I slapped my hands against the wall now, hard enough to displace a thumbnail of grout; somehow I forced myself to lean rather than form a fist and punch it through. Pounding in my ears. Breathe. I had to breathe.
A soft knock on the door.
“Dana, it’s me.” Sam’s voice. I could focus on that. “Can I come in?” The rope of sound to anchor me back to a reality that was real and not made up of my terror.
I didn’t trust my voice. Not yet. But I craved the sound of his. Stabilizing. Making me whole. Until I could breathe again, the scent of him calling to me even as his voice grew quiet again. Waiting.
“Yes.” I managed that. It took a couple of tries.
The door clicked open and Sam slid in, shutting it behind him. Had I forgotten to lock it before? Or was he particularly handy with a penny or maybe the dull edge of a butter knife?
Sam eased back the fabric shower curtain, all rubber duckies and neon-striped blue and orange and pink fish, releasing the steam I’d collected in my nook. I was shivering despite the heat. Sam saw it all. Then reached back to grab the plush purple towel—Anshell got only the best—and turned off the tap before wrapping that towel around my shoulders. Patting me down as my tension eased under his touch.
So different from the last time we were in the shower together.
“Better?” Sam angled his head down to catch my eye. He smiled, but it was hesitant; unsure of which Dana he was seeing behind the wild eyes that stared back at him.
I realized he’d seen me, this me, before. On the beach. Two nights ago, when Alina had decided to pay me a visit.
And he hadn’t left me behind.
Even now Sam was here, despite having no responsibility to stay. He owed me nothing.
And yet.
I definitely owed him.
My breath was still shaky as I forced a smile to lift the edges of my mouth. Tentative. I wanted it to be real but wasn’t sure I could sell it yet. I mean, I was naked and wet and coming off a panic attack.
But Sam’s warmth rubbing along my arms helped. Not sexual. It was something more. My breath steadied and the ambient temperature of the room normalized with my own basal thermostat. I counted to twenty to be sure.
I knew Sam was watching, cataloguing details in his head. I couldn’t help it. Whether I wanted to or not, I had to trust him with my secret.
“Come here,” he said, and I left the relative safety of the tub for the security of his arms. Sam kissed the top of my head, his lips coming away wet; my forehead, and then my eyelids. Cheeks. Jawline. So soft. Brushing against my mouth with his before pulling away to lean back against the sink counter. Wrapping his arms around me as I pressed my ear to his chest, tuning the tempo of my breath with the pumping of his heart. Tears unshed, but only with effort.
I tried not to think of the life flowing with that beat; how I would feel if that pulsing proof of vitality were to end. I couldn’t. He couldn’t. My breathing shallowing again as I struggled not to drown in the blackness that reached across my chest, along my arms, around my throat until there wasn’t enough air and I was choking.
Sam stroked my back. Soothing, the way I remembered my mother’s hand as she tried to ease an over-tired toddler to sleep. Calming my mind with her motions; a sense memory responding in kind to Sam’s touch.
“You’re safe,” he whispered into the drops of wet beading on my ringlets of hair. “Everything is fine. Everyone is safe. I’m here. It’s OK, you’re OK.” Moisture leaking from my eyes, mixing with the wet dripping from places the towel had not yet tamped down. Marking Sam’s faded grey cotton t-shirt with the damp thumbprints of my tears.
I didn’t cry. And if I did, it wasn’t in front of anyone else. The whole tree/forest/did anyone hear it thing. Right? So I wasn’t crying now. Never mind those feelings that demanded to be heard. I shoved them down, hard.
My chest hurt from the pressure. I pushed away everything I didn’t say, wanted nothing to do with, squeezing my eyes shut as I clenched my fists. Scented blood. I’d cut into the lines of my palms with curved claws arcing from my fingertips, embedding them into my flesh.
And then there was the pain.
“Shit,” I muttered, my mind abruptly my own again. “Let go,” I said, louder. “Please.”
Sam released me, stepping to the side and settling himself down on the closed-lid toilet seat. Watching as I ran cold water on my hands until it ran pink, then clear, and my partial paws became fully human fingers once again. The clouds in my brain breaking up and freeing me from their fog.
Until I was normal again. Me. For now.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Sam’s voice was level. No judgy vibe.
“I really don’t.”
“I’ve seen it before.” Sam wasn’t looking directly at me. No non-verbal signs of aggression; I was willing to bet he was doing it on purpose. Suggested he’d had practice. Not his first rodeo at the Skittish Feline Corral.
Was it wrong for me to hope it was going to be his last?
“I’ve got some tricks,” I said. “Tools. For when it gets bad.”
“You’ve been treating this yourself? No help?”
“The internet is a beautiful thing,” I replied. “Everything from instructions on bomb building to treating PTSD in the comfort of your own home.” I tried on a half smile, lightening my words without committing.
Sam nodded. �
�There are other things you can do,” he said. “Pack things. Stuff you won’t find online.”
“Sam, you can’t tell Anshell. You can’t tell anybody.” My voice shook. “If anyone found out, I’d be a target. I’d be screwed.” My eyes, begging with the words I wouldn’t allow myself enough rope to say.
Sam didn’t say anything himself for several long moments. Then:
“I’ll keep your secret,” he said. “But only as long as nobody’s safety is compromised because of it. Not yours, Anshell’s, the Pack’s or mine. Best I can offer. But you have to deal with this.”
“I am dealing with it.” My tone snapped along with my patience; I softened it. “I’m trying,” I said. “Doing the best I can.”
“I know. And you can do it. But everyone needs help sometimes.” He caught my eye, reinforcing his words. “You’re not alone here.”
I nodded. My head wanted to believe him; the rest of me, those dark places where the monsters hid, whispered Sam would leave at the first sign of real trouble.
Except he hadn’t. Not yet, anyway.
No. He was ready to dump you when you couldn’t tell him you wouldn’t sleep with Owain. That you didn’t still have feelings for the man who had broken your heart.
I’d added a third variable to the already-precarious balance of me with both Sam and Jon.
I was such an idiot.
Except Sam hadn’t gone far. He was here in the bathroom with me, making sure I was OK; knowing I wasn’t really.
“I’m sorry,” I managed, turning to face him. Owning it. “What I said about Owain.”
“Don’t,” he said. “It’s done. My problem.”
“No,” I said. Voice soft, husky with tears I swallowed back down again. “Mine.”
A sharp look, then, as Sam opened his mouth to say something—the opportunity lost with three sharp raps on the bathroom door.
“All good in there?” Anshell. Guess he was back from his run. Or whatever.
I glanced over at Sam.
“Are we?” I waited until he shrugged his acquiescence. “All good,” I said, louder. Pretense only. Anshell could have heard me if I’d whispered.
