Swing Shift: Book 2

by William D. Arand

  “If you’re just going to stare, Gus, I’m not sure how to respond,” Trish murmured, smiling at him. Her eyes were slowly becoming brighter by the second.

  Gus coughed into a hand as he realized he really had been staring.

  “Uh, sorry, hi,” he said, moving past her and into the home he shared with her, Vanessa, and Melody.

  “Welcome home, my Indigo!” shouted a voice from deeper inside.

  “Melody and I just finished feeding our guest,” Trish said, one of her hands trailing down along his back. From his shoulder to his hip, her fingers slid over him.

  It made his spine and crotch tingle.

  Trish wasn’t just an Elven sorceress. She was an Elven-Dryad sorceress. Apparently the old wives’ tales of Dryads—more appropriately named Nymphs—were quite real.

  They were sexual predators in the same way Gus was a Boogieman that fed on fear.

  Ever since he’d spent days on end being cared for by her in every way, whatever barrier had existed between them was gone.

  Very gone.

  Moving away from the Dryad before she could grab his rear end, which he knew she would, Gus walked into the living room.

  Vanessa and Melody were sitting around the coffee table, a large amount of paperwork spread out in front of them.

  Getting up from her seat and moving toward him was Melody the Rainbow Contractor.

  She had pitch-black eyes, black hair pulled back in a ponytail behind her head, and she was pretty in an eerie, unearthly way. A wild and blazing smile spread across her lips.

  Indigo-colored symbols glowed and sparked all around the edges of her face. From her chin to the crown of her hairline. It was a single straight line that made her face look like a cutout. Between her eyes was a circle that looked to be glowing red hot right now.

  Damn. She’s going to contract me today or tomorrow, and there’s no way out of it.

  Much like Trish, she was dressed in a comfortable shirt and jeans. Dressed for around the house.

  Crashing into him, she hugged him tightly and bounced in place against him.

  “Ooooh, Indigo, welcome home, welcome home,” Melody murmured against his ear as she rubbed her cheek against his. “Indigo… I love you.”

  Yep. Going to contract me tonight.

  Fuck.

  Checking a sigh, Gus laid his arms around Melody’s hips and hugged her in return.

  She, Vanessa, and Trish had remained with him through thick and thin.

  When he had wallowed in despair and depression, they had happily trooped along with him, encouraging him and doing all they could for him.

  “Love you, too,” Gus grumbled, holding the Contractor.

  Squealing, Melody pulled tighter at him, and her strength surprised him. It squeezed the breath right out of his lungs.

  Then she let go of him and gave him a shove toward the coffee table.

  “We were just reading over our contracts!” Melody said.

  Looking up from the paperwork, Vanessa met his eyes. Her light-brown orbs gazed into his for a second before she hit him with a warm smile. Her dark-brown hair was pulled back behind her head as well.

  It seemed the style of the day was ponytails and dressing for indoors. She had on a very loose shirt and jeans.

  Where Melody and Trish were pale, Vanessa had a healthy light-brown skin tone. Trish was beautiful, Melody was eerily pretty, and Vanessa was the feisty and cute one of the three.

  “Seems like maybe I should have waited to cash your check,” Vanessa said.

  “Not at all,” Melody said, forcing Gus to sit down practically behind Vanessa. Then she scooted over back to where she’d been sitting and started going through her papers. “Nothing wrong with being indebted to Gus. He loves you. Being indebted to him is much easier to handle. It allows for so many fun interpretations of ‘interest’ to pay back to him. At least to me it does.”

  “Does to me as well,” Trish said, coming over and sitting down in a recliner. Her eyes had lost their glow, and she seemed much more like her normal self.

  “Idiots,” Vanessa muttered, looking back at her paperwork. “We’re going to be federal agents, I guess.”

  “So it would seem,” Gus said, not quite sure why Melody had made him sit behind Vanessa. Melody tended to move in ways only she understood.

  Though she hadn’t been wrong so far.

  “It’s absolutely hilarious,” Melody said, reading through a page. “I think I was the single most wanted on their lists for several years in a row. Now I’m going to be working for them. Though only as an agent, it seems. That’s rather low in the Fed’s hierarchy.”

  “Uh… not really,” Gus said. “We’ll be reporting to Mark directly. He reports to the director of the Fed. We’re his first hires.”

  “Oh, how fun,” Trish said, folding her hands in her lap. “I’m rather excited. I’ve never thought I’d ever be paid so much. I’m just a cleaning lady.”

  “Not anymore. And you haven’t been for a while, really,” Vanessa said, leaning away from her paperwork and then into the front of Gus’s legs. “I read your contract. Your title is Agent(Sorceress). Not cleaning lady. I’m apparently Agent(Detective). Gus is Agent(Detective).”

  “And I’m Agent(Contractor). But if we’re reporting like what Gus said, that means we’re… we’re all very senior agents,” Melody said.

  “Yeah… I get the impression we might end up as team leaders in the future,” Gus said. “But there’s still a big ol’ fat problem with all of this.”

  “We never figured out who was behind the attack,” Vanessa said with a nod. “But they know us, and where we live. Probably. I can’t imagine they don’t.”

  “Good news,” Melody said, not looking up as she rapidly signed her signature to her paperwork. “I bought us a house. Tonight we’ll all contract to one another, have a truly fantastic orgy, and then start work tomorrow. While we’re at work, all our stuff will be moved. I already paid. I made special accommodations for our guest in the basement.”

  Nodding her head, Melody looked up from her signed contract with a massive smile.

  “This… is an amazing day. My Indigo, my Red, my Yellow,” Melody practically purred at them all. Speaking to Gus, Trish, and then Vanessa in turn. “An amazing night is before us. I hope you’re all ready for it.”

  “I am,” Trish said in a breathy growl. Her eyes immediately glowed intensely, as if they contained the sun itself. Her being the Red contract made far too much sense.

  Vanessa sighed and then nodded her head a bit, still leaning against Gus.

  “I suppose I’m ready to become Yellow,” she said.

  Melody jumped up and clapped her hands together, stomping on the ground at the same time. She made several small circles as she continued to clap and stomp. Then she stopped and slowly lay down on the ground, taking deep breaths.

  “Ooh, I need to breathe. I got dizzy there for a second,” she said.

  Whenever she needed to reset her contracts, Melody tended to get a bit wild.

  Grinning, Gus shook his head and laid his hand on Vanessa’s shoulders, then began to lightly rub them.

  His life had gotten interesting in the last year.

  Chapter 2 - Case Load

  Turning his wrist over, Gus looked at his watch.

  They had more than enough time to make it to the location Mark had sent them. Even with traffic the way it was.

  “What if we turned off at the next off-ramp?” Trish asked from the passenger seat in front.

  “We could try. Feeling lucky?” Melody asked.

  “Not particularly,” Trish said. “I’m afraid my luck has always been terrible.”

  “No it hasn’t! It brought you here, to me. And you’re my Red, Trish,” Melody said. “And such a lovely Red you were last night. That was wonderfully orchestrated.”

  “Yes. Well… yes,” Trish murmured, looking down at her phone.

  “I thought it would be different,” Vanessa said softly to
Gus’s right.

  “What, last night?” Gus said. “No idea what your sex life was like before, but that was pretty different for me.”

  It’d been the single most intense, extreme, and bizarre thing he’d ever done. What he’d done to all three women and what they’d done to him.

  He felt like he’d been passed around to each of them—while passing each of them to each other at the same time.

  This morning, he couldn’t quite look Trish completely square in the eye considering how often he’d been given to her, or her to him.

  Repeatedly. More so than anyone else.

  That and he hadn’t felt like he couldn’t continue on, regardless of how many times he’d climaxed.

  “I mean, it felt like we were at it for hours and—”

  “No!” Vanessa hissed, then continued much softer. “No. Not that. My sex was really tame, if you have to know. Last night was… I don’t think I’d want to repeat it for a while. It was almost too much.

  “I meant the contracts.”

  “Oh, oh, yeah. That was pretty anti-climactic,” Gus said, looking at his palm.

  Melody had drawn up some sigil work on the ground in specific colors, some different symbol work, and then she’d had each person join her. She’d cut her own palm and theirs, and then she’d pressed their hands together.

  Nothing had happened other than a flash of color.

  Supposedly all it did was join them to her existing contracts. Even if she broke her contract with whatever spirit or entity it was linked to, the ones she’d made with them last night would remain.

  Vanessa was looking at her own palm. The slice in her skin was already long gone. Trish had healed them all sometime during the mad, lusty, energetic night.

  “She’s really different in bed,” Vanessa said very softly.

  “Who, Trish? Yeah. Definitely. Kinda like it… though,” Gus said. “Was a lot of fun, even if it was crazy.”

  Vanessa nodded and let her hand fall back to her lap.

  Looking to the front, Gus caught Trish watching him from the side. Her eyes were glowing faintly, and there was a seductive smile on her lips.

  Shit. She’s partially Elven, right? That means—

  Trish’s eyes glowed brighter for a moment, and her tongue slipped out to lick at her lips. Then the glow slowly bled away and she looked forward again.

  “Let’s stay on the highway,” Trish said. “No reason to stress over it.”

  She heard it and liked it.

  A buzz in his pocket interrupted Gus’s thoughts.

  Pulling his phone out, he tapped the screen and unlocked it.

  Mark?

  He opened the message and read it over quickly.

  “Mark just sent me a text to make sure we’re coming,” Gus said loud enough for everyone to hear him. “Which means he’s nervous and anxious. I’m suddenly betting our ‘orientation’ as he called it isn’t quite what we were thinking.”

  “No?” Melody asked in a voice that exuded nothing but joy and excitement. She was quite chipper this morning. “We’ll just play it by ear. It’ll be fine.”

  She was also acting far more normal than he’d seen from her in a long while.

  Apparently contracting with her had stabilized her considerably.

  “Mel,” Gus said, leaning forward in his seat. Grabbing the sides of her chair, he moved his head up to her shoulder.

  “Yes, my one and only Indigo? The man of my life? The only man for me for the rest of all time?” Melody purred.

  Feeling a bit fuzzy headed at that, Gus tried to collect his thoughts quickly.

  “Did you get a benefit out of splitting your contract to us? Because you don’t seem as… Contractor crazy,” Gus said.

  “That noticeable, huh?” Melody said. One of her hands came off the wheel to rest on the side of Gus’s face. “I’m so glad. I sincerely hoped you were paying that much attention to me. But it’s so hard to tell with you sometimes.

  “Yes. Splitting my contract with you three offset a lot of the feedback I get. And since you’re not Contractors, you won’t even feel it. It’ll just… dissipate. It’s one of the reasons you always see Contractors with harems. It’s too important to not contract others.”

  Gus caught his lower lip between his teeth as he thought on that. The way Melody was touching him also made him feel incredibly strange.

  What little space she’d been affording him was apparently gone now. His head felt heavy and like he wanted to lie down.

  Preferably with her.

  What she said was true, however. If the Contractor was young, they were usually alone. The older they got, the more “Contractor crazy” they got. Every Contractor he’d met past a certain age had always had a group of people around them.

  “Never thought about it,” Gus said. “Makes sense.”

  “It’s not that complicated, really. Each color is a contract you make to gain something relevant to that color,” Melody said, her fingers idly tracing the curve of his ear. They weren’t moving very fast in this traffic jam, so it wasn’t as if she really needed both hands. “Blue is your awareness and the physical realm. Green is your own body. Red is sex and power, but also anger and violence. Yellow is your emotions and empathy. Orange is logic or intelligence. Understanding. Indigo is love. Violet is wisdom, wealth, and ambition.”

  “And by us taking up part of your contract for you, you get stronger, and whatever negative effect you would have suffered is minimized,” Gus said.

  “That’s right. Cause you’ll never feel it. You’re not a Contractor. That’s why Contractors don’t end up with Contractors. Wouldn’t work,” Melody said, pulling her hand back down to the wheel. “Well, technically it’d work, it’d just be awful. Imagine taking someone else’s feedback on top of yours.”

  Sitting back in his seat, Gus chewed on all that.

  It made sense. He’d just never really thought about it all.

  “Does that mean we need four more?” Trish asked, turning to face Melody.

  “I mean… I’d like to have four more wives in our marriage. One for every color. That’d mean seven,” Melody said. “But Gus doesn’t like that idea. I think this is the maximum size I’ll be able to get him to agree to right now.

  “But that’s okay. I don’t need to be any stronger than I am today. With you three, I’m more than plenty strong.

  “Tie my own shoes and everything. That and having Gus as my Indigo is worth not having four others.”

  Grimacing, Gus slouched deeper into his chair.

  She wasn’t wrong.

  Last night had been incredible, but the idea of literally doubling the number of people seemed insane to him.

  He didn’t like that idea.

  Melody was right.

  ***

  Pulling on the lapels of his suit, Gus felt strange. He was wearing his nicest navy suit and tie.

  There was no way he was going to go full-on “Fed” like Mark had and wear black. There was no reason for him to.

  His boss was Mark, and Mark wouldn’t care so long as he dressed appropriately. Navy instead of black, or not.

  Trish, Vanessa, and Melody were all dressed very professionally. Professionally, matching with one another, and like they were above any possibility of a complaint.

  Gus opened the door and held it open for everyone else.

  They were roughly five minutes early, but Gus figured there was no reason to hang around outside if they didn’t have to.

  “Rather conspicuous, isn’t it?” Vanessa asked as she walked through the door.

  Glancing up at the looming skyscraper, Gus couldn’t disagree.

  The building Mark had sent them to was massive and imposing, reaching far above. In fact, it was one of the tallest buildings in the downtown area.

  “That just makes it more interesting,” Melody said. “Especially since we came in through a super-secret entrance. It was fun to flash a Federal badge. Nice of Mark to include those in the contracts.�
�

  Gus shook his head with a grin as Melody walked by, then looked at Trish, who was taking up the rear.

  Her face had a curious cast to it. She walked up to him rather than follow Melody inside.

  “I don’t want last night to make things awkward,” she said. Her eyes looked very normal, and very serious. That glow was usually an indicator of when she was leaning into her Dryad heritage. “No matter how much I enjoyed it, I want to make sure you enjoyed it, too.”

  “It wasn’t awkward. Or… that is, I don’t feel awkward about it. I guess,” Gus said, feeling just a little bashful. There was just no way he couldn’t help but think about what he’d done to her. He hadn’t felt like he was in his right mind, but he’d definitely done what he wanted.

  It was just surprising what he’d wanted to do to her.

  And wanted to do again.

  “It’s… what I am. I draw it out in my partners. It feeds all aspects of your desires and encourages them,” Trish said. “At least, that’s how my sisters explained it to me. That was my first sexual experience last night, so I’m sure I can dial it in better in the future. Though, I do feel like it went well, if a bit chaotic.

  “I guess what I’m saying is… don’t feel weird about it. It was normal, and your attention was flattering.”

  Gus looked off to one side and nodded before lifting his eyes back up to meet Trish’s. He needed to be a big boy about this. It was only awkward if he let it be.

  “Is it normal to want to do it again to you?” Gus asked.

  Trish smiled at that and wrinkled her nose. “Yes. Especially if it pleased you. Means my Dryad magic is working as intended.

  “Just be gentler with my hips next time. You’re stronger than you think. Come on, Indigo. We should catch up to our Contractor. Lest I let my other self come out to play. I think I’d end up abducting you.”

  Grinning with one side of his mouth, Gus indicated the entry. “Off with you then, Miss Sex-Sorceress.”

  Trish stuck her tongue out between her teeth and patted him on the shoulder as she walked by. “Silly.”

  Gus stuffed his hands in his pockets as he let go of the door and followed her inside. If anything, he was thankful for the way she’d broached the subject and handled it. He wasn’t quite sure he had the emotional intelligence to have gotten through it on his own.