Chapter 11

#Chapter 11 – A Celebrity Case I sigh, arms crossed, as I watch the cars pull away with my boys, saying a silent prayer. In my heart, I know Victor will keep them safe, but still – a mother’s fears run deep.

After the car moves out of my sight I turn and head back into my house, shifting into counselor mode. I wasn’t kidding when I told Victor I had a big day planned – but it’s less spa and more work, unfortunately. I’ve got bills to pay.

I head into my office and quickly straighten up some loose papers on my desk, nudging my grey armchair back into its place parallel to the green velvet loveseat where my clients sit. The boys must have been in here, fooling around.

As I put finish up, I hear a knock on my office’s outside door. Susan, right on time.

Susan rushes through the door as soon as I pull it open, a pink scarf draped over her head to obscure her face. Poor Susan – she’s always so ashamed of coming to see me for counseling, not wanting anyone to see her come in or out.

“I don’t think anyone’s looking, Susan,” I say gently, but I draw the shades closed anyway.

“Oh, you never know!,” she laughs. “Can’t be too careful.” She gives me a sunny smile that I know she doesn’t feel.

I take my pen and notebook off of the desk and neatly fold myself into my chair, pulling on a cardigan that I folded over the back. More professional, I think, than my silk-and-lace remember-that-time-you-

knocked-me-up dress.

“So, Susan,” I say, getting right into it, “Have you and Adrian tried any of the role playing techniques that we talked about last session?”

Susan laughs awkwardly and blushes. I smile and wait patiently for her to respond. Susan came to me about six months ago, desperate to fix her relationship. She and Adrian are deeply in love but, as with many werewolf/human couples, they have some trouble connecting in the bedroom.

“Yes,” Susan finally says, smiling coyly. “We were able to find some ways to engage in…”

“Roleplay…” I suggest softly “Mmhmm!” she says, her lips pursed. “It allowed us to move more slowly, so that we could incorporate more…” she blushes again.

“Foreplay?” I offer.

“Yup!” Poor Susan is beat red now.

“That’s great, Susan! And did you find that it…”

She covers her face with her hands to hide her deep blush, but I can see her smile. “Yes! I did. It definitely allowed me to be more…aroused…so that the size of his…” she looks at me from between her fingers and I nod, letting her know I understand, “…wasn’t so difficult to…”

“Fit inside of you,” I finish for her. Susan laughs and I join her.

“You’d think after six months of this,” she says, “I’d be better at enunciating what I mean. I mean, you know all the intimate details of my s*x life but I still struggle to say…p***s” she whispers the last word.

“Everyone takes their own time,” I say, shrugging. “It took me a long time to figure out what I like in bed and how to talk about it. And you have the added dimension of having to learn how to adapt to another species. You should go easier on yourself.”

Susan nods, and I continue. “So, you were able to successfully communicate your need for more foreplay, it sounds like a success. How did…the rest go?”

I see Susan grimace slightly and I lean forward, ready to listen. “Well,” she said. “All of the roleplay got Adrian really worked up too,” she said. “There were some moments that…well, that freaked me out, Evelyn.”

I nod and encourage her to tell me more. “Well…he bit me, a little bit.” I raise my eyebrows and try to suppress a smile.

“Is that a problem for you?” I ask.

“I mean, in the moment it felt…it felt really great. But now…” she pulls aside her t-shirt and showing me a ring of teeth marks on her shoulder. “I mean is it okay? I read all this stuff about men hurting their partners…”

“Okay, lets work through this,” I say. “Did it hurt you?”

“A little bit,” she says softly, “but in a good way?”

I nod, understanding. “I want you to know, Susan, that biting and marking are part of werewolf s****l culture. It can be a violent act, of course, but between a wolf and his mate it’s a sign of arousal, and affection, and claiming. When he bites you, does it feel like he wants to hurt you?”

She shakes her head slowly, “No,” she says. “I can feel that he wants me, but not that he wants me to suffer. It also heals, like, super fast,” she says, pulling her shirt aside to look again at the ring of indentations. “Even this morning it was much more red.”

“That’s normal,” I say, peering at it. “Wolf wounds work faster, it’s in the saliva.”

She nods and turns again to me, a tremor of fear in her voice. “Am I…am I going to turn into a wolf now?” she asks, slowly. “Like…like a werewolf?”

“No, Susan,” I say, laughing kindly. “You’ve watched too many movies. Lycanthropy isn’t transferred through bites, it’s genetic, like having brown hair or green eyes.”

“If you and Adiran decide to have kids,” I continue, “they will be half wolf, though wolf genes tend to be dominant, so they will likely present as full wolves. But you, my dear, will stay safely as a human.” I see Susan huff a sign of relief.

“You should talk to Adrian, though,” I say, leaning forward. “He shouldn’t be biting you like that if you and he haven’t had a conversation about what it means. You didn’t grow up in a pack and he probably forgets that you don’t know.”

Susan nods and I hold her eye contact, letting her know that I’m serious. “Encourage him to remember that you’re human and that he needs to ask you to consent to things that you’re unfamiliar with. He loves you, and you deserve to decide whether or not you want to be bitten during s*x. It’s not all up to him.”

“Thanks, Evelyn,” she says, and I get up to give her a hug before she leaves. I’m rooting for this funny human/wolf pair, who got hit with a mating bond out when they met by accident in an Applebee’s parking lot. It will be an uphill road for them, but I think they’ll make it.

As Susan’s car pulls away, I see Tyesha’s green station wagon pull up to my curb. “Just a rotating door today,” I say under my breath, laughing and waving as she makes her way up the walk.

“Tyesha!” I say, folding my old counseling mentor into a hug. “It’s good to see you, was I expecting you?”

“Nah,” she says, beaming at me. “You got time for a cup of coffee? I have an interesting case for you.”

I raise my eyebrows and gesture her inside, where I put my little Keurig to work making us two lattes.

“What’s up?” I ask.

“An interesting case has crossed my desk,” she says, blowing on her coffee. “I think that you’d be good at it, knowing your penchant for…discretion. And your love of CelebGoss.”

I gasp and lean forward. “Really!? A celebrity case? Who is it? Wait…is it Lisa Vanderpump? I always knew she had a little wolf in her.”

Ty laughs at me and shakes her head. “Actually, I can’t tell you, which is part of the job. It is a celebrity, but they’ve asked for full discretion. They don’t even want the therapist to know who they are until they’ve had their first session – all phone until they feel they can trust you.”

“However,” she continues, “it’s all right up your alley. Great couple, good s*x, just a disconnect between their visions for their future. I think you’d be a great match.”

I nod and bite my lip. I’ve never worked with a celebrity this big before – did this kind of demanding start mean they were going to be difficult? With all these new twists in my life, I don’t need the extra drama. But, I could use the cash.

“Is the pay…” I say, trailing off to let Tyesha fill in the blanks.

“It’s worth the drama,” she says, raising an eyebrow to punctuate her point.

I laugh. “Okay, set me up!” She clinks her mug against mine and then draining it.

“Where should we –“ I begin to say, when all of a sudden we hear a bang and the squealing of wheels outside the house. Ty and I look at each other, suddenly serious, and then quickly push open the door to the street.

There’s a little smoke left where the perpetrator has burned out, but our eyes are instantly drawn to my car – my poor car! The words “GET OUT OF TOWN, b***h” are scrawled across it in red paint. I gasp, enraged and terrified at once. Below that phrase is another one, smaller, which reads “Or your KIDS are next.”