AllFreeNovel
Share Us
EIGHT
I hada beautiful near-stranger’s vibrator in my pocket, a newly dry-cleaned-via-rush-service leather jacket on my back, and a meeting with my supervisor at Kitten Around on my day off.
Well, partial day off, since I’d gone in during the overnight.
After that bit of exhaustion-induced insanity about asking Kitty to be my girlfriend—fake, dammit—she’d insisted I needed more sleep and nudged me back to her bed with an actual cup of milk without replying one way or another to my request.
Alas, she did not join me. Nor did she make any other mention of sex without condoms.
Or sex with condoms. Or any sex at all.
But I’d taken her vibrator hostage. So maybe eventually she’d turn in my direction again. Possibly. Though she still had ten fingers.
And that was something I did not need to think about right now.
I didn’t know her. Not that I needed to know her to have sex with her but some part of this whole thing between us felt like it had a purpose. Like we met in that fucking odd way for a specific reason. Dismissing it—and her—to pretend this could just be fun and then nothing at all felt…wrong.
All wrong.
As did putting up a false pretense to convince my parents I wasn’t on the market. Fuck that. If I told them I was with her, then I was really with her.
For a reason or a season. Not just about sex. But jumping in with both feet to see where it could go.
I didn’t do stuff like this as a rule. I didn’t love change and adhered to my schedules and guidelines because they served the comfortable routine I liked for my life.
But Kitty/Katherine had shaken up everything for me, and I wasn’t in any hurry to rush back to boredom.
Which was how I ended up explaining to Theresa at Kitten Around, that no, I had not actively participated in trying to turn the classified section of her rescue charity into a sex consortium.
Nor had I wanted to enable people to find sex partners. Or play partners. Or anything of the sort.
“Absolutely not. She really did want to find a cat as a companion for her grieving cat. And I think she’s grieving too. But she’s not ready to put herself out there all the way. Like, she wants a trial basis.”
Like you want a trial basis? Just something for show with extra added sex because she’s super fucking hot and a little weird and probably knows kinky sex acts you’d totally be on board with.
“We have many people who come to us in that situation,” Theresa said slowly. “Many of our fosters want the companionship of a temporary pet. Our program allows them to provide a home for an animal in need without all the responsibilities that usually come with it. Then at the end of the term, they can choose to adopt as a foster fail or return the pet to us so we can find he or she a better-suited home.”
“Yeah. So that’s kind of a rental too. Just doesn’t use the fancy language. Like when you rent a car. You get to drive it around but you don’t have to keep it if you don’t like the ride. Don’t have to pay for repairs. You just get to enjoy it, strings free.”
She frowned. “Clint, you’ve been working very hard. You mentioned you had an emergency last night and performed surgery in the middle of the night. Add in the stresses of the looming winter and the vet shortage, never mind the pressures of being in a famous political family—”
“That’s bullshit,” I snapped, making her jerk back. “As if my so-called pressure from the privilege I’ve been granted is worse than what so many people deal with every day. I just gotta get my head out of my own ass.”
Theresa smoothed her neat brown bun into place before she made a few quick notes on her pad. Probably comments on my imminent breakdown.
Eh, well, I’d gone nearly thirty-six years without being so much as written up from my part-time drugstore job in high school. I was probably overdue.
Overdue for a lot of things.
I rubbed my still scruffy jaw. To hell with shaving today. “Putting a pretty name on something doesn’t change the reality. Aren’t we all going through the motions until we figure out what’s real? You can’t do that standing on the sidelines.”
“Clint, I’m submitting a request for time off for you. Right through the end of the year if you’d like. This is a volunteer position, but you’re a valid member of our team. The last thing we’d want is for you to burn out. That wouldn’t serve either of us.”
“I don’t need time off.” I thought of the chalet trip rapidly coming at me. “Okay, yeah, I do, but just a few days. I’m taking the woman I’m…seeing to meet my parents.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Please tell me you aren’t talking about the rent-a-pussy woman.”
My first inclination was to deflect. But I was tired of living half a life. I didn’t have anything to be ashamed of. Neither did Kitty.
