Fox Play (24 page)

I stood up. "I think it's time to share the story of the day I met Lara. But rather than just tell the story, we're going to reenact it."

I looked around and found Eric and Rory. "You two. You need to reprise your roles." John wasn't there, and of course, David was dead. "Elisabeth, can you play David's role? Karen, can you take a small role as well?"

"I don't know the story," she said.

"Just stand next to Eric most of the time," I said. "It's a non-speaking role."

She laughed. "I can do that."

"And as our narrator, sharing my thoughts throughout the incident, we have our very own Angel." She stood up and took a bow. "She will be speaking as my voice."

"It was early on a Tuesday morning last July," began Angel, "when I was rudely awoken from pleasant dreams chasing tiny woodland creatures, creatures far too small to be worthy of a real hunter, but exactly a match for me."

I turned to Angel and glared. She shrugged.

Rory and Elisabeth stepped up, side by side, and Elisabeth mimed knocking on a front door. "Knock knock," she said. She looked self-conscious about it.

"You can imagine my great annoyance," Angel said. "I had been out late carousing with were frogs and were crickets and other sorts of inconsequential were creatures half the night."

I glared at her again. "I had not! I'd been out running and had a nice meal."

Angel continued. "And, as everyone knows, it is a horrible, horrible mistake to annoy me in the mornings before I have had my cup of tea."

"That part is true!" said Lara.

"So it was with great annoyance that I threw some clothes on and stepped downstairs to see who was stupid enough to wake me up."

I got into my role, miming a descent down the stairs and peeking out the windows.

"Oh my god!" Angel said. "Wolves! Wolves! Oh my god! Run away! Run away!"

I turned around and ran straight towards Eric and Karen, supposedly waiting by my back door. I mimed looking out the back window.

"But there were two more big, tall, strong, and amazing wolves, as all wolves are," said Angel. "Waiting at my back door. I knew I was way too small and foul tasting to make a good meal for four wolves, but they were wolves! Worse, they were wolves stupid enough to wake me up without holding a cup of tea. I ran back upstairs, wondering what to do."

The crowd was enjoying the story. Angel was doing a good job, injecting humor into a story that had terrified me at the time.

I mimed running quietly back upstairs.

"Ms. Redfur," Rory said from beside Elisabeth. "Open up. We just want to talk. We won't eat you. We promise." He drew out that last word.

"I knew I couldn't trust the wolves. They were wolves, after all." Angel smiled. "Hey, don't blame me. I'm Michaela right now." Then she went on. "But I have an advantage. Two advantages. I have a door from my bedroom to the rickety scary deck on my roof, and I shift into my fox faster than a blink of an eye."

I glanced at Angel. "Well it is rickety. I wish you would let Eric fix it."

"No way," he said. "I touch that deck, and next I'll have to reroof, and while I'm at it, the house could use some paint."

"Ahem," I said. "Standing here while the wolves break in."

"Oh yeah," said Angel. "So I opened the door outside and shifted into a fox." I immediately shifted, then dragged myself out of my clothes. "This next moment was almost my undoing," continued Angel. "I caught sight of myself in the mirror. I am, of course, a truly stunning, beautiful, pretty, attractive, gorgeous, amazing fox, and I couldn't help but admire myself in the mirror."

I turned to glare at her, but then played the role the way she was narrating.

"And I'm not even at all vain," Angel added.

I pretended to flirt with my own reflection in a mirror, earning me chuckles. I heard June say quietly to Benny, "Yes, she's gorgeous, I know. You're allowed to appreciate her, and you can even tell her she's gorgeous. But remember, you belong to me."

Angel said to the crowd, "Now, we need to pause in the story at this point. Michaela insisted. She knows it's been an entire twenty-four hours since any of us have seen her fox, and she knows you'll need a minute or two to admire her before we can go onto the story. Again, don't blame me, I'm just repeating what she told me to say."

There were chuckles, but I played it, prancing around in front of them. What the hell, I am truly a gorgeous fox. Even June thought so. I posed for Benny, then finally walked back to my place.

"Now, everyone tell her how gorgeous she is, or she'll sulk the rest of the night," Angel said.

They laughed, but then I heard appreciation for my appearance.

"All right," Lara said. "That's enough. She's my fox!"

"Don't be greedy, Alpha," said Elisabeth. "She's the pack fox!"

I pranced around once more, then resumed my place, ready to move through the rest of the story.

Angel spoke. "I finally tore myself away from the mirror and stepped out the door and up onto the roof. But, in spite of being a very clever fox, somehow I had forgotten that it's a very, very long fall off a two story roof, and the only other space to jump down was the one story roof over the front entrance, and there were two big, mean, nasty, and presumably smelly wolves down there. Not that I would know about the smelly part, what with this worthless nose of mine."

I ran back and forth as if I were looking for a place to jump down.

"But then I heard the sound of breaking glass. Those horrid wolves were breaking into my house!"

Rory and Elisabeth mimed bashing my front door in.

"We've got you now, little fox!" Rory said. And he howled.

"Don't sensationalize, Rory," Angel said.

He glared at her. "And what is it you are doing?" The crowd laughed. "Oh, all right. David said..."

"Ms. Redfur. We just want to talk."

"Pretty scary demand, isn't it?" Angel said. "But with the wolves inside my house, it was safe to jump down onto the lower roof, then down onto the ground. This would have been a simple game of hopscotch to a real were, but to a little fox like me, it was quite a jump, and I rolled on the ground for a moment after jumping down."

I rolled over twice, then came to my feet and shook my head and fur, shaking the dirt out.

"Ha! Stupid wolves! You won't catch me now," Angel said.

Lara was waiting on the other side of the fire from me. I began creeping along the side of the fire between us. "I ran around the house, looking over my back to make sure the wolves hadn't seen me."

I ran around the fire, looking backwards, and ran right into Lara. She immediately grabbed me by the scruff. "Got her!" she said. Then she turned me to face her.

I hated being picked up by the scruff. Lara winked at me.

"What a stupid fox I was!" Angel said. "I run away from the wolves only to run right into the biggest, baddest, smelliest wolf of them all! And then, like a helpless kitten, she picked me up by my scruff. Why, I ought to..."

"We just want to talk, Michaela," Lara said in a small voice. And I did what I had really done. I went crazy.

People gasped. We'd made the entire story one of humor, but suddenly I was reminding them I was fox, dangling from my neck like this. I spat and tried to bite Lara.

"Knock it off, Michaela," she said. "We only want to talk."

She knew it was coming, but when I sunk my teeth in her arm, she winced. I hadn't meant to do it so hard, and I immediately whimpered an apology. She leaned forward and kissed me on the nose, forgiving me.

"I'm pretty sure there weren't any kisses the first time, Alpha! Please, can we get back to telling the story with some degree of accuracy?" said Angel.

Lara scoffed at that.

"But still," Angel said. "The horrible and foul-tasting alpha wolf was stubborn, far, far more stubborn than I was, and I am the most stubborn fox any of you have ever met, that big smelly wolf refused to drop me, but instead she shook the stuffing out of me."

Lara shook me, but far more gently than she had originally.

"You call that shaking the stuffing out of her?" Angel asked, her hands on her hips.

"Poetic license," Lara said. "Let's move on."

"Shocked and stunned after having my delicate fox brains rattled around in my skull like a pair of dice, I hung limp, pretending to be dead."

I fell limp, dangling from Lara's arm by my scruff. I whimpered a little, and Lara kindly pulled me into her arms properly, supporting me. I licked her briefly.

Angel made a dramatic sigh. "The wolf, perhaps not quite as bad as anyone thought, pulled me into her arms, but I bit her, hoping she would drop me."

I licked Lara's hand.

"Bit! Bit! I bit her," Angel said. "I didn't lick her."

I put my mouth over Lara's hand.

"That's better," Angel said. "The wolf didn't drop me, but she swore at me."

"Knock it off, Michaela," Lara said. "We're only going to talk. We already had breakfast."

"And then she dangled me by my scruff and carried me into the house." Lara held me properly, not by the scruff, and mimed walking into the house with me. Angel glared at her. "By the scruff."

"Poetic justice. Or perhaps the narrator would care to experience being carried around by her scruff," Lara said.

"I mean, she carried me sweetly into the house, because she's a sweet, kind, lovely alpha who would never carry someone by her scruff."

"That's more like it," said Lara with a smile.

"The wolves from the back door walked in, and one of them remarked at how beautiful I am."

Eric stepped forward and said, "Oh good, you caught the mangy thing."

I lunged for him, Lara nearly dropping me, and snarled.

"In the original story," Angel said. "When I was being carried by my scruff, and when Eric didn't realize how fearless a fox I really am, I actually managed to bite him."

Eric turned to face her, and there was blood on his face.

"Oh dear," Angel said. "Maybe you shouldn't have called me mangy."

"Damned fox!" he said, and he raised his fist. Lara immediately shielded me with her body.

"The alpha fox, who I had by now decided didn't smell at all as badly as I thought she would, shielded me from the wolf who smelled badly enough for the rest of them. And suddenly, I was fourteen fifteenths in love with her. I would have been fifteen fifteenths in love, but, well, she was a wolf, after all."

Lara chuckled.

"And then she carried my upstairs and gave me a bath because, unlike the wolves, I did smell," said Angel. "But afterwards I shifted to human and fed them breakfast."

Lara shielded me with her body while I shifted back human and quickly pulled my clothes back on. We mimed going back downstairs.

"Over breakfast, I ordered the alpha to set the table, ordered two of the other wolves to cook, and told the last one to fix my front door or he'd find fox fur in his breakfast."

Angel got a series of looks from that.

"After breakfast, the big mean wolves shoved me rudely into a chair, shined bright lights in my faces, and told me to answer all their questions or they would break all the mirrors in the house so I couldn't look at my own reflection anymore. So I answered all their questions and begged them not to break my favorite mirrors, of which I only have eleven."

Lara laughed. "I told her why we were here and then she went for a run while she decided if she was going to help us. She came back and told me everything she knew about why I had come to visit. Then she asked if we were going to be friends, and I couldn't imagine my luck. Because while Michaela wasn't fourteen fifteenths in love with me, I was at least five fifteenths in love with her."

We kissed, and Angel said, "And that's how Lara and Michaela met."

We took our applause, then Lara and I pointed to Angel, and she took a second, separate applause.

Later, Benny caught me. "How accurate was the story?"

"We hammed it up. At the time, I was terrified."

"You really bit her."

"Every chance I could. It didn't do me a bit of good."

"And now look at you."

"Yeah." I rubbed my neck. "I hate being carried by the scruff."

He smiled. "I imagine. Good story."

"Thanks."

* * * *

"How is your neck?" Lara asked. "You've been rubbing it."

"Maybe if you kissed it and made it better," I suggested.

We were in our room. It was late, but I felt loved and was insanely happy. Lara stepped up to me and drew me into her arms, reaching over me to kiss my neck. I pressed into her, enjoying her strength.

"What's the word from Greg?"

"Progress," she said. "No sign his investigations have been noticed. No sign anyone from Chicago is going to bother us immediately. He thinks we'll be able to start taking our first real action by next week."

"I feel a little guilty. We're basically on vacation here while they are doing all that work."

"I know," she said. "But we couldn't do it ourselves. So I hired the best people we could find, and now I am staying out of their way while they do their jobs."

I stayed pressed against her, loving the feel of her arms around me. I don't think she noticed when I used one hand to undo the buttons on her shirt. But when I brushed it off her shoulders and down her arms, she said, "Sneaky fox."

"I want to see you naked," I said. "You have an amazing body, Lara."

She did, and I marveled every time I saw it. She was tall and broad, with taut muscles but silky skin. I kissed her shoulder and ran my fingers along her back, releasing her bra and pulling it off her. I moved to a nipple, taking her into my mouth.

It was always clear that Lara is all woman, even with her athletic figure and small breasts. They weren't as small as mine, of course, but small for her size. And absolutely perfect. I loved taking them into my mouth.

"Little fox," she growled. "You are being very forward."

"I want you," I said. "But my neck is sore. I don't think you can be on top."

She laughed and reached for my shirt. In response, I dropped to my knees in front of her and began working at her jeans. She ran her fingers through my hair while I pulled her jeans and panties down her body, and then she stood in front of me in all her magnificent glory.