Authors: Audrey Storm
Epilogue
Months Later…
“You’ll have to come over some time,” Andrea said over the phone, sitting on the couch beside her favorite window. Its massive size revealed hers and Fernando’s large and beautiful property, and she smiled at the flowerbeds near the side of the mansion. “It’s actually smaller than Fernando’s previous home.”
Her mother laughed. “I’m not sure what ‘small’ means to you fancy rich folk.”
Andrea frowned. “Mom—”
“I’m just teasing, sweetheart. We’d love to come over whenever you’re able to have us.”
Relaxing, Andrea’s eyes scanned over the land outside. Inside the mansion, she could hear Fernando cooking the two of them lunch. Occasionally, he would hiss and curse; he had gotten too used to a chef cooking his meals for him.
She smirked and turned toward the direction of the kitchen. “How about this weekend? I don’t think we’re doing anything.”
“That sounds great, dear. I’ll see you then.”
“Alright. Bye.”
“Andrea.”
Andrea jolted, having nearly hung up. “Yeah?”
Her mother paused. After Andrea had reconciled her differences with her family several weeks ago, her mother often did this—the dramatic pauses before saying something menial. She did it at Andrea’s and Fernando’s wedding, and she did it when she found out that Andrea had quit Monumental Press. However, as annoying as it was, Andrea found herself willing to tolerate it. After everything she went through—after everything she had done—she could no longer bring herself to be frustrated by others’ irritating behavior without hating herself.
“I’m glad we’re speaking again,” her mom said softly. “We missed you so much. Your father won’t admit that, but we did. I love you.”
Fernando hissed again, cursing loudly in Spanish.
Andrea barely restrained a laugh, warmth of all kinds flooding through her. “Thanks, mom. I love you, too.” She waited an extra few seconds before hanging up the phone. Tilting her head back, she called out, “You okay there, bear-man?”
“Har-har,” Fernando called back. “I’m fine. It’s the stupid stove that has the problem.”
She laughed. “I’m sure.”
Her mother’s words remained in her head—the tone of the older woman’s voice, the sincerity…Andrea couldn’t stop herself from smiling. It didn’t matter that her family would never fully accept her—didn’t matter that they would always criticize her—didn’t matter that they didn’t know Fernando was once a bear-shifter, let alone that the world had been full of them. It just mattered that she loved them, and she had them back.
“I invited my family over for this weekend,” she called into the kitchen. “Are you up for that?”
“Sure,” Fernando called. “But I think Reed is coming over, too. He said he wanted to celebrate the continuation of world peace amongst our community or something.”
“Of former bear-people?”
“I believe so.”
She shook her head, still smiling. It was all so maddening every time she thought about it—the alchemist, the broken curse, the lack of an uproar from the former bear-shifters. And Reed, sweet Reed, being such a good friend even after Fernando revealed his feelings for Andrea.
It was too good to be true. And yet—
“Sounds great,” she called back, relaxing on the couch and staring out the window again. “It’s really, really great.”
THE END
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My name is Andrea. You could say I live a normal life; at least that’s the way it looks on the outside. But things are not always as they seem. My husband is Alvah. I love him—I really do—but things have changed over the years.
When I met Alvah, I instantly fell in love. He treated me like his queen, always spending time with me and buying me anything I could ever wanted. I wish it could have stayed like that forever, but it didn’t take long—about two years into our marriage, really—before he began to focus more on earning money and less on our relationship.
It is not like we need the money; in fact, we have more than enough to support several families for several lifetimes. But that did not matter to Alvah. He wanted more. I find myself wondering what I did wrong, what changed, and the only thing I can think of is my weight. When I met Alvah, I was what you would call extremely thin. I never ate and worked out all of the time, but as the years went by, I found other things to occupy myself with.
I am not what most people would call obese, but I am a very curvy, full-figured woman. I have large breasts, thick thighs, and my hips are round. I never thought that gaining a little weight would take my husband so far away from me. These days I never see him. He leaves for work before the sun comes up and comes home long after I have gone to bed. I have wondered if he is having an affair, and I have cried myself to sleep because I felt so alone.
I ached to feel his touch and yet I get nothing from him. I stayed up late one night last week, as I wanted to surprise him. That day, I had gone shopping and purchased the sexiest nightie that I could find. It was light pink and looked beautiful against my skin tone. It had feathers around the bust line and around the bottom. The rest was completely see through.
I lit candles and waited for him to come home. When he walked into the bedroom that night, the look on his face was one of disgust. He walked around the room blowing out the candles and slid into bed. When I reached over to touch him he just said that he was too tired and had to work in the morning.
He will never know how much he hurt me that night. I lay there and thought about when we met, how he could not keep his hands off of me. Our relationship started off in a way that many would call weird, but to me it was perfect. When I met Alvah, he seemed to be the type of man who did not approach many women. He was shy and quiet. I actually had to make the first move, but once I did it was an amazing adventure.
A few weeks into our relationship, I asked Alvah why he had not stayed the night with me yet, and I could tell something was off. He told me that he had a secret that no one knew, and that he would tell me but if I ever left him I would have to die.
I thought he was joking so I told him to tell me. Alvah said he was a vampire and he had to go out at night to hunt. He needed the blood to live. I remember sitting there, wondering if he had some sort of mental instability that would make him think he was a vampire. I could not believe how I always seemed to attract the craziest men, but then he told me that if I would let him feed off of me, he would not have to hunt.
I decided that this was some type of sexual game and agreed. We went back to my place and I found out that he was not lying. I allowed Alvah to feed each night and when he was done, he would always make love to me. It was unlike anything I had ever imagined, and I felt that I was lucky to have found him.
When he stopped feeding is when I really started to gain weight. Did he not know that if he would only feed again, things could go back to the way they were? I often thought about who or what he was feeding on when he came home late at night. I wondered if he had found someone else, someone who he desired more than me, but I didn’t understand why or how that would happen.
I had given him everything, including life through my blood, and he was too worried about money to even spend time with me. I could not blame him, he was going to live forever and would need the money to sustain himself, but he only had me for a short time and he knew that. Alvah had told me about past loves and how he had watched them grow old, how he had to tell people that his wife was his mother so that they would not get suspicious of him. How he had buried previous wives as well as children, and I could see the pain in his eyes when he talked about it.
I could never imagine my life without Alvah, but I felt so alone, so unloved, and so lost. That was how it all started. One of my friends came over to my house. Her name was Alissa, she was the one friend that I could tell anything to and not have to worry about anyone else finding out. I also knew that she was willing to help me and give me advice because she had done it so many times.
As I told Alissa about how hard it was to be alone all the time and how much I resented the money that Alvah was bringing home, she began telling me a story of her own.
She told me that she had been in the same situation (which I doubted, because she did not know Alvah was a vampire) and she told me that when her husband would not pay attention to her, she simply found someone who would.
I could not believe what she was telling me. I loved Alvah, and I could never consider having an affair. Alissa told me how she went to a club and had men literally drooling over her. How it really was not an affair, but just a way for her to get the attention she needed since her husband was always so busy with work. Looking back now, I know it does not sound like something any married woman should do, but I was lonely and what she said made a lot of sense at the time. Now I wish I had never gotten involved in the entire situation.
Alissa told me that I could join her that Friday night, that it was okay because I was just going to go have a look and that nothing was going to happen. I agreed and she picked me up at eight o’clock. I expected that the club would be one of the many that were located on the strip in our city, but she drove me out of town and onto a country road. She told me that this was an exclusive club that not everyone knew about, but that I would be her guest and that I should not worry.
That made me worry even more. I wondered how she had found out about this club, and when I asked, she told me that one of her husband’s friends had told her about it. It turned out that he was one of the men who frequented the club, and one of Alissa’s men. I didn’t ask any more questions. I was learning a lot about Alissa that I had not known before, and was not sure that I wanted to know any more.
When we pulled up to the club, it was a plain building on the outside. Nothing that screamed “club.
”
Alissa parked and we walked up to the plain gray door with a slot in it, so people could look out. Alissa knocked on the door. The slot opened, and I could see two eyes peering out at us. The slot quickly closed and the door opened. Standing on the other side of the door was a tall, handsome man. He was extremely muscular with dark hair and dark eyes. I could not help but think to myself that if all the men looked that good, I was going to have a hard time staying loyal to my husband.
When he looked at me, I began to feel something that I had not felt in a long time… attractive. We walked down a long hallway and I could hear the bass from the music through the walls. Once we got to the end of the hallway, Alissa turned. Looking me right in the eyes, she asked if I was ready.
Of course I was not ready; I had no idea what I was getting myself into! But I smiled at her and said, “Let’s do this.” Alissa opened the door, and it took my eyes a few seconds to adjust to the flashing lights.
As we walked into the room, she explained to me that this was the main room. She told me that this was the room where everyone met and where everyone came to drink and dance. She told me that things tend to get out of hand in that room, but not to worry about it because everyone knew why everyone else was there. She told me there was no judgment within those walls.
As I looked around the room, I could see that there was an area for dancing with a DJ booth nearby. There were two large couches sitting in the middle of the room creating a semi-circle, and there was a bar on the other side of the room. There were a few tables scattered throughout the room as well. There were not many people in the club at that time and I asked her where everyone was.
Alissa told me that things in the club would not pick up for about another hour, and that she had brought me early so that she could show me around. As she was telling me, another man walked up. Alissa introduced him as the owner of the club and he offered to give me the tour. I looked at Alissa, shrugging my shoulders, and we followed the man.
He told us that most people spend time downstairs getting to know each other, relaxing and drinking. He also said that the couches were there to help people relax and feel more at home. Then he led us to a door on the other side of the room, the door lead to a staircase. As we climbed the staircase, he told us that the second floor was for those who wanted a little bit of privacy and those who wanted to get to know each other a little better.
As I peered into one of the rooms, I could see a comfortable looking room with a couch, a television, and a bed off in the corner. I wondered how many times that bed had been used and how many people had used it.
Once we were at the end of the hallway, there was another staircase. As we made our way to the third floor the man explained that this floor was for those who wanted to act out some of their fantasies. I had thought that there were not many people in the club when we first entered, but when we opened the door to the third floor, I was surprised by the number of people that were there.
I looked into one room and there were several chairs placed around a stage. On the stage was a bed, and a woman was lying on the bed. This woman was completely naked and the chairs were full of men. Another man walked on stage; he was completely naked as well. He walked over to the woman and began touching her body.
I could feel myself becoming more and more turned on as I watched what was going on. I looked over at Alissa and she gave me a sneaky grin. This is not what I had been expecting when she told me that we were going to a club.
There was one more floor and the man told us that this was the anonymous floor. He said that this floor was for those who wanted to remain anonymous to their partners but still wanted to take advantage of the club. There were several sets of booths on the floor and the man explained that each set of booths had two sides: one was for the woman and one was for the man. He stated that when a woman went into her booth, she would flip a switch, which would cause the occupied light to come on. This would tell men that there was a woman waiting inside the booth. When a man entered the other side, he would flip a switch, and it would turn on a light indicating that the booth was occupied by a man.
I did not ask any questions about the booths; I could only imagine what was inside. I just shook my head as if I understood what was going on, and we headed back down to the main floor. Once we were back on the main floor, the owner wished us luck and walked away.
“What is this place?” I asked Alissa.
She looked at me surprised by my question, “What do you mean? I told you it is a way for you to get the attention that you deserve, without your husband ever finding out.”
I was already feeling guilty, I knew I should not be in this club, I knew that if Alvah found out he would feel betrayed and he would never forgive me.
The first floor was starting to fill up, and Alissa asked me if I needed a drink. At that point, I needed a lot of drinks. I wanted to get out of there so badly. I just wanted to go home and get back to my boring, sad life.
I decided that since I was pretty much stuck there, I would go ahead and have a drink, so we made our way over to the bar. I sat down as Alissa ordered drinks, and I began to look around.
There seemed to be people everywhere. The dance floor was full of men and women dancing with each other, grinding against each other, and all but having sex right there on the dance floor.
A few people had made their way to the couches, and on one of the couches two women sat making out and rubbing their hands all over the others body. On the other end of the couch was a man and a woman, the woman was sitting on the man's lap, her skirt hiked up around her waist and his hands grasping her ass.
On the second couch, there was a man just sitting there, watching what was going on on the other couch, and from the bulge in his pants, I was pretty sure he was enjoying it.
The bartender handed me my drink and I drank it as fast as I could. I could not believe what I was seeing. How did Alissa think that this was going to help me? I could not deny that watching what was going on in that club turned me on, but what was the benefit? I was just going to go home and be lonely once again. I knew that no matter what I did, Alvah was not going to satisfy my needs.
Alissa made her way to the dance floor, and I stayed behind at the bar, ordering another drink. At least I knew I could enjoy drinking while I was there. I had not made it through my second drink when a man walked up. He was what I would have to call beautiful. I could tell that he was muscular, even though he wasn’t wearing a tight shirt. He had blonde hair and amazing blue eyes. He looked as if he was a little older than me, but honestly I did not care.
“First time?” he asked.
“Um yeah, is it that obvious?” I answered.
“Yeah, it kind of is,” he laughed. “My name is John. Don’t worry, we were all new once.”