Cat Scratch Fever (7 page)

Gifts. That settled it. They needed all the gifts that they could get. ‘You know her cell number?’

Mel nodded.

Yup, she thought as Mel made the call, once the cubs had arrived safely, she’d start calling some of their lapsed donors, and the corporations who’d said no to Richard when he’d asked them to support the benefit. Some companies just didn’t like to sponsor events, but who could say no to the opportunity to ‘adopt’ a baby Amur leopard? Or maybe name one, for say $10,000?

She was so busy plotting her strategy that she didn’t hear Mel’s conversation. The rattle of Mel attempting to open the door back to the medical room distracted her.

Mel started pacing like a caged tiger. ‘He locked me out,’ she muttered. ‘The bastard locked me out!
That
was why he told me to let Katherine know right away. Well,’ she conceded, ‘that and she’d want to know. I should be in there!’

Forget the frozen burrito. Someone needed to be distracted. ‘Come on, sweetie,’ she said, taking Mel’s arm. ‘We’re going out to lunch. José’ll page you if anything happens.’

‘I shouldn’t…Oh, you’re right. He’s got a vet tech to help him, and there’s nothing I can do except jitter. But can we forget lunch and go straight to dessert? At times like this, a woman needs ice cream.’

Sure, Felicia thought as they headed towards the parking lot, there was work she should be doing while she ate – but sometimes friends took priority.

*   *   *

Several places in town served ice cream, but The Acropolis Diner, with its gleaming chrome fixtures, cosy booths and waitresses who could tell when you needed a refill on your iced coffee and when you needed to be left alone, was where they ended up. After a lunch consisting mostly of hot fudge sundae, Mel seemed a little calmer, until her phone rang while they were finishing the last gooey bites. Then she literally jumped out of her chair. She pulled out her cell with trembling hands, glanced at the number – and sank back into her seat with a sigh of relief. ‘Hi, Grandma.’ She switched immediately into Vietnamese, but Felicia could recognise the tone: apologetic, but annoyed. After an obviously frustrating conversation, she hung up, shaking her head.

‘My grandpa’s birthday party is tomorrow night in San Francisco. Grandma expects me to be there. It’s never sunk in for her that I’m six hours away, no matter how many times I tell her. She got off the plane from Saigon and hasn’t left San Francisco since. And she’s right that I really should be there, but I can’t. No one else here has my experience in dealing with newborns and José needs someone to relieve him.’

She sat, chewing her lower lip and staring at the melting remains of her sundae, just as twitchy as she had been before they’d run away from work.

Felicia knew that any time Mel had to deal with her beloved, but not very Westernised grandparents, she needed to blow off steam. A long hike or a trip to the beach usually served, but there was no time for that now. And more ice cream, usually a cure-all, would be a bad idea, seeing their sundaes had been roughly the size of ocean liners.

Well, there was one form of stress relief that Felicia could provide on short notice. And the way Mel was biting her lower lip was adorable, even if it was from guilt and anxiety.

Felicia left cash on the table to cover the bill and herded Mel back to the women’s room. As she’d hoped, it was a single-seater. Glancing around quickly to make sure no one was paying attention, she led Mel inside and locked the door behind them.

There was about a second’s hesitation. Washroom quickies with other girls weren’t part of her normal repertoire, and she wasn’t sure how to proceed. Then she pulled Mel in for a kiss and realised the details were going to take care of themselves.

Having to bend to kiss her made Felicia feel strong, powerful. Never mind that Mel could probably bench-press her; logic had very little to do with this sort of thing.

Soft lips and a probing tongue. A sharp, citrusy scent from Mel’s hair and the animal smell of the cats that always clung a little when she’d been working with them – dusty, sunwarmed fur and a hint of something musky and wild. And those delightful breasts that Felicia remembered so fondly, pressing against her. It combined to dizzying effect, reviving the Gabe-related stirrings that had been troubling her ever since the night before. But this wasn’t about her – it was about Mel.

She could have happily kissed Mel until sunset, but in a public bathroom she couldn’t afford to be so leisurely. She worked up Mel’s uniform polo shirt (‘veldt tan’ with the SCCS logo over the right breast), unclasped the front hook of her purple lace bra and lightly caressed the dark prominent nipples. Mel shuddered.

‘More?’ Felicia mouthed.

Mel nodded.

She cupped the lovely breasts, one in each hand – they were just the perfect size to make a nice handful – and circled the nipples with her thumb until Mel was squirming and biting her lip from something other than anxiety.

So pretty. Could Mel be one of the lucky women who could come from nipple-play alone? She couldn’t herself, or at least she never had, but Mel certainly seemed sensitive enough. But this wasn’t the best place to conduct that experiment. Some games deserved a comfortable bed and all the time in the world.

If her own level of arousal was any gauge, the fact they didn’t have all the time in the world right now wouldn’t be a problem.

She stroked her hands down Mel’s torso to the waistband of her khaki shorts. Not wanting to neglect the delicious nipples, Felicia captured one in her mouth as she worked on the zipper and struggled the jeans down just enough to slip one hand into Mel’s panties. Slick, swollen, eager – no surprise there. Felicia felt that way herself. OK, she’d been roiled up on and off since the night before, and this encounter just kicked it up a notch.

Someone knocked on the door. No time for subtleties. She found the spot and, began to circle it. Mel pressed one bare thigh between Felicia’s legs, pushing up her skirt. Pressing against her drenched panties with that heated skin.

Oh God. She’d
meant
it to be all about Mel, but there was only so much a woman could take. It was going to be about both of them – and quickly, if the way she’d just clenched and released was any clue.

On edge as she’d been, it built quickly as she rubbed herself against Mel’s thigh. Mel was whimpering, biting at her own hand as Felicia’s fingers worked. The happily stricken look on her face, the flush extending down over her breasts, added to Felicia’s own excitement. Mel’s legs began to shake. This was a happy thing for Felicia.

Then Mel began to buck under her hands. She didn’t make a sound, but her face contorted and she mouthed something that looked like it wanted to be ‘Oh God yes’ or maybe just a wordless scream.

Felicia couldn’t say if it was the added stimulation from Mel’s thrashing or the beautiful visual that ultimately kicked her over, but the waves began at the soles of her feet and her scalp, rolled along her body and met in the middle with overwhelming force.

She kissed Mel violently to stifle the noises she wanted to make. And, for just a second, with Mel’s juices all over her hand and Mel’s firm little body pressed against her, Felicia flashed to Gabe.

They cleaned up quickly and left the bathroom trying to simulate the innocent faces of a couple of women who had been sharing makeup or helping each other with some clothing crisis.

It was a wasted effort. The young woman waiting outside – who screamed
baby butch
from the flat-top haircut to the Doc Martens – took one look at their expressions and flashed them a big grin and a discreet thumbs-up.

The call had come at 7.30 the previous night, while Felicia was at home, laptop on her lap in front of the TV on mute, putting the final touches to a grant proposal.

‘Four healthy cubs, Felicia!’ José sounded both tired enough and triumphant enough to have given birth to them himself. ‘Three females, one male. The male’s on the small side, but he should be fine.’

After that news, Felicia managed to get a good night’s sleep for once, without resorting to Mr Twitchy or fantasies of Gabe.

As a result, Felicia faced the next morning armed with a merely large, as opposed to gigantic, iced coffee and more optimism than she’d felt in a while. She swept her desk clutter into neat piles: logistical details such as tent rental, grant files and, front and centre, the list of donors she needed to call. She even remembered to pour some water on the desiccated aloe and swore it perked up a bit.

One cub had already been named – she’d spoken to Valerie Turner after José’s call, knowing she would want to know immediately of the birth. Valerie had offered a naming gift even before Felicia had to ask.

She faced a long list of phone calls to possible donors, but it didn’t look as daunting as it would have on another day.

The first call was to the owner of a local luxury-car dealership. Mr Alfredi had always been supportive in the past, but had said no to Richard about sponsoring the benefit, according to her notes. Maybe the high gas prices were cutting in to Hummer sales.

When he got on the phone, she expected to have to do a hard sell. Instead, he all but greeted her with cries of joy. ‘Felicia! I was meaning to call you. I got my invitation to the Sanctuary benefit last week. Is it too late to get in as a sponsor this year? We got your letter a few months ago, but no one ever called to follow up with us and it just fell between the cracks.’

Sure no one called to follow up! She had it right here in her notes. No doubt Richard caught you on a bad day and now your wife wants to know why your name’s not on there.

She didn’t say that, in part because she felt bad that she hadn’t called herself as she’d done in other years. But, when the Barbery Foundation grant hadn’t come through, she’d been scrambling to get other grant proposals done to fill in the huge gap that left and she’d had to put more in the hands of her committee chair than usual.

Instead, she said, ‘I’m so sorry! And of course it’s not too late. It’s perfect timing, in fact – you can be the first company to take part in something very exciting honouring our latest arrivals. Noelle, one of our Amur leopards, had four cubs yesterday.’

She could practically hear his ears perk up. ‘Baby leopards? My kids would never forgive me if I didn’t do something.’

By the end of the conversation, she had a pledge for $2,500 from the dealership, the firm’s usual donation – and an additional $500, straight on to Mr Alfredi’s personal credit card, for the cub-care fund.

Maybe he really had been missed in the shuffle and Richard had written the wrong thing down. Mistakes happened.

Smiling, Felicia went on to the next company on her list. And again got the ‘No one called me this year’ story. Odd. The company, an LA law firm, wasn’t being especially receptive, so she figured the marketing guy might just be telling a little white lie.

Felicia was persistent, however, and the words ‘naming opportunity’ piqued his interest. Sanchez, Ackerman, and Leventhal LLC abbreviated nicely; he thought Sal the Amur leopard had a ring to it that the partners might like.

The call ended as a definite maybe. Felicia made a note to call back on Monday and moved on.

She took a few minutes to do a Google search on the next company, an unfamiliar biotech firm. Their areas of research included developing medicines from rain-forest plants – so they took an interest in the environment – and genome research. She got on the phone prepared to talk about the scientific aspects of the captive breeding programme and managed to reach someone who had a few minutes to listen. They really had said no to the benefit; the local office was small and didn’t have the budget for that sort of thing. Once the scientist-type on the phone heard about the breeding programme, though, she directed Felicia towards their parent company in Massachusetts, which sometimes made grants to support environmental projects. It wouldn’t help the benefit bottom line, but any money that could go directly to the breeding programme would free up money for other things.

Couldn’t Richard have done that? She shrugged. Maybe not. Fundraising wasn’t his area of expertise. She couldn’t expect him to have the instincts she’d honed over years of work in the area.

Still, by the end of the day, Felicia was scratching her head. She hadn’t managed to reach every corporate contact on the list but, of those she had reached, most claimed not to have been called before, or said Richard had blown off a meeting with them. Most had still said no – more people always said no than yes – but she’d got a few decent-sized pledges and a fair number of warm maybes. And two other companies and one wealthy individual were considering the $10,000 naming opportunity.

Even odder, the people who admitted they’d talked to Richard seemed surprised to hear about the cubs or other good news from the Sanctuary. They didn’t know about the Pallas’ cat kittens that had been born in late April, the Siberian tiger cubs at the National Zoo that had been fathered by their Khan, or the summer education programme for local kids, with fees from those who could pay subsidising places for poorer children.

‘It sounded like this benefit was a desperation measure,’ one company president said. ‘Like you were on your last legs. We don’t like our investment going to stave off creditors, but we’re glad to support such good work if we can.’ And he’d ended buying a table so he could bring visiting Japanese colleagues to view the cubs.

What had Richard been thinking? She’d given him a script and they’d rehearsed how to deal with questions about the Sanctuary’s financial challenges by talking about the new life they were giving to endangered species. He’d not only bollixed the script, but also he seemed to have gone out of his way to do so.

Time to have a little talk with him. Or maybe a big talk. It must have been a misunderstanding, but she was having trouble seeing how such a smart man could be so stupid.

He didn’t answer when she called. It was after 5 p.m., so that wasn’t unexpected, but she had this wonderful mental image of her anger blasting through the phone and blistering his fingers when he tried to pick up the receiver.

That said, the message she left, although painstakingly polite,
would
probably blister his ears if he was at all perceptive.

*   *   *

Felicia was still thinking about the oddity of it all at home that evening over a dinner of takeout Thai drunken noodles and a follow-up letter to people who’d pledged that day. She realised she was brooding too much when it occurred to her she was neither writing nor tasting the bold flavours of chillies and basil.

Very well. She shut down her laptop, picked up her dinner and walked resolutely out of the kitchen that served as an improvised office into her small, rather bare living room. Maybe she could find something cute and mindless to distract her on TV.

Instead, she found herself curled up on the shabby dark-green couch contemplating the fact that, after two years in Addison, she still hadn’t got around to hanging pictures in the living room or getting a real couch instead of this dorm-room special. And, at this point, it hardly seemed worth the effort. If the benefit failed, she’d just be moving again.

When the phone rang, she thought it might be Richard calling to explain until she realised it was her cell and she’d never given Richard her cell number. Instead, it was José’s familiar voice. His first words, even before hello, were ‘Everything’s fine.’

Once she started breathing again, he continued, ‘One of the vets from town and Mel’s assistant are keeping an eye on things so Mel and I can take a breather. So, Mel and I were wondering…We have this bottle of champagne to celebrate and were wondering if you’d like to share it with us.’ He sounded oddly hesitant.

While Felicia was still getting out ‘Sure!’ there was a tussle on the other end of the phone. Mel, apparently, won.

‘What José means,’ Mel put in, sounding more confident than José, ‘is that we spent an awful lot of time on cub-watch talking about how much fun we had the other night and we were wondering…’ And suddenly she got shy as well.

It was left for Felicia to say, ‘Sure. Bring that champagne on by and we’ll see what happens!’

She had a pretty good idea what would happen, but it was always best to leave these things open-ended in case they didn’t go according to plan.

And then she scurried off, grinning and blushing, to change the sheets, sweep empty take-out containers into the trash and see if she could find three champagne glasses. She already knew that finding ones that matched was a lost cause.

By the time her friends arrived, the place looked almost decent.

She hadn’t seen José since Noelle went into labour, and it looked like he hadn’t managed to catch up on sleep. But he was still on a high a day later, clutching a bottle of Iron Horse Cuvée from Sonoma and grinning from ear to ear. Like a proud grandpa, Felicia thought.

Then he set the bottle down on a bookcase by the door and delivered a thermonuclear kiss, actually lifting her from her feet.

OK, not grandpa, unless grandpa had a prescription for Viagra.

Toes barely on the floor, she put her arms around his neck and melted into him. He was kissing like a starving creature eats. Felicia briefly worried that Mel might be upset by his enthusiasm, but then the other woman’s arms slipped around her from behind and insinuated themselves between the two tightly pressed bodies. One reached up, cupping one of Felicia’s breasts. The other headed down. Felicia felt its teasing pressure against her own crotch, but she surmised the main action was going to José.

Sandwiched between two very attractive bodies, Felicia lost all desire to think. Given the angle, Mel couldn’t really do much, but simply feeling her there made Felicia all fluttery.

She could definitely get used to this threesome thing. She’d always have a bias in favour of the male anatomy, but the more she experienced them, the more she realised tender breasts and soft female lips (both sets) had a lot of appeal. Especially when there was also a hard male body to enjoy at the same time.

She cupped her hands around José’s butt. She hadn’t really had a chance to do that the other night, although she’d enjoyed the view.

Yup. His cheeks felt as nice as they looked, even through denim. They’d feel even better without the denim in the way, but that would mean letting go.

Mel snaked around to Felicia’s side. José moved his arms, pulling the zookeeper into his embrace and turning his kissing attentions to her.

Felicia shouldn’t have worried about Mel feeling threatened or excluded. Although each of them had an arm around Felicia, their focus changed as soon as their lips touched. They weren’t deliberately shutting her out – Mel still caressed her breast, José still stroked her – but she was clearly secondary to their pleasure in each other.

She was aroused, but not so much so that she couldn’t think. So…was she upset to be an afterthought?

The answer surprised her a little. She wasn’t. This was all about having a good time, as far as she was concerned, and she was honoured that two people she liked so much, and who could have celebrated privately, wanted to share their good time with her. If they were a little more into each other than they were into her, well, lucky them.

*   *   *

Although the rest of Felicia’s condo was decorated straight from big-box stores in a style she’d once described as ‘early overworked and underpaid’, she’d put more effort into the bedroom. A queen-size brass bed in a clean modern design – a simple arched head-board and footboard filled in with two bold curves – dominated it. The linens, high-count Egyptian cotton in a striking shade of peacock blue, had cost her more than her second-hand couch and had been worth every penny. Several Orientalist prints adorned the walls, colourful, sensual scenes of a Middle East that never existed outside of artists’ fantasies, where all the men were hot-eyed and handsome, all the women were curvy and seductive, and everyone was wearing more jewellery than clothing. On the dresser, a large, Victorian-looking bouquet – something she’d picked up at a farm stand on the way home one evening – added a subtle scent of roses and mimosa to the room. (The bouquet was a little ragged around the edges, but she’d figured no one would notice.) She’d tossed all the dirty laundry into the closet just before they’d arrived and pushed the door shut.

‘Nice!’ Mel said, rewarding her efforts at decorating the room that her mother had suggested leaving for last.

José didn’t say anything, although he looked around and nodded approvingly. Then he started unbuttoning his shirt.

‘Let us help with that,’ Mel purred. ‘Come on, Felicia.’ And the mood, already charged, shifted into overdrive.

Felicia set the champagne down and closed in for the kill. She went for the shirt buttons. Tempting as it was to pull the shirt open quickly, get it off him, go right for the nipples, she didn’t. She worked slowly, playing with the buttons like a burlesque dancer might. As she opened each one, she pulled the shirt open a couple of inches, stroking and kissing the newly exposed skin.

Mel, meanwhile, had knelt down to work on the belt and zipper. She apparently had a little trouble with the belt buckle at first; Felicia didn’t take her eyes from what she was doing, but she heard a bit of giggling and a ‘Damn’ before the belt slipped open.

The sound of the zipper was magical, or maybe the magic was the noise that José and Mel both made as she came closer to exposing him. Felicia did look down for that. Mel had pressed her cheek against him, letting José feel her warm breath tease him through the thin fabric of his briefs. The long slender cock was mostly erect, forming a lovely line. Mel ran two fingers down it, then planted a delicate kiss on the head.