“What’s that?” Christine asked.
Before Mrs. Flemington could answer I stepped forward to cut her off. “Oh, just something little, not important right this second,” I said hurriedly. I had to think fast and act quickly. “I have a question before you keep going. You’re inviting Christine and Allison, but what about Sara?” I asked.
Mrs. Flemington said, “Oh, I don’t know.” She looked at Sara and said, “I’m sorry, dear, I forgot about you. I don’t have a problem with you joining, especially if you want to be here for your friends. I would definitely encourage it.” Fortunately she acted much as I preferred.
Sara said, “Christine and Allison are my closest friends, and I can’t imagine not being there for them, so I’d like that.”
“Great,” Mrs. Flemington said. “That’s all settled, so now will you let me tell them, Joe?”
Before the girls could ask what Mrs. Flemington meant I walked over to Sara, took her hand and lifted her out of the chair. “No, not just yet, I need to talk to Sara privately first,” I said. As I spoke I wished that Mrs. Flemington would comply with my request.
“OK,” Mrs. Flemington said.
“Sara, to the kitchen, please,” I said. She was confused but dutifully followed me.
In the last few minutes I was overcome with a sudden feeling of guilt. I liked Sara a lot. I didn’t want to do something to her without giving her a choice. I didn’t really care about Christine and Allison as far as that was concerned. I always felt that they didn’t like me, so their feelings were not of paramount importance. Sara’s feelings were important to me. At the same time I so very badly wanted to make her mine as I had with the other women, so I hoped that she would be agreeable to the situation.
“Joe, what’s going on?” she asked when we reached the kitchen. “Did you plan for that to happen or something?”
“No,” I said. “How could I? You only just told me a few minutes ago, remember? That’s not what’s most important right now. I need to know a few things. First, how much do you like me?”
She smiled uncertainly. “Joe, I like you. You know that,” she said.
“Yes, but how much?” I persisted.
“I like you a lot,” she said.
“Enough to be with me for a long time?” I asked.
Now she was extremely bewildered. “I don’t know,” she answered. “I haven’t thought about that. Joe, what is going on?” she demanded.
“That one thing about the group,” I said. “You’re not going to believe this, but that one thing is that all of those women are bisexual werewolves who change into werewolves whenever they get sexually stimulated.”
She looked at me for a minute. Then she laughed. “Oh, come on, Joe, be serious, will you? This isn’t a funny practical joke.” My expression didn’t change. I looked at her with my dead serious face. I had shown this face to her on a few other occasions when I had to have her undivided attention about something important. She gasped and put her hand over her mouth when she realized that was the expression I wore. “Oh, my god,” she gasped. “You’re serious.”
“Yes, I am,” I said. “That’s not all. Just today…literally minutes before you got here…they made me their alpha male.”
She absorbed my latest statement. “You mean that you’re a werewolf now, too?” I nodded. “So you want me and Christine and Allison to be werewolves too?”
Her statement filled me with more guilt than I ever thought one could feel. “Yes,” I said as my eyes fell to the floor. “Yes, I do,” I reaffirmed as I looked back at her face.
After a minute she said, “Joe, I…”