Page 1 of The Baby Clause
1 Not Today
Jerry
Who would have thought that I’d end up sitting in a log cabin in the woods of Colorado? Not me, that’s for sure. Although some would say I’m a lone wolf kind of guy, only I’m a fox, I don’t mean that as in I’m sexy, I’m passable. Still, in this context, I am actually a Fox shifter and we’re more of a suburban animal rather than a rural one these days. But, hey! Why be like the rest, right? That’s not the only reason I’m living in a ski resort, even though I don’t ski. The first and last time I tried, I ended up in an Emergency Room. Hopping around on crutches for three months wasn’t fun. So why am I here in Breckenridge?
Sometimes I ask myself the same question. It seemed as good a place as any to get away from my life. One, I mostly didn’t enjoy, mainly because of the stress of living in a city and having a job that demanded so much of me. Now I worked from home, partly because I no longer needed to commute and also because the weather had turned cold and the smell of snow was in the air. Living alone wasn’t a problem for me. I got more done that way. Did I talk to myself, yes, but I’m sure that’s just what people who live alone do? The fact that I have full-blown conversations with my inner self is completely irrelevant. I don’t need a man to complete my life. I’m fine just the way I am. There I said it. Now, if my friends and family would get on board with that, everything would be great. I did not need the drama. That is what I told myself when I snuggled up in bed with my hand on my cock and my mind conjuring up images of a naked Hugh Jackman.
Today started out like any other, me waking up, stretching out the kinks in my neck, shower, dress, and then coffee, lots and lots of coffee–the good stuff. Then turn on my laptop and check my emails while simultaneously going through the morning news on my phone.I can tell you’re impressed at my ability to multitask,seeing as I’m a guy. It’s not just a female skill, you know. Although I don’t say that around my mom, who thinks that I’m wrong. Mom thinks I’m wrong about most things. Typically, about my boss, Stefan. She seems to think he has redeeming characteristics; I don’t. He has none, he’s a dick, and he’d make Scrooge look generous. My bonus for securing him a deal of a life-time was a miserly two percent.
Which wasn’t enough to get my aging truck fixed, or better, buy a new one. Nope, I had my little Nissan which would be next to useless in the snow seeing as it was a Nissan 350z, two seat sporty number with a steel Scorpion exhaust system that rattled the window. But seeing as my pretty car was rear wheel drive, there was no way I could drive it in the snow without wrapping it around a tree. I was going to have to go grocery shopping and buy enough to last me until I could get the car out again. So basically, horde food like a crazed squirrel. Yet, that would be better than me attempting to get to town.
The weather forecast wasn’t looking good for the next few days and it was only a week till Christmas, not that you’d know it by the looks of my cabin. I had a string of clear fairy lights I’d secured to the fireplace and a pair of baby sized knitted stockings that one of my brothers had sent me inside a Christmas card as a ‘fun-gift’. I wasn’t sure what he was getting at, but that was Brian. After having known him for over 60 years, not that I looked a day over 27, and as one of the youngest of the brood, the others thought it was hilarious that I was wasting my youth hiding out in the wilderness. They kept sending me not-so-subtle hints that life was passing me by.
“Seriously, son-of-a-bitch!” I growled; frigging Stefan was at it again. Poking his nose in my client relationships again. Asking them if I’d taken all their design ideas on board. Is it any surprise why I don’t ‘people’ anymore when my boss keeps trying to steal my client base from under me? Just what was he trying to do? Undermine me or just piss me off so that I quit? There was no reason for him to contact any of my customers and ask them for feedback. That’s Kelly from Client Services job, not his. For once, why couldn’t Stefan just say ‘great job’, give me a decent bonus and let me do my thing?
After answering a few emails, I finally settled down to work on a promo for the new brand of shampoo. Last week it was toothpaste and next week it would most likely be shower-gel. Beauty products were my thing. I’d even done perfume and make-up promos before. Except those were less interesting to work on. The product designers and the celebrity endorsers were just so… flaky. Was it so hard to come up with more of a concept when the time came for marketing your product? I was good at thinking on my feet and coming up with slogans and artwork, but a magician I was not. Although that would have been more fun, I could have conjured up my coffee and wouldn’t have to worry about running out of milk. Which reminded me I was going to have to head out, eventually. The problem of my interfering boss could wait for another time and if push really came to shove, I could always go freelance.
2 Pod People?
Jerry
The wind had picked up, whipping the falling snow around my face. It was only a few flakes, but it was an indicator that the weather was taking another turn. Only an idiot would head out in weather like this and clearly that idiot was me. Yep, I’d left the warmth of my cabin to scrape and shovel the small drift bank of snow that kept my precious car trapped under the lean-to shelter I’d made for him. Yes, HIM. There is no way that car was female. It was going to take a bit of effort to shift enough snow to allow for my car-baby to move without getting bogged down. The rest of the trackway didn’t look too bad, but I could really do with a snowblower. I was fighting a losing battle; I knew that, but if I wanted to stock up, then I needed to get this done. My car-baby had only 4 inches of ground clearance on a good day, so unless I wanted to smash the front end, I needed to move more snow.
I knew it was an impractical car. Everyone told me so, every chance they got. My mom and brothers have mentioned it quite a few times, and the stares I get from the townsfolk of Breckenridge when I pull up outside did the rest. But I loved it, so what it didn’t have back seats, it was just me. I needed to get in a good supply of fresh food and canned goods and some extra fuel for the generator. You’d be surprised what I can get in the back of this car.
After what felt like an age of backbreaking work, I’d cleared a path to the main track. Feeling both hot and cold isn’t pleasant. My nose’s so cold, I was amazed it hasn’t fallen off while sweat was running down my back, I can see a hot shower in my not-too-distant future, and if I can get the suction pad to work, I might even get to have a bit of fun with the 8-inch purple dildo I have stuck to the tile wall. It’s not ideal and sometimes the dick literally falls off the wall, but it’s better than nothing and it’s much more convenient than having to drive into town and have to find a guy who isn’t touchy about fucking a ‘demure’ alpha. Yes, you can pick your jaw up from the floor. Just because I’m an alpha, doesn’t mean that I don’t like dick. I do, very much, but most guys seem to think that they need to submit to me. When really, I much preferred to bottom, I’m sure my mom would have every omega in a fifty-mile radius camped out on my doorstep wearing nothing but a thong in order to tempt me. Not only would that be really unwise considering the temperature was down to zero most nights, but because having their dicks getting frostbite really wouldn’t be good for my desire to get pounded. Don’t get me wrong I’m not anti-omega, it’s just I like to be fucked into the mattress, or wall, or any surface really. Compared to an alpha wolf, I have a slighter build, more like that of their beta’s. Something I’d played up occasionally. Pretending to be a beta gave me the chance to live the life I wanted. It was just exhausting pretending to be something I wasn’t. Ugh, that was too deep a thought without copious amounts of coffee or whisky.
Life just sucked sometimes and not in a fun way. Unfortunately, and as a shifter, I was going to live a fair while. Well, unless a truck hit me or I got seriously injured, I had a life expectancy of 200–250 years. If I carried on like my brother Dennis, then… actually, I’m amazed Dennis is still alive. No normal shifter can drink that much without pickling himself. It’s common knowledge that shifters have a faster metabolism and that alcohol had next to no actual effect on us. But usually that’s true of the larger species, the bears, the tigers, the… bison’s and you don’t want to mess with a beered up Bison. I can tell you from personal experience. If I were just a hair taller or a split second slower back then, I’d be eating through a tube.
The snow wasn’t so bad once I reached the main roads. They were a little slick in places but otherwise manageable; I was just going to be a good boy and stick to the speed limit. Otherwise Wolfie-McGrumpy-Face, otherwise known as Mason Carmichael-AKA the local Sheriff, would have more cause to dislike me. As sheriffs go, Mason was a sexy one. Not that I’ve made a study of all the local law enforcement representatives. But our paths have crossed a few times over the 6 months I’ve lived here full time. It used to be my uncle’s place. He’d come up here when he wanted to really stretch his legs and get back to nature. The rest of the family thought he was nuts! But that didn’t stop Uncle Ferris from buying 10 acres of land or him building a two-story log cabin. When he finally had enough of the place, he sold it to me. I, then, had to spend months getting the place fit to live in. That had taken longer and was far more expensive than I’d expected and even though I was one of the best graphic designers out there. I wasn’t earning the big bucks needed to really fix things the way I wanted. Compared to how it was, the cabin was almost unrecognizable. I’d had most of the supplies shipped in from Denver and bought the rest locally. Even with my uncle’s connection to the town for the last 50 years. They still considered him an outsider, the same as me. Here everyone knew everyone else or was related to them-could they get any more hillbilly?
I pulled up into my usual spot right outside the general store. It was a mom and pop kind of place or more accurately a mom and pup place considering a mother and son who were both part of the local wolf pack ran it.
Did I mention wolves don’t like foxes? Seems it’s an ingrained natural dislike and distrust for a species that is considered-sneaky, cunning and more than a little shady. So being on the receiving end of one of Mrs. Kowalski’s rare smiles was frying my brain. When she started chatting with me about my plans for the holidays, I almost fainted. I kept checking behind me to see if she was talking to someone else. Nope. The store was quiet. Maybe she was mistaking me for someone else. That had to be it.
“You know, Jerry, spend more time in town. It’s not good for a young, handsome, charmer like yourself to be hiding away in the woods.”
Okay, what the fuck is going on here? Was I being pranked?I didn’t think that Mrs. Kowalski even knew my first name, let alone call me by it and what was with all the other stuff… Young-good looking, charming… She thought I was charming. Oh god! Was she trying to set me up with someone? Were there cameras or a film crew secretly filming this? Would some overly perky presenter pop out from behind the counter and shove a microphone in my face as if to ask me if I’d found my perfect mate? Shit-bags, fuck-nuggets. What would I say to that? There was no right answer to a question like that. If I said yes, they’d want to know who it was and… if I said no, then they’d want to know why not. I needed to get the hell out of here. I looked around the store. It looked the same as always. Same shelves, same displays, same coffee machine, with the same muddy coffee sat in the corner. Nothing looked out of place, so why was Martha Kowalski acting like Martha Stewart? I might have mumbled a reply that I had no plans for Christmas, to which Martha pouted-actually pouted! She may well have said something else about a visit, but I was filling my shopping bags like a man possessed with super speed, grabbing packaging and bottles and stuffing everything in without checking they were mine. The sooner I was done, the sooner I could get the hell out of here. Because there was no way that this woman is grump-disapproving Martha, who usually glares at me while being as unhelpful as possible. Maybe she’s on drugs, maybe pod people actually exist. That would explain a lot about this town. Yeah, that had to be it because the thought that she was in a good mood because she’s got some ‘action’ last night was enough to make me want to boil my head. Partly because Martha was older than dirt, but also because she’d be getting more action than me.
Like all Beta’s she was unpredictable, placid one moment and feisty the next. Not to mention the sarcasm. Betas made up most of the population and most of my family. I was more than used to them. But that didn’t mean I didn’t find them annoying as fuck. I did. Now you know the other reason why I lived in a cabin and get myself off with a rubber cock attached to the wall. Can you imagine the shit I’d get from my family about my preference for bottoming and wearing silky underwear? Seriously, not all alpha males were into being all-alpha-male. You know I’ve been there, and I had the t-shirt, but I’d throw it away when I realized topping was less fun than having a tongue up my ass. But I have topped and also switched. That was when I was pretending to be a beta, taking a suppressor that hid my alpha pheromones and camouflaged my scent. Banging a beta is fine, banging an alpha, less fine-even if you’re only slightly alpha like me.
Finding the perfect guy here would be like finding life on Mars.
Eek, Martha, was smiling at me. I could see teeth. I tried not to flinch and instead pulled out my wallet. I wished her a good day and a merry Christmas and made a dash for the door before anything else weird happened, like her inviting me for a coffee.
I was still pondering Martha’s odd change about when I all but ran into Sheriff Carmichael, who was wearing his usual resting-scowl-face expression when looking at my precious car. As far as the Sheriff was concerned, my whole car was a moving code violation. If the guy wasn’t so hot, I would have a better chance of ignoring him. But he had that squared jaw and steel eyed thing going on with a bit of beard scruff that made me want to lick it just to feel the scrape against my tongue. Just the thought of that was making my dick perk up and take notice. He was also the local wolf pack leader, which pretty much made him the highest authority in the area. He also didn’t like me much. Just because the first time we’d met, I might have missed a stop sign or three and commented that I’d had better coffee and donuts than Mrs. Kowalski’s.
Sheriff
Mason Carmichael
I’d been up since before dawn checking the weather reports and making sure that the Weather Station had their road clearers on standby. We’d had a steady increase of holiday-makers and skiers over the last few days. I’d set patrols along the highway to check for car wrecks. There’d been two in the last few days. It was the usual story of going too fast for the conditions and losing control. When it came to the question of who would win between a car and a tree, the tree usually won. Talking of cars, the bane of my existence was parked across two bays. Which meant that Jerry Bucannon was in town. I wasn’t sure which I liked least, him or his car. Both?!? The car was a hideous sparkly orange color that made my eyes hurt just looking at it and its owner was just as eye-catching. Jerry was a good five inches shorter than me and had the kind of build that said the man worked more with his brains than his hands. He had a quick mouth to go with that quick brain too, a very kissable, very fuckable mouth that made me want to kiss it as much as I wanted to cover it with duct tape to keep him from talking back.
He was a typical fox shifter in that respect. They were all too cocky for their own good, and that mischievous twinkle in his pretty blue eyes always made me want to bark orders at him. Did the idiot not understand? I was the boss of this town and it was my job to keep everyone safe dumb-headed, fool hardy foxes included.
He’d moved here from the city and taken over his uncle’s cabin, which was perched high on the side of the mountain, surrounded by woods. It was a great location, if your plan was to be a hermit. Jerry didn’t strike me as the hermit type. He showered for a start; he drove that flashy sports car, and he had a job designing advertising. How he managed that while being cut off from the rest of the town, I wasn’t sure. What I was sure about was every time I saw him, I wanted to tie him to my bed and fuck him.
Inter-shifter relationships were fine. I ran a progressive group, and we had some non-wolves who’d married into the pack. Still, some of the social norms persisted mainly that an Alpha usually mated an Omega, sometimes a Beta, if you were into someone feistier. But two Alpha’s even one who was maybe less so, was still an eye opener. There were some in my pack. Only being a pack leader was a hereditary thing, and taking another alpha for a mate would be… problematic. Now, do you see why I keep questioning my reaction to him?
