Many Inds of Love

This story stands alone, but it uses characters from a story I wrote long ago called "Filling the Circle." There's a bit part played by a major character from "Smoke And Roses," too.

Even though it's not really all that romantic, I'm entering it in Lit's Valentine's Day Contest. Check out all the entries and vote up your favorites!

* * *

I woke up from that dream again, feeling a tingle as if someone had been holding my hand, my nose still full of the smell of leaves and grass and tallow soap. And as I sat up in bed, breathing hard, it took longer than it usually did for me to come back to myself, to the trash-compactor walls of my little apartment above Filberti's Pizza.

When I lay back down to go to sleep, I hoped I'd dream about the person holding my hand. That hand had felt like love.

* * *

I'd had many therapists during my time; that's par for the course when you come up through the foster system, even after that magical day when someone adopts you. But Dr Avakian was one of the best I'd had. She stared at me with those dark, serious eyes of hers and cocked her head, always focused. "But what brought on this latest crisis, Edward?" she asked quietly.

I wasn't sure, but I had a guess. "It was weird. I've never really had a panic attack before."

"No. And I don't think that's what this was." She paused, laser-focused on me. "The symptoms don't quite fit. But there's no doubt it was a significant crisis, all the same."

"I think it was because I just finished reading that new book." I took a deep breath, fighting a strange compulsion to hold it in. "About the Circle."

Her eyes narrowed. "The Circle." I let her ponder, her liquid eyes bobbing back and forth as she searched her memory. "Oh. That cult? From down on the coast."

"They were a clan of witches." I shivered, but she was nodding; she had it now. Everyone knew about the Circle. They were almost as famous as the Manson Family, at least locally, but a lot less murder-y. "The book had a photo section."

"Books about cults are sometimes just written to be lurid, Edward." She shrugged, still intent on what she was doing. "They're the print version of clickbait."

"I've read everything there is to read about the Circle." I sighed, trying to relax. Usually it was so easy to be comfortable with Dr Avakian, so easy to just let everything flow. She was very talented. "Everything I read in this one was backed up by all the rest."

She waited, then prompted me coolly. "The photo section." She missed nothing. Such a good therapist.

"Yes." I took a deep breath, fighting for control. All week long, since I'd seen that grainy photo in the book I'd felt like I was on the edge of something important, a... revelation? Epiphany? Maybe nothing

that

grand. A realization? No, not that definite.

Call it a clue.

"My parents have always been open with me, about the adoption." Dr Avakian just stared gravely up, her eyes big and bold and deep, pools for my thoughts to sink into. "They told me they took me out of the system because they were drawn to me."

"Drawn to you."

"I was six. That's a little late for a normal adoption; I was already in school. They sold their house and moved so that I wouldn't have to change out of my first-grade class."

She paused again, nodding slowly. "Remarkable. But then, you're a special young man. They must have seen that early on?"

"The older I get, the more amazing it seems." I was young, far away from buying a home, adopting a kid, upending my life... but I was old enough to sense what an upheaval I'd been in their life. "They loved me. I'd never experienced that kind of love before."

"Kind?" She arched an eyebrow. "What kind was it?"

I just sighed. "It's hard to put into words. But I think I gave them something they were looking for."

"You've always known that people are drawn to you, Edward; you've told me that before." She hesitated. "I've seen it myself, a bit. If I'm being honest." I smiled at her. One of the best I'd had. And it was because she was so open. "Tell me about the photo in the book."

"The Circle only had about three years. That's how long the Master could hold them together. You've read about them?" She nodded. "So it was always a volatile group. But during that time, a few babies were born into the cult." I hesitated, fighting again, the words slow to push themselves out. "The first one was a boy."

"Was it."

"A boy," I went on, breathing hard, "with my birthday."

She stopped what she was doing, leaning slowly back, eyes sharpening. "That's an odd coincidence."

"I thought so."

A moment passed, silent, the kind of moment that feels like wire dragged through a die. "And you saw a picture of this baby. In the photo section." I closed my eyes. "Edward."

I nodded, my throat closed now.

Her eyes moved again, alert, remembering my clinical history. My adoptive parents had told me they never knew about my life before foster care, and whatever minor efforts I'd made to find anything out had been thwarted by the whims of red tape. She thought for a moment, then resumed. "This is significant. Not necessarily because the picture is of you, but because you think it

might be

of you." She smiled. "Your perception... I think your subconscious is trying to nudge you. To tell you something."

I took a deep breath. I often needed to, at times like these, as my body tightened toward a higher pitch. Because Dr Avakian was not stopping. "Maybe."

"This is a big deal, Edward." She smiled; she definitely was not stopping. "I love it when my clients have a therapeutic breakthrough. I'm glad you came in today."

Her hair was huge, a thickly curled mop now tumbled over my spread thighs. "You're just saying that because I'm letting you lick my balls."

She smiled again, eyes massive, peering up at me as her mouth kissed gently off my scrotum. "I told you. I've seen myself how people are drawn to you." She swirled her tongue along the velvet mushroom at the tip of my dick, tasting me. Twice before she'd touched my dick, my seduction long and careful. I'd gotten her to suck it during our last appointment, though she'd been nervous and I'd been careful not to nut. I was still holding back, which was why my body was so tense; I wondered if it was the right moment to touch her breast. I'd avoided that the last two times, and the time before that when I'd gotten her to kiss me.

"You sure have." I smiled, warm and sincere, letting her see the way it made my eyes crinkle. Older women loved my smile. "You're drawn to me. You can't help it."

"Don't remind me." She kissed my tip, her fingers light as they traced through her own saliva on my ballsack. "I feel bad enough about this as it is. I know I shouldn't be blowing you, Edward."

"But you do it so well, Dr Avakian." Her face flushed, so I decided it was, indeed, finally time to give her more. My hand moved along my thigh, languid and certain, fingers spreading wide to cup her big, beautiful breast. She shivered with me. "You can't help it," I told her again, an absolution. Already I could feel her nipple trying to make its way through her top, piercing bra and shirt and sweater, reaching out to me. Needing my touch.

I'd been right to feel her up. I always picked the right moments. It was my gift.

"It's how I am." I recognized the catch in her voice; it was the same as the one in mine. She was into this, her throat and chest scarlet. My fingers were hungry on her flesh. From my first appointment with this woman, some six months ago, I'd wanted to grope her chest. I was surprised I'd waited; I usually didn't.

Well. More like

couldn't

. I felt a kind of love for these women, so mysterious. So experienced. Their bodies called to me.

She forced more words out in between licks. "I got into counseling so I could help people. This," she said, low and hoarse, her hand twisting along the ridges of my dick, "is how I want to help you."

"It's the help I need right now," I agreed, the tightness growing. I hadn't cum with her the first couple of times she'd sucked me, but today I knew I had to. "And you need to suck me."

"Yes." It sounded like I'd wrenched it out of her; she punctuated it by leaning up over my crotch, hair whipping, arching her neck to take me deep. I marveled at the sight of her nose moving down my shaft while her lips struggled.

"You can't help it." Another benediction, the one I so often gave to the ladies I claimed. I couldn't help it either, not really. What is a man supposed to do when it's obvious a woman craves him? When he knows he has what she wants? I tightened my grip, both hands busy now: one held a coil of her hair, the other a warm, wonderfully heavy breast. She reached from my balls to that hand now, laying her warm spit-wet fingers over mine, pulling my hand onto her.

It was time for more.

My fingers slipped to her neck, under her sweater, stretching out wool and cotton and the satin underneath, both of us moaning as I filled my hand with her bare flesh. The nipple, blocked by all those clothes, now pressed hot and firm against my palm. I felt her sigh along my dick. "No," she groaned, coming back up off me, "I can't." We sat like that a moment, me on her overstuffed therapeutic couch and her with her butt perched on her heels, both of us studying my shining dick. "I've never done this before, Edward."

"At all?" I knew what she meant, but couldn't resist the joke. "You're a natural, then."

"No." If possible, her blush got even more crimson. "This. With a client."

"I know." I didn't, really, but it was what I knew to say. Dr Avakian was professional enough that I believed her. "Why? With me?"

She cocked her head once more, eyes sliding up and down my shaft in time with her slowly trailing fingers. "I don't know," she said at last. "It's hard to explain. You're very magnetic, Edward." She looked away, embarrassed. "I was thinking about you from the moment I met you."

"Thinking about me..." I waited, knowing what she didn't want to say but needing to hear it. It would make this even hotter. "Say it, Dr Avakian."

"Thinking about... this. About your penis." She stared at it in disbelief. "Thinking about making it feel good."

"You went home and played with yourself after our first session." It was a guess, but I was confident I was right. Six months! Six months this woman had wanted me. I'd known it, of course, but she'd been a good enough therapist that I'd wanted to keep coming to see her. "You couldn't help it."

"Yes. I did." She whispered it, then brushed her hair out of her face and licked me again. "Even now. It's like I can't stop myself." I nodded; I could not see her other hand, but her shoulder was hunched up with her arm inside my thigh.

"Your fingers are inside you right now," I pointed out. Goddamn. This was so hot. I was going to cum like I seldom had before. I jiggled her lush tit. "You can fuck me, if you like." I said it with studied nonchalance, but I was hoping she'd say yes. Because I needed to nut, and it was always best inside a pussy.

She gasped, but her fingers on my dick didn't stop. "I can't."

"You can."

"I can't be your therapist if I have sex with you," she told me softly, but I could read her well and I knew she'd do it. Her eyes darted back and forth as her mind convinced herself. "I already shouldn't be your therapist," she added, her voice low and quiet, which was a very belated realization since my dick was already glittering with her spit.

"No," I agreed, feeling a pang of genuine sadness, "you shouldn't." I'd miss her. She really was good. But she was talking herself into it, and quickly; the next time her eyes met mine, I saw surrender there. She rose slowly and hiked up her carefully pressed skirt, her eyes never leaving my hard-on, while I waited for the hot clasp of her eager vagina.

Dr Avakian was one of the best I'd had. In more ways than one.

* * *

The book was called

Into the Master's Ring,

and it was written by a pop-sociologist named Joseph Dewine, PhD. He was a longtime associate professor at various institutions, kept from full tenure by what seemed to be a permanent case of wanderlust: the man changed universities like some people change the oil in their car. He'd get hired, write another book, squander his goodwill, and then move on to yet another gig.

Later, it would emerge that he usually left because he'd knocked up a coed or two.

The title had drawn me because of its vague allusion to Tolkien, but by the time I picked it up and glanced at the lurid cover I'd known what I'd find in there: the story of the Ray Peak Circle, a group of self-proclaimed witches who'd been found squatting in an old ranger station about twenty years ago. The authorities, moved by little more than a vague sense that something about such a strange group

had

to be illegal, obtained a search warrant.

They'd found... well. Weirdness. Chaos. Despair. And wonder.

Primed to expect a Waco-level death cult, the local SWAT had rolled five armored personnel carriers into the woods with one worried bureaucrat walking in front, a warrant in his trembling hand. They'd mostly found people fucking, in various positions and combinations, many of them under an assortment of substances the spectrometers had later balked at defining. Nobody seemed to be in charge, but many of the women in the woods spoke of a Master, someone with beautiful eyes and enviable sexual magnetism and a worldview that was... well, strange.

The cops had beheld rituals. They had snapped photos. And in the end, subdued by what their blacklights had shown them, they had quietly broken up the cult and herded them off to jail, hopeful they could find something back at the ranger station they could use to keep them in custody.

The results had been numerous convictions for things like solicitation, drug dealing, weapons possession, and tattooing without a license. Some of the cases had involved the federal government, concerned about sex trafficking, but in general things had seemed fairly tame. At least until they'd dug up the first body.

The Circle always claimed they'd never hurt anybody, and that the four corpses under the rocky soils of Ray Peak Park had been dumped there by somebody else: the Sweetheart Slasher, maybe, or the Kystrov family, or the corrupt cops that always seemed to be lurking in the police departments in places like Seaborne and West Adams. But dead bodies were dead bodies, and when the cops want someone to pay for dead bodies, they find someone.

If that someone is in a freaky sex cult, that's a bonus. And if they're already in custody, it's a no-brainer. So the trial had been quick, the convictions expected.

A few children had been rescued on the day of the raid, though before I'd picked up Dewine's new book I'd never really given much thought to those babies. Most had been claimed by grateful relatives, but one of them had made his way into the foster system. And Dewine had given a birthdate for that infant, a birthdate that had driven me into a panic and put me on the phone to Dr Avakian.

I sat on my couch the next day, pondering my depleted balls and savoring the way I'd emptied them into my therapist. I had nothing much to do that night; a date, of course, awaited me, some sexy cougar who, I could tell, wanted to do terrible things to me. And I'd let her. But meanwhile Dewine's book called to me, especially that one photo in the middle section of the book.

The weeks before the raid, all the sources agreed, had been idyllic: great weather, warm nights, open-air witchcraft. Strange chants and roaring bonfires, but nothing destructive. The Circle had been celebrating itself, sharing their bodies and their potions and their songs, and one of them had brought a camera.

The camera had taken a picture that had rocked my life.

The scene was five women, a man, and a baby, all lounging on the grass under the dappled shade of a tree. The women all looked young, fresh, beautiful, the kinds of women who'd always draw a second glance just because they're so vibrant. It helped that they wore bright clothes, all reds and greens and purples, surrounding lush figures. The Circle's women had definitely fitted a certain type, all ripe and curvy, all of them solidly and gloriously feminine. The pictures showed all ages, but most of the women in that one pic seemed to be in their twenties. The caption admitted it wasn't sure what the womens' names were, but took a stab at identifying them anyway:

(l to r) "Karla," Bree Winokur, "Viktoria," Alexandra Davey.

The man stood right of center, behind the woman known as Viktoria, identified in the caption as The Master. Dewine had followed other authors in trying to pin down the man's real name, but I didn't think any of their conclusions were all that convincing. Most sources agreed he'd fled after his arraignment and gone... somewhere. Anywhere. But wherever he'd gone, he'd left no trace. His image in the picture was blurred, as if he'd been in motion when the camera went: you could see long hair and a pair of sunglasses, but nothing more. He did look tall and thin, at least.

The baby was, obviously, the thing that had drawn most of my attention. The caption (and the text had more to say about this) claimed he was Viktoria's son Orion, named for the sign under which he'd been born. No source before Dewine had given a birthdate, and he hadn't mentioned where he'd found that info; I was seriously considering writing him a letter through his publisher to find out.

But the birthdate was mine, no doubt.

The kid looked happy, clinging to his ostensible mother... although the Circle cult had been communal, so there was every chance any of the other women might have acted the mother's part. The text said that Viktoria, the baby's apparent birth-mother, had overdosed and died just a few days before the raid. It was odd to be looking at that picture and realize that the Viktoria beneath the tree would be dead in another two or three weeks. The woman identified as Alxandra Davey, a knockout in her early twenties, held Orion' hand familiarly. Lovingly, even.

I laid the book down with a sigh, the clock under my TV marching toward evening. I wanted to re-read the section about Orion for the umpteenth time, but I had a date to get ready for. I marked the page, closed the book carefully, and set it aside.

I'd have more time for it later. There was a woman waiting for me.

* * *

She called herself Mandy, a longtime customer of ours at Harborside Book and Tea, where I'd recently turned her on to Vietnamese ca phe. "This tastes different!" she'd exclaimed, standing by the counter in her usual uniform of tight gym clothes. I'd taken a lingering look at her ass, sleekly curved under the lycra, and I'd suddenly wondered why I hadn't bothered fucking her yet.

She'd responded to my smile, and then to my flirtation, and while I'd expected to get her number, she'd offered more. "You should make me another cup of that," she'd winked, "at my house."

"I doubt you have the right kind of coffee," I'd volleyed back, learning into her space; she knew. "I'd need to bring my own equipment."

She'd peered down at my crotch behind the counter, not bothering to be subtle. "Make sure you do," she'd murmured. When I walked into her condo, down in that development that backs onto the marsh, she was wearing yoga pants and a long t-shirt. "Take your shoes off when you come in," she purred.

I stepped out of my Timberlands. "Socks too?"

"Socks. Pants. Boxers." She smiled back over her shoulder at me. "I figure you for a boxer guy."

"You strike me as a woman who goes minimal." I set down the plastic bag with my coffeemaking stuff clanking inside; I'd known she wouldn't want me to use it. This was going to be fast and hot and dirty. "Thong, but more likely commando."