Eyes of the Cat

He was going to leave it at that. It had been this way for a couple of weeks. Was the romance going out of their relationship?

"We should take two cars today, babe," Kyle said in a low voice. He was turned away from her, sitting on the bed, not looking at her. His hand went for the pack of cigarettes sitting beside an ash tray on the nightstand. But the hand wavered there, as he fought for control.

Susan watched him closely. He'd promised to give up smoking—for her. Somehow what he did in the next few seconds was all important to her. Was it already over? She'd thought that he was the one. She'd never thought that before. She'd never had a relationship that went this far. She'd never been permitted to—had been warned that if she committed that deeply to anyone, she'd be giving up the life she had. She didn't know what it meant for the passion to level off—whether what they were drifting into was worth the change it would bring for her. It wasn't quite gone, of course. He'd taken good care of her.

He'd stroked her breasts with his hands while he'd licked down her belly and into her folds, working his tongue as she moaned and was overcome with waves and waves of passion. Until he was hovering over her, with her panting body locked between his elbows and knees, and slowly entering her as she rolled her hips up to receive him, to take as much of him inside her as she could.

He'd done everything he'd always done to prepare her and then to take her to heaven. But after they'd both exploded, her before him, Kyle had just rolled off her and sat there on the edge of the bed, his hand hovering over his pack of cigarettes, facing away from her. The connection lost too soon.

Earlier in their relationship, that hadn't been the end of it. They had lain stretched against edge other, moving their hands over each other's bodies, and whispering to each other while, when there was time, building to a second, slower and more languid and often more fulfilling coupling.

Susan couldn't bear to watch him now. She turned toward the wall, not wanting to see Kyle pick up those cigarettes. Tears were coming to her eyes, but she fought them back. Tears wouldn't help; they would only make Kyle defensive. He wouldn't think that she had any reason to be crying. He'd made her shudder and moan and to flow for him. He wouldn't understand what was wrong.

When she heard the bathroom door close, she turned back toward the closed door. That was another thing that hadn't happened in past weeks. He hadn't shut the bathroom door on her. In fact, they usually had showered together.

Her eyes went to the nightstand. The cigarette pack was still there. It hadn't been opened.

She was losing her grip on him—but not entirely; not yet. She had been told it might come to this. She had to decide whether she wanted to fight for the relationship or just let it ride. She had been warned she couldn't have it both ways for very much longer, that she had to choose between her worlds. She had to choose. But maybe not the ultimate choice just yet. She sat there in the bed, listening for the sounds of the apartment, waiting for him to finish his breakfast and to leave for work.

When she heard the apartment door shut, she rolled over in the bed and reached for the telephone to call Mariah.

* * * *

She hadn't asked why they should drive to work separately. He'd had an excuse all set. He even was covered. His friend Stan had agreed to say that Kyle was going to help him move furniture that evening. But she hadn't even asked. Maybe she just didn't care?

He shifted gears hard, frustrated at what was happening to them. His friends said it was him—that it was because he had hit twenty-nine, which was only one year away from no longer being young. And what had he done, or seen, or experienced in life that was in any way amazing?

Well, it had been amazing with Susan—at least for a while. He'd been looking for an amazing hookup for years about everywhere he could think of, and then it had just happened, close to home. He worked in a party and costume shop and Susan had worked there too for several months before he realized how sexy she was. She was a quiet one—at least on the job and in public. But one day he had looked at her and been bewitched, shocked that he hadn't seen her before. And, boy, in bed she'd been something else entirely. At least for months.

The last several weeks, though, something wasn't quite right in their relationship. Susan had been quieter than before, and she wasn't as affectionate as she had been. She hadn't touched him and given him "those looks" like she had when they'd first gotten together. It was like a volcano when they'd first hooked up. Now, even though the fucking was still good, there was always the thought that maybe this was the last time it would work—that the heat was cooling—that they cooled down too fast. At least that he did.

Kyle was nearly thirty. He needed a volcano that exploded more spectacularly with every fucking. His relationship with Susan was moving to simmer.

She hadn't even asked where he was going this evening that they couldn't go to work together. He'd almost wished she'd pin him down to find out where he was going. Something had to happen. Either they would get back on keel or they'd have to pack it in.

He should never have gone to the club to begin with. Now he was obsessed by a blonde named Tiffany—or so she claimed—at the club. A pole dancer. They'd never done it, but she was a real tease, and he increasingly wondered what it would be like to be with her. Could she be that volcano that went off with increasing fireworks each and every time? He'd never know if he didn't give it a try.

He was nearly thirty. Time was running out and he knew there was more.

* * * *

"Wow, who are you? You certainly aren't Tony."

"The powers that be have switched managers on their stores for the week," the cat woman answered. "So, for this week, I am yours . . . and you are mine."

She was purring, and giving Kyle such a sultry look with her eyes that he blushed.

There was something about her—well there was everything about her. She was gorgeous and sultry. She was dressed in a skin-tight cat suit. Or at least Kyle thought it was a cat suit. It had the paws and the mask with ears and whiskers. And it had a tail. But it was a bright red tail rather than the usual black of the cat suits they rented out here—and the tail had a little fork in the end of it. So, the best Kyle could say was that it was a devil of a cat costume.

But that wasn't the most disturbing—and alluring—aspect of this woman who was to be his supervisor for the next week. What was mesmerizing about her were her eyes. They were a golden yellow and they seemed to see everything—inside him. Kyle didn't quite know what it was—other than they undressed him and made him feel naked. And speaking of naked . .

"Why the costume . . . .? I don't know your name."

"You can call me Lucy. It's Halloween week. Management has decided we should be in the spirit. That we'd sell more. Here, over on the counter there. That's your costume for today."

"This?" Kyle said when he picked the costume up from the counter. "Where's the rest of it?"

"That's all of it. A Roman soldier skirt, sandals that lace up to the knees, a gold chain."

"That's it? I'll be practically naked."

"As I said, management wants to make our customers happy and make them think they'll look terrific in a costume. Tony had said you'd look good in this. And you can be very friendly to the customers, if you want. Tony's set rates; you can have half. The small storage room has been set up for it."

Kyle was overwhelmed. He knew that Tony made the small storage room available for trysts and hookups with some of the "special" customers. But he'd never been called on to become involved in that.

He knew he should be angry and refuse. But he felt something building in his belly. Something about volcanoes and having more excitement in his life before he reached thirty.

And the look in those golden eyes of Lucy's—especially after he'd put what there was of the costume on—encouraged him to comply.

When he returned from changing, Lucy came up to him, close, and captured his eyes with hers and put a palm on his cheek. It was only a gasp from the back of the shop that prevented him from leaning in to her face—drowning in her welcoming smile and slightly open ruby-red lips.

With difficulty, Kyle pulled his eyes away from Lucy's and turned toward the exclamation of surprise he'd heard, knowing it would be Susan, showing up for work. And he was right; it was.

Susan's eyes were big, focused on Kyle in his Roman soldier's costume, with a mixed expression of shock and need, while Lucy introduced herself and produced a Little Bo Peep costume for Susan to wear. Susan's eyes got even bigger as Lucy explained what was possible in mixing with the customers while she was there.

During late-morning hours, as customers came in looking for costumes for Halloween parties later in the week, Lucy did everything she could to talk up the charms of Kyle and Susan—and especially Kyle.

Kyle could have made a lot of money going to the back room with both men and women that day, but he held off. There wasn't anything he saw that made his volcano rumble. No one, that is, but Lucy herself. Still, it was all very tempting and he had to work hard to hold himself in check from the temptations he was being bombarded with.

Susan was being demure and trying to fade into the wall, although she too was getting requests for special services.

A couple of customers came in with their own hookups—as they did when Tony was there. But Lucy was making them pick out costumes and to couple while pretending to be someone else.

An Indian chief and Cleopatra were going hot and heavy, with the Indian doing some interesting things with his personal tomahawk when Kyle and Susan brushed up against each other outside the door to the small storage room in the mid-afternoon. Susan blushed and looked away from the coupling, but Kyle didn't do so—and he felt glimmerings of his volcano starting to burble. He half realized that it was because Susan was there too, but before he could think further on that, Lucy was with them, putting an arm around each one of them and purring.

She was giving each a sexy look, and Kyle had a strange sensation that there was a competition going on—but he couldn't place his finger on whether he was competing with Lucy for Susan's attention, with Susan for Lucy's attention, or, indeed, he himself with one of the women for the attention of the other.

He didn't know what was coming over him, but he was aware that he was feeling fire in his belly.

Late in the afternoon, a man came in to be fitted for a Conan the Barbarian costume. He was a big, brawny dude who was well built for the character. Lucy took him to the back of the shop. After a good half hour during which sales were brisk, Kyle realized that the two hadn't come back. He went back to the back of the shop, to the doorway to the small storage room.

The brawny dude was in his Conan costume, but if Lucy was measuring him for anything, it was for the length and girth of his cock. She was laying back on a table, with one leg raised straight up in the air. Conan was grasping her raised ankle with a big fist and was hunched between her thighs, fucking her deep through a slit in the crotch of her cat suit.

Kyle's blood began to boil at seeing this tableau. What mesmerized him the most was that Lucy's golden eyes had honed in on his eyes as soon as he appeared in the doorway and Kyle had the sensation that he was the one fucking Lucy rather than Conan—and that the lava inside him was rising with each stroke inside her. He saw that her tail was twitching just like a cat's would in the pleasure of a petting, and he only later wondered how she managed to do this.

As Kyle watched, Conan began to fade away before his eyes. So captured was Kyle by Lucy's beckoning eyes that he later was unable to say whether the customer had moved away or just faded before his eyes. He was that much in Lucy's spell and was sinking beyond the edges of control or the ability to separate reality from desire-filled want.

He moved closer and closer as Lucy beckoned to him without moving from the position he had found her in or doing more than twitching her tail and signaling her wants with her golden eyes. He had reached under the skirt of his Roman skirt and was holding a fully engorged cock in his fist as he moved to her.

But just before he had sunk irrevocably under Lucy's spell, he sensed the presence of someone else. He turned his head and felt more than saw the fleeting movement of a woman's shepherdess costume, and he drew back from Lucy a step. This broke the spell. Lucy's eyes blazed for a second and then she laughed, stretched like a cat coming out of a nap in the sun, and languidly rolled off the table. Tail still swishing, she brushed past Kyle and left him there, spell now broken, but still holding his withering cock in his hand.

He went back to the shop, which now was deserted. It was close to closing time, and it was unlikely there would be any more customers. He walked around the storefront, straightening up shelves and repositioning goods, preparing to close for the evening.

Moments went by before he realized that he was alone—that neither Lucy nor Susan were out front in the store. He went exploring. He found them in the back corner of the large storage room, leaning into a pile of costumes having been returned and awaiting cleaning.

Lucy had Susan trapped under her. Susan's blouse was pulled down, exposing one of her breasts, and Lucy had latched onto her nipple with her mouth. Her hand was under Susan's skirt, which was hiked up so that Kyle could see that the hand was cupping Susan's mound.

Susan looked panicked, although she seemed to be changing expression, to being relentlessly captured in Lucy's power and sinking into the sensuality of acceptance.

Kyle involuntarily growled a low, plaintive groan of surprise, disbelief, and fear. And overriding this was a sense of loss, of seeing a treasure slip through his fingers. Only now, too late, perhaps realizing what it was that he really wanted.

His exclamation had conveyed to Susan, who pushed Lucy off her and readjusted her costume as she rose from the pile of costumes and walked toward Kyle. Brushing past him, she placed a hand on his arm, looked into his eyes, and went up on her tip toes and let her lips touch his. Then she was gone.

When Kyle turned his eyes back to the pile of costumes, Lucy was gone.

The telephone was ringing when he came out of the back, feeling exhausted and confused.

"This is Tony. Just called in to see how you and Susan managed alone today. Sorry, I was sick as a dog and didn't feel well enough to even drag to the telephone. But I feel fine now. Damndest thing. It just came and went."

Kyle placed the telephone back in its cradle as Susan approached him. She wasn't in costume. When he looked down, he saw that he wasn't in costume either.

"If you have someplace to go, I can lock up," Susan said as she came close to him.

"Uh, no, I don't need to go anywhere. Let's go straight back to the apartment. We can get my car tomorrow." His voice was so thick with lust and want now that he could hardly talk. There wasn't anywhere he wanted to go now more than back into bed with Susan. His volcano was burbling, nearly ready to explode in fireworks.

Susan smiled at him. And for the first time he saw the golden flecks in her eyes.