Bear Mountain Clan Brides: romantic bbw werebear menage (3 page)

“You must forgive my brother. He’s… he’s been stressed lately.”

I’ve been stressed lately
, I thought,
But I never sprouted fur and claws
. We sat at opposite sides of the table. My hunch was that the secretive Mr Grarr wouldn’t be forthcoming or open up too much about his transformative twin. I thought I would attempt to start with something general and neutral.

“Why did you want to do this interview in the first place?”

“I didn’t. Mr Hiram Bottram told me I have to do it.” Well, at least I got a clear and direct answer. I pressed on.

“Who’s he?”

“Mister Hiram Bottram graduated top of his class at Princeton in corporate law, and top of his class at Harvard in business administration. He left his post-graduate neuropsychology class to set up the web site Tinglz,”

“
Tinglz?
The dating site?”

“That’s what it is, yes.”

“He’s some kind of a genius.”

“We don’t like that word, ‘genius.’”

“Why?”

“Because it doesn’t mean anything. It only ever means that somebody is better at doing something than the person who is calling them a genius. There’s no test you can give that will tell you reliably and repeatably that this person is a genius and this person is not.”

“But it means somebody with exceptional intelligence.”

“I know what people
think
it means. It’s what they used to call us all the time, ‘Oh, he’s a
genius
. They’re all
geniuses
.’”

“‘We?’ ‘Us?’”

“Yes, my brothers and I when we were at school. It’s one of the names that people called us.” The scowl folded deep furrows in his brow. He was pant-wettingly gorgeous. ‘Brothers,’ I noticed. Plural. “But don’t interrupt, please, I haven’t finished answering your question. Mister Hiram Bottram is the leading expert in social media and image presentation, so I engaged Mister Hiram Bottram to be in charge of my image presentation because I need a public image. The reason I need a public image is because I have to float a part of my business on the New York Stock Exchange in order to raise some capital. According to Mister Hiram Bottram, the New York Stock Exchange wont buy shares in my business unless I have an image. So that is who he is, and that is why I am doing this interview.”

“Not because you want to do it.”

“No. How long will you need to be here to do the interview?”

“I don’t know. Until I can find a story.”

“That’s it, isn’t it. That’s always it. Everybody wants a story. I don’t see why. And I don’t understand why people want a story that’s been made up and distorted when a simple presentation of the facts is always better.”

“Tell me about your brothers. I didn’t know you had brothers.”

“Nobody knows. Nobody’s supposed to know. We don’t tell anyone about it. People ask too many questions as it is. You’re asking too many questions.” I hadn’t started. This was going to be pretty hard work. And I wasn’t even going to get paid for it. “Now you know, so I suppose I have to tell you so you don’t keep asking questions about it, but you mustn’t put it in your interview. You mustn’t say anything in your interview about my brothers, or even that I have brothers.”

“O-kay…”

“You have to give me your word. You have to promise me that you aren’t going say anything about me having any brothers. Not to anybody, not only in your interview but to anybody at all. You have to give me your word that you wont, and if you do, I will have to make something bad happen to you.”

“That’s quite a hard thing to promise.”

“No, it isn’t. It’s not hard, you just say ‘I promise not to reveal anything to anybody about Bernhard Grarr having any brothers, and I give my word.’”

“But you know that I’m here to get a story, and that’s certainly the most interesting thing that I’ve learned about you yet.”

“How can it be interesting when you don’t know anything about my brothers? They’re both exactly like me. They look exactly like me. We’re identical. So what could be interesting about them that isn’t equally interesting about me?”

Instinctively, my follow up would have been,
So, do you sprout fur in a magical smoke-haze, too?
But I knew that I didn’t have him on my side yet, and that would hardly take us in the right direction.

His eyes really did smolder. It was very distracting.

“Well, the fact that there are three of you is pretty interesting. And, plus the fact that you have brothers is very interesting, because nobody knows it. I was reading up about you all last night and I didn’t see a word about any brothers.”

“Alright, so it’s interesting and it’s doubly interesting because nobody knows it. So I shall have to tell you or show you some more interesting things than that, and they will have to be very interesting and be things that people don’t know. And then you wont have to tell anybody about my having brothers.”

“I’m guessing you don’t meet a lot of people up here.”

“Of course not. When we were growing up we met people all the time. That is why we bought this mountain and had a home built for ourselves up here.”

“You don’t like people.”

“I like people. As long as I don’t have to meet them.”

“You’re meeting me.”

“I’m meeting you because I have to meet you, although it wasn’t you I was supposed to meet, it was Trudi, your friend who is not even your boss. This meeting is a step that is necessary to progress to the floatation on the New York Stock Exchange which is very important to me. And besides, I don’t dislike you very much yet.”

“Have you always disliked meeting people?”

“Of course. We wouldn’t have become software developers if we wanted to meet people. And we wouldn’t have progressed to high frequency stock trading if we wanted to meet people. Software development and high frequency stock trading are both things that need lots of hours of concentrated work and aren’t at all suitable for people with social lives. That is why not everybody can be a software developer or a high frequency stock trader.”

“I don’t think that’s the only reason.”

“Are you a software developer, Ms Cuddles?”

“No.”

“Are you a high frequency stock trader?”

“No.”

“So you don’t know, Ms Cuddles. You shouldn’t say things that you don’t know.”

“But I didn’t say I knew. I said it’s what I
thought
.”

“They’re the same thing.”

“No they’re not.”

“Tell me what the difference is then.”

“What I
think
is like a hypothesis. Something I can test. It may turn out to be true, it may not. What I
know
is something I’m sure of.” I looked up at the skylight. “I know that the sky is blue. I can see it. I think it probably gets cold up here.”

He scowled. I did love that scowl. “But whether it gets cold is something you can easily find out. You don’t need to make idle speculation. You can find out by asking me, because I know.”

“Okay. I know that you didn’t want to do this interview. I
think
you’re a little too used to getting your own way.”

“I didn’t get my own way about this.”

“Well, you must have, otherwise I wouldn’t be here.”

“Now you’re confusing me.”

“Less than an hour and I’ve confused a genius.”

“
Don’t
say that, or I shall have to start disliking you a lot more.”

“Is disliking someone a choice, then? Isn’t it automatic whether you like someone or dislike them?”

“Sometimes it’s automatic, and sometimes it’s a choice.”

“So you could choose to like me, then.”

“Yes, I could. But why would I do that? Anyway, never mind that now. Can we stop talking about me and start the interview, please.”

“The interview is about you. And you can relax because I’ve started.”
 

His voice hardened, “You can’t have started because you haven’t given me your word yet.”

“You haven’t told me anything more interesting yet.”

“But I told you that I will.”

“And I think that you will. But I don’t know yet. Not until I know what it is.”

“Are you trying to play a game with me, Ms Cuddles?”

I stopped and thought about that one for a moment. Carefully I said, “You don’t strike me as a man for playing games with.”

“You mean that I’m not fun.”

“That’s something I don’t expect to find out.” I had meant it to be a light, throwaway remark. Playful. That wasn’t how it came out. It sounded pouty, even a bit resentful.

The door at the end of the room opened again. Bernhard’s double rushed into the room. Again. I assumed it was Benjy, but there was a certain economy of movement and a seriousness of purpose that made me unsure. Bernhard told me, “This is Mischa. My other brother. Mischa, Maxi Cuddles.”

Mischa said, “Benjy told me.”

Bernhard’s eyelids drooped and his lip tightened. “You know it isn’t anything reliable. We don’t know if it means anything at all.”

Mischa came near. His nostrils flared. He stood behind my chair and leaned forwards, inhaling through his nose in long, deep breaths.

It was disconcerting, feeling him so close. The expression on his face rapidly changed, I felt it as well as seeing it from the corner of my eye.

His voice was low and hot, close to my ear. He said, “It’s true, Bernhard.”

“I know, Mischa. But is it really worth it? All over again?”

Mischa scowled. “You can’t be serious.”

“But will it really ever work?”

“Little in this life is guaranteed, Bernhard.” Mischa’s voice quickened. “Our fate is a certainty. There isn’t any doubt about that.”

The two men’s eyes locked. Mischa’s lip tightened.

“You know I don’t relish the prospect any more than you do. But you surely can’t pretend that we have a choice, can you?”

Bernhard looked down for a moment, then back up at Mischa.

Mischa said, “You’ve put her in the picture, of course.” He took a breath. “What are you thinking, Bernhard?”

“No, Mischa. I was putting it off.”

Mischa’s face softened. “Of course. I understand.”

They both turned to look at me.

Mischa was very close and my head was swimming. I stood. I needed to get up. Move around. His bulk, his nearness unsettled me.

I stumbled against him. My hand went up automatically, to stop me falling. My fingers stretched towards his open shirt. Through the thick hair of his chest I felt the heat of his skin. As his pulse beat in his breast, a powerful jolt shot through me. “
Oh!
” I exclaimed.

Nothing had prepared me for what happened next. He growled, a low, rumbling rasp. While I was still reeling he sprang backwards, fast, and his chest swelled. I lurched forwards and his hands were reflexively out to catch me but simultaneously a sparkling mist enveloped him.

Dark, acrid wraiths curled around him and sparkles like stars or tiny firecrackers lit and burst inside the mist. Beneath the smoke and the crackles, he rose. Grew. Expanded. The sound of fabric tearing mingled with crackles and a wet, sinewy, wrench.
 

The ripping burst of the seams of his shirt and his pants was like the sound of nails on a chalkboard. As his face contorted, his nose protruded. Through the swirling fog I saw a thick coat of fur spring up over his whole body.

His neck stretched and his head lifted. His whole frame grew. On his belly and between his legs the fur sprang thick and dark. Before he was fully coated, I saw at the top of his thighs, in his groin, an impossibly massive cock stretched forward, arced and swung.

Up on his hind legs, the bear lifted his huge front paws. They waved towards me and he snarled. Long, lethal claws cut the air in front of me so fast they swished like a mass of swords.

His eyes held me and his muzzle twitched. I cowered back, but I knew there would be no point in running. He was huge and powerful. If I turned, he had only to fall forwards and I would be caught in his long furry arms, held by his heavy, wide paws. Pinned and impaled by his razor-sharp claws.

“Mischa!” Bernhard’s voice was urgent.

The bear lurched towards me. A huge paw came towards my face. Long, sharp claws were near my cheek, my eye. I rolled to the side as fast as I could.

“MISCHA! Not that way!”

The bear growled. His eyes held me. His hot breath was on my face. I felt his panting on the tops of my swelling breasts. From my head to my toes, my whole body trembled. The force of his breath rose as he growled.

My body shrank as my elbows and knees pulled together. If he swung at me, just once, I could be maimed for life. Or worse.
 

The bear rose. He turned to snarl and glower at Bernhard. As he swayed away, back to the door, he fell to all fours and lumbered out.