Her name was Tricia Eaves. She worked under the name Suzanne Sutton. It was in her work that the story lay.
Suzanne was tall and had the gently beautiful features of a storybook princess. She had thick and abundant waves of golden blonde hair that flowed and tumbled over her shoulders and all the way down her back. She had a figure of pronounced but graceful curves—not an unnaturally emaciated, skinny “stick” figure; that was unhealthy in a woman. She had never made it a secret that she disliked it and thought it was wrong. She had all the curves that nature intended a woman to have in exactly the right places, and she kept them firm and tight at all times. Suzanne accomplished this with neither the pumping of weights for muscle nor the sweat-inducing exertion of running. She preferred yoga.
One of the two bedrooms in her apartment in Silver Lake in Los Angeles served as her meditation room and yoga studio. It had a television on which she played her yoga instruction videos or streamed her online classes. Mats were arranged on the floor and the walls were painted in soft colors. To this room Suzanne would go, in a leotard with her hair in a braid and the braid rolled up, and practice her positions for a part of each day when she was between jobs. This was her personal maintenance, which kept her in perfect shape for work.
It was work that enabled her to afford to live where she did, though she had her eye on other places. She’d always liked Santa Monica. And her work was the reason she had never been hounded by the holders of her student loans or by debt collectors, like so many other people in their mid-twenties. What she did paid very well, and she made sure that she was worth every cent.
She had just started a session and was in the Bhujangasana position—stretched out long on the mat, her stomach down, her torso curved upward, head leaning back, hands on the mat supporting her. It was a position like a snake calmly sunning herself. She was holding that position as the instructor on the video talked in soothing and ethereal tones, New Age music playing in the background.
Just within arm’s reach lay the remote for the TV, and her phone. When her phone went off to the tune of “Fly Me to the Moon,” she knew it was not an interruption to her session. It was a work call. With a calming breath, Suzanne relaxed from her position, reached for the remote to switch off the video and quickly picked up the phone. Sitting with legs folded on the mat, she answered.
The voice of the bright and enthusiastic middle-aged woman on the other end greeted her. “Suzanne! How are you doing today?”
Suzanne could tell from the tone of voice of her manager, Ginny Westbrook, that something was up and it was something good—very good. As a rule, Ginny was enthused about work anyway, but there were times when the restrained excitement in her voice shone through like a beacon. Suzanne could tell this was going to be a really good one.
“I’m fine, Ginny,” replied Suzanne. “I was just starting my yoga routine for the day. What do you have for me?”
The pleasure in Ginny’s voice dialed up one more notch. “A brand-new client. When this one got in touch, I immediately thought of you. This one, I thought, is absolutely, positively for Suzanne. I have to get them together.”
Thoroughly intrigued, knowing that Ginny was not one for exaggeration, Suzanne said, “Really? He’s that good.”
“Honey,” Ginny said, “he’s so good he shouldn’t even need you. The fact that half the women and plenty of the men in the greater Los Angeles area would kill or die for a chance with him is probably why he came to us. This is a guy who must have too many choices and too little time. You’ll see when you look at his file.”
Ever more impressed with this someone she had never seen, Suzanne said, “Is this someone I would have heard of? What’s his name?”
“You probably wouldn’t have heard of him unless you follow the financial and business news. But you’d never take this man for that kind. You’d never look at him and think ‘tycoon’ or ‘CEO.’ This is someone you’d look at and think, ‘movie star.’ He’s all those guys who play super-heroes in the movies—only more and better.”
“You’re kidding,” said Suzanne. “Really?”
“Trust me, Sweetheart. You’ll see.”
All that Suzanne could say for a response to that was, “Huh…”
“And something else,” Ginny added.
Suzanne blinked, eyebrows arching. “Something more than that?”
“Yes, Honey. More than that. He’s a CEO and a billionaire—and he’s a morph.”
This latest part almost made Suzanne’s jaw drop. “A morph who’s a billionaire? What kind of morph is he? Wolf? Dragon?”
She could practically hear the grin in Ginny’s voice along with her answer. “Bear.”
Now Suzanne was truly fascinated. “A werebear? And he’s built like, what—Superman? Thor? I thought werebears were usually—you know—husky, round, fat.”
“Not this one. This one belongs in a tight suit and a cape. Like I said, you’ll see.”
“All right, then. I’ll go look at my E-mail right now.”
“Do that,” Ginny told her. “We don’t like to keep a client waiting, but especially not this client. I tell you, this one was made just for you.”
“Okay,” Suzanne replied. “You’ve got me really interested now. I’m on my way.”
“You’re going to be a lot more than interested,” Ginny promised. “This one will be the biggest payday I’ve ever gotten you.”
“And the biggest commission you’ve ever gotten yourself,” Suzanne added.
“Goes without saying. And it’ll be well earned for both of us, believe you me. Quick like a rabbit, get to your computer. The file—and the man—are waiting for you.”
“On my way! Thanks, Ginny.”
“You’ll be thanking me more,” said the older woman. “Run along.”
“ ‘Bye,” said Suzanne, and ended the call. Buzzing inside with curiosity, she sat on the mat for a moment, looking at her phone, and went to her E-mail. In her Inbox she found a message marked discreetly with the letters TG and the date, the protocol for all of her work correspondence that was about introducing new clients. TG stood for the agency from which Suzanne took all of her assignments: Telegirl, the most upscale and exclusive escort service for heterosexual male clients in southern California. Ginny Westbrook had long ago been the wife of a Hollywood talent agent. When her husband died, he left Ginny with all of his money, all of his contacts, and nothing to do. Ginny had sloughed off the life of a wealthy, idle widow and gone into business for herself.
Telegirl worked discreetly, through the Internet, advertising only by word of mouth, but it had connections throughout Hollywood and the entire Los Angeles business community. Suzanne had been working with Telegirl clients sent to her by Ginny for three years. It seemed as if the good and cordial relationship she had kept with Ginny had now paid off in, one should pardon the expression, the most gratifying way.
This was not something she wanted to look at on her phone. For this, Suzanne wanted to go to her Mac in the office area of her bedroom. After picking up the remote to switch off the TV, she picked herself up, phone in hand, leaving the remote on the little magazine table on one side of the studio, and made a hasty exit to her bedroom down the hall.
In her bedroom she sat herself down at her desk, opened the browser on her Mac, and went back into her E-mail and found the message. Quickly she opened the attached ZIP file and brought the folders that it contained onto her desktop. One folder contained JPEGs, the other a video. The name on each of them was Justin Gates. Ginny was right; she had never heard of Justin Gates. She decided to open his photo scans first. She clicked on the “Justin Gates JPEG” folder, murmuring, “All right then, Justin Gates, let’s have a look at you…”
When the collection of photo scans opened up in Preview, Suzanne fell back in her chair, mouth hanging open with a deep and awestruck gasp. Ginny wasn’t kidding. NO WAY should a guy like this need Telegirl. This guy could have it for free from anyone he wanted—from a DOZEN people that he wanted. He’s unbelievable.
Suzanne’s guess about him was exactly on target. Justin Gates was Superman, Captain America, and Thor all rolled up into one. His looks were positively dizzying. Wherever he walked there must have been women—and not a few men—lying passed out in the street as he went by.
First there was the face. Good Lord, that face. He had thick, dark, immaculately groomed hair and a very short, dark, immaculately groomed beard. The hair on the top and on the jaw framed the most rivetingly handsomest features that Suzanne had ever breathlessly gazed upon; both perfect masculinity and an eternal boy, someone fused into a single being. Anyone might get lost looking into such a face. The way the mythical Narcissus lost himself staring at his own reflection, someone looking at this Justin Gates might be seized with a kind of reverse vanity, staring at his features forever.
But then there was his body. There were some shots of him in business suits and casual designer clothing, which Suzanne ignored, much more interested in “the goods.” And without question “the goods” were spectacular. There were pictures of him in the gym and other pictures by the pool. He was not given to wearing those knee-length, baggy “board shorts” or the baggy boxing shorts that another, lesser man might wear. That, Suzanne thought, was all to the good.
Most of her clients wore things like that under their trousers or when they went swimming. Some of them were plain-looking men with unspectacular bodies, and one hardly cared what they wore in states of semi-dress because of how ordinary they were. But there were a few of them who were handsomer and had much better bodies, and Suzanne always thought it was a shame that they wore such un-sexy underwear and swimsuits.
It completely broke up the lines of their bodies and ruined the their effect. These were her favorites in bed, the ones who made her work the most fun, and she always wished she could critique them on their choices of underwear and swimwear; but in the interests of client service she never said anything.
To Justin Gates, however, she would never have needed to say anything. To the pool he wore only thongs, and in the gym he wore only jockstraps, and they showed him for the spectacular tower and fortress of male beauty he was. She hardly knew where to begin admiring him. The biceps were like boulders of muscle. The pecs were like broad plateaus of flesh. The abs were bricks in the mighty wall of his perfectly V-shaped torso. Across the pecs and all the way down the abs was an expanse of hair in which the eyes or the hands could get lost in sensuous admiration.
His thighs and lower legs were colossal pillars of pure, ripped muscle on a temple of manliness inviting worship. His buttocks were twin islands of hard muscle, pressed together. And then there was what the pouches of his jock straps and thongs concealed. Suzanne felt her breath turning shallow as if she would pass out at the massive bulges in the photos. The pouches of Spandex or cotton or silk seemed barely able to contain what was in them. When the male lingerie came off, what came out of them must have been like a torpedo of galvanized flesh. Suzanne imagined herself as the target into which that torpedo would be fired. She had no doubt it would be explosive. He might well bang her to bits. And, she had to admit, that would truly be the way to go.
Justin’s other photos were of a little more interest to Suzanne than his clothed ones. They were shots of him outdoors. Some of them appeared to have been taken in a garden; others were in a wooded area. One was in the same pool beside which he had stood for some of the other shots. These were his “morphed” pictures and showed him on all-fours, or swimming or taking a soak, or standing up on his hind legs: the shots of him transformed into his other body, the stout and towering body of a black bear. He was cute, that way, Suzanne thought.
Of course, humans had always found bears cute unless they were in predatory or attack mode, set to charge and attack and to maul with those monstrous claws of theirs that could disembowel and kill a fully grown man with a single swipe. Suzanne was more interested by far in being “mauled” by Justin in his human shape. And she knew that as a werebear he could “maul” her far much more, with greater power and aggression and intensity, than any human male ever could.
That was the reputation of all morph males; they were the ultimate bed partners, creatures of all-consuming, raw, carnal sex who could screw for hours at a time or go all night long. Suzanne knew this by reputation and, for a couple of years, by experience.
In college, she’d had a metamorph for a boyfriend. He was not a bear morph, like Justin. His other shape was that of a wolf—a big, powerful Alpha wolf. Suzanne had pulled plenty of “all-nighters” in college that had nothing at all to do with studying. They were long nights of lying under her boyfriend, receiving the relentless dick-strokes of a wolf in man-boy’s clothing. He had taught her what to expect when lying with a young man who was two creatures in one body. She had not been to bed with a metamorph since her college days. But from that experience she knew full well what was in store for her with this Justin Gates.
She lost track of time, looking at his swim-and-gym photos and looking at them again. And again. At length, she realized she was tarrying and not being very businesslike, so she tore herself away from them. There was still another folder for her to open. She closed Preview—however reluctantly—and returned to her desktop to click “Justin Gates Video.” Her movie player app opened up the file, and there he was, sitting in an office, looking cordially at the camera. Suzanne could not tell whether it was his home office or an outside office, and she frankly did not care. It was Justin Gates, and though he was in a dark suit and looking entirely professional, he was no less luscious.
“Hello,” he said, his voice deep but not too deep, and very warm. “My name is Justin Gates and, while it may sound a bit like a cliche and a bit naive, I’ve never done a thing like this before. That is, I’ve had the company of many women—but not this way. This is my first time using a service like Telegirl. I was referred to it by a business associate who told me it was the very best in the industry, and I respect his opinion. Frankly—and I hope you’ll take this the right way—this isn’t something I necessarily ever saw myself do it. But a man in my position gets very busy, and being very busy—again, to be frank—doesn’t change a man’s needs.
By now, maybe you’ve already looked at my photos, and your manager will have already told you something about me, so you know I’m a werebear. So my needs, as you can guess, are considerable. And I hope I’m not sounding arrogant or, pardon the expression, cocky, but in my position I’m used to having the best of things. That’s why I’m coming to you.”
Suzanne enjoyed hearing him talk. He was thoroughly masculine and he was proud—justifiably proud. But he did not seem conceited, nor could she detect any sense of entitlement about him, as if he thought he naturally deserved the best. Actually, any man who looked like him and had accomplished the things that Justin had, did deserve the best.
He did not seem to be saying that with his words or his manner, however. He was honest and plain-spoken, and very intelligent. But he did not strike her as arrogant. Justin knew who he was, what he had accomplished in his life, and what he had to offer. She sensed this man was the genuine article.
Again she came to the plain fact that this was not the kind of man who should have any need for an escort service. And yet, if being in Telegirl had taught her anything, it was that her profession was frequented by men whom one would think should not need it. Life at times did not seem to care one way or the other about the way things “should” be. That was why businesses like Telegirl existed in the first place.
“I started out,” said Justin in the video, “working for my father. He owned a chain of retail department stores. He did very well—until he didn’t. A lot of stores started going under during the 80s and 90s and Dad held on as long as he could. But when he died and I inherited the Gates Department Store chain, I didn’t want to let what my father built just die out. So I decided to change it, instead. I sold off all the brick-and-mortar locations and went all-virtual. Gates became an online store, one of the biggest in the world.
I took what Dad started and made it many times bigger and better. And I kept investing in new things, expanding and diversifying into other areas. We went from the virtual version of the original retail business into pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, all cutting-edge. And we did better. Today Gates is one of the biggest names in online industry and E-commerce. We do business all over the world. Not only did I not let what my father started die out, I made it more than he could have ever imagined when he began it. I’m proud of that. I hope Dad would be too. I think he would be. I think I’ve balanced profit with serving people, which is what my father always wanted. I think I’ve continued his vision. I believe he would have liked that.
Suzanne smiled, mesmerized by Justin’s looks, the sound of his voice, the pride and sincerity with which he expressed himself. The only thing to make this better would be if he were making this speech dressed for the pool. Or the bedroom. But this was the “business” side of Justin she was seeing and hearing now. As for the rest of it… She smiled a little more broadly at the thought of that.
Justin’s video image continued. “I continued my father’s business, and built it into something of my own, with high expectations. You can probably guess I have high expectations about everything. That includes my personal life. And that’s why I’ve come to Telegirl. I should make it clear that while my expectations are as high as I’ve said, they’re also very specific. I’m not a man who likes to ‘date’ in the way that most people think of dating. I don’t like to ‘go out’ with someone.
That’s what interested me in the company that you work with. It’s only for ‘dating’ if the client wants it to be—which I don’t. What I’m most interested in, being who and what you know I am, is the outcome of the date; the end result of personal, one-on-one quality time spent together. When you agree to accept this assignment, as I hope you will, you’ll pack for a long weekend. You’ll spend Friday evening until Monday morning with me in one of my homes here in the LA area.
You’ll pack your best evening dress and your favorite shoes for a dinner at my place on Friday evening, which will be personally prepared for us by a 5-star chef. My personal assistant will come to you and pick you up, and bring you to my home, and you’ll stay with me for the time I mentioned. After dinner, we’ll spend the entire weekend until Monday morning on one thing and one thing only: the quality time enjoying each other’s company that I mentioned. At the end of Monday morning, my assistant will drive you home, with my thanks.
“Your manager has shown me all of the available women who work through Telegirl, and I’ve been impressed with all of them. You’re all beautiful, and I’ve read all your files; I think you’re as intelligent and ambitious as you are very, very attractive. I’d enjoy having this weekend with any of you, and Ginny has her own ideas about which ones I’d enjoy best.
I trust her judgement and look forward to seeing which one of you she’s selected for me. I have…,” and he paused and chuckled a bit, “…a bit of suspense about that. All I can say is that, whichever one you are, I will give you a long weekend you won’t soon forget. I look forward to meeting you. Thank you in advance.”
And with that, the video ended.
Suzanne, staring at her Mac desktop, almost felt like squealing. “ ‘When I agree to accept this assignment, as you hope I will?’ Really? Seriously? Oh my God, I realize you’re not stuck up, but you’re too modest! Like there’s any doubt I want this assignment!”
Her entire body was now a tingling mass of anticipation about the job she had been offered. She loved the way he put it; he was such a gentleman about it. Personal, one-on-one, quality time indeed. Suzanne had no doubt that when she went to spend the weekend at the palatial home of Justin Gates, he would soon show her how much of a gentleman he was not when his clothes came off.
Without question, his “quality time” was a euphemism for what metamorph males loved best: insane, non-stop fucking. A night, two days, and a morning lying under that incredible body, being drilled and plundered by the monster so discreetly but barely hidden in those thongs and jockstraps. Suzanne, like much of the population of southern California, if not the planet, would gladly give Justin for free what he was proposing to pay her for. And he was a billionaire, meaning that not only was he personally all that, but the “ka-ching” of her payday for this would be enough to raise the roof.
Speaking of the roof, the payoff of Suzanne’s weekend with the man-bear would likely be so rich that she might not have to take on another client for the rest of the summer, and just as likely, she could put it towards a relocation out of Silver Lake and to almost anywhere else in Southern California she wanted. Santa Monica might soon be in reach.
Ginny had presented Justin to her, and she was absolutely taking the gig. No one else in the Telegirl fold was getting this one. This one was hers. She grabbed her phone and hit Ginny’s number on the speed dial.
Telegirl prided itself on providing for its straight male clients—who were required to prove their high financial status before Ginny would do business with them—only the most exceptionally beautiful women. Ginny guaranteed them that all of Telegirl’s women were not users of controlled substances, that they were free of STDs and tested regularly, and that they all used birth control religiously. Contractors and clients were stringently checked out before anyone was brought together. And on that, Telegirl had built its reputation.
Suzanne was ready, motivated, and highly eager to give Justin Gates his money’s worth. She contacted Ginny, closed the deal, and thus prepared herself for what she knew would be a long weekend of the best lays of her life.