HAPTER EIGHT
The next day, Keith showed up to take Kim home from the hospital. He wheeled her out to his truck in an old squeaky wheelchair. Kim rose unsteadily from the chair and climbed into the cab of the dark blue truck with Keith’s help. She was still disoriented from her concussion and the pain medication she was on for the headache it caused, but the neurologist had determined there was no serious damage, so she could go home, as long as someone stayed with her to observe her.
Keith closed the passenger door and brought the wheelchair back to the hospital entrance where a tired looking security guard took it and put it back to its original place. Keith then opened up the driver’s side door, hopped in and buckled up.
They drove back to Predator Springs in silence. Kim placed her hand on Keith’s leg in a gesture of affection. Her head swam in a haze of injury and drugs from the fall.
Keith kept looking at her with concern out of the corner of his eye. “You know, the doctor said you needed to have someone with you,” he said.
“Mmhmm,” Kim replied drowsily, her speech slurred. “You wanna be that person?”
“I would very much like to be. Tony is busy with the arson investigation, so he can’t do it. We kinda agreed on it last night that it should be me,” Keith said as he drove the winding Rocky Mountain roads.
Kim nodded. “I’m glad. You know, I wish I could help more around the town. All my shit’s been causing everyone problems. I...”
“It’s okay. We’ll catch him. Once we do, everything will get back to normal,” Keith assured her. “Betty came over and finished canning your stuff, by the way.”
“Wow. That was nice of her.”
“Yeah, she said she needed something to take her mind off of what happened, so she puttered around in your garden and kitchen all day yesterday.”
Kim looked at Keith. The fog in her brain was slowly fading for some reason. Maybe the medication was beginning to wear off, who knew.
“Umm, Keith,” she began; the fog might not be there, but for some reason her verbal impulse control went out the window.
“Yeah?”
“I have a bit of a question, I know we’ve slept together a few times already, but you don’t want me to see your dick or anything.” She was careful not to mention that Tony didn’t want her seeing his, either.
“Oh, yeah...umm, it’s complicated.” Keith tried to evade the line of questioning.
“It’s not like you’re small, because it certainly doesn’t feel that way when we’re fucking.”
“No, that’s not it...” Keith began.
“I’m not scared of uncut dicks.”
“Not that either...”
“Then what is it?” Kim pressed.
Keith let out a huge sigh. “Well, since you’re going to be mated to either Tony or myself, I figure I’ll break it to you gently when we get home, how’s that?”
“Sounds like a plan,” Kim said with a grin. “I might make your show and tell pretty fun, if you let me.”
Keith let out a strained smile. Their anatomy looked like the normal male anatomy when flaccid. It was when arousal kicked in, that’s when the appearance began to differ.
Kim dozed off during the long drive back to the sleepy little town. It had seen more excitement since she arrived than they’d had since the band moved from Central Canada to the Rockies long ago, and she felt bad for shaking their little world to its foundation.
Keith placed a warm, sensitive hand gently on her leg to rouse her from her doze. “Hey, we’re home,” he gently whispered.
Kim mumbled and wiped a bit of drool from her chin. Totally not sexy, she thought, but right now she didn’t feel particularly sexy, anyway. She just wanted to sleep this blasted head injury off, despite doctor’s orders to stay as alert as she could.
Keith helped her into her house. Kim noticed it was absolutely immaculate, better than when she left it when she was unceremoniously dumped into the hospital with a closed head injury. He noticed her appreciating the tidied house. “Yeah, Betty and I cleaned it up a bit.”
“Thanks, I was going to get to that but...” she trailed off. But Smiley. But being with Keith. But being with Tony. All sorts of “buts” got in the way of her having a decently normal life right now. Heck, she promised Betty she would sit in and take in the lessons the two young shifter girls have to go through, not to mention the preparations for the mating ceremony. Yeah, she’ll need to go through some kind of ritual for that, probably. That might be covered in the girl’s coming of age prep. Who knows?
While Kim was channel surfing on the couch, Keith darted over to his house to pick up his Xbox. He didn’t want to be sitting at Kim’s house with not much to do, so he figured he could hook his games up to her TV and play a bit while she recovered. He really had no plans on having sex with her while she was recovering from her concussion.
Kim, on the other hand, had her curiosity piqued when Keith was trying to evade the direct questions regarding his anatomy. With her impulse control temporarily gone due to the head injury, she was feeling bolder than ever.
When he returned, she smiled warmly at him; it almost felt natural to have him there. She leaned back on the futon and flicked through the channels, hoping to find something worthwhile for her to watch so she could stay conscious and alert.
Keith took the remote out of her hand and placed it on the table. “Hey, I brought something that might help you a bit better than the idiot box,” he coaxed.
“Hmm?” she asked, looking around.
“Yeah, I went over to grab my Xbox. Figured gaming would help keep you from crashing.” He bent over to plug it into the television.
“Sweet, thanks,” Kim said as she appreciated the view of Keith’s posterior as he busied himself with sorting out which wires went into which plugs. She made the decision that she was going to see his junk come hell or high water. Hell, if she was going to be with at least him or Tony for the rest of her life, she might as well see the goods.
After he was finished, he switched the console on and sat down, grabbing a controller on the way. He sat close to Kim, allowing their hips to touch. He wanted to be close to her that day. The loss of the general store hurt, but the thought of almost losing her hurt way more. If Junior hadn’t acted when he did, Kim most certainly would be dead.
He handed the controller to Kim. “If you have a Microsoft account you can log in and play on your own file.”
“Sweet. I hope I can remember it.” She wouldn’t let him try to distract her from what she really wanted to do. She loaded up a game and began to play through the story.
After about an hour, the battery to the wireless controller began to die. “Well, looks like this is done for right now,” Kim said as she put the controller on the table. “It was pretty fun.”
She yawned, “But I think this is all I can handle for right now. I really need to sleep, my head is killing me.” She lied.
Keith looked concerned as she stood up. “Are you sure it’s smart to sleep on your own?” he asked. “Like, I can go in and...”
“I was kinda hoping for that, to be honest.” Kim said with a sly grin.
“No, no, not to have sex, you’re still injured.”
“Bah,” Kim scoffed. “My head is what was knocked, not anything else, but if that’s what you feel, who am I to argue. It’s not every day a guy actually shows a bit of respect and turns down a sick woman’s advances.”
Keith laughed. “Yeah, you’re right, it’s just that it wouldn’t feel right.”
“I know. C’mon, cuddle bug, let’s go to the room and have some sleep. I know it’s like only four o’clock, but damn, I can’t handle being awake another second.”
Keith nodded with a grin on his soft face as he followed Kim into the master bedroom. Kim took off her clothes and lay down in the bed, nude.
Keith took in the sight with appreciative eyes. Maybe he was foolish for turning down her offer. Nah, not really, she wasn’t in her full mind, so it would feel wrong to him. What if she regretted it afterward? What if it meant she would pick Tony instead because of him raping her? That’s what it would feel like to him, anyway.
Keith took off his shirt and jeans, leaving his boxers on, and laid down in bed next to Kim, wrapping his strong arms around her. He buried his face in her raven tresses and took a deep breath, inhaling her sweet scent.
“Keith?” Kim asked. “Where do your clothes go when you shift?” She was genuinely curious, and Keith seemed to be the only one out of both him and Tony willing to actually talk about shifting and all the stuff that went along with it.
“Well,” he began, “it’s part of the magic, I guess. It goes into some kind of quantum state. It’s there, but it’s not. It’s called 'between' if you want to know what we call it. It sure has prevented some embarrassing situations, that’s for sure.”
Even science-minded Keith couldn’t understand where the clothes went when they shifted into the form of the great mountain lion spirit. “Honestly, I think they just get phase-shifted with our physical bodies. We haven’t figured out how the shifting procedure works, to be honest, not on a scientific level. It’s just magic for now.”
Kim dropped off to sleep as Keith was trying to figure out for himself the long lasting mystery behind the shifting community. He nuzzled her neck and settled in for a bit of a cat nap himself. He would cook her some dinner when they woke up.
A few hours later, Kim roused herself from a deep slumber, feeling somewhat refreshed. She looked at the clock and noticed it was around eight in the evening. Keith was still passed out cold next to her. She looked down and noticed he had an erection and got an idea.
She moved her hand into his boxers and felt his warm, fleshy manhood. She felt the foreskin move under her hand as she pulled up towards the glans, but as she moved her hand down, it was stopped by what felt like rigid barbs. Not sharp, but enough to give her hand some resistance as she jerked him off slowly in his sleep.
Keith mumbled in his sleep and rolled over onto his back, giving Kim full access to pull down his dark blue boxer shorts.
She gingerly tugged the waistband down and freed Keith’s manhood from its confinement. She took a good look at the engorged sex organ and gasped.
Keith’s sex was roughly eight and a half inches long, fully erect. It was tan, just like he was, except for the glans, when exposed by pulling back the foreskin, was a deep reddish-purple. What made her gasp however wasn’t the size of the member, but the fleshy protrusions on the shaft. When stroked one way, her hand glided along the hot shaft without a problem. When she pushed down, however, her hand caught on them, making it difficult to give him a hand job without fear of hurting him.
She looked up and noticed he was still asleep. She smiled to herself and was feeling rather naughty, which caused her to feel this was an extreme turn-on. She lowered her head, and enveloped Keith’s cock in her warm, moist mouth.
Keith’s eyes flew open as he felt Kim’s mouth encase his manhood. He groaned as he tried to pull her head away from him. He was overwhelmed with a surge of desire as he felt her hot tongue dart around his sensitive glans.
Kim had to adjust her technique due to the anatomical differences of Keith’s manhood, and she definitely didn’t want him cumming in her mouth. As educational as it would be to witness the whole thing in action, she really didn’t want to go back to the emergency room, with Keith firmly lodged in her mouth. That would be incredibly awkward to explain to the staff.
She decided to stay near the head while giving Keith pleasure. He was groaning and trying not to buck his hips. He observed Kim through hooded eyes as she gently sucked and teased his erect cock.
Kim’s sex was throbbing and wet. She needed to feel Keith inside her soon. He wasn’t the type to be selfish in bed, so she knew she would also get her turn. Who knows, he was young and virile enough that she might be able to get two rounds out of him before the night was through.
She pulled her mouth off of Keith’s rock hard manhood and rested her head on his soft belly. She played with his sex with her hands for a bit, observing how the skin moved and how the barbs flared out a little bit with each downwards stroke. She was fascinated, not in a humiliating way, but in a way to learn to accept the differences.
Keith’s chest flooded with love as Kim unquestioningly accepted him in all ways. As her mouth closed around his hot cock once again, he let out a loud moan. “Oh god, Kim, I told you I didn’t want you to...”
“Shh...It’s okay, really,” she said after briefly pulling his cock out of her mouth. “I want to. I wanted to see, and I want to do this. You’ve done so much for me, it’s the least I can do. I know you won’t leave me hanging anyway.” She winked at him.
Keith laughed and lay back down. “Alright then, have it your way. Just try not to go too deep. I don’t know how it’ll work if you do.”
Kim smiled as she continued with the blowjob. Her tongue swirled around the head of Keith’s penis; she sucked on it, stroked it and concentrated just on the tip.
Keith was in ecstasy. He held her raven tresses up off her face so he could watch her full lips embrace him in the most intimate and accepting manner. With his other hand, he tried to nudge her bottom towards his own head.
Kim gratefully obliged. Without missing a beat, she straddled Keith’s face. She let out a moan into his solid manhood as she felt Keith’s hot, raspy tongue dive into her sopping wet sex.
His tongue flicked across her engorged clit, distracting her from the pleasure she was attempting to give him. She felt his fingers probe into her deep well as his tongue played across her sensitive nub.
Kim continued sucking on the bulbous head of Keith’s turgid member., her tongue mimicking what his was doing to her. She felt her climax building as he worked his magic with his mouth and fingers as they sixty-nined.
Kim felt the pressure building deep in her womb as Keith’s hungry mouth devoured her sex. His tongue flicking rapidly over her hot clit. His fingers pushed against her G-spot as he decided to latch on and suck on her sensitive nub.
She drew hard on his manhood, but not going down past the ridge where the fleshy barbs began. Her crest began to peak as Keith sucked on her womanhood. She couldn’t help it; she ground her pelvis into his face and sucked his hard cock for all she was worth.
Keith’s balls began to boil; pressure was building at the base of his spine. He couldn’t hold back for much longer as Kim gave him the best blowjob he had ever had in his life. He stopped sucking for a minute “Hey, you might want to...”
His protest was silenced as Kim moved her sopping wet pussy back towards his mouth. He sighed as he moved his tongue back over her tangy wet petals, bringing her crest to its peak.
Kim moaned into his cock as her orgasm rocked her. She fought the urge to take Keith’s member deep into her mouth. Kim sucked harder and worked her tongue furiously as the tide of her release ebbed.
Keith gasped as his seed boiled up and erupted from the purple head of his manhood. Kim managed to get one spurt into her mouth then pulled away to witness the rest of Keith’s release.
The barbs flared outwards even more as Keith’s seed spewed all over Kim’s perky breasts. There were only two or three of the protrusions, they started at the base of the shaft and ended halfway up towards the glans. Kim was fascinated by it.
She felt the tension leave Keith as the last of his orgasm left him spent. He was breathing hard under her body as she moved off of him.
“So,” he panted. “Did you see what you wanted?”
Kim smiled and snuggled in to his chest as she wiped his cum off of her perky breasts. “Yep. That was pretty cool, actually. I don’t know why you were so shy about it. Well I do, but you know, I’m not like other girls.”
“Well, you knew we were shifters before you got to see it,” he said with a smile. “So at least that way you were probably expecting some kind of difference. When Tony has casual sex with chicks in the next town over, they don’t know any better. They think it’s warts or something.”
Kim nodded solemnly. “I can get where they would think that.” She heard her stomach growl; it was as if a cougar lived inside her, that’s how loud it was. “I think I’ll take that offer for dinner now. I’m starving; the hospital didn’t give me much to eat while I was there. Guess they didn’t want me throwing up in my sleep.”
Keith smiled. “I think I’ll fix you a light soup, then. Since you haven’t eaten in a while you need something, but not anything heavy.” He got up and put on his boxers and t-shirt and went to the kitchen.
Kim lounged in her bed, reluctant to get up. She wrapped herself in the duvet and basked in the afterglow of their activities.
Keith’s scent permeated the room and Kim deeply inhaled it. She couldn’t help but feel some sort of fuzzy warm feeling towards the chunky man. She heard him putter around the kitchen; she knew that Tony wouldn’t even dream of taking care of her like that. He might have tossed a TV dinner in the microwave, or called for pizza or something. Definitely not cook dinner for her from scratch.
She shifted around and realized she had an urgent need to use the bathroom. Guess all those IV fluids are finally moving out of me, she thought. So, she got up and walked to the bathroom. After she was finished, she put on her plush terry cloth bathrobe and made her way out to the living room.
She sat down on the futon and smiled as Keith busied himself in the kitchen. During one of their dates he brought over a bunch of new cookware, and threw out her old dented pots and pans.
After a few minutes of watching the evening news, Kim got up to check on Keith in the kitchen.
On the table there were two steaming bowls of home-made wonton soup. The delicate flour and water wrappers were filled with ground rabbit and venison, seasoned with a delicate mix of ground five spice powder.
The broth was a clear fowl based broth. It tasted like a gamey chicken broth. Not quite turkey, not quite duck, she couldn’t put her finger on it.
“Its rabbit. You had some frozen rabbit stock in the freezer. Figured I would make some of this. It’s light enough to not make you sick, but hearty enough to fill you up.”
“Mmm, it’s delicious,” Kim said, digging on in, savoring the taste. “Thanks so much. I mean it.” Emotion filled her eyes as she thanked him between bites.
“It’s nothing,” Keith said bashfully. “I mean, like, I am trying to impress you, but even if I wasn’t, I would be doing this.”
Kim took a sip of water. “Really?” she asked. “That’s just...”
Keith nodded. “Yeah, people have taken advantage of me a few times. I try not to let it happen, of course, but there are people in town who aren’t as nice as they seem. Sometimes the predatory nature really comes out in some people.”
Kim nodded, feeling kind of sad for Keith. His kind, generous nature was what really made him as a person. She felt he didn’t want to possess her, but to share life with her. Tony had a possessive streak a mile long. She still didn’t have her mind completely made up yet, but she was definitely leaning towards Keith now. The thought of being with Tony didn’t really appeal to her much. What if her distracting him was what caused him to lapse this time? What would happen in the future? She promised she would give herself time to decide, and she had been. The thing was, Keith had been there emotionally for most of the shit. Tony had a habit of pulling away when things got hairy.
They ate their soup in silence. Kim relished the combination of sweet and savory flavors as they played in her mouth. The heady scent of the rabbit broth that cradled the unconventional wontons made her head swim. She felt the throbbing of the returning headache begin between her temples and saw floating lights in front of her face. Nausea gripped her as she experienced a full blown migraine attack. It was her first ever migraine, but her mother had them often enough that she knew exactly what she was experiencing.
Keith saw Kim grit her teeth in an attempt not to vomit. He rushed to her side and helped her up to the bathroom where she promptly rejected the delicious soup he had prepared for her. He held her hair up as she retched into the toilet, and rubbed her back soothingly with his free hand. “Do you need anything?” he asked.
“Painkillers....pills...migraine,” she managed to gasp out between heaves.
Keith helped her up after she was finished. As she cleaned herself up, he went to the living room to find the orange prescription bottle on the coffee table. He read the dosage and grabbed the recommended two pills. He brought them into the bathroom and handed them to Kim. She swallowed them with a gulp of water.
“Thanks,” she said, wincing at the light. “I need to go lay down. Can you help me to my room? Pull the blinds as closed as you can. The light hurts my eyes.” There was a bright orange streetlight just outside her bedroom window. Usually she didn’t mind it being there, the brightness gave her a feeling of security. Smiley wouldn’t be able to sneak into her house without being seen due to the overly-bright light, but during a migraine, it proved to be a major pain.
“Sure thing,” Keith replied as he went to pull the blinds closed. “Do you have any towels or anything? I can at least put a few over the windows to block out more of the light.”
“In the bathroom closet,” she replied wearily as she sunk down on her bed. “Can you bring a bucket in, too? Just in case I have to puke again.” Kim wrapped herself up in her duvet, head and all, in abject misery. The splitting agony in her skull was almost too much for her. Tears streamed down her face as she counted down the minutes until the medication kicked in.
Keith finished covering the windows as best as he could, and left the room, closing the door gently behind him. He silently walked to the living room, as to not disturb the suffering Kim.
He sat down on the couch, grabbed the TV remote and adjusted the volume so it would be at the lowest, yet still audible, setting and turned his game console on. He grabbed the fully charged controller and began to play.
After twenty minutes of playing, he was startled by a knock at the door. He peeked out the window and saw his cousin Tony standing there holding a case of beer, with Rusty by his side.
Keith slowly opened the door. “What do you want? Kim’s in bed with a migraine...she can’t see anyone right now.”
Tony nodded, and Rusty looked concerned. “Can we come in to hang out with you, at least?” Tony asked.
Rusty nodded. “I would like to see her just for a moment, even if she’s sleeping. I might be able to at least help with the migraine.”
Keith grunted and let the two men in. Rusty’s wizened face looked at him and smiled. “Don’t worry. It’ll work out just fine.”
Tony plopped himself down on the futon. He reached in to the case of beer and grabbed a bottle. He cracked open the top and handed it to Keith. “Here, looks like you might need this soon.”
Keith looked confused as he took the beer from his cousin. “What do you mean?”
“Let Rusty do his thing and we’ll find out sooner or later,” Tony said while opening a second bottle for himself.
While the two cousins were chatting and drinking beer on Kim’s couch, Rusty made his way to Kim’s bedroom. He looked on the bed and saw the bundled up form of the woman sleeping soundly.
He walked up to the suffering woman and placed his hands over her head and chanted softly as to not wake her up. A warm flow of energy emerged from his hands and disappeared into Kim’s raven head. Hopefully, that would alleviate the migraine she was suffering from, and heal whatever damage she sustained from the concussion, he thought.
Rusty then shifted silently into his mountain lion form. He placed his grizzled head on the mattress and sniffed around. He then padded to the bathroom, and sniffed around a little more. He opened his mouth a bit in an attempt to pick up more of the scent he was attempting to pin down.
He padded out of the bedroom, leaving the woman to sleep off her migraine. He didn’t want to wake her just yet. In the hallway, he shifted back to his human form and went to join the boys in the living room for a beer.