The Bear’s Mail Order Menage

Chapter 4

“Hey mister! You in there? Anyone home?”

Alina stood outside of Joshua’s apartment and called up to the open window, half wanting to just turn around and go home. She didn’t want to bother him and she didn’t want to draw attention to herself by making so much noise out there on the street where everyone would be able to see her.

She already regretted not just going up the stairs and knocking on the door like a normal person but she had worried that if she did that, she might walk in on him spending time with his mother, and that was something she wasn’t eager to do.

It wasn’t that she didn’t like his mom. She actually adored her, which was exactly why she wanted to stay out of the way; she wanted to be respectful and she wasn’t exactly sure how something like that worked.

Alina wasn’t a girl who was all that experienced with mothers, not in any way, shape or form. She had no idea who her own mother was, had spent time in children’s homes and foster situations without ever having any hope of finding a woman who wanted the job.

She hadn’t been a girl men brought home to meet mother, either. Men just didn’t seem to see her that way. It was something that had made her sad and then made her bitter, but it was never something she expected to change.

Joshua was different. He seemed to think that it was the most natural thing in the world for him to bring Alina around his mother and never once behaved like she might be some kind of an embarrassment. It was like it didn’t matter to him at all that she had been brought to Charlotte for the sole purpose of putting an end to Andrew and Joshua’s boredom and helping them to explore their s*xual desires.

She had never considered it being anything but a good deal for her and she was legitimately grateful for the way they took care of her, but she had never even considered that one of them would make the overture of including her in his family.

Joshua did that with an openness that was astounding, but it was something Alina hadn’t found a way to be comfortable with. She was far too shy and worried about messing the whole thing up. All of that went through her head while she stood uncertainly below Joshua’s window when she heard a cruel, catty laughter coming from behind her.

She turned and saw the waitress from the diner, Crystal, and some other girl Alina had not seen around town yet. Both girls were watching her and snickering, whispering to each other with disdainful looks on their faces that they were not even attempting to hide.

Alina turned, intent on ignoring them, but it seemed that they had other plans.

“What’s the matter comrade, boyfriend won’t come out to play? Or is Andrew your boyfriend? Nobody has quite been able to figure out which one you’re fu*king. Or is it both? That’s it, isn’t it? You’re fu*king them both.”

Alina felt like a caged animal clawing desperately to get out of a cage she could not escape. The two girls were crowing with laughter, high fiving each other and moving slowly towards her as they did so. They were closing in on her, slowly and with great pleasure, and it suddenly dawned on her that bullies were a problem wherever you went.

 Since walking into this little town, she had believed it to be entirely idyllic, like walking into a quaint piece of the past. Somehow she had convinced herself that things like this wouldn’t happen but she had been quite mistaken. Here they were, the same old mean girls she had faced off against in every home she had ever lived in and just like always, she was outnumbered.

She would have happily just slunk away at this point but she wasn’t sure she could make it past them and back to her apartment without getting into an actual physical scuffle and that was the absolute last thing she was prepared to handle.

“Hey! Hey, what the hell is going on down there? What do you think you’re doing, Crystal?”

“Nothing, don’t worry about it. Go back inside, we’re just talking. She’ll be up there in just a few minutes.”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Come on, Josh. You’re taking this too seriously. It’s just a friendly conversation between women. You know, girl talk.”

“I’m sorry, Crystal, but nothing about this looks friendly. You ok, Alina? Hold on, I’m coming down.”

Alina looked up above her just in time to see Joshua leap over the banister outside of his apartment’s door. She gasped, certain that he would hurt something upon landing, but he stood up easily as if all he had done was skip one step on the way down. She had never seen anything quite like it except maybe from a stunt double in some action film.

A normal person would have needed to be on a wire to land a jump like that so effortlessly and yet he was walking towards her as if he hadn’t just done something borderline extraordinary. As soon as he reached her he put one arm around her protectively, pulling her in so close that she got a reassuring hit of his rugged, woodsy smell.

Just like that, she felt safe. All it took was the weighty feel of his body encompassing hers and she knew that she was going to be alright. He kissed her lightly on the top of her head and then turned to look at her bullies.

“Alright, ladies. I’m going to ask you again. Just what the hell is going on here? What are you doing?”

“Why are you looking at us like that, Josh?” Crystal asked with her lip poked out in a grotesque imitation of a child, “How do you know it’s not her?”