Among the Living (Tyler G Book 1) Page 20

  That got a shrug.

  "Mages live a long time. Especially if they do a lot of healing magic. It's not a small effect either. There are a few of them that hit five or six hundred years old. That's really rare, because it's hard to be that altruistic all the time. If they're willing to give away their work freely, they're repaid with long life and health, but people are selfish things. Just so you know, so are Greater Demons. Not all the other groups are like that. Mages are basically just Humans with power. Vampires are angry Humans with power. Shifters are kind of the same. It's why you hit them up first, by the way. They're the people you can understand easily. You should get with the other societies as well. Now, I mean."

  They were both in the center of the store, out in the middle of the whole thing, with nothing to do. Not work related things.

  "So, go help her out anyway? Oh, also tell her that I'll be by later for that blowjob? It's a joke, but Eve kept going on about it." It wasn't really funny to him, but Zack smiled.

  "Got it. That will help, I think. Not that she'll want to do you, but it will let her understand why I'm there. Because you made me, so you can force her into doing what you want. The fact that it would be really hard for you to cause that to happen won't matter that much. Just don't really try to collect. That will make it seem like she's being raped. Even if you joke about it too much. Because to her mind they're the same thing."

  He could see that. If she felt too pressured, it would seem fear inducing to her.

  "Yeah. Not to be mean, but she really isn't that attractive to me. She's nice enough, but..." It was hard to explain, since the fact of the matter was that, if she were straight and wanted him, he probably would have had sex with her. There was just something that told him not to do that. A warning from his subconscious mind.

  That and Zack. Clearly.

  The other man left then, not saying anything else about it all. On the good side, that meant the boss was gone, so he could work without feeling like he was going to get in trouble instantly. Not that it had ever been an issue there. The whole thing was laid back and relaxed for an hour, and when the situation changed, it was actually not a horrible thing, since his mother came in.

  She looked happy, a big smile on her face and a nice rosy color to her cheeks. She was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, since Lucy was a casual person outside of work. Her hair was brown, and shoulder length. Very straight, with a line of bangs across her forehead. There were lines around her eyes, making her look a little older than the forty-three she actually was. Her waist was trim though, and she had a lot of energy. Overall she was normal, rather than skinny, her constant work keeping her from being chubby.

  She wasn't good looking, really, but her attitude made that nearly unimportant, even for people that had just met her.

  "Hey sweetie! I thought that I'd swing by and make sure things were going well for you." Her eyes searched the place for a brief moment, and she sniffed the air just a little bit, checking to make sure it was all right for him. Just about that time her eyes locked on Kaitlyn, who was coming out of one of the side rooms, being followed by two young men, who looked obviously bashful. To Tyler it was kind of embarrassing, since his mother was right there, but no one else seemed bothered by it.

  In fact Kait beamed at him as she walked up.

  "You have a friend? Do you need one of the rooms?" It was insane of course, since even if Lucy was holding his hand still, it was the kind of thing that anyone might do. At least if they were your mother. A Greater Demon too, but Zack didn't hold him like that.

  Rather than get angry, he just shook his head and tried to explain as if dealing with different groups of people was old hat to him.

  "Kait, this is my mother. Lucy Gartner. Mom, this is Kaitlyn Swanson. Succubus. Alede, more properly. So to her offering to free up a space for us to have sex was probably about right." Not knowing that Lucy was his mother, that was. The girl didn't require him to explain that thought however, just letting her smile become bigger.

  "Hi! Yeah, different rules. I hope that wasn't insulting? I know, why don't you take her to the cafe for lunch? It's free, and pretty good. Really excellent, actually. I'll cover the front?"

  Tyler examined the scene, and realized that his mother wasn't actually responding much to the whole thing at all. He was, of course, feeling embarrassed and uneasy about the implications. Lucy was acting like they'd been talking about the weather. Her smile was warm and not judging however. She almost never was.

  "Thanks. We won't be long. I get half an hour for lunch, I think." He didn't know that it was all right for him to give free food away like that, but if it was an issue, he could pay for it later, it was important that his mom knew he was allowed to eat, and could handle himself well enough to provide a meal for someone else. It was a sign that he was working hard and doing well. If you had the resources to keep yourself going, plus enough for others, then you weren't really at risk.

  He waved a bit to get his mom to follow along with him, headed toward the back. Her hand flew out, to touch Kait's arm then. It was a casual thing, and while it might be a little flirty, it wasn't so bad that he had to have an issue with it. Ignoring it was the high road, he decided.

  As far as he knew, Lucy hadn't had a single date in the time he'd lived with her. Okay, so she might have just been hiding that kind of thing from him, and it wasn't really his business. She did work a lot. It was possible that she could have taken part of the time for herself, and it would have even been fair. Though if that was the case, she could have done it openly, too. Ty wasn't going to judge her for having a bit of a life. She deserved it.

  His mom let go of his hand as they walked, and they settled into the cafe area at one of the tables near the wall. He asked for the food that they wanted, which was fruit and a small salad for him, and a decently large turkey sandwich for her, along with some fruit juice, which they both had.

  As they ate, they chatted about things that were a bit different than he would have suspected when she walked in. The main one was about what he wanted for his birthday. It was one of those things that he simply hadn't been thinking about.

  "I have no clue? I don't need much, really. Just show up, if you can and that will be fine. Really, if you need to work, we can do something later. It's just a birthday. I'll have more. Barring massive problems at least."

  There was a wry look from his mother, who fixed him solidly with her gaze. It was both happy and steely at the same time. Which wasn't fair, since it got him to freeze thanks to years of training.

  "That won't do, and you know it. If you don't tell me what you want, I'll end up spending five times as much, trying to make sure you get something good. Even if you won't ever use it. It would be much better for you to just let me know. So, what do you need? Clothes? Socks? A new keyboard? Sex toys for your new friends here?" She was saying that last one as a joke. He hoped.

  Blushing, or at least feeling like he was, Ty glanced away. It was hard not to feel shy about sex still. That kind of thing was a huge problem in his life. He was, like most real men, the Human ones at least, preoccupied with sex. That didn't mean he was comfortable with himself, however.

  It was a twisting and tense thing, thinking about that kind of thing. He wanted, badly, to have sex as often as possible, but on the other hand it was also a vast distraction.

  "Um, let's go with clothes? You don't have to get me anything. You've had to do so much. It wasn't fair, really. You took me in and cared for me for nearly my whole life. It made yours harder."

  Lucy smiled at him and shook her head just the tiniest bit. There was a hint of humor in it, which was good to see. It would have been too hard if saying that had made her sad.

  "Tyler... That isn't the way the world works. We make our own choices, and do what we need to in order to make it all work. I didn't take you in as a burden, but as a way to make my own life larger. You made things better for me, in a lot of ways. Yes, there was work, but there's always that. There have been sa
crifices, but again, we all have those, whenever we try to get what we want from life. I have no regrets. Not even one." She seemed very certain about that.

  All he could do was hope that was true.

  "Thanks. I love you, mom."

  That seemed to go over well.

  "I love you too, honey. Now, I have some things to cover with you, about your parents. I... We should do it after you turn eighteen. So on Saturday? Sunday? I don't want to ruin your party."

  That got him to stare at her. There was no clue that he could see that would tell him what she was talking about.

  "Great, now I'm curious. What's the deal? Are they still alive or something? I know, you kidnapped me as a baby, or you're actually my older sister, not just a friend of theirs..." There was a smile, but also a waiting. A sense of the world pausing for a moment, as if pregnant, and ready to burst out onto the world.

  Until Lucy spoke. Then it all just fizzled. There was a pleasant expression on her slightly lined face.

  "Neither of those things. You'll just have to wait. It... Well, it isn't a great thing, but it shouldn't impact you very much either. It probably will, but... Well, you'll see. Let's get through the party first? Clothes? For work?"

  They chatted about that part of things for a while, his attempts at bringing the topic back to what the hell she was hinting at not working. That was a thing he was well aware of in life. Lucy had always been able to totally control the conversations they'd had. It was done gently, and with kindness, but so well that trying to really pry things from her before she was ready to share them wasn't going to ever work.

  She left, giving him a hug first, which was what she always did. It was part of her way of letting him know that he was loved. Unlike most of the people around him at the bookstore, she didn't have any alternative motives in doing it. The Alede all wanted him for his sexual energy, and the Greater Demons wanted to know his mind completely.

  Well, Hiram and Ben were fine that way. They also didn't try to feel him up constantly. Calley did, but what she wanted was the contact, which made it feel a bit more allowable for some reason. Not that blaming anyone for what they were was going to help anything. That was a fact that he needed to focus on a lot harder in life, he realized.

  That point got put on the back burner, since in the half hour that he'd been gone from work, even if he'd been physically there, things had sped up a lot. At least that's what it seemed like at first. There were people in the store, all standing around, looking shifty. It wasn't just him noticing it either, since all of the Alede were suddenly there, at the front desk. Behind it, as if that would act as a shield. Almost the entire crowd of fifty people or so had a look about them that was similar. The women all looked hard, in an angry sort of way. Their faces held no makeup, which was fine, but they frowned and the whites of their eyes showed all the way around on more than half of them. The ages varied, but there was a theme to how they were dressed. The fashions held hints of being more or less manly.

  The few men with them, a group made up of seven men, seemed to be kind of the opposite. Most were kind of pudgy, which wasn't a crime at all. Most people were like that anymore. The two that weren't were very thin and still soft looking however. There were subtle things about how they dressed that indicated they were a bit more feminine than most guys. Their hair was parted on the wrong side, for instance. It wasn't a major thing, but it made them seem a little off.

  They also held back a bit, as the tension grew.

  Why that was, he didn't know, though he found himself responding, becoming ready for the attack that would come. Prepared to fight on a level that nearly had him attack the woman who looked at her watch first, and started screeching. It was a bleating chant that he couldn't understand to begin with, until the others picked it up. Most of them sounded like normal enough people, thankfully, since the first one had a horrible and shrill voice. It could have been nerves, of course. A lot of people weren't wild about public speaking and public chanting had to count for that.

  "No sex, no sex..." The call went on for a bit, as Ty tried to shift mental gears.

  "This is an anti-sex protest? Why hold it here?" He looked around the room, and fixed his gaze on Kaitlyn, who looked very embarrassed suddenly. "For that matter, who protests sex? I mean, half the Human race wants it as a biological imperative, and the other half uses that to control them and get what they want. It's like these women don't understand that." Even though it was probably how they'd gotten the weak looking men to go along with them.

  Like they weren't in it to try and get laid?

  Kaitlyn looked right at him and rolled her eyes, speaking, unheard over the raucous noise. He could see her lips though, so understood what she was saying.

  "That's why. These are all women that feel they don't have any power that way. A lot of them probably don't really. Not compared to an Alede. So they want to take out their lack of desirability on us. To punish us into... I don't know. They probably don't either. We're biologically incapable of not having sex, really. We have to harvest that energy to survive. Just making a scene won't help anything. Which means that they probably know that, and have something else in mind. An attack? Feminist groups are among the more violent ones, when it comes to going after people. Bomb threats and killing dogs, mainly. Minor assault is almost a given for them. You might not want to get too close."

  Tyler hadn't really known that, but then he'd also never been around that kind of person a lot. Lucy didn't go in for politics, so hadn't raised him like that. If she was anti-man he'd never been affected by it, either. The woman clearly wasn't against sex though, for all that anything she'd done that way in life had been well hidden from him.

  The thing there was that he didn't really know what to do at the moment with these people. They were annoying, with the loud, and silly, chant, but that didn't actually harm anything. He tried to make himself seem pleasant, letting a small, if tight, smile come to his lips. It wasn't really his problem, after all. These were just people trying to exercise their right to free speech.

  Annoyingly, but that was probably all right, in the long run.

  After what seemed to be exactly two minutes of this, a woman who looked to be about thirty, with curly dark brown hair, heavy black rimmed glasses, and a loose button up shirt in white and light blue, moved in front of the counter.

  "We won't let you run a whore house in a public establishment! Leave here, now!"

  She tried to start another chant, to prevent anyone from speaking, but Kaitlyn flashed in anger, her eyes looking a bit tight. Holding up her right hand, still standing behind the wooden front counter, she spoke in an even tone.

  "We don't. We don't take money or goods for the services we offer, and almost never turn anyone away. It's our nature, and not a thing we can simply choose not to do. Why are you being so bigoted?"

  That got an outraged look from several of the women, but no coherent response. The clear answer was what Kait had already said. They were threatened by the pretty women and the fact that they did offer sex to anyone that wanted it. That took away their own perceived power, most likely. The fact was that almost all of those weak and spineless seeming men that were there to chant against sex would have probably left their horrible wives and girlfriends instantly, if they'd known that they could have endless, no strings attached, love making with the Alede instead.

  That was kind of a big deal, most likely.

  In fact, he was about to recommend that to them when several of the women, working together, managed to push one of the free standing book shelves over. It made a very large crashing sound. It was very annoying too, since Tyler understood instantly that he, and possibly Ben, would be the ones having to fix it all.

  "Stop that!" The cry went unheeded, as several groups formed, all of them making an effort to damage the place, since reading was clearly a horrible crime that had to be stopped.

  Still, short of engaging the mob in a physical altercation, there wasn't a lot he could do abou
t it. Well, except get pictures of them all, and call the police in. Honestly, that should have been the first thing he'd done, but he hadn't figured they were going to actually riot.

  Silly him.

  He called to the front, making eye contact with Alexis this time. She looked frightened, but hadn't run away yet.

  "Call nine-one-one! I'll get pictures."

  He had a cell phone, though it took him a bit to work out how to hold the thing horizontally in order to get good video. Tyler didn't try to close with people, just moving from face to face. After about two minutes, another chant having gone up, one of the women seemed to suddenly realize what he was doing, and closed with him.

  "You can't take my picture! That's rape!" Then she tried to slap the thing from his fingers.

  His mind reeled for a second.

  "Um... First, I'm recording a crime, in a public place, which is legal, but how in the world is that rape?"

  "I didn't give my consent. Stop, now! Rape! Rape!"

  He kept going, since the only way he had to prove that he wasn't assaulting anyone were the pictures on the phone. It was a public space, so he had a legal right to get the video. He knew that one, since Zack came out when the police finally arrived, and told him to keep going.

  The mess in the store was pretty big, but what happened next baffled the fuck out of him. It was, he supposed, a good enough tactic to try and control men with threats of making false rape claims like that woman had. A lot of guys would have backed off, intimidated by her, fearing being arrested just based on the words alone. That could happen, and this crowd, or at least that one lady, seemed to know it.

  The thing was, when the police started trying to get them to leave, asking with gruff and authoritative tones that really were kind of a-holish, the same woman approached one of the men, and tried a different version of the same thing. It was a bit more polite, but not much.

  "You can't touch me. I'm a woman! Violence against women is always wrong!" This was repeated a few times. To her credit, it seemed to be working at first. The officer didn't grab her or anything, simply asking her to step out of the store, even though she'd just vandalized the place.