Twilight Menagerie

First days are never easy. There is always an awkward, uncomfortable feeling getting to know new co-workers, new bosses, taking in the whole new atmosphere. Fearing you could do something wrong. Anxious that no one would like you and make your life a living hell. Just because they can. Because you let it happen.

The building I was supposed to find my way through was huge, and that’s just on the outside. I was sure once I was in the long, winding hallways of the scientific facilities, with every wall looking the same, searching for numbers rather than something I would recognize, the building would seem much, much larger even. I knew that the ground that belonged to this business was as large as a small town; I knew that the ‘dorms’ for the colleagues that come from too far away to drive home every evening were located at the left edge of it. I’ve read the pamphlet they sent me well. Again and again on the ride here. I would use those as well, just that I was not going to drive home for the weekends. My old apartment was cancelled correctly and deserted, my things were already on the way, if they’re not already here and being set up, faster than I was. I wasn’t not sure if I liked this really.


It was cold here, too. It was a stiff breeze that whirled around me right now, ruffling my hair and blowing the brunette strands into my face. Impatiently, I brushed them back and wished I had done up a different hairstyle; maybe a knot, something classy. But no, I decided to have them open and flowing past my shoulders. All the effort I made before I left to have them look healthy and shiny was utterly useless now. I wished I had taken a brush into the bag I’d taken for the trainride. I surely looked like a mess now. Not exactly the way to look for someone about to start a new job. The nervous fluttering in the pit of my stomach started up again, stronger than before. If I would stand here longer, I’d be late, but my feet didn’t want to move in their professionally black pumps.


“You’re as cold as ice…”, I hummed to myself, realizing I didn’t feel my toes anymore. That was the last thing that finally made me move, with a deeply drawn breath being let out slowly, I walked towards the security checks…three in total, for metal, possibly, guns or knives or stuff like that. I just didn’t see why they yanked me through three of them and blinked at each other weirdly as I passed the last one. I bid the men a good day and move towards the large glass doors quickly. Those glances were creepy. The glass of the doors was decorated with strange symbols as I came closer, graved into the pane in neat rows, some gold, some black, the majority of them just slashes. Runes, I recognized. Which made me ponder again just what it was this business did, or if the owner just liked mysterious things. They hired me without even an interview, no test, nothing. Not even a job description. Just called one day, precisely a week ago in fact, and told me to basically get my ass here; and for the killer paychecks, I left everything I knew behind and moved up here. I’d never been so far north. No wonder it was icy cold outside.


The foyer was held in, different from what I had thought, black marble and intricate golden tapestries on the walls. Looking down because my heels made funny clicking sounds on the floor, I noticed how highly polished it was, and how my shoes left wet footprints. While the outside of the building was cold steel and granite stone, completely uninviting and looking more like a prison, the inside could have been the foyer of a sinfully expensive resort hotel. I remembered the last time I had been at one of those, even if only for a night…and what a night it had been. I almost sighed as I remembered the awfully dexterous fingers and the heartbreakingly eager tongue of my then-boyfriend. Arriving at the receptionist desk, I had to press my thighs together under the dark grey pencil skirt or I surely would have leaked through the French silk panties I loved wearing. My nipples longingly strained against the lace of my bra, beneath the blouse and business jacket that thankfully hid them as if they, too, remembered the greedy mouth on them, sucking and nibbling until they were big and hard and so tender that I had almost come when his chest had brushed mine on his way up to purr things into my ear that I would never, ever repeat without burning up completely. And his hand had been down between my thighs already, one fingers teasingly brushing up and down the quivering…no! Damn it!


The young woman at the desk blinked at me, patiently but with an amused quirk around her mouth as I continued staring into empty space. “Uhm. May I help you, Miss?”


“I have a job interview at three. I’m…”


She beat me to it, a smile on her face that even reached her eyes. “Miss Alea Stone. Yes. The boss is waiting for you already.” She took a note from the side of her desk, reading over it, and grabbed a folder off to the other side to hand it to me. “Left elevator, the top floor.”


I nodded, took the folder, and turned to the elevator. It was as posh as the lobby had been, and if there were cameras, I could not see any. And even if, Gods, who cared about that right now, I was nervous and a sure way to forget about that for a moment was already on my mind. Carefully, I inched my skirt up my thighs, past the black stockings that still sat snugly around my thighs until it rested just on my hips anymore, and slid my hand into the top of my panties to cup my core. The wetness seeped against my still dry hand as my middle finger applied the smallest amount of pressure, sinking into the warm, soft folds to rest in them, the tip against the familiar shape of the hole, the base pressed against my clit.
“Mmmmmmmh…” I leaned back against the wall of the elevator, closing my eyes to the feeling. That alone was enough to relax me, although I did feel the last night…I had not been able to sleep at all. A glance at the door of the elevator and the number panel above it told me that I was pretty close to the top already, and with a parting tap to the swelling bud, I took my hand out of my panties, shimmied my skirt down, and…crap. And looked at the obvious moistness coating my middle finger. There was nothing in here that I could wipe it off on, and hell if I did dare to do that on my clothes. It would dry quickly and leave suspicious white stains. The only way was to lick it off. Not that I minded that, but it was bothersome, because while saliva made good in taking away the sticky fluid and most of the smell, too, it left the taste in my mouth, and that made me want to shove my hand down my panties again to get more of it. How to do a job interview with nothing but carnage on my mind? Great. I hoped my suitcases were here already, my toys stuffed into the sides. At least my mouth did the job of getting rid of the proof of my control loss in the elevator. One side of it was a huge mirror stretching across the wall, and I used that to fix my hair, noticing the flush in my cheeks. The elevator made a sound, and the doors slid open. I quickly turned, not wanting to seem vain.


Didn’t do any good. In front of me was a short hallway with chairs on either side in a quartet and a firmly closed door. Was I supposed to knock? Before I could, the door opened for me. “Come in, Miss Stone. Welcome.”, said a deep voice from inside the office. The timbre of it alone sent a shiver through me, locating between my thighs. I could feel my panties sitting wrong, one side of the delicate strip of silk tried very convincingly to snuggle in between the folds. Suddenly, I was even more aware of the way my hair was bordering on being messed up, my lips rosy from being bitten and my cheeks from doing naughty things in the refuge of the elevator, my skirt the slightest bit wrinkled now. The sway of my hips as I walked towards the wide, polished mahogany desk, trying to persuade my panties to be nice with my steps.


If this was my boss, I could have died and gone to heaven, too. There was no denying that he was attractive…his hair was brunette as well, but much darker than my already dark caramel color, it looked as dark as the wood of his desk. His skin held the same summery tan that mine held. His eyes were dark as he looked up…a dark blue against my own brown. Straight nose, strong jaw, narrow but beautifully sculpted lips. I think I forgot how to breathe for a moment. I have a thing for men with broad shoulders, and although this one didn’t match my expectations in that department, they were still wider than mine. I sat on the chair in front of his desk, suddenly aware of my rounder-than-average hips, thighs and ass although he couldn’t even see them anymore with me sitting down. I made a point to push out my chest to draw the attention from what I at that time figured my weak parts and to my breasts, the cleavage subtle in this outfit. At least it made me sit straight. I didn’t know what to say. “Good afternoon, sir.”
He laughed, a deep, throaty sound. Gorgeous. He reached over the desk to shake my hand.
“My name is Cassian Ashmodai. I’m the founder and CEO of Ashmod Corporation.”


At least that was cleared up now.
“I bet you have questions.”
That was an understatement.
“I do in fact…I found it a little strange that you have invited me to work here. I didn’t even send an application.” I didn’t mention that I didn’t even know of the existence of this corporation.

“A talent like yours deserves a better job than your current, Miss Stone. Higher salary. Something that uses your skills and mind to the fullest. I knew I had to have you working for me when I read the article about your work.” Strange, and here I thought that had only been in the local paper…not nation-wide.

“I agree, sir, but what exactly is it that you do here?” He couldn’t be much older than I was when he smiled like this.

“I mostly have laboratories located here, my scientists live close to their work, as you probably have read by now. In one of the buildings further back, I keep a little menagerie of…you could say…odd creatures and species. We want to know as much as possible about them, that is why you are here. We run blood samples on them, see how they react to different substances, find out what they eat, where they come from, this kind of thing.”

That was stunning. He ran tests on animals? He must have seen my apprehension.

“It does not harm them, of course. This is strictly scientific.”

“Scientific is a bad thing sometimes. I hope this is no illegal institution?” I narrowed my eyes a little. I loved animals too much to let any harm come to them.

“Of course not, Miss Stone. Alea…” He seemed distracted with my first name for a moment, looking down at the folder. “That is a quite unique name, you know.” I nodded lightly, but only because I never heard it on a second person besides me, at least not spelled like this. I guessed it was just kind of rare. “Either way, what we do is keep them here, we try to breed them to heighten the population, most of them are really rare…thought to be extinct for years. We are glad to have them, to find out more.”

“Do you have Dodos?”

“Ah, no…unfortunately not.” His smile was a little wry. “I am sure you have studied the information I sent you. You have an apartment already reserved for you, your luggage has arrived half an hour ago I heard. Would you mind dinner with me?”

“Uhm, no.”, I answered a little too quickly. “I mean, I don’t mind. No. I’d love to.” Something about this man turned my brain into mush. “I’d like to shower first. And change.” His eyes, so stunning, raked down my body again; I noticed them lingering not at the top of my cleavage, but at the base of my neck instead. How weird. Goosebumps rose over my arms, I noticed, fortunately covered by the long sleeves of the dark grey jacket.

“Excellent. We have a gorgeous little restaurant in the rooming facilities. Unless you would like to drive into town?”

Was he hitting on me? I rose a brow. “No, this will be fine.”

He smiled, again. It looked a little predatory. “Very good. I will have you escorted to your apartment now, and I will expect you for dinner around seven.”


A new job and a date. Not bad for a day that had started out much worse, really. I left with another shake to his large, warm hand and a weird feeling in my belly. Not the nervous fluttering, rather a warmth that I couldn’t explain. I wondered if leaving behind a city full of people I knew and ex-lovers was worth this. I was on the other side of the country and wondering if I had packed my winter coat; I noticed snow flakes dancing in the air as I saw windows again, down in the lobby. It didn’t snow much where I came from, not even in the dead of winter. This was kind of pretty.

A non-descript man brought me to my apartment. It consisted of a living room, complete with a cream coloured couch and armchair, a wood-and-glass coffee table, and a huge TV; a bedroom with a queen-sized bed and soft pillows and sheets in dark purple with cream aspects, a dark wooden closet off to the side; a bathroom with a shower stall and rain shower, as well as a kitchenette with refrigerator. The whole set-up was tasteful, much more so than I could have styled it myself. It was gorgeous. My luggage was already there, and I had more than four hours to get a shower and even get some of my clothes into the closet. I was so staying here, there was not much that could change this anymore. On the way here, the man had showed me the restaurant my new boss had meant. It had looked like a quaint little thing more set into the fancier part of a large town than into a business facility.


My four hours gave me more time than I actually needed. All my clothes were in the closet by now, neatly folded and stacked, my body was scrubbed clean and even treated with body lotion that held the scent of my favourite perfume, my hair finally the shiny sleekness I had wanted it to be in the first place. I had even put make up on, light, of course. I didn’t want to play it up too much. It definitely was an evening for high heels, so I re-used the pumps I had worn with my business outfit in all their basic goodness. I wore black pants and a dark purple bat-styled shirt. It downplayed my ‘weak’ parts all around the hips, and once again enhanced my chest…a bit more than a handful, if I may be so proud, a good C-cup. They were softer than I liked them to be, but usually, I didn’t mind them. I didn’t really mind anything about my body, in that department, I was pretty lucky. Usually, I didn’t give a damn about what people thought of me. It was my thing to do and not someone else’s. It was my body to like and not someone else’s, too. It was the attitude that had drawn most of my ex-boyfriends to me.


I decided on light rosy lipstick even to the dusky eye shadow I had put on. My best friend back home, Nica, had shown me the trick of how to get eyelashes to look their longest, thickest, fullest. The right mascara and the right technique, first a white base, then pulling the blackened brush through nice and thorough. It worked for me.


For about half an hour, I waited. Changing between making my bed after laying in it to see if it was as comfy as it looked, sitting on different parts of the couch and in the armchair, checking the channels I got on the TV. Cable. Sweet. Though I figured I wouldn’t have much time to watch TV, really. I was the kind of girl that burrowed herself into her work and had to be pulled out of it by the hair again when it was time to go to bed or get food. I had worked more nights not even noticing the change between dark and bright than I liked to remember, simply because I couldn’t pull myself away from an interesting project. It was because of that, though, that I was handled as the best back home. It was because of that that I worked here now, with more money than I could probably spend around here. A few years, no more than five, and I would be able to buy a house if I chose so. I could have kids and actually have them grow up with everything they needed and wanted…different than I grew up. Maybe I could, eventually, get settled in the bigger town nearby and drive to work instead of living on the grounds. Right now, I thought, my life sounded pretty neat. But that was before dinner.

**


He had picked a booth. Of course, privacy was everything in a business like this. There would be talk in the morning, I thought, if this didn’t happen every other day. Did he invite every new worker to dinner on their day of arrival? Maybe only the women? It sounded like a good way to chain the workers to him and his business, being nice and all. The sound of quiet chatter and the light clinking of glasses filled every which way and the more hollow sound of cutlery on dishes. The floor was laid out with red carpet that held intricate designs of black and gold, the furniture was polished wood much like his desk. All in all, very pretty. And larger than I had thought from just sticking my head in.


Oh, and he looked gorgeous. Cassian…Mr. Ashmodai, whatever I was supposed to call him, he hadn’t specified that after all…wore the same clothes he had in the office, but the jacket was missing. It was a light blue dress shirt that fitted against his skin nicely and brought out the deep blue of his eyes. When he stood to welcome me, he was wearing black slacks, not loose enough to hide a killer ass. Goodness! Even though I had had a more than thorough ‘play’ session under the shower with its enticing feeling of showering in rain warmed from summer heat, my mind was still in the gutter around my new boss.


“Miss Stone.” He took my hand, though instead of shaking it, he lifted it to kiss the back of it delicately. My expression must have amused him because he smiled and let go, but not after inhaling close to my skin. I flushed for a moment -the thoughts and panic about my time in the elevator rising again- before I remembered the lotion. Duh.

“Call me Alea.”, I replied to cover my unease and realized too late how incredibly phony that sounded. How cliché. He was unable to pull out a chair for me since it was a booth we would be dining in, but I was sure he would have done that if there had been an opportunity. I had never had dinner with such a gentleman. The thought made me nervous again. Even more so when he laid a hand to the small of my back and led me to ‘my’ side of the booth.


“Only if you call me Cassian.”, he replied, his mouth close to my ear, before he let me sit. Of course. I fought the urge to roll my eyes, never having had the patience for all the mushy stuff one saw in romance movies.

“Gladly.”, I said instead, giving him a charming smile. He sat again as well and handed me a menu. Cassian asked questions about me as we looked through the menu, at east I did, he seemed set on what he wanted and had ordered red wine already. No seafood, then. I wasn’t a complete klutz, after all.

“You are awfully successful for a woman of twenty-six already.”, he commented after he had asked my age. I managed to smile at him, looking up from trying to decide between pasta Alberto with truffle, or a steak. I would have bet taking the steak would have impressed him. But did I really want that?

“I believe twenty-six is a good age to be successful.”, I replied, closing the menu and taking a sip from my wine. “You can’t be much older, either.” To that, he merely smiled a little and moved on to questions about my social life. Friends, family, the likes. He seemed genuinely upset about me having been an orphan since I was eight, but pleased when he heard about my adoptive parents.


I picked the steak, and I was right about him. He did look impressed. I found out that he had bought the grounds and buildings with the money his grandfather had passed down to him when he had died of old age, and that the business held itself aloft with subsidies from the State, clever investments into stocks, and of course selling antidotes for venoms and bites of any creature imaginable. Could have guessed it had to do with pharmacy, too. Though working with rare and endangered animals kind of gave that away as well, antidotes to venoms that weren’t widely known sold the highest. I nodded to the explanation. All in all, dinner was a very nice affair, and the pit of my belly fluttered every time he chuckled or threw me an obviously flirtatious glance. Cassian was a seriously fascinating person.


He offered me a tour of the menagerie, as he called it, to see the newborns.

“We had one litter just five days ago. They are quite adorable, I think you would like them a lot.”, he said. I blinked at him as we both rose from now empty plates and glasses, and I felt myself little woozy. We had totally killed the expensive bottle of red wine.

“A litter of what?”

“It’s hard to explain, you will have to see for yourself. I was thinking of you helping the person tending to them tomorrow, to find your way around the facilities. Brenda Smith, if you can remember that until tomorrow morning.” He smiled again, a little more predatory than simply being nice, as he led me from the restaurant. One of his hands laid in the dip of my waist as if to steady me. I wasn’t that drunk.

“Why would I not remember that?”

He tugged me closer to himself, my arm touching his side, and lowered his head to nose a few strands of hair back from my ear. “Because tonight, everything you know will be thrown around…until you don’t know your own name anymore.”, he purred. I couldn’t suppress the shiver that racked through me and settled tingly between my thighs. Damn that man. At that point of the night, I was pretty sure that he was seducing me with pretty words. I had no answer for him for a long time, walking side by side without him letting go of me. He talked idly, with his deep, velvety voice that made me feel foolishly secure and at ease, as if I’d known him for years.


Cassian pressed a code into the soft key pad next to electronic sliding doors, and without a sound, they opened for us. Inside was another hallway, a shorter one, with a door to either side, both closed, and one up front. To that, he led me. “Whatever you see in there, Alea, you will have to stay calm. Don’t make noises too loud, it will scare them. We have to go through the menagerie with the adult specimen to reach the kindergarten. You’ll understand this is a very secret…” His hand wandered up lightly to lie against the side of my left breast, and I shuddered when he palmed it lightly. “A very private thing…my obsession, very intimate. You understand, yes?” I could barely nod. Not only because his fingers had found the nub of my nipple pressing through the thin fabric with his ministrations to my body, but also because I couldn’t wait to see what was behind that door. Mostly because I was curious.


“I understand, yes. Mmmh…” I couldn’t suppress a small groan as the long fingers pinched the nub gently. He grinned next to my ear, placed a kiss against the edge of my jaw with his warm lips. “Cassian…”

He shushed me with a chuckle. “If you’re a good girl in there, I’ll fulfil one wish of yours…any wish.” As if offering me a job like this wasn’t generous enough already. His palm never left my breast, by now almost fully cupping it and thus holding me much closer to himself, his lips never stopping the brushing against my jaw and ear. I wondered idly how he was able to still walk straight, this distracted, and found myself reaching for his free hand, tangling my fingers with his in front of his groin.

The doors slid open for us again, and all I could see was a long, long corridor, a maze of corridors really with three large panes of glass on each side in every block, then the corridor bend to both sides, probably to continue there with the glass. In the dim light, I could see at least three blocks like that, but as we passed them, I couldn’t see much inside, since the cells behind were dark. I guessed those were the cages for the animals, each of them as large as my new apartment. Well, at least they had room. In the corridor of the third block, it was four in total, the scenery of the cages that I could see changed. The first had been sand and rocks, like a terrarium for lizards, then I was able to see water, then plants. This particular cell he made me look into just had strips of fabric hung messily from the ceiling in random order, like curtains. I couldn’t see much behind that. I tried squinting my eyes, and as I did, the curtains began to move. Instinctively, I squinted harder, leaning forth a little, and Cassian’s hand slid over my mouth before I could scream when something slammed jerkily against the glass pane. I noticed the…thing’s eyes first. A pale yellow that seemed to shine even without a direct source of light. They looked put off, maybe a little angry, but not as if, whatever it was, was suffering. It had an almost human shaped head with a maw more than a mouth, filled with sharp teeth, the body dark, and the legs…I squinted again. They looked like the legs of a donkey. It had its hands pressed against the glass, curling talons against the pane, three on each hand.

“This is a ghoul…we found him in Scotland.”, Cassian’s voice was low and calm behind me. When my body relaxed a little, he let my mouth go.

“A…ghoul?”

“A corpse-eater, yes. Better not come too close, he’ll be angry all night.” He smirked amusedly, and pulled me away, down the corridor.

“How…what…what the hell?” This night was becoming stranger and stranger. Maybe this was a species I did not know yet, as he had told me. Though as we arrived at the kindergarten as he had called it, my worries that something was definitely not right with this place flared up again.

This was just straight odd. I wasn’t sure if a huge paycheck and a hot boss would make THIS worthwhile.

**

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