1
When I was younger, my mother once told me, “I really admire the way you make a choice and then go for it, all gas, no brakes.” When she said that, I know she didn’t mean my decision to answer an ad put in the paper by two minotaurs looking for a sugar baby.
I’m standing in the hall outside what is hopefully going to be my new apartment, and honestly, I’m trying to remind myself why I thought this would be a good idea.
On my mental list of pros: free rent, art school paid for, no more living with the parents, lots of sex with minotaurs, which is something I’ve been fantasizing about for, oh I don’t know, years maybe?
Cons: Living with complete strangers. And male strangers, at that.
I take a deep breath, set my suitcases down on the floor, and knock on the door.
It opens almost immediately, and on the other side is a minotaur who’s so big his body extends beyond the door frame. He’s wearing an apron that saysBlow the Chefand a smile so bright it’s blinding.
“Mara!” he says, bending under the door frame to kiss me on the cheek. “I’m so glad you’re here. Come inside. Let me get your suitcase.”
I step into a large apartment, with a window that stretches from one side of the living room to the other, showcasing a perfect view of the Savannah River. I bet it looks beautiful at night, when everything is all lit up. When my eyes skim to the sunken living room and spot another minotaur on the couch, I jump.
“Oh, hi. Sorry, I didn’t see you there.” I immediately feel stupid for saying that, seeing as how this guy is somehow bigger than the one who opened the door. He’s reading a book, a pair of glasses perched on the end of his snout.
Before he has a chance to say anything, the guy who met me at the door steps into the living room, gently dropping my suitcase on the floor beside the couch. “No, that’s okay,” he says to the other one in a sarcastic tone. “I don’t need your help or anything. You just sit there and enjoy your reading.”
The other minotaur grunts in response.
The one who answered the door turns to me with a smile. He’s got a reddish-brown fur that reminds me of baseball fields while his roommate’s fur is so dark it’s almost black, but I can see the shimmer of brown undertones in the sun.
“I’m Henry,” the lighter one says, reaching out to shake my hand. We’ve only met via email, and of course, he’s seen my pictures. When I applied for this…job…he asked me to send pictures, which didn’t seem all that unreasonable, seeing as how he was trying to find someone he wanted to have sex with on a regular basis. In return, I’d gotten pictures with no explanation who was who. I guess at the end of the day, it didn’t really matter. I’m here to have sex with both of them. “And that’s Jonas.”
Jonas glances up at me with a sour expression, and now I’m even more nervous than I was before. Does he not want me here?
My eyes shoot to Henry and he smiles. “Don’t worry. He’s just a grump. He’s happy you’re here.” As if he thinks that’s enough to reassure me, Henry leaves me there with Jonas, going to the kitchen, which is open to the living room. “I made cupcakes!” he says, holding a plate up that’s stacked high with iced cupcakes and then bringing them back to the living room, where he sets the plate on the coffee table.
Jonas doesn't even wait for the plate to hit the table before reaching over and snatching a cupcake. I just barely hold in my smile as he puts the whole thing in his mouth at once.
Henry shoots him a dirty look. “Manners,” he snaps and then turns to me with his beatific smile back in place. “So, Mara. I know we talked a little bit over email, but tell us all about you.”
Jonas finally sets his book aside, taking off his glasses and leveling me with a look that gets my heart rate up. I’ve always had a thing for minotaurs. I’ve met a lot of non-humans in my day, and there’s just something about minotaurs that I’ve always been devilishly attracted to. There’s even a whole category on most porn sites just for human-minotaur sex that I’ve always been drawn to. They’re so big and burly and-
“Mara?” Jonas says, snapping me back to reality.
“Right. Well. There’s really not much. Um. I’m twenty, I’m an artist, um…I’m an Aquarius.”
At this, Henry gives a little chuckle.
Jonas doesn’t seem amused. “You said in your application you’re planning to go to art school in the fall. They don’t have dorms?”
“No, they do,” I stammer. “But, uh, they’re really expensive, and my parents wouldn’t pay for it. They, um, they really want me to be a lawyer, so when I told them I was transferring to SCAD, they got angry and kicked me out.” Hence why I’m here…
Jonas crosses his arms. “So, what, you stay for the summer and then you move out in the fall and think we’re going to keep this up?” Henry and I both try to speak at the same time, but Jonas speaks over us. “The deal is that if you want us to pay for school, you live in the apartment, you be available at all times unless you’re in class. I thought that was clear.”
“It is. SCAD is really close by. I don’t have to live in the dorms. I could commute for classes.”
Silence descends, and then Jonas looks at Henry and nods, like he’s passing the conversation back over to him. Henry clears his throat. “As you know, I’m a doctor and Jonas is, um…” He looks over at Jonas who raises an eyebrow back at him. “Well…he does something really boring in an office building, where he bosses everyone around. Why don’t I show you to your room?”
He says it all in a hurry, drifting seamlessly from one thought to the next, and then he hops off the couch and holds out a hand to me. I take it, deciding immediately that I like how affectionate he is. It’ll make it way easier to initiate intimacy later if I need to.
I glance at Jonas over my shoulder. He doesn’t follow us. He puts back on his glasses and goes back to his book. I feel a little pang of disappointment. I want him to like me. If he doesn’t, will this all be over before it even begins?
“This is your room,” Henry says, pushing open a door at the end of a long hallway and pulling me in after him. I’m shocked by how big the room is. It even has an en suite, which feels really generous to me. Definitely a king-sized bed and a giant window so that I can look out over the river. The walls are bare and there isn’t much furniture aside from the bed and a dresser pushed against one wall, but over by the window, I see that someone has pinned a cloth to the wall, the long white fabric fanning out from the wall to cover that entire corner of the room. There’s an easel in the middle of it.
