Chapter 44

Ken was walking outside when he spotted Eric in the Garden digging a hole.

"Um, Eric," said Ken, "why are you digging a hole in Lea's Garden?"

"It's not a hole," replied Eric, "it's a fire pit. Bill and Gary are out getting some stone to line it with, and Sally's getting stuff ready to cook over it."

"Huh," said Ken. Well, if Lea had a problem with a fire pit in Her garden, She'd let Eric know. "Who came up with that idea?"

"Jane."

"Have you seen her?" asked Ken.

"Not since about six this morning."

"Six?" asked Ken, incredulously. "Are you sure it was Jane?"

Jane was not a morning person. She'd get up if she absolutely had to, but few things made her as happy as drowsing in bed, basking in the morning sun.

"Well, let's see..." said Eric leaning on the shovel for a moment. "Tall, long dark hair, nice big tits, pierced nipples and a pierced clit. No tats." He shrugged. "Looked like her."

"Did she say where she was going?"

"Nope," replied Eric. "I did see her heading towards the woods about an hour ago."

"Thanks."

Eric went back to shoveling and Ken headed toward the small wooded area on the property.

Usually Ken had no problem finding anyone who was on the mansion property. He just seemed to know where they were. Oddly enough, Jane turned out to be quite difficult to find this morning. Only the faintest thread of awareness led him to her, and he stopped, blinking in surprise when he finally found her. Jane was completely naked, kneeling in the dead grass in a small clearing. While Ken was comfortable in the low forty degree weather in jeans and a t-shirt, he would have thought that Jane would be wearing a bit more than just skin.

"Good Morning Master," she, opening her blue eyes and fixing him with them.

"Jane love, what are you doing?"

She gave him a brilliant smile.

"Thinking about tonight," she said. "About Solstice. You know, it's interesting, I asked Lea about when Solstice truly was."

"Why? I thought it was the twenty-second this year."

"Yes, but does that date even mean anything to Her?" asked Jane.

That was a good question.

"I don't know," replied Ken. "What did She say?"

"She said, 'I am here. Tonight will be the rebirth of the Sun.'," quoted Jane. "'Make a fire, make love and eat well.'"

Ken squatted in front of his wife.

"Is that why you asked Eric to dig a fire pit in the Garden?"

"Actually, he offered to take over for me," she said. "I started it and he saw me and wandered out. Said he wanted to do it."

"So what are you doing here?"

"I don't really know," she said. "I started to look for firewood, but this felt so peaceful that I wanted to sit down. Did you know that we have cats living on our property?"

"Um ... no," replied Ken. "Is that a problem?"

Jane shrugged and stood, pulling Ken into a deep kiss.

"Will you help me find firewood?"

"Sure," he replied, puzzled by her actions.

And a bit worried, if the truth be told. Sure, he knew she was healed from her injuries. Hell, he'd helped heal them, and knew the Goddess had guided what they'd done. But still, something seemed a bit different about her. He couldn't put his finger on what it was though.

They gathered wood in silence until they had a pretty respectable pile.

"I'll go back and get the lawn tractor with the wagon so we can get this stuff back," said Ken. "I assume that you want it for a fire tonight?"

"Yes," replied Jane. "I think that we should turn off all the lights tonight, except for candles and the fire. We should also bring out sleeping bags and sleep in the Garden tonight. Oh, and maybe we could ask the Circle to come out here and bring the wood back by hand."

Somehow, that felt right to Ken as well.

"Okay," he said, starting to gather up a bunch of the wood.

They walked back to the house in comfortable silence.

The entire day was low key. Karen and Sandy arrived with Arianwen. Ari and Karen had become close friends, which was good because it gave Karen an easy excuse to spend time with Sandy. At sixteen, her mother gave her a good bit of freedom, but having Ari as an excuse made things easier. Plus, they always had a good time together even when they weren't having sex.

Karen's mother Julie had her suspicions that the two of them were sleeping together. She'd known her daughter was sexually active for some time now, but Julie was pretty sure Karen was careful. At least the condom packages in her room hinted that she knew she should be using them -- and truth be told, she herself had been a lot worse at sixteen. Hell, Julie was still horny all the time, much to the delight of her boyfriend. They were having sex almost daily -- sometimes twice a day. As long as Karen was back for Christmas Eve, she was fine with her daughter spending the night at Ari's place.

Karen had a good idea what was going through her mother's head as she and Ari walked down the path to Ari's car. She knew her mother's eyes were on Ari's ass, and, as straight as her mother had been all these years, Karen knew she was very attracted to Ari. For the moment though, she had Tod fucking her brains out almost daily. She knew that she was the reason her mom and boyfriend had gotten so horny, although truth be told, her mother had always been pretty horny. She wondered what it would be like to have sex with the both of them. The thought didn't squick her in the slightest -- her mother was smoking hot -- but Karen knew it would never occur to her mom in a million years to have sex with her own daughter. Hell, she knew that her mother was confused by her attraction to Ari. Tod, on the other hand, would have no problem with it -- as long as it didn't upset Julie.

They arrived at the mansion to find the Circle gathering what was needed to cook and sleep out in the Garden. Like everyone else had, she, Sandy and Ari went out to get wood for the bond fire tonight.

It was almost dark, and Cindy and Jane were making one last trip for firewood. Unlike Jane, Cindy was not naked. She was wearing jeans, a t-shirt and a jacket. Her sneakers crunched dead leaves as she bent to pick up a few more sticks. She thought she heard something and looked up, freezing instantly.

"Jane," she said in a quiet whisper. "Jane?"

"Yes, dear?" asked Jane in a normal tone of voice.

"Shhh!" said Cindy.

"What's wrong?" asked Jane.

Cindy hadn't moved, and Jane was behind her so she flinched as she heard the other woman start to walk over to her.

"Stop!" hissed Cindy. She had no idea what to do. "We have to get out of here."

"Why?"

"Tell me you don't see that!" said Cindy.

Jane's hand gently rested on Cindy's shoulder.

"Don't worry," she said. "He lives here now, with his mate. They won't hurt us."

"There's more than one of them?" asked Cindy, her voice still low and shaking as she slowly started to back away.

"Cindy, it's fine," said Jane in a reassuring voice.

"It's not fine, Jane, it's a fucking mountain lion!" said Cindy, still trying to keep her voice down. "How do you know it won't hurt us?"

Indeed, Cindy was looking at a mountain lion. She had no idea if it was large or small for the species, but the thing certainly outweighed her. It was sitting on the ground, tail curled around its feet, looking, for all the world, like a large house cat.

"Don't worry about it," said Jane. "We have an agreement."

"What?"

"They can stay as long as they want, as long as they don't eat any friendly people," said Jane, walking over to the large animal. Cindy felt like she was going to have a heart attack as Jane gently scratched under one jaw. Cindy could hear a deep buzzing noise. "Any unfriendly ones are theirs."

"How are they gonna know which is which?"

Jane shrugged as she turned away. "You ready to head back?"

Cindy was still shaking by the time she returned to the Garden. Ken could tell she was upset and walked over to them when they arrived.

"What's wrong?" asked Ken.

"Nothing," smiled Jane, "Cindy saw one of the cats."

"You don't like cats?" asked Ken. "Are you allergic or something?"

She shouldn't be. Becoming Circle should take care of any allergies. His eyes narrowed as he realized he was missing something.

"What kind of cats are they?"

Jane just smiled, and Cindy swallowed and said, "They're not cats, they're mountain lions."

Ken looked at Jane.

"You said they were cats!"

"They are cats," replied his wife. "Just well ... big cats. C'mon Ken, you don't really think Lea would let them on the property if they were a danger, do you?"

Ken thought about that, and then slowly shook his head. "Probably not."

Jane walked away to add her wood to the large pile that they'd made.

"She ... she petted it," said Cindy in a quiet voice.

"Did she," mused Ken. "I didn't even know she liked cats."

He turned and walked away, deep in thought.

"It was a mountain lion," Cindy muttered.

Oddly, as dusk approached, the temperature in the Garden rose until it reached the mid seventies. Jane, Ken and Ari went into the mansion, turning off all the lights while the rest of the Circle lit candles out back. When they returned, the Garden was beautiful. Candles rested all over the place turning the area into something out of a fairy tale. Plus, the Garden looked subtly different than it had earlier, and Ken figured that Lea had changed it. She often did.

It was wonderful evening. Sally proved that, even on an open fire, she could create amazingly delicious food. People talked, told stories and laughed. Of course, since they were Circle, they also made love, partners changing when the mood took them. Ken eventually found that he and Ari were alone with Cindy. Cindy was nervous since of all the Circle, Ken was now the only one she hadn't had some sort of sex with. She was almost beginning to think that he didn't like her.

She forgot about that though, as Arianwen sank down on her face, her pussy wet with her own excitement and dripping with someone's cum. Cindy went to town -- Tina had turned her into quite an expert pussy eater, and soon Arianwen was squirming on top of her, shuddering as orgasm after orgasm flowed through her body. Cindy was quite worked up herself when she felt something hot and wet slid over her clit. She moaned into Ari's pussy, sucking harder as the tongue worked over the wet folds of her own pussy and a finger began to slide its way into her back hole.

Cindy was no longer a virgin back there. Tina had pointed out that only a serious slut would have her ass fucked before her pussy. Naturally, that thought often got Cindy's motor running -- she liked being a slut. Not only had Tina fucked her hard and often with various didos, but Bill had also taken her back there. Eric had not because he was afraid he'd hurt her since she was so small. She knew different. Oh, she'd tear, but that wasn't a bad thing at all. She liked the pain, and she'd quickly heal. Still, Eric didn't play as hard as Gary or Ken. Oh, he was quite dominant with his wives (although they'd badgered him into letting Cindy give him a blow job, after all -- her first!), but Joan was more interested in the B&D aspects of sex, as was Sally. Although Sally really seemed to like rough breast play.

She'd only give Gary one blow job. It wasn't that he avoided her, exactly, just that he and Annette had been very wrapped up in other projects in the last month or so. And now with the attack on his friend's bar, she had the feeling that Gary would be even more busy. Annette wasn't as busy, and she and Cindy had pleased each other quite a few times. Annette was pretty rough with her, and Cindy really enjoyed Annette's body. Like Tina, there were places she didn't shave, and Cindy found that to be very sensuous. She wondered if Tina was going to make her shave, once hair started coming in. It had started to grow just a tiny bit on her pussy, and Tina had told her they were going to have to get rid of it once it really started coming in. After that, it seemed to disappear and her pussy was completely smooth.

A second finger was added to the first, deliciously stretching her. The tongue lashed her clit, which was then sucked between a pair of lips and scraped over teeth. That hurt really good. Fingers began forcefully pulling and rolling one of her nipples, and her flat belly -- now concave since she was on her back -- rapidly rose and fell with her panting. Tina had told her to cum all she wanted tonight, and she wanted. Another finger slid inside her and her pain spiked even higher, the cramping, burning from the stretching of her delicate ring causing a delicious throbbing in her clit and nipples. It all came together when Ari sat down hard on her face, cutting off her breath. Lights exploded behind Cindy's eyes and she came like a freight train, her small body unable to get away from the two people causing her so much pleasure.

Finally, Ari backed off and let her breathe, but the fingers and mouth were pushing her to another, possibly even stronger, orgasm.

"Open your mouth," whispered Ari, sweat gleaming on her body from the firelight.