Chapter Four

Tim

I’m mated to a monster! And he likes me!

His warm hands stroked me up and down. Up and down. Stroking at my hairs until I was ready to custard myself.

I wiggled, needing more.

Oh, baby. Oh monster. This is soooo good! Harder! Faster!

But Maximus stopped moving his magical hands and stared down at me. “Did you just call me a monster?”

Yeah, baby, but it doesn’t matter. I’m not prejudiced. Let’s fuck. I need the big, fat wiggly inside me. Come to mama.

“I’m not a monster.” He sounded strange, like he’d already sucked the rhubarb and it had roughed up his throat.

This is the thing you’re focusing on? How about you and me? You inside me. You moaning like a rhubarb as I take you down the back of my throat. Me showing you my magic tongue.

“I am not a monster,” he reiterated, like I wasn’t all rhubarbed and ready to go stalk on him.

I frowned. Why are we talking about this when you could be riding the rhubarb?

“Because I’m not a monster. I’m a lion.” Now he sounded offended, and his lovely dick, which should have been filling me with whipped cream, deflated like my Aunt Thelma’s souffle.

I don’t have an Aunt Thelma or a souffle, but you get the idea.

I changed into my human form and plastered myself against his muscular body, hoping a little bit of the rhubarb magic would get us back on track. Oooh, he’s so hard . I was so ready to go full trifle over him now! Instead, he stepped back, picked up my clothes, and flung them at me.

“Thanks for the rhubarb, and…everything else.” Maximus looked really upset and pissed off.

What have I just done?

Then he shut the door in my face.

“Well, fuck.”

I was naked, frustrated as all rhubarb, and he didn’t even keep the sack I’d so gallantly nabbed for him.

I knocked at the door.

Nothing.

Although I could hear them whispering furiously inside. I poked at our mental link.

One big empty void.

I furrowed my brow. What in Great Rhu had I done to upset him?

It wasn’t like I’d acted any differently from normal. I mean, I know I’m Twirlie fabulous. How could I be in monster heaven one minute, and ready to ride him into the next fertile rhubarb patch… then booted out the door like a limp stalk the next?

When was a young stalk gonna catch a break?

“Hey, Twirlie, you forgot your pants when you went to visit the new neighbors, son.”

I looked over my shoulder to see Bart chortling at me. He was the eldest stalk in town. Kinda stringy, in my opinion, but he had a good heart. I plastered on a smile and waved at him. “You know me, Bart. Always eager to say hello.”

His snort-laugh turned into a hacking cough. I let him laugh his way down the street, then turned back to the door. I tapped at it again, but my mate didn’t open it and the whispering had died away.

Forlornly, I got dressed, promising my sad dick it would get its mate soon. I didn’t know what I’d done wrong. Maximus had sounded so happy when he announced we were mated. He’d said it was cool.

Then… he rejected me.

I sighed, giving it one more minute as I finished getting dressed before giving up. Leaving the bag of rhubarb by the door, I jogged down the stoop. I needed my alpha’s advice. I had to talk to Crimson. If anyone knew what I’d done wrong, it would be her.

Crimson smiled at me as I walked into the store. Thankfully, it was empty. I didn’t fancy trying to have this conversation in front of Glass and Red. I’d never live it down. Me, rejected by a monster. They’d laugh until their stalks split.

“Tim, I didn’t expect to see you back here.” Then she furrowed her brow. “What’s the matter, young stalk? What’s happened?”

I heaved myself up onto the counter. It’s where we always sat when we wanted to talk to Crimson. I drew my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them.

She patted my back. “Talk to me.”

“It’s the monster.”

“What’s he done? If he’s hurt you, we’ll run him out of town with the pitchforks.”

I stared at her wide-eyed, taken aback by her fierce tone. “Holy Rhubarb, Crimson! I want to have sex with him, not poke him full of holes.”

If anyone was doing the poking, it would be him doing that to me and he could poke away at any hole he liked. The problem was how to get that to happen.

She rolled her eyes. “That’s the trouble with you young stalks. You’re always thinking with your dick.”

And this was why I talked to Crimson and not my mom. We could have these conversations and she wouldn’t judge me… much.

“Yeah, well, my cock likes him a lot.”

“Your dick is super friendly,” she agreed. Nothing phased her. “And if he doesn’t like you, then you’ll find someone else. You always do. These things happen, sweetheart. One day you’ll find the right stalk for you, and bam, your stalking days are over.”

“You don’t understand. He does like me. I know he does. His dick is all ‘come to me, little stalk, and show me your custard’. It’s so happy to see me. I mean, you can’t miss it, Crimson. It’s huge.”

I held out my hands in the universal sign for ‘It’s this big’. I didn’t exaggerate that much.

“I get the idea,” she said hastily, blushing. I didn’t know she knew how to blush. “Then what’s the problem? I don’t understand.”

“We were doing the… uh… foreplay on his doorstep. I’m naked and wiggling in his hands. It was all going so well, Crimson. Then I called him a monster and, bam! I’m out of the soil! He shuts the door in my face and refuses to talk to me.” I buried my face in my knees, not wanting her to see how upset I was, but I guess I failed miserably because she rubbed my back in soothing circles.

“Monsters are strange creatures, sweetheart. You can’t expect them to think like rhubarb. Their bodies are so big, it wears out their brains. Are you sure you want to get stalky with a monster?”

I nodded into my knees. I could think of one part of my monster’s anatomy that was the perfect size. I wanted it inside me so badly. “He says he’s a lion.”

“That explains the big hair.”

I raised my head. “Wait, you know what a lion is?”

Crimson sighed. “Tim, there’s a big world outside of Valentine Growville, and it’s full of monsters. You’ve never been anywhere else.”

“Why would I want to leave town?”

I’d never gone beyond the town limits. There were some like Crimson, who had. Monsters came through here sometimes, though. I’d played hide the sausage with a lot of them. Then I sent them on their way. None of them stayed, and I never asked what they were. Why would I when I told no one we were rhubarb?

“We stay here because our town is perfect for us,” she said. “Why don’t you find out why your monster is here? Maybe he needs to find his perfect place, and that could be here. You should also encourage him to stay away from the c-r-u-m-b-l-e.”

I shivered. “What if he doesn’t want me… to talk to me now he knows I’m his mate.”

Crimson’s eyes bulged out of her head, and I put out my hands just in case I needed to catch them. “Mates!” she screeched, and I was sorry to say her eyes were on their own, when my ears were complaining at the noise.

“Didn’t I say that?” I asked, keeping my ears covered, not taking any chances when the eyes were back to bulging.

“No!”

“Oh… I thought it was a given with how much I want him.”

She gave me a knowing look. “Twirlie… sometimes! You just…you really beat the stalk.”

I bit my lip. “You think I should try again, then?”

She fixed me with a steady gaze that seemed to bore straight to my heart. “You won’t be able to stay away from him, young Twirlie. If he’s your mate, then you won’t have a Great Rhu chance in pie against the draw.”

I gasped, sighed, and sagged on the counter. “Then how is a little stalk like me supposed to catch a lion?”

“He’s not the stalk I would have picked for you, but that’s the way the rhubarb strings. You’ll have to get jiggy with the lion real soon. You know what happens if you don’t.”

“You don’t mean—”

“I do.”

I clapped my hands over my mouth. No one wanted a wilted piece of rhubarb… no one!