Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 6

it will not. My thoughts scatter as we remain in this embrace.
    It is the year 1900 and I am a Romanian Gypsy. My clan and I came to the United States shortly after my birth. We had been looking for a new country to live in where we would feel safe. My father often told me the stories of how we were ridiculed by the townspeople, treated like less than the curs on the street, even though they came to our shows, bought our wares, and waited in lines to have their fortunes told. A lot of the townsmen even slept with our women making them promises of a future only to treat them later as whores. My father told me that he had a friend who had moved to the U.S. and wrote of the great wealth and opportunities there. So we packed up our things, took the first ship out and never looked back.
    When we arrived in the States my father and his family met up with another troop of gypsies and we joined with them. Upstate New York was where we met Queen Elena Milosevchi so it is here where we stay during the spring and summer months. During the harsh winter months we travel to the southern states; South Carolina and Georgia. That is where we found Thomas or should I say; Thomas found us. He stumbled upon our caravan one night, right after our last performance, looking for a job and never left.
    We are circus performers, magicians, jewelry makers, animal trainers and fortune-tellers; only the good people who come to our shows do not know of the secrets that we carry. As gypsies we have made our living through our magic and animal shows. Where else can someone see jaguars, lions and Siberian tigers living under one roof in perfect harmony? Of course the foolish humans have no idea that the animals are actually us in our animal forms. It is better that they don't.
    I come from a long line of gypsy lion shifters, the last of our prides from the old country. Thomas is a lion as well. Queen Elena is a jaguar, and in her effort to be the alpha of all the prides, she wants us to combine our races. That is where I come in and the news that I now have to bestow upon my lover. I have never thought Elena to be entirely sane; I am not even sure why we call her Queen other than she said she comes from royalty. But she is a very powerful sorceress, and to go against her will could mean death. We have lost a few foolish pride members over the years for their insubordination.
    I realize I have been mentally somewhere else, and I must not dwell on such things, taking away my attention from him, when he breaks the embrace first.
    "My soon-to-be birthday boy, I thought I would never see you today– all I can think about is midnight and what I have planned for you."
    His face breaks out into a cheeky grin as he wiggles his eyebrows at me, turning my insides to mush. He then grabs me and I find myself in his arms again.
    He begins kissing up my neck and across my lips, I groan allowing his tongue entrance. He is the only man I have ever been with. From the moment we laid eyes on each other, I knew that those feelings I have been hiding in my heart for so long were true. I am attracted to men, they make me feel things no woman ever has, and though I am still young and relatively inexperienced I know after this time spent with Thomas those feelings will never change.
    Our kiss becomes more aggressive; I give him what he and I both desperately need, to touch freely of each other's bodies, hidden out here from the others by what we have come to call "our" lake. He removes my suspenders, blue pin striped shirt and undershirt, then he runs his hands across my chest causing me to shudder. I know that I will totally submit to him because I trust him completely. The need to have him inside me is evident in the rushed way I fumble with his suspenders, then his shirt, and I know he wants me as desperately as we both go for each other's pants, never breaking the kiss.
    At last we are naked, and I stop long enough to appreciate the beauty of this man. He wears his hair in the old style, long to his shoulders, its thickness and blond color so like the mane of his lion. My fingers cannot resist twining through it as he takes me again in an all-consuming kiss. He pushes me gently onto the blanket I have laid down for us, crawling seductively over the top of my body, just like the predatory lion he is. He whispers words of encouragement and love as he surrounds me with his strength. He also begins laughing, which shocks me.
    "Were you planning on this happening?" he