“So, heightened libido, sleep patterns are off, and you’re sweating. Anything else?”
My sons, Goddess love them, were simultaneously charging toward manhood and clinging to their childhoods with tenacious fingers. “Does an increasingly laissez faire attitude about parenting count?”
That elicited a chuckle. “Actually, yes. It’s not uncommon to care less about clean toilets and getting dinner on the table and more about pursuing whatever makes you happy.” She returned to reading through my records. I distracted myself by longing for her saffron curls instead of my dull brown waves. I’d run out of argan oil, and my hair was suffering. “Let’s do a PAP test while you’re here and a full work-up for STDs.”
“Ready for the sexy robe.” I undressed and waited, wobbly on the inside from the whiplash-quick switch from picking baby names to cursing my hormones, and scratched at the tattoo inked directly over my left ovary. Doug, my vexatious ex, had talked me into getting matching designs after our second son was born. Once the divorce was finalized, I had considered getting the tattoo done over so the original design was unrecognizable. Now, I just wanted it off. The ink might have faded, but its presence was a sore reminder of someone I no longer loved.
Or even liked.
Dr. Renard returned, warmed her hands at the sink, dried them on paper towels, and settled herself at the side of the table. “Are you doing regular self-exams?” she asked, lifting the gown and palpating the area around my breasts. When she moved the modesty sheet covering the lower half of my body, she sucked in a quick breath. “Anything you want to tell me?”
The flush blooming across my chest was hidden by a yard of hospital-blue polyester blend.
“You mean about the bruises?” The werecougar and I had tried the dating thing again, but it was clear the only thing we had going was mutual horniness. As much as I liked sex and wanted a steady lover, I wanted more than a well-endowed fuck buddy.
Dr. Renard leaned her hip against the side of the table and removed her glasses, tucking the sheet snug against my outer leg. “Those are more than bruises on your thighs, Calliope.” She tapped the eyepiece against her chin before sitting the glasses back on her nose. “Did your date have…”
“Claws?” I dove in. I trusted Dr. Renard—plus, the pentacle she was wearing had started to glow green—and the day couldn’t get any weirder than admitting your date had a hard time controlling his ability to shift while in the throes of arousal.
“Yes, for starters,” she said.
“Those marks are a physical record of my dalliance with an enthusiastic…” I faltered.
The look in her eyes was still kind and very direct. “Shifter?”
The tension along my spine released into the Naugahyde cushion. Shifter sounded so very normal when spoken aloud in a clinical setting. I nodded.
“I only pry if I suspect there’s been any kind of abuse, Calliope.” She made a point of continuing to stare at me.
“No abuse,” I assured her. “Just an abundance of arms and legs maneuvering in a very tight space. Electric cars weren’t designed for making out.”
She chuckled, patted the unblemished section of my leg, and moved to the foot of the table, opening and closing drawers and snapping on a pair of exam gloves. “Tell me, what rituals does your coven use to welcome their members into menopause?”
“What do you mean?” Her question startled me out of my pre-exam disassociation. Two of my fingers were firmly wedged in a knot of fabric, and now I had to consciously relax the muscles in my hands and unstick my knees.
“You know, rituals that mark the milestones in your life? First menstrual period, being accepted into a coven, giving birth? You’ve had all of those, right? And you’re going to feel the speculum, there…can you tilt your pelvis slightly? Yes, good, okay.”
I clung to my breathe-in, breathe-out mantra during the rest of the exam. Coven? I’d been without a formal education in the magical arts since my mother’s death left me in her sister’s care. My aunt was a good ten years older than my mom, and apart from the loss, my childhood had been rather unremarkable. The trauma of losing my only known parent had given way to a bland and predictable routine. Passable for a young girl in a family with low expectations and less than optimal for a budding witch.
“Now that I think of it,” I started, “I can’t recall a single ceremony aside from birthday parties. And I’ve never belonged to a coven.”
Dr. Renard stood and removed the disposable gloves. “Scoot back and then you can sit up.”
I used the small sheet to wipe the excess gel from between my upper thighs before pivoting my legs to the side. I offered up both inner elbows for Dr. Renard’s inspection and looked away as she drew three vials of blood. When she finished, she opened the door and called for her assistant.
“Rachel, can you please send Calliope’s samples to the Grand St. Kitts lab in Vancouver? Thanks.” She closed the door, hooked her foot around the rolling stool, and pulled up close. “If you’re truly at the start of menopause, there are specific ceremonies you must participate in to advance your magical abilities before your moon blood stops for good.”
The hot fingers poking through my belly slid to the back of my neck, dropping fiery bits of slag along my hairline. “What do you mean? And how do you know?”
“Has no one talked to you about this?”
I shook my head, choking down the bubble of loss threatening to rise and burst. “My mother died when I was six. Her older sister raised me. I’m a witch, like my mom, but my magic is...” I turned my hands and studied both palms, as though I was a fortune teller and all the answers lay somewhere between my thumb mounds and a lifetime’s accumulation of forked lines.
