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The (Un)Usual Business

Part 1

For Dreixes

By Draconicon

Alicia was busy getting the kitchen cleaned from her breakfast of toast and grains when her daughter came running down the hall and past the fridge. The secretary bird barely had time to turn around before Felicia had pulled a container of granola and yogurt from the fridge, and had barely parted her beak before her daughter was at the front door.

"Felicia!"

"What?! I'm late!"

"Head-dress, dear."

"Ugh...Thanks!"

The white-feathered bird yanked her black cloth headdress off the wall, pulling it over her head. It was little more than a cap with a drape that went down the back, but it was enough to keep the expressive head-feathers they shared out of sight. No need to give the boys an easier way to read the young woman than they already had.

With a flash of the lighter 'scales' along her slender legs, Felicia was out the door and running for the bus stop. Alicia shook her head, going back to wiping down the counters. The whole place needed a cleaning before her 'all the gals' group got together in the afternoon, but the kitchen needed it worst, particularly since both Frankie and Felicia hadn't bothered to do any cleaning the night before.

Her husband hadn't even showed his face yet, for that matter. She glanced towards the stairs behind her, then at the clock over the stove. 10:30 already, and no sign of him. He was going to be late for meeting his latest intern...whoever this one was.

Other women might have been a bit concerned about their husbands seeing various interns as part of their work day, but Alicia wasn't too concerned about that. Not so much from feeling completely comfortable in her relationship with her husband, she had to admit, but more from the fact that the interns were all men. She had yet to see one that was feminine in the slightest, and she imagined that was intentional with her husband's company. Harder to have a sexual harassment suit if one didn't hire a woman under a man in the first place.

Of course, she supposed that her husband could be gay. There was enough of a lack of action in the bedroom lately, but she didn't feel that was the problem. Frankie had always been a bit lackluster there, barely present enough to get her pregnant with her daughter the first time around. After that, he had had his fun, but...

Well, she had never married him for his body, it was fair enough to say.

The white-feathered, dark-eyed mother of the family hummed to herself as she continued her cleaning duties. It didn't take long before the various bits of crumbs on the counters were gone, and she swished her tailfeathers slightly as she walked around the kitchen, sweeping up the little bits and pieces that had managed to slide away from her wipes and napkins.

She was just starting to break out the vacuum when she finally heard Frankie moving around upstairs. Alicia waited, knowing that he was either going to run to the bathroom for the shower or try and zip out the door, and sure enough, he went for the latter.

As the gray goose came down the steps, she moved to intercept. Quick, stalking steps took her right to the staircase, and she was able to intercept her husband with one feathered arm, holding him back from running to the front door.

"Leaving so late?"

"I'm already late, can't be later."

"Meeting Adrian?"

"No, no, that was last week's intern. This one's...Ugh, can't remember, but it started with a B. You haven't met him."

She hadn't met any of them, save through the stories of complaints that Frankie liked to tell at the end of the day. They never came to the house, and she was never invited out to meet them. The only reason that she knew that he was telling the truth was because her daughter was able to confirm it from time to time, and because she had seen a few friends that had run into them while out and about.

Though, considering who the friends were...

She pulled her arm back, and Frankie continued his tirade about how late he was, how he needed to get to work, and she needed to make sure that he got up earlier the next day. The plump goose groaned as he dragged his arms into his jacket, and she mouthed along with him the sort of irritations that he had, how the jacket must have shrunk, how none of his clothes fit him, that they must have been exchanged at the dry-cleaning service, and more.

She had heard them all before. For that matter, she heard them every morning when he was getting ready for work, and had for the last three years. He had been slowly becoming more corpulent as the years went on, and that hadn't helped them in the bedroom at all. The fact that his dick was gradually disappearing into his body as he grew out rather than up meant that there was less and less for them to enjoy together, and the fact that he got so tired out didn't help, either.

In the end, she supposed, she would have to start breaking out some of the toys that she still had from back then. If those still worked, too, that was. She might have to go to a toy store...

The secretary bird shook her head as her husband darted out without so much as a 'goodbye,' and sighed as she walked back to the vacuum. It was going to be another one of those days, but she was used to that.

She stopped in front of the mirror, looking at herself. Holding the vacuum in one hand, she looked like a housewife, albeit one that had been good to herself. She had taken very good care to make sure that the figure that she'd built up during her time at college hadn't faded over the years, and while she had a few little wrinkles around her eyes under the feathers, her body was still taut and tight, firm and strong.

Frankie might not be able to get it up anymore, but I know what he's missing, she thought, looking at herself in the mirror and putting her hand on her hip. She still had the looks that had drawn the men to her in her old days, though they had ripened further than they were before. Her breasts were big enough that they overflowed from average clothes, forcing her to buy more specialized garments, and her hips were wide enough to make everyone think that she had laid more clutches than she had. She had the curves to clear a room if she needed to, but that was seldom enough with the crowd she kept these days. Maybe with the pool cleaner that they'd had some time back, but not anyone else that came to visit.

Frankie might not appreciate it these days, but she could appreciate herself, and her memories of the old days helped with that.

Alicia took a moment to remember those days. Her hips swaying as she walked across the floor, her eyes flicking from staring face to leering eyes, knowing that every eye in the room was on her. She remembered how they had wanted to eat her up with those eyes, how the short skirt that she wore would be thrown aside at a moment's notice, how she could end up over a table or on a pole with no warning whatsoever.

Every eye in the house had wanted her, and the body that had claimed that attention was still there in the mirror now.

The secretary bird smiled to herself as she remembered that attention, then let the smile fade. She had put that life behind her, and she doubted that sort of affection and attention was ever coming back. And perhaps that was a good thing, considering the sheer wildness of it. She could lose herself in those nights, push herself so far that she never left to go and get some sleep, and she would end up wrecked for days afterwards.

Yet, at the same time, the raw desire from so many was something that she missed...

Sighing, she flicked the vacuum cleaner on, using the droning whine of the machine to push the memories out of her head and let her focus on the here and now. The other girls would be here in a few hours, and she had a whole house to clean.

A house I bought and he supports, she thought, trying not to be too unkind with her thoughts. We still fit together, even if it's not as good as it used to be...

That part, she couldn't quite make herself believe.

#

The hours came and went, and soon, the afternoon was upon her. She knew that half of the girls would cancel, considering that they had their own lives these days and could no longer drop everything the way that they could have done while they were in college. The twenty-somethings didn't know how easy their schedule was in comparison, she supposed, but then again, the forty-somethings so often forgot how hard it was in other ways.

Getting the usual cancellations plus a few more - the group was down to no more than a steady number of six, these days, back when they used to meet up in numbers of twelve to twenty - she changed the place settings, putting two back so that they had enough for the four that were going to show up. She sat down at one, folding her hands over her lap and looking down at the plate.

There was nothing there, of course, but it was a good place to center her thoughts. With the recent cancellations, it was another reminder that there was very little of her life that belonged to her anymore. The house was what she put most of her energy into, but her friends had kept her connected with the world out there, with the people that she used to know. With so many of them dropping out, it was becoming harder and harder to fool herself.

I need a hobby, she thought, sighing over her plate as she sat up straight. I'm going to go crazy here, and I don't want to go crazy. I'm too young for that.

Too young. She was in her forties, now, and that was definitely far from 'too young.' Alicia chuckled to herself, shaking her head as she adjusted her headdress again, pulling the feather or two that had popped out back into place. The little spikes of anger made it hard for her to keep it where it was supposed to be, and she didn't need anyone knowing that she was more annoyed than even she completely understood.

Besides, there were ways to feel happy and connected again. This party would be a start, and if she remembered, she would make sure to ask the girls what sort of things they were doing. Perhaps she could network through them again, much as she had in the past.

Ding, dong.

Alicia got to her feet, long legs carrying her from the table to the front door. She knew who was here first; it was always Diana, always the cougar.

"Darling!" the older feline said as the door opened, the cat in a leopard-print dress stepping inside and giving her a hug, one that Alicia happily returned. "It's been too long. A week is like a month without you."

"Lovely to see you too, dear," she said, chuckling softly. "I see you left the kids behind today."

"Oh, they would have been underfoot, and you deal with enough of the childcare duties with the munchkins the others brought along. I tell you, you made the best decision, having them young."

Diana had always been one of the more honest of the bunch, never afraid to let loose with a comment about the others. Alicia was sure that she'd come under fire more than once when she wasn't in the room, but at least Diana never denied saying what she did, and backed it up with her version of facts if she was ever confronted on it.

They walked back to the dining table, and while the cougar sat down, Alicia walked to the fridge.

"I have some prosciutto and cheese, if you'd like a snack before the rest arrive."

"Oh, darling, you have no idea what a treat that would be. Yes, please."

"Have you been well?" she asked as she pulled the platter of food free. "I haven't heard much from you unless you're visiting."

"You know how it is. Dealing with all the college girls these days," Diana muttered. "Not like when we were in school, you know. They're so much more..."

"Blunt?"

"Abrupt. And with no class, or style. Ugh. The only ones that have it are working the old jobs."

"Ah, the Club's still there, hmm?" Alicia asked, chuckling as she turned around. "I'm surprised old Hawthwaite's is still standing."

"Honey, they could drive a fleet of steamrollers at the club and I'm sure that it would just send them flying backwards. You remember how strange it was."

"Strange...and exciting."

"Oh, yes, weren't those the days?"

"And nights," Alicia said, delivering the platter to the table. "Here you are."

"You are a godsend, dear."

They fell to silence as they nibbled at the food, with Alicia keeping more to the cheese and the cougar keeping more to the meat. They were quiet as they savored the food, neither wishing to bother the other and keep them from satisfying their hunger. They were civilized, after all, though it was a thin veneer for them both.

Alicia knew what the other was thinking about, for she was thinking of the same things. Hawthwaites was where she had owned the room, but Diana had been a close second. The two of them had been among the top girls of the club for nearly a decade, and while there had been wobbles between them, moments where clients had nearly been able to rip them apart, it had never come down to losing their friendship.

The secretary bird remembered the day that she'd left rather sadly. It had been because of Frankie, of course. Her husband had met her there, though he hadn't remembered that when they went on their dates. Part of the strangeness of the Hawthwaites Society had been that nobody that found a girl outside of the club could recognize that she worked there, unless they were able to put a name to her at the society itself. Most girls were very careful with their name as a result, too.

She had never gone that in-depth with him about her job at the Society, but once he knew who she was there - and they had gone over that, just to be fair about things - things had started changing. They had never had a closed relationship, exactly, but he went from being comfortable about her being with other men - and women, and everything in-between - to being rather uncomfortable with it. Despite her dancing for him more than anyone else, and despite him still going to the club, she'd quit for him.

And...well, it hadn't really given her anything, she supposed. He had continued going to the club, she'd taken care of the house, but as far as she knew, he hadn't cheated on her. That was probably the best that she could expect.

Alicia finished another slice of cheese, remembering the day that she'd taken a man, wife, and brother in law to a back room and shown them the real pleasures of a Hawthwaites girl, only for Diana to lift her phone and sigh. The secretary bird cocked her head to the side.

"Problem?"

"Just another girl that's having difficulties. She joined the society earlier this year, but she doesn't seem to understand that we have no power over the rules there. Anything that happens on her job is her problem."

"To be fair, it took us some time to learn that, too."

"Oh, I know, but you'd think with as many girls as we've sent there, they'd know from our stories."

Alicia slowly cocked her head to the side, the bird folding her arms over her side of the table.

"Would you mind explaining that, dear?"

The tone of her voice had changed, and Diana could obviously hear it. The cougar looked up from her food with confusion.

"What do you mean?"

"The implication that one of us might have sent a child to our old job. After all, Hawthwaites is certainly exciting, but it isn't meant for someone ill-informed. Considering the protestors outside the campus just last year, I cannot imagine that they would be handing out pamphlets these days."

"...Forget I said anything, dear."

"Diana -"

"Please, just forget," the cougar said, taking her hand and giving it a squeeze. "You know the rules as well as I. I can't just say something."

And it wasn't that she wouldn't, but because she couldn't. Her hands were tied by more than the legal rules.

Worse, however, were the implications. If she had heard and understood Diana right, that meant that there was a possibility of some of their little group's children going to the Society, finding jobs and following their paths. Normally, she would not have a problem with someone taking that road in life. After all, she had done so and she had come through it just fine, if a little...unsatisfied with the average life.

However, someone that wasn't ready for that level of attention, the thrill that came with anonymity...

Ding, dong.

"Saved by the bell," Diana said, getting to her feet. "I'll let them in, shall I?"

"Yes, but we're -"

"Yes, yes, dear. I understand."

...And now I have to make sure that you don't slide away at the end of our luncheon, you sneaky little thing...

#

When the ladies left, Diana was the first to sneak out, and unsurprisingly so, considering the way that their conversation had turned towards the end. The fact that the cougar had not brought any children with her had made it easier for her to disappear while the others were collecting their hatchlings and cubs, and there was nothing for it.

Alicia debated giving her a call, but she doubted that she'd get any more information than she already had. The cougar worked in admissions for the local university, and while she was bound by confidentiality she still often shared little tidbits for the girls, but when it came to Hawthwaites...

The secretary bird clicked her beak in annoyance, knowing why she was so concerned and not wanting to think about it. Her daughter was attending the same university that she had, and that meant that she was on the same campus as the Society. Nothing had been spoken of it since Alicia had left the establishment, and she doubted that her daughter even knew that she'd been one of the girls there.

That wasn't the problem. The problem was more that she was concerned that Felicia was seeing it as a shortcut forward rather than a thing to...enjoy. Hawthwaites advertised itself as a way for a girl to learn the skills in pleasing a man, in knowing how to bring attention to herself in the real world. What it didn't talk about was how addictive it was to behave the way that they trained.

Alicia could still remember how that had gone for her. She had never been precisely shy about her body, or what she would allow others to do to it, but what she had learned there was how to harness her body as a sexual weapon. She had learned how to walk, how to talk, how to smile, how to look up, or down, or say a thousand things with a wink. The old-style men's club might have been built to allow males to take the sort of pleasure that they wanted, but a smart female could learn how to weaponize those skills in the real world.

As she sat there at the over-full table, looking down at the dirty plates, she remembered how she felt there, and how hard it had been to leave. There, with anonymity on her side, she had been able to rule the roost. She could strut out and have men in a bidding war for her company in seconds. She could do nothing more than a hip-check, and suddenly the room was quiet. She could stare down a CEO, and he would beg her to be on his table, dancing and spreading her legs for him to stare at.

It was an addictive power, and a more seductive sensation, to be wanted like that. The club encouraged it, trained you to do more and more extreme things to get that attention and hold it. She remembered how easy it was to go from teasing handjobs to under the table blowjobs, and then being fucked across the top of it.

And that had been going in, knowing what she was getting into. The seduction had still nearly swept her off her feet. If Felicia was undergoing the same thing...

She shook her head. Diana could have easily meant the other girls and their kids, she supposed. The comment shouldn't have been made in the first place, but it was vaguely more understandable if she meant that the other girls were sending their older kids to the Society to continue on with the legacy. Alicia could almost believe that...

Almost. If she hadn't been the one to have a kid first. If there weren't too few others to send their kids to high school yet, let alone university.

She couldn't mean Felicia, though...

Alicia got up from the table, leaving the dirty dishes behind. If there was need, she could call a maid to deal with them, but for now, she needed to pace, she needed to think. The bird moved from one place to another in the house, tapping her talons as she went.

Up the stairs and down, along the hallway and back. Back up the stairs and then along the upstairs hallway, always with one hand pressed against the end of her beak.

She could tell that she wasn't annoyed at her daughter for being slutty. That, at least, she could be sure about. If - and she was still clinging to the 'if' there - her daughter was working at Hawthwaites, then it was no different to what she had been doing with her life at her age. There was nothing to be ashamed of.

No, it was more...more if she would turn out like some of the other girls, if she would get in over her head.

I might be worrying about nothing, she told herself as she walked into the bathroom, trying to busy herself with cleaning. If I can just...

She had gathered the trash can in one hand and was about to pull the bag inside free when she saw something sticking out of the side. Alicia paused, pulled it out and turned it around.

It was a bank statement, one that looked like it was addressed to Felicia. She cocked her head to the side, surprised that her daughter hadn't shredded it already, and flicked it open to look at the numbers, half-expecting to see that there were some unexpected expenses that the younger bird didn't want her or Frankie to know about.

Instead, she was surprised to see that there was much more income than expected. Alicia's eye-feathers rose higher and higher with each successive line.

"I should start charging her more rent..."

However, the half-joking line fell short as her eyes fell on the payment numbers. Not only were they all coming from different individuals - and not merely from different payment services, but from different individuals - but there were a couple of lines further down the statement that looked almost familiar.

The secretary bird traced the lines with a feathery finger, mouthing the numbers and random letters under her breath. She knew that combination, somehow, had read it before.

Where did I see that...

Alicia walked downstairs, going back to the drawer that she kept the various statements in for the accountants. Flicking open the one from last month, she drew her eyes across it until she found the exact number.

Frankie's company card...

She held the statements together, wanting to make sure she wasn't just seeing things. She even went so far as to hold them with one right under the other.

There was no doubt about it. The same account had paid both times, once into the family account for a business expense, once into Felicia's account for something else.

That wouldn't be so bad in and of itself. She'd seen him use his business account to pay off minor debts for the family, or pay them back for having to buy company dinners when they were not able to use the card directly. However, when she looked back at Felicia's statement again, the numbers didn't add up for that. These were direct payments of $300 each, and they matched with other $300 payments further up her bank statement.

That meant that either Felicia was borrowing the company card...or her husband was paying her daughter for some of the same things that other people were.

Something's wrong here...

She sat down at the table again, laying the two statements side by side and folding her arms under her breasts as she studied them. Her daughter's statement was the more crucial of the two, and she leaned in to go over the numbers.

There were regular payments, at least three a day, sometimes as much as six. Those were always going right into her account, and varied between two to six hundred. Alicia compared those numbers to what she was pulling in as a high-class member of the Society, and she supposed that the numbers were in the right range, at least once one accounted for inflation. Not a high-tier member, but not low, either. Probably getting by on her looks.

If she accepted that as proof, then it meant that her daughter was probably working short shifts at the Society, probably working under the guise of learning the ropes, fitting it in around her classes. That would make sense, and...it would keep her from getting too far into it, letting things get out of control.

Except for those payments from Frankie, that was.

The business card was attached to their account, and as far as she knew, there weren't any unexplained charges. She looked back at the main statement again, trying to place the dates for payments.

What were you doing those days, Frankie...

She remembered that he'd had meetings with an intern back then, and she knew for a fact that this one had been real; she'd seen him in the car, and Diana had even verified the fact that Frankie had spent the day with this guy, though she hadn't said where. She'd just said that they'd had dinner together while discussing business with some other men.

She could believe that, but it wasn't incompatible with Hawthwaites. She needed to dig a bit deeper.

The main thing that she noticed was that the dinner with interns payments lined up with a number of payments that were going to their daughter. If they were working the same days, going to the same place...

Alicia groaned, rubbing her face.

"What are you doing, Frankie? What kind of stunt are you pulling this time?"

It was at that moment that she realized how done she was with the goose's behavior. Alicia had known for a while that she was frustrated with him, that she wanted things to change, but she hadn't realized that she was this angry with him. Almost furious, in fact, and she shook her head as she pulled her hand down from her face.

She needed to find out if this was really happening or not, she supposed. If she didn't, then she would be worrying about it until it resolved, one way or the other. She couldn't just ask Felicia about it, either, as the pair of them had been gradually drifting apart ever since the younger bird had started university. If she approached her with this, then it would be squashed down, hidden, and she'd never have the chance to bring it up again.

And if she happened to be 'serving' her father...

He wouldn't know, she thought. He probably wouldn't know that he's paying for his daughter...

But if he did...

Alicia put her hands on the table, pushing herself to her feet. That had decided things. If her daughter was in that deep, then she needed to be checked before she was wrecked. If she wasn't in that deep, then mother and daughter needed a talk before it got worse.

And if she wasn't involved at all, and this was some strange coincidence, then she deserved to be in the know. Otherwise, she'd leap to conclusions like this.

Alicia grabbed her car keys, phoned the maid to come by and clean things up, and then started the short drive down to the university campus. This was going to be a very messy thing if she was right about what was going on...

#

Alicia arrived at the university grounds to find that things were in full swing. Though it was late in the afternoon, most of the students were still milling about. The secretary bird imagined that they were getting ready for their after-school clubs, or gathering together so that they could make the decision of what they'd do with their nights.

As she found a parking spot, she pulled in and stepped out. Almost immediately, those students that were in the parking lot turned to look at her, and no surprise, either. She'd dressed specifically to get attention.

After working so long at Hawthwaites and making sure to keep herself in shape - save for the growth of her hips, of course - she still had the body to fit into the best of her dresses. A little black number where the skirt technically went all the way down to her ankles, but had slits right up either side, running right up to her hips and leaving everything ready to be exposed at the slightest wind. Her breasts were pressed against the front of her dress, admittedly, but she didn't see a single male in the vicinity that minded seeing something so tight.

Her talons clicked on the pavement, gold rings and silver-backed jewels flashing as she walked across the parking lot. She strutted as much as a secretary bird could, which was to say, a lot.

There was something lovely in that stare, something that drew out the confidence that she realized she'd suppressed over the years. Frankie had never wanted to look at her like that after she left the club, and despite her best efforts to keep her own confidence alive, it had been too long since she had the eyes of others to tell her she still had it.

Her beak turned up slightly in smug self-satisfaction, and she threw some of the old moves into her walk. It turned the dress into a swaying thing, almost exposing her with every step, tantalizing the eye with gazes at her legs, her breasts bouncing to the point where they almost leaped out of her dress. Not a male eye - and not a bisexual woman's eye - could look away from her.

Yep...still got it.

She left the parking lot behind, taking the long, circling, meandering path around the university towards the ancient structure. Some legends told that the Society building had been there before the university had been built, while others said that it came into being at the same time. Others, mostly idiots, said that it was nothing more than a way to capture the glory of old days, built more recently.

Nobody believed those ones, but they were allowed their opinions.

On the way, she spotted other cars parked along the roads, and unsurprisingly, she spotted her husband's car. Frankie was in the area, at least, though who knew if he was actually at the Society.

She slowed down, taking time to turn her strut into something more...dominant. She lengthened her stride slightly, slowing the sway and leaning her head back a little, taking on a more severe, austere air. It not only looked more powerful, but felt it.

And so she walked, walked right up to the great wooden building that was the Hawthwaites Society, where girls went to learn to serve men.

The End