Chapter Text
The Hawkins Post
SCANDAL IN GOVERNORS SQUARE – It is with sad hearts, that Mr. & Mrs. Douglas Harrington end the engagement between their son, Steven (o) and Nancy (a) daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Wheeler, as he is better known, ‘ the Ore Monger ’. Mr. Harrington’s sizable dowry of $20,000 dollars would make him the dear heart of any alpha, but the expansion of the Liberty Rail Line into the western front and the increased demand for iron ore made the expected union a perfect match on all accounts. Ms Wheeler unexpectedly married Mr. Jonathan Byers (b) in a small ceremony in Shelbyville last Saturday with few witnesses. One is tempted to wonder whether the speed with which the new Mrs Wheeler wed was to cover up some indiscretion; or could it be perhaps that not all that glitters is truly gold? Mr. Harrington’s skill on the track is well celebrated, but there are few alphas who wouldn’t be intimidated by such a fast omega.
“Oh he is ruined Alpha. However will we bear the scrutiny?” Douglas Harrington’s mate moaned from her morning chair, where she always took her breakfast at exactly half past eight. Nora’s coffee along with her scones had gone cold, untouched, but the morning paper lay across her lap, clutched like a security blanket in one white knuckled hand while the other lay across her trembling brow. She was a perfect picture of despair.
Douglas lowered the congressional sheet he himself was reading to glare at the steaming dish of sausages not far from his plate. He would very much have liked to be glaring at Theodore Wheeler, and demand to know how the other alpha could have allowed something like this to happen, but alas.
“Surely you exaggerate,” he growled, spearing himself a sausage off the serving platter with aggression. “It was not our son who broke faith with the betrothal and ran off with a penniless writer.”
“Alpha, there are a great many things you know about industry, but a deal can be just as easily killed as made within the ballrooms of society as without. After this bungle we both must concede that I am the one best able to navigate these waters and ensure our family remains in good standing. They’re calling him fast , Douglas.” His mate retorted and the alpha winced. His wife only ever called him by his given name when she was particularly peeved and on the verge of one of her fits of stubborn hysteria. The woman could drain the joy out of an entire day and cause a headache to make thoughts of peace a distant memory.
He scowled. Nora hadn’t wanted to betroth the boy so young of course, but Douglas hadn’t seen a point in waiting after Steven had presented. What would happen if the boy grew and then was seduced or swindled by some black tongued spendthrift who would lay waste to all that Douglas had built? With all of his hopes for the company’s future already dashed by Steven’s disappointing biology, the important thing had been securing the boy’s future, surely.
Douglas had settled him with a considerable dowry and entailed the family land as well as the company to Steven’s first born alpha child. In the event of his own untimely death he’d secured an agent to handle his estate to discourage the boldest of the fortune hunters. The alpha had even quite generously selected an alpha of Steven’s own age whom he would have plenty of time to grow with, from a prosperous family whose enterprise would increase their own. And Steven had adored the girl and she him! All had been well, just like the damned society sheet had said. A perfect match.
Until suddenly she was running off with a penniless beta of no standing and all Steven would say about the matter was that she didn’t love him and had decided to follow her heart. Bah! Nora was convinced that Steven had let her ‘sample the milk’ and the girl had moved on to a more challenging conquest, but Douglas thought it was more likely that she’d simply realized what a spoiled and stubborn little fool the boy was (like his mother) and had made good her escape.
“Don’t take that tone with me Omega. The boy was perfectly situated. All he had to do was make himself appear agreeable. It was you who let him have his way about the damned racing.”
“Racing is a perfectly respectable sport Douglas. Everyone of good society enjoys it.” Nora huffed, stubborn as usual. It was a pity he had not known of this side to his disposition before the wedding. He was sure the boy had inherited her temperament.
“It is respectable for alphas,” he pointed out what should have been obvious to anyone with two wits to rub together. “But how does it look, an omega gallivanting across the state barely chaperoned, rubbing elbows with all manner of rough ilk? It’s just not done, Nora. Surely you see that now.”
But any hope Douglas had of his omega becoming suddenly reasonable was dashed as his wife sat up in her chair, her face set for battle as she turned on him. She drew in a deep breath, no doubt to start screeching. But before she could a cheerful voice interrupted and their son waltzed into the room.
“I see I am being talked about again.” The couple turned as one to watch Steven pause at the table and pluck a strawberry from the bowl of fruit that had been laid out with breakfast, his riding boots clunking inelegantly against the polished floors, but not even Douglas could say he didn’t cut a fine figure in them. Tall, broad of shoulder, and well muscled for an omega, Steven was a strapping young man by anyone’s standards, and well did he know it.
“Of course you’re being talked about. You’ve been jilted Steven!” Nora cried, once more reminded of her despair. Steven did not appear at all bothered by his mother’s swooning, not that the silly boy ever seemed to pause long enough to take anything seriously.
“I’d have to have gotten to the alter first to be jilted mother. I think the phrase you’re looking for is thrown over.” He said as he came around to his mothers chair near the window and pressed a kiss to her cheek as if it were any other fine morning, and all of society wasn’t currently buzzing with gossip about what faults he may be hiding for such a sure match to fall through.
“You’d do well to wipe that smirk off your face. This is no laughing matter.” Douglas griped, irritated (as usual) by his only son’s lack of seriousness. He could not remember being so frivolous or gay at that age. Building upon the success of his own father had required a level head and sacrifice. He did not think Steven had ever had to sacrifice so much as wearing the same pair of gloves twice in a week.
“And what the the devil are you wearing? You look like a common tart!”
“This is what the men are wearing to ride these days Alpha, it is fashionable.”Steven retorted, removing the fine cotton gloves Douglas couldn’t help but glare at and clapping them against the side of his offending white trousers in irritation. The tightly fitting material emphasized the tone and length of his legs before showing off the strength in his calves where they tucked into his riding boots. He’d obviously forgone a corset and the option of a decorated bodice that would have given him a more shapely waist, in favor of a short tan waistcoat that along with his navy tail coat instead drew the eye to his shoulders and chest, both kept well defined by his sport.
All of which would be fine, were he an alpha. But he was not. Steven would always be a step behind more desirable female omegas, but male omegas had their tricks and their ways to boost what feminine assets nature had seen fit to give them. Steven was quite pretty when he put an effort in, so Douglas could not fathom why he insisted on emphasizing his masculine flaws.
“Those pants are entirely too form fitting for an omega.” Douglas insisted, his lip curling with distaste. It irked him to see Steven so apathetic to his situation so he dug in, where he knew it would wound and shock a response from behind that mask of practiced boredom. “Have you learned nothing, losing an alpha to a beta of such low caliber?”
Steven’s hand twitched at his side and his face paled. He pressed his lips together, biting at them for a moment before he replied, stiffer than a board. “Jonathan is a good person and better suited to give Ms Wheeler the life she desires. I am happy for them both.”
Douglas barked a laugh. Of all the omegan nonsense he’d ever heard, that one took the cake. Steven would have to become a far better actor before he could sell that line and make it believable!
“Oh leave him be Douglas. Though I dare say the housemaids will be useless for hours.” Nora turned to pout at Steven, reaching to give the boy’s hand a pat. She was always spoiling him. “Do try not to be under foot today dearest or the place will be a shambles by supper.”
“As long as he doesn’t go riding that bloody horse.” Douglas grumbled. It was up to him to handle this it seemed, to clean up the awful mess the boy had made of his future and that of the business. “There will be no more racing –”
“Father!”
“It is time you were mated boy, married and settled. No more of this gallivanting about as if you were an alpha. And I shall not hear another word about it!” Douglas thundered over Steven’s protest. The boy looked ready to argue, but Nora grasped his sleeve and discouraged him with a shake of her head and a soft omegan coo to settle the rising tempers in the room.
“It’s for the best darling, you’ll see. The sooner you are settled talk will die down. And think of it, you’ll have your own stable full of fine horses to ride, along with a house to manage.”
But rather than comfort the ungrateful pup, Steve made a disparaging sound and pulled his arm from his mother’s grasp with an unnecessarily put upon sigh.
“Oh yes, a stable full of horses that I may be forbidden to ride and a big empty house to rattle around in while I try and keep my alpha from making a fool of me with every parlor maid and kitchen boy with a fair enough form.” Steven’s gaze landed on Douglas with a sharpness, the contempt in them hidden behind no veils or veneers of politeness and the alpha inwardly flinched. He resented the reaction, as well as the boy’s judgement. His mate’s pointed silence was deafening.
What did either of them know about it? Alphas had needs that did not simply end because their mates deigned to have a headache as often as they chose to be one.
“Yes well, from what I hear Steven you know a thing or two about how to keep a bed warm.” Douglas sneered, turning back to his paper and his coffee. “Heaven only knows where you learned that .” It certainly wasn’t his mother.
Nora, cold as ever, did not respond to the jibe. Not so much as a whiff of omega distress did those frozen veins of hers pump out as she patted Steven’s hand again and murmured, “Your father can’t be faulted for trying his best, but we’ll do it now the way we always should have done. I’ll put together a list of potential suitors dear and you can have your pick of the litter. Never you worry.”
~*~*~*~
Max Mayfield woke before the roosters crow and smiled with glee. She loved Saturdays more than any other day of the week. Loved them even more than Christmas and birthdays, because a Saturday could be counted on to end the dismal deluge of chores. Sunday was the sabbath (bleh) which meant she had to spend long hours in church where she was expected to sit still and stay awake for boring Pastor Hanes sermons, but Saturday was town day, when the errands were run. All of the farmers in the county congregated on the main street to do their shopping, visit the blacksmith, or see the doctor, and any other thing that had to take a back seat to their animals and their crops the rest of the week.
For ten-year-old Max that meant a chance to see her friends without parents, their siblings, or schoolmarms underfoot. That particular Saturday Max was more eager than usual to reach town because Dustin’s mother worked in the postal office, and he’d told her at school the day before that a Mission Matrimony letter had come through the pony express, addressed to William Hargrove of Promised Land California.
Unfortunately he’d not been able to snatch it before it was sorted into the letter boxes, so Max had to retrieve the mail and abscond with the letter before her brother cottoned on to what she was up to. What she was up to was a mission of the utmost difficulty and the highest importance. She was out to save her home, herself, and her brother from a life of self imposed misery.
The issues around the farm were plenty, but would sort themselves out rightly enough once Billy was able to beef up the herd and pay off the remainder of his father’s debt. Most of his time and money right now went towards tending Mr. Vecna’s herd, the high fees Mr. Vecna charged so that their animals could graze on his lands before the drive to market, and compensating their neighbors for minding her when he had to be away.
Once Billy had a mate, there would be someone around to help with the day to day running of things. Billy wouldn’t need to worry about paying someone to mind her and could use the money instead to cultivate their own land and start fixing all the things his daddy broke before he finally kicked the bucket. And once he had a mate to make him happy and allow him to fulfill his dreams for the ranch, there would be no more talk about how it was too much for a single man alone to mind a little girl, and sending her to live with her aunt in Boston who had six children already, four of them under eight whom she wrote she was in dire need of help minding.
Max had only met her aunt Sarah once, when she’d come out west after Max’s father had been gone (presumed dead) for over a month. She’d had a very pointed chin and had kept a handkerchief to her nose the entire time she was in the room Max and her ma had been renting above the saloon. Ma had been hoping that her sister would agree to let them go back east with her, but Sarah had only seemed interested in lording it over ma that Max’s daddy was no good and that they didn’t even have a house to live in. She’d wanted Max’s ma to beg her for help, she could tell, and they’d been desperate enough that maybe she might have got around to it, if ma hadn’t met Neil Hargrove with his stiff mustache and one hundred and sixty acres of land at church that very Sunday.
Billy could be a right pill at the best of times, but she knew she’d rather put up with another ten years of his darkest moods than spend five minutes in the company of her sanctimonious aunt and her brood of (no doubt) drippy nosed and ill mannered pups. But Billy was a young man still. He’d had his whole life ahead of him when his father Neil had been killed, leaving Max and her mother destitute. He could have sold the land and washed his hands of them, but he hadn’t.
He’d buckled in to try and salvage the mess Neil had made of the finances, and for awhile before her Ma got sick they’d been doing okay. But after paying for the doctor and the medicine to mind her they’d fallen behind, and now with her gone there was less help and no one to mind Max. They were barely squeaking by, and he grew more frustrated and sad as the months became a year, and then two, now going on four.
She’d overheard him talking with Mr. Argyle about how her aunt had written him again, wanting him to send her out east. He hadn’t said anything to her about it, but she knew. It was only a matter of time before he gave up and sent her away.
She’d run to the unfinished clubhouse to cry, and when her friends found her there they’d cried with her. They’d known each other their whole lives, and the thought of her moving away never to be seen again was simply unbearable. Will had been the one to suggest that all of Max’s problems could be solved by one thing. Things had been hopeful when he ma was around to help. Her brother simply needed a help mate as everyone did, and she was quite thrilled by the prospect of finding him one if she were honest. Though Billy did take a lot of the excitement out of the task with his general lack of enthusiasm for life.
The mission had started by compiling a list of all the eligible omegas in the county. It needed to be an omega because her brother was stubborn and he’d try and stop himself from being happy if he could. They would not give him a choice but to be disgustingly outrageously happy. She had learned in school that alphas couldn’t resist a compatible omega, especially when they were in heat, because omegas were made to make alphas happy. They were sweet and docile by nature and built to endure the strain of an alpha’s rut. Now Max wasn’t certain their current schoolmarm knew much of anything useful about anything; but if the way Mr. Fletcher was moony eyed and puffed up like a robin red breast over his new omega bride was any indication she was inclined to believe this was the truth of the matter.
So she and her friends had compiled a list, and once they’d taken off everyone they thought was too old or too young, they’d been left with a very short but hopeful list of omegas for Billy to mate with. The dentist had an omega daughter near Billy’s age whom she and Jane both agreed wore the prettiest dresses and would make an excellent mother.
Max had feigned a terrible toothache and begged Billy to take her to the dentist one Saturday, but that had just ended up with her running before Mr. Miller could yank one of her molars. When she’d asked Billy later if he’d noticed how nice Natalie had looked in her dress he’d pretended not to know who she was talking about and had made her walk home for being a yellow belly about getting her tooth pulled.
She and her friends had gone through every name on their list, but no matter how earnestly or sweetly the omega in question had tried to make their interest known, Max’s brother had either ignored them or been so outright rude that they’d lost their taste for him.
“It is infuriating! It is like he wants to spend the rest of his days alone like a sour pus!” she’d seethed picking up a rock to hurl into the stream and imagining that it was Billy’s big swollen head.
“Maybe he does. My ma says broken hearts change people,” Will offered from where he was sitting on the bank, cooling his feet in the water as he watched Dustin, Mike, and Lucas poke at the belly of a frog they’d captured. Max wrinkled her nose and considered, “You think he’s still sweet on Mr. Bell?”
“Papa said that he and Billy were courting before Anthony’s old man threatened to shoot Billy if he kept sniffing around his son. He’s mated to some big man in San Diego now. It must be devastating, no wonder Billy barks at everyone.” Jane revealed in a hushed tone and Max grabbed a stick out of the grass and jabbed it into the muddy bank, imagining now that it was old man Bell she was sticking.
“If someone tried to tell me I couldn’t be with the person I loved, I’d tell em to choke on an egg.” She huffed. “Billy needs someone with a spine. That’s what. If the omegas around here are frightened by a little bark and no bite then they are all silly twits!”
“Maybe we should look outside of Promised Land then,” Lucas suggested. “Didn’t Mr. Fletcher find a bride through one of them ads in the paper?”
Lucas was brilliant and always had the best ideas. That was why he was Max’s favorite, besides Jane of course. They’d gone to the paper next and had been pleased to discover that there were three different matchmaking services offering to connect alphas with quality omegas. They’d pooled their money together and contacted the one that seemed the most reputable. Madam Beaufort claimed to have matched hundreds of couples and to have an inventory of only the highest quality omegas. It had taken three weeks, but finally a special paper had come in the post from the agency, full of advertisements and pictures of omegas of all different kinds.
“I like her. She has a nice smile.” Mike had pointed to the picture of a dark haired woman who sort of resembled Jane and Max rolled her eyes. “Yes but Billy is more comfortable around men.”
“She’s right, he’s been less rude to the male omegas on average.” Dustin had murmured, flipping to the next page of the paper and narrowing his eyes on an entry before he began to read aloud, “What about this one? Licorice and Cherry, Billy should like that, ‘Sweet dispositioned omega, experienced caretaker, in search of established alpha to expand horizons’. He looks nice, and you don’t get more horizon than out here do you?”
Max had peered over his shoulder to scrutinize the picture alongside the ad and contemplated the black and white portrait of a porcelain skinned young man with blond curls flowing down his back and shoulders. He was very pretty, like an elfin creature, in his fine bodice and ruffled skirt. Flawless one could say. Everyone liked pretty things… but she’d not been convinced. She only had poor Anthony Bell and his reaction to Natalie to go on, but Billy seemed adverse to soft and frilly omegas.
Will’s ma said friends made the best mates, but most of Billy’s close friends were cowboys and Max doubted she was going to find an omega that unconventional. But maybe she didn’t need to. After all, the six of them were all very different and yet they were the best of friends. Jane said it was because they shared a sense of adventure and a curiosity for the world that the rest of their peers did not possess. Billy’s perfect mate need not be his twin, he just had to be enough like Billy where it counted.
“You want to look for a buffoon?” Dustin scoffed and Max had nodded eagerly, the thought catching like a spark within her mind upon dry tender.
“Exactly! A sensible person would run screaming within the first minute of Billy’s acquaintance. He must himself be an enormous buffoon in order to join hands with Billy gladly. Otherwise his life would be an agony. Wouldn’t it?”
They’d kept looking, finding a lot of really pretty omegas in their formal bodices, skirts, and tights, but it wasn’t until they received their second issue of Madam Beaufort’s paper four weeks later that Max finally found him. The perfect one.
He was dark haired, handsome (Max cut out his picture for her and Jane to giggle over whenever they snuck looks together at school) but still so pretty. Pretty, but not flawless was the key. His jaw was a little too square, his nose a little too large, his skin dotted with small moles, his shoulders and arms were masculine; but he was confident and preferential enough to wear a suit in his picture and declare himself disinterested in authors in his advertisement. She read that, and tried to imagine what Billy would think if he were there in her place. Could see him stopping, his eyes narrowing on the pretty omega’s picture and growling, “what’s he got against authors?”
S.H. was perfect. She just knew it.
~*~*~*~
Steve Harrington was in fact worried. It had been a month since his engagement had been broken with Nancy and he was now firmly what polite society liked to call ‘on the shelf’, though quite by accident.
It never should have happened. He was a handsome omega from a family of good means. His father Douglas had taken his modest inheritance and bought land in what was now Hawkins Indiana, more than tripling the size of his fortune through investment in a rail line connecting the Libertyville station in Texas with Boston in the north.
The new railway had allowed for the shipment of cattle, lumber and other goods from one end of the country to the other, boosting the growth of settlements along the route from which those goods were produced. The town of Hawkins had grown up around the station and now flourished with a population of over ten thousand strong. With the rail line bringing in a colossal income of $100,000 a year and growing; no one, least of all Steve, would ever have expected that Steve wouldn’t be mated well before his twentieth birthday. But here they were.
To be frank, it was not a lack of options per say that worried Steve. Indeed, his mother had paraded a host of eligible alphas past his nose over the past month any one of which he knew, even having once been rejected, would come up to snuff for his fortunes sake alone. His dowery was ample enough to ensure that even in the most unimaginable circumstance where the rest of his assets were either gone or unavailable to him, he, his, mate and any children they had would always live comfortably, if perhaps more modestly than he did now.
A good number of alphas would be content enough with that, but when one considered the lands and company assets that his father had entailed to his future children… why, it was not an exaggeration to say that Steve could tap dance naked in the streets barking like a dog and still there would be a line of alphas behind him, swearing the strength of their affection. It was all so very exhausting. Bullshit, as Nancy had once so crassly (however aptly) put it. He wanted no part of it.
When Steve thought about the years ahead he could not resign himself any longer to what was expected of him. The life his mother lived of leisure and entertainments glittered on the surface, but Steve had not had to live more than twenty years to observe her misery. She was lonely and bored, filling her days with social events where she performed ease and contentment for other bored and spiteful spouses, and played mind games designed to pry attention from her alpha at the expense of any warm feeling that might have once existed between them.
And still, he might still have done the same and settled into his own life of misery if not for Nancy reminding him that there was more… and he could have it.
It was that thought, along with a truly ghastly evening at the theater with a Ms. Huckabee who had commented on the fullness of the sopranos chest at least twice while casting disparaging looks at the flat plane beneath Steve’s waistcoat, that drove him to Madam Beaufort’s Matrimonial Agency.
He’d passed the little shop with its curling script painted over the window countless times while on trips to the dressmakers. As industry boomed and fortunes were made, omega matchmaking was growing increasingly common in the ever widening middle class. They did not have to worry so much about starving or the number of mouths to feed, and alphas need not foist their omega children on the first alpha who offered for them. The matchmakers promised what had previously only been exclusive to the rich: choice. The enemy of society matrons everywhere. Naturally no omega of high society would ever be caught dead in such a place… but it was hard not to be curious about what went on behind those gauzy curtains.
Steve’s palms had sweat the first time he’d pushed open that door. The frail boned beta secretary at the desk had stood and greeted him from behind a pair of wide lensed spectacles. After gaping unattractively at his name, the bird like man had led him nervously to an overly perfumed parlor room in the back to wait for his consultation with Madam Beaufort herself. She’d swept in dramatically, dressed in calico with a crinoline skirt so wide it gave her already ample figure the distinct shape of a hand bell. The secretary had appeared with a tray to serve an overly bitter tea that no amount of sugar could save, while the madame had questioned him rather boldly as to why an omega of his sort was seeking out her services.
He had not expected it, but in the moment that question had been surprisingly easy to answer. Steve was there because for all that his mother could fill a ballroom with eager suitors, Steve still felt that he lacked choice. Though he’d loved her eventually, Nancy had not been his choice. Before he’d presented, life had been very different for Steve. He’d always been sporting and popular. His family standing played its part in that to be sure, but he was often said to be funny and charming company.
Though he’d never been much of a scholar and his father was often wroth with his poor marks and the lackluster attention he gave his studies, Steve’s future had been all but written for him. His father had been so certain that his handsome athletic boy would be an alpha like himself, and that Steve would work for many years at his side before he eventually took over the business. So sure, that his father even went so far as to consider betrothing him to the daughter of a wealthy industrialist in New York before he’d even presented.
His mother had insisted that this was ridiculous, and that it was unwise to count ones chickens before they’d hatched – though how much of that had been simply to goad his father and win more points in the strange game of wills they played, who could say. It had turned out to be a good thing whatever her reason, because the girl (Veronica) had ended up presenting as a beta and then a year later, late by most standards, Steve had shocked everyone including himself by coming down with a fever during his fourteenth birthday celebrations, that had turned out to be his first burgeoning heat.
When the doctor had come down from Steve’s room to deliver the news, his father had been heard by all of his mothers guests to sigh and declare loudly, “how bloody useless.” before disappearing into his study for the remainder of Steve’s first heat. And just like that, all of Steve’s choices along with people’s expectations had dried up, leaving a mere husk behind. Arrangements had been made to transfer him from his prestigious academy to a finishing school that boasted it had polished and refined the most sought after omegas since its founding; and his father had turned his eye to Mr. Wheeler, his ore mines, and his newly presented alpha daughter. Steve had been betrothed to Nancy before the month was out.
In a certain way he’d found it to be a relief. Where once the pressure of his father’s expectations for him had threatened to burry him, now the only thing expected of Steve was to look his best and be charming. Himself, in other words, and he’d taken to that role with relish. He’d chased his amusements, and his pleasures, not particularly fussed about bending standards of propriety that hadn’t applied to him before he presented. Why should he be ashamed to steal kisses or allow hands to stray beneath his shirt now, when he’d been cheered for it only a year prior? Why should he sit under a parasol and clap politely from the sidelines when he could still out hit and out race all of his former friends?
He was not unaware that his refusal to fade to the background and mind his needlework while he waited for the day when he would become a bride, and then a mother, had earned him a certain reputation ; but Steve had the protection of his name and wealth to make charmingly eccentric what otherwise would have been scandalous. So why not enjoy it? Nancy had enjoyed it too. For a time.
She’d laughed at his jokes and found him spontaneous and thrilling. She’d been shy but eager to kiss and explore his body, and he’d loved her. Loved that she was so different from all of the other alphas whom had once celebrated him as a peer but had turned into jealous domineering swine after his secondary sex presented itself. Loved that she’d challenged him to think about life beyond their expected union, what more he could be and want for himself; because she genuinely cared about people and there was more she’d wanted from life than paying others not near enough to pull ore from the ground.
Nancy had not been his choice, but she’d made hers and now Steve had to make his. He was under no illusions about the limitations to his options, but that did not mean he did not have any. The debacle with Nancy had bought him time but eventually his father would tire of him rejecting every alpha his mother trotted before him, and he would take control of the matter. An alpha would be picked. Some man or woman he barely knew who might hate him as soon as look at him, or worse be as indifferent to him as his father was to his mother, who would undoubtedly seek to get him with child as soon as possible and then Steve would be trapped.
“I see.” Madam Beaufort had hummed smugly into her china cup. “Well I am not surprised by it. The matrons may look down on them but my methods work. You never hear of any of my clients being separated, or god forbid, breaking their bonds; but wasn’t it just last week, the society paper reported the Asterly boy’s alpha has been living separately with a second ?”
She’d shuddered as if the very thought inspired horror enough to jiggle her ample flesh, eyes filled with glee. There was a time when alphas had made up the good majority of the population, with betas and omegas bringing up the rear. It came down to simple survival of the fittest, with alphas being the hardiest and more likely to make it through childhood. In early days it was common for alphas to have many omegas and try and sire as many pups as they could so that a handful of them might see adulthood; but as industry had developed and the world along with it people were starting to live longer. Beta men and women, who occupied less strenuous positions and generally took fewer risks, were quickly growing into the major population. They were no longer obligated or all that inclined to deal with alphas and their ruts, and thus monogamy was the rule of the day.
But alphas would still be alphas. Steve’s father would fuck anything that stood still long enough, but at the very least he hadn’t yet subjected Steve’s poor mother to the shame of discovering he’d claimed another omega and sired a second family in secret.
Steve did not want his mothers life. He did not know what sort of life he did want, but he knew that much. He didn’t know if he’d be lucky enough to fall in love again, but he thought he might be able to be happy if he could find what he’d once had with Nancy. Someone to talk earnestly with and share his confidences, who would enjoy his company and treat him well. Maybe it wouldn’t burn and sparkle the way being in love had, but it would be more than he had now. More than his mother had ever had.
He’d used his pin money to pay for Madam Beaufort’s services in order to place a discreet advertisement in the paper which would be sent to what she described as a vast network of friends and associates, in order to solicit letters from interested alphas.
ROSE HIP & APPLE – Gentleman Omega of good family, aged 20, brown hair and eyes, long legs, good height and breath of shoulder, slender build, preference for masculine attire with a sunny disposition and even temperament, would like to correspond with alpha, male or female, age 20-40, either dark or fair, any height; drunkards, ruffians, and authors objected to. Photo required. Address – S.H. to Madam Beauforts Matrimonial Agency.
As a precaution he’d had her focus almost entirely on the west. His father had too many business associates in the north who might see Steve’s photo in an ad and recognize him, and the south was struggling with the pains of reformation. But the west was still being won, wild lands giving way to progress as the union expanded westward. That sounded thrilling. A little daunting to be sure, but Steve had never been a coward or one to dilly dally over indecision. Once an idea or a feeling took root he sunk his teeth into it with relish and dealt with the consequences as they came.
Steve ripped open the package he’d picked up from the agency that morning and poured the stack of letters it contained onto his bed, staring at the consequences of his latest impulsive action. There were over a few dozen, a healthy response the secretary had assured him as he’d handed Steve a single loose letter, placing it gently on top of the parcel that contained the rest.
“This one Madam nearly rejected for being uncouth, but the alpha fits most of your criteria and is better off than many of the others,” he’d said which Steve had taken to mean they weren’t a landless cowhand. He’d taken into consideration that the type of alpha he’d find in the west would most likely be some form of rancher or farmer, or even someone who worked for one. But he’d heard that many of the young men moving west found work on the ranches and lived together in bunkhouses.
Steve thought he might enjoy learning to rope a steer and he ached to be on a horse again, but he wasn’t going to pretend the idea of sharing a home with a dozen rough and tumble cowboys was his dream come true. Madam Beaufort had assured him that ranchers made respectable livings and that doctors and lawyers were needed in the west just as much as anywhere else. And with omegas being so scarce there would be plenty who welcomed the chance to get to know him.
“Why, you might even get lucky and snag a banker, Mr. Harrington! You won’t feel so very far from home then.”
Steve did not care so very much about that. In fact, so long as he was fed and comfortable he rather liked the thought of finding something very different from what he was used to. For that reason he’d been less than enthusiastic about the ‘uncouth’ alpha whose prospects had saved him from the ash pile, but as Steve began to sort through and read his responses his curiosity (or perhaps his desperation) grew.
They were all the same was the trouble. Most all praised his looks and boasted of their prospects, making him promises of the happiness they would bring him if he would but send a reply. Which was, alright, fair enough and to be expected. Those he sorted into the reply or discard pile solely on whether he liked the look of their picture because he may as well find his potential mate attractive if not immediately interesting.
The surprising number who jumped right into impossibly long lists of what in their minds made the perfect mate, he immediately sorted into the reject pile, because if he wanted to marry his father he could just very well sit tight and wait for the day when his father inevitably picked out an alpha just like himself to bully Steve into matrimony with.
On and on it went until he was quite discouraged… and then he remembered the single letter and began to wonder just what the Madam had found so uncouth about its contents. Uncouth didn’t sound likely to bore him at the very least, he’d thought as he’d abandoned the rest of the unread pile and reached for the object of his curiosity.
It was postmarked from California, which delighted him in the fact that it was as far from home as he could get without falling into the ocean. What he found inside was by far the shortest and most interesting reply of them all.
To S.H.
Madam Beaufort’s Matrimonial Agency
Alpha, 21, blond, blue eyes, landed - 160 acres in California. I live in an area called Promised Land, like that story in the bible, only there aint much in the way of milk and honey. It’s awful green though in the valley, prettier than anything two eyes will ever see. You’re pretty too and apples make my favorite pie. I hope that’s proper to say, and if it ain’t then I’m sorry. I hope you will write me anyway. I am wanting an omega who can make me smile, on account of I don’t do that enough. Do you like to tell jokes?
Steve took note of the required list of prospects, no doubt encouraged by whatever instruction the local paper had included in their advertisement. The government was giving out 160 acres of land to homesteaders who would improve upon it, so the chances were high that the alpha already had a house ready and made enough off of his land to support a family. Land rich if not dollar rich, as he was encouraging himself to think of it.
He quickly moved on to noticing all the other little things contained within the short letter. He was the only alpha who’d talked about his home in a way that struck Steve as honest. He said nothing of sweeping mountains and glittering seas and the fields he’d like to walk with Steve in summertime. Indeed, his first remark about it being short in the way of milk and honey hinted at cynicism, but that just lended credibility in Steve’s mind to his statement that the valley, however harsh a place it could be to scratch out a life, was beautiful. Like Steve, he’d implied. And the alpha liked to eat apples so he was (likely) going to like the way Steve scented… and all that the two thoughts together also implied.
And as altogether uncouth thoughts began to bounce around Steve’s head, he did something he hadn’t done with any of the other letters. He smiled. He was no stranger to flattery and compliments, but there was something about that frank revelation without artifice that genuinely pleased him. Perhaps because he could be sure in turn that it was genuinely meant and not just flattery or a means to an end. It did not hurt of course that the alpha’s picture laid to rest any doubt that Steve would be able to perform his conjugal duties, should they reach that point. But it was that bit at the end, about the alpha looking for a mate who could bring a little joy to his life… well that spoke louder to Steve than all of the rest of it.
He added the letter to his pile of replies and then decided to wait to finish the rest, as he’d made himself very hungry with all of that reading and (unfortunately) he had another outing planned for that evening with Sheldon Brisbane, a young lawyer from Philadelphia who was a nephew (or something of that nature) of one of his mothers many acquaintances.
He was feeling unusually flirtatious, and for a brief moment he considered wearing his corset along with one of the new bodices he’d gotten from the dressmakers. The burgundy one with the gold stitching would go brilliantly with the long-shirt he’d ordered from that Parisian catalog … even if the neckline on that one was a little plunging for an evening of cards. Shaking his head he abandoned the urge after a moments deliberation. It was a battle enough getting alphas to take him seriously when he was in trousers, but the minute he was laced up and in stockings they all started thinking with their knots. It was better to start off how he meant to go forward, as himself unfiltered.
And who knew, perhaps Mr. Brisbane would surprise him and turn out to be the thoughtful and engaging companion he’d once had in Nancy. Someone with whom Steve might actually want to doll himself up for when the mood struck.
~*~*~*~
Mr. Brisbane was not thoughtful, engaging, and had made it abundantly clear that his eye would have wandered to the first bouncing pair of breasts that passed his vision even had Steve donned a full skirt and lined his eyes in kohl for the evening. So meandering was Mr. Brisbane’s eye, if fact, that they had lost three rounds of solitaire before Steve had begged his friend Tina to switch partners with him. He knew that alphas preferred their omegas small and curvaceous in general, but it would be laughable how badly Mr. Brisbane had pretended not to have a clear preference for the female form if it hadn’t wasted Steve’s entire evening.
“How did it go dear?” His mother, camped out in wait for him in the sitting room asked as soon as Steve appeared. She did not even pretend like she had not been waiting for him, an unopened book laying in her lap. “The Lemmings always throw a lovely soirée don’t they?”
“Indeed. Tina was a delight as usual.”
“And what of Mr. Brisbane?”
“Heterosexual.” Steve griped and his mother paled.
“Oh dear,” disappointment clouded his mother’s scent with dejection. “Are you sure?”
The term heterosexual had been coined by some stuffy doctor so and so to explain society’s predominant attraction to the female form. It was all hogwash. Plenty of alphas got hot under the collar when he was around even masculine as he was, and women of all genders generally had no problem proving they felt things like lust. They really should be considered more in these studies.
Steve kissed her brow and murmured tiredly, “I’m off to bed. Goodnight mother.” And retired to his rooms. He did not however get ready for bed. Instead, he went over to his writing desk and grabbed paper, his fount pen, and began to pen a letter.
Dear Alpha,
Promised Land California
While I found your descriptions of your home pleasing, I now find myself in such a state of desperation that I would not care if you lived in a slum. I need only know two things: one, that you are not under some false impression that the stuffing, stocking, and padding that so many men of my gender use to feminize their figure, in any way reflects the shape we are born in; and two, to know that were I ever to put on my lace for you, that you would appreciate what I am rather than always be looking for what I am not. A girl. I am not a girl. You know this yes?
Steve paused his frantic scribbling and bit his lip. He was neither prim nor prude, but even he knew it was crossing a line to talk so brazenly with a stranger about such intimate matters. He was upset and behaving rashly because of it. Nancy had always warned him he needed to work on controlling his impulse. If he wasn’t careful he would end up frightening off the only alpha to pike his interest in the weeks since Nancy had left. He balled up the paper and threw it towards the rubbish bin, grabbing a fresh sheet off the pile to begin again.
Dear Alpha,
Promised Land California
I was very pleased to receive your response to my advertisement along with your photo from the agency. Thank you. You’re very pretty yourself. I am afraid it is not the polite thing to comment so directly on an omega’s scent, and doing so nearly ensured that I was not made aware of your interest. But I won’t hold you at fault even if Madam Beaufort will. She insists that the success or failure of any marital union hinges on scent compatibility – though she is notably less worried about whether the omega will find the alphas scent most pleasing. I ask. Why first require us to flaunt our sent and then feign offense when it is commented upon? Have you heard the one about the “widowed” matchmaker? Perhaps that joke is just on me.
Your previous letter was somewhat brief and it occurred to me that the cost of the post may hinder our ability to write to one another at length. I will enclose enough to remove any such hesitance from your mind, so that you may write to me how ever and whatever it is you please. But if it pleases you more to use the money for something else, do not feel beholden.
Sincerely,
S.H.
He worried later that perhaps he’d been too frivolous in his reply, or too presumptuous in sending the alpha money. He had plenty of it to spare, but did it not seem a tad desperate? Like he was paying someone (anyone) to speak with him and take an interest in his thoughts? Perhaps it would seem selfish and crass to the alpha, or worse he’d start feigning interest in the hope that Steve would continue to send money.
Perhaps Steve should have been more reserved…or more direct, and asked the alpha more questions about himself to make his interest more clear? He didn’t know… hadn’t even realized how much he missed his conversations with Nancy until he was paying a stranger to fill the silence.
Steve worried about it as he washed up and brushed his teeth before bed. He worried about it as he woke and washed again to prepare for the following day. He worried about it as he broke his fast and studiously ignored whatever cat and mouse conversation his parents were trading over the table until his father demanded his attention.
“Well boy, how did it go?”
“We played cards and drank punch.” Steve recounted by route as he reached for another slice of warm toast. “He leered at Tina’s breasts and asked me why I don’t wear a corset to improve my shape.”
“And why don’t you?” his father asked coldly, making it clear that he counted this as one more of Steve’s many failings.
“Because one can not improve upon perfection Alpha.” Steve replied without bothering to look up from where he was buttering his toast. He heard his mother chortle into her coffee at the other end of the table and smiled a bit. He did like it when he could bring her a bit of happiness.
“You have a very high opinion of yourself for someone who can’t hold onto an alpha.”
“I find it queer that you would rather I had a low opinion of myself.”
“ Lower . I should think.” His father sniffed as if he’d caught a bad smell and returned to his paper.
Steve took a glum bite of his toast. It tasted like ash. His father need not have worried that Steve was feeling too good about himself. He hadn’t felt truly good about himself since he’d helped Nancy into her coach and she’d gripped his hand in a deathlike grip and asked him in a drunken stupor if he were happy with the way the evening had gone.
‘This was what you wanted. Dancing aground ballrooms, acting as if we are in love with no cares for anything of consequence.’
She’d cried in his arms and said she couldn’t breathe. So he’d let her go, and he wasn’t lying when he’d told his father he wished her happiness. It was just that now he was the one finding it hard to breathe and there was no one there to care.