Sheckley, Alyssa - The Better to Hold You.html

by The Better to Hold You (lit)

  At seven Red brushed out my hair and braided it, his hands firm and deft as he formed the plait. Then he helped me into a button-down shirt and jeans. “I guess no makeup,” I said, mostly to myself, as I looked in the mirror. I looked, in Hunter's words, nunlike.

  “What do you need makeup for?” Red was buttoning the silver snaps on a jeans shirt.

  “I just thought a little blusher, some lipstick …”

  “Wait.” Red came up behind me and put his hands on my hips so I could see both of our reflections in the full-length mirror. Then he leaned in and kissed me on the pulse in my neck.

  “What's that for?”

  “Wait.”

  He leaned in and turned my head till our lips met, and now the pulse between my legs throbbed. It seemed to take less and less for him to arouse me, as if I were becoming tuned to his frequency. When he released me, I looked at my reflection and saw flushed cheeks, red lips.

  “You don't need artifice to look like sex, Abra. You look like sex.”

  Since Red didn't know anyplace local, he drove us a full hour till we were back in Northside.

  “So where are we going?”

  “Somewhere they serve beer and rock and roll and I feel at home.”

  “Oh, no. Red, you aren't taking me to Moondoggie's?”

  “Yup. From what you said, your husband's going to be pretty busy stalking his mistress …”

  “Very funny.” Despite Red's assurances, I really didn't want to go there. What if we did meet Hunter?

  But when we arrived at Moondoggie's, Red went and stood at the door and inhaled, a deep breath as if gathering his nerve, though I knew better. He was checking out the joint.

  “He's not here.”

  How could he tell? All I could smell was beer and cigarettes.

  The restaurant had a few elderly diners lingering over their turkey and yams, but the dark side of Moondoggie's was almost empty. The bartender to night, I noted with plea sure, was a burly, middle-aged brunette, not Kayla.

  Red turned to me, and I realized he smelled faintly spicy, like cologne. “What do you want, Doc? Beer? Wine?”

  “Just a soda. No caffeine.”

  Red put his hand on the small of my back as he ordered. “Listen, Jelaine, mind if I put on some tunes?”

  “You go right ahead, Red.”

  “I want to open up the back patio. That suit you okay?”

  The brunette lady laughed as she handed Red our drinks. “Hell, freeze your ass off if you want to, Red. It's your ass. You want glasses?”

  They both looked at me. “Not if we're dancing,” I said, and they both laughed as if I'd been witty.

  Red led me over to the jukebox, his hand on mine reminding me of high school dates. There was a lot of country western and eighties power rock, but Red seemed to know what he was looking for. He flipped rapidly from one selection to another, not asking my opinion.

  “Come on, Abra, let's go.”

  The back patio, which must have served as a dance floor in the warmer months, was lit with two red and two pink floodlights. Red opened the doors and I wished I'd put on a sweater underneath my wool jacket. Red put his beer and my ginger ale on the table and the first song came on, an old tune about dancing in the moonlight, a fine and natural sight. Red caught me around the waist and started moving, and to my surprise I found myself following with ease. I'd never been partnered by someone who knew how to lead so well that my feet just sort of fell into place. My bandaged hand crept from Red's palm to his shoulder and my hips began to roll more fluidly. Red half-closed his eyes and we turned neatly, almost in a country two-step.

  “This is fantastic, Red!”

  “Your husband doesn't dance?”

  “No, I'm the one who doesn't dance.”

  Red finished his beer and ordered another. The next song was faster and we moved apart, then together, and I threw back my head and laughed with the sheer delight of this kinetic flirting. Sweat was rolling down my forehead and between my breasts, but Red seemed impervious as the music shifted to something acoustic.

  “May I?”

  I walked into Red's arms as some band from the seventies crooned that they would believe in miracles if I would. We moved together, with only the hand on the small of my back guiding me. His breath smelled like yeast and hops. We were both sweating now.

  “You ever listen carefully to the words of this song, Doc?”

  I paid attention. There was a clear suggestion that the miracle in question could be achieved tantrically.

  “We tried that, remember?”

  Red playfully bit my ear. “We almost tried it.”

  “Are you going to change soon? Are you close?”

  “Abra.” He rocked me away from him, back into him. “Didn't you ever have some guy asking, Was that it? Did you come yet?”

  “Oh, whoops.”

  After that I just forgot about why we were there and enjoyed the evening. Two more couples came in and joined us on the patio, younger than us, teenagers. I became so relaxed that I didn't pay attention to the small kisses Red pressed to the tip of my collarbone, to the pulse behind my ear. I let him pick me up in an exuberant show of strength before sliding me down the length of his body, and if I danced away from him I moved right back in, so close that I knew that this was foreplay, and not just for shapeshifting.

  And then we just stopped moving and looked at each other, and Red was sweating and unsmiling and his eyes were burning a deep gold color, and I could feel how badly he needed to get out of there.

  “Let's go.”

  He was following me so closely that he stumbled, and one of Red's friends called something out, but Red seemed sick, pale, and clumsy, and intent on me in a way even lust could not explain. He was following me as if I were the only beacon in a dark world.

  “It's okay, Red, we're almost there.” I was leading him out into the bar area, toward the front door, the parking lot, our car. There were a few locals drinking post-Thanksgiving beers, big, bearded, deer-hunting types. If I'd been thinking more clearly, I would have taken Red out of the patio straight into the woods. But I meant well. I wanted to lead him home.

  “Hello, Abs.”

  I looked up at the bearded man with the fierce eyes, uncomprehending. And then I recognized him, despite the full black growth of facial hair.

  It was my husband.

  THIRTY-THREE

  I had last seen Hunter clean-shaven on Thanksgiving morning. Less than twenty-four hours later, he was standing in front of me looking like a mean Grizzly Adams. And suddenly this whole lycanthropy thing didn't seem quite so far-fetched.

  “Hunter!” He was wearing a black sweater, dark jeans. He looked like some sort of bearded assassin.

  “Hello, Abra.” His nostrils flared, and I wondered what he was smelling on me. We became aware of Red at the same moment. I glanced behind me, hoping to see normal, watchful Red, laid-back and easygoing, hazel-eyed and cautious. And it was close. If you didn't notice the pallor, the yellow eyes, the patina of sweat. It was a good approximation of normal.

  “Hello, Hunter.”

  “Hello, Red. Fucking my wife yet?” Hunter leaned close, inhaled. “Ah. Not yet, I see. But you'll keep dogging her until there's a weak moment, is that it?”

  Red smiled, and it wasn't friendly. His canines looked particularly sharp. “Seems like you've been a bit of a dog yourself, now.”

  “She's got my baby in her belly.”

  “Hunter!” Other people were listening. Kayla's colleagues and friends were listening.

  “No, friend, I'm afraid she doesn't. It's the virus kicking in. She has it, too.”

  “And what do you know about it, vermin catcher?” Hunter stood up, and I felt a cold wash of adrenaline sweep through me. I wasn't the only one sensing real violence in the air; the small crowd murmured and gathered itself for the coming fight.

  “Take it outside, boys,” said Red's friend from behind the bar, who seemed to be speaking for the bar.


  “Red, don't do this.” I held on to his arm. It didn't occur to me to hold on to my husband's.

  Red glanced down at me and then lowered his mouth to mine. He brought his hand up to cup the back of my head and held me there while his tongue explored my mouth, and I tried to push him away. I could feel Hunter watching, feel the growing sense of excitement in the room. Lust and violence, now. “Delicious,” Red said, and then looked up at Hunter.

  A direct challenge.

  “Outside, Red. Let's discuss boundaries.”

  Red grinned, and I could see a side of him I hadn't suspected. He was enjoying this. For him, there was a dark humor to the situation, while for my husband, there was nothing but fury and dented pride. “What, right outside, in front of all these folk?”

  “You chicken?”

  Red's eyes narrowed in what almost seemed like delight. “Well now, sticks and stones, Hunter, may break my bones, but name-calling, that's serious business. Your place or mine, sweetheart?”

  “Mine.” Hunter gestured at me with a sideways turn of his thumb. “But Abra comes with me.”

  “The hell you say.”

  I put my injured hand on Red's shoulder. “No, it's okay.”

  Red shook his head. “Don't do it, Doc.”

  Hunter laughed. “You don't know her very well if you think that's going to work. Come on, Abs, let's take a drive.”

  Thinking that I would have time to talk him out of this fight, I followed him out of Moondoggie's, shivering from cold and nerves. Red, just behind us, cursed under his breath. Overhead, the rising moon shone a spotlight on our little drama. “If you hurt her,” Red warned Hunter, “I'll hunt you down.”

  Hunter looked over his shoulder. “I'm not going to hurt her, you moron.” He unlocked his car and I opened the passenger-side door. As Hunter started the engine, I saw Red watch us for a moment, his hands balled by his sides and his body coiled with tension, before he sprang for his car so that he could follow right behind us.

  Like me, Hunter was observing Red in the rearview mirror, and for a moment, our glances met. “What the hell do you see in that asshole?”

  “He's the opposite of you,” I retorted. Then, remembering why I was in the car with him, I said, “Tell me what the point is in you two fighting each other. It's not like he took me from you. It's not even that you want me back.”

  “He trespassed,” Hunter said simply, turning onto a side road. “And besides, he wants the fight as much as I do.” Then he smiled, revealing sharp canines. “At least, he does now. In about twenty minutes, my guess is your new boy toy will have changed his mind.”

  Hunter was right; he was bigger and stronger than Red, and this was not going to be an even contest. I wanted to plead, Don't fight him, but I wasn't sure that was even an option anymore. Somehow, I had gotten myself into a place where pangs of jealousy and possessiveness could become punches and bites that left visible wounds.

  The moon seemed to follow us as we drove, sometimes dipping behind trees for a moment, then reappearing in a different position. I could see its light reflected in Hunter's dark eyes, and noticed that dark hairs had begun to sprout on the backs of his hands as they clutched the steering wheel.

  I no longer tried to speak, and the silence between us felt so deep and weighted it seemed impossible that this was my husband, my old college friend, the charming rogue who'd singled me out and reinvented me as a desirable girlfriend after a lifetime of being the plain daughter.

  If you are not Hunter anymore, I wanted to ask, then who am I?

  The bearded stranger beside me parked the car at an angle and hopped down just as Red pulled up in his jeep.

  “Doc, you'd better climb on up to the porch.”

  As I walked toward the steps, I felt the crunch of dried leaves and fallen twigs underfoot. Pulling my coat more tightly around me, I wished with all my heart that I could find a way to stop this before it began.

  “You first, Texas. Let's see it.”

  Red took off his clothes and Hunter followed him, garment for garment, a kind of terse strip poker. Naked, my husband was taller, handsomer, broader. Red was more leanly muscled, hairier, balanced on the balls of his feet like an experienced fighter. He changed first, a ripple of movement through his muscles, then waves of transformation, spine curving, legs bowing, face elongating. Hunter was not so quick or so graceful about it, and I realized that his struggle was tied to the lunar phase. On this clear November night, the moon was so bright that you could see the details of her surface.

  According to the calendar, we were one day shy of the full moon, but you could have fooled me.

  When I looked back, Red was a wolf, a small one, short-coated, with a coyote's narrower muzzle and larger ears. He was not the great timber wolf of legend, but I hadn't been expecting that. I'd seen him this way before; I accepted it now.

  But my husband writhed and screamed and panted, the change a painful one for him. And when it was done, he was a wolf man, like the creatures of B-movie lore. He hunched close to the ground, hairy and grotesque, clawed and splay-footed, and to the naked eye it looked as if there could be no contest. Red was a wolf. Hunter, my husband, was a monster.

  Hunter stood there, yellow-eyed, breath fogging out over his fangs in the cooling night air. Red stalked toward him stiff-legged, his ruddy, gray-tipped fur bristling. From where I stood, safe on the porch, it looked like my husband would be having Red for lunch.

  Then Hunter launched at Red, more like a man than a wolf, and the fight was over almost before it began. Red lunged up and snapped his jaws over Hunter's throat, and Hunter swung wildly left and right before dislodging his foe.

  Like a good street fighter, Red took advantage of Hunter's momentary disorientation by darting in. He got a few good bites in to Hunter's flank and clawed hands, and I was clenching and unclenching my fists, worried now for my husband, when suddenly Hunter grabbed Red by the throat. Red twisted and writhed, and Hunter sank his fangs into the smaller wolf's side, missing his belly by only inches.

  “Stop!” Galvanized, I tried to draw their attention back to me. “You're killing him!” But the creature that had been Hunter was beyond human recall. He would have disemboweled his rival then and there, except that the brief distraction had allowed Red to break free.

  This time, as the opponents clashed, I could hear Red's whimpers along with his snarls. Though weakened and seriously injured, he seemed no less aggressive than before. Knowing dogs, I could see all the signs of a fight to the death.

  “Submit, Red,” I whispered, but then he hurled himself at Hunter, biting hard at Hunter's calf. Hunter lashed out, catching Red right below one eye with his claw.

  “That's enough! Stop!” Hunter was slashing at Red's belly again, and Red was refusing to back down. I had to end this now.

  I ran down the steps knowing what might happen. You can't be a vet and not know the chance you take when you put yourself in the middle of a dogfight.

  “Stop!” I planted myself between them just as Red lunged up. It was his weight that knocked me down, and though he was light for a wolf, he had used all his remaining, desperate strength to attack. As he tried to swerve, his teeth grazed my thigh. Hunter snarled and seemed ready to continue the battle.

  Then both combatants smelled the blood trickling down my leg. In the long pause that followed, I think I saw Red ripple and begin to change, but I will never be sure, because it was at that moment that I heard the woman's voice.

  “That is quite enough,” she said. I had to admit, I agreed with her. I wasn't feeling at all up to any more.

  And then she came out of the shadows of the porch and I saw her face, and realized at once who she was.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  I knew one thing for certain: Magdalena Ionescu was not my husband's usual type. In the past, his girlfriends had always been pretty. Magda was not pretty. Magda ate pretty for breakfast and then looked in the mirror and admired how sleek and shiny she was from a diet rich in iron.
r />   “You are bleeding?”

  I looked up into her dark, almond eyes and wondered if I should lie.

  “Never mind. Sit down, woman. I will examine you. I am medically trained.”

  “So is Red, and I prefer not to have you touching me.” She'd just stepped out of the house, and it didn't take a master's degree to tell who'd been sleeping in my bed.

  “He is indisposed,” she pointed out, and I saw that he was still in his wolf form, injured and panting.

  I looked at Magda and knew that if I pushed her away, the curtain would fall, and I would see the reality behind this little play of normalcy. So I sat down on an old wooden bench and let my husband's mistress look at the gash on my thigh. The fabric of my jeans was ripped and stained with blood, and her nostrils flared.

  “If you get queasy at the sight of blood, you're not going to be much help to me,” I pointed out.

  “Blood does not disturb me. Did you know you are about to get your period? No, wait.” Her nostrils flared again as I scrambled up off the couch. “It is not menstrual. You are about to shift.” She didn't sound too happy about it. “Hunter. You did not inform me that your wife was also pricolici.”

  The wolf man—or Unwolf—that was Hunter made a grunting sound, not unlike the noncommittal grunting sounds he made in human form. Some things, I supposed, didn't change with the full moon. I noticed there was blood on his calf, and his bicep. I didn't particularly care.

  I stared up at Magda. She was taller than I, larger boned, with full breasts beneath her turtleneck sweater and a tiny waist set off by a thick leather belt with a heavy, almost medieval buckle. A gold cuff of a ring adorned one hand, more like a weapon than a wedding ring. Her chic, boyishly short dark hair had a jagged streak of white shot through it. She had the kind of mouth that made men rearrange their underwear. Right now, though, it was frowning. “I thought you were not intimate with each other,” she said, turning to Hunter. “That was why I came, because you said …”

  “Guess he was cheating on both of us, huh?”