by Tommi Hayes
Comes up to take both my hands, then lets go suddenly, and swoops up. Picks me up! In a bridal hold. Which isn't something I'm about to tolerate on a regular basis, but I'll let it go this once, I think.
And he throws me on the bed, and climbs on after me, and it leaves me without breath, flabbergasted, with an uneasy feeling that I should be furious. This is unprecedented. He shouldn't–he shouldn't have enough initiative left for this, at least so quickly, before relationship and permissions have been established.
He should still be worshipful, worshipping. Not confident enough to manhandle and approach and seduce me. What is wrong with this guy? (What is wrong with me, I also wonder.) But here he comes crawling in towards me, over me, looming like any tall dark handsome hero. He looks the part. He doesn't know he's only a puppet, not the hero of the hour. How would he?
I wouldn't let things develop so quickly normally. I'd slow things down into stages, into at least the semblance of courtship. Try to give the whole thing some kind of credibility, some narrative and conventional veneer of romance. If only to reduce the risks of inconvenient questions cropping up in the subjects' minds. Not that it would occur to most of them to even begin to question my actions, or any incident I've blurred and excused in their thoughts.
I'm not so sure with this guy. And I'm beginning to have uneasy thoughts about innate genetic resistance to telepathy, and other things I've never yet come across or heard of. But right now he's only eager. And of course, I can do no wrong. Not that he's respectful.
I have to hold him off, as he rolls me onto my back and gets a knee between my legs, starts to kiss my neck. Which is heavenly, which is like no neck-kiss I've ever had before, and if I melt into this and lose control then I'm done for, done for... I grip him hard enough to bruise, not that I'm going to hurt a wolf much, even a made one. He's not rough, you understand, far from it. He's ecstatic, caressing, enthusiastic, yes. Not rough. I've seen his mind. He doesn't have it in him. Apart from that pesky little tendency to hate and plot against the State, and be a risk to the general population as a result. And I've taken very nice care of that.
He gets the message, pulls back and there's a crease, a worry on his brow that wasn't there before at all. "Is this–it's stupid to ask if this is okay, right? I just met you. You don't even know me. I'm sorry, I don't know what I was doing, I must be going crazy. Maybe it's all the stress, the craziness, the getting bit and the hospital and what am I doing here anyway, I don't really honestly understand at all–" Butter-soft, that voice, but close to panicked, urgently apologetic.
And he's up and off me, backing away, or he would be if I didn't have a nice tight grip on him. He's up on his knees above me, naked still and lovely and his cock standing nice and thick and pretty close to fully hard, everything about him warm and light caramel and gorgeously sculpted. And it's official, I'm going crazy here. But I breathe extra carefully, and I pull him down onto me again, but with a hand firm between his shoulder-blades, to keep him still and calm. I could give a nudge to his mind, enforce tranquillity. But I don't want to do that. I want to keep this thing under control, and I want him to be happy. No, no, wrong way to put it. What I want is to give him enough stability so that I don't have to keep perpetually messing with his brain.
I don't want to mess with his brain. I don't want to do him any further damage.
"Calm down," I say. 'There is a problem. We have a problem. But–Rajan." I allow myself the luxury of saying his name, and it makes me close my eyes with the intimacy of it. Here he is, naked on top of me, but it's one word, his name, that can undo me with the failure to understand. This morning I didn't know he existed, except as a hypothetical case study that I had to manage and run. This morning I was showering and dressing to impress and wondering how quickly I could get him to come to heel, so that I'd have more time to do the cross-word and hang out and play console games, these two weeks before the Honeymoon.
Crazy.
But I breathe some more, and I say, "I shouldn't be here. I shouldn't–you're not doing anything wrong. It's me. This isn't professional. I shouldn't..." This, by the way, is my usual schtick, and the relief of slipping into it is like an old sweater and hot chocolate. But only momentarily. The trouble is, normally it's bullshit. But now it feels quite true. If only it even covered half of the case.
He clutches onto me hard, really hard. "I guess not. I guess maybe. But I love you–don't say I'm nuts. I feel it. It doesn't make sense but I feel it. And if you feel it too..." He raises his head from the crook of my neck, and in the dim light his lovely face is hopeful, eager. "You feel it too?"
I would always nod. I always give them this bullshit line. But when I nod now, it's not just a line.
That's the cue for a first kiss, and it's so warm and wet and sweet and nice I could die, could expire right here from the taste and never even care, this would be enough for me, I could go to my grave happy. Not good.
Then I let him fuck me (when normally I'd be directing, not to say micro-managing the course of events) how he likes (which is slow and sweet and kissing continually all the way through) and I get myself that much deeper into the mire. Fuck.
***
Four days later, the Honeymoon's started pretty early, and we're wrapped around each other every minute God sends. Every minute Jeff or one of his goons isn't around to witness it. (I don't make the mistake of thinking that just because they're muscle they have to be dumb. They're used to seeing me warm up a mark. But what they're used to seeing, is me faking it. It's not hard to deduce that there's every possibility that they'll be able to tell the difference, when it's the real thing, when I'm actually as infatuated as I normally pretend. I always tone it down around them. After all, it's supposed to be a huge 'secret', and I am a 'professional' who has fallen from grace, due to the severe temptation of breathless, deathless love. But there's so much you can tell from eyes, and from the furtive uses of hands. There are no secrets when you're under constant surveillance.
Not to mention the whole lodge is on camera, of course. I try not to think about it. I try to control myself. No doubt I fail, and I'm in a state of constant panic, as well as constant arousal.
It isn't even as if we have just that one issue to contend with. There's also the matter of Rajan's newly lupine nature to deal with. And yes, four days after meeting, after wiping his brain clean of all those nasty pesky rebellious tendencies, it's full moon.
So, we're lying in bed in the morning, and he rolls over and pins me down, all the thick muscular hardness of him, and I can't move an inch, a muscle. It's what he likes. And it seems that what he likes is what I like too, now. I get a nip–a human nip–to the neck, as he nuzzles me up and down, and does his best to ensure no spot on my neck and shoulders goes lonely and un-nuzzled. "Love," I sigh. "Raj. We need to talk."
That gets me a soft laugh, too. Soft and loving and tender, and his grip isn't any the less merciless for it. 'That sounds ominous, sweets," he says. "Is it about your super secret sinister government work? Or how you're compromising your professional integrity, and we have to stop doing it like bunnies every chance we get, when your weird guys with the ear-pieces aren't around? You know they have to know, right?"
I know that, yes. He shouldn't even be thinking about it. He's supposed to be oblivious.
"Or," Raj muses, rearing up to push his hands into my hair, hold my face still as he grins down at me, lovely and wild-eyed, "is it about me and the wolf thing?"
At this, I'm silent, and he stills too when he realises that. ”So it is," he concludes, the great detective. We have silence between us for a moment, as he cocks his head and gazes at me. His gaze is liquid, pure, wild, is perpetually fixed on me, passionate and inescapable. Hardly surprising. I ensured it would be that way, was the architect of his infatuation, isn't that right? I manufactured it, his fascination. That's something I prefer not to think about much. It's chastening, the thought of how I've fallen so hard myself, inexplicably, hard-centred burnt-out me. And if
it wasn't for my mind-meddling, he'd barely know I was alive, probably. I'm quite a pretty thing, as well as clever and gifted, it's one of the qualifications for the job. He is beautiful, is a god.
"Well," he says cautiously, and plays with my hair, which he adores. I am almost white-blond, green-eyed, a little freakish looking, if truth be told. But also pretty, which is lucky, so I come across as more the offbeat modelly-looking exotic type, rather than strangely albino, or just peculiar. My hair is longer now, too long, but when I mentioned having it cut the other evening, Raj picked me up and carried me around the entire lodge, and threatened to drop me over the edge into the crevasse if I didn't promise to abandon the idea. He held me a little close to the edge. (Yes, he was joking. I am not locked into the downward spiral of a developing abusive relationship. I am not locked into the development of any relationship, something of which I have to continually remind myself. But still, I should be in control here. That level of dominance, implied in that level of teasing, of lovers' torture and playfulness, shouldn't be going on. What's going on, I keep asking myself. I'm trying to figure it out, with what energy I have left over, busy as he keeps me. It's hectic, keeping up with him.)
"I believe you. Because it's you, even though what you tell me is flat-out crazy," he says, sweet, nibbling at a fine fair lock, tugging enough to pull at my scalp. "Werewolves are a real thing," he says, sing-song, a little mocking, grinning with my strand of hair taut between his lips, his human teeth. “The dog that bit me wasn't a dog, it was a wolf. The bite infected me. And come full moon, I'm going to sprout a pelt and a huge snout and huger teeth, and run wild and bite cute little bunny rabbits and howl, howl like crazy. That about right?"
This, this is where I see the effects of my meddling. He's not even distressed. He's barely even interested. More interested in my hair, following it down where it's wild and outgrown to the curve of my shoulder, tracing down to my armpit, armpit to nipple... I grab the back of his head and his hair there, where it's unfairly so much shorter. But still enough there to get a good grip on, and that's what I do, because that has about a fifty percent chance of attracting his attention.
And I put my serious face on–hard when he's just been toying with my nipple, and is jerking a little in my hand, suggesting he'd like to get right back to that–and shake his head a little. "Yes," I say. “That. And you should take it more seriously. It's tomorrow night, tomorrow night, and it's a trauma, especially the first time. You can't imagine–" Well. That was unwise, since I was about to launch into a description of just how painful and physically unpleasant the transformation from man to wolf can be. I want him to think, to be serious a little. Not to freak out completely.
My hands slide around his neck of their own volition, and I feel the softness I can't control, soft for him, creep into my mind, my heart, vitiate my judgement and professional detachment. Hah, professional detachment, what's that? "It's going to be hard," I say, careful. "And then there's the psychological side, once you've accepted it, because you still seem pretty much wrapped up in denial with all your jokes. And then... Raj. Honey. You are a conscript. The Section is going to sign you up and make you a part of their task-force, and it isn't optional. You will be required to do your part for the security of the State."
How I hate to say these things, how I hate myself for my part in the whole business. A little before, in a remote, alienated way. But much more viscerally now. But at least I seem to have got through, somehow. Because his face has quieted and stilled, and he looks down at me with a tension, a chewing at his lower lip. Actually thinking, and just how much actual thinking has he been allowed to do these past four days of madness, of complete upheaval in his well-ordered life? "Okay. I know that. I accept that."
He strokes long strands of hair back from my forehead. “Maybe it's crazy, but I'm not so freaked out by the werewolf thing. I'd heard the rumours. Everyone's heard the rumours. I never expected it to happen to me, but I guess no-one ever does. And it's bad, okay, I understand that. But I'll have you with me. You'll be with me, right?" His face searches mine for confirmation. And I nod.
"I will be with you," I say. “The whole time." I could add that that process will involve a cell and restraints and cattle prods if necessary, but I don't. There is very much such a thing as too much information.
His face relaxes, and his smile is unendurably sweet. "Good. And, being a..." He gives a little grin, also sweet. “Secret government operative. Hey, that sounds pretty sexy. Doesn't that sound pretty sexy? Will I get sharp suits and be armed and go on secret missions that I can never tell anyone about?" He's waggling his prettily marked eyebrows, and I despair. Just as if this isn't deadly serious.
"None of that is funny," I say–more accurately, I hiss. And I'm really angry. Angry at him, for not understanding, for not having the sense to be angry too, to be afraid, to hate the idea. To hate me. Why does he love me? Oh, yes. Because I made him. "Because a lot of it is true. It's not a joke. It's pretty brutal. You should be worried. You should be planning how you're going to cope. If you're going to cope. You should–" He should, he should, he should. I shouldn't be crying. Am, though.
I'm not immediately wrapped up in his arms to make it all right, and that's a relief as well as a loss. He takes it more seriously than that. He's crestfallen, his face falling as he meets my eyes, looks long into them, drops his head to rest his forehead against my own.
"Love. Don't cry," he whispers. And it's pretty close to begging. "Please. I will, I will take it seriously. I will train, I will mind what you tell me, I will adapt well to the Section. I swear to God. Please don't cry. I'll be fine. It'll be fine. I'll adapt to the shifting, and I'll get used to the job, and we'll be fine. We'll be together. Don't worry so much. Please."
Well, I think as I let him dry my face. At least two of those things may be true.
***
His change, the full moon, comes within the two-week induction. It's while I'm theoretically still feeling him out, weeding out the problem ideation in his cranium, getting him ready for his final scan and assessment. The assessment that determines whether he's sucked into the life of the Section Wolf Unit, all the sickness and danger and moral vacuum that accompanies that, or... Well, I don't know what happens to rejects from the Unit.
I know there have been a number, a small number. But no-one has ever mentioned to me what the procedure for dealing with induction test failures is, now that I come to think about it. Or, perhaps, I rather carefully haven't enquired, without ever letting myself really think about the significance of that.
Two weeks, so the shift to the wolf isn't always scheduled at some point during the induction. It's not regarded as the most important aspect of being inducted and introduced into the Unit. Even though it is, in fact, the most basic qualification for it. Inductees, new 'hires', are merely expected to cope, to adjust, no matter what. What choice do they have, in fact? None, less than none.
I know from the files and the research, as well as from my own cases, that there's some variation in the whole experience, objective as well as subjectively for each wolf. Not in the change itself, so much. But more in the temperament of the wolf itself, once manifested. Some wolves are a danger to humans. Not because they are mindless beasts, without control, but because a politicised human, or a politicised born wolf, may feel hostility towards humans that is more uninhibitedly expressed in the wolf. And on the other hand, a moon-struck wolf, even if without hostility to regular humans, has less proficient control over the hungers and desire to hunt of the wolf. Especially a new wolf. That control is learnt from the ground up from birth, for the born pack member. For a made wolf with a responsible pack, it is gradually and carefully inculcated.
For a made wolf who's been abandoned, or turned by a radical underground cadre of extremist wolves, then that control may be suspect even once sedition has been cleansed out of its mind. And so the first moon-change is much more critical than is explained initially to handlers. And it's the reason for
the huge emotional component of inducting and processing the new recruit. Because a mated wolf is a stabilised wolf. Its control jumps a hundred per cent immediately it is paired, to the point that an otherwise positively-oriented wolf cannot be overmastered by hunger or the desire to hunt. It will not attack regular humans.
That's the theory, anyway. Most of us, the handlers, will still err on the side of caution, even so.
That's why, then. Why, the first full moon night of our short two weeks' beginning, I'm down in the basement of the lodge, sitting on my ass on the cold linoleum outside Raj's new temporary housing. A cell, of course. The basement – the dungeons? - are a huge part of the reason the lodge is one of the favoured induction locations for the Section. Considering their location, and the age of the lodge – well before the wars - one feels a trifle uneasy, wondering about the purpose of their original use.