by James Wolfe
“This is not a vacation, Cecil, it is work. We are working here. And we are doing it in a way that is as minimally invasive as possible. We do not enter into the humans’ world any more than we need to. We do not talk to them anymore than we need to. You need to adjust your attitude about this work. The humans are dangerous, and them discovering us is dangerous as well. So, please, do not go anywhere.”
I knew that the general population back home believed humans to be dangerous, but I was honestly surprised to hear one of the members of the export team say the same thing. I’d really thought that they would have felt differently. All of them had been doing exports for years!
They’d seen the human world for years and still thought of it as this dangerous place? That seemed weird to me because, although I’d still had some fears before I’d come out here, they had all been assuaged now that I was actually here.
I mean, it just didn’t seem to me that they were all that dangerous. They all seemed happy, content, walking around, laughing, smiling, and enjoying food and friends. What was so harmful about their world, really?
But I didn’t ask, because I could see I was wearing on everyone. And I didn’t want to be a burden.
The rest of the day I still was the first one to talk to any humans that came by, though. I couldn’t hold back my eagerness in that regard. Although I didn’t think the other members minded that, because they didn’t seem too eager to talk to any of the humans, anyway.
When I heard a human walk by saying it was almost six thirty, my heart sank. I knew that, at seven, the farmers’ market ended. Then we had to pack up all the leftover produce, the money, and load it back on the truck to go home. We wouldn’t come out to the farmers’ market for at least another week, maybe longer, it just depended on how much leftover produce we had. Sometimes it was a whole month between farmers’ markets.
I didn’t want this day to end. I wished so bad that I could just stay in this world. Go speak to more humans, listen to them talk about their lives as they walked by, look at all the electronics they had that I’d never gotten to use.
A part of me genuinely considered running away for a second. Just running into the crowd, never coming back. There were no place holders to make sure the members of the export team didn’t run. Why would there have been? There really wasn’t any reason for them to leave when they lived in a utopia.
But I didn’t live in a utopia. This felt like the utopia. What I was going to felt like my dystopia, compared to how happy I felt now.
And that feeling was about to get way more intense.
I was looking down at our inventory list where we wrote down purchases when I heard the most angelic voice I’d ever heard
“Hi, could I purchase these?” he asked, handing me a bag of tomatoes.
I saw the tomatoes first, since I was looking down. And then I began to look up at him, and it felt like the world was moving in slow motion.
He was beautiful. Dark brown hair, blue eyes, this perfectly chiseled face, a smile that seemed to glow. Holy shit, he was the most gorgeous thing I’d ever seen, and my heart was going pitter-patter in my chest. He was…
He was the one.
I knew it instantly. Just like everyone had always said I would. I knew this man was mate. I could feel it in my gut, the warmth spreading through me. The feeling that I’d once thought was so exaggerated was not exaggerated even a little bit.
It was intense, overwhelming, it rolled through my whole body. It was like my mind was shouting to me, ‘it’s him, it’s him.’ I couldn’t describe it, couldn’t explain it, but I knew I’d found my mate.
…Except I already had a mate.
I didn’t realize how long I had been staring at him. Like I said, it felt like the world was moving in slow motion. But it must have been a while, because he began to look at me strangely.
“Uh… I’m sorry, are you alright, or—”
“He’s fine,” Johnathon said, “and yes, it will be five dollars.”
“Great,” he smiled and pulled out one piece of paper that represented five human dollars. “Have a great day.”
“You, too,” Johnathon responded.
I was still speechless. I still had said nothing, like an idiot, and he was starting to walk away from me!
My amazement instantly turned to worry. No, I couldn’t let him just leave. I had to talk to him. I had to address things with him I just… fuck, what was I even going to say?
I didn’t know, I just knew I needed to get to him right now, right this second. I couldn’t delay any longer.
I jumped up out of my seat and began to run after him. I heard Johnathon call out after me, which wasn’t surprising considering he’d told me in very clear terms that I could not this. But I didn’t care. Nothing could stop me from meeting this man right now.
“Hey, hey!” I called out after him, putting my hand on his elbow as I caught up.
“Yes?” he looked at me, confused.
Okay, now was the part where I had to think of what to say. And it couldn’t be, ‘I’m a werewolf, and I believe you’re destined to be my mate.’ It had to be subtler than that.
I had to flirt like humans flirted… but even though I’d read a tons of books where human flirting and dating occurred, I couldn’t think of a damn thing. My mind was totally blank.
“What’s your name?” I blurted out awkwardly. I regretted it as soon as I did, scared my awkwardness would send him running for the hills.
But to my surprise, he laughed. “Lyle, what’s yours?”
“Cecil,” I answered, but then, again, I couldn’t think of any thing else to say.
He smiled. “Well, Cecil, did you really run all the way over here just to ask my name? Or are you going to gather the courage to ask for my number, too?”
Yes, awesome, he was doing the flirting for me! I smiled at him.
“I’d love your number.”
He smiled and pulled a piece of paper out of his wallet. “This is no longer where I work, but my cell number is the same. Give me a call sometime. I’d love to see if you could also get the courage to ask me out.”
“Me too,” I joked back, before I started to walk away because I could see behind Lyle that Johnathon was coming for me. “Talk to you soon,” I said.
Even with Johnathon fiercely coming my way, it was the hardest thing I’d ever done to walk away from Lyle right now.
That was not usually how it worked when you found your mate. Usually, you found your mate, you were immediately bonded, and you started spending your life with them. There was no pause, no question, and it was a good thing there wasn’t, because when you met your mate, you were overwhelmed feelings of protectiveness.
Again, that was something I’d thought was exaggerated until now. I’d never been overwhelmed with the feeling of wanting to protect Sam, but I really wanted to make sure no harm befell Lyle.
Oh, fuck, Sam.
I didn’t have time to think of him, though, because Johnathon had reached me.
“What are you doing?!” he snapped.
“Nothing,” I said, not sure how to explain my behavior.
Normally, I would have had no problem explaining my behavior. Johnathon would have understood me running after Lyle if he’d known he was my mate. Because we couldn’t control ourselves when we found our mates.
It was pretty weird that it was a human, I’ll admit, but it wouldn’t be the first time. A year or so ago, another werewolf in our pack had ended up mating to a human he had saved in the woods. So, there was at least a precedent for it.
The difference between that and this was that I had a mate, so it shouldn’t have been possible for me to find another one.
“What do you mean nothing?! Don’t you remember me telling you that you cannot leave?!”
“I’m sorry, I just am so fascinated by this, so…”
“Get back to the booth!” he demanded. “And I am going to have to talk to Andrew about whether or not this job is a good fit for
you.”
“What?!” I asked desperately. “But I’ve got a perfect store on my test! Nobody in the entire village knows more about humans than me, I—”
“That’s maybe the problem, isn’t it?” he grumbled under his breath as he started walking with me back to the booth. “You seem to really have a thing for humans. So much so, that you can’t keep yourself focused on work.”
My heart sank immediately. The last thing I wanted was to lose this job. This job was the only thing I had to be happy about. It thrilled me. Without it, my life was nothing.
No… not anymore, though. Because I had just met a man who I was positive was my mate. My entire life was different now. Everything I’d thought that had been out of reach finally wasn’t!
Except, it actually still was. Because Sam was still my mate.
Holy shit, how was Sam my mate?
It made no sense. This wasn’t how our biology was supposed to work. We always knew who our mate was, and they always felt the same way…
But that wasn’t the case with Sam and me. He knew I was his mate. He felt strongly for me, but… I didn’t feel the same?
How was this possible?
The irony was that this happened in the human world all the time. Humans were constantly falling for people who did not like them. Sam was now in a very common human scenario while he absolutely despised humans in every way.
What the hell was I going to do?
We started packing up early, and Johnathon made it very clear that it was because of me. Because they couldn’t trust me to stay. Yeah, there was no way Andrew would let me come back after all this…
But maybe he didn’t have to.
I had Lyle’s phone number. I could still contact him, and… and maybe that was the only reason I had even wanted to be in the human world.
Come to think of it, now that I’d met Lyle, I didn’t find myself fascinated with every human and trinket I saw. I wasn’t smiling just looking around… I mean, I was smiling, but it was because of Lyle.
And what if he was the only reason I’d had interest in humans to begin with? Maybe this was fate bringing us together. Perhaps I’d had to be obsessed with humans in order to take this job and finally meet him.
It all made so much sense. And it was exactly what we believed as werewolves… that the universe had a master plan. That, if you put your life in to the hands of destiny, it would reward you by leading you where you needed to be.
Except for the fact that I was already mated. That part was kind of unaccounted for, and I wasn’t sure why.
I overthought things the entire way back home. I switched from feelings of extreme happiness to confusion to pure sadness.
This normally would have been the most joyous day of my life, but it was marred by my life circumstances. I was so angry. Biology had failed me. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I wasn’t supposed to have already had a mate when I’d met mine.
This was partially my fault. I didn’t feel this connection with Sam, not even close, but I’d lied because he had. I’d lied because I’d thought I didn’t really know what it was supposed to feel like. And, now, I was paying the price for that lie.
And how the hell was I ever supposed to get out of it? That didn’t happen in our culture. You were with your mate for life. How could we even begin to explain to the rest of the village that we were no longer together?
No, scratch that, how did I even begin to explain to Sam that I had met my mate?
And what would that mean for him? That he would be alone forever? If I was his mate, but he wasn’t mine, then he’d have to be on his own. Oh my god, that would break his heart. I couldn’t even imagine being alone… which was why I had stuck through our miserable relationship for so long.
But now I’d felt what real passion feels like, what real happiness is, and I wanted it. I wanted to feel like this for the rest of my life.
But what the hell did I do about Sam?
He was already home when I got back, looking even more pissed than usual. I imagined because this was the first day that I’d gone to the farmers’ market. And, evidently, my last.
But that was fine. I didn’t mind him being mad at me. In fact, today it was kind of preferable. I didn’t really want to talk to him, not when I was thinking about Lyle and how the hell I was going to get in contact with him again. I had his number, but we didn’t have phones here in the village.
Apparently, hoping he’d be angry enough to not talk to me was too much to ask for.
“How was it?” he said coolly, as I started walking towards the hallway.
“It was great,” I said truthfully.
He rolled his eyes. “Great. So, you don’t see the danger in that world at all?”
“Not really,” I admitted.
He shook his head. “Fantastic.”
“What, you thought I’d change my mind?” I asked him.
“Well, yeah, I was hoping!” he responded forcefully. “Hoping it would be enough for you to quit this stupid job.”
“Oh… well, I guess you kind got your wish anyway,” I told him.
His eyes widened. “What do you mean?”
“I won’t be going back. I’ve been fired.”
“You… you have?” he asked, surprised, because very rarely are people ever kicked off jobs here.
“Yep, so you don’t have to worry anymore.”
“What did you do?!” he asked, still in disbelief.
“I didn’t have the right attitude. They don’t think I’m safe enough around the humans,” It may have proven him right, but why should I have lied about it?
“Because they think it’s ridiculous that you don’t see the dangers, too?” he asked.
“Pretty much, yeah,” I shrugged.
“Well… okay then,” he said, seeming a little more satisfied. “Good, I’m glad to hear it. But, what are you going to do now?”
And suddenly, it hit me. How I could talk to Lyle… how I could see him again without having to tell Sam about it yet?
So, I told Sam my first lie.
“I am going to do guardwork,” I told him.
“Guardwork,” he nodded. “Well, good, maybe that will be good for you. Maybe you’ll get a better sense of how humans really are when you see them doing awful things in the woods.”
“Maybe,” I nodded, not wanting to talk much more since I felt guilty about lying.
But I had to. I had to do whatever it took to get to Lyle.
“They’ve got me on night shift for now,” I lied again.
“Night shift? Ugh, so I’m never going to see you, basically?”
I shrugged. “It was the only opening right now.”
He nodded. “Well, I guess it’s better than you having to go deal with humans every few weeks.”
“Guess so,” I said. “I’m going to go take a shower. My first shift is tonight.”
“Okay,” he said, as he grabbed a book off the side table to begin reading, “good luck tonight.”
“Thanks.”
I couldn’t have felt more awful about being dishonest to Sam, but wasn’t it nicer to lie to him than to tell him the truth?
I suppose eventually I’d have to, though… but that felt like a long way off. I mean, I didn’t even know Lyle yet. I may have known he was my mate, but I didn’t know how he was going to feel about me. I didn’t know if this feeling was going to be mutual at all.
Normally, I’d say it must have been mutual because that was how our biology worked… but now that I knew I was Sam’s mate and he was not mine, I wasn’t so sure.
I suppose that would have been a fitting punishment for me, to be mated to someone who did not feel the same way back. Just the thought of it broke my heart… which only made me feel for Sam more.
That night, I pretended to leave for night guard duty. When, really, I was going to shift into a wolf and run to the edge of the woods where I had heard there was a human bar. This was a place where humans got together, drank alcohol, a
nd played games like pool. In one story I’d read, there was something called a pay phone outside of a bar.
I was hoping this was the case with the new bar. I had a lot of human change that I’d collected over the years, purely because I was so interested in their species. But now it was going to come in handy because I could use it to call Lyle.
I suppose it wasn’t necessary to shift into a wolf, but I was so eager to get to the bar, and I was much faster in my wolf form. I tied a pack of clothes to my back, because, once I shifted back in to a human, I’d be nude. Which would have really made me stand out among other humans.
It took me awhile to actually reach the bar. I had to walk the perimeter of the forest’s edge for a long time. But once I found it, I was thrilled to see there actually was a pay phone there!
I shifted in some bushes behind the bar, got dressed, and pulled the change out of my pack as well as Lyle’s business card.
My heart pounded in my chest just as much as it had when I’d first run up to Lyle. I couldn’t believe I was actually going to get to talk to him…
I’d thought a lot more about what I wanted say, since I’d been pretty much obsessing over thoughts of him since I’d come home.
It was a little late, about nine, but I hoped he would still pick up. As the phone rang, I could feel myself getting both more nervous and more excited.
“Hello?” he answered to my delight.
“Lyle, hello! It’s Cecil, from the farmers’ market today.”
“Cecil!” he said back enthusiastically. “Hey, I was hoping I’d hear from you.”
“Sorry to call so late,” I told him, “had some work to finish up after the market.”
“Not a problem, I’m kind of a night owl anyway. What’s up?”
“I was just calling to let you know that I think I found that bravery.”
He laughed. “Oh, did you?”
“I did. Would you want to meet me for drinks tomorrow night? Around eight, since you’re a night owl,” for, as nervous as I was, I was surprised it was all coming off so smooth.
“I’d love to! Do you have a place in mind?”
“I do, do you know where the—” oh shit, I hadn’t even checked the bar’s name. I quickly glanced around the corner and up at the sign, “do you know where Taps is?” I asked.