by Karen Ranney
I wanted to know what had happened to Joey. I wanted to know why Craig had challenged his father. I wanted to know what the OTHER was and why my father had never let drop any information about them. I also wanted to know what it would be like to have sex with this new, changed, and harder Craig.
I sat on the end of the couch, facing the truth.
Power had always been an aphrodisiac. I wasn’t immune to it. Perhaps I’d even recognized it in the younger Craig I’d known. I certainly recognized it now. I was intrigued. I was interested.
I’d also been celibate for years.
What was I going to do? Sit here and agonize about it? Or leave? Or was I going into this with my eyes wide open, and maybe even my legs?
I didn’t know who I was more annoyed at, myself or Craig. We needed to be figuring things out that were more important then The Hunt or my starved libido. How had the OTHER been able to change Joey’s physiology? What did that mean for the rest of us? I may not want to be a Were, but I sure as hell didn’t want to be a poodle.
So, I did what any self-respecting, intelligent female would do.
I took a nap.
Chapter Nine
Notice I wasn't moving?
I awoke in pain.
I’d slumped over on the couch, but my legs were still in the sitting position. My cheek was pressed up against the seat cushion, my right arm hanging over the edge. My left was trapped beneath me.
Everything hurt and I was drooling like mad.
I licked my lips, hauled myself upright — groaning the whole time — and blinked at the curtains. They weren’t bright with sunlight. I pulled out my phone and checked the time. I’d been asleep long enough that it was dark.
I was a little wobbly when I stood, but I managed to get to the bathroom and wash my face.
I stared groggily at myself.
My eyes were blue. Not a remarkable shade of blue. Not an arresting shade. Just a plain old blue. My hair was black, the shade making my skin look even whiter right now. I had to be very careful in the shades of lipstick I chose if I didn’t want to look like Snow White. I normally picked a pale pink and I was very judicious with the eye makeup. With my coloring, I could go from Snow White to Hooker White in a flash.
Right now I looked awful. Grabbing my purse I put on a little lipstick then used some to put color on my cheeks. I couldn’t do anything about my bloodshot eyes. By tomorrow morning I should be feeling much better.
My mirrored self made a grimace. “Are you sure you want to do this?” I asked.
Evidently, I’d already decided to participate tonight. But I could still walk out of this room, get in my car and hightail it home.
Notice I wasn’t moving?
The Hunt was a very structured event. We don’t all go find an empty field, shuck off our clothes, and began to lope through the trees. First of all, think of a golf course. You have tee off spots, some for men, some for women. That’s how it starts with the Hunt. The women go to their spot and the men go to theirs.
We’re already nearly naked at this point. Some of us wear robes. Others might wear a comfortable one piece nightshirt or shorts with a t-shirt. We aren’t modest, but we remained covered for as long as possible to stave off any voyeurism from curious humans.
Once the moon was above the horizon, we took off our clothes and began to run. Here again, using the golf course analogy, we had a specific route in mind for each group. For example, I may head to the third hole and the woman next to me to the ninth. Along the way the man I’d chosen to run with would join me. The hunt wasn’t so much a search for food, although it might once have begun that way, but among single Weres it was a very structured mating ritual.
Normally, a female would never run without a male. A male will sometimes run without a partner, in hopes of being able to convince a female to discard her chosen partner for him. But don’t kid yourself, both males and females can be very territorial. God help you if you happen to stare too long at an attractive male, especially if his female was right beside you. Try explaining that bite mark to your GP.
A male Were, starting when he’s fourteen and lasting all his life, goes through a phenomenon known as lumad. It’s close to what bull elephants experience. When their testosterone level shoots up to a hundred times normal, in a process called musth, they get extremely aggressive. So do Weres. Don’t even think about coming between a Were and what he wants when he’s experiencing lumad. Fortunately, it doesn’t hit every month. The more powerful the Were, the more manly the man, the more often he goes through the process. I had a feeling Craig was on a monthly schedule.
If that were the case, I was risking my celibacy by running with him.
My first memory of being on The Hunt was being wrapped in swaddling and placed on my mother’s back, my human chubby hands around her neck. I hadn’t been afraid. Something warmed and comforted me, either the knowledge that this huge hot and hairy beast would protect me or maybe some kind of wordless communication between mother and child.
When I was five, the average age, I changed for the first time. I’d been told what would happen. It had been explained to me that it was perfectly natural and normal, but something we didn’t discuss outside the house.
I can remember my father’s words like he was still standing in front of me, that look on his face proud and imperious. Papa Boyd.
“We aren’t like other people, Torrance. We’re better. We can do what most people cannot. We’re close to the earth, to nature itself. We can be not just one entity, but two.”
It was a speech he made to me often, but it took me years to realize he didn’t mean it. My father’s pride was reserved for his culture, his species, but not his whole clan. He didn’t think females were better.
From infancy until adolescence, when hormones made you want to howl at the moon, children ran with their parents. It was like a super vacation all in one night. You shared laughter and excitement and the joy of simply being Were. I missed those times.
Now I slowly began to take off my clothes, pulling my top over my head. Today I’d worn one of my only three sets of matching underwear. Maybe I had some prescience about this moment. Maybe I’d known that I would stand in a strange hotel room stripping down to the skin. Or maybe it was just the full moon and I’d been thinking of Craig.
The bra and panties both had white polka dots on a black background. I had a second set with white kittens on a blue background and a third with red rhinestone hearts on white. They were cute, but some of the rhinestones were in a very bad position on the panties. Every time I sat down I felt those tiny metal fingers were digging into my ass.
I pulled down my jeans after I stepped out of my sneakers. My socks were lime green. When I put them on this morning I’d already forgotten about the underwear. Polka dots and lime green socks: be still my heart.
If he saw me like this, Craig wouldn’t fall over with desire. Laughing was a different matter.
I took off my polka dot undies and stared at myself in the mirror. I didn’t study pictures of naked women. I occasionally cringed when I saw a beautiful woman on TV or in the movies, buck naked, and perfect.
I wasn’t.
I had an odd shaped birthmark low on my abdomen. My knees still bore scars of when I was learning to roller skate as a kid. I’d broken my arm when I was eleven, and it had required an operation. (We Furries don’t magically heal.) I had a faint scar from my wrist to halfway up my elbow. When people saw it, I wanted to explain that no, I hadn’t tried to commit suicide. Over the years, I’d forgotten about it to the point that I let people think whatever they wanted about me. Most people would anyway, regardless of what you told them.
My abdomen wasn’t as flat as it could be. At least my boobs weren’t drooping. The nipples pointed outward and not toward the floor. One day, gravity would come and get me, but it hadn’t yet. Still, I knew my flaws and wished I were perfect.
My libido’s memory furnished the image of Craig without his clothes. Li
ke a lot of men I knew, he was perfectly comfortable naked. Of course, if I looked like him, I would probably feel the same way. His chest was well defined, and so was his stomach. Even non-erect — the word flaccid, or even limp, just didn’t do it — he was impressive. His twig and berries, as the English would say, only gave you a hint of what he looked like fully aroused.
My libido sat up and twitched a little at the memory.
What the hell was I doing here? Why was I staring at myself in the mirror naked except for socks?
I walked into the bathroom and looked behind the door. Sure enough, there was a white fluffy ankle-length robe hanging there. I donned it and tightened the belt. While I was at it, I removed my band aids, souvenirs of Cleo’s surgery.
There was another basket in the bathroom. This one was filled with toiletries including a toothbrush, toothpaste, and a pair of slippers with rubberized soles. I put the lid down on the toilet, sat and peeled off my socks and put on the slippers. I grabbed the brush from the basket and began to brush my hair. I kept it trimmed just below my shoulders, long enough to put up if I wanted but not too long that it irritated me. I hated being in a strong wind and my hair blowing into my mouth or eyes.
I stared at the far wall for a good five minutes, trying to decide whether the Fig Newtons and the emotional blackmail was enough to make me put on my clothes and get the hell out of Luna Lodge. It bothered me that I hadn’t scampered already.
I stood up and made my way to the living room area again, standing at the window looking out at the approach to the river.
There were lamps lining the walkways, but they’d been left dark in deference to the occasion. Instead, the moon cast a blue white shadow over everything, including the white robed figures making their way to what I guess was the staging area. Here, too, the women and the men were separated.
When my mother and I discussed it — the only time we did so — she confessed that the most painful part of the transformation for her was the tail. It sprouted from your tailbone, broke through the skin and fluffed.
“It hurts,” she said. “I think it hurts me more than it does other people. It’s the one thing I dread.”
“My tail doesn’t hurt,” I confessed. “My problem is my ears.”
She looked at me with a smile. “Your ears?”
I nodded. “For some reason my ears don’t like to be pointed.”
We both laughed, amused at each other.
If I was going to do this thing, then I better do it. The last time I changed, I’d stopped taking Waxinine three weeks before the full moon. I’d taken a dose as late as yesterday morning. My doctor was a Were, although that wasn’t commonly known. He’d explained that the drug masked the urge to change. It took away the need and the desire. The ability still remained.
I’d find out in a few minutes.
Chapter Ten
Big whoop de do
I stood at the door to the corridor for a while, trying to get up my nerve.
I heard people passing and the sounds of conversation and laughter. I’d missed that feeling of community about the Hunt, the gathering together of individuals who had to normally hide their true nature.
I put my hand on the latch before realizing I’d forgotten the key card. I grabbed it from the top of the dresser, stuffed it into my pocket, and went back to the door once more. I counted down from ten, and when I got to three, I took a deep breath, straightened my shoulders, stuck my boobs out, and pulled open the door. Without giving myself another moment to think about it, I strode outside, pulling the door closed behind me. I was immediately engulfed in a crowd of similarly attired people, all of them smiling.
My nostrils flared, smelling them. They were Weres without artifice or any other cloaking perfume or preparation.
A friend of mine at college was the daughter of the millionaire who invented NoStink. Non-Weres thought it was a spray used in hunting. A hunter wet himself down with it to mask his human odor. Nope, that wasn’t the real use of NoStink. Once a week a Were sprayed himself with NoStink and it would be hard even for his mother to tell that he was a Were.
None of them was wearing anything like that. It had been so long that I’d been confronted by the scent of so many Furries.
I followed them, not at all surprised when one of them fell back to join me. She was a beautiful blond with sparkly green eyes and a rosy flush on her cheeks.
“I haven’t seen you before,” she said. “Is this your first run at Luna Lodge?”
I nodded, then spoke, realizing my silence would be seen as rudeness.
“Yes. The first here at Luna Lodge.”
She was my mother’s age, slim and barefoot, one of the few people not wearing the hotel provided slippers.
“I’ve been coming here for three years now,” she said. “Ever since it opened. It’s like a monthly treat to me.”
A valet, attired in the ubiquitous green vest, stood at the end of the corridor. At his side was an easel on which there was a poster gently reminding lodge guests that phones or other electronic devices were not allowed beyond that point. Evidently the valet was there to take said devices and return them to the guest rooms.
Nobody surrendered anything. We Weres weren’t into selfies. It was only a matter of time, however, until someone took a video of a Were becoming four legged.
We came to the elevators and I stood there with the rest of the milling crowd. From their conversations, it sounded as if all of them were old friends, but I didn’t get the feeling that I was unwelcome. On the contrary, there were quite a few smiles sent in my direction.
We were packed into the elevator, all of us jostling in good natured fashion. When the doors opened at the lobby, the males went left and I followed the females to the right, down to the exit sign at the end of the hall.
The staging area for female Weres was like an outdoor locker room complete with a roof, a series of little hooks placed on a beam about six feet high, and showers. It took me a minute to realize that it was the cabana area for the Olympic size pool.
One by one, we took off our robes, hung them up, then followed a path down over the grass and through a line of trees to a clearing.
The moon was full, giving me enough light to see. I moved to the side of the clearing and knelt on the ground. Closing my eyes, my face lifted to the sky, I interlaced my fingers and said the prayer that had been taught to me as a little girl.
The words were in a language I didn’t understand. Nor had I ever been able to translate it and I’d tried. I think it must’ve been the earliest guttural speech we ever uttered as a species, something that was never written down but orally transmitted from one generation to the next.
The prayer was an acknowledgement of my being. In addition, I was praying for the courage to bear the pain of what would happen next. The last sentence was the one that had always deeply affected me. It was an entreaty that I would return to who I was before my transformation.
My prayer done, I placed my hands flat on the ground.
I don’t know about other Weres, and it’s nothing I’ve ever discussed with my mother or sister, but I was hyper aware of what was happening around me even as I transformed. Maybe it was Nature’s way of protecting us at our most vulnerable.
I hadn’t lied to my mother, the most painful part of my change was when my ears sharpened to a point. I let my head hang below my shoulders, closing my eyes until it was over. The rest of the process was easier: my jaw and nose elongated, my spine lengthened; a tail grew from my backbone. My pores opened to free my fur.
When it was over I sat on the ground for a while, panting as I recovered. Around me other Weres did the same.
Some of us were different in size and shape. A corpulent man would be a fat Were. An anorexic looking woman would be a skeletal looking creature. Most of us, however, were average, the size of a wolf in the wild with light colored eyes that showed up as pale gray.
I was always reminded of the movie Psycho when I transformed. It’
s in black and white, but my mind saw the blood in the famous shower scene. It’s was the same after I became my wolf. I was able to see about fifteen different shades of gray, but after awhile my brain furnished the color of my surroundings: the deep green of the pines and the rich brown of the earth.
My mouth was open and I was tasting the air with the back of my tongue. It always amazed me how much I could know about my environment that way.
This was an ancient land, one still holding the scents of hundreds of humans, men with boots and guns, horses and tents. I smelled something odd, the almost faded odor of grease made from animals who no longer roamed this part of the southwest. Cured hide and berries. Indians. Native Americans, to be politically correct. To be entirely correct, I should have named their tribes, but I didn’t know them, only that they’d passed here and bathed in the river. Cattle had crossed here, too, on to the rail yards in San Antonio. Other humans had gone west, first reveling in the almost oasis like feel of this part of South Texas before hitting the arid stretch of desert in West Texas.
I pressed the pads of my paws against the earth, feeling a oneness with it that I never did as a human.
One by one, the female Weres left the clearing, searching out their male partners. I knew the minute Craig came closer. For years his scent had been painted on the back of my throat. I would always know him.
Male Weres have a peculiar anatomical anomaly when they transform. They become erect. Very erect, and they stay that way until after the Hunt. I’ve always been curious but had never been brave enough to ask if it hurts to run with a phallus that big. Evidently it doesn’t, because as Craig marched into the clearing, I noticed that nothing had changed.
He was a truly beautiful Were, with light intelligent eyes and a lupine grin. We didn’t communicate telepathically, but I could almost guess his thoughts.
Female Weres had a peculiar anatomical anomaly as well. Our nipples got hard, all six of them, as if to remind us that we were female, whether on two legs or four. Unfortunately, that little side effect lasted for the duration of the Hunt and beyond. My nipples still ached for hours after I transformed back to my human self.