by Hunter Blain
There was a gleam in her eyes that Jose knew all too well. He turned to see Julian enamored with the talking yellow sponge on TV and Ana asleep on the bed. His gaze returned to hers, and he audibly gulped as his breathing intensified. Her smell invaded his nostrils and tickled his nerves, making his penis begin to engorge and throb from beneath its cotton prison.
Without another word, he aggressively pulled his wife into the bathroom, shut the door, and began kissing her with a passion and intensity that reminded him of their first time and of their honeymoon. A light moan escaped her lips as he pulled on her hair to focus his hungry lips on her salty neck. Her smell was intoxicating, and even without a shower, Isabel tasted sweeter than the nectar of the gods.
While his fingers entangled in her dark hair, his free hand aggressively reached behind her to latch onto her firm buttock. He squeezed, hard, and pulled her hips into his. She lightly gyrated, unable to keep her lust at bay, and not wanting to. They had just survived the impossible. The taste of water couldn’t be described by a man who had just survived three days in the sweltering desert. Nothing before it or anything after could ever touch the barest memory of the first sip of water after being on the brink of death.
They had survived, and now surrendered to a passion that was nearly forgotten, feeling at the very peak of life itself as they entwined their bodies.
Jose clawed off Isabel’s clothes with a growl of lust as her nails raked his skin while pulling his boxer briefs down. She jumped to wrap her legs around his waist and arms around his shoulders as he set her on the sink and readied himself with a hand.
Jose thrust deep into his wife, drawing a gasp of pained pleasure from the woman he deemed to be the most beautiful creature on all of Earth. He grunted with effort, feeling the sweet, warm fire infused with electrified silk grip him as if refusing to let loose. He could feel the end coming and began to glisten with sweat as he thrust over and over and harder and harder into his wife — his soulmate.
Grunts gave way to moans that signaled the precipice into the purest pleasure. Isa caught on to this and began bucking more frantically against her loving husband — who had done everything in his power to provide a good life for his family — and felt her own fuse nearing the mound of gunpowder.
They climaxed together as they tried to kiss with mouths that were gaping from unbelievable elation. Jose could feel his wife pulse against him as she could feel him throb inside of her. Then they were left panting, their arms around each other.
The desire, which had been holding back all other emotions like a tent in a hurricane, blew away in the storm of horror.
Jose and Isabel rested their heads on their lover’s shoulder as they held one another. Jose breathed in his wife’s pheromones while Isa began to sob. He pulled his hips back, letting himself fall free of his wife’s phallic embrace, and moved forward again for maximum body-to-body contact.
“I won’t let anything happen to you,” Jose promised as he lightly kissed her sweaty neck and ran his fingernails gingerly over her back as it bounced with every sob.
“What was that?!”
Before his mind could fabricate a plausible story to calm his wife, his mouth spilled, “A werewolf.”
Isa pulled back, tears streaming down her face to mix with her perspiration. She looked at him doubtfully, but Jose kept his face stoic.
“I need you to understand that is what it was. A werewolf, Isa. Don’t let your mind tell you it was anything different than that.”
“Wh-why?” she stammered.
“I need your help. We are a team, and I can’t do this if you forget or don’t believe what I’m saying.”
Her tears were turned up to a steady stream as she looked at her husband with pleading eyes. “I-I don’t want to remember!” She shook her head as she spoke, as if she could erase the memory by doing so.
“Do it for Julian. Do it for Ana. You have to be strong. You’re strong, aren’t you? Remember how you helped your mama after your papa died? You were so strong. Do you remember?”
She nodded while sniffling and rubbing the tears from her eyes with her middle fingers in a gesture that Jose had seen women of all ages do. He figured it was a muscle memory that helped prevent mascara from smearing or something.
“Hop in the shower. I’m going to grab some sleep. We can figure this out in the morning, together.”
She nodded again and he helped her slide from the sink to the ground. They embraced once again for several seconds, then Jose pulled away and put his underwear back on. It was damp from the little bit of water that had gotten on the ugly tile of the floor, but he didn’t care right then.
Jose walked to the bed closest to the bathroom and let himself fall face-first into the pillow. He was asleep before the sigh of comfort finished escaping his throat.
Chapter 8
J ose awoke with a snort as the motel door closed with a loud click. While wiping drool off his face, the man jerked his head to see his wife entering with a bag of delicious-smelling KFC. Relief washed over him while hunger began to boil over in an instant.
Pushing himself up, Jose let his feet hang off the bed as he rested his face in his palms and rubbed.
“How long have I been asleep?” Jose asked, looking out the window to the early night.
“A few hours. I figured you’d be hungry.”
“I was hungry too!” Julian cried out jumping up and down around his mom, who was pulling the contents out of the bag and setting them on an all too small table next to the bed.
“I know, baby, that’s why I got your favorite,” Isabel said with a labored smile as she straightened her son’s hair. “Now go wash your hands.”
“I did wash them!” Julian responded with eyes intent on the bounty in front of him.
“Wash them again, for me.”
“But mamiiiii!”
“Do as your mother asks, son,” Jose said, willing himself to stand and walk to the amazing aroma of fried chicken.
Julian stomped off to loudly wash his hands in the bathroom sink. The water turned off, prompting Jose to say over his shoulder, “Use soap.”
“AUGH!” the boy sighed as the water was turned back on. A few moments later, the boy with dripping hands ran to where his parents were pulling utensils free from their plastic containers.
“No plates?” Jose asked.
“Oh,” Isabel said in frustration. “I told them to make sure to give us some.”
“No problem. You can share the sides. I only, ah, want the meat.”
Isabel flicked her eyes from the food to her husband for a moment before returning to Julian’s wet hands that were grasping at whatever they could.
“Hold on, Julian,” Isabel said as she ripped the top of the chicken container off and turned it over. Using the impromptu plates, she placed some mashed potatoes with gravy, a biscuit, and a piece of chicken. “Sit there,” she said, pointing at the workstation against the wall. Julian, being too hungry to argue any longer, jumped into the seat and kicked his feet back and forth as his mama set the plate on the table and pushed the chair in. She moved to set the plastic fork down and Julian grabbed it from her hands eagerly.
“What do we say?” Jose asked as he placed a hand on his knee and leaned toward where his son sat.
“Thank you!” he said in a singsong.
“That’s my boy,” Jose admired before turning his gaze to his beautiful wife. “Thank you,” he mouthed to her, meaning more than just the simple act of getting food.
She coyly smiled at him, unable to make eye contact as if what they had done in the bathroom was naughty and secretive.
Jose chose the biggest breast among the pieces and went to town with a gusto that surprised even him. The meat was juicy and tender, but in a way that was capped due to mass production. It could never be as good as a freshly cleaned chicken pulled from a charcoal grill surrounded by friends and cervezas.
Within moments, nothing was left but bone on the breast. Without thinking, J
ose reached into the box and pulled out another crispy piece, repeating the process with a fervor that made Isabel cringe in slight disgust. She decided to let it go as she delicately nibbled her modest portion.
Jose noticed her tentative bites, and a question formed in his expression. She saw him pause and looked into his eyes, assessing the wordless question, before offering a small smile and shaking her head slightly.
Accepting her answer, Jose smiled warmly before returning to his food. Nothing like almost dying to give a man an appetite. The chicken was delicious at that moment as a cornucopia of smells invaded Jose’s nostrils. He could differentiate between the breading, meat, and even the oils. Isabel’s flowery aroma sat heavy, drawing his attention like a cartoon hand over a pie. He could feel his pants tightening as his gaze roamed over perfect light brown skin. His mouth salivated, but not from the food any longer. Though he was still hungry, his body craved something else.
Isabel’s focus was drawn once again from Jose’s eager consumption to his hungry eyes. She knew the look all too well, and shook her head.
It wasn’t often Isa turned Jose down when he asked, but when she did, he usually understood — and respected — her decisions. Usually. It had been six months since the birth of their daughter, and Jose had been more than patient.
Jose almost growled as his body tensed. Isabel recoiled ever so slightly, as if to be barely imperceptible, but Jose saw it. A primal rage fired in his chest, and Jose knocked the table over in an attempt to get at his wife. Gravy splashed as chicken toppled on the carpet. Isabel cried out in surprise as she nearly fell back in her chair as hands shot up to protect her from the overly aggressive man. The simple, unconscious reflex infuriated Jose even further. How dare she make to protect herself from him, as if he would ever hurt her. It was downright disrespectful for her to assume he would hurt her.
Jose lunged forward and snatched one of her wrists with blinding speed. Isa cried out before the nagging notion of how hot his skin was took control. It was as if he had soaked his hands in near boiling water or held on to an industrial radiator, heating his flesh to the bone.
“Jose,” she gasped with an expression of outrage and apprehension intermixing like different colored dyes swirling in a glass of water. He had only grabbed her that hard once in their relationship, and it had been while they had been walking between the walnut trees. A brown snake had curled into a ball and Isa hadn’t seen it, nearly stepping a foot right on top of it. Jose had grabbed her wrist and yanked her back, hard. At first, she had thought it an overzealous and impromptu romantic embrace, until she had seen his wild eyes and followed them to the awaiting reptile. He had saved her, as they lived far enough away from the city that she would not have made it to the hospital in time.
He wasn’t saving her then. Jose’s eyes blazed with a fury Isabel had never seen before.
She tried to recoil back, but her husband yanked her to her feet. Frantic eyes shot to Julian, who was twisted all the way around in his chair and had begun crying, unsure of what was happening but confident that the energy was all wrong. Ana had stirred from where she slept and began crying from the noise.
“Jose,” Isabel whispered with stoic calmness as her gaze bounced from the corner of her eyes, where Julian was, and back to Jose.
It took three full swings back and forth for Jose to catch on. His demeanor immediately softened as if a tight balloon, on the verge of rupturing, had had some of its air released.
Jose shifted back and forth on his feet while still holding Isabel’s hand, unsure of what to do. Julian put a fist into his mouth as he cried.
An idea came to Jose and he grabbed his wife by the waist while crying out, “Tickle monster! Don’t let the tickle monster get you!” while squeezing his wife’s side. Julian froze in mid-sob and looked at his mama. Jose’s eyes shot to meet Isa’s, pleading while apologizing at the same time with a wordless expression.
Isabel began laughing at her husband’s touch, but there was no mirth in her eyes.
Jose continued to tickle until Isa slapped at his hands a little too hard, prompting Jose to turn his attention on Julian.
“Don’t let the tickle monster get you! Arrrgh!” Jose cried out while dramatically stomping his feet and making dinosaur arms. Each step brought him closer to his son, who had flipped the switch from sobbing to hysterical laughter. The boy’s arms, which had been holding his hands up to his wet face, shot down to his sides as he pulled back while tittering in a high pitch.
What the hell was that? Jose demanded of himself as he reached his son and began trying to get his fingers into his armpits or sides.
From behind, Jose was aware Isabel had begun cleaning the food off the ground.
After a few minutes, Julian was yawning. Dusk had swallowed the day and paved the way for night.
Jose picked his son off the chair, set him on the ground while telling him, “Go get ready for bed,” before lightly smacking him on the bottom. Julian ran off to the bathroom.
Jose shifted his focus to Ana, his sweet, baby girl. She was writhing on the opposite bed to the one Jose had passed out on. He walked over to her, sat on the bed, and began playing a game of peekaboo with his hands. Mirthful titters erupted, filling the man’s heart. Jose thought in that moment how lucky he was to have both a boy and a girl.
The man steeled himself to look at his wife, who had stopped cleaning to regard him with her arms crossed in front of her chest.
Switching to a slightly broken English that Julian wouldn’t understand, she said, “What happen?”
Two words. Two words that could mean an infinite number of things. But Jose knew what she was asking.
“I-I don’t know what happened. I . . . I’ve never felt like that with you before,” he admitted, also switching to English that was better than his wife’s.
Tightening her arms around her chest, she continued, “Your skin. It is hot.”
Jose looked down at his hand, turning it over in the lamplight in search of anything that could explain what had happened. Finding nothing, he let it drop and looked at his wife while his shoulders inched toward his ears and his eyebrows went up. “I . . .” Jose tried to explain.
“It eat you?” Isa asked in a calculating tone.
“Eat?”
“Sí. Eat your skin.”
Jose repeated the words a few times before suggesting, “Bite? Did it bite me?”
“Yes. It,” she looked over Jose’s shoulder to Julian, who had finished brushing his teeth and now was trying to get water into his mouth by cupping his hand, “It is a man wolf, like in the books.”
“You mean a werewolf?”
“Shh,” Isa whispered harshly as she once again looked at her son. “Yes. The were-a-wolf eat your skin?”
Jose thought about what she was saying and understanding dawned. His eyes went wide before shooting down his body, examining every inch of him.
“No. No, I don’t think so,” Jose reassured her with a sigh as he looked at his wife whose arms remained tightly crossed. “What?”
Her eyes flicked to his neck and she nodded with her chin. “And that?”
Jose’s hand went up to his trapezius muscle and glided across the smooth skin. Jose craned his neck painfully to look down at his shoulder but couldn’t see where the bullet had entered. Fingers feverishly explored the skin, confident they were just somehow missing the wound. Nothing. They found nothing. Not a tender spot or scab could be found.
“Bu-but it was a bullet!” Jose said with alarm, prompting his wife to bat her hands in the air, palms down, in a “lower your voice” gesture. “It was just a bullet, not a bite,” Jose concluded, trying as much to convince himself as Isabel.
“Where it pass?”
Jose replayed her words again and again. He wanted to answer by saying in his shoulder, but he knew that’s not what she was asking.
She shifted her eyes to Julian, who was sitting on the edge of a bed and clicking the large black TV remote.
Switching back to Spanish, she whispered, “When did it happen? It was when the,” she glanced at her son for a brief moment, “thing was on the car?”
Jose thought and then nodded his head, his hand absentmindedly rubbing at his shoulder.
She didn’t need to continue as both their trains pulled into the same station simultaneously.
“Yo-you don’t think,” Jose asked in Spanish as he slowly got to his feet, unable to sit any longer.
Isabel’s eyes began to glisten as she slowly nodded her head. With her arms still crossed, she lifted one hand to rest at her neck as the space between her eyebrows lifted.
Jose’s mind reeled with the implications of what she was suggesting.
“No,” he exhaled as he gently sat on the bed, his legs no longer able to support himself no matter how much he wanted to stand, or run.
Isabel seemed to struggle with what to do before landing on the obvious. She walked the few steps to him and placed both hands on his shoulders while he leaned his head into her bosom.
“No,” he repeated at the thought of becoming one of those monsters.
Chapter 9
W ith Julian and Ana asleep, Jose wordlessly stood up and walked to the door, doing his best to move silently in the dark.
“Where are you going?” Isabel whispered, but lacked any conviction in the question. She knew he needed time.
Jose stopped with his hand on the door and half turned to her. She could see the side of his face and the swarming thoughts in his mind.
“Please, don’t go far,” she said as she walked up from behind and wrapped her arms around her husband’s waist. She kissed the back of his neck and closed her eyes as she breathed in Jose’s scent, as if it would be the last time.
Jose didn’t return any affection or even acknowledge that she was there. He pulled on the door and walked outside, breaking from Isabel, whose arms fell to her thighs. As she watched the man she loved walk away through the closing door, a hand went up to her mouth while the other reached out, as if in doing so, Jose would be okay and come back inside.