ONE

 

The pack. The Alpha. Certain terms tended to set my teeth on edge, and those were two of them. I detested them, in fact, yet every time I picked up a literary magazine or viewed stories on a fiction website, there they were, lurking within the text.

As an aspiring writer, I had found it educational to read not only the classics, but contemporary works as well. Thus my foray into the writing websites – it was much cheaper than purchasing a ton of books, either in hard-copy or as e-books, and way closer than our town’s library. I live in a place with a sparse population spread out over several miles, and my house is on the opposite end from the Public Library. The internet, therefore, is my gas-saver.

I’d been reading a tale by someone who was supposed to be the definitive author on wolf stories, but there, right on the first page, were those two terms I hated so much. I closed the tab, disgusted, and got up from my desk.

Monday morning. Didn’t mind Monday as much as my friends did, since I worked from home. I stretched, not seeing the lovely view from my bedroom window because I was too busy being annoyed about the whole pack-Alpha thing.

“What is wrong with people?” I demanded of nobody, my other roommate. “They think they know all about wolves and werewolves and shape-shifters…ha! All they know is what some over-heated writer imagined about the subject, which means they know nothing at all!”

So who’s over-heated now, Rufus? Huh?

Nobody, who doubled as my inner voice, had a point. I was letting this subject affect my mood, which for the most part had been peaceful, if somewhat sleepy.

“Who are you talking to?” The roommate with a pulse, the one who paid half the rent, came into the bedroom at that moment.

“Nobody.”

“Ah – him again.”

I nodded – Cilla, this roommate of mine, seemed to disregard closed doors and personal areas as irrelevant obstacles. Perhaps I could put a lock…no, that would be insulting. Not that someone barging into my bedroom when I was not yet recognizable as either awake or dressed wasn’t a kind of insult.

She came further into the room and settled herself on the edge of my bed. “So what is it this time?”

“This time? Not sure what you mean. Mind if I put something on?”

“Maybe. I like your body, you know.”

Hers was likeable, too, but I wouldn’t let myself think that, or she’d notice. I went to the closet, covering my embarrassment, at least, with a quiet laugh. “You’re very kind.” After opening the sliding mirrored door, I contemplated diving in and shutting it behind me. One alternative would have entailed me diving into Cilla, and I simply didn’t have time for that right then. I opted for the other choice, which was picking out an outfit from the rack in front of me.

Sweats. Comfy things, those. Dark gray pants, gray and red top. Simple. My underwear was on the shelf…wait. Who cares? I got dressed. There. Done.

“I made a pot of coffee. Interested?”

Blasted girl had been watching me the whole time. “That why you came in?”

“Pretty much. Well?”

“Sure. Gotta get to work on the things I get paid for instead of, um.”

She grinned. “Reading again instead of working, are you?”

“It gets my mind going.”

Cilla made a non-committal sound and stood. I tensed, waiting…waiting…and…yup. She entered my immediate personal space and slipped her arms around my neck. “I’d rather get your body going.”

“Yes. Yes, you would.”

She kissed me. I kissed her back. I pulled away and reminded her that the rent was due. Perfecto!

“Kill-joy,” she growled, unsliding her arms and moving away toward the door.

“I’ll be down in a few.” I was already back at my desk, pulling up the architecture program I would be using on the latest design job I’d acquired. As a subcontractor for several architecture and design companies in the area, my schedule was almost never empty.

At the top of the page on which I’d be entering specs for the office building I had been hired to help design, was my name and logo. I liked that logo – a tall tree, the trunk of which was a rustic-looking skyscraper. As for my name, well, not so much. Rufus Sylvanus. Thanks, Mom. Thanks, Dad. Sheesh.

The way I saw it, I would always be associated with a character in a Marx Brothers movie – Rufus T. Firefly, oh, Lord – or a drug (ruffies). And the shortened version sounded like either something on top of a house or a mispronounced girl’s name. Shortened further, and I was a little-known herb immortalized by a psycho chick in a Shakespeare tragedy.

Staring at that name of mine, sitting with calligraphic grace atop the skyscraper/tree, I had to admit that it was a damn good thing I was a werewolf.

 

 

 

I had more than one good reason not to frequent bars, but on occasion I would forget what they were and find myself staring at a full shot glass while beside me, someone I didn’t know was rattling off transparent pick-up codes couched in trivialities.

My work for the day had been completed with the setting of a dull winter sun, Cilla had given up trying to stimulate me into a tryst (if that term even applied to two people living in the same house), and I was in the mood to go out. Bar-hopping had made an appearance in my thoughts, at nearly the same time as my recollection of why I so disliked those places. This was a vivid memory of something that had happened two weeks earlier when I had foolishly given my thirst the keys to the car. I must have been distracted by Important Shit, which caused me to go past my two-drink limit, and had ended up telling a guy what I was.

I frowned, trying to remember what had prompted me to do such a stupid thing, other than being stupid drunk. Had to do with a red-head, maybe? Ah. Yes. The guy had been trying to get her to leave with him, and she wasn’t having it. So of course, I stepped in…well, swiveled in, really. I was sitting beside him at the bar and turned the stool so I was facing his back. I’d tapped him on the shoulder, he’d twisted his stool to look at me, and I believe I told him to leave her alone.

He had gotten to his feet, apparently certain he was bigger than me. So I’d gotten to mine, and proved he wasn’t. Pissing contests are, without exception, just that dumb. Anyway, he had backed off, the red-head had zoomed off to the other side of the bar, and we had begun to talk. Somewhere in the course of what had to have been one weird-ass conversation, I told him I was a werewolf. Then he’d asked me if I was the Alpha.

To my credit, I didn’t punch him in the nose. Wanted to, but didn’t. I may have realized I was too drunk to find it anyway, but whatever. I did ask him why he thought such a thing, and told him the whole Alpha topic was bullcrap.

“Well, wolves hang out in packs, so one of them would have to be the Alpha, yes?” He had taken out a cigarette case as he was speaking, shaking one out.

I had pointed to the cigarette. “Is that the Alpha?”

“Huh?”

“Well, it was in a pack, and – ”

Before I could finish the sentence, the guy had broken into loud, eardrum-bruising laughter. “Ha! You had me going there, dude!” he’d said a minute later after calming down enough to light his stick of death.

That was when I had woken up from my alcohol-induced Dummy-state and become horrified with myself for having told him the truth about my nature.

So, no bars for me, I decided, shutting off my computer. So what else was there? The opera? Right. Nothing good at the movies…Cilla? Nope. A walk. Ah, good. I was dressed for it, in any event.

Fiction writers will tell you werewolves don’t feel the extremes of temperature. That’s a lie. It was winter, I needed a coat, end of discussion. Bundled up inside a fleece-lined leather duster (one of those ankle-length jobs), the hood of my sweatshirt up, my throat swathed by a long woolen scarf, I was able to enjoy a brisk jaunt through the slush-lined streets in relative warmth. Satisfied by the layout I had devised for the building’s penthouse, I was able to stop thinking about work for the rest of the day. All in all, life was good for the moment.

Crashing into someone causes several things to occur at once: pain, embarrassment, confusion, remorse. When that someone is a member of the opposite sex, all of those sensations are quadrupled. Seriously. It’s an ouch-crap-wtf-no! combo that no one wants to have under any circumstances, much less icy-cold dark ones.

The young lady who I had somehow not noticed until we were pretty much occupying the same space at the same time (sorry, Archimedes)  rebounded off my left shoulder with a loud gasp, slipped on the frozen sidewalk, and landed in a pile of exhaust-blackened snow left by a plow after the most recent blizzard.

“I am so sorry!” I reached down and helped her to her feet. “Are you hurt?”

“Are you?”

“N-no. Not much.” I noticed then that she was almost my height. How the hell had I missed seeing her?

“Nor I.” She rubbed her shoulder, flexed it, and smiled.

This left me wondering who in the world said, “nor I” these days? English majors? And then I saw what she was wearing. How had I missed that?! I cleared my throat. “May I ask you…I mean…who are you? Where did you come from?”

“When?”

“Just now.”

“Oh. Yes. My name is Drea. Short for Andrea, naturally. And yes, this is a genuine British accent.” She grinned. “I was over there – ” She gestured at something behind her. “Afraid I was in a bit of a hurry and didn’t see you until it was too late.”

“That was my excuse.” A smile seemed in order.

“Yes, well, anyhow, I was at the bridal shop for a fitting. My friend is getting married next week. I realized it had gotten later than I’d thought, and rushed out without changing – hence the very inappropriate gown and long gloves.” She shrugged her bare shoulders, one of which I could see was beginning to purple. The other was simply reddening from the cold.

“I hope you weren’t planning to go very far dressed like that.”

“Not at all. My car is over there.” This time she pointed to her right and straight ahead. “Oh, blast! Is this thing ruined from my tumble into the snow?” She spun around so I could see the back of the dress.

“Hard to tell in the dark, but it looks wet.” The gown was deep red and shiny – probably satin – and the skirt part looked darker in the center over her derriere than on the sides. For all intents and purposes, as the saying goes, nothing was covering her back except three very thin straps that looped from one shoulderblade to the other.

“Hell.” She faced me again, and smiled. “No worries. I’ll take it to the dry-cleaners tomorrow. Good night. Glad you’re okay.”

Why wouldn’t I be? I wondered. She might have been tall for a girl, but she was also, with a few curvy bits, quite slender. I watched her hurry to a large black vehicle several yards away, from which emerged a man wearing what had to be a chauffeur’s uniform. He rushed around to the passenger side and opened the back door. As the girl got in, she gave me a wave.

"Odd,” I murmured. “Wow.” I rubbed my shoulder again, some part of my brain nudging me and saying it shouldn’t hurt that much. A few nudges later, I focused, acknowledging that our collision ought to have caused me very little damage, not enough for the pain to be ongoing like this. I put my hand inside the coat and under my shirt to see if I could feel an abrasion. What I felt was wetness. Puzzled, I removed my hand, expecting water. It wasn’t water.

It was blood.

Impressum

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 03.10.2014

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