by Bebe Balocca
Suddenly, the ground dropped out from under Faline and her body slammed onto a hard surface. Looking up in confusion, she saw Abetzi laughing madly and Sabrina gaping in shock. Barred doors swung shut overheard and clanged into place.
“I never said anything about a pit when I made my promise, blondie,” she cackled. “Does that suit you better than a cage, tiger girl?”
Faline howled at her—“You fucking witch, let me out!”—but all that she heard was the roar of a tiger bouncing from the sides of the pit. She jumped against the side of the enclosure and saw the wide, furred paws of a tiger before her eyes. It’s happened, then, she thought. Power coursed through her limbs and Faline knew that her sensory clarity was enhanced. She wanted to run at full speed, just to feel the sweet burn of her muscles and have the world turn into a blur. Faline tried to jump up the pit’s walls and break through the doors at the top, but couldn’t reach the metal bars overheard. She growled in frustration.
Overhead, Abetzi was doubled over with hilarity. The turquoise pendant around her neck glowed with a toxic light. “I hope you’re comfortable down there, blondie,” she gloated. “I’ll certainly feel comfortable when I cash this cheque of yours.”
“Bitch! ” Faline yelled. A deafening roar split the air. Dimly, Faline heard a man’s shouts and a series of pounding thumps.
“Now for you, little brat,” Abetzi spat at Sabrina. “I promised your idiot friend that I wouldn’t turn a human into a tiger again, but I said nothing about turning a human into something else. I think you’d make a perfectly lovely plant, my dear.”
Sabrina shook her head violently and raised one hand in protest. Abetzi chanted once more, “ Nuhaha nooch Abetzi. Nuni mooh Nyeeah.” Sabrina fell to her knees before the small woman. The turquoise face at Abetzi’s neck shone even brighter. “Nuni mooh Nyeeah! ” Abetzi cried. Her head lolled on her neck and her eyes rolled back once more. Even in the dim light, Faline saw Sabrina’s skin become velvety and greenish and her body start to lengthen. The banging on the door grew louder.
A glowing white mist grew behind Abetzi’s body. Sabrina’s head, now weirdly contorted and stretched, pointed up to the ceiling and fluttering leaves sprouted from her dark hair. The mist behind the witch grew both more opaque and more luminous. Sabrina trembled. The leaves on her head began to shake and her toes lengthened and poked into the floor. She stretched taller and grew thinner still. Horrified, Faline saw that she was transforming into a tree before her eyes. Abetzi’s frenzied chanting intensified—“ Nuhaha nooch Abetzi! ” she cawed. “Nuni mooh Nyeeah! ”
A humming sound grew in the room and the air seemed to quiver in front of Faline. The floating white ball now shone as brightly as the flash from a camera. It shot through the air into Abetzi’s back and knocked her off her feet with an audible whump. The witch broke through the barred doors of the tiger pit with a sickening crunch and crashed to the floor.
Abetzi lifted her head briefly to glare at Faline with pure hatred. “Never together,” she leered. “You’ll never be together, even when you get out of here.” Her head fell back down with a thud and she was still.
Faline pulled her lips back, growling, and sniffed the silent, face-down body on the floor of the enclosure. Abetzi’s wrinkled skin puckered, drawing tighter until every bone on her hands and forearms stood in sharp relief. The hair on her head dried and crumbled off her scalp, and the skin over her skull turned to powder. Within seconds, the lavender tracksuit, orthopaedic sneakers, turquoise pendant and a puff of sickly green dust were all that was left of Abetzi. Faline lowered her face and picked up the blue-green stone between her teeth. She crunched it in her jaws and felt it break into shards on her tongue. A foul stench floated up from the pit and a rotten taste filled Faline’s mouth. She spat the pieces of turquoise on the floor and roared in fury.
“Holy shit,” Sabrina panted overhead. “The witch is dead, thanks to Manitou.” She shook her braids and dying leaves floated to the floor.
The crash of glass split the room. Hunter yanked down the curtain from the door and stepped in carefully through the broken glass panel. He tossed the cooler aside and rushed to Sabrina. “Where’s Faline?” he asked. “I’ve been trying to get in, but the door was locked. Is Faline okay?”
He joined Sabrina at the mouth of the pit. Together, they looked down at a full-grown female tiger and a pile of ashes on a bed of rumpled purple velour.
“Oh, shit,” Hunter murmured. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this, Sabrina.”
Beneath them, Faline chuffed impatiently.
Hunter picked up several of the empty animal cages and carefully lowered them into the pit to form an impromptu stairway. Faline bounded up the cages and rubbed her heavy shoulder against Hunter’s thigh. The capuchin monkey shrieked and hooted from the back corner of the room.
“Let’s get out of here,” Sabrina said. She found Faline’s cheque in Abetzi’s table, folded it neatly and slid it into her jeans pocket. “This is going straight back into the Kat’s Crest bank account, where it belongs,” she informed them. “I’ll call my cousin at the animal welfare agency and report that we learned of some abandoned animals. He’ll come collect the monkey, bird, lizard and any other creatures he finds here, and he won’t ask any questions about how we heard about them.” She shot Hunter a grim look and added, “We’ll worry about the rest of it later.”
Faline climbed into the back of Sabrina’s truck and lay on the pallet of quilts. Without a word, Hunter clambered in as well and lay beside her. On the long, dark ride home, he didn’t speak, but Faline knew he was wondering exactly the same thing that she was as they jostled over the country highways.
Had she just doomed the two of them to never being the same species at the same time?
Chapter Ten
Faline awoke in the back of Sabrina’s truck with the bright morning sun shining through the windows of the truck cap. For a moment, she didn’t remember what had happened. She smelt Hunter’s reassuring presence next to her and heard his steady, unconscious breathing. Relieved, Faline reached to touch his shoulder as he slept—and saw an enormous tiger’s paw instead of her own hand.
“Holy fuck!” she gasped. Hunter’s eyes flew open at the sound of a tiger’s startled growl and he sat up at once. “This can’t be happening,” Faline moaned. “How can this be real? What are we going to do, Hunter?”
“It’s okay, Faline,” Hunter soothed. He stroked her striped shoulder and wrapped his arms around her furred neck. “It’s going to be okay. Sabrina told me what Abetzi promised, and we expect that, like me, you will turn back into a human at sundown. We think that you’ll transition, as I do, from tiger to human and back again every twenty-four hours.”
Faline pressed her face against his neck and snuffled his soft skin. “But, Hunter,” she purred, “when I turn back into a human, you’ll turn into a tiger, and we’ll both live alone, forever…”
“Don’t lose heart, Faline,” whispered Hunter. “The curse is still around, but you’ve put Abetzi out of business forever. That’s something to be proud of.”
“Abetzi’s dead,” Faline whimpered, “and she was the only one who could remove the curses from us…”
She slumped heavily onto the floor of the truck and closed her eyes in abject misery. Her tail lashed on the quilts. From her stomach, a long, noisy rumble erupted.
“Listen, Faline,” Hunter said, gently running his hands over her furred side. “You know that tigers eat forty or fifty pounds of food every day.” Faline squeezed her eyes shut. “Being hungry is only going to make you even more miserable, trust me. Why don’t you let me go into town and pick up some steaks for you? You might not be ready to go full tilt with the whole hunting prey thing, but, I’m telling you, nothing tastes better than raw meat when you’re in tiger form. It’s kind of hot to stay in the back of a truck in the middle of the day, and you might frighten shoppers at the grocery store, so, uh, you might consider waiting here.”
Faline huffe
d indignantly.
“Sabrina had her aunt pick her up so that she could leave us her truck. She also told Mick and Paul that you had a nasty stomach bug and to stay far away.”
Faline’s stomach twisted into painful knots. She knew that Hunter was right. Tigers required a huge amount of food daily in order to be healthy. She rose to her paws slowly and watched as Hunter propped open the back door with a rock. “I’ll be right back,” he promised, and drove away.
Faline lay in the shade beneath a cottonwood and stretched her limbs languorously. The back door to her house stood open, but the idea of being under a man-made roof on an afternoon like this seemed ludicrous. Butterflies flitted over the wildflowers and nearby a woodpecker rapped on the trunk of a crab apple tree. Faline yawned widely, licked her chops and dozed.
She dreamt of a savoury stew, with tendrils of delicious aromas curling up above it. The stew filled an entire bucket, and Faline knew that she would eat the entire amount and still want more. Mmm, she groaned in her sleep. Delectable chunks of red meat bobbed in the broth. She lowered her lips to the bucket and took a single bite in her mouth. Chewy, meaty, bloodied perfection.
* * * *
Faline woke up as the truck door slammed. She smelt the raw beef in Hunter’s grocery sacks from yards away. She sprang to her feet and ran to him at full speed. Hunter, laughing, tore open the paper-wrapped hunks of butchered meat and dropped them on the ground in front of Faline. Purring, she wolfed them down, one after another. Ambrosia.
“There you go,” Hunter said. “Forty pounds of grade A beef. The butcher was thrilled to sell all of that at once. I just hope he doesn’t swing by to check out the huge cookout I told him we were having.”
Faline stretched and returned to the shade with eyes so heavy she could barely keep them open. Within seconds, consciousness slipped away and she fell into a deep slumber.
* * * *
Half an hour before sundown, a battered station wagon approached Faline’s house. Hunter rose from the chair on Faline’s back porch to greet it, and Faline lifted her head from the lawn with interest.
Sabrina introduced her Aunt Zelma and her sons to Hunter. Zelma was tall and willowy, much like Sabrina, and seemed possessed of a preternatural calm. Faline ambled over to them and noticed that Jerome and Carter, although tall, muscular men, shrank back as she approached. She supposed that the sight of an adult tiger in close proximity was enough to make even a grown man jittery.
Zelma, however, turned to her with a peaceful expression. “We may be able to help you, Faline,” she told her. “Today, Sabrina and I, along with my children, have prayed to Manitou for guidance. By challenging Abetzi’s cruelty, you have done a great service to the natural world. Manitou is deeply grateful, as are we all.” Jerome and Carter, now fully composed, agreed. “As Sabrina told you, only Abetzi can remove the curses from you and Hunter, and she is gone from this plane of existence forever. However, the four of us, with Manitou’s help, will strive to make your lives more bearable.”
“We will try our best,” Jerome said quietly. He looked like a twenty-five-year-old heavy metal rocker, with spiked hair, a pierced nose and a black tribal tattoo on his neck, but his expression was sincere. Carter, a younger and unpierced version of Jerome, smiled quietly in agreement.
Sabrina helped her aunt unload pieces of wood and a bead-encrusted box from the back of the station wagon. Within minutes, a fragrant, crackling fire blazed in Faline’s backyard. Zelma directed Faline and Hunter to sit facing each other with the flames between them. Zelma chanted in Ute and tossed particles from the box onto the fire as she spoke. The fire sparkled with green, blue, purple and pink.
“Nuhaha nooch Zelma,” she said in a low monotone. “Nuni mooh Manitou.” The sun began to sink behind Hunter’s back and a tremor shuddered through Faline’s body.
“Nuhaha nooch Sabrina,” Sabrina intoned. “Nuni mooh Manitou.” The fire grew in intensity and colourful sparks drifted upward like neon fireflies. Through the dancing flames, the contours of Hunter’s body seemed to blur.
“Nuhaha nooch Jerome,” repeated Jerome. “Nuni mooh Manitou.” Guttural, feral growls came from Hunter, but he still appeared to be in human form—or did he? Faline squinted through the smoke. His body did seem heavier, and she thought she saw a tail curling from his backside. And had he been wearing a striped shirt? She couldn’t seem to remember. She couldn’t seem to think straight at all…
“Nuhaha nooch Carter,” chanted the fourth guest. “Nuni mooh Manitou.”
Faline was dizzy, alternately heavy as a boulder and light as mist, and unable to focus. The trees spun around her, and the rainbow-hued sparks careened through the air on invisible rollercoasters.
“Mahmuhch,” she heard from a great distance.
“Tuhwuhch.” The words rumbled off the sky itself then bored into the ground beneath her.
“Mamaci matucach.” Faline was torn, blended, trapped between two forms.
A tiger?
A woman?
Both?
Neither?
Oh, Hunter, what have I done to us? she thought desperately as she faded from consciousness. What will become of us?
Manitou. Manitou. Manitou…
Chapter Eleven
Faline awoke with a powerful thirst that overrode all thought. “Water,” she croaked, bleary-eyed and weak. “Water.”
An icy bottle of spring water was thrust into her hand. Faline twisted the top off and guzzled. The cool liquid slid down her parched throat and her body soaked it up like a sponge. She emptied the bottle in one draught and smacked her lips.
“Have another,” Hunter told her, grinning. He tossed a second bottle to her.
“Thanks,” Faline said gratefully. “God, I’ve never been so thirsty in my life.” She gulped half the bottle before pausing to sputter, “Hunter! You’re okay! You’re not—” She placed her hands on his chest and knocked him over onto the lawn. “And I’m not—” She grabbed her stomach and looked herself over worriedly. “We’re both human,” she laughed. “At the same time!”
Hunter smiled, brown eyes crinkling with delight, and flipped her over onto her back. “Yes ma’am,” he replied. “Zelma seems to have done the trick. The curse isn’t gone, but we’re in sync, Faline.” He spread her thighs apart with his knees and pressed something meaningfully hard between them. “It’s been so difficult just watching you sleep all day,” he complained, grinding his erection against her crotch as he spoke. “Zelma made me promise to let you rest, though, and she also insisted on putting you in some sweat clothes, which I found entirely unnecessary. It was probably wise, though, considering the eyeful that Jerome and Carter got when you turned back into a woman.”
Faline blushed. She crossed her ankles behind Hunter’s back and sighed contentedly. “They’re all gone, then?” she asked him.
“Mm-hmm,” he answered. “Sabrina was the last to leave. She took her truck this morning and was headed to go tell Mick and Paul that your stomach bug is raging and horrifically contagious. We’re all alone for the rest of the day.”
“And then, when night falls…” Faline said quietly.
“Yes, and then,” Hunter told her. “I’ll teach you what it really means to be a tiger.”
He scooped her up into his arms and took her inside. “We don’t have long before it gets dark,” he said, “so why don’t you freshen up while I throw together a little snack for us?”
Faline giggled when he carried her down the hall, placed her gallantly on the tiled bathroom floor and kissed her lightly on the lips. She heard him clattering around in the kitchen as she turned on the shower.
Half an hour later, Faline was a new woman. Exfoliated, shampooed, moisturised, perfumed, tooth-brushed and flossed—she felt as far from a savage animal as one could get. Excited pinpricks played on her skin as she combed her wet hair. In just an hour or so, this body would be unrecognisable.
Faline ran her palms over her lotion-slickened bare skin. She enj
oyed her human body—her skin was sensitive and her muscles were sleek, and she knew that Hunter appreciated it, too. She cupped her breasts and pushed them together, admiring her cleavage in the mirror, and blushed to remember Hunter’s wet mouth on her nipples. She traced one hand down her stomach and over the soft hair of her mound, then leant back against the bathroom door. Faline raised one foot and braced it on the pedestal sink. She remembered the sensation of Hunter’s lips and tongue on the dusky pink flesh between her thighs and in the mirror, her nipples hardened before her eyes. “This is what he sees,” she thought, “and this is what he feels.” She stroked the shower-damp folds of her pussy and tried to concentrate on what her fingertips felt instead of what her body experienced. She widened her thighs and pushed a single finger into her sheath. She was wet, slick and tight. The woman in the mirror moaned like a whore.
Faline heard a soft knock on the door at her back. She added a second digit to the first. “Yes?”
“Come out, Faline,” Hunter said. His voice sounded strained.
Faline bucked her hips against her hand and wetness coated her knuckles. “Is it dinnertime already?” she asked.
He tried the doorknob, but she’d locked it. She heard his hand slap the door in frustration and her core wept with excitement. “Let me in,” he ordered. “Fuck dinner. I can smell you, Faline.”
“You can?” she asked innocently. “So you know what I’m doing?” He pounded on the door and the wood shuddered through her back. “I’m watching myself, Hunter, in the mirror, and I’m thinking about what I want you to do to me,” she told him. She pushed a third finger into her cunt and exhaled slowly. “I’m fingering myself, and oh, it’s tight,” she whispered into the hinges, “and so very wet.” She rolled her nipple in her other hand and saw her reflection blush.
