by Nem Rowan
"We shared the bed last night," I confessed as she leaned back and smiled at me. "I guess I felt guilty making him sleep on the floor."
"You like him?" she assumed with a little wink.
"No, I do not. Ugh, have you seen the state of him? Jesus." I wrinkled my nose as I turned the tap on, the water gushing into the open top of the kettle.
"Hmm?" she teased further, and I turned my back on her. "It is okay, I like it Ceri too, he is nice man. Very kind. Nice man."
"Oh yeah, fancy him, too, do you?" I smirked as I looked at her over my shoulder.
"I am not fancying untidy men." She laughed, her whole face lighting up. She had such an infectious laugh that it was hard not to copy her. "Not as good as Piotr who was good to be using washing machine often."
"Don't let him hear you say that," I chuckled.
"Leon, I make you toast and some things, you sit okay?" She pointed to the kitchen table as she placed her hand on my shoulder. "Go sit, I cook for you."
"No, no, I can do it," I insisted, but she wouldn't take no for an answer.
I sat to the table, my chin resting on my knuckles as I watched her cooking on the hob, frying some bacon and eggs in a hot pan. She was wearing tight-fitting jeans and a t-shirt today, the clothes cleaving to her slender, reedy form; her figure was what I had desired to have when I was younger, but being a man meant I didn't have her narrow shoulders or curves where they should be. Costumes did a lot to make up for that, and after awhile I realised that people liked me as I was. It was something I had made sure to imprint on Amy all the time, telling her she was beautiful without makeup or costumes, and during the day when I wasn't working, we went out together and I dressed in male clothes. We sure got some funny looks trying on perfume and lipstick in department stores or putting on matching outfits in the dressing rooms of clothing shops. I thought about Amy as I sat there, grieving silently, while my belly rumbled with hunger.
"Full moon tonight," Mecky commented after a moment. "You are feeling, too?"
"Huh? Oh, yeah, I'm feeling pretty strange already. What about you?" I asked, and she smiled at me as she flipped the bacon over with a spatula.
"You know how it is feeling like." She raised her eyebrows at me.
"I don't understand what you mean." I shook my head slowly with a frown.
"You know. Feeling like it...down there," she repeated, gesturing downwards with her hand. "I can't find words. You know. Like I am needing my husband."
"Oh." I stared at her. There was a delicate blush in her cheeks and she seemed embarrassed all of a sudden, maybe because I hadn't figured it out straight away or because I didn't feel the same.
"Don't you?" she tilted her head.
"Not really. I mean, sure, when I've transformed, but not right now. I don't know." I looked down at the table top, tracing the lines in the wood grain with my fingertip. Perhaps that explained why she was being so close to me, sniffing me. I felt different though, more pitiful I guess.
"I am embarrassing Leon," she pointed out.
"Yes, you are. You can stop now." I laughed, and she giggled, splashing oil on the hob as she took the fried eggs out of the pan and put them on a plate.
She sat beside me, sipping her second mug of coffee while I ate the breakfast she had made for me. I could tell she was still embarrassed because she didn't speak, and I didn't know what to say to her either. She probably didn't normally feel or act this way; it was because the full moon was close, and it did weird things to our heads. Once it was over, these clingy feelings I was starting to have for Ceri would probably dissipate, too. I just had to ride it out.
After I had gone to dress and wake Ceri with a cup of tea, Mecky invited me down into the shop to show me around and tell me what she wanted me to do. The floor space was fairly large and high-ceilinged, modestly decorated in pale green with a glass counter and aisles of shelving racks filled with food and other goods. A row of freezers and fridges lined one wall, and on the other side was a small seating area of several tables and chairs where customers could sit and eat. Mecky had been struggling serving food and working the counter on her own and she was grateful to have me lend a hand; in fact, she didn't seem at all worried about how I would handle customers, not the way Ceri had been.
He seemed to think that I would frighten people off, but I could actually be very accommodating when I set myself to it. On the plus side, all of the customers were Polish, so perhaps they wouldn't notice my slang or swearing, things that were clearly the root of Ceri's distrust in my social skills. I helped Mecky restock the shelves and clean the shop before opening up, going outside to roll up the shutters and crunching ice under my shoes. It was still early and the street outside was quiet but soon the traffic would come, and the pavements would be populated by more than just scuttling pigeons.
The first few hours were slow. Our first customer came in at about ten o'clock, a young man who popped in to pick up some bread, and he stopped to talk to Mecky at the counter while I stood watching them, the flow of indistinguishable words leaving their lips in a river of musical notes. If I hadn't been such a rebel at school, I would have liked to have learned a few languages; it was something I had been good at, at least. Damn. Now my brain was kind of rusty and didn't pick things up as well. Still, I enjoyed listening to them talk, and when the young man was ready to go, he turned and said something to me, too, so I simply waved in return.
"Do widzenia. Goodbye. He say goodbye to you." Mecky smiled at me as she dusted the counter with a cloth. "You say it. Do widzenia. Try."
"Huh?" I squinted at her as I tried to figure out what she was saying.
I spent the next twenty minutes muttering the phrase over and over, and she kept correcting me, resulting in both of us laughing and repeating each other. When the next customer came in though, I totally nailed it. Mecky tried teaching me a few other words, like 'yes', 'no' and 'okay', just simple things, and when she spoke to people, I tried to pick up on those words in their sentences. Come midday, the shop became very busy with lots of people visiting, and I soon realised that her shop was part of a hidden community that I hadn't been aware of before. Folks of all ages came in to chat, to say hello and buy a few things, while others stayed to eat, and the shop was filled with chatter and laughter and small children playing. I rushed around, helping Mecky serve customers and fetching things for her, and with just a little effort, we had things completely under control. It was unfortunate that we had to shut the shop earlier than usual because the winter night would draw in soon and we needed to prepare ourselves before darkness fell.
"You like it work with me tomorrow?" Mecky asked me as she helped me pull the shutters down outside.
"Okej," I replied, and she laughed, grabbing me by the shoulder so fiercely that she almost pulled me over.
"You are talking very good! I am good teacher, yes?" She beamed at me, and I nodded.
"Long time I am working alone. I am happy with Leon working, too," she spoke, and my eyes opened wide when she leaned close and gently pinched my cheek. "You are nice man, too. Very much I am liking you."
I watched as she moved away, heading for the side gate that lead around to the back of the building where she removed the padlock, the gate creaking open on its rusty hinges. She gestured I come too, so I followed her into the dark passage where she locked the gate again, and together we went through to the other side where the back door of the shop and the stock room were. Ceri was standing on the doorstep, cigarette smoke pluming from his nostrils as he leaned against the doorframe looking rather dishevelled. He must have slept in late as I had barely heard him moving around upstairs.
"You ladies ready then?" he spoke as we moved around the car to where he stood. The ground was covered in a layer of frozen snow and it shattered like tiny pieces of glass underfoot.
"I am ready," Mecky agreed. "When we are doing it?"
"Well, sunset has been roughly around the 5 o'clock mark the last week or so, so I would say we should get start
ed now since we've only got about 45 minutes to go," he replied as he dropped his cigarette butt to the floor and squashed it under his boot. "The last thing we need is you two transforming yere and now and tearing me to pieces."
"What are we doing, anyway?" I questioned, feeling out of the loop because I had no idea what was going to happen next.
"Follow me down yere, and I'll show you." Ceri nodded his chin towards the stock room, and so I stepped in behind him, Mecky following at the rear.
In the back of the storage room where Mecky kept stock stacked on shelving units, there was a metal hatch door in the floor, kept hidden and tucked away behind the rows of shelves. Ceri knelt and undid the huge padlock, chucking it aside onto the linoleum and lifting the heavy door with a groan. It thumped as it hit the floor. Cool air drifted up from the darkness below and I began to feel afraid; small, dark spaces always left me feeling anxious. Ceri reached in and flicked a switch, and light spluttered and flickered to life below, revealing a series of concrete steps leading downwards.
Mecky descended first and Ceri smiled at me reassuringly, so I began down the steps slowly, holding onto the handrail that turned with the steps in an L-shape, leading down into the basement underneath. It looked as though it was a part of the original Victorian structure but had been fully refurbished with plastered walls and a concrete floor, shelving bolted to the walls and steel beams holding up the ceiling that perhaps might have bowed or collapsed in previous times. Cobwebs hung here and there, diaphanous shrouds that caused hazy dark spots on the floor as the light shone through them. The room filled the entire floor space of the house, so it was quite large, and as I followed Mecky to the far end, I saw chains laying on the ground. They were looped around one of the steel beams and linked by padlocks, some of them laying open on the floor, and near the wall was a heap of even more chains. They were thick and heavy enough to be used for motorcycle security.
"Here I am transforming." Mecky pointed to the chains. "For Ceri it is not safe for not being chained, you see?"
"I guess I will be chained, too, huh?" I assumed.
"Only after you've transformed. First you have to take your medicine, and it will sedate you, then I'll chain you up, just to be on the safe side." Ceri's voice startled me as I had been so focused on my surroundings that I hadn't heard him come in.
When I looked round at him, he was coming towards us with a plastic bottle and two cups. He stopped before me and offered me one, which I took hesitantly.
"What the fuck is in that bottle?" I stared at it, my nostrils picking up all sorts of horrid scents coming from the greenish liquid within.
"Only a few herbs. A bit of garlic. Silver nitrate. Some deadly nightshade, a little monkshood and hemlock. It'll do you no harm." he unscrewed the bottle cap and poured a measure into the cup I was holding. The smell was offensive to my sensitive nose and it simultaneously created a lurching sensation in my belly.
"It smells like sick." I curled my lip as I looked down at it.
"It taste like sick." Mecky chuckled just behind me, and I turned to find her at my shoulder. She was holding some folded bath towels in her hands.
"Ugh, Jesus Christ, I don't know if I can drink this." I pushed the cup back towards him, but he refused to take it back from me. "Can't ya just chain me up instead?"
"The chains are a precaution. This is the only solution we have right now." He shook his head, taking a step back to keep away from the cup. "And whatever you do, don't splash the medicine on me, all right? The ingredients are fatally poisonous to humans."
I bit down on my tongue as I stared at the gloopy green liquid; it looked like a wheatgerm smoothie, probably tasted about as pleasant, too. Ceri poured a cup for Mecky and she took it with her to the other side of the basement where the chains were.
"You don't have to drink it right this minute, but we're running out of time. Now come over by yere and take your clothes off." He patted me on the arm, gesturing that I should come with him.
Mecky had wrapped a towel round herself and was gracefully slipping her clothes off underneath. I understood why she was doing this; I had learned that if I left my clothing on when I transformed then I ended up with nothing left to put on when I changed back. The increase in size and shape was enough to turn clothes to rags. She offered me a towel as I approached, so I took it and she helped hold it round me as I began to do the same; meanwhile, Ceri had put the bottle down by the wall and had taken out a bunch of keys, using them to undo padlocks and organise which chains would go where. I was nervous. I could feel the onset of pressure being exerted by the full moon, which was getting dangerously close as night began to fall outside. With my clothes off and my towel round my waist, I shivered in the chill air, watching hopelessly as Mecky drank the cup of gunge in one hit.
"Make it like vodka, in one go." She pointed, smiling at me when I lifted the cup and sniffed it again. "Quickly, all down. You try."
I brought the rim of the cup to my lips and my belly immediately clenched, but I was determined to drink it. As the thick liquid entered my mouth, I squeezed my eyes shut and made a horrified groan as I felt it sliding down my throat. It was too thick for me to swallow it in one go so I had to gulp several times. That small cup felt like I was drinking a whole pint of the stuff, and even after I had swallowed the lot, it left a tingly coating on my tongue. My lips began to get pins and needles, as though they were starting to go numb. Worst of all, my belly gurgled in disgust and I covered my mouth, trying to force back the instinctive need to throw up.
"Keep it down, Leon." Ceri looked up at me from where he knelt on the dusty concrete.
"Oh god, I feel so sick. Damn," I grumbled as Mecky took the cup from me.
"Leon, come and sit," she urged, pulling me by the wrist so that she could guide me to the wall. I slid down to the floor and stretched my legs out, fighting off the retching sensation in my throat. It was starting to make me feel lethargic, tingling in my fingers and toes slowly beginning to spread up into my hand and feet, and the numbness in my tongue making it difficult to articulate words.
"I feel it close," Mecky whispered to Ceri and he nodded.
"Go and sit down, it'll come soon," he replied as he stuffed the bunch of keys into his trouser pocket. She did as he had asked, and he moved away from us to lean against one of the support beams, lighting himself a cigarette and breathing out a cloud with a smoky sigh.
I could feel the movement inside me, the churning sensation. My whole body was starting to ache and throb, and my heart was beginning to beat rapidly. The change was coming, I could feel it. Mecky was panting noisily and sweat was starting to bead on her forehead as she leaned back against the wall, her hands clenched into fists at her side. She was the first to make a sound, a long, breathless moan as her head tilted back, her hands grabbing at her stomach and chest, forcing her to roll forward and curl into a ball.
My heart was a rapid pounding in my ears. My belly contracted, and the sickness surged into my throat again, causing me to cough and splutter, the medicinal slime ramming its way into the back of my mouth like a fist being shoved through my oesophagus. I collapsed sideways, my body shaking violently as I began to vomit uncontrollably, green liquid pattering on the concrete as my fingertips clawed into the solid floor. There was the sound of cracking bones as Mecky's body began to change shape... Or perhaps it was my own? My jaw was crunching, and my spine felt as though it was being pulled free from my lower back by a pair of hot pliers. The tingling sensation was starting to dissipate. No, this was bad, very bad.
"Leon!" Ceri's voice was like the baying of a frightened hound beside me.
I was losing it. I tried to speak to him, to say a word, but my face was deformed; I rolled onto my front, shrieking as I felt my tail beginning to burst free of my body like a parasite being born from my flesh. Every one of my teeth were like hot chunks of metal in my gums; I could feel the blood pumping into my muscles, making them swell, growing bigger, wider, taller. My mind—I was losing m
y mind—I was...
"Leon, please!" Ceri shouted at me. He was on top of me, trying to roll me over, his feeble hands pawing at my distorted face.
I snarled as he fought to get me into a headlock, my hunchbacked torso bucking and writhing to throw him off, agonising pain shooting through every fibre of my body as I growled and snapped. The fur was coming now, bristling, poking through my skin. The neck of a bottle was rammed into my mouth and I lifted my only hand to dislodge it; the medicine was filling my mouth, choking me and making me hysterical. I swallowed and swallowed like I was drowning. A smothering palm covered my snout, cutting off air and giving me no choice but to submit. But I was getting bigger every second, my voice deepening into a bass howl.
Something was on my back, something was suffocating me. I roared, rolling abruptly to my side in a bid to squash my attacker under my weight and I managed to trap its twig-like leg under my enormous bulk. Snot-like saliva dripped from my black lips. The tiny human was frightened. I smelled urine mingling with the stench of terror, heard its manic heart contracting within the fragile housing of its ribcage. It was scared, so very scared. My lips drew back, revealing the rows of my glistening white teeth, my whiskers twitching, my eyes wide open and ears pricked. I tried to lift myself, but my body began to feel heavy. The tingling, the pins and needles.
A clawed hand raked across the concrete as I struggled. The room was starting to go dim.
Water dripped from my snout as I collapsed to the ground. My body was trembling and weak. The tingling had become an oppressive numbness that was starting to spread through my limbs, leaving me almost completely paralysed. Only my eyes blinked sluggishly, some slight movement in the end of my tail, and my once powerful heart began to slow, becoming a dull thud in the back of my mind as I tried over and over to rouse myself from the floor. The human was wriggling beneath me, its limb caught beneath my muscled belly. I wanted to lunge at it, clamp my mouth round it. Snap it in half, tear it to tiny bits. The desire was so strong I could think of nothing else. I gazed at it longingly as it managed to pull its foot free; I let out a muffled growl as it leaned close, lifting my eyelids and peering down at me before quickly moving away. I heard the jingle of chains being dragged along the ground. The scent of another animal behind me somewhere. A female. I smelled her scent. I knew her. My comrade.
