Black Silk

by Jan Gordon

  “Is that what we have? A relationship?”

  “I can’t think of another name for what we have going here, so yeah, I guess we have a relationship.” He tugged at my hand and I moved closer, allowing him to let go of my hand and slip his arm around my waist while we continued walking.

  After a minute or two of trying to sort out my thoughts and feelings where David was concerned, I decided Cole should know some, if not all the details.

  We continued to walk, and I was comforted by the touch of Cole’s hand at my waist. “I met David when I got a job on the campus paper in my freshman year at college. He was a junior and their star reporter, a hero to us reporter wannabees. He was almost a legend because of a story he’d written when he’d been a freshman. He’d broken a massive cheating scandal; both students and faculty had been involved in the selling of test papers.”

  I was silent for a minute while I tried to gather my memories together and decide which to relate and which to keep to myself... for now. “Not only was he considered a fantastic reporter, he was also gorgeous beyond belief. I mean we’re talking Hollywood gorgeous. He was adored by all the women in my freshman year, we were like his groupies. One night, a few weeks after I’d started at the paper, I was working late on some story or other; I can’t even remember what it was now.” I stopped for a moment trying to remember what had been so important about the story, but the memory escaped me.

  “Anyway, I was working late and so was he. David turned on the charm and I fell for him. Hard. I helped him on his stories, I did leg work for him, did his filing, I even wrote some pieces for him which went out with his by-line on.

  “I stayed with him through my freshman year and into my sophomore, then he dumped me for another freshman. He took my heart and my virginity. When he broke up with me he told me I was the worst lay he’d ever had. He said that I was frigid and he didn’t know why he’d ever thought me worth his while.” The tears came again then, and I let them fall, the pain of that night coming back to me in full force. He’d said a lot more on the subject of my lack of capability in bed; if I remembered correctly, the words ‘dead slug’ had been mentioned.

  “It was only later, when I could think about him more clearly, that I realized he’d used me. He’d never had feelings for me other than how useful I could be to him.” We’d stopped walking and I was leaning against Cole’s chest again, his hand stroking the back of my head as he listened to my story. There was one more thing I had to tell him, and for that I couldn’t look at him. “In all the time I was with him I never once had an orgasm. This morning was my first.” I decided not to add the words ‘that wasn’t self-induced.’

  I pulled away from Cole and looked around for somewhere to sit; my trip down memory lane had hurt and exhausted me. Spying a fallen limb from some ancient tree I wandered over to it. “During the rest of my time at college I swore off men and concentrated on my studies. My parents died soon after I came home and from then on I’ve just been too busy to pay any attention to my love life; first grieving then working in the store. Until you.” I looked up at Cole who had followed me to the log but had remained standing while I’d sat down.

  I thought at first Cole was thinking over what I’d said, perhaps weighing his words before he spoke. But then I saw he was looking slightly behind me and, even in the half-light of the woodland, I could see his eyes had changed. The pupils had widened to encompass nearly all the iris, and his face had also changed shape somehow. It had flattened and the eyes themselves had become larger and more rounded. Then he sprang. That’s the only way I can describe his sudden movement. He made a sound like a screaming growl and launched himself at something I couldn’t see.

  Shocked, I stood up and faced the man I thought I knew. In one hand he was holding two halves of a snake, but my attention was focused on his other, because it was no longer a hand. His arm from the elbow down was covered in black fur and at the end of the limb there was a paw. A cat’s paw with lethal looking claws.

  I knew my face was registering my fear and horror as I raised my eyes to his; a face that looked normal again but with eyes that were still unnatural. I shook my head and stepped back. Then I took another step back before turning and taking flight. I ran back to the house. I had nowhere else to go. I didn’t have my car so I couldn’t run back to my home. I entered the building and frantically looked around for a place to hide; with little or no furniture, my choices were sparse. I found myself in the kitchen and sank down to the floor in a corner by the table. I pulled my knees up and hugged them to my chest. My brain was a whirl and I couldn’t form a coherent thought.

  Through the fog that had clouded my mind I began to hear my name. He had followed me and was in the house. I whimpered.

  “Please, Vic, don’t be afraid.” He hunkered down in front of me and I tried to retreat into the wall. He held up his right hand. “See, it’s just a regular hand.”

  I shook my head. He looked human enough, but I knew what I’d seen and he hadn’t looked human in the woods. “Who are you? What are you?” I didn’t give him a chance to answer before I stuck my verbal knife in again. “What kind of monster are you?”

  He stood up and turning his back to me, went over to the kitchen counter. I was slowly getting my equilibrium back and for some reason he didn’t seem such a threat anymore. I was glad of the space that he’d put between us and I wondered if he’d done it with that intention in mind.

  “I’m a were.”

  “A what?” I’d meant it to come out as a scream but it came out as a squeak instead.

  “A were-panther to be exact.”

  I was in some kind of alternate reality; that had to be it. Maybe I’d fallen asleep after recommending all those paranormal books to Mrs. Weston and everything that had followed had been a dream. “No, no, no. This isn’t happening. This isn’t for real.”

  He turned to face me but stayed by the counter. “It’s very definitely for real, Vic. I was going to tell you, but slowly, gently. But I didn’t count on you being in danger.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “The snake. It was about to strike. My instincts took over and I had to act.” He held out his hands and took a step forward as if that explanation was all that was necessary.

  I held up my own hand to stop him. “Don’t come any closer. Y... you stay right there, on the other side of the room.” I swallowed, the fear was lessening but I was still very wary of whatever it was that called itself ‘Cole.’ “Are you even human?”

  “I am now – kind of. But when I shift my body’s a big cat; a black panther. My brain, my mind, remains human all the time.

  I was still hunched on the floor and I sunk my face into my hands. “I feel like I’ve stepped into one of the books in the paranormal section of my store.”

  “This isn’t fiction. This is real life – my life.”

  I looked back up at him and stood, only to find, rather belatedly, that my legs were still unsteady. I pulled one of the kitchen chairs out and sat down at the table. “Let me get this straight. You are Steven Colburn?”

  “Yes.”

  “But sometimes you are, what? Mister’s cousin?”

  “Distant, but yeah you could say that.” He grinned. I frowned. This was no joke. He saw my frown and sobered immediately.

  I closed my eyes and was silent for a minute or two while I tried to sort out the information overload. One thought suddenly hit me between the eyes. “Oh my God, I had sex with a cat!”

  Chapter Eight

  My eyes snapped open at the scraping sound of a table chair being moved. Instinctively I shrank into my chair, moving it back a little further.

  “No Vic. You made love with a man. A man who has come to care more for you than he should. I’m a man first. I live my life as a man. I only become a panther when I need to. And when you were in danger from that snake, I needed to.”

  “But you didn’t change completely. I saw you, only your face and your forearm changed.”<
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  “I didn’t need to shift completely and I didn’t want to. Shifting is hard work, it’s exhausting.”

  “This is surreal.” Although I still couldn’t quite come to terms with the new reality, I had to believe the evidence I’d seen with my own eyes. My brain was kicking in and my normal practical mind was taking charge. “That was you inside the gas station. The clerk... he told the Sheriff about a large black cat that scared off the robber.”

  “Yes, that was me.”

  “When you got back to me you were sweating and breathing heavily.” Memories were flooding in. Things that had seemed odd were beginning to make sense.

  “I’d shifted twice in as many hours and it’d taken it out of me. I felt like I’d run a marathon.” I guess it was time for honesty, for the explanations.

  “Last night, when Kincaid was in my home and you chased him; I saw you.” In my mind’s eye I saw the large shadow by the fence, which at the time I’d thought had been a dog. “You chased him as a panther didn’t you?” He nodded but waited for me to continue. “The blood. The blood on the floor was his, and it was under your nails as well. You changed and swiped at him with your claws.”

  Once again he nodded but remained silent.

  I thought back to the scene in my kitchen the previous evening. “I saw your eyes last night, you know. They’d looked like Mister’s do when there’s a lot of light about. Your pupils had been pointed at the top and bottom. But then a minute later they’d been normal and I thought I’d imagined it.”

  “Sometimes, when I’m in an emotional state it takes longer to shift back completely. Last night I was angry that Kincaid had dared to invade your home.”

  The whole situation was very difficult to get my head around. The man sitting opposite me at the kitchen table looked like the same man who’d been so understanding on the fur rug only an hour or two earlier. I knew in my heart that he was the same man. But my perception of him had changed and that was a difficult obstacle to overcome. I had begun to care for Cole the man; could I care for Cole the were in the same way? Did I dare give him a chance? Before I could answer that, I needed to know more. “So, to sum up, you’re a man but you can become a big cat at will?”

  “Yes.”

  “What more can you do? I mean, if this were fiction you’d have all kinds of powers.” I mentally braced myself for more shocks.

  “You already know about my keen sense of smell.” He had the grace to look abashed at that. “I can dematerialize at will, moving from one place to another in an instant.”

  “Oh.” Another memory came back to me. “The other morning at the store, when you brought me coffee, before I found it, I’d heard the bell and came out from the back, but I couldn’t find anyone in the shop. You disappeared and then reappeared so I wouldn’t see you until I found the coffee.”

  “Sorry about that, I wanted the coffee to be the surprise, not me. Forgive me?” The ‘apologetic little boy’ look didn’t sit well on him.

  “The coffee was very welcome, you know that.” I smiled at him to let him know that I was recovering from my fright, willing to talk and to discover more about this amazing man. “Wait, I have a question.”

  “Only one? I’d have thought you’d have a hundred questions.”

  I smiled. “I do, my mind is teeming with questions, but I can only ask one at a time. Right now, I’m thinking about what I’ve read. In paranormal fiction when shifters change back to their human form, they’re often naked. Last night when you returned from chasing Kincaid, you were fully clothed.”

  “I’m not sure how that works, but I just think the clothes back onto my body and they appear. My mother always said it was part of the magic that makes us what we are.” His mother! That’s the first time he’d willingly spoken about her since the previous night at my house.

  “When I asked about your parents the other day, you looked angry. You said you didn’t talk to them. Will you tell me what happened?” I knew I was touching a badly healed wound, but it was something I felt I needed to know about.

  “Panthers aren’t pack animals. The only time you’ll get more than one panther hunting in a group is when it’s a mother and her cubs.” He looked up at me and gave me an intense look. I knew he was trying to convey something, but I could only guess at his meaning. “Both my parents are weres. They get back together to mate every decade or so, then go their separate ways. I’m sure I have siblings around somewhere, and probably dozens more half-siblings, but there’s no way to know for sure.” He rose from the table and, as if driven by some deep emotion, started to pace. “When I hit puberty, my mother kicked me out to fend for myself. For a panther in the wild, that’s natural. But I wasn’t an animal I was just a kid. Not only did I have to survive on my own, I also had to learn how to hide what I was.”

  My mind had stuck on ‘get back together every decade or so’. “Wait. Roll back. Every decade or so? How many decades are we talking about here?”

  He stopped his pacing to answer me. “More than a normal human life-span.”

  “Exactly how much more?”

  “A lot more.” He glanced down at his hands where they rested on the table, and when he looked back up, his expression was decidedly sheepish. Can you describe a panther as looking ‘sheepish?’ “We can live to be five or six hundred years old.”

  I stared at him. I opened my mouth to say something, but closed it again, before uttering a word. I was astounded. Five or six hundred years? My God! I was really glad I was sitting down, because the shocks just kept coming. “Cole?” Even to my own ears my voice sounded uncertain, even a little shell-shocked.”

  He came back to the table and sat opposite me again. “Yes, Vic?”

  I had to know the truth and the only way was to come straight out and ask. “How old are you... exactly?”

  “I was born on August 15th, 1892.”

  “That means you’re...” I did some quick calculations in my head. “Oh shit. You’ll be one hundred and seventeen this August.” I suddenly felt dizzy. I pushed my chair back a bit further and put my head down between my knees.

  After a moment, something cold and wet was being pressed against the back of my neck. Cole was standing next to me, he’d wet a dish towel and had brought it over. “Breathe, Vic. Slowly.” His voice was gentle and I took comfort from that, although I still wasn’t sure if I wanted him touching me again.

  After a few minutes I risked sitting upright. My head didn’t spin again. “When you said that you were older than me, you weren’t kidding were you?”

  Cole shook his head. “I’m really sorry, Vic. I know this is a lot to take in all at once. I really was going to tell you everything, but slowly, bit by bit.”

  “There can’t be more, can there?” I looked up at him. The look on his face made my stomach do a flip. “There is isn’t there?” He nodded. “You might as well tell me, Cole. Let’s get it over with.”

  “I’ve been around a long time, Vic.”

  “Yeah, I got that much.” And I made a movement with my hand to tell him to continue.

  “Well, I fought in the First World War. I was in France.”

  My stomach flipped over again and I felt nauseous. “The photograph.”

  “Yes. If you look closely you’ll recognize me, I’m standing right next to your great-grandfather. He was my friend and we enlisted together.” By the look on his face, his memories of France were painful. His next words confirmed it. “I was with him when he died. It was a mine. We weres heal quickly, but he was too badly wounded and I couldn’t stop the bleeding. I tried and tried but the blood kept coming through my fingers.” His voice cracked and he turned away from me.

  He was hurting, and no matter what he was, I couldn’t bear for him to be in pain. I got up and put a hand on his back, trying to comfort him with my presence. “It was almost a hundred years ago, Cole, even if you had stopped the bleeding he would probably still have died from infection. There were no antibiotics back then.”

&n
bsp; He took hold of my shoulders and squeezed. “No. You don’t understand; he was my friend. More than a friend; he was more like a father to me than my own had ever been.”

  “Cole you’re hurting me, let go.” I tried to shake his hands off. Then his words started to sink in. If I was right then their meaning would turn my life upside down and inside out! “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” He looked at me steadily. I tried a different tack. “If my great-grandfather had survived the war he would still be alive, wouldn’t he?” I was still being cautious.

  He gentled his hold on my shoulders, slipping his hold down to my upper arms and stroking my biceps slightly with his thumbs. “Barring an accident, yes.”

  Okay. I knew I had to ask it. I didn’t want to, but... “Was he a panther?” Cole nodded and bile rose in my throat. “Did you know my great-grandmother?”

  “Yes. She was a wonderful woman. When I came back from Europe I went to see her and she was broken.” Cole took hold of my hand and led me into the other room, where we sat down on the large cushions. “Regular humans grieve but will continue living their lives. Perhaps eventually finding someone else for companionship, even love. But weres who bond, who mate for life, will pine away, sometimes refusing to eat, until they meet their mates in the next world.” He stroked my cheek with the backs of his fingers. “Your great-grandmother reacted like a were at the death of her husband. She simply lost the will to live. Your grandmother was just a girl at the time. I hung around, helping out as much as I could, but it wasn’t enough.” Tears sprang to my eyes when I heard the sadness in his voice. “After your great-grandmother passed, I made sure your grandma was settled with relatives and all the legalities were dealt with before I left the area.”

  “But you came back.”

  “Yes, I came back. Michael, your great-grandfather, befriended me a few years after my mother pushed me from the nest. It was he who taught me how to control my powers, about the history of weres and how to hide our longevity. I considered Farmingdale my home. My only home.”