Everyone kept a clear distance from everyone else, the couples making still islands near the center, while the singletons prowled nervously, avoiding eye contact. Mel thought this might reflect wolf-like behavior, but maybe she was getting desperate, searching for scraps of faith.
She still believed werewolves were real-she just wasn’t sure there were any in this room.
Meeting werewolves didn’t seem like it would be that hard, at first. You could find anything on the Internet. There were chat groups and mailing lists dedicated to every precise and peculiar subdivision of the supernatural: transgendered vampires; gentle ghouls; bloodthirsty, cross-dressing fairies; elves with a fetish for whipping cream; werepanthers wanting to be bottle-fed by little people… It was in this otherworldly bazaar that she’d made contact with real, live werewolves-or, at least, with some men who said they were. They also claimed to live about as far away from her home in Houston as possible-Alaska, Calcutta, Newfoundland-even though when one gave her his phone number during their slow progression toward intimacy, it had a Kansas City area code.
Only one of these cyber relationships had progressed to an actual, face-to-face meeting. The vibes between them were good, and the sex wasn’t bad, and he had suggested that his next visit to Houston would fall around the time of the full moon… but she never heard from him again. She guessed he was married. She had no way of knowing if he’d also lied about being a werewolf.
You could be anyone, anything, on the Internet, and if you were careful, no one could catch you. She’d been honest herself, but when, after nearly two years, she was still no closer to attaining her desire, she took a cold, hard look at how she was presenting herself, and wondered if it could be her own fault.
So she tried something else: “Lonely werewolf, based in Houston, longs to run with a pack. It can’t be right to be all alone. Anyone else feel the same? Get in touch.”
She got a lot of responses. Most were not werewolves at all, as they readily admitted; just curious. Many were from elsewhere in the state, or even lived abroad. But she persisted, stressing the importance of area as much as lycanthropy, until, eventually, she had a core group of twenty she believed were genuine, Houston-resident werewolves, and she proposed a get-together.
LYCANTHROPY SUPPORT GROUP
FIRST MEETING: THURSDAY, MAY 15, 7:30
ROOM 203
HCC, TOWN & COUNTRY CAMPUS,
1010 WEST SAM HOUSTON PARKWAY, NORTH
In retrospect, looking with dismay at the small turnout, she wondered if she should have selected a more central location. The price of gas had gone through the roof recently; people were being more cautious about long journeys. But where in this enormous, sprawling city was central? She had started with the idea of staying inside the Loop, close to Memorial Park (which had always seemed to her the ideal place for a midnight wolf-pack gathering), but the prices of the few venues she’d investigated had put her off. Houston Community College was more accommodating, and although they had campuses dotted around the city, this was the one where she’d been a student, it was easy to find, and, maybe most important, it was in the northwest, her own territory, just ten minutes from her apartment in one direction, ten minutes to Memorial Park in another.
No, she decided, the location was not at fault. Some of those who’d responded lived out by the airport, some were closer to downtown, while others lived in the south, and there was at least one who’d mentioned Deer Park. This was a city of drivers, used to judging distances not in miles but in minutes by freeway. Those who had stayed away must have had other reasons. Maybe they’d never intended to come. Maybe they shared an occult, insider knowledge that let them know she was a fake. Maybe real werewolves didn’t use the Internet. Or maybe, unlike their wild brethren, they were naturally loners.
Mel continued to lurk and prowl, hoping the crowd would grow, hoping that one of the others would take charge, so she wouldn’t have to put herself on display. But no one made a move. Clearly, there were no alpha males in this sorry excuse for a pack, so at seven minutes to eight, Mel went to the front of the room, cleared her throat, and invited everyone to please take a seat.
Suddenly the little scattering of people, all so disparate they might have wandered in here by mistake rather than design, coalesced into her audience.
Under their collective gaze, Mel wondered why she’d ever thought this a good idea. She only wanted to meet one werewolf-not be stared at by a whole pack of them. And to have to go on pretending to be one! What had she been thinking? If she revealed her ignorance now, asked the wrong questions, let the mask slip, she’d be at their mercy. She clutched the edge of a table, feeling like Little Red Riding Hood as she stared at the gleam of their eyes.
“Take a picture, it’ll last longer,” muttered the Chihuahua.
“What?” Dislike stiffened her spine; Mel glared. “Would you mind speaking up? I’m not sure everyone heard you.”
The tiny nose wrinkled disdainfully. “I wondered if you were going to tell us why you called this meeting. What you hope to accomplish.”
“I hoped you would tell me. I mean,” she amended hastily, “all of us. Maybe we could each say what we hope to get out of this meeting. That’s really all… I thought… it seemed like a good idea just to get together and talk,” she finished rather lamely.
The Chihuahua shrugged. “You start.”
“It doesn’t have to be me first.” But as no one else volunteered, she took the plunge. “I guess, like I said online, I felt lonely. I wanted to meet others in the same situation.”
“Why?”
“Why? Well… we are pack animals. Aren’t we? I think so, anyway. It’s not natural to be alone.”
“It’s not natural to be like this!” cried one of the wives. Her husband ducked his head as she spoke. “I don’t see how getting together with others is going to make anything better. I don’t want him to be part of a pack; why should he? He’s not a wild animal; he’s my husband!”
“Is he allowed to cross the street by himself?” It was the dirty man who replied. “Chrissake, he’s your husband the rest of the time. What’s wrong with you? You can’t let loose, can’t let him be something else, for just one night a month? What about you, man, how do you feel? You totally whipped? You let your woman talk for you?”
The husband’s head jerked up, and, even though she wasn’t the target, Mel took an instinctive step back.
“She knows how I feel,” he said softly. “I feel like she does. I don’t like it. I didn’t ask for it to happen. I want to be a man all the time, not lose control, lose myself, when the moon is full.” He sneered suddenly. “You like it?”
The other man shrugged. “Like, dislike, it just is. It’s part of who I am. I don’t have a problem with that.”
“No problem. Well, aren’t you the lucky one.” He moved suddenly in his seat as if about to rise. “It’s a disease, pea-brain! And I don’t accept that some disease is part of me-like my-my nose. I mean, if my nose was deformed, like a pig’s snout, I wouldn’t feel like, oh, I got no problem, that’s just me-hell, I’d go to a doctor and get it fixed! Who wouldn’t?”
“So go to a doctor.”
“You think I haven’t? Seriously, you think a doctor can fix what we’ve got?”
“I already told you. I don’t think it needs fixing.”
“The doctors think it’s in our heads. In my head. They think I’m crazy. I go to the doctor, and all he can do is give me pills, make me sleepy and dumb-they don’t change anything. They just make me feel stupid. I tried to show him-”
“You tried?”
The other man made a low groaning sound. “I showed him, all right? I got him to check me into a hospital and keep me overnight.”
There was a collective catching of the breath. The dirty man tensed, and for a moment Mel, her skin tingling, thought he would attack his adversary. Then he relaxed a little and slowly, slowly shook his head. “Man, you are… something else.”
“
But the doctor didn’t think so. Still thinks I’m crazy. He offered to run some tests-which by the way my insurance wouldn’t cover-but all he could advise was I should keep taking the happy pills and also talk to a psychiatrist.”
“None so blind as he who will not see,” said his wife.
She must have seen, thought Mel, breathless. She must watch her husband transform from man into wolf every single month. And still she thought it not a wonder but a disability. But how could she appreciate what she had in him if he didn’t want it? And how could a doctor not realize what he was seeing? She supposed there must be people, even very smart people, who denied the evidence of their senses if it conflicted with what was supposed to be possible. How else could werewolves have survived into modern times without being recognized by science?
The dirty man shrugged. “My advice to you-”
“I don’t want your stupid advice,” the married man snapped back. “All I want-the only reason we came here tonight-is to hear somebody say there is a way out, there is a cure.” He swiveled around in his chair to fix his gaze on Mel. She tried not to flinch. “I thought you were talking in code,” he said. “Your ads. First you say you wanted to join a pack, then you advertise this support group.”
“Lyncanthropy,” said the Chihuahua, her mouth twisting into a smile that might have been pained, or mocking.
“That, too. A medical term, right? So, see, I thought there might be a drug, a new drug, to repress the symptoms-maybe even gene therapy…?”
Mel stood frozen, with no idea of what to say. It turned out her lack of response said it all.
“No,” he said flatly, as his expression changed, blood shining dully in his cheeks. “So obvious-what you are-stupid of me-I see now.”
His wife was already standing. He got up, too, and they left without another word. The single woman went after them, and then the other couple. Only the two single men remained.
Mel looked at them, wanting to pass off the defection of the others with some light comment, but afraid. She’d given herself away. Judging from the woman’s reaction, lycanthropy was not a term they used among themselves. And somehow pack was wrong, too, and maybe even werewolf. What did they call themselves? She tried to get some clue from the argument she’d witnessed, running it back through her head, but she’d been silent too long; she must have seemed utterly defeated, with nothing more to say, because the dirty man got up to go.
“Wait!” she called out. “Please don’t leave.”
He stopped and looked at her. She saw, beneath the grease and dirt and stubble that he might be quite attractive, and was spurred to make an effort. “I’m not… what he thought. And… maybe I did it wrong, the way I proposed this meeting and all, but I still… there’s a good reason for it,” she went on, desperately improvising. “I’d really like to talk to you. Can we just talk?”
His eyes bored into hers until she felt dizzy. “Okay,” he said, and stood there, relaxed, light on his feet, arms loose at his sides, waiting.
“Well… want to go for a drink somewhere?”
He shook his head, and her heart plummeted. But he plucked at his filthy T-shirt and smiled wryly. “I’m not fit for human company now. I came here straight from fixing my truck. I should have cleaned up first, but I was running late. We could make it another night.”
Her heart gave a hopeful leap. “Fine, yes, let’s. When?”
“Uh… how about Tuesday?”
She knew-they both knew-that would be the night of the full moon. Her mouth dried. She could only stare back at him with widening eyes and nod her head.
“All right. You like barbecue?”
“Sure.”
“Goode Company, on Kirby…”
“I know it.”
It was her favorite place for a sliced beef sandwich, even if it was always crowded at lunch. It was well inside the Loop, not far from where she worked. She wondered if that was home territory for him, or-deliberately? -not.
“Five-thirty all right with you?”
That would give him plenty of time to get far away from her after they’d eaten, long before the moon would rise, if he decided he couldn’t trust her. Fair enough. She nodded again.
“See you then,” he said. She stood watching the space where he’d been until a small sound reminded her she wasn’t alone.
The overweight young man in the short-sleeved white shirt stood up, his red lips stretched into a predatory smile. “I’ll take you up on that drink, right now,” he said. “I’d like to talk.”
She didn’t want to, but she made herself smile back in a friendly way.
“There’s coffee here,” she pointed out.
He wrinkled his nose. “Bet it’s nasty. Anyway, I’d rather have something cold. There’s a TGIF just off the feeder, how about that?”
“All right…”
“ Devon. I’m Devon.”
“I’m Mel.” They walked out together.
“What’s that short for, Melanie? Melissa? Melinda? No? Um, Okay, let me think. Melody? Melanctha?”
As they exited the building into the parking lot, he abandoned his guesses to suggest it would be a sensible, gas-saving measure to go in one car. “I have to swing back this way anyway on my way home.”
“Well, I don’t,” she said. “And I’m not leaving my ride.” She put on her helmet as she spoke, and indicated her Honda Nighthawk. “Meet you at Friday’s.”
TGIFs could be crowded and noisy at certain times, but a quarter to nine on a Thursday night was not one of them. Devon ordered a beer and a plate of nachos, and pressed her to have a specialty cocktail when she said she didn’t like beer, but she stuck to iced tea.
“Worried you might get drunk? Scared I might take advantage of you?” He gave her a loose-lipped leer. “You got a long way to go? I’d be happy to drive you home.”
“No thanks.” What a creep. She couldn’t see herself putting up with this human personality even if he did turn into a wolf once a month, but he let fall various comments that made her feel sure he was another supernatural groupie, like herself. She had no idea if he believed her claim to be a werewolf, or if it was enough for him that she was female and hadn’t actually run away screaming.
Half an hour of his undiluted company was more than enough. Even though she brushed off his attempts to get her phone number and made it clear that she had no interest in seeing him again, she left by the back alley-an easy route for the Nighthawk, but it might be tricky for his Suburban. Instead of following the tollway feeder as usual, she took off into the nearest neighborhood, accepting the thirty-mile-per-hour speed limit and a meandering journey home for the certainty that she had well and truly lost her unwanted companion.
Ari-that was the formerly dirty man’s name-cleaned up beautifully. She wouldn’t even have recognized him on Tuesday if he hadn’t been waiting for her in the Goode Company parking lot and said hello as she was about to walk past.
His voice was the same, but-shaved, hair washed and fluffy, exuding a faint aroma of green tea and figs, attired in faded jeans and a snug black T-shirt-he was a different person, really quite dangerously attractive. Luckily, he noticed the Nighthawk, and that gave her a moment to recover outside the full beam of his attention.
“Wow, you have a bike.”
“Uh-huh. You?”
His lips pursed and he shook his head. “I wish. Maybe, if I make a little more money this year, I could afford…”
“You have a car, don’t you?”
He frowned. “So?”
“I mean, you could trade it in. You don’t need more than one set of wheels, do you?”
He shrugged uncertainly. “I’d rather just use it for fun, especially if I had somebody to ride with.” He gave her a look that was a reminder of her public claim to be lonely, wanting a pack to run with, and she became aware she was on a precipice, with no idea of how to talk herself down from her lie.
“Let’s go in,” she said quickly. “I’m starved, and the smell of
meat is driving me crazy!”
Despite her words-and the fact that she’d had nothing to eat all day but a banana-pecan muffin and a skinny latte-Mel managed to consume barely half her sandwich, and that was a struggle. The sheer physical excitement of being close to this handsome werewolf, along with the fear that at any moment she’d say something to reveal her true nature and drive him away, made it tough to swallow.
They sat out on the patio to eat-the open air was humid and hot, but far from the unbearable sauna it would be in a few weeks-and while James McMurtry’s latest songs played in the background, they talked about themselves. Neither so much as hinted at the W-word, but concentrated on ordinary, ground-laying stuff about jobs and schools, musical preferences, and the best things on YouTube this week. It could have been any ordinary first date. Except that she’d never felt so nervous and excited, never had so much pent-up emotion invested in the outcome of any other date in her life. Maybe this was how women had felt in the olden days, when to sleep with a man was to seal your fate.
She heard very little of what Ari said; her attention was too involved with monitoring his responses to her. She knew he was attracted to her, and it was clearly no simpler for him than it was for her-she could feel the wary tingling of his nerves as he tried to make his mind up, which instinct to follow, to trust her, or not? It was all very nerve-wracking, but, in the end, as she’d hoped, he went with the physical attraction.
It was barely six-thirty, still daylight, when he suggested going back to his place.
“It’s not far,” he said. “We can have coffee, and I’ve got some Ben and Jerry’s in the ice box.”
“You give good directions?”
“No, I’m going to drive.”
She shook her head. “I’m not leaving my ride.”
He smiled slyly. “You don’t have to leave your ride. Wait’ll you see mine.”
It was an old Ford pickup truck, really old, like something her grandfather had owned. The back panel lay down to form a ramp; she could have ridden the Nighthawk up and in if she’d cared to. “There’s even a blanket to keep it warm, and a tarp to keep it dry if it rains. Not that it will rain.”
Full MoonCity Page 2
