Alexander's Accounts - Part 5
Follow Alexander as he moves into Artemis's flat and realises that even locked spaces aren't as safe as one might think.
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Part 5 of Alexander's Accounts, continuing from being fired and almost being shot in the street.
We reached the apartment.
“How do we get in?”, i asked. “You have no key, right?”
“Don't worry. Sit on the backpack straps.”
He lifted my onto his backpack. I found the straps and shoved my legs into them. It was almost uncomfortable, having my legs split by his back, his backpack squashing me against his back. But the feeling of having his body rub against me so intimately more then made up for it.
I relaxed and let him pull me up.
Werewolves aren't very gracious creatures by their very nature. They're strong but large, almost clumsy. They could hit a wall with the force of a small car if they were heavy enough and aimed right. Such things happened often enough, by complete accident, that it warranted caution..
The buildings here, then, were designed with that in mind. Plain drywall simply didn't work. Every wall had to be true and strong.
Hopefully, they'd have designed their vertical gutter lines with the same care they did the walls. Because, as Artemis pulled himself up, with the strain you'd expect a werewolf carrying both a heavy backpack and a heavy human to have.
But we yet still reached the window. He removed one hand, swinging in an almost terrifying way. He pressed a button and it fell all the way inside.
He reached his arm out and shifted his feet to the windowsill, 5 floors above the ground. Fuck… this is scary.
Yet still, he managed to sneak into what seemed to be the living room. I climbed off him and onto the sofa. I was shaking and twitching.
“Sorry”, he said. “I forgot how scary that way in is for the uninitiated.”
“How?!” i asked. “How the fuck did you carry that all up?!”
“Upper arm training. Very useful, especially for these situations.”
Screams from the street suddenly rung out, followed by “The human went up there!”.
Fuck. the vigilantes were on our heel.
Artemis shot a gaze at the window in concern.
“They're armed. Get down, the angle'll hide you!”
We both crouched down. We were squatters now, in both meanings of the word. The silence was drawing thin eventually.
“You need to get a job”, i plainly commented.
“Yeah…!”
A gunshot interrupted us. A hole had appeared in the roof.
“Like, seriously”, i added.
We'd be stuck here for a while.
The day wasn't going to remain sunny. Clouds were slowly drifting in, threatening to make the rays of light into a more diffuse spread of a general moody glow.
“I remember how it was back home”, i said. “It used to be overcast on the daily. It fit my mood, generally.”
He shifted from a squat to a more cross-legged posture.“Wow… a human-only world. Sometimes i forget it even exists”
“Yeah, and it's kind of boring without you werewolves.”
“You don't say…!”
Another gunshot rung out. The bullet wasn't aimed at us. “Got them!”. screamed a vigilante. "Ravage the body!”
I shook as a wave of discomfort took me over.
The flat wasn't a very nice one. It was dingy and tacky, even by werewolvian standards. It happened to be quite small and somehow a lone ant wondered on the floor. We both glanced at it.
I looked back at Artemis. “I thought higher floors generally don't get ants”
“Yeah, i tried to stop my upstairs neighbor doing his ant farming but nobody really cared.”
Ant-farming, after all, was a very popular sport in the werewolf world. And what was i but an ant in this system, to be destroyed by exterminators? Nothing, right?
But there was one thing; the exterminators could be destroyed.
I stretched out a hand to rest it on his knee. I squeezed a little. “I'm sure this'll eventually pass. We'll begin making money again and we'll get a house and we can live together happily ever after.”
He tightened his lips, curling them into a gentle yet stressed frown. “I have reason to suspect the opposite'll happen.”
“They've just been growing and growing and every setback is simply PR”. He glanced at me, parsing my expression.
I nodded. I budged up closer to him. “I'm sure they won't… they're only paramilitary”
“Oh, you haven't seen the stuff i have”, he said.
“Of course”, i stated. “Well, i think you'd best find a job.”
“Yeah.”
“So go.”
He got up. He looked at the door. I gestured with my eyes for him to leave.
“You get a job, i'll chill.”
“Bye.”
And just like that, with the click of the lock, i was alone in the apartment. It was probably a dumb idea to simply abandon me here.
I didn't understand how property worked in the werewolf world. It was, indeed, quite strange that Artemis simply evicted himself and forgot about the flat what with its furniture and food in the kitchen. He'd obviously been in a rush to leave. How safe were we to squat here?
Loud stamping noises from upstairs. Werewolves were heavier and even though the floors were mostly stronger, they yet still made a massive amount of noise.
I could hear shitty music from the flat below me. The lyrics, especially, were quite problematic in their opinion of humans.
It was almost unbearable, but the quiet here had made my ears sensitive.
I turned on the TV, then flipped through the channels. One showed the news. The true vigilantes were announcing a coup of some of the more human-unsympathetic districts.
I watched how it played out. A team ran into a restaurant and dragged out three humans. They said a little monologue on themes of “purity” and “societal safety”, a flash erupting from their guns as the humans slumped over and blood ran down the street.
I cringed in the horror way. I remember passing that street every so often in a bulletproof taxi to get to a different human-safe district. It was for the fun things they had there, the little festivals.
They'd be cancelled, said the reporter, they'd be cancelled in fear of the growing gang.
I heard storming up the stairs. There was rattling against the doors on the floor below. They were telling humans to leave, to be escorted out into a safe area.
The door opened and i could hear rushing downstairs.
I dared to look out of my window as the footsteps ran up. “Human escorts!" screamed a voice banging at the door.
A human ran out onto the street. They were grabbed and shoved into a van. I noted the rough treatment and guns used to herd the humans into the back of a van. No, i'm not leaving.
And anyways, this house was in the process of being sold. It was, by all means, expected to be empty.
They continued their storm upstairs at my continued silence.
After a few hours, Artemis finally came back. He'd landed the job. “Heard there was a raid here!”
“Yes, but i kept silent when they knocked on the door.”
He moved to sit on the sofa. “Good. They're getting more and more extreme”
"Why?”
“The bounties.”
A flash of disgust spread across his face. He looked out onto the flat's furniture. And then back at me.
“Every human head is good money, thanks to the southern government.”
“How much?”
“¤500 for each human. The gang spreads some to those who give humans to them.”
Was i worth only ¤500? No, that's not moral. It disgusted me; i was ‘worth’ less then my employers thought i was. Those three on the TV? Only ¤1,500's worth of trouble to the government.
It wasn't economical. I paid far more then ¤500 in income tax over my first year here, and the government, if sane, would have realised that humans give more then enough to the economy. It must have been a joke. Was the government this anti-human?
I looked at him to find a serious, non-joking expression. I retched a little. I seriously didn't want to dwell on this anymore.
“How's the job been?”
“Mostly ok, i'll be paid eventually.”
“It better be soon.”
“Yeah.”
We both sighed. I drifted back into thought.
Isn't the government supposed to provide subsidies for those looking for work? Artemis was no longer looking, though. So we were here, penniless and homeless, i guess.
There was a noise outside, a series of footsteps as a car door slammed. “An affordable 2-bedroom property put on the market just a few days ago, great location”
I looked at Artemis. It was almost telepathic. Fuck.
I considered our escape routes. Upstairs might work, but that'd put us in the public eye, especially if we were to attempt return, having to do a gutter trick to bypass the locked door. Maybe they wouldn't want to risk killing Artemis, but i didn't want to risk it.
“We should hide”, said Artemis, getting up.
We found our way through. Artemis guided the way into a bedroom, into a closet.
The way some older werewolf houses were built was to have a smaller false-closet hidden behind the real one. They were sometimes well-hidden. Artemis struggled to find his, but he found a latch near the clothes-hanging rod. A door cracked open as he pulled the lever, and he pushed me into the room.
Cramped, a little, i thought. Not possibly even a single centimetre larger then my blast-therm fridge back in the kitchen, likely smaller.
As such, Artemis and i sat opposite each other on a line of benches some way in. Our knees had to touch in the cramped space. He shut the outside door, locking us in the space.
Light was hard to get by. I could see some stray beams through air vent installed into the safe-room, obscuring most of what light the closet hadn't already obscured.
I looked to Artemis and realised i didn't even see him. All i could sense of him was the feeling of hair brushing against my knee.
So i reached out my arm. I gripped a t-shirt with hair underneath it. Artemis.
I found a position behind his back to wrap my fingers and hold onto. “Why don't we have sex, to pass the time?”
He reeled a little. But he then extended out his hand to grip my chest. The dark made it more exciting as i had zero forewarning of his actions, not even subtle body cues.
His hand moved down to grab the upwards corner of my pelvis. “Yeah.”
The door was unlocked. A handful of likely-werewolves entered the apartment.
“They're here”. I moved me hand to pull myself towards him "They'll hear”
“So we'll be quiet”, he whispered. “They don't even know this room exists.”
He moved his hand down to capture the hem of my trousers. It sent tingles down me to feel his delicate fingers plucking at the fabric, looking for a way to unbuckle them.
Mostly unintentionally, i thrust forwards to allow him direct access to my buckle. His other hand came down to grasp it and teased out the fastenings.
He pulled down the material, and grasped my underpants
Pulling down the material let my member bounce. He took it in his hands and used it to navigate himself. His knees brushed against mine as he pulled himself closer and i felt his lips make contact with my glans.
And i resisted the urge to moan as he let his mouth cover my dick and he began suckling.
I could hear the people outside, showing off the kitchen. “Oh, he's still left the ethanol here.”
Artemis, too, could hear. He sucked a little harder.
I trained my hands on the back of his head, to control him as he sucked me off.
I detensed a i felt his had sucking off my dick, my dick rubbing between his hard palette and soft tongue, a juxtaposition, a very nice one.
And eventually, after a few minutes, i felt the familiar feeling well up within me, and i came.
Artemis, for his part, did a good job in eradicating the fluid.
None the wiser, the werewolves in the flat continued touring. They entered the main bedroom. “I've heard there are secret rooms”, said someone.
“Not here. It's been illegal to build them for decades now.”
“This apartment's more then a few decades old.”
“Hmm.”
“I'll check the closet.”
Light increased through the vent-holes as the closet door opened. We dared not even breathe.
Human-werewolf relationships, hidden in a closet. How fitting.
I could see Artemis a little better. He was tense. If we were found, we'd likely be turned in, i to the gang for a share of a bounty.
The light faded and we breathed a sigh of relief. Artemis was kind of audible.
“Wait- what was that?!”
“Check again!”
The light came again. I had let out my breath, so holding it was difficult.
We waited a few more seconds.
Banging, the door was being threatened. Knocking against the panel, making Artemis jump.
“Nothing.”
We both detensed as the light faded and they continued exploring the flat.
We left the safe-room after a while.
We found our way to the TV and watched the news. Gang members. Gang members delivering speeches on humans.
We looked back from the TV. He wore a fazed expression. “And to think of how convincing they are…"
“Don't worry, i don't think you'll ever stoop down to their level.”
He stopped for a second and looked at me straight in the eyes.
“You don't understand, i was a true vigilante.”
Stay tuned for part 6, in which we have a time skip show us some new perspectives :)
Some notes:
“that'd've” means “that'd have”." I do plan to continue using this contraction.
I also love the adjective “werewolvian” even if it dosen't quite exist because i think it sounds a little fancy
I think it's kind of intresting to see just how postmodernist my work can get when we consider that Alexander is self-referring and most of my story characters face conflict which can only really be blamed on society.
Like, Alexander can't really be blamed for the gang nor how shitty his head chef is; he's just the spark which activates hidden explosives. Sure, he did do some crippling, but if it wasn't him, it'd've been someone else.
I wonder how a publisher would feel about my story given that the serious conflict dosen't hit until the end of part 5; the rest is all just little conflicts to set our characters on their little journey.
I will be using the ‘d contraction for “would” more often. Especially when it makes funky things like “door’d”. Dord, lol.
As much as y'all Americans find it funny when English people use “trousers”, i'm still going to use it here for clarity :)
Yes, the sex scene is designed to be a little teasing and short to prepare you for later parts.
Not quite “designed” because i've also noticed that my libido is inversely proportional to the amount of sex i write and writing a sex scene each week has proven quite
Yes, i will continue with the over-specific tagging and there'll be ?more? as i keep ?reading and adding tags just to annoy y'all :)?
Some notes's some notes:
Yes, me using “y'all Americans" when talking about my British English was an intentional choice.
Maybe i speak a creole, transatlantic dialect of both with a heavy British influence. Some words i use are American, given that i've spent a lot of time on the internet ever since i was young