Taming the Werewolf - 4
#4 of Taming the Werewolf
As the moon waned, Amanda felt relief. The werewolf pulled on her body less and less as the burn of the moonlight against her skin faded. The threat of a strength that she couldn't control became less real with each passing day. It was also a matter of the memory of the pain she felt during her transformation slowly becoming lost in the fog of time. So Amanda didn't have a problem when Jacob said she continue the dialysis. At least at first.
He bought her a home dialysis machine that very morning after the full moon, and it arrived the next week. It would attract less attention than going to the clinic for treatments the doctors there knew for sure she didn't need. For a few hours, three times a week, she would sit in the basement and filter out her blood while her husband worked upstairs. Sometimes they would eat lunch together or just talk the time away. But Jacob's work was demanding, and a phone call with a client or an editor always pulled him away, leaving Amanda, for often than not, sitting alone in that basement.
Dialysis was draining, and made her tired during and after. There was a natural tedium associated with sitting in place and doing nothing. There were only so many articles in the newspaper, so many distractions on her smartphone that could pass the time. Once per treatment, she could barely keep her eyes open during the long stretches where no end seemed to be in sight.
But the lycanthropy was being filtered away, screened out of her blood like it was filth poisoning her system. And it was. As the month headed toward the new moon, and she was fully involved in her dialysis treatment, Amanda didn't feel any trace of the wolf within her.
And though she was relieved the wolf was gone, she also definitely felt the emptiness it left behind. Like it was sure to come back, building up in her blood again and threatening to change her into a mindless beast on the next full moon if she and Jacob let their guard down.
So when the moon began to swell again and fill the nighttime sky with its light, Amanda felt inadequate somehow. Feeling the change was inevitable, yet knowing it was impossible. Not with the thrice-weekly purgings cleaning her system. In fact, the dialysis worked so well, and it left her so tired, that she resisted plugging herself back into the dialysis machine the week before the next full moon.
"We don't know if you're cured," Jacob said, "We don't even know if it is a cure."
"I feel that it's gone," Amanda said. It was a lie, for sure. She knew it would come back in some form or another. But she began to resent the machine. She had to, because the alternative was to resent Jacob, and she loved him too much to resent what he wanted for both of them. A life without the werewolf haunting them.
"Let's see how a full set of treatments affects the werewolf," he said, "If you don't change on the full moon, then we'll dial back the dialysis to something that we might be able to live with."
"This was the plan they had worked out the morning after that first full moon. A careful, conservative plan to beat back the werewolf. And she agreed to it. But she agreed to it when she was too exhausted from the transformation to argue. Now, it was tiring. Tiring and monotonous. She was bored, and after three weeks since her last change, she wanted more than to spend almost half of her weekdays trapped in the cold basement of their house.
Amanda had to see it through. Jacob insisted, and he was right. Back on the dialysis machine she went, wearing a weak smile as her husband connected her.
Jacob made sure to reward her for her patience. Her resentment of sitting through long hours of solitude had begun to show on her face. Coupled with the moon becoming more powerful against her body, hoping to trigger a change that was sure not to come, she became more and more anxious as the dreaded evening approached. Jacob cleared his schedule the day of the full moon and cooked a romantic dinner for the two of them at home. The large roasted chicken baking in the oven sure smelled good, driving Amanda's senses wild. She felt drawn to the scent of meat that Jacob couldn't tear her away from the kitchen. It was all she could do to compose herself so she wouldn't scare him into thinking her lycanthropy had relapsed, and the wolf would win after all. There was no wolf in her to break out, of that she was sure. The dialysis was that powerful. And she almost hated that it was.
Candlelight decorated the dining room, and it was a dinner date that reminded both of them of their younger days when he was courting her with all the expenses of romance. The good china lay before them, on top of the special tablecloth they only used when guests came to the house. Tonight was special, Jacob made sure. Amanda felt incredibly grateful for a husband who cared for her so much.
They talked as they ate, and Amanda almost didn't notice that it had gotten dark outside. The curtains were drawn so that little of the sky streamed into their dining room. But through the bits of window that weren't concealed, Amanda watched the sky turn from yellow to black. She didn't see the full moon, but she knew it was there, burning at her, beckoning an animal that was too weak to awaken.
Amanda took a bite of her chicken. The taste of meat against her tongue in that moment almost felt electric. Her senses heightened and stimulated every part of her being. Her gums ached as she chewed on the meat, and images flashed in her mind. Dark, once hidden flashes of memories of the werewolf inside her, unrestrained and feasting on live flesh, sating hungers that would never be fulfilled. It was frightening, it was disgusting, it was...
It was exhilarating.
She kept a straight face as she processed the images, but she was lost to the world and to Jacob in that moment.
"Honey?" he said. She could hear concern creeping in his voice.
"I'm fine," she said, clenching her fists. She breathed deeply as if that would allow her some control of her consciousness. "It's happening...and it isn't."
Every pore on her skin itched, but when she looked at the backs of her hands, she expected fur to sprout, but her skin remained smooth and bare. The gums underneath her canines ached the most, and only their growth, her sharp fangs sliding out from underneath her lips, would ease the pain. But they would not grow. Her fingertips grew sore in a similar fashion, but no claws would grow. Every part of her body ached to change. Amanda knew for sure that the beast inside her would always be there. Left unchecked, it would grow and consume her during full moons, filling her with insatiable hungers that threatened to destroy everything around her. But on this full moon, the wolf would not emerge.
The pain of the expected transformation subsided as the heat of the full moon became more tolerable. She finally stopped squirming, and when she looked down at herself, she found that sweat had matted her clothing, but otherwise, there was nothing about her that was different. She was, by all accounts, still human.
By now, Jacob was standing over her, placing a hand on her burning forehead. He had a nervous smile on his lips, half confident that they were indeed successful in controlling her curse.
Amanda breathed a sigh of relief. "I'm okay."
"You're okay," he said, grinning. He leaned down toward her and kissed her, overjoyed that his wife was still with him.
His lips sent waves of pleasure down her body. She was stimulated beyond end by the passion of their touch, and when she pulled him onto her lap to embrace him, more of that electricity tingled across her skin.
And yet, as she hugged him, as her chin rested on his shoulder, as his cologne danced across her nose, with all of the heightened senses the wolf left behind, she couldn't help but come to the terrible conclusion that she missed the werewolf, longing in some dark recess of her mind for the change that wouldn't come that night.