Under the Full Moon
(Wry remark: Humans invented the idea of a werewolf, an animalistic version of themselves. If they are part animal, what would a fur invent? This story is my answer to that question.)
Under the Full Moon
Evan tried to look forward to tomorrow. Even at 8 PM, two hours later than usual, it was hard to believe that Victor wouldn't be coming home. He knew it was about once a month, during every full moon, that his favorite zoologist conducted his nocturnal studies. He at least could count on a night on the town after a morning and afternoon of sleeping it off. But that, alas, was still going on.
After cooking a fast dinner, a rather small turkey steak with his favorite sauce, he ate quickly and in silence. His eyes kept moving between the kitchen door, the clock, and the living room directly to his right. It was hard for him to eat voraciously as usual, having no one to share it with, and by the time only crumbs remained of his dinner, his stomach was full -- but his heart was empty.
He lined up more distractions instead. It being a full moon, he decided to take a walk down by the river. He locked the apartment, and headed to the park, 8 blocks away. He went away from the apartment building, past all of the neon lights of bars, and down the busy streets. The masses he walked by all seemed to have a sense of purpose, he thought. Some were sleepy, some were hustling, some were strolling, but they all had some definite place to go.
He window-shopped on his way, seeing if there was anything he could buy to drive dear Victor crazy. The wolf saw little point in having things to have them, but required them to have purpose. For those things that had no purpose in Victor's view, that was their purpose: to tease him. Evan smirked at a string of pearls, wondering whether they would enhance the white mass of his fur or clash with his spots too much. Either way, he pondered only until he saw the price.
Down at the river, the full moon was more beautiful than he predicted. He leanedagainst the cobblestone wall and watched the water scatter the light rays into hundreds of thousands of fragments on its rolling surface. He could barely make out a star or two on the fairly cloudy night, as he continued to just gaze upon the scene, and feel inexplicable delight just looking at the shimmering water contrasted against the dim, hazy sky.
He wished Victor were here next to him. He was certain the wolf would say something to take the beautiful scene, and bring him to tears with his strange analytical mind. "Those light rays are what allowed nocturnal creatues to survive for 350 million years," Evan said in place of his lover, "and were it not for the tides in the ocean, life on land would never have begun." Evan didn't know if it was true, but it was the sort of thing Victor would say. He is so smart, thought Evan with a sigh of longing.
A gust of wind blew in, making Evan shiver in the chilly night air. The lack of a warm body to protect him from it emphasized his lonliness. For the past week, he had watched Victor go from occupied, to busy, to an absolute furvor in his work. There seemed to be nothing that was too important to wait until tomorrow, and he had been slowly coming home later and getting up later, meaning that the poor snow leopard was getting less and less time to see him.
When Evan thought of tonight as the last straw in a building story -- not coming home at all -- he decided enough was enough: he was going down to his lab and see him, even if it meant some bat or cat turned its behavior into invalid data. He hadn't really seen him for more than a couple of hours in over a week. Perhaps this would remind him that the snow leopard missed him terribly.
Now having a sense of purpose, he walke more quickly with a spring in his step. Along the riverbank he went, across the footbridge, toward the university. Several times he heard something odd behind him -- like a pebble he didn't kick, or a rusting from bushes, or perhaps an occasional footstep -- but he wasn't thinking about anyone behind him. They had their business, and he had his.
He felt safer once out of the park, and after a long hike, was walking down the streets of the campus. The moon was quickly supplamented here by dozens of much smaller lights of street lamps and occasional lit offices. He looked at his watch to find it a little after 9:30, and hoped that whatever experiment Victor had planned could restarted with so much of the night left.
However, he didn't know where the zoologist's office was. He decided to start with the directory in the lobby. He walked in the sliding glass doors to the giant atrium, finding the main desk huddled away in a corner of a two-story waste of space. The atrium was completely open: no furniature, no rooms, two hallways in the back, and only single, potted plant on a pathetic stand by one of the halls.
No one was at the desk so late, so he just reached over behind it, and found the directory. He quickly found the wolf he was looking for, and with the number in mind, started wandering down the halls. He assumed that since it began with a 3, it was on the third floor. A staircase proved not too far behind the desk, fortunately, so up he went.
He thought he heard foosteps again, one occasional reverberation or tap too many in the concrete stairwell, but saw nothing below him. Murder, he reassured himself, was unheard of; and rape, the next worst thing, didn't usually happen on a campus like this one.
He panted his way up to the third floor, and trudged -- quite out of breath -- down the hall to find the office locked. Posted hours indicated he was only in from 2 to 4 PM, and everything else on his door made no mention of other time. He assumed that his lab must be somewhere else entirely, and Evan didn't have a clue where it was.
He aimlessly walked around, looking at all of the doors, most of whom were also zoology, botany, or some other form of biology. In a stroke of luck, one of them did have his lab room posted on his door: 344. Unfortunately, the hallway on this floor only went up to 310. Perhaps it was another building, Evan thought; but which one?
His thoughts were interrupted by a door slamming. He was surprised to see a rather tall, black panther step out of the last office in the hall, looking a little lethargic. This might be his answer.
"Excuse me," he asked politely, "could you tell me where Victor Lenstrom's laboratory is?"
"285, in the Research Center," replied the cat with a forced smile, "but you won't find him there this late."
"I won't?" repeated Evan, this being quite a surprise to him.
"Oh no, he get's off at 5:30."
"But what about his nocturnal studies?"
"He was fortunate enough to con some student into doing it," he replied. "Poor girl... anyway, I'm sorry, you'll have to wait until tomorrow."
Evan hid his tightening stomach behind a weak smile. "Oh well, thanks," he added, and waited until the cat left down the hall, and the door to the stairwell had closed behind him.
He was quite shaken; it meant Victor had been lying to him for at least 5 months, if this student had started at the beginning of the semester. So what was he really doing? Was he seeing someone else? Was he in trouble? His fretting caused him to start pacing for a few minutes, back and forth, up and down the hallway, as his mind swirled around everything the dearest one to him could possibly involved in.
It took him several minutes of stewing before he realized worrying wouldn't help. Heart racing, he quickly turned and started marching toward the stairway door. And he did it suddenly enough that he thought he caught someone peering out the door's window glass at him for a split second before they ran at his approach.
Without thinking about the consequences, he just bolted for the door himself to see who it was. He opened it, and started dashing down the stairs, two at a time, looking down the ring of stairs that he was in pursuit of a grey wolf -- a grey wolf whose head, ears, neck, shoulders, chest, and height were very familiar.
His breathing was too busy occupying his throat to leave him any room to call out, so he just chased him, around and around the spiraling stairs. He had almost half a floor of advantage, and Evan knew that the wolf could run; he jogged regularly, and used to sprint competitively. The leopard could barely keep up, huffing, puffing, and running on pure adrenaline as Victor darted out the door -- the pause to open it allowing Evan to catch up by nearly a second.
Across the empty atrium, out the glass door which barely got out of the way in time, down the street, and then suddenly into a much darker alley they ran. But when Evan got to the other side of the street, Victor had vanished. It was busy, but everyone was walking. No one was running, and most of its occupants were cats or other kinds of dogs. Panting, Evan jogged back down the alley to find that he wasn't in the other street either.
Too exhausted to do anything else, he just squatted down on his haunches, and tried to catch his breath, his mind starting to spin once again as he had the time to think. He was now certain that whatever it was the wolf was into was seriousd trouble. Otherwise, why would he run? Come to think of it, why was he following Evan in the first place? Had he been doing so all the way from the park?
The clattering of a pebble bouncing inches away from his feet made him jump. He looked at it, instantly realized it had probably been thrown, and looked to the left where it must have come from. Nothing. To the right, nothing. Look up to the tops of the buildings, nothing. It took him a moment to realize it, but he now knew: the wolf had vanished by hiding, and had just now distracted him to get away.
He was very clever, Evan thought with a smile, in spite of himself. If he had been following Evan all this time, the leopard assumed, he used other such disappearing tricks whenever he made a stray noise. But looking once again into both sides of the street, and seeing no one familiar in the sea of faces, Evan could do nothing but assume the wolf had finally escaped.
He sighed, and returned to the park, stomach in knots, and mind full of questions. He just decided he would have to confront Victor about it tomorrow, since they would be spending the entire day together. Evan knew he could make tomorrow a 24-hour hell for Victor if he had the heart to, and if the wolf didn't voluntarily mention something this important fairly soon after it started, Evan decided he would be forced to. He had to know.
His stomach eased, as he found strange enjoyment in imagining all the ways he could tease and torture the wolf: mess up food, ignore clever things he said, deny him sex; but most of all, just be morose. The wolf was too empathetic a creature, Evan knew, not to have his mood dragged down if Evan was incurably meloncholy.
Feeling much better about himself, for he felt certain he would be able to determine what was wrong, he strolled along the river once again. His stomach didn't feel any better, but he knew it would pass, so it bothered him less. At least, that was, until he saw the wolf in question sitting on a park bench, gaping at the moon with a dazed look. He seemed completely unaware the leopard was there; his breathing was still quickened, but much slower than it would have been during the sprints he had taken.
Taking a page from Victor's book, Evan approached as quietly as he could, wanting to get as close to the wolf as possible before confronting him. As far as he could tell, he didn't make a sound. But in the blink of an eye, as Evan got to about 5 feet from him, the wolf instantly turned and looked him straight in the eye. The look Evan got was more animalistic than he had ever seen; his jaw was clenched, ears turned forward, eyes boring down straight into those of the leopard.
Evan, fear leaping into his throat, shouted, "Victor! Talk to me!"
Victor was silent, blinking twice as his breathing accelerated, making Evan wonder if he was going to eat him. But he decided upon something more radical, jumping to his feet once again. Evan, with more regret than fear, started the chase again. But this time, it didn't last very long.
The wolf sprinted to the foot bridge crossing the river, and half way over it, leapt up onto the railing and jumped. Evan watched him unfold in midair into a reasonably artistic dive, and land with a tiny splash. Since the bridge was not high, and the dive looked good, he assumed the wolf would resurface on the other side with the current.
But he didn't. Trying to catch his breath, Evan found the moon's reflections all over the surface made it impossible to see beneath. He just waited. As the fourth minute went by, without a sign of Victor, grief began to set in. No matter how clever he was, he couldn't hold his breath for five minutes. Time seemed eternal as he looked at his watch. Evan wasn't sure if he was to blame; whatever the secret was, it was in his eyes when he stared at Evan, as if another creature had taken over his body.
He just kept staring over the edge, as it slowly sank in to his mind that he would never see the wolf again. Before long, the grief crept all the way back to his brain, and as his thoughts turned to memories and longing, Evan started to cry into his hands. No more remarks; no more affection, no more love, no more feeling of his grey fur against Evan's own.
He cried all the way home in silence, wishing he could just touch Victor one more time, just hear his voice say "goodbye." There would be no body for him to see, even. Worse yet, he realized as he approached the apartment, he might have survived, only to swim down river to a new city, to start a new life, never to be heard from again. This got the leopard sifting through his memory: where would Victor go; what would he do; could Evan have seen this coming?
He returned to his apartment, got out of his clothes, and flipped off the lights. Through his closed eyelids, he could once again see the moon reflecting off the river's gentle waves, as he watched the love of his life just sit there, staring at it. Then he ran and jumped all over again. And then he did it again, and again, and again. Every detail, from the skillful dive, to the splash, was replayed in Evan's mind so he could find something -- anything -- that might tell him what happened.
Eyes still shedding a tear or two occasionally, Evan's mind slowly calmed down, and he eventually fell asleep.
***
It was just before sunrise when his mind's games of dreaming -- mostly about Victor alive, well, and beyond reproach -- was penetrated by the sound of a key in a lock. This wasn't a lock in the dream, but a lock in the world outside the dream, which his brain realized once again existed.
He heard the door open, and he slowly got up to find Victor walking in, trying to be quiet, crouched as stealthily so he could shift his weight silently. The moment Evan saw him, all the events of last nigth hit him all over again.
"Victor!" he shouted jubilently.
Before the wolf could even react, he rushed up and grabbed him, pushing him into the closed door, and buried his white head in the mass of grey fur, hugging him and starting to cry all over again.
He felt Victor hug him back tightly, as he poured out all of the sorrow and grief he had filled himself with last night. He barely heard Victor's responses to his running commentary about how he thought Victor was dead, and why did he do that, and what was going on, and how did he get away, and what was he doing there, and why was he following the leopard, and what was he really doing all those nights.
But all of it suddenly didn't matter: the smell and touch of the rough, grey fur that was so familiar was slowly turning it all into a bad dream. He was so happy to get Victor back, he didn't care if it all happened over again -- short of the dying part, of course.
When Evan calmed down, Victor began to explain, voluntarily and with great hestation.
"Love," he sighed, obviously not yet over the leopard's distress based on the low and shaky tone of his voice, "I -- I don't where to begin, I guess with I am just so sorry."
His words were empty, but his eyes meant it; Evan could see that. They were at their softest.
"Please forgive me, and I'll explain."
Evan nodded fervently, trembling with both fear and anticpiation.
Victor picked him up, a tradition that seemed to be getting more difficult for the wolf, but never the less carried him onto the bed. The leopard cuddled up next to him, and listened intently, as if he were going to tell a bedtime story.
"I've been a zoologist all my life," he began, "but it's because there is something about animals, that is different from us. I can't quite describe it, but some humans have noticed too. To most, it just looks like a limitation on what they can do, but I think it's something more. It's something powerful. It's how they can know someone is coming a mile away whether they're looking for them or not. It's how bats can grab their food in midair and never miss. It's how monkeys can go from one tree to another without thinking.
"We can't do that very often, you and I, even in what we want to do. I can't memorize numbers consistently, or keep track of everything I need to, or even feel good some days. But it seems to me that animals have no such problems, at least those that I've studied over the years. They can get it right the first time, and if they don't, they can adapt instantly. They don't spend their time worrying about the past or the future. They can enjoy life, as it happens, one day at a time. And that simple existence, not being weighed down with abstract responsibilities and plans, is what lets them live to perfect themselves.
"And, well, I just wanted to try it. And for short periods of time, it's... "
Victor never finished, instead just petting the leopard's head and staring at the ceiling. Evan, starting to understand, volunteered, "amazing?"
Victor smiled back at him. "Amazing. And so, whenever there is a full moon, and I can watch it rise, I just let go. Whatever I do, I do it. I suppose it's quite dangerous when you make me put it this way, but there is no thrill otherwise. I have to clear my mind completely, forget about everything -- even you." The wolf paused.
Evan was slowly building a picture in his mind of how Victor had acted, and how this explaination did in fact make sense, unusual though it was. "I understand," he said when Victor didn't continue. The feeling of the gentle breathing and beating heart against his own made him willing to accept anything told to him by the love of his life.
"So you could see why I had to keep this a secret," he replied.
"But you didn't have to, I think I understand. I just have one question: can I do it with you?"
Victor sighed. "That's another thing I was worried about. I don't know that you can, because..."
It took him a moment to organize the words. "... because I don't know what will happen. I don't know whether I'd make passionate love to you, or try to kill you. And I don't want to risk the latter for the former. But," he added just as Evan opened his mouth to object, "I might be able to teach you what it's like in a more controlled manner."
Since Evan just wanted to understand this, partly out of his affection for Victor and partly out of a growing, genuine curiousity for the idea, he decided that would be acceptable. "Okay love," he replied with a short kiss.
"Can I go to bed now?" yawned Victor.
Evan forgot he had been out all night, as he was just getting up. "Okay then. Good night. We'll talk more when you wake up," he added, as he quietly got up and closed the door behind him.
***
Most of Evan's day -- while Victor was asleep -- was spent just wondering, pondering, and trying to get his mind back in order. Despite the quick recovery, watching his soul mate jump off a bridge and not surface was not comforting. Every time he thought about it, even for a fleeting moment, he still got nervous enough to strain his ears, so as to hear Victor's gentle breathing through the bedroom door.
It seemed like an eternity of waiting. He ate, but found no flavor in the food. He worked on his drawings, doodling out his many-dozenth portrait of Victor -- this time more wolfish than ever -- but every stroke or smudge of his pencil seemed more difficult than the last.
It was as he finished lunch, about 2 PM or so, that Victor finally awoke. As was tradition on this day after a "noctural observation," Victor quickly got ready as Evan anticipated something far more immediate. Sure enough, 10 mintues later, Victor picked him up off of his chair, carried him back into the bed from which he had just emerged, and had passionate sex with him. The leopard's post-orgasmic fuzz was enough to make him forget about Victor's experience for the moment.
The remainder of their afternoon, also according to tradition, was talking, joking, and just plain spending time together. The only mention of the topic was a promise to start after dinner, resulting in Evan joking he would start dinner immediately. They went out instead, at a decent hour.
Upon their return, both quite satisfied, Victor sat Evan down for his first lesson.
"Alright love," Victor began, "close your eyes. You're in the apartment, with me. Now tell me everything that's going on in this room right now."
With his eyes shut, Evan tried to focus on his other senses. "I can hear the heater running," he answered, starting a list. "There's you, of course... uh, I don't know."
"What do you smell?" he asked.
Evan could smell almost nothing but air -- almost. "Dust, air, uh, something from lunch?" he asked.
"Good, what else?"
Nothing else jumped out at his nose, sensitive though it was. He, like many others, simply ignored it most of the time, and was finding this more of a challenge than he expected.
After a long silence, Victor continued, "what else in this room has a very distinct smell? It's so strong, you probably don't even notice it."
To Evan, who had difficulty discerning what he had for lunch except by memory, it almost began to seem like a trick question. He heard Victor come closer to him, and then laughed as he buried Evan's nose in his shoulder. "You!" he laughed.
"That's right! See, you have to mention everything, even what seems obvious. Because it's the obvious that gets overlooked. Now open your eyes again. Imagine this room as if you've never been here, and describe it to me." Victor closed his own eyes.
"Okay, uh, there's a wall right to your left, and another one about two feet behind you, and a table in front of you, and another wall 5 feet in front of you, and an open room to your right."
"How boring," joked Victor, "I thought you were a better decorator than that!"
Through such prodding, he got Evan to describe the whole thing; from the furniature, to the wallpaper, to the ceiling height, to the books on the shelves. But Evan was getting the point: it is the very act of taking things for granted that makes life less interesting. As Victor also pointed out, "how do you feel right now?"
"Relaxed," was the best Evan could come up with, for despite his anxiety to complete the exercise, he was in general good spirits and suffering no pains.
"You're not worried about tomorrow, or me, or yesterday -- or last night?"
"I wasn't until just now," he growled with a smile.
"But supposing now you can forget that a while, come with me on a walk," Victor suggested.
"Okay," Evan agreed, assuming this was a continued part of his training.
"It's almost 8," Victor replied, "it's important to watch the sunset."
Evan followed the wolf, hand in hand, nervously out of the apartment, down the street, and over to the park across the river. The leopard found himself replaying the memories as he retraced his steps.
"The difficult part," continued Victor quietly as they walked, "is to do what you did before all the time: take in your surroundings. The hard part is forgetting everything you know: what a park is, what a river is, even how to talk. To just react to everything as it strikes your instincts deep inside."
"Is that why you didn't say anything?" asked Evan, unable to escape his anxieties as they walked the path which Evan snuck up on the wolf from.
"Yes," replied Victor, his voice becoming tired, "that's why. Sit down," he suggested once they arrived at the bench in full view of the slowly pinkening sky, the orange sun already starting to be magnified.
"When I saw you that night," Victor continued quietly, leaning over and looking into the leopard's eyes, "I felt everything I did six years ago when we met. You were astonishingly beautiful, especially in the moonlight. I can't even describe what I wanted, but it's what I've been trying to fulfill all this time.
"Since you are simlpy so irrisistable to me, I followed you out of sight. I forgot our relationship existed, so fear of the unknown kept me hidden, but my fascination compelled me to follow you."
Evan dared interrupt, "and you were quite good at it."
Victor smiled, but only for a moment. It faded as his words continued.
"I watched you go into the campus, and up to my office. I found it difficult to ignore the fact it was my office. I saw you talk to Professor Longears, and managed to hide when he went by. And then, you made your first mistake when dealing with animals," Victor managed to say with a small smile, "you made a sudden move, going back to the stairs too fast.
"Having been spotted, I ran. I knew no one -- least of all you -- should see me like this. That was why I stayed out of sight. Through all my cunning, I managed to escape, afterwhich I returned to the park, and did my best to forget about you."
"By staring at the moon?" Evan once again interrupted.
Victor looked up at the setting sun, its hue soft enough it didn't hurt his eyes. "The dark heightens all of your senses," he replied, "and if you look long enough, you too will find the moon an irrisistable draw: a big, bright thing in a dark sky. It's impossible to describe that feeling."
Victor stopped talking, and now just started staring. But Evan wanted to hear more, particularly the part that traumatized him so.
"Why did I scare you -- when I came back?" he managed to ask, heart accelerating once again, unable to say the words "jump off a bridge".
"I smelled you sneaking up on me," Victor explained, "but assumed it wasn't really you until you got close. When I looked at you one more time, I was simply overwhelmed. When you said, 'talk to me,' I almost did. I almost stopped. But I didn't want to stop, for this isn't something you can just pick up and put down. So, I did the only thing I thought I could to escape you. I knew it was dangerous, but my instincts told me I could do it, and they were right. I stayed deep after I jumped in, hoping the scattered light would make me invisible..."
He stopped, apparently seeing Evan's emotional trauma on his face. He grabbed the leopard's shoulders firmly, eyelids raising and ears flopping. "I didn't think about you, in the most literal way possible. I cannot be sorry enough for what I did, Evan. I love you; I care about you. But fear is a very powerful thing, and this state I get into is so different from the way I normally am..."
Victor's eyes started tearing up. "I feel like there is nothing -- no explaination or apology I can give, nothing I can do," he begged, voice rising, "I feel like -- that nothing will make it up. I'm just so -- sorry."
It was Evan's turn to wrap Victor in his arms and let him cry, much more quietly than Evan had. "It's okay," he insisted, "I forgive you."
It was like Victor was now experiencing Evan's night for the first time. "It must have been awful," he sobbed, "I can't believe I put you through that!"
Evan found it far easier to get over his pain when someone else seemed to be soaking it right from his chest. "It was," the leopard murmured calmly, "but nothing compared to the happiness I feel holding you now."
By the time Victor had recovered, the moon had already risen, and the sunset was nearly complete. Once their hug broke, Victor turned it into a kiss, pressing their heads together, and almost locking their jaws. Evan found his lover voracious, tongue trying to count his teeth as he tried to push back, and tasted the saliva he found most familiar.
When the kiss ended, after a long time, Evan was so fully aroused he wanted to return home and act further upon it. But Victor seemd to see him squirming on the inside, for before Evan could even ask, he replied, "watch the moon rise, love, and I promise we can go home. If you really want to know what it feels like to be alive, just keeep watching."
The leopard returned his eyes back to the slowly morphing sky, now making its way from pink to grey as the buildings seemed to loom more and more before the huge ball. Since there were only scattered clouds, none of the concrete and steel seemed to be interrupted by any shadows but their own. While it was beautiful, Evan found it quite slow. However, he knew that this -- like several other imporatnt things in his life -- required pateience.
The pink became hazier and hazier, as he first saw the moon appear. It hadn't waned very much since last night, and so was still quite noticable in its own corner of the sky. When Victor suddenly changed how he was holding Evan -- from being setttled along his chest to being turned 90 degrees into his lap -- Evan looked up to see Victor looking down at him with a hint of the wolfish look at he night before.
"I will always protect you," he whispered, sliding his hand up into Evan's shirt and petting his belly fur directly, "because I love you more than anything else in the world."
His hard eyes didn't seem to match the soft words. Wondering waht was behind this look, he asked, "even from you?"
"Even from me," he replied, voice becoming gravelly and husky.
The darkness starting to surround them was making Evan more active, even as the air began to get cooler around him. He started feeling hungry; but more than that, he felt indescribably empowered to do something about it.
Without warning he just stood up. "Could we get something to eat?" he asked.
"I can teach you how to hunt," crytically replied the wolf.
Evan wasn't quite sure if he should take Victor literally, so agreed.
To his surprise, Victor was quite literal -- short of an actual kill. What Evan learned, as the sky finally moved through dusk and twilight, was how to hide and stalk prey. It was the same thing Victor had done to him: hiding, moving silently, and making a noise distraction when you had to do something obvious. Much to his delight, under Victor's watchful eye, he managed to stalk an unsuspecting Malamute who wanted to do nothing but jog around the park.
Since Evan was so quiet compared to his hard steps and rhythmic panting, not to mention the earphones he was wearing, he never even suspected anyone was following him. The thrill Evan got was something he couldn't describe. When he returned to Victor's postion, who watched him from their original park bench the entire time, Evan sat down quietly. He was breathing hard himself for having to support his weight in awkward ways while moving so silently.
"I can see why you like it," he panted, "but unfortunately, I'm not animal enough to actually kill him."
His stomach churned a bit, reminding him that the hunt, viewed through its original purpose, had been a failure. Victor did reward him, however, by going out with him to sit down steak. In the restaraunt, the animalistic look in his eyes had returned to the soft, jubilence -- perhaps tinted with a hint of regret -- that was more normal for him.
They talked, like civilized people, about what he was doing in his lab. "So I haven't been lying," Victor was saying, "I am in fact running nocturnal studies on bats. It's just I've gotten my students to do it for quite some time. You know what happens if I don't get enough sleep."
Evan nodded, feeling somewhat annoyed about the lack of honesty Victor was admitting, but being sympathetic enough he wouldn't punish the wolf for it.
In his hunger, Evan started eating quickly when the food arrived. "Close your eyes," Victor suddenly suggested, "it will taste better."
Evan had already swallowed, eating at his usually high speed, but tried eating the third bite of his steak with his eyes shut. It was quite remarkable; the leopard found his focus shrank dramatically, making the same steak he was tasting much more important than what else he was hearing and smelling. The red flavor of the rare meat, the textural contrast between inside and outside, the light spicing -- and suddenly, the somewhat mediocre quality of the flesh in his mouth -- all became magnified.
He enjoyed it more, but after swallowing, asked, "how's yours?"
"Not quite usual, is it?" Victor answered.
Evan felt a sudden wave of excitement at this simple, new experience. "Not really. I suppose this means we will have to go to a better place now," he joked.
"If you say so, love," Victor smiled.
Even though it was perhaps not the quality Evan had thought, the leopard always found meat satisfying, even if it wasn't his favorite fowl. He left well fed, out under the now bright moon and gently starry sky.
"Look at it," Victor whispered, pointing up at the giant ball of light that had replaced the sun.
Evan tried to stare as Victor had done, but didn't seem to draw the same sort of energy from the light the wolf had described. He kept walking, trying to get something from it until they were ouside their apartment building. "I'm sorry," he suddenly said after another minute of staring, "I don't get it."
"Doesn't the darkness make you feel -- think about what you can't see. What's behind you?" Evan looked behind him, didn't see anything but the sidewalk, but when he turned back toward Victor, the wolf was gone.
Evan's heart lept into the air until he looked down to see the wolf couching down right where he used to be standing.
At Evan's irratated reaction, Victor smiled and stood. "That's the fear of the dark I'm looking for," he explained. "You don't know what's around you -- and if you are focused on your surroundings, like back in the apartment, that's when your senses are heightened by the fear."
"Like the steak?" Evan suggested.
"Sort of," Victor answered, "but that was more intentional. This is more driven by a sense of nervousness, like you just felt when I vanished."
"Well don't vanish anymore," playfully growled the leopard, grabbing the wolf around the shoudler.
"Don't worry, love," he replied, "I won't."
They walked into the apartment together, and as Evan was putting his key in, Victor grabbed him by the shoudlers. "In fact," he growled, "I want to stay with you all night."
Evan replied not with words, but by stepping inside, and kissing Victor's muzzle. The moment the wolf stepped in, closed the door, and locked it from the inside, he grabbed Evan and pushed him to the floor.
Evan let himself be grappled, and then let his shirt be pulled over his arms and head in jerky motions by his favorite wolf, his hard-on returning to full strength as the smell of familiar fur once again was pushod to his nose. He tried to reach up and unbutton the wolf's convenient jeans button, but Victor stood up over him, putting his foot gently on Evan's crotch.
"Now, love," he announced with a mischevious smile, "I figure I had better ask you a few questions about all this before we completely forget ourselves."
Evan knew that this was the wolf's way of clearing his conscience; they both knew Evan would say yes to anything at this point with a rather notable tent in his jeans -- a tent being pressed on gently by the foot of his true love.
"First, I want permission to keep doing this, if I also keep coming back to you the day after."
"Yes love," Evan quickly replied, trying to get this over with. He was smiling despite himself, his affection and hormones unsuppressable.
"Second, I want you never to think about what happened at the bridge again."
While the memory still hurt, his hormones helped with that too. "Yes love," he replied, his voice a little less excited admittedly.
"Third," he growled, breathing accelerating visibly, "I want you to do this yourself once in a while."
"I'd love to," he replied, afterwhich the wolf got that animalistic look again.
Seemingly drawing upon the same instincts that kept Victor's eyes glued to the moon, Evan was ravaged. While his treatment was somewhat harsher than he would have liked, he was willing to endure the occasional pain of the claws or a bent arm for the pleasure of the fur beside him and flesh inside of him.
Victor didn't even drag him to the bed; he pulled Evan up, pinned him down against the wall in the entry, stripped him, unzipped his own pants, and poked his dick where it would make Evan's nervous system almost electrocute him.
Evan was quickly overwhelmed with a feeling that -- due to its extreme intensity -- he didn't partake of hardly ever with Victor. The nerves of his anus made him feel pleasure and agony at the same time, a feeling which made him groan and almost yell as the wolf worked his dick in and out with seemingly little regard to anything but himself.
It was only when Evan let out a higher-pitched groan than usual, for the swelling meat within him bumped his prostate, that Victor's panting, grunting, growling frenzy slowed down a bit. Seeming to let Evan back into his universe again, Victor also reached around underneath the cat and grabbed his cock, jerking him off opposite his thrusts.
His kindness paid off; the feeling of that hand on his cock caused one of Victor's random thrusts -- identical to most before it -- to start him up on his climax. Within seconds, he was washed over by the tide of orgasm, and making a mess on the carpet.
Not too much later, perhaps due to the convulsing of his anal ring that resulted, Victor too growled, and without speeding up, poured himself into Evan with more of a pant than any other sound.
When they had both collapsed in a heap on the floor, Evan felt his own seed sticking to him. "Sorry about -- ogh! -- the carpet," he groaned as he felt Victor withdraw. He managed to struggle to his feet, and got to the bathroom before anything else bad happened.
He didn't like that part, but the feeling seemed to be worth it. Though it was such a strong sensation -- one often too strong for his taste -- he knew Victor enjoyed it, and that was enough for him at the moment.
When he got out, he was pleased to discover the wolf had already cleaned up the carpet, making the spot look no more innocuous than water. In unspoken consent, the two of them then retired to bed, closer than ever.
The End
(version 1.0)