The Company of Wolves
Written originally for the Halloween seasonal challenge on GSS. This is so blatantly indulgent but it was so fun to write.
It's difficult to believe in magic, even as a child, when you grow up the sort of poor that not even dirt would deign to acknowledge. Some of your first memories were the blurry chaos of a Samaritan shelter, of days sat on the sidewalk of some city holding a cardboard sign and fidgeting. You didn't want to blame your mother, she did her best, but the fact was that now you're nineteen, and you felt older. You felt so much older than that. Your plain eyes stared hard back out of the bathroom mirror, your hair the same as it always is. You'd just finished showering and were brushing your teeth for the morning. You had another long day ahead of you.
All through school you'd been a straight-A student, fighting tooth and nail to be able to make it work. Mom had caught a lucky break when you were about to hit middle school, she'd gotten a job, gotten clean, gotten a one-room apartment, but even at twelve you knew two very important realities of the world.
The first reality is that magic wasn't real. No gods. No witches. No monsters, except for the normal kind, the boring kind, the sort of regular everyday evil that humankind is capable of. If any of that was real you wouldn't have had to fight so hard for that full ride, wouldn't have been so hungry growing up, so dirty. The second reality is that you had to get out of that apartment. And you did. As a young man having just started your second year of college, you'd managed to keep up your relentless work ethic, still getting some of the best grades in your classes, and--for once in your life--finding time between school and a retail job to get some volunteer-work done around the community. If you were perfectly honest with yourself, you needed the praise of your teachers, the awe of impressing your classmates, the compliments when folks learned how you spent your time.
If you tried hard enough, you could ignore that other side of the picture. The one where those selfsame teachers and classmates would look at other people with hard backgrounds, others who had suffered just as much as you and more, and decided that just because you were a perfectly ideal success story for the HuffPost meant that they should be able to do the same thing. Your own success came at the cost of others from lives like you left behind. You're pretty good at ignoring that side of the picture.
But not perfect.
"Yo, James," you called out, shouldering your backpack. It was Monday, the day before Halloween and the last week of this term, so between working at some pop-up costume store and studying for your finals, you're exhausted down deeper than your bones. But you didn't show it. Never could. "I'm headed out, boss called, someone flaked and they're paying time-and-a-half for short notice and rush.""Fuck yeah, man, get that paper!" your roommate called back from the living room. "Fuck! Yes, fuck yes, oh man hang on I gotta clip that--bro, you'll have to see this later!"
"Yeah, yeah, man, enjoy your day off, some of us have shit to do." you teased, opening the front door. "I'm gonna be back late, you're on your own for dinner tonight!" Most of the time it was you who did the cooking for the both of us; James paid for the groceries and did the dishes, and you made sure we both got to eat. It was a good arrangement, it made sense--and, most importantly, it means you don't have to pay shit for food. That extra exhaustion after a long day was worth the budget. It felt like it didn't matter how much money you had in his savings account, it was always never enough. One bad disaster in this country would be all it takes. One misstep, one lack of foresight.
Unexpectedly--though maybe not too much so, it was a Monday morning--the store was a ghost town. You worked through morning upkeep--including the shiftwork that last night's shift apparently hadn't, but you didn't write it down, maybe they were having a hard time--and then sat back behind the counter and pulled out a book. The Company of Wolves. It wasn't exactly required reading, but it was something you were going to write an essay on for an academic competition. That prize money was worth the free time, and you were confident you could probably get third place.
You were more engrossed by the prose than you expected, though, sincerely enjoying it. So much so that when you finish the story you flipped back to reread it, to better appreciate the flow of the words--except finally you notice in your periphery the slight shift of a body adjusting its weight to another leg. Someone had been standing patiently, silently at the counter. Your head jerks up, and a standard apology of a distracted retail worker dies on your lips as you see him for the first time.
You actually aren't sure how you didn't see him immediately, from half the room away. It wasn't that he was particularly flamboyantly dressed, or that he was physically imposing or unnotable. But now that you stared into his eyes you couldn't help but feel a shiver as your hair raised at the nape of your neck. The sheer intensity of that neutral look felt like it was burning you up inside, able to see right down, not able to read your mind, but something deeper than that, lower, all those shameful morsels of the soul that we hide in our gut that boil us alive in secret.
"Hello," the man said, and that voice, not particularly deep, not particularly high, but resonant, humming in the air like cello strings. "I need your help finding something. Will you?"
"Of course," you said, without any real thought behind it. Not the polite chirp of a good employee. The sort of impulsive loyalty that the knight feels for the king, that the cactus feels for the rain in the summer, that the dog feels for the master. The small satisfied smile he gave you sent all the lower parts of your brain on fire with electricity, tingling. If you wanted, you could probably have noticed that something wasn't normal, that something wasn't exactly right.
Except you'd seen those eyes looking into yours. You knew just as well as this strange man did that you didn't want to notice any of that. Not even remotely. You wanted to see what would happen more than anything, and he seemed more than willing to show you.
"What do you need help with?" you heard yourself ask. It wasn't like you were hearing it from a distance, exactly. Or rather, it was, but it was the way that you can hear the conversation of fishermen on the lake half a mile away with perfect clarity. You did hear it from a distance, except the distance didn't matter to you. His shaggy to the shoulders hair was sort of straight but sort of wavy. It didn't fall like any hair you'd ever seen before, and the color was...it was brown, but it was brown in the way that sapphires were blue. It had depth to it. For some reason you thought of the pit bulls that some of your mother's friends on the street kept, the sort which would lap at your giggling face as you petted them. Brindled, that was the word. His hair was brindled.
"I'm looking for something very specific for Halloween," the man continues, walking with a slow gait that wasn't elegant, but certain. Loping. He loped, you decided. "And I've been looking for quite a while but haven't been able to find it just yet. I saw your store and thought, just maybe, I might find it here."
You were both in the back of the storefront now, surrounded by costumes and accessories of all kinds. You actually enjoyed working here more than you'd thought, because rather than mass-produced garbage like a Spirit Store, the owners told you that they would spend the whole year making these luxury high-class costumes and sell them in October, and that money was enough to last them the whole rest of the year. The quality of the craftsmanship had you believe it.
"Well, I really hope I can help you, sir," you tell him honestly, and once again, that small smile is overwhelming.
"I think you just might, pup," he says, looking around the aisle with quick efficiency. "Tell me something. Why do you work here?"
"Uh," is all you can say, because--because what sort of question is that? But he continues before you can formulate some sort of coherent thought.
"Why are you going to school? Why are you always working so hard? Aren't you tired? Aren't you tired of it all, pup?"
The concern, the genuine concern in his voice, in his expression as he turned back and watched you, thick brows furrowed, lips turned perfectly downward, framed by a short but well-tended beard, all of it kept you off balance. But you both stared into the other's eyes as he continued, both knowing exactly what was happening, at least to a certain extent. You didn't know where any of this would take you, but you knew one thing for certain: You weren't powerless. You could look away, disappoint him, disappoint yourself, and go on with your life. You could get your degree, go into some comfortable white-collar field that you had absolutely no passion for but did pay well, really well, and you could spend the rest of your life at that company, maybe even going so far as becoming CEO, becoming one of the richest men in this country, rich enough that you could finally stop worrying about money and rent and all of this stressful shit you had to right now because after a certain point in that life you've saved enough that you could never spend it faster than your interest and profits would refill it.
"I'm so tired," you say softly, because finally someone was actually willing to look you in the eyes and make you admit it. None of that life would ever make you happy, bring you peace. You'd die richer than Crassus and you'd never have felt joy or serenity once. Money could buy security, but never happiness.
"Yes," the man said, stepping closer. "You're so tired. You want to help me find what I'm looking for, and all you have to do is do what you already want to do. You just have to let yourself be tired. Be so tired. So tired. So tired." He had you in his arms now, holding you firmly as something in his voice didn't make you feel tired but rather let you feel tired. You'd worked so hard, all this time, for nothing more than fear and words of kindness. Here was someone giving you that kindness but demanding you let go instead of cling harder. It was a sort of heaven. "I've been looking for someone just like you, pup," the man continued, voice clinging to the air like birdsong on the breeze. "Someone worthy of it. Someone driven, someone motivated, but for the wrong reasons. You think you have no choice but to live like this. And maybe you didn't. But here, right now, pup, I'm telling you that there's another choice you can make.""Another choice," you say quietly. You knew he knew you were his already by then, but he was going to make you say it nonetheless.
"Be driven to serve me," the man said, and finally his voice did become deeper, the melody of his voice changing timbre, turning into something rough but solid and warm, mahogany bark as you run your hand over it. "Be motivated to obey me. Desire nothing in life but me. And in exchange for that..."He was a bit taller than you, but the way he held you in his arms, the way he wrapped one of his hands across your waist and lifted you up so that your forehead could rest on his, so that you could lose yourself in his eyes--his eyes the exact color of yours, you realized--so that you could hear the way his words tasted as they left his mouth and reached across that tiny space to your lips...
"And in exchange for that I swear to you that you will never be anything but happy, never want for anything but me..." His lips touched yours now, his teeth gently nipping at your bottom lip as you shuddered and gave a quiet moan.
"...And I would never deny you what you wanted."
You weren't an idiot. You knew for a fact that there was no such thing as magic. There was no such thing as fairy tales where a handsome man would sweep you off your feet to live in a palace and never need to worry about banalities of life again. There was no such thing as magic.Except...except maybe you could let yourself believe in it. Choose to ignore that reality in the same way you chose to ignore your exhaustion, your frustration, your misery, your pain, your desperate longing to feel something that was not filled with anxiety in its motivations. You were always good at ignoring those things, but never perfect.
Maybe because this would be the thing you were perfect at.
_They say there's an ointment the Devil gives you that turns you into a wolf the minute you rub it on. Or, that he was born feet first and had a wolf for his father and his torso is a man's but his legs and genitals are a wolf's. And he has a wolf's heart.
Seven years is a werewolf's natural span but if you burn his human clothing you condemn him to wolfishness for the rest of his life..._
In another life, where you chose to not believe in magic, you'd be shocked at everything that came next, but your new master--he made that feeling impossible. He kissed you for a few more minutes and then set you gently back on your own feet, and then he looked at you wordlessly and you instantly knew what you needed to do. You got on your knees in front of him in the middle of that store--or technically the back of it, but still, the principle--and you took your hands to his pants and pulled them down, and when you see the thick shaggy fur that your master has from the waist down, the digitigrade legs, the thickly-padded paws, the long fluffy tail wagging glacially slow from side to side, the massive sheathe and his more massive balls, with the start of an erection forming for you to take care of, pointed tip red like the rubies on a king's crown, none of it shocks, none of it surprises you. He places a gentle hand on your head and his thumb rubs at a spot behind your ear and none of it matters except to hear his words echoing in your mind and following those simple orders.Be driven to serve him. Be motivated to obey him. Desire nothing in your life but him.
And in exchange for that, you will never be anything but happy, never want for anything but him.
And as you lean forward with your tongue out to lap at his balls, each the size of your fist and wrapped in thick layers of oak-brown fur, thick with a feral animal's musk and sweat, you remember that last promise he made. That he will never deny you what you wanted, and all you wanted is this, forever. No fear of need to make money, no anxiety of spending hours studying until you can't sleep, no anger at the world. You get to have that gift now and forever, whenever you want--and you always do want--to let all of that melt away into nothingness and choose to live in a reality where this is all that matters.
Your master growls, actually growls, low and deep in his chest with pleasure as you continue lapping at his balls slowly but relentlessly, his balls are all you can see, all you can feel. With each lick your tongue bursts with the flavor of his musk and sweat, cedarlike and predatory, and the fur where you licked grows steadily darker until it's saturated with your own saliva and the only taste is a thick and soft heft. You move your head slightly, and he puts his other hand on the other side of your head and gently begins to scratch at your scalp, sending thin rivulets of stimulation and pleasure all through your upper body as he treats you like the treasured, perfect pet he needed. You've lost track of time but eventually you realize that his left ball is wet and black with your saliva, his lupine cock fully outside of his sheathe and completely erect, though somehow he has no trace of a swelling knot--you don't know how you know those things but you don't care, because his right ball is still needing servicing, and so you begin lapping at it, too. Time has no meaning to you. You are where you belong. With every lap and suckle you can feel your master's balls pulse and tense as they make more and more cum. You've felt his pre-cum constantly this whole time, he's been shooting it like some men would cum whole loads, nonstop and every few seconds through his balls you'd feel that tense and then a moment later that rope of thick and pungent pre would land in your hair, or on your forehead, or your hands or your back. It's a more meaningful measurement of the passing time you get to serve your master than hours or minutes would be: when you finally feel him push your head up his sheath and the shaft of his cock, letting you lick and suckle all the while, you feel so wet with his precious fluids it's like you stepped into a shower, your whole head sopping wet, sticky strands of pre hanging off your brow, off your nose, falling into your lips and you don't know how to describe it but you think that it's the best thing you've ever tasted. And then you wrap your lips around the tip of your master's dick and no, that is the best thing you've ever tasted, meaty and rutting and lupine. You start going down on him, swallowing more of his cock, you don't know how many inches it must be but when your nose brushes against the top of his sheathe and you breathe in deeply the scent of him, memorizing it as comfort and safety and happiness, you can feel the thickness and the pulses of his pre from the tip of his cock, but you can't taste it even a little, it's gone so deep down your throat that instead you can feel it gushing straight into your guts, keeping you warm and full.
The rest of that time you spent in the store is a blur because it's clear that your master was patient and happy to let you explore and take your time, to celebrate the opportunity of worship and being worshiped, but he wanted you to remember that you never want for anything but him, and what he wants from you is to take control of your mouth, and of course you do. His hands leave your hair and he grabs you by the shoulder, leaning over and gripping the base of your neck, and for a moment the halogen lights of the costume shop are completely smothered by the shadow of your owner looming over you; then he pulls his beautiful massive cock from your hungry throat until just the tip remains, frantically shooting streams of pre at such velocity and frequency that it doesn't stop with each clench of some internal muscle of his, he's needed this from you for who knows how long and his cock is finally where it's always been needed, just one thick rope of pre-cum shooting endlessly into you for minutes on end, and then he jerks his hips up into your waiting mouth as he clutches at your neck, his spine curled up and his tail wagging like a blur, causing a mess in the shelves behind them but neither of you care because how could you, this was the moment you were each made for, you on your knees in public and not caring because your master needed your mouth, and your master, thick balls slamming against your neck and coming away stringy with precum as he roughly humps a quick and inhuman tattoo into his new, perfect pet, and when his growling and panting and snarling reaches a fever pitch, you can feel it as he shoves you as far as possible down his shaft, your nose mashed up into his skin and sheathe, and you moan as you feel his knot swell up in your maw as you hear him howl, lustful, majestic, triumphant, a wild animal or some sort of tiny god who doesn't need to care about propriety or society or anything of the sort. Your whole world is his cock and balls filling you with the first load of many, and his whole world is you.
Time still has no meaning to you anymore, so you don't know how long it's been that he's kept you tied on his knot, how many litres of dog cum he's made you swallow since you first got on your knees, but it's been long and euphoric enough that you feel your eyes drift shut and yourself drifting away as you revel in the sensation of that ruby bloated dick pulse and tense in your throat as his arms stay wrapped around your head, curled around you and thrusting ceaselessly.
The next thing you remember is waking up somewhere that smells like cedar. You're laying between your master's wolven legs on a bed made of piles and piles of thick wolf pelts. You hear the crackle of a fire behind you but the heat you feel inside for your master keeps you warmer. Looking up, you see that he's sleeping, eyes closed, but not peacefully. His eyes twitch and his leg kicks as he dreams of something, and already you know why you were woken up. Some part of you--your soul, maybe--recognized that your master needed to be served, and your body responded like wheat before a wildfire, consumed utterly with that knowledge and a burning need to do whatever he wants, because that's whatever you want.
You crawl up further until your ass rests directly atop his swollen sheathe, the tip of his cock already beginning to drench your insides as his cock begins to grow and thicken inside of you. There's no pain, because you were made for this, and so you settle yourself to sleep atop his chest, your head nestled between his chin and collarbone, and as you close your eyes to go back to sleep with your ass clenching and pulling your master's cock further inside of you where it always belonged, you feel rather than see the small smile that fills your master's face as his restless sleep settles into an unconscious and gentle rocking motion of his hips, nothing at all like that frantic need in the store that felt like a lifetime ago. There would be time for that later, when he was awake. But for now you both closed your eyes and slept, each of you finally, finally at peace as your bodies settled into their connections with each other, at last where both of you wanted so badly to need to belong.