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Chapter 2

The full moon had risen high above the indigo hills and the garden was a full symphony of cricket chatter. Holding her breath as if to steady herself the extra degree, Evelyn finally worked herself up to ease open the bedroom door and, stepping out on tentative tiptoes, closed it behind her with only the softest click easing up on the brass handle. As expected for a house of this commendable age, the floorboards squeaked in places, so she tested her footing gently at each step before fully committing. She ached to see the coyotes, just a bit closer, and resolved not to put it off another night. Before venturing further, she leaned way out to look down the hall; no light peeked from under her mother's door, nor the bathroom at the very end. At this hour she was surely generating some z’s. Maybe even prescription-induced.

She sported her typical sleepwear, the long, faded t-shirt billowing slightly with each step down the hardwood staircase. She steadied her descent with a hand firmly on the banister. Her stomach tightened, anticipating a righteous squeak every time her foot settled on the next lowest step. If Mom saw me now, she'd reprimand me just for going around barefoot at night. As if there's like spiders and broken glass everywhere, just waiting. She gave an expressionless huff and focused her eyes on the bottom of the stairs lit by silver strands of wayward moonlight.

Evelyn had explored the garden earlier in the day, enjoying the rose bushes planted in small squares, the just-now-blooming geraniums, a tree whose aluminum dog tag bore ‘citrangequat’, all under the cloudless mid-May sky. The tiled paths opened here and there to encircle verdigrised birdbaths, attended by wrought iron, wood-slatted benches. It was easy to imagine losing hours of one’s time wandering the place, especially on lazy summer days. She’d also searched for signs of the coyotes’ exploits, very quickly arriving at a set of unmistakable and deeply planted pawprints weaving through the dark soil at breaks in the hedges. Evelyn’s mother was somewhat less thrilled, advising her to stay clear and remarking ‘There’s a bloody fence, I don’t know why they can’t keep these things out’. She used ‘things’ in the way a more direct person would use ‘vermin’.

What does she fucking care if she never even moves three feet beyond the shade of the fucking porch? The invectives were always minor and obliquely thrown, but they were borne over nineteen years, and, it seemed, with increasing frequency. And she wouldn’t even know a coyote from a . . . cucumber.

Reaching the bottom of the stairs after what felt like a small forever, Evelyn padded to the kitchen, never letting her heels quite touch the ground. The ceramic was surprisingly cool on her feet, and the full-size freezer decidedly cooler on her bare legs as she dug around for something to entice the coyotes. Umm, sure, why not . . . ? she smiled to herself, extracting a box of Hot Pockets, but like a health food kind, and peeled open the flimsy box labeled ‘CHICKEN’. She cringed suddenly at the microwave’s unsubtle, square-wave chirping and hoped that, from way over on this side of the manor, it was drowned out by the sounds of the night. Not more than a few frozen-food-convenient minutes later, she tiptoed to the backdoor, steaming plate in hand.

Shoulders hunched high and tense, she silently rotated the deadbolt and opened the door to the fresh summer air pouring in over her, ruffling the excess of her shirt and enveloping her, seeming almost to draw her outward, and everything glowed an ethereal full-moon blue.

It was only a matter of minutes after she seated herself cross-legged at the base of one of the concrete columns at the edge of the veranda, centering herself in the chirping of the crickets and the bubbling of the still-ever-bubbling fountain, that the microwaved white-meat aroma wafting delicately through the midnight breeze enticed a curious rustle from somewhere dark and leafy within the garden itself. They’re already here . . . ! Her eyes were wide again, and she turned with immediate, prey-like attention to the source of the sound.

And there he was.

The moon-bathed coyote emerged from behind a shadowy hedge rather suddenly, with little warning, ears perked straight up, crouched tentatively as his canine nose twitched. Evelyn straightened and pressed herself flat against the column, setting down the plate and giving it as much space as she could reasonably afford without getting up to leave; she found herself utterly unable to leave anyway. Her mouth drained of moisture as a coyote boy timidly approached, hunched on all fours, and the full-moon silver of his pelt resolved into reds, blacks, and creams, mottled complexly.

Closer still; stunningly so.

Their eyes locked when he was close enough for Evelyn to see the glinting gold around his wide, nocturnal pupils, to hear the muted clicking of his blunted claws on the terra cotta tile, and the follicles all over her body tightened when she recognized the gaze looking back at her as familiar. “Hey, there . . .” she mouthed, unable to summon the actual words. Almost instinctively she knew him as the coyote from last night, lapping from the fountain across a distance that seemed, at the time, to collapse. Now the distance really was small and getting smaller as he judged the safety of her poultry offering.

Close enough to hear him breathing.

Evelyn was practically pinned in place, trembling as the coyote leaned in to sniff his prospective meal, she in her dorm-regimented sleepwear and defiantly barefoot, he in nothing but that same summer-short fur. And this close up, his maleness was more obvious than ever, a silhouetted pouch hanging pendulous between his legs. She swallowed dryly, waiting everlasting seconds for him to accept the gesture of friendship, and considering increasingly the hazards should he not. But finally, he dug in. Gruffly grabbing a pastry, the coyote boy tore into it, angling his head various ways like an animal with some experience eating with efficiency. Making himself comfortable, he sat squarely on his backside with a fur-muffled plop, nonchalantly open-legged, never tearing his muzzle away as steam rose faintly around it. He was slim, cream-white fur hugging rows of defined abdominals, narrowing further and further down to where his balls splayed before Evelyn on the stony cool tile in their short-furred sac. A blush rose hotly in her cheeks as her eyes nervously wandered the very naked boy in front of her, now illuminated quite clearly in the pale glow; she’d never seen a coyote-person like this until just the night before, nor even someone so nude and male, of any species. His eyes turned alternately from his rapidly consumed meal to the apparently trustworthy girl before him, licking at his paws before moving onto the next Whole Foods Hot Pocket.

Evelyn’s eyes lingered. He doesn’t mind, she reasoned guiltily, cheeks flushed. He’s putting it all out there anyway . . . His cream-furred sheath was nestled above the plainly displayed testicles; at the end of his sheath was a small, pink mouth, fleshy and vaguely scrunched, and as she studied him voyeuristically in the mutually growing ease, a vivid tip peeked through, poking its way more and more out of its fuzzy dwelling. The hot pink tip of his penis emerged unexpectedly, forcing the scrunched mouth to spread under swelling pressure. Her pulse was now audible, but looking up, Evelyn found the coyote totally engrossed in attacking his meal, even as inch after lustful inch of his canine erection emerged, glisteningly taut and pulsing between his legs. The hot meat filled his stomach in (what Evelyn figured was) a quasi-erotic experience and, after all, how far separated were any of our most ancient needs? Ringed by his sheath, the length of his half-emerged penis swelled plumply before tapering at his tip, aimed at the girl and bobbing lewdly. She found her mouth hanging agape as she considered the unbidden display, and when the coyote again met her gaze, promptly shut her jaw with an intensely awkward smile. Thank God he doesn’t understand human expression . . . Er, right? But the midnight snack bore out that coyote sensibilities treat arousal rather matter-of-factly, and with this assumption Evelyn indulged her curiosity quite blatantly.

But as he devoured the last crumbling piece, the coyote’s pink shaft retreated inch-wise into its fuzzy home until the sheath ring finally contracted, swallowing the last of his tip. His face seemed pleasant, ears high and eyes bright, totally unperturbed by what seemed to Evelyn like a really quite provocative, if transient, display. She saw trust emerge in his satiety and ventured to ease herself forward over the empty plate, extending the open palm of her trembling hand, long hair spilling over her shoulder. And instead of just petting him, she found her arm curling around his thick-furred neck as the coyote met her to plant a cool nose appreciatively, if not maybe even affectionately, on her cheek, right below her eye. For a second, she was frozen in surprise, but with the coyote still there and still nosing, she relaxed into the strange embrace and rubbed at his neck, fingers exploring the place where his fur seemed to grow thickest, and he felt incredibly warm.

A “yip!” called from way across the garden, softened in the insect cacophony, and the coyote boy’s ears perked. Breaking away with a yip of his own, he rose to his feet and started swiftly for the shadowy hedges moving easily, lithe muscles gliding under that short fur, switching from two feet to four and back again. Evelyn felt the nighttime breeze blowing suddenly colder in the place the coyote’s body had just occupied. But ahead by the fountain, he stood upright, perpendicular to her, looking back as if waiting. She huffed a nervous laugh and got up on her feet, tentatively ready to follow, shifting her weight side to side on the cool, dusty veranda to coax some feeling back into her legs.

Satisfied, he disappeared behind the hedge, leaving Evelyn to either follow or stay behind. This was way more than she’d planned tonight. Come on. You gotta be a little brave. You’ve been a good girl all year, now take a chance for once . . . She bit her lip, her stomach turned, and with a long exhale, she stepped out from the cover of the veranda onto the garden path. The well-fenestrated, two-story manor loomed darkly behind; she saw no lights in any window and the house was midnight still. Hedges rustled as the coyote snaked his way toward the rear of the garden, peeking up here and there, and with another deep breath to bolster her resolve just a little bit more, Evelyn followed.

She was somewhat familiar with the garden from her earlier wandering, but when the coyote just crawled through some thick greenery, Evelyn took a bit longer to search out a path around, and the very rear of the garden was lined with a barrier of evergreens that offered no choice but to be negotiated with some amount of prickling. Then, on the other side, an iron fence extended far in either direction, posts painted shiny black and finialed with blunted spears, seeming to wrap around the entire property. And on the other side was a rolling expanse of open field. Even risking self-impalement, the fence was at least two feet taller than her, and with no gate in sight. But there the coyote was, crouched patiently right up against the metal boundary, and not only him, but a packmate on the other side suddenly standing on tiptoe and studying the human girl with keen attention, tail flitting. Then she noticed a shallow trench under the fence connecting one side to the other, and the coyote boy wiggled his way through expertly and shook the loose soil from his hide in a very canine fashion, leaving Evelyn the subject of two pairs of wild eyes between the posts. The trench was modest, she could tell up close, and much better suited to his slim build and flexibility, and in no way could she squeeze through without emerging totally covered in grass and dirt. Don’t turn back from this. She clenched and unclenched her hands, a heavy stone in the pit of her stomach. This definitely wasn’t a ‘good girl’ sort of thing, but it happened to be exactly what she ached for. Unreadable golden eyes watched her, waiting. This night is yours if you just take it. No one’s around to tell you no; it’s right there for you. She stood there trembling, as if on some precipice high up, like a twenty-foot diving board, and she knew -- just knew -- all she had to do was commit herself to it and take the plunge. Okay. This is it.

Evelyn hooked her thumbs over her waistband, and, with only a hiccup of hesitation, pulled down the flimsy shorts. Stepping out of them, one foot then the other, she crossed her arms and pulled the shirt over her head in one long motion until her hair spilled messily out of the collar and all around her blush-red face. She brushed her tawny mane back and saw the coyotes waiting, unflinching, even as she stood there, suddenly, rebelliously, nude. But, for whatever small comfort it was, Evelyn made a hasty attempt to fold her clothes, leaving a loose square in the shaggy lawn to await her retrieval, faded nautical logo on top. Now she just had to negotiate the hole under the fence. Don’t stop now. Getting on all fours, she eased herself down in a slow, clumsy imitation of the coyote boy’s technique, palms planted flatly in the dark soil. Her shoulder blades met the aggressively right-angled iron posts before anything more than her head passed under, and so she quickly changed her approach. Okay . . . there’s no helping getting a little dirty. Flipping around so as to lay inverted and quite vulnerably supine, Evelyn wiggled her way backwards under the bars, flattening herself into the shallow trench as low as she could. The pebbles in her back were uncomfortable, and the metal bit into her, gliding over her breasts. Then again as the modest swell of her paunch squeezed through. The girl huffed, grinding her shoulders through the damp earth, not realizing she’d been holding her breath, and finally emerged on the other side, wiping the clingy dirt from her back as blood beaded on the ruby lines scratched in her bare skin.

The grass was thick and unmown and gave easily under her bare feet as Evelyn steadied herself to stand again. The warm, gentle, early summer air caressed her, welcomed her, and in a wave of rising goosebumps she became uncannily aware of every inch of her skin, all of which she’d bared to the canine duo, her coyote boy flashing a toothy smile across his pointy muzzle before loping off into the fields. If her mother found her out here like this, she’d oscillate so rapidly between baffled and apoplectic as to be rendered totally speechless. But Mom was far away, sleeping in a well-appointed second-story room hidden far behind the wall of pines. Tonight, it was Evelyn’s chance to answer the call that tugged her out of bed, and already she was giving herself over to it. The overgrown hills yawned lysergically before her like massive swells in an unreal sea, glowing eerily and disappearing into the inky shore of distant trees, and she felt very small. It seemed like another world, and just as well, since she was happily breaching several norms of her own. Spine arched, shoulders proudly back, she challenged the open night sky, the moon illuminating her naked body. The grass beneath tickled springily as she bounced from the ball of one foot to the other, preparing to run with the coyotes, and brushing the wild, dirty hair from her face, she joined them.