The morning after

I wait for her to stop bustling around the kitchen, letting her complete the complex routine of coffee making and avocado toast preparation.  When she’s finally settled into the chair diagonal to mine I try to catch her eye, to get a read on the temperature, but she is focused on gramming her breakfast for her several thousand followers to admire.  I don’t know how to bring it up, I don’t know how to ask her.  Instead, we discuss our short term plans for the day. Maybe we’ll go out for Thai. It’s always Thai I think, but then, it’s one of those types of cuisines that always sounds good.  She looks up from her phone finally and notices the dark circles under my eyes and asks if I got any sleep last night.

I tell her no, hardly any at all, while searching her face for any recollection of last night’s events.

She winces as she swallows some coffee and says she must be coming down with something, her throat feels a bit sore.

I nod and say I can pick up some cough drops later, she hands me the coffee asking if it tastes off.

  “It tastes fine, earthy and roasted to perfection”  I say.

She frowns in a way that reminds me of a frustrated bunny rabbit, lips cinched to one side.

  “You look like you want to ask me something, and for your information the sex was fantastic, thank you babe”  She says as she pecks me on the forhead before heading for the shower.

She doesn’t see the look of confusion on my haggard face. 

We didnt have sex last night.  

I’ve known her for all about two months, and about three weeks in a more intimate capacity.  Yes, the nights of passionate love making did bring a flush to my face as I thought about it. 

I hear the shower turn on and resist the urge to join her in there, instead I go outside to the back of the house.  I’m not an animal tracker or woodsman or anything like that but I can see evidence that something was prowling around the house recently.  Prints left in softer patches of exposed dirt tell me something was pacing below my bedroom window.  In one of the rose bushes I see fluttering a scrap of pink silk.  As I reach out to inspect it I hear the front door open and instead of the fabric, I pluck a blood red rose.  She claps her face in her hands and gushes over the gesture and smells it lustily. 

We kiss in that way that usually leads to further activities but she pulls away before my hands reach anything that would tempt her to stay.  

  “I’ve gotta go, can’t be late, have a surgery in forty five, see ya later?”

  “Of course”  I say, smiling stupidly.  

God she is so amazing, I think as I watch her walk briskly to her car, reddish brown ponytail bouncing with her steps. The baby blue scrubs she’s wearing are loose fitting but tight in places that matter to my sense of aesthetics.   

Hate to see you go, love to watch you leave, I say to myself and wave as her car speeds off to the veterinary clinic where she works.

Another flutter of pink catches my eye and I head to the grove of tightly packed trees that border my property. Hanging on a snapped branch is the rest of what I recognize as the pair of panties she was wearing last night.  The stretchy material is completely distended and torn in several spots.  She must have come this way after running out of the house like a woman possessed, shrieking.  It’s hard going but there is a clear path, broken twigs and tiny shreds of pink leading me to a clearing beyond a large blackberry bramble.

I smell it before I see it, a heavy meat smell tinged with a sharp musky tang of ammonia.

Whatever it was, lies in a pile of gore, shattered bone and stringy bits of connective tissues.

I nearly toss up the coffee that roils in my stomach mixed with sour bile and hot flash that precedes a hurl.  I am relieved to see that it is not human remains, indicated by a blood matted striped tail of a raccoon nested in the blackberry bush a few feet away.

I am suddenly exhausted and head back to the house wearily.

She was straddling me, I remember clearly, and just as she removed her sports bra I saw her eyes flash yellow as if lit from within by fire.

She went stiff, as if every muscle had turned to steel, and she seemed to gain about a hundred pounds before leaping off and running into the night.

Such was my shock that I just lay there before heading to the open front door.  Her car was still parked on the street and it was quiet, like all the night birds and crickets were holding their collective breaths.  A thick fog diffused the porch light making the darkness somehow soft and full of undulating movement.  

I called out to her, my voice sounded weak and small as the dense fog absorbed it like a muffler.

From somewhere, not far, or particularly close, a violent commotion erupted.

Snarls and pain filled screeching, branches snapping and one final yelp followed by silence, thick and oozing silence.

Faintly I could hear wet tearing, soft crunching and the dull thudding of my own heart pounding in my chest.

I needed to get out of here, I needed my shoes! As I backed into the house the unmistakable howl of a wolf pierced the fog and my soul.

Before I could shut the door I could see something emerging from the grove, a dark shape lumbering towards me. Frozen in terror filled shock I simply watched it approach the threshold and enter without the slightest hesitation.  It was a wolf, but loped on two lanky hind legs, its forelegs nearly reaching the ground were more like arms ending in hands tipped with long claws. It advanced, I retreated.  The beast closed the door, almost gently, and even turned the deadbolt to lock it.  

I could hear it breathing, I could smell its breath, coppery and hot.  We repeated this odd dance until I was herded into my bed, thinking this was it. This was how I was going to die.

To my surprise it merely laid down next to me, and cradled me in its powerful arms.

I don’t know how long I stayed there awake as hell, and afraid to move lest it change its mind and decide it wanted seconds. When its breathing became a slow rhythmic bellows I relaxed a bit, and somehow fell asleep. Upon waking, surfacing from dark liquid dreams I refused to open my eyes and instead reached to one side as stealthily as I could. Smooth soft skin, not coarse fur. Thank god. I rolled to face her, and as I did she inhaled that first morning lungful and opened her eyes to meet mine.  She smiled. I smiled.

  “Hey” I say.

  “Hey” She replied.

“My girlfriend is a werewolf” I say out loud to confirm my conclusion, and close my eyes for a much needed nap.

I really liked that last place we went, should go there again, I think before drifting off.