Drink—
He moved, his breath quickening, despite him. The craving raged from his gut, down into his groin and up his spine into his teeth.
— no—
— DrinkDrinkDrinkDrinkDrink—
He exploded from the darkness.
— Drink—
He leaped upon the woman and brought her down, clamping his teeth onto her face, inhaling the thrashing of her body and the sound of her voice in his throat. He gripped her tighter by the shoulders and breathed in her taste, her screaming vibrating the marrow of his teeth and he did not hear her, did not feel her fingers tearing at his fur, did not see the bawling lump of a girl shrieking nearby—
— Yes YES drink yes DRINK drink DRINK —
Reynard seized in a violent fit and bolted from his bed with a horrified cry. He reached for a bottle of brandy on the end table, drank, gulped, until threads of crimson liquid poured down his neck.
The wolf is dead it’s dead it’s dead and I know I know I cannot not another, not another terrible —
The bottle emptied. He tossed it aside.
— terrible.
Nightmare. He reached for another bottle. It too was empty. He found a half-filled decanter of vodka and flipped off the lid with a finger. In great gulps he drained the alcohol down his throat. Disgust washed over him and he tossed the decanter, smashing it against the wall. Since Lisbon he could never get drunk, no matter how hard he tried—and he wanted, really wanted , to try.
That bloody presumptive, intrusive, miserable letter!
His rage intensified as he thought of Miss Kiria Carlovec and her pleasant vagaries. He imagined every lurid reason such a woman would flaunt his secret. The more he examined her false concern, the pretentious sweep of her signature—as if he would rush to her side!
No one was supposed to know.
The First Time came at age nineteen, sitting in the last row of the Western Civilization lectures at The University of Montreal. The professor was droning on about Cortez and his rout of the Aztecs when the pressure in Reynard’s gut came so immediate, so demanding, that he spilled the contents of his stomach all over his desk. He panicked, his instincts warning him not to run to the nurse’s station but to isolate himself, far away.
He knew, somehow. Something terrible was going to happen.
He scurried into a concrete maw of a drainage pipe outside the school grounds, huddling in wet sewage, wailing like a child. The bones in his face cracked and skin ripped like cloth and every joint pulled from its place, forcing him to his belly as if prostrating before an unclean god. When he was himself again, five days later, he was naked, alone, sheathed in dead skin and more than twenty miles from school. When he tried to remember where he had been, what he had done, his memories were but fragments: running through darkness between the lights, his ragged breath and heartbeat, a cascade of earthy scents, the dull satisfaction of filling his belly. Whatever he had eaten, he dared not speculate.
Over the months that followed, he read books. He asked questions. He raised his hand in his biology and psychology and anthropology classes, surprising those professors who marked him sullen and uncommunicative. He drew ire from those more conservative students with his keen interest in Darwinism, especially the science of mutation. Could this be, he speculated, some product of evolution?
He soon concluded his condition was beyond scientific understanding. He turned inward, to every myth he could gather matching his condition. He discovered the word werewolf , but he found his affliction had many differences from common folklore: his change had nothing to do with the moon, though his body kept to a rough six-week cycle. He carried no demonic sign, no magic belt, no animal skin. He offered no oath to God or Satan. As far as he knew, his parents were not inclined to dabble in anything supernatural other than their pointless social circles.
So it was, that after having tried to bind
He moved, his breath quickening, despite him. The craving raged from his gut, down into his groin and up his spine into his teeth.
— no—
— DrinkDrinkDrinkDrinkDrink—
He exploded from the darkness.
— Drink—
He leaped upon the woman and brought her down, clamping his teeth onto her face, inhaling the thrashing of her body and the sound of her voice in his throat. He gripped her tighter by the shoulders and breathed in her taste, her screaming vibrating the marrow of his teeth and he did not hear her, did not feel her fingers tearing at his fur, did not see the bawling lump of a girl shrieking nearby—
— Yes YES drink yes DRINK drink DRINK —
Reynard seized in a violent fit and bolted from his bed with a horrified cry. He reached for a bottle of brandy on the end table, drank, gulped, until threads of crimson liquid poured down his neck.
The wolf is dead it’s dead it’s dead and I know I know I cannot not another, not another terrible —
The bottle emptied. He tossed it aside.
— terrible.
Nightmare. He reached for another bottle. It too was empty. He found a half-filled decanter of vodka and flipped off the lid with a finger. In great gulps he drained the alcohol down his throat. Disgust washed over him and he tossed the decanter, smashing it against the wall. Since Lisbon he could never get drunk, no matter how hard he tried—and he wanted, really wanted , to try.
That bloody presumptive, intrusive, miserable letter!
His rage intensified as he thought of Miss Kiria Carlovec and her pleasant vagaries. He imagined every lurid reason such a woman would flaunt his secret. The more he examined her false concern, the pretentious sweep of her signature—as if he would rush to her side!
No one was supposed to know.
The First Time came at age nineteen, sitting in the last row of the Western Civilization lectures at The University of Montreal. The professor was droning on about Cortez and his rout of the Aztecs when the pressure in Reynard’s gut came so immediate, so demanding, that he spilled the contents of his stomach all over his desk. He panicked, his instincts warning him not to run to the nurse’s station but to isolate himself, far away.
He knew, somehow. Something terrible was going to happen.
He scurried into a concrete maw of a drainage pipe outside the school grounds, huddling in wet sewage, wailing like a child. The bones in his face cracked and skin ripped like cloth and every joint pulled from its place, forcing him to his belly as if prostrating before an unclean god. When he was himself again, five days later, he was naked, alone, sheathed in dead skin and more than twenty miles from school. When he tried to remember where he had been, what he had done, his memories were but fragments: running through darkness between the lights, his ragged breath and heartbeat, a cascade of earthy scents, the dull satisfaction of filling his belly. Whatever he had eaten, he dared not speculate.
Over the months that followed, he read books. He asked questions. He raised his hand in his biology and psychology and anthropology classes, surprising those professors who marked him sullen and uncommunicative. He drew ire from those more conservative students with his keen interest in Darwinism, especially the science of mutation. Could this be, he speculated, some product of evolution?
He soon concluded his condition was beyond scientific understanding. He turned inward, to every myth he could gather matching his condition. He discovered the word werewolf , but he found his affliction had many differences from common folklore: his change had nothing to do with the moon, though his body kept to a rough six-week cycle. He carried no demonic sign, no magic belt, no animal skin. He offered no oath to God or Satan. As far as he knew, his parents were not inclined to dabble in anything supernatural other than their pointless social circles.
So it was, that after having tried to bind
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