Isabel and the Wolf: (Part 2) (9 page)

“So,” Isabel faltered. “Is this, like, a game? Is it part of this dominant/submissive thing we’ve got going on?” The edges of Peter’s lips curled up in a half-smile.

“That might be the best way to think about it,” he said. He squeezed her thigh, then leaned close and kissed her again.

“I wish it was dark,” he said. “I would like to couple with you in the car just now.” Isabel noticed for the first time that he was still naked, and that his desire for her was evident. Against her better judgment, her own arousal bloomed deep in her belly, and she yearned for him to lift her onto his lap and take her deeply. Instead, he started struggling into his clothes, apparently becoming aware of his own nakedness too.

“You’ll discover more in the future, Bella, I promise. But now the time isn’t right.”

*

When Peter left Isabel at her own car minutes later, she slipped in gratefully, eager to have time to herself. Meeting him always involved a combination of arousal and confusion that left her dizzy. And this had been the strangest situation yet. With a laugh, she recalled how pleased she’d been to find Peter on the dating site because he seemed so much more normal than anyone else on there. But now she seemed to be caught up in something far more serious than the dress-up games the people on the website played, and she couldn’t begin to understand what that might be. Her inexperience frustrated her. There were people who lived dominant/submissive lives 24-7. She knew this from the site. Is this what he’s doing? she wondered. Is he deliberately creating an atmosphere of danger? Or maybe he’s just crazy.
No
, her intuition told her firmly.
Very unconventional, yes; but he always seems perfectly sane.

*

Isabel didn’t hear from Peter the next day, or the day after that. Although the memory of the sex they’d had remained strong in her mind, and her body demanded that she seek it out again, she was content to have some space to reflect, to come down from the intensity and have peace to get back to her work again. The block of wood in the vise in her studio was still unidentifiable as anything definite, but it was becoming an abstract carving with a strong presence. Blessed with the ability to assess her work objectively, Isabel could tell it had potential, and, despite the fact that a misjudged cut could ruin its integrity, her hand was sure and her carving confident.

She was just finishing for the day when she heard a man’s voice calling her name from the side of her house. She put down her chisel and wiped her dusty hands on the front of her overalls.

“I’m back here!” she called, recognizing the voice, but unable to place it. As a solid, square-bodied figure came around to the open doors of the studio, she saw that it was Bill, whose house she’d recently been at for dinner. He was wearing a shapeless orange shirt with tassels at the neck, made out of a crinkly material that she thought might be called cheesecloth.

“Hey!” she said, pleased to see him, and he gave her a hug hard enough to crack her back.

“Can you use a coffee?” He held out a cardboard carrier with two coffees jammed into it. “They’re both lattes.”

“Always!” Isabel said with a grin, and took one of them from him. “But how did you know I’d be here?”

“I’ll call it an educated guess,” he said. “So I took a gamble on the coffees.”

“Well, it’s much appreciated,” Isabel said. “I get tired from working on things so intensely. Especially when, uh – ” She looked at her watch. “I forget to take a break for four hours!” Bill laughed.

“I know what that’s like, believe me! Hey, that’s something different!” Bill had walked over to Isabel’s sculpture and was looking at it intently. “It’s got a real energy.” Isabel laughed.

“You can tell from what I’ve done so far? It’s not even a quarter finished yet.”

“Absolutely. There’s something really natural and alive about it. You’ve got something special there, girl.”

“Well, thanks. I’ll ask you again for your opinion when it’s finished,” she replied, pinking in shy pleasure. “Shall we go and sit out the front?” She looked around for things to sit on. “I haven’t got around to buying any garden furniture yet though.” She found a large bucket in the studio that could be upturned.

“This’ll work too,” Bill said, pulling a foot-long slice of a broad tree trunk out of a pile of chopped wood at the corner of the garden.

“Would you believe I’d never even noticed that before?” Isabel said, and they both laughed.

“The life of the artist – being highly observant about most things, but curiously oblivious to others,” Bill replied. They carried the bucket and tree trunk through to the front of the house and positioned them on the lawn. The grass was a little scrubby but the well-tended flowerbeds compensated for it, and overall it was a pretty space. The long spiky leaves of Blue Avena grass offset the red flowers with yellow rims that were dotted around. At 6pm the sun was still fierce, but the shadow of the house protected them from its glare. Isabel chose the bucket and sat down.

“How’s Marianna?” she asked.

“She’s good. In fact, I should confess that it was she who suggested I stop by today. I had to run some errands downtown, and she said
why don’t you call in on Bella on the way back?
” he explained with a hacking laugh. “We wanted to see how you were settling in.” Isabel smiled at him. She liked his easy way and his cracked cigarette voice, and the way that he ended every couple of sentences with a burst of laughter. He reminded her of a friendly uncle.

“Well, everything’s going great,” Isabel said, spreading her arm in the general direction of her house. “I love my house, and my work’s going really well. I might have had a date or two as well.”

“Ha, I thought so. Marianna’s keen to fix you up with a couple of guys, but as soon as I saw you, I thought, she’s got that twinkle in her eye that means she’s already taken.” He cackled. Isabel shrugged.

“It’s early days, but things are going well between us,” she said, wondering at the same time whether she was allowed to date other men, or if her contract with Peter meant that she was his alone. Another thing they hadn’t discussed yet. Bill was staring at her.

“Sorry?” she said, realizing she’d missed something.

“Damn, you’ve got it bad, girl. I was just inviting you for dinner at our place again. I promise Marianna won’t be matchmaking – if you don’t want her to, of course?” he finished with a wink.

“That would be great! Actually it’s my turn to entertain, but to be honest, my cooking isn’t the most reliable.”

“Don’t worry, folks tend to gather at our place, it’s always been the way. We might do pot luck this time around though, so you’ll still get a chance to poison us!” Isabel laughed.

“There are one or two dishes that I do really well, I’ll have you know. It’s just when I have to start synchronizing things that everything goes wrong.”

“In that case, we’ll let you pick the theme. We usually choose a particular country or region’s cuisine. And everyone brings something from there.”

“Ok, I think I can cope with that,” Isabel said grinning.

“I saw Rob the other day. He told me he showed you the conservation center.”

“Yes, I loved it. I can tell he’s really passionate about it.”

“He is, and it’s so good to see that people still care about protecting the wilderness. It’s the oldest one in the world, you know? Well, the first one to be designated an official wilderness area.”

“It’s a lovely place,” Isabel said. “Even being the city girl that I am, I can appreciate that.” Bill nodded, pulling on his short gray beard.

“Folks come to Silver City because it’s this famous hippy town, but Gila is the true heart of the area. It’s a very spiritual place, and has been since way back, when the Native Americans lived there.”

“Yes, Josie was saying something similar. Seems like she’s really into its history. She was also telling me about the Native Americans believing there are people who can turn themselves into animals.” Bill smiled broadly, his eyes crinkling.

“She’s a real live wire, that one. I love her passion for things. She was probably talking about skinwalkers?”

“Yes, that’s right! So, it’s an old myth, right? No-one believes in it today?”

“No, not true. The culture is still very much alive on reservations. But most people refuse to talk about them in fear that they’ll hear and be stirred up to conduct evil magic.” Isabel stared at him, surprised by his conviction.

“So you’re saying you believe in it too?”

“Why not? Transformation, or shape-shifter myths are as old as humanity. Almost every culture in the world has one. What’s your religion?”

“Lapsed Catholic,” she said with a laugh.

“Well, there are Greek myths that were around at least a thousand years before the time of Christ, about humans turning into all kinds of animals – eagles, swans, bulls, snakes. One of the oldest books known to be written in the western world depicts some men being transformed into pigs. Different cultures have different kinds of stories. In some, the transformation is a punishment, in others, a privilege. A lot of the shape-shifters are dangerous to humans. And, taking all the different world myths together, people transforming into wolves is the most common, followed by dogs and cats.”

“Wolves? Actually, Josie’s skinwalker reference was about an unusual wolf that Rob and his team caught in Gila the other day.”

“Unusual how?”

“Apparently it was really big, and not related to the local packs, and it had a strong resistance to the sedative shot they gave it.” Bill nodded calmly, but his eyes were bright with interest.

“Then what happened?”

“It got away, so they didn’t get to look at it too closely. You’ll have to ask Rob for more details.”

Peter’s abrupt departure from the camp site and his sense of danger flitted through her mind.
What if Peter saw the huge wolf, and that was why he had to run?
But surely if that had been the case, he would have just told me, instead of acting all mysterious, and telling me there’s “lots of things I’m not aware of”.

“Do you think it’s dangerous?” she asked.

“I’d be very surprised,” Bill replied. “Wolves are generally shy around people. Still, if it’s an unusual species, it’s hard to say.”
What if Peter believes in transformation stories? Could that explain why he was freaking out?

“Do Romanians believe that people could turn into animals?”

“Romanians?” Bill shook his head, as if reorganizing his thoughts. “I don’t know. I don’t know much about the country to be honest. They’ll have their vampire legends, of course, which inspired Dracula, but that’s about the extent of my knowledge. When I was travelling in Mexico though, out in the villages, people really believed in shape-shifters. They call people who are believed to turn into animals
nagual
. Supposedly they transform overnight, and they get the blame for stealing property and bringing disease.”

“But this is superstition, right? You can’t tell me that you seriously believe in it?” Isabel could hear a note of incredulity in her voice, and she fought to suppress it. Bill adjusted his position on the tree trunk, crossing an ankle over his other knee.

“I guess I can say I believe in it in theory. There are so many things in this world we don’t understand, that can’t be explained in terms of the experiences we’ve already had.” Isabel broke into a smile.

“You know, someone told me something similar very recently,” she said.

“Well if they’re in Silver City too, I’m not surprised. People tend to be more open to the spiritual world around here.” Isabel drank the remainder of her coffee and stared into the dregs.

“I guess I have been a little quick to judge, especially since the whole ethos of creativity and spirituality is what brought me here,” she said.

“Oh, don’t worry, Silver City will do its work on you soon enough, and you’ll be joining one or other of the spirituality meet ups we’ve got going on here!” Bill winked at her. “Ok, I’d better be going, I’ve got some shopping to get home before it melts in the trunk. Could I just take one more look at what you’re working on?”

“Sure,” Isabel said, and led him through to the back. Bill gazed at the piece of wood in the vise again.

“See, here’s an example of something natural that’s being transformed into something completely different.” Isabel grinned at him, knowing what he was doing.

“It has kind of taken on a life of its own,” she agreed.

“And isn’t that part of the artistic process – creating something that you often feel like you’ve had little conscious control over, that seems to have been dictated to you by a higher force?”

“Yes,” Isabel said.

“Take care, hon,” Bill said, giving her another bear hug. “And we’ll see you on Wednesday night. Give me a call tomorrow and let us know what the theme of the dinner’s going to be.”

Isabel waved him off and went back to her studio to finish up for the day.

*

Late that evening, half watching an old film and pleasantly tipsy from a large glass of red wine, Isabel’s thoughts became inflamed with The Wolf. He’d been intruding into her mind while she’d been working for the past couple of days, until she’d pushed him away again, but now his presence was unignorable. There had been moments when she’d started falling for him, she admitted to herself – like in the woods, when he’d cradled her body in his and she’d felt completely protected, or when they’d been joking with each other, and the conversation had flowed so easily. But then he’d be so unreachable that she’d bounced back to earth again and reminded herself that he was still very much a stranger, and not one she should be letting herself get emotional about. Her breakup with Jason had given her some maturity, and she was a 28-year old woman now, not an inexperienced girl. So why was she letting herself smile when she recalled Peter’s character quirks, his seriousness, which had a certain charm to it, and the direct way he did and said everything, which was so different from her arty friends and their talk about ideas and possibilities? Why was she wishing his arms were wrapped around her, enclosing her in his exciting masculine smell again? And all the time, her body burned for him, with its taut, uncomplicated need.