Then Dorian stood and began putting a condom on his cock. He nudged Tooth aside. Tooth growled, and Dorian growled back, and for a moment Daisy could see the Wolves in them, the animal part of them that was so clear when you looked into their eyes. Dorian grabbed her and spun her onto her front, on all fours.
Funny
, she thought.
I thought Dorian would be missionary, and Tooth would be doggy
.
Then his cock slid into her, slamming her sweet spot. Tooth climbed into the bed and knelt before her, putting his cock in her mouth. She braced her hands on his belly and just opened her mouth, letting the force from Dorian’s thrusts push her onto Tooth’s cock. Tooth grabbed hair, not hard, but not soft, either, and pushed his cock as far into her mouth as it could go. She choked and coughed, and yet she found that she liked it.
Dorian grabbed her ass, making animal breathing noises, his hands moving over her flesh. She looked up and saw Tooth’s face: animal lust, mad, unbound lust. She knew she was being ravaged by two Wolves – two wild things – and it felt fucking amazing. Dorian pounded harder, harder—
Daisy squeezed her eyes tight-shut as the orgasm swept through her. Dorian just kept fucking her, either not knowing or not caring that she was coming. He slapped her ass, but just soft enough so it didn’t hurt. By the way he was grunting – not unlike a hungry animal – Daisy thought he wanted to spank her harder, but knew that
Wolves couldn’t harm her
. It was a strange, silly thought, and yet it brought a great deal of comfort into the midst of her euphoric gyrations.
She stroked Tooth’s cock even faster, and before she knew it he was moaning loudly and her mouth was filling with come. She pushed back on Dorian as Tooth’s cock ebbed and wilted, shooting his come into her mouth. Dorian moaned once more—and then went silent. A second later he was moaning and clawing at her ass cheeks. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he moaned. “Fuck, fuck,
fuck
.”
He collapsed forward onto her back, resting his head in between her shoulder blades. Then it was all over and they were getting dressed and it already started to seem like a dream to Daisy. Had that really just happened? She doubted she would believe it once they had left. Then she went to the bathroom to clean up. A mirror hung over the sink. She made to look at herself in it – perhaps she needed to wash her face – and found that she couldn’t.
Literally
could not look in the mirror. For a terrified second she attributed this to the supernatural. Then she quickly glanced at herself, and realized it was not magic but disgust.
What are you, some kind of slut?
the reflection seemed to say.
Are you some kind of whore, some kind of sick pervert? How do you do something like that and still look at me, Queen Reflection? Don’t you know I’m going to judge you just like the rest of the world is? You make me sick, Daisy. Please don’t look at me anymore. I don’t want to have to deal with your sick, depraved eyes on mine.
Daisy swallowed – really quite offended that the first person to reject her was her reflection – and then returned to the apartment proper. When she saw Dorian and Tooth sitting on the couch, a little tired-looking, a little disheveled, but basically the same, something in her snapped; and all her self-loathing came pouring out like water from a collapsed dam.
“Get out,” she mumbled, and they glanced up innocently. “I’m sorry—but—get
out
.” She spoke with more force now. “I need you both to leave, please.” And even to herself she sounded rude, abrupt, but she couldn’t stop herself. Suddenly their presence here seemed unnecessary. Daisy felt intuitively that their presence had an integral link with the judging face in the mirror, and she didn’t like it. “Get
out
,” she repeated.
“Daisy—” Dorian began. Tooth just shrugged.
“No,” Daisy said. “Just—just get out—please.”
Dorian sighed and rose to his feet; Tooth followed him. Daisy followed them to the door. Dorian tried to say something, but she closed the door when his mouth was half-open and locked it behind them. Then she went into the bathroom and jumped into a scolding-hot shower.
What is wrong with me?
she asked herself.
But there were the words, again, those women-hating words that shouldn’t have mattered to her but did:
slut, whore, etc.
After the shower she changed her sheets and lay in bed, trying to feel clean. She had enjoyed it. Why did she feel so bad about it?
*****
She did everything she could to avoid the Wolves. It was easy to avoid Tooth. Daisy thought he must not care, because she hadn’t seen him since That Night. But avoiding Dorian was damn-near impossible because they worked at the same place and her desk was situated right across from his, as though even the supposed-to-be-impartial Seating Plan was against her. She questioned herself, constantly, about her reaction. Her mind had split into two partisan groups, the pro-Wolf group and the anti-Wolf group, and Daisy did not know which one to listen to.
She read more than usual, cramming every spare hour she had with constant reading, trying to distract her overactive mind from the Wolves and redirect her attention to the lines and lines of escapist bliss. But every so often she would look up from the book to her empty apartment and imagine the Wolves sitting there – right
there
– on the couch, in
her
apartment, and they’d
done
so many things.
She masturbated over it a lot, too, which made things even worse. Then when she looked in the reflection she wasn’t just seeing a
whore
, but a
whore
who had enjoyed the whole thing. And why shouldn’t she have? What was wrong with a little sexual enjoyment? But, no, that reasoning was dangerous. If a woman gets to thinking she can
enjoy
sex just for itself, then what about all those women – women
and
men – who have never been allowed to express carnal joy? Wouldn’t she surely feel the great weight of their anger at that injustice? It was almost too much even to think about. No, the best course of action was to pretend that she had hated the whole thing. It was a hard thing to do, when the intense pleasure – pleasure like she’d never felt before – was so vivid to her.
After a week of this routine, Dorian approached her in work. He leaned over her desk during lunchtime and whispered: “What’s the matter? We didn’t do anything to offend you, did we?” It had none of the wheedling, desperate quality that that sentence could have had. He was merely curious, like a naturalist asking why a snail went this way instead of that way. “It is hard, with someone you have Scented, to maintain control always. Of course we can’t physically hurt you – that is impossible – but did we insult you in some way? I know what you’ll say, if we did:
if you have to ask, you’ll never know
, or something like that. But honestly, it would be easier if you told me.”
“I don’t know,” Daisy mumbled, unwilling even to look up from her desk and meet his gaze.
He shook his head and wondered back to his desk.
One week until the full moon
, a part of her whispered. And why
shouldn’t
she care about the full moon? The full moon was important, all things considered. She found herself wondering what they would look like – what they would
feel
like – in their Wolf forms. Would they be even
more
animalistic? Would their Scenting of her make them dangerous? But dangerous in a good way?
At the end of the work day, Dorian approached her desk again. He smiled at her. Angela stopped at the desk and asked if she was okay and Daisy mumbled that she was and then the office was empty apart from Dorian and Daisy. “What is it?” he said, stiffly. “Just tell me.”
“I—”
I don’t know how to explain it to a man.
“I don’t how to explain it.”
“Try.”
Daisy sighed and rubbed her eyes with her thumbs, and then sighed again. Where would she even start? How could a man understand all the loathing that came over a woman her age – a woman who had been born too early for sixties free love and too late for young-people carnality – and understand it enough that he forgave or condoned her behavior? She sighed once more and then sat up straighter at her desk.
Then a thought occurred to her. “When you’re in Wolf form, have you ever hurt anybody?”
He flinched, as though slapped. “Why are you asking me that?”
“It’s just a question.”
“It’s, err, private.”
“Private? Ha-ha, between
us
? I think we’ve passed the threshold of private way into good old Sharing Territory. I don’t think there can be anything private between people who have shared genitals.”
Dorian scratched his face and then ran a hand through his short brown hair. He clenched his square jaw and then nodded, looking off into the distance, as though the paraphernalia of the office had transformed into a memory before his eyes. “When I was first Made, something happened. It was out West, a long time ago, when I was in my late teens. Luckily – and I thank God or Whoever every day for this – the man was a child-murderer. The other Wolves joked about it: about how lucky I was only to have to live with the guilt of killing a killer. But it still gets to me sometimes.”
“Right,” Daisy said, trying to get it right in her mind. “And I supposed the Wolf-you enjoyed it?”
Dorian nodded. “I suppose.”
“Well, imagine how I feel. I didn’t kill anyone but it is just the same, in many ways. I did something that I enjoyed but knew I shouldn’t have done. I shouldn’t have had both of you.”
Dorian met her eyes. “Why do you say so?”
Why indeed?
“Because it’s just not what’s
done
. People think school is a horrible place, and it is. Anyone different in school is ousted, hated, ridiculed. It is impossible to function in school if you are even a
little
bit different. But people forget; those school kids grow up and became office workers, and many of them don’t change. They read so little and think so little and
do
so little that their ideas from teenage years cling to them like wet raincoats. And when they see something that doesn’t fit their school-parameter, they feel that old thrill again: that old thrill that comes with affirming your own normalcy by denigrating another’s non-normalcy.” Daisy had been talking fast, her words pouring out in a continuous stream of indignation. She began to feel the old academic cogs turning. “Or maybe it is jealously. Maybe they’ve always wished they could experience pleasure like that but don’t know how: have always been surrounded by people who would make their life miserable if they did anything approaching abnormal. All I know is I’m finding it harder to look at myself in the mirror.”
Dorian leaned forward on his forearms and nodded his head. “That makes sense,” he said. “But don’t you see, it doesn’t matter what other people say? Why
should
it matter what other people say? They’re other people. They’re not you.”
“Oh, but, I am one of them,” she said. “I have all the same prejudices and inherited ideals. You’re right. It
doesn’t
matter what other people say. It matters what I say. Or what my reflection says.”
“Okay,” Dorian said, chewing his lip, as though working out a math problem. “How about this? Me, you, and Tooth meet for some non-sexual companionship? We could go for a walk or—or go for a meal? We could all get to know each other better. Would that help?”
“And nothing would happen?”
“Nothing would happen. The full moon is a week from today. But that doesn’t matter. If you change your mind by then, fine. If not?” He shrugged. “That’ll have to be fine, too.”
Daisy thought over this new idea, turned it over in her mind, held it out so she could study it and then brought it close. Going for a meal with them? That was better, at least. She could lie to her school-minded reflection: tell her it was just three friends having dinner. “Okay,” she said. “Yes, let’s go for a meal. When?”
“How about right now?” Dorian said.
Daisy collected her things and walked out of the door with him. It was slightly absurd – even to her – that only a week after her boycotting of these men she was on her way to dinner with them. But dinner fit well within the (arbitrary) parameters, so her reflection could sit happy for now.
Outside work Dorian rang Tooth and they all met outside an Italian restaurant a dozen or so blocks from work. Tooth nodded when he saw her, nodded to Dorian, and then stood silently outside the restaurant.
Then they went into the restaurant, to
get to know each other better
.
*****
When they had ordered their food they sat in the restaurant with their drinks: Daisy, red wine; Tooth and Dorian, beers. The restaurant was darkened with thick curtains and lit by candles that flickered across the tables. Daisy sipped more of her wine and waited for one of the Wolves to talk.
“I really do feel like I’m on a first date,” Daisy said, when the silence became unendurable. “I don’t know what to say.”