The Better to Hold You (28 page)

He did not ask me if I was all right, thank God, and when he closed his teeth on the tender bud of my flesh I lost that tenuous sense of self separate and apart. In the moment when I seized his coarse hair with my damaged hands, in the moment when need became savage and primal and fierce, I threw my head back and howled and howled.

“Okay, so here’s the problem—you’re not a dog. Or wolf, or coyote, or any other canid form.”

We were lying in bed, my head on Red’s chest, one of my legs thrown over his hip. We were not lovers by Bill Clinton’s definition of the word. But we were definitely more than just friends.

“Well, no.” Red’s fingers traced lazy patterns on my back.

“But you did say that all that was needed …”

“Was my being naked and in an ecstatic state. But here’s the thing, darlin’—that was your ecstatic state.”

I leaned up on an elbow and planted that elbow in the middle of Red’s chest. “But you said—”

Red had begun kissing the inside of my elbow where it dug into him. “I’m in love with you. I’m part wolf. I want to eat you up.”

I drew my knees in and sat up. “So why aren’t I a wolf then, if I have lycanthropy?”

Red propped himself up on one elbow. “ ‘Cause the virus kicks in when it reaches a certain level in your bloodstream. If it kicks in—some are predisposed, some aren’t. Also, it depends on the moon. And we’re not within Northside’s borders now—the town tends to have an amplifying effect on certain conditions.”

“You watch my mother’s movies, don’t you?”

“We need to change your bandages now.”

“Don’t change the subject.” But I held out my hands as he gathered the gauze and antibiotic ointment.

“Well, would you look at that.” We stared at my hands as Red unwrapped the gauze. The skin was a paler shade of pink, the color I’d have expected to see in a burn two weeks old.

“Can you feel this, Doc?” He ran a finger over my palm.

I looked at his finger touching my palm. “No.”

“You’re healing this fast because of the virus.”

I wiggled my fingers, then touched my knuckles. “I still can’t feel anything.”

“Maybe if there was a complete change … Do you want me to try to bring it on?”

The rush of fear left me feeling almost sick. It wasn’t a rational thing. I knew that even as I heard the breath hiss out of my teeth. “I don’t know. I don’t think I’m ready.”

Red gave me the kind of look I am used to in dogs: a look of perseverance. “I think you’re readier than you know.”

The fear was gone, leaving something darker and more difficult in its wake. “Oh, Red.” I wondered if I was going to be able to love him back the way he deserved.

“How about this. Let me change. Then we’ll work on changing you.”

“Fine, do it.”

Red raised one eyebrow. “This how you talk to all your gentlemen friends?”

I touched the side of his face. “Sorry. What should I say?”

He came closer, so close the tip of his nose touched mine. “Say, Hey, I never noticed how incredibly handso—” The phone rang.

We froze, looked at it. “Don’t pick it up, Doc.”

“What if it’s an emergency?”

I could feel his sigh in my hair. The answering machine clicked on as I sat up. “You have reached Beast Castle, a refuge for abandoned, abused, and unwanted cats and dogs,” said my mother’s voice, incongruously sultry and dramatic. “We are currently tending to some of our animal patients. Please leave a message and one of our dedicated volunteers will get back to you shortly.”

“I am an extremely patient animal,” Red growled, getting up from the bed.

“Be quiet,” I said.

“Pagan? I’m calling from the airport to tell you that I’m catching an early flight back.” It was my mother, sounding more than a little stressed.

Red, moving more quickly than I would have expected, was there to lift the phone to my ear.

“Mom? It’s me. Why are you coming back so soon?”

“Abra? Where’s Pagan?”

“With her boyfriend. Mom, listen, I don’t want you to get alarmed, but I have to tell you—”

“Wait a moment, they’re announcing something—no. Abra, my flight should be in this evening, but they’re experiencing some delays. I may be in late.”

I was looking into Red’s eyes as I spoke to my mother. There was a band of dark green, another band of gold. His lashes were tipped with gold, and I traced my finger along the fan of crow’s-feet which deepened with his smile.

“Mom, before you get here, I wanted to tell you what happened. Hunter and I had a—we had an argument.”

“It’s the pregnancy. Hunter can’t stand the thought of being tied down to anything. I’ve always told you that about him—he’s an emotional sixteen-year-old. He wants you to be the home that he keeps leaving.”

As I watched, Red’s eyes began to fill with tears of mirth. I realized he could hear every word my mother was saying.

“Mom, I’m not pregnant. It was a false positive. And I’ve left Hunter. But there’s something else you need to know.”

“Wait a moment … Christ, another flight’s been delayed. Abra, I need to get myself a drink before any more serious talking takes place. I just wanted to inform Pagan that I was coming back, not get into a whole emotional unburdening.” There was a pause while my mother snapped at someone standing too close to her that she was having a private conversation.

“Abra? Are you there? Listen, I realize that you are the daughter and therefore filled with your own concerns right now, but it would be nice to actually hear you ask me why I’m coming home a week ahead of schedule.”

I put my hand over Red’s mouth to stop his snort of laughter, and he kissed my palm. “I don’t need to ask, Mom. You’re coming home because Grania broke up with you. She’s emotionally immature and you caught her flirting with some other guest. Or spa worker. Male,” I guessed.

There was a momentary silence. “You think yours is the only drama that counts, don’t you, Abra?”

“No, Mom, that would be you. What I’ve been trying to tell you for the past ten minutes is that I just burned my hands and—” The phone went dead with a click. Red and I stared at each other.

“Well,” he said.

“Meet my mother, the undead queen of psychodrama.”

“I guess I’d better go fix some coffee. Something tells me that you need it. We can always pick up where we left off a bit later.”

I didn’t know what to say. I’d told him the truth when I’d said I couldn’t just sleep with him—well, have sex with him, as I had slept with him. But then, lying on my back a few moments ago, I had rather lost my sense of boundaries. Had he pressed his advantage sooner, I would have said yes. Now that I was no longer aroused, however, I couldn’t see myself taking the next step with this strange new man. But I couldn’t exactly leave him stranded, either.

“Forget the coffee. Lie down on your back,” I said.

“No.”

“No?”

Red reached out and touched me on the side of my face. “This time I won’t be able to keep control. If you do that for me—I can’t promise not to take you. In any form.”

I stared at him. No man had ever seen me as the kind of woman who would make restraint impossible. “What do you suggest, then?”

Red scratched the back of his neck, his arm and shoulder muscles bunching. “Well, I do need to prove to you that there’s more to me than meets the eye. If it can’t be sex …”

“It can’t.”

“Then it has to be beer and rock and roll.”

Since beer and rock don’t really sit well before eight A.M., we spent the day pilling a few cats, taking a shivering greyhound’s temperature, and putting ointment on the fungal Burmese. I noticed that the animals had a strange reaction to Red: At first, a few of the cats hissed and arched, but after a moment all of them became downright affectionate, rubbing against him and purring loudly. Most of the dogs were relaxed after they’d had a chance to sniff him. To my relief, they sniffed his breath, not his rear end. The Akita, never a stable character to begin with, did a little mad barking dance, but Red crouched down and smiled a particularly unfriendly smile, and then the Akita rolled over and writhed.

“So dogs don’t mind the fact that you’re an Unwol … Limmikin?”

“Most don’t. I’ve got a good way with animals, in any case.” As if he were reading my mind, Red added, “You’ll still be able to work as a vet, you know. During the time of month when you’re transitioning, you’ll smell like a cross between a menstruating female and one in estrus. But the animals aren’t going to go white-eyed with terror—they’ll just try to sniff your crotch a bit more than usual.”

Something to be grateful for, I supposed. At four o’clock I rested and discovered that in the forty-five minutes I’d been asleep, Red had cleaned out one of the spare guest rooms so it no longer smelled as badly of cat piss and mold. I moved my things in and looked out the window. It was not my childhood bedroom—that was the room Pagan was using. It was the room my father had liked best, overlooking the garden in back.

Red composed one note for my mother and another for Pagan, explaining about the animals, my hands, and the sleeping arrangements. Red seemed to be assuming that after the upcoming evening of boozy rock and possible shapeshifting, I would want him to leave me back here with my mother. I suppose that was the best way to handle things. My mother could help take care of me until I figured out what to do with the rest of my life. Or maybe I’d turn into an Unwolf and my hands would heal completely. I couldn’t really say which outcome seemed more likely. My mother hadn’t been much good at taking care of me when I was little, but then, I’d never turned into a hairy monster before, either.

At seven Red brushed out my hair and braided it, his hands firm and deft as he formed the plait. Then he helped me into a button-down shirt and jeans. “I guess no makeup,” I said, mostly to myself, as I looked in the mirror. I looked, in Hunter’s words, nunlike.

“What do you need makeup for?” Red was buttoning the silver snaps on a jeans shirt.

“I just thought a little blusher, some lipstick …”

“Wait.” Red came up behind me and put his hands on my hips so I could see both of our reflections in the full-length mirror. Then he leaned in and kissed me on the pulse in my neck.

“What’s that for?”

“Wait.”

He leaned in and turned my head till our lips met, and now the pulse between my legs throbbed. It seemed to take less and less for him to arouse me, as if I were becoming tuned to his frequency. When he released me, I looked at my reflection and saw flushed cheeks, red lips.

“You don’t need artifice to look like sex, Abra. You look like sex.”

Since Red didn’t know anyplace local, he drove us a full hour till we were back in Northside.

“So where are we going?”

“Somewhere they serve beer and rock and roll and I feel at home.”

“Oh, no. Red, you aren’t taking me to Moondoggie’s?”

“Yup. From what you said, your husband’s going to be pretty busy stalking his mistress …”

“Very funny.” Despite Red’s assurances, I really didn’t want to go there. What if we did meet Hunter?

But when we arrived at Moondoggie’s, Red went and stood at the door and inhaled, a deep breath as if gathering his nerve, though I knew better. He was checking out the joint.

“He’s not here.”

How could he tell? All I could smell was beer and cigarettes.

The restaurant had a few elderly diners lingering over their turkey and yams, but the dark side of Moondoggie’s was almost empty. The bartender to night, I noted with plea sure, was a burly, middle-aged brunette, not Kayla.

Red turned to me, and I realized he smelled faintly spicy, like cologne. “What do you want, Doc? Beer? Wine?”

“Just a soda. No caffeine.”

Red put his hand on the small of my back as he ordered. “Listen, Jelaine, mind if I put on some tunes?”

“You go right ahead, Red.”

“I want to open up the back patio. That suit you okay?”

The brunette lady laughed as she handed Red our drinks. “Hell, freeze your ass off if you want to, Red. It’s your ass. You want glasses?”

They both looked at me. “Not if we’re dancing,” I said, and they both laughed as if I’d been witty.

Red led me over to the jukebox, his hand on mine reminding me of high school dates. There was a lot of country western and eighties power rock, but Red seemed to know what he was looking for. He flipped rapidly from one selection to another, not asking my opinion.

“Come on, Abra, let’s go.”

The back patio, which must have served as a dance floor in the warmer months, was lit with two red and two pink floodlights. Red opened the doors and I wished I’d put on a sweater underneath my wool jacket. Red put his beer and my ginger ale on the table and the first song came on, an old tune about dancing in the moonlight, a fine and natural sight. Red caught me around the waist and started moving, and to my surprise I found myself following with ease. I’d never been partnered by someone who knew how to lead so well that my feet just sort of fell into place. My bandaged hand crept from Red’s palm to his shoulder and my hips began to roll more fluidly. Red half-closed his eyes and we turned neatly, almost in a country two-step.

“This is fantastic, Red!”

“Your husband doesn’t dance?”

“No, I’m the one who doesn’t dance.”

Red finished his beer and ordered another. The next song was faster and we moved apart, then together, and I threw back my head and laughed with the sheer delight of this kinetic flirting. Sweat was rolling down my forehead and between my breasts, but Red seemed impervious as the music shifted to something acoustic.

“May I?”

I walked into Red’s arms as some band from the seventies crooned that they would believe in miracles if I would. We moved together, with only the hand on the small of my back guiding me. His breath smelled like yeast and hops. We were both sweating now.

“You ever listen carefully to the words of this song, Doc?”

I paid attention. There was a clear suggestion that the miracle in question could be achieved tantrically.

“We tried that, remember?”

Red playfully bit my ear. “We almost tried it.”

“Are you going to change soon? Are you close?”