A Wolf And His Man - 8. Intimacy Read In Tooth And Claw

Oli stood outside the coffee shop, fighting the desire to play with his phone in order to look busy, and wished, without feeling overwhelmed, that Ruff was there to support him. There was something about waiting with a dog that made a single guy seem much less alone and much less pathetic. More than once he had dreamt of another dog, but no one could replace Ruff, and Oli couldn’t see how he could hope to do justice to a new puppy when he would be putting in long hours at university and vanishing to become a werewolf. He flicked at his fingernails nervously, shuffling his feet and was generally unable to keep still until a soft pinkish scent crept towards him. It was overlaid by the harsher tones of chemicals and some translucent colour that reminded Oli of an oil slick, but it was a familiar scent none-the-less.

“Hey Oli.”

“Liam!” Oli turned and grinned while biting his lip. “Hey.”

“You didn’t have to wait for me out in the cold. C’mon, let’s go get coffee.”

When Liam had asked him out for coffee, Oli had been way too nervous-excited-scared to mention that the smell of espresso gave him a major headache. It was one of those all-encompassing overpowering aromas, and it made it terribly hard for his nose to pick out any other scents all at. But there was no way Oli had been willing to suggest a change of venue, so he stood in the line with Liam, asked for a chai tea latte and Liam nodded towards a table and told him to grab a seat.

Oli wiped his hands on his jeans as he waited for his date. Damn and bless Harvey, because the night of the party when Oli had taken a rather dramatic dive to the floor, his best friend had managed to slip his number to the sexiest man he’d ever met. Oli was also petrified that, apart from a peck on the lips from a girl when he was seven, he’d never actually kissed anyone.

“I got a brownie and a treacle tart,” Liam slid into the seat opposite his, facing him across the little round table, “you get first pick.”

“The brownie?”

“Oh god I hoped you’d say that,” Liam pushed the correct plate over to him, “I love treacle tart, and this place makes a really good one. Do you cook?”

“Some. I don’t get a lot of practice though. Mum doesn’t like to share her kitchen; but she’s more than keen to offload the washing-up,” Oli grinned, “I stack a mean dishwasher.”

“Ha! That’s good!” Liam was grinning as he raised his coffee to his lips. Oli became very quickly entrance by the shape of those lips, their relenting softness against the warm ceramic of the cup as Liam sipped with his eyes closed. His enjoyment was practically palpable, and the idea that a man would show such pleasure in simply drinking a coffee turned Oli on something shameful. “I can’t cook at all. We have a lot of take-out menus at our place.”

“So how do you know Lila?” Oli smiled as he probed for answers. It had been Lila’s party where he’d fainted rather spectacularly, although he has seen, but not spoken to, Liam at another college-kids party in March.

“I don’t really.” Liam shrugged. “I graduated a year ahead of you right? I just kind of stayed in touch with Maggie and Ben and Adam from my course and they invite me to all the cool parties. Lila’s in another of Maggie’s extracurricular courses I think? So, less than seven degrees of separation, and I get you.”

“Huh?” Oli frowned.

“You’ve never heard of the seven degrees of separation?” Liam looked astounded, “it’s this theory that everyone knows everyone else on the planet, especially famous people, through seven links which would connect you.” He smiled. “So I know Maggie, Maggie knows Lila, Lila-”

“Is my best friend’s cousin.” Oli filled in quickly.

“Voila. And through those four degrees I get to end up drinking coffee with the prettiest boy this side of the city.”

Oli blushed deeply.

Liam steered the conversation through mutual friends and hobbies to art and they spent a while discussing the pros and cons of male and female life models. Liam had practically lived in the art department at college, but had gone out for a more practical degree in economics and business management. He was jealous of Oli’s plans to study illustration and media design. Liam got them a second drink, and Oli tried to pay for it, but failed. They chatted for hours, until it threatened to be dark outside, and Liam offered to walk Oli back to the bus stop. Oli loved where he lived, but hated that it was so remote and hard to get to. It hadn’t occurred to him until a good few months into his regular changing schedule, but his parents had bought the house entirely for its werewolf friendly credentials.

The house in which is parents lived was one of only two houses on that side of the road, the last road on the outer edge of the village. Past their nearest neighbour was a farm, about three hundred acres of slightly hilly dairy cattle grazing pasture, and beyond the house was nothing but National Heritage parkland, an area which stretched across the South Downs to the east and had been protected from any further buildings. There was a small gamekeeper’s house on the ridge of the hill near the old mill post, and nothing else until one reached the Opera House. Going west and south, there were simply rolling fields right until the edge of the city. It was the perfect secluded sort of space to have a werewolf living, with enough connections to schools and businesses to make it viable and non-suspicious. Oli knew that there was no way in a million years anyone in the village would suspect his father; a calm, mild-mannered carpenter, of being a werewolf.

Liam stood with him at the bus station under the lit sign for the upstairs artisan pizzeria. The bus would be ten minutes, which was all at the same time too long to stand there with his hands in the pockets and not enough time to get into a meaningful conversation. Oli checked the timetable on the noticeboard and used the moment to exhale softly. Being around Liam was intoxicating and deeply nerve wracking. Oli felt as though his nose was broken because he had spent the afternoon overloaded by Liam’s scent. Coffee could be damned, because Oli’s nose was full of peaches and cream under three multi coloured layers of soap and shower gels. It was almost hard to remember any other scent, because the thick aroma was tinted pink and red and Oli couldn’t tell if all of the desire-colours were originating in himself or not. When he stepped back from the timetable, Liam’s body was there, solid and strong against his spine and shoulders.

“Hi.”

“Oh…” Oli twisted around to look at him, and found himself standing inches away from his date. “Hi.”

“You’re cute when you do that,” Liam reached out and ran the pad of his thumb over the place where Oli had bitten his lower lip, “you’re beautiful all the time though.”

“Umm…”

Liam simply smiled, and kissed him. The world went gold around the edges and full of thick warm red on the inside. Oli could feel his body responding to the closeness of Liam’s, was hyper aware of the texture of the air against his skin, his nose picking out subtle scents in Liam’s hair that he’d never identified individually before. He never wanted to let the other boy go.

When the bus pulled up, Liam stepped backwards, closing the last kiss with the damp noise of flesh on flesh.

“I’ll call you.”

“Yes please.”

All the way home, and for several days afterwards, all Oli could think about was that kiss.

*

It was a magical sort of thing, rising up into consciousness with the scent of Boris in his nostrils, everything in his mind turning a happy ochre yellow colour, the air tasting of burnt sienna and green grass when he woke. After more years alone than Oli liked to admit even to himself it felt perfectly natural to share his days and his nights with Boris.

They walked everywhere together: over the grasslands to the sea, Oli diving in and out of the surf while Boris sat on the stones and threw sticks for him and skimmed pebbles across the water in odd moments of stillness. Oli loved the water, but he never normally went for fear that some innocent holiday maker would report a stray dog and he would find himself captured by a rescue shelter. Ending up in a cage was one of Oli’s greatest fears, right after trigger happy farmer’s sons with shotguns. The pair of them jogged along the promenade, all the way from their side of the city centre right through to the next town over. Boris bought ice cream and bottles of water and by the time they returned Oli’s fur was again dry enough to curl at the tips, crinkly and soft to the touch. He took Boris to the open market, one of the few places left where a person could buy groceries with a dog at their heels, and Oli sat and wagged his tail for producers and market people who had a soft spot for dogs, ate bacon rind gently from the butcher’s hand and beamed every time someone told Boris how lucky he was to have such a clever and obedient dog. They bought eggs and bacon, bread and a bit of fruit and Boris put butter in the newly cleaned frying pan at Oli’s yipped instruction and fried his dinner beautifully.

They read in the evenings, and watched the rest of Firefly. Boris was appalled to find that there had only been one series ever produced. Oli had the follow-up movie though, so they watched that too. Boris read slowly, and Oli filled the space with naps, chewing through the rest of his rawhide treat, and sniffing his way around the house and garden. Boris learnt to love the shower, and would spend so long standing under the hot water that Oli would have to wander into the bathroom to find him, pressing his nose up against the condensation of the glass door. Boris drew patterns in the steam: silly wolf faces and love hearts, and Oli felt his heart clench every time Boris smiled at him. At night, there was no place Oli would have rather been than on the bed at Boris’s side, held gently by him, using his shoulder as a pillow.

On the fourth day, Oli padded over to his calendar. His mother had taught him the formula for working out the exact length of the full moon as it affected a werewolf. She had been taught by Alexander’s parents, and had run his calendar ever since. When Oli had been at uni, she had demanded that he know, and now Oli was thankful for those lessons. He was nothing if not organised, and the calendar on the wall told him that somewhere around six in the afternoon, the moon would lose its sway. For those last few hours, Oli kept himself pressed up against Boris, trying to memorise the features which would soon melt away under fur.

Changing back was less awful than changing forwards, but it still wasn’t wholly pleasant. When Oli discovered that he could no longer feel his paws, or Boris’s hand moving over the tip of his tail and his ears, he scrambled up from the sofa.

“Oli?”

Oli barked. It was time. He scrambled to the kitchen, knowing he wasn’t going to make it as far as the bathroom, and as he got to the cold tile floor he slipped with a sharp yelp of pseudo-pain. Boris ran after him.

“Is it time?”

Oli nodded, part of his mind wondering how Boris could not know it was time. Every bone he possessed ached, his joints complaining under the strain.

“Oh god!”

Boris began to shuck out of his clothes, pulling his shirt off over his head and frantically fumbling with the buttons of his new jeans. But Oli couldn’t appreciate or concentrate on his nudity and beauty, because his body was changing, and this time, his mind wanted to go along with it. He knew at some point he had wretched, spitting bile and mucus onto the kitchen floor. A minute or so later he was kneeling, wrists to elbows resting on the floor, hunched over, shaking and naked. He looked up just in time to meet Boris’s yellow eyes as the last of his human features faded into his soft grey coat. The wolf was splayed out on the tile, panting; his long pink tongue resting on the floor, ears back and eyes hooded.

“Hey.” Oli coughed the word, his voice broken after a week of yapping, barking and the occasional howl at the fat moon. “You alright there, Bud?”

Buddy dragged himself upright, kicking his hind feet out of his jeans, and walked over to Oli. He pressed himself against the man’s side, and when Oli opened up an arm to allow him closer they somehow both ended up lying on the kitchen floor, curled up together, the top of Buddy’s wedge shaped head resting under Oli’s chin. Oli felt himself relax into his human body, his mind following the electrical pathways of his nerves, checking in on his muscles and limbs. He felt good, much better than he had after his last switch, and Oli nuzzled automatically into Buddy’s fur, knowing that it had everything to do with the wolf’s presence.

But the soft comfort of having just changed had worn off. Oli was forced to drag himself upright by the cold, unyielding tile of the kitchen floor digging into his shoulder, hip and knee. Buddy whined softly and rolled over to show his belly. Oli ruffled his chest fur, holding his temple with the other hand. Having a headache after a change was fairly standard, and sitting up had rolled his to the forefront of his brain, making him see spots.

“Early night?”

He gathered up Boris’s fallen clothes, and kept his hand in Buddy’s fur as they plodded upstairs. Oli could tell that the change hadn’t had the same effect on Buddy as it had on him, but the wolf seemed lethargic. Oli put his clothes in the hamper to be washed and stumbled into the shower. Ten seconds later, Buddy had pushed past his legs to sit under the water too.

“Buddy!” Oli suddenly realised how naked he was, damp and exposed in the warm water of the shower. “C’mon dude, get out.”

Buddy huffed, curled his tail around his feet, and stuck his head under the stream of the shower, folding his ears back as the water ran down his spine. He grinned. Oli rolled his eyes.

“It’s hardly appropriate.”

Oli arched an eyebrow and stared at him. Oli thought back through the last week, and all the time they had spent curled up together in bed or cuddled on the sofa. All those times either Boris had been dressed, or there had been a duvet in the way, but Oli could smell the general soft pink and red feelings that clouded around them both, and he knew the deal was done.

“You like looking at me naked?”

Buddy nodded, very firmly. The answer shouldn’t have been a surprise to Oli, after all, he unapologetically enjoyed the way Boris looked naked, but something about Buddy’s solid affirmation made Oli blush. A big, human and rational, part of his brain was telling him being naked in the shower with a wolf was wrong. It didn’t matter that Buddy wasn’t an actual wolf, or that he was self-aware and fully capable of making a rational and mature decision about his personal space, Oli’s brain was still trying to tell him he was taking advantage of the lovely ash-grey furred canine. Rather than spend half an hour in the shower, Oli simply washed his hair, scrubbed at his armpits and crotch incredibly briefly, and then shut off the shower. Buddy shook himself from nose to tail tip before Oli had opened the door of the shower, and the wolf trotted out ahead of him with his fur sticking up in all directions. Oli stood at the sink with a towel wound around his hips brushing his teeth, watching Buddy in the mirror as the wolf rubbed himself luxuriantly over the carpeted bathmat.

“First wolf-shower?”

Buddy wagged his tail affirmative.

“You’re gonna need a brush. You wanna do it now or wait until morning?” The shower had put off Oli’s headache, but it was creeping back in softly. He grabbed a secondary towel and scrubbed briefly at his own hair until it was dry, then ran his hand through it until it lay mostly in the right direction. “All set?”

Buddy followed him into the bedroom, but as Oli sat on the edge of the bed to select some boxers from his drawer, Buddy trotted up to him with the brush held between his teeth. Oli set to brushing him down, stroking his trailing hand through the thick fur until Buddy was clean and neat and his fingers were tired. The wolf pulled his towel away and Oli blushed, but this time he didn’t reach for any underwear to wear in bed, and simply lay back into the sheets which smelt like Boris. The russet scent of the wolf was thickly woven with his own, and everything was overlaid with a strong pink and red mist of lust and adoration. Oli should have been more aware of the build-up as a wolf, but somehow he had allowed himself to ignore it. Without really realising it, he had gone and fallen head over tail in love.

“Buddy?”

The wolf jumped up onto the duvet, tamped it down in a circle automatically, and then abandoned his newly created nest to stand over Oli, tongue out, ears forwards and tail curved up over his back, wagging happily. Oli smiled, suddenly sleepy now that he was lying down surrounded by soft duvet and their combined scent, reached out and locked his fingers into Buddy’s thick ruff.

“I love having you around.”

Buddy yipped, then lay down, half on Oli’s chest and licked his cheek. Oli took that to mean his feelings were reciprocated. He almost, nearly, sort-of wanted to tell the beautiful wolf that he loved him outright, but even if the air was thick with the pink musk of love and lust, he couldn’t form the words in his head. He hadn’t told anyone he loved them in eight years.

*

“But I love him!”

“No, you don’t. You’re a teenager. You don’t know what you want.”

Oli snarled at his father. About the only thing he had embraced in the years since his first change was his throat’s ability to emit the sort of blood curdling noises that had normal people jumping out of their shoes.

“I love him!”

Alexander took three big strides and grabbed his son by the bicep. Oli tried to pull away from him, but even though he was nineteen now, he was nowhere near as strong as his father. Alexander tightened his grip and even though it now hurt, Oli still struggled to be free of him.

“You think you’re an adult now? You think you’re ready to take the responsibility of this decision?” His father’s voice was full of rising red anger. “You’re ready to trust that kid with our secret?”

“Let go!”

“I forbid you to tell him!” Alexander shouted at his son, and Oli hated to do it but the wolf inside him quaked in fear, metaphorical tail between his legs. “Do you hear me boy? I forbid it!”

“Yes sir.” Oli looked away, aligning his body away from his father without actually pulling. He could feel the pressure around his arm, so much greater than a blood-pressure cuff, and he knew he’d end up with bruises the exact size and shape of his father’s fingers.

“Say it!” His father shook him again, still holding on painfully tight.

“I won’t tell Liam that I’m a werewolf.”

“Ever.”

Oli glared at his father, but looked away quickly.

“Ever.”

That night Oli had lain in bed with Liam, panting after wonderful and rather athletic sex, and wished he didn’t need to lie to his boyfriend for the third time in a row.

“You staying for breakfast, babe?”

“Yeah.” Oli kissed Liam’s collarbone softly, his fingers tripping down the young man’s sternum before tracing down his washboard abdomen. Liam grunted softly, half wanting to go for another round, half exhausted and sweaty and happy to lie in post-orgasmic bliss.

“So I was wondering if you wanted to come with us next weekend.” Liam spoke to the ceiling, but his fingers curled around Oli’s narrow waist. “A bunch of us are going camping in the New Forest, it’ll be awesome. Bit of drink and fun, walking in the woods, talking to nature, cooking outdoors…” he grinned, “…fucking outdoors, campfires and stuff. We got a good deal on the campsite and weather’s gonna be great.”

“I can’t,” Oli covered the sound of his lie by kissing Liam’s shoulder, “I really wish I could. It sounds amazing.”

“C’mon babe,” Liam rolled onto his side, pulling Oli in close, their hips bumping gently, “what could be more important and awesome than coming camping with me? Our own little tent; no sharing. I’ll even bring a duvet and an air bed. Please?”

“I’d love to, but I really can’t.” Oli knew this had been coming, he’s seen the details of the camping trip all over Liam’s desk, and one of his housemates had mentioned the trip. Oli couldn’t go, the trip coincided with the full moon, and he could hardly change into a wolf in the back of Liam’s friend’s Vauxhall. “My father is going to a big craft show up at Hatfield. He’s making me go with him.”

“Oli, babe, you’re nineteen, your dad can’t make you do anything,” Liam sighed, “you already went with him on that commission delivery to the south of France last month. He can give you up for this.”

Oli sighed, and tried to smile.

“I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah.” Liam kissed his lips gently. Oli couldn’t have said exactly how or why, but it felt like the end of something, rather than the beginning. “Me too.”