A Wolf And His Man - 9. Slow Quiet Torture

“So, you hold the knife like this,” Oli looked across at Buddy, sitting neatly on a dining room chair that Oli had brought into the kitchen to give the wolf a better view for their lessons, “the thumb goes here, the other fingers here. The hand and the knife are one. And the other hand? We must protect it.” Oli found himself happily quoting from one of his favourite foodie films; “We must cut only the onion!”

Oli made a claw out of his free hand and held the flesh of the halved red onion as he began to dice the vegetable. Boris wrinkled his nose, blinking often. He nudged Oli’s elbow firmly.

“No one actually dislikes onion Bud. It’s the corner stone of all decent cooking, along with the correct use of garlic and salt,” Oli continued to slice the onion into tiny squares, pausing to plop a scoop of butter into the high sided frying pan. It began to sizzle right away, “a hot pan is the secret to a lot of flavour combinations. It stops the food from getting greasy, and gives everything better textures.”

He made sure the wolf was watching as he scraped the onion into the pan, crushed a garlic clove right into the frying pan and shook the contents with a flick of his wrist, coating the vegetable spices in glistening butter.

“So, a teaspoon of cumin, some all-spice,” he glanced at Buddy, “it’s not actually all spices, its dried crushed pimento berries; for some reason it has a confusing name. So a touch of paprika, a teaspoon of coriander and some turmeric, fry the spices off for a little bit while you dice the chicken. Mind you don’t burn them though.”

Buddy stuck right next to him as Oli cut up the chicken, tossed it in the fried spices and browned off the pieces. He used the wooden spatula and pan deftly, flicking the ingredients around as he added shredded broccoli and red peppers. The wolf lent his chin in the crook of Oli’s elbow and watched him with big round eyes as he cooked. Oli wanted to pet him, but he didn’t want to keep having to wash his hands. He talked the wolf through the process of making a sauce with a little bit of chicken broth from the fridge, some coconut milk and corn flour to thicken it. He picked a piece of chicken from the pan, cut it on the chopping board and showed the white flesh to Buddy. The wolf snatched the meat from his fingers with a sly grin.

“Buddy!” Oli shouldered the wolf, and Buddy almost lost his footing on the chair, “what did we agree about the stealing of ingredients? Just wait two minutes!” Oli sighed at Boris’s disappointed whine. “Hush, hush… let me drain the rice. Go get your bowl ready.”

Buddy hopped down from the chair as Oli turned off the hob, and took the pull cord for the tap between his teeth, topping up his water bowl. Oli hadn’t bothered to take the dog-friendly handles down, and after more than a week Buddy was getting the hang of doing things for himself. His bowl clinked onto the surface next to the plate Oli had put out for himself, and Oli served them both rice with sultanas, and the curry, though he gave the wolf less sauce and more meat along with a handful of meaty chunks from the drawer at the bottom of the fridge which had now become the permanent home of the dog food. Oli sat at the breakfast bar with a cola and Buddy ate at his feet, stopping to stick his muzzle into his water bowl and take huge, deep gulps.

“You’ve never had curry before?” Oli grinned, “it’s spicy.”

Buddy stuck against his side as Oli washed up their meagre dishes. He had never bothered to own a dishwasher, because it wasn’t like he entertained and three weeks’ worth of dinner-for-one dishes was not exactly a great deal. Even with Buddy eating with him, they didn’t make a lot of mess: unless you counted the bedroom.

Oli hadn’t made his bed in a week, although he had changed the sheets, because between himself and the wolf, there didn’t seem a lot of point. Buddy was a messy sleeper, nosing under the duvet to find him before kicking it off in the middle of the night when he got too hot. Each time Oli had tried to change into boxers to sleep in, he’d failed, and most mornings he woke to find himself wrapped around the big fluffy wolf, Buddy’s chin resting over his waist or forearm. It was pleasant in a way that made Oli’s chest ache every time. It was fun to lie around with the big grey wolf. Oli had pulled a couple of wolf-centric books from the shelf, and each night and morning he read a little bit of “Call of the Wild” for Buddy, holding the book and following the text with a finger so that the wolf could read with him. Every time they got to a word Buddy didn’t know, the wolf would poke him with his wet nose and Oli would stop, explain, and recap; each time adding to Buddy’s vocabulary. All in all they were spending a lot more time in the bedroom.

Buddy ran into the garden ahead of him, and Oli grabbed the twisted cotton chew-rope from the step by the door but didn’t make it more than four paces across the grass before Buddy bit the other end, pulling backwards, tail wagging happily, eyes bright and flashing in the evening sun. They played like small children, tugging at the toy and dancing around the garden. When Oli let it go, Buddy grinned happily, tongue still managing to loll from the side of his mouth even with the rope between his teeth, and yapped before vanishing through the hedge.

Oli let the wolf sniff along the hedge line, going far enough out of view to have privacy for his call of nature, and made his way across the middle of the field. When Buddy caught him up, Oli ran fingers through his fur without bending down, catching his tail before trotting off. They wandered for about half an hour without speaking before Buddy went suddenly stiff and sprang off into the darkness. When he returned two minutes later, there was a baby rabbit between his teeth.

“Good collar,” the rabbit squeaked, “it’s not dead? Buddy! Put it down!”

Buddy’s ears tilted out sideways and he whined in his throat.

“Buddy!”

The wolf rolled his eyes, and dropped the rabbit. It sat there for a second, looking at them both, fully petrified, then whooshed off towards the undergrowth like a bullet. Buddy clacked his teeth together grumpily.

“He was too small anyways Bud,” Oli stroked the wolf’s ears, “you get a big one, and you kill it, and we’ll have rabbit for dinner. That was just kinda mean.” Buddy agreed with his tail. “C’mon, it’s movie night. You wanna watch the second Terminator film this time?” Oli only counted the first two movies as the Terminator series; the others had been that catastrophically bad.

Buddy yapped happily, and man and wolf walked back together. Buddy’s shoulder stayed against Oli’s thigh, the man’s fingers in the wolf’s fur.

*

“Oliver! Your father is waiting for you!”

Up in the bathroom, Oli stood looking down at his newly formed paws, his body automatically flexing every joint and muscle, testing the new body out. His mother’s voice took his attention away from the sick felling in his stomach and the acrid scent of his bile in the bottom of the bathtub, and as his newly wolf-focused brain analysed what she’s actually said, he went from feeling generally unwell to feeling actually sick. He hadn’t seen his father, in any shape at all, since the full moon five months previously. When it had come round to his time of the month, Oli had elected to stay home by himself, feeling lonely and generally wretched, but at least safe.

His mother had wheedled and cajoled and appealed to his logical nature, and Oli couldn’t bear to tell her the real reason why he’d taken off and not come back for his kit bag once the full moon had been over. But it was getting close to Christmas and Oli’s mother wouldn’t hear of her ‘little boy’ changing in the December snow all by himself. Oli still thought if it wasn’t for the fact that she had driven his father’s pick-up into the city, he wouldn’t have bothered. Excuses for not visiting home were already on thin the ground, and Oli couldn’t think of a period of more than a couple of weeks when he had gone without speaking to his parents, until now.

“Oliver!”

Oli rolled his eyes and grumbled, wondering if his mother was ever going to learn to use the shortened version of his name he’d preferred and asked to be called by since he was about six. He shouldered open the bathroom door and trotted down the stairs towards his mother, father, and Anastasia. The fluffy Alsatian yapped happily and spun around in a tight circle, chasing her waving tail, obviously pleased to see him. Alexander sat next to his wife with her fingers in his fur, and Oli shuddered internally, wondering if his mother knew her husband had been fucking the dog. Just as Oli thought that at least he hadn’t made an idiot of himself in his father’s presence for a while, he tripped on the last step, and went sprawling on the hall floor with a yelp.

Oli gathered himself up as quick as he could, and while his mother fussed, his father took the opportunity to nuzzle Anastasia’s ruff and glance at his son from the corner of one brown eye disapprovingly. A purplish-grey shade of shame and derision rolled off him. Oli growled between his teeth at his mother’s attention, pulled himself up and stalked off with his fur standing on end. He hadn’t made it as far as the open back door when Anastasia caught him up, yipping excitedly, head low, tail in the air, dancing and playing like the puppy she had until rather recently been. Oli raised his hackles at her and walked out into the garden.

It didn’t snow nearly enough in his part of the world, and it was strange and refreshing to feel the thin layer of fluffy ice crystals crunch under his paws. Oli dug his toes into the snow with a secret smile at the new textures, and danced into the snow, delighted with the sudden cold which did wonders to settle his stomach, his whirling brain, and damaged pride. When the Alsatian joined him, Oli didn’t mind too much, and he and Anastasia played and yapped in the snow, barking and kicking little white flurries into the air until Oli was hot with the effort. He lay in the snow and panted. Anastasia snuffled up to him, whining softly for him to get up and play again, but Oli simply turned back his ears in a clear signal to leave him be. When her cold nose tried to poke under his tail, Oli jumped up and whirled round with a snarl. Anastasia dropped her head, but waved her tail in what Oli read as an inviting manner, tongue lolling. The air was suddenly pink-red and warmly damp with the scent of her sex. Oli wretched. When the dog walked up to him a second time, he lunged at her, pinning her down by the back of her neck with a bloody snarl.

Oli was knocked from his standing position by the force of his father impacting with his shoulder. Alexander was a large wolf, his dark brown brindled fur contrasting with the pale ground and sky: he looked like a creature of nightmare with his eyes blazing, his scent full of rage, anger, jealousy. Oli struggled to get out from under him, to turn and escape from the wolf who was his father, breathing down his neck. Oli scrambled and Alexander’s teeth gnashed and snapped together. Only when his father had succeeded in closing his jaws into Oli’s neck, holding fur and loose skin, did he stop struggling. Alexander snarled, anger rolling off him in waves, and Oli had no choice but to turn back his ears and whimper in sorrow, his tail wagging pitifully. He shut his eyes, waiting for the blow to fall, wincing in anticipation of the pain that would grow from the pressure of his father’s teeth.

When it didn’t come, Oli peeked, looking up at his father standing over him, his chest pushed out, ears up, his whole demeanour one of triumph and success. Anastasia rubbed her head against his throat, wagging her tail for her lord and master, and when she glanced down at Oli, he knew.

The other two walked off towards the rear end of the garden which let out onto the Downs. Watching them go, Oli realised he had just become the lowest wolf in the pack. He followed them out into the snowy hills, because there was nothing better to do, and resolved not to spend the full moon with his parents again if he could possibly avoid it.

*

“You ever get into any fights?” Oli looked up from the section he had been reading about the final fight between Buck and Spitz, the book closing around his finger. “How many stray dogs are there in this country?”

Buddy put his head on one side and flopped his tail. More than he thought apparently.

“You have been in fights?” Buddy nodded. “Show me?”

The wolf snuck his head under Oli’s arm, pressing the fur flat over his face. Oli used his free hand to brush the fur just under his eyebrow spot. There was an old scar, a ridge in the dark skin, pretty well covered by his thick pelt. Buddy backed off, and stood with one front foot in the space between Oli’s elbows. He found another set of scars, three teeth marks, under the fur there. The last scar was on his belly, right at the point where his ribs cage ended, a soft edged pinkish mark. Oli smooth his fingers over the long healed skin thoughtfully.

“I forgot…” Oli sighed, blinking back sudden tears, “I keep thinking of you as a big grown up wolf, but you were just a kid when it first happened. I’m sorry.”

Buddy whined, pushing his head into the frame of Oli’s arms, forehead pressed against his beating heart.

“I wish there’d been someone around to look out for you.”

Buddy frowned at him, and then licked his cheek, wagging his tail hard. It was a clear enough signal and Oli smiled. He was here now, and he didn’t intend on going anywhere.

“You wanna take a shower?”

Buddy barked joyously.

Oli had gotten rather used to Buddy’s lack of personal space, and while he still felt a weird mix of shame, guilt and delight having the wolf around him when he was naked, he’d stopped trying to have arguments about it. It was difficult to disagree with a big fluffy canine that looked at him with giant puppy-dog eyes and could tilt his head just-so in order to get what he wanted. Plus, Buddy loved showers in his wolf form almost as much as he loved them when he was human-shaped, and while Oli soaped his hair the wolf stood under the streaming water with his ears laid back, looking skinny and gangly legged, with a huge toothy grin plastered over his face. The wolf rubbed against his thigh every chance he got, looking not-so-secretly pleased with himself when he did so.

Oli towelled them both off after Buddy shook out his fur, and set about the ritual of brushing the wolf’s coat so they could both get to bed. As comfortable as he was perched on the edge of the bed with Buddy’s chin resting on his naked thigh, eyes closed in the orgasmic bliss of being brushed, the one activity he had not repeated since switching back was the act of self-gratification. It had been one thing to let the wolf look at him when he’d though Buddy to be just a wolf, and it was something completely different to let him watch now, when all Oli wanted to do was fantasize about his wolf friend’s naked human visage while he touched himself. He was still not ready to admit, despite the effuse pink scented air, that he had fallen in love with the other werewolf in the space of three weeks.

That meant he hadn’t jerked off in two weeks. Oli wasn’t good at relationships, so the one he enjoyed with his right hand was particularly close and frequent. It also meant, as Buddy jumped up onto the bed and scraped the duvet into a suitable nesting shape, that Oli popped a rather rigid boner. He tried to smack in down without Buddy noticing, but the wolf turned, whining instantly, and nosed Oli’s hand away.

“Sorry, it’ll go away soon enough.”

Buddy cocked one ear and looked at him disapprovingly.

“What? It’s not my fault. You’re a guy, you know how they have minds of their own,” Oli scowled down at his bobbing erection, “let’s go to bed.”

He ignored the wolf’s disgruntled half-growl and pulled the woven cotton throw over his lower body. He’d put it on the bed as the weather had gotten hotter and the duvet became bulky and less useful. Buddy didn’t like it much, because it was harder to nose underneath. The wolf settled down in the space made by the curve of his body and placed his chin on his paws. Oli watched the wolf watching him until the yellow gaze grew too intense. He rolled over and cuddled up to his pillow.

Buddy whined, whimpered, and nuzzled against the nape of his neck for a moment. The sound made Oli’s heart clench painfully, and even though snuggling in bed with the wolf made him feel beyond guilty, ignoring him when he’d promised Buddy not to leave him made him feel even worse. Oli rolled and pulled the wolf against his chest. Buddy’s tail thumped happily against the mattress. As the wolf fell asleep in his arms, Oli stared up at the ceiling, his erection still trying to wear a hole in the cotton throw. They couldn’t go on like this.

*

Oli woke from a dream starring Kaylee and the engine room of the Serenity, wherein she had been trying to explain something complicated to him about the power outflow of the ship clashing with the circulation of the atmo system, and quickly realised his apparently permanent erection was pressing rather prominently against Buddy’s neck and shoulder. The wolf lay with his head over Oli’s abdomen, apparently sound asleep and perfectly content. Oli smiled, looking down at him, thinking of Buddy’s bright eyes.

He had never been happier. It was a very easy thing to define, because while there had been times in Oli’s life where he had felt less frustrated, this felt very different. Buddy was the best company; he was there every day, and unlike any guy Oli had ever slept with, he understood all the facets of Oli’s life. Oli didn’t have to explain the issues he had as a wolf, not to Buddy, because whilst the wolf was much better than Oli at being a wolf, he had similar problems with being a person. The company was easy. Oli had never had anyone to snuggle up and watch old sci-fi movies with on the couch. After another week with thumbs, his notebooks were full of drawings of the wolf. Buddy liked it best when Oli sketched cute little cartoons of the two of them in wolf shape, often with Oli-the-wolf showing Buddy where things were or what to do with the DVD player.

Now Oli glanced across in the semi-dark of the early morning to the picture he had tacked to the wall, drawn that first afternoon lying in the garden, of the wolf happily upside down with his tongue lolling onto the grass, and his heart clenched. He was in love with Buddy-the-wolf, Boris-the-man, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Quietly, Oli slipped from the bed, resting Buddy’s chin down onto the mattress. The wolf snorted, flicking an ear, and Oli stroked his head calmly before he lifted his weight fully from the bed, and slipped quickly into the bathroom. The click of the door was oddly reassuring, and Oli fell against the tile wall with a soft slap of bare flesh on cold ceramic. He stared down at his erection, which had turned an angry sort of red colour at the tip. He’d held off for so long, but locked in the bathroom by himself, all Oli could think of was the moment Boris had turned to him in the street, shirtless in the sun, and smiled before trying on more clothes. He wrapped his fist around his hard-on, giving in as his mind supplied the soundtrack to Boris jerking off that first night, the slick sound of flesh on flesh and the panting breaths. Oli tilted his head up, closed his eyes, and imagined Boris there with him.

Smiling, stepping in close, standing with his feet either side of Oli’s, big hands reaching for him as Oli ran his fingers down Boris’s hairy chest. Boris would sigh in his ear; tell him how nice he felt, his highly strung athletic body trembling under the werewolf’s hands. Oli refused to open his eyes, refused to break the vision of Boris’s hand around his hard-on as he stroked himself. The tension was too much, the force of his pent-up desire punching through his self-control, and pushing him over the edge into his orgasm before he was quite ready. Oli came with a groan, smothered by his own hand, and he kept his eyes closed, holding onto the vision as long as he could.

He cleaned up with tissues, washed his hands and crotch and straightened the towel on the rail before he exited the bathroom. Sliding back into bed, he felt the timbre of the wolf’s breathing change, and he knew Buddy was awake. He patted the wolf’s velvet ears gently as he rolled onto his side under the sheet.

“’Night Bud.” Even as he closed his eyes, Oli wished he had the privacy to cry.