The Beasts: A Winter Tale, continuing the story begun in The Old

[ChrisGibson]

CHAPTER FIVE
NEED

CONTINUED


“Did I stay here the whole night?” Ryan asked. He stretched a little, and as he yawned he said, “That is more sun than’s been out for a month.”
He seemed not to know if he wanted to pull the covers back over his naked torso or not.
“How do you feel about that sun?” Jim asked. “Personally, it’s a little bit much.”
“I was feeling about the sun…” the dark haired man turned around and looked at him, “like I should be going home.”
“If that’s how you feel,” Jim, did not come up out of the thick blankets of his large bed in the modern apartment.
“No,” Ryan said, “I mean, I didn’t want to just make myself comfortable.”
Jim smiled and lay on his back and Ryan saw how the sun made his eyebrows and the stubble on his face a soft brown.
“I feel like when you fell asleep five hours ago you already did that.”
Ryan went red and laughed a little.
“Do you mind?”
“You know I don’t,” Jim propped his head up on his fist. “And no one’s asking you to leave now. But if you are going to stay let me know, because if you’re not, I’m trying to figure out which one of us is going to pull the blinds.”
Ryan lay on his stomach and said, “I think I’m going to stay.”
But he pressed himself out of bed and fiddled with the curtains before Jim said, “Hold on, and they got out, standing side by saked naked, Jim golden and Ryan dark and white, and Jim closed the blinds.
“I was hoping you would stay,” he said.
Ryan leaned forward and kissed him and then Jim took his face and kissed him too, biting him a little, turning him around, licking the back of his neck, nipping him a little so that Ryan moaned.
“We’re not really going to sleep are we?” Ryan asked as Jim wrapped his arms about his waist and pressed himself against Ryna.
“Does it feel like we are?”
Ryan reached behind him, running his hand up and down the back of Jim’s neck.
“No, Mr. Strauss. It does not.”



“Oh, my, what is that lovely smell?” Joyce demanded in a southern accent as she stretched elegantly in a housecoat too big for her that was clearly Peter Keller’s.
Peter, in a tee shirt and basketball shorts much too baggy for him, said, “That is Eggo waffles and microwaved sausage.”
“Why fiddle dee dee!”
She looked at Peter and he looked at her, and then she said, “You were …about to kiss me.”
“I was,” Peter said. “And then I wondered if it wasn’t too forward.”
“I feel like the three times you fucked me silly were pretty forward.”
“Oh my God,” Peter turned from her, red faced. “Do you want coffee or not?”
“Is it instant?”
“No,” Peter said, pouring her a mug. “It is actually the good stuff, and there is coffee syrup and coffee creamer and… well, I don’t fuck around when it comes to my coffee.”
Joyce hugged him quickly form behind nad said. “You know I think you should kiss me.”
Peter put down the coffee he had poured her, nodded and did so dutifully, but it felt more than dutiful after a moment, and as he parted from her he said, “M’lady, I might take you right back up those stairs.”
“I thought you were going to say take me on the table.”
“The table’s never that much fun in reality. It really only works in the movies.”
They sat down across from each other, and Joyce crammed a whole waffle into her mouth.
“Holy shit!”
“I like to eat,” Joyce told him while chewing, and then she swigged her coffee.
“Goddamn, Peter, you fucking wore me out.”
“But, seriously,” Peter said even though his eyes were dancing.
“Yes?”
“I don’t want you think I’m one of those weird overly eager guys who never gets laid—even though I am—and who thinks we’re now a couple and I’m going to pester you and call you all the time and be really weird.”
“I think I’d be okay with you calling me some of the time, Peter Keller.”
Peter swigged his coffee and nodded, grinning while he looked down on the table.
“Alright,” he said. “That’s good to know.”
And then he said, “Marabeth.”
“What about her?”
“What are you going to tell her?’
“Firstly, she’s got ninety five cousins hopped up on testosterone and dressed like James Bond, so it was a foregone conclusion I’d end up with one of you.”
“Wow! It could have been Myron!” Peter said.
“But,” Joyce continued, ignoring this, “I actually had not planned on telling her anything,” Joyce said. “Not that I keep shit form her, but I had not planned to sleep with you and… I feel like I’d be telling your business if I told her. I feel like maybe I’ll just tell her I met someone. I don’t like keeping secrets. But.. I don’t like telling other people’s.”
“I like you,” Peter said.
“You’re very hot,” Joyce said. “and I had not meant to say that. I meant to say… hell, I probably meant to say something sarcastic, but I like you too, Peter.”
“Oh, damn!” Peter said.
“What?”
“I was laboring under the drunk delusion that we came in my car. You drove me here in your car, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” Joyce said, wondering not so much how he had forgotten as why it mattered.
“I was going to drive you home and then drive to the House, pick up the boys and take them to their mom.”
“Well,” Joyce said, still not seeing the issue, “I will just drive you to the Strausses and then… subterfuge and questions be damned.”
Peter shrugged. And then he beamed and laughed a little as he stuffed a sausage into his mouth.
“There won’t be any questions. Strausses and Kellers don’t pry,” Peter told her. “We’re German.”



I’m really glad you invited me over,” Ryan said as he was leaving.
“Really?” Jim said. He still hadn’t put on his shirt but was wearing the black and white pajama bottoms he’d had on the night before.
“I thought you might think I didn’t respect you, hitting you up so late.”
Ryan shrugged.
.“I didn’t really want to be alone last night, and I didn’t think you did either. That’s how Christmas can be.”
“Yeah,” Jim said. He realized he hadn’t told Ryan everything. He hadn’t been keeping it back, he just hadn’t done so, and now he thought it was a little too late.
“You know, Jim,” Ryan said as he buttoned his peacoat. “You could never make me feel used. You’re the only guy that doesn’t hurt. You know?”
“Uh… I hope I’d never hurt you.”
“You’re always so kind. You always make me feel safe.”
Jim put his hands to his non existent pockets and then shrugged.
“I don’t know what to say. I mean, you are safe. With me.”
Ryan hugged Jim quickly, and then kissed him.
“You watch out for yourself too, Jimmy,” he said, opening the door, and pulling it close behind him.
Jim nodded even though Ryan was gone, and then moved across his living room to sit on the couch, prop his feet up, take out his cigarettes and finish his coffee. He would go back to the House today, but in a bit. He exhaled and held the cigarette aloft, looking up at the ceiling. Some people said they felt lonely after sex, but Jim always felt like he needed to be left alone, like his solitude was necessary to pick apart everything that had happened in the hours before. He was no stranger to lovemaking, and he realized that most men and probably most people did not want to think about it. He did. Hew wanted to sit with it, reflect on what had happened, how it felt, how he made his lovers feel, what a different person he was in bed than say, at work, or with his family. Sex was an endless teacher, and remembering the moments with Ryan the night before made him warm for him again.
“It’s not true,” he thought, “about having too much sex. The more you have it, the more you want it.”
Like potato chips, a voice in his head suggested.
No,” Jim stretched, standing on the tips of his feet as he exhaled smoke, “Not like potato chips at all.”



THE BOOK OF PAMELA STRAUSS

Why prolong what happened? Hagano certainly didn’t think I should. I came out to see him every day, to walk through the spring and summer country with him.

We continued walking in silence and finally Hagano said, “It is time for the wolf to eat the girl.”
I did not know what he meant. He took me in his arms, under the wolf cloak, and I did not stop him. We were under the wolf cloak and he began to undress me. My body shivered with something that was different from desire. I felt like I was melting. I was afraid because, until recently, I had been with no man at all, and now not only did I lay down with Friederich every night, but this was happening. I reached forward, then afraid I reached back. Hagano laughed low in his throat, his voice hot around me in the tent of his cloak.
“Do not be ashamed to reach forward, little Pamela. There is nothing without reaching forward.”
And so I did. He removed my garments while I removed his, and as our bodies joined together our skins were hot, like fire almost, but then in our movements our limbs stretched and stretched, and when he entered me, his teeth bit into my shoulder. They were hard, and were becoming harder, and as his teeth clenched on me, my flesh became strong and thick and… lustrous. And my fingers in his back became claws, and I arched my head back and gave a great cry which ended in a triumphant howl.
He could have shown me in many ways, but this was possibly the best, and a way we both wanted. Through ecstasy he taught my body to move through changes so that in that forest, under the light of day, underneath his grey body, I too became the wolf. The desire that would have been sex at any other time became the great racing across the hills, filled with energy and the joy of my new agility, I ran with Hagano through the hills and under the shadow of the mountain. When we were hungry, we chased down a deer and with wolf teeth, I ripped into its sinews and pulled out gleaming organs like bags of cords. When we were done, we refreshed ourselves in the cold river, and when we were done with this, we gave up our wolf forms and made love in the moss.
“I thought this was only possible in the full moon.”
“In my experience it is only possible for most men in the full moon.”
“And women?”
“Most women never unlock the gift, but when they possess it, they possess it at will.”



Marabeth sat up. She sat down on the edge off the bed, running a hand up and down her arm. She shivered, and had the great desire to close the door even as she knew she was not truly cold.
“A little more,” she said, “then I have to put this book away.”



“BUT YOU CAN CHANGE.”
“Yes,” Hagano said. “That is a different story. I am older. From another time.”
“How much older?”
“Oh, much older,” Hagano said, lying down and drawing me to him. “Much older, my Pamela, and full of sad stories I do not wish to tell.”
And so, for the time being, I lay with him under the branches of a tree, on the mossy bank by the river, and contented myself with his silence.

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a well done portion! I am liking where the characters are that were featured in this portion. The Book Of Pamela Strauss seems like it is only going to get more interesting! Great writing and I look forward to more soon! Also, you were right Kris is my favourite character in this story.

 

[ChrisGibson]

I don't even think Kris featured in the story tonight, but he may be my favorite Strauss as well. I am probably just a little bit in love with this fellow and he has been a very real presence to me. Initially I tried to give him and vampire Chris different names to eliminate confusion, but it just didn't work because they showed up to me so fully formed. Marabeth is possibly my most important, but at the moment she is being absorbed in the reading of the book and so not really being much of an actor. My other favorite is Pamela who is the complete opposite of Kris, and I almost want to say more about her and her relation to Marabeth, but more on that later. Now, what is it you like so much about Kris Strauss.

 

[CharmedFan28]

I like Kris because I guess I can identify with him having gone through my own mental health struggles. Also he just seems like an interesting character.

 

[ChrisGibson]

Having dealt with, or continuing to deal with issues around depression, it was important he be vulnerable and real in that direction. When I think of think of him he reminds me of a few other characters from earlier stories and I feel like they are all sort of being channeled from the same place.

 

[ChrisGibson]

THE BEASTS

CONTINUED


While we were walking once, conversationally, Hagano spoke to me.

Once upon a time there was a dear little girl who was loved by everyone who looked at her, but most of all by her grandmother, and there was nothing that she would not have given to the child. Once she gave her a little riding hood of red velvet, which suited her so well that she would never wear anything else; so she was always called 'Little Red Riding Hood.'

It was only after this that I realized he was telling a story.

One day her mother said to her: 'Come, Little Red Riding Hood, here is a piece of cake and a bottle of wine; take them to your grandmother, she is ill and weak, and they will do her good. Set out before it gets hot, and when you are going, walk nicely and quietly and do not run off the path, or you may fall and break the bottle, and then your grandmother will get nothing; and when you go into her room, don't forget to say, "Good morning", and don't peep into every corner before you do it.'
'I will take great care,' said Little Red Riding Hood to her mother, and gave her hand on it.
The grandmother lived out in the wood, half a league from the village, and just as Little Red Riding Hood entered the wood, a wolf met her. Red Riding Hood did not know what a wicked creature he was, and was not at all afraid of him.
'Good day, Little Red Riding Hood,' said he.
'Thank you kindly, wolf.'
'Whither away so early, Little Red Riding Hood?'
'To my grandmother's.'
'What have you got in your apron?'
'Cake and wine; yesterday was baking-day, so poor sick grandmother is to have something good, to make her stronger.'
'Where does your grandmother live, Little Red Riding Hood?'
'A good quarter of a league farther on in the wood; her house stands under the three large oak-trees, the nut-trees are just below; you surely must know it,' replied Little Red Riding Hood.

The wolf thought to himself: 'What a tender young creature! what a nice plump mouthful - she will be better to eat than the old woman. I must act craftily, so as to catch both.'
So he walked for a short time by the side of Little Red Riding Hood, and then he said: 'See, Little Red Riding Hood, how pretty the flowers are about here - why do you not look round? I believe, too, that you do not hear how sweetly the little birds are singing; you walk gravely along as if you were going to school, while everything else out here in the wood is merry.'
Little Red Riding Hood raised her eyes, and when she saw the sunbeams dancing here and there through the trees, and pretty flowers growing everywhere, she thought: 'Suppose I take grandmother a fresh nosegay; that would please her too. It is so early in the day that I shall still get there in good time.'
So she ran from the path into the wood to look for flowers. And whenever she had picked one, she fancied that she saw a still prettier one farther on, and ran after it, and so got deeper and deeper into the wood.
Meanwhile the wolf ran straight to the grandmother's house and knocked at the door.
'Who is there?'
'Little Red Riding Hood,' replied the wolf. 'She is bringing cake and wine; open the door.'
'Lift the latch,' called out the grandmother, 'I am too weak, and cannot get up.'
The wolf lifted the latch, the door sprang open, and without saying a word he went straight to the grandmother's bed, and devoured her. Then he put on her clothes, dressed himself in her cap, laid himself in bed and drew the curtains.
Little Red Riding Hood, however, had been running about picking flowers, and when she had gathered so many that she could carry no more, she remembered her grandmother, and set out on the way to her.
She was surprised to find the cottage-door standing open, and when she went into the room, she had such a strange feeling that she said to herself: 'Oh dear! how uneasy I feel today, and at other times I like being with grandmother so much.' She called out: 'Good morning,' but received no answer; so she went to the bed and drew back the curtains. There lay her grandmother with her cap pulled far over her face, and looking very strange.
'Oh! Grandmother,' she said, 'what big ears you have!'
'All the better to hear you with, my child,' was the reply.
'But, Grandmother, what big eyes you have!' she said.
'All the better to see you with, my dear.'
'But, Grandmother, what large hands you have!'
'All the better to hug you with.'
'Oh! but, Grandmother, what a terrible big mouth you have!'
'All the better to eat you with!'
And scarcely had the wolf said this, than with one bound he was out of bed and swallowed up Red Riding Hood.
When the wolf had appeased his appetite, he lay down again in the bed, fell asleep and began to snore very loud.”

Hagano stopped talking, and continued walking.
“But what else happened?” I demanded.
“What else?” Hagano said. “Nothing else. That is the story.”
“The story ends with the wolf eating the girl?”
“The story always ends with the wolf eating the girl, though some who do not understand it, have added endings they think are happier.”
We continued walking in silence and finally Hagano said, “It is time for the wolf to eat the girl.”
I did not know what he meant. He took me in his arms, under the wolf cloak, and I did not stop him. We were under the wolf cloak and he began to undress me. My body shivered with something that was different from desire. I felt like I was melting. I was afraid because, until recently, I had been with no man at all, and now not only did I lay down with Friederich every night, but this was happening. I reached forward, then afraid I reached back. Hagano laughed low in his throat, his voice hot around me in the tent of his cloak.
“Do not be ashamed to reach forward, little Pamela. There is nothing without reaching forward.”
And so I did. He removed my garments while I removed his, and as our bodies joined together our skins were hot, like fire almost, but then in our movements our limbs stretched and stretched, and when he entered me, his teeth bit into my shoulder. They were hard, and were becoming harder, and as his teeth clenched on me, my flesh became strong and thick and… lustrous. And my fingers in his back became claws, and I arched my head back and gave a great cry which ended in a triumphant howl.
He could have shown me in many ways, but this was possibly the best, and a way we both wanted. Through ecstasy he taught my body to move through changes so that in that forest, under the light of day, underneath his grey body, I too became the wolf. The desire that would have been sex at any other time became the great racing across the hills, filled with energy and the joy of my new agility, I ran with Hagano through the hills and under the shadow of the mountain. When we were hungry, we chased down a deer and with wolf teeth, I ripped into its sinews and pulled out gleaming organs like bags of cords. When we were done, we refreshed ourselves in the cold river, and when we were done with this, we gave up our wolf forms and made love in the moss.
“I thought this was only possible in the full moon.”
“In my experience it is only possible for most men in the full moon.”
“And women?”
“Most women never unlock the gift, but when they possess it, they possess it at will.”


It was early afternoon when Kris Strauss woke up, and he felt more refreshed than he could remember. He could always tell how late it was and he thought, with a mix of amazement and disgust, that he could not believe he’d waken up so late. He was still in his clothes, for when he had come home, he hand not really thought he would sleep. He had left a little night light on whose light was drowned out by the grey light of the sun. When he rolled over, his elbow hit something hard and it took him a while to realize it was a book, a little while longer to realize it was The Book of Pamela Strauss.
Kris frowned and then ran his hand over it, but he didn’t open the book. He ran a hand through his hair and yawning, got up and went out of his room, down the hall, down the stairs, to Marabeth’s room. But she wasn’t there, and so he left the book there and went down the back stairs to the kitchen where his grandmother and his mother were sitting up with his sister and Joyce.
“At last the sleeping beauty arises,” Joyce said.
“I don’t know how beautiful I feel,” Kris said. “Is there still coffee.”
“If you make it,” his grandmother said. “It’s past twelve o clock.”
“I couldn’t sleep last night,” Kris said, yawning, while he went through the high cupboards, pulling down coffee filters and coffee. He remembered how, after she’d turned thirteen, Marabeth had always kept a coffee pot in her room so that she didn’t have to see people until she had faced the day with a cup in her. It seemed like such a good idea right now.
“Mara,” Kris began and then stopped himself.
“Yeah?”
“Nothing,” he said. “I’ll ask you later.”
“Alright,” she said, her voice strange, but containing a note that said she had some inkling of what he was about to say.
“It’s really about time for me to go home,” Joyce said. “I need to see what my place looks like again.”
“I actually do too,” Marabeth said. “I can come back tonight,” she told her Natalie and her mother, “but I want to see the place I pay rent on, at least for a moment.”
Joyce said, “We can leave in a minute.”
“No,” Kris said before Marabeth could answer.
“I mean, I’ll drop her off.”
He added, “I need to run some errands. Let me just finish this cup of coffee.”

“Why did you leave me that book?”
“Where did you go and not come back in from till six in the morning?”
“Now you’re dissuading.”
“Six-forty-five, in fact.”
“You were waiting up for me.”
“No, I was awake. I was just going back to lseep. I kept reading, then putting the book down, and then pacing around, and then reading, and then walking around the house. You know, it’s a well build house, you don’t really hear floorboards squeaking and all that. It’s a nice place to be insomniac. Thought about Dad a lot. Thought about this Eve Moreland. Went back to reading. And then heard you tip up the stairs.”
“So are you going to tell me why you left me the book?” Kris turned on Birmingham, ignoring Marabeth’s question.
“I knew you wanted to know about it. I thought that reading it would let you know what I know.”
“Did you finish it?”
“Oh, God no! It’s hardly begun. But… Good Lord, it’s enough.”
Kris didn’t speak right away and then he said, “Mara, I don’t want to read it.”
Marabeth turned to him, and he looked at her a moment, taking his eyes off the road.
“I’m sorry. I know it makes me a coward, but I don’t want to read it. I mean, I feel like whatever it is, it will make me crazy, the craziness that I take pills for, the craziness that, to be frankly honest, I felt last night. I feel it today. It’s like a shark on the other end of shatterproof glass tank I live with every day. I know it won’t break through. It can’t. But I feel it. And, I know that’s nuts, but—”
“Don’t worry about it,” Marabeth said, “Really, I’m serious. I’ve read enough of this book. I understand.”
“Maybe you should tell Joyce about it.”
“Joyce?”
“She’s your best friend.”
“It’s a book that says that Pamela and Friederich were werewolves. It’s—”
“Mara, if you really trust her—”
“Of course I do—”
“And you really need to share it, then let Joyce read it. You can tell me everything,” Kris told her. “I just…. I can’t read it.”
Marabeth nodded.
“I’m sorry.”
“No, Baby Brother, “you don’t ever have to be sorry. At least not for that.”


Marabeth took a long shower in her own shower. When she had woken up this morning, her mind had played that evil trick on her. First feeling the bed, and then looking around it at the room, she had taken a while to remember she was not in her apartment, but in the house on Dimler Street where she had grown up. And then it all came back. Her father, missing so long, was dead. His satchel had been returned ot her, worse for wear but bearing several documents, one of them the large bound journal which read The Book of Pamela Strauss. And, slowly, as she had come into consciousness, she had remembered everything Pamela had written.
Well, now, back in her apartment, she had to wash herself free of it, be back in her place with the white walls and the low ceiling, the balcony doors that looked out onto bleak day after Christmas Birmingham Street. Here, hung up on a white wall, was the wicker sun that had survived college and marriage and divorce. In her housecoat she stood there feeling odd, feeling tired, feeling very discontent. When she felt like this she had to stop and take stock, and now she did. She did not take her eyes from the door until the sunlit white door became greyish blue with the passing of the day, and at last she said, “I thought I would feel freer. I thought away from the house, and from the family, I would feel free of all that business. But I don’t ”
She really only felt like this was no time to be alone, like she didn’t understand the world at all anymore, and she didn’t feel entirely safe.
“Paint,” she said, rising slowly, and stripping her housecoat. It was so warm that, after she drew the curtains on the white and grey world, she could walk around in this house naked, and she needed her paints more than she needed shorts and a tee shirt.
“Paint it out.”
Something in her wanted to go back home, but she had spent a long time fighting not to go home, to get out of Germantowen, and she didn’t want to run back to her family just now.
“Besides,” she said, as she went to her supply closet, “sometimes you have to get through things on your own. At least for a little bit. Stare them down.”
Nevertheless, when Joy called her and asked her what she was doing, and Marabeth answered, “Painting,” and Joy said, “Mind if I come over?” Marabeth was only too glad to say, “Get over here, now.”

Marabeth greeted Joy with a cigarette and said, “I need you to keep an open mind.”
“I’m not even going to ask you about what,” Joyce said. “Then she said, “Fuck it, you need to keep an open mind too.”
“About what?”
“I slept with Peter.”
“Peter who—? What the fuck?”
“Yes.”
“Oh,” Marabeth blinked, then, handing over the lighter she said, “Well, you are a grown ass woman and he is a grown man, so…” she shrugged.
“And what do you need me to keep an open mind about?”
Marabeth brushed Joyce over to her desk which was before the wall with the window cut into it that divided the living room from the kitchen.
“The journal.”
“I need you to read this. At least up to where I bookmarked it.”
“Okay,” Joyce nodded warily. “Do I need a drink?”
“Wine’s in the fridge. Get me a glass too?”
“Sure thing, and why do I need to keep an open mind?”
“Because according to that book,” Marabeth said, “I might be a werewolf. And so might Peter by the way.”

 

[CharmedFan28]

I think I like The Beasts slightly more then The Old and I liked that story a lot too! I am glad Marabeth is talking to someone about The Book Of Pamela Strauss even if its not Kris. He has good reasons I think for not wanting to read it. Great writing and I look forward to more soon!

 

[ChrisGibson]

I think I do too! And that makes me glad because wouldn't it be shitty if you were like, ugh, the first part was better. I have a lot to say about this and I might PM you if I get a chance. I have to go out for a bit and then I'll respond to your Rossford comment.

 

[ChrisGibson]

HERE IS THE FIRST PART OF THE WEEKEND PORTION, THE SECOND PART MAY COME TOMORROW MORNING



“I wondered if you’d ever get here,” Jim said when Peter came into the house.
His cousin shrugged. He was in jeans and a pullover, and his hair was a bit of a mess today.
“I had some things to do. Remember, I had work.”
“Wasn’t work like one conference call?”
“I had a couple of consultations too. And had to take the kids to Desiree.”
“I never did like her,” Jim reflected.
“Well,” Peter said, going to the refrigerator as he kissed Natalie on the cheek, “now, neither do I.”
“Yes, and Peter dropped Joyce off too,” Natalie said as she headed out of the kitchen and back to the front of the house. “That was very nice “
Jim raised an eyebrow.
“Yes, that was very nice.”
Peter looked after his great aunt, his eyebrows hooded, and then he sat down at the round kitchen table, legs splayed, and opened a bottle of Gatorade.
“What’s this about you brought Joyce home?”
“As you remember, she took me home because I was…”
“Feeling absolutely no pain.”
“Right,” Peter said, flicking his cousin on the head. “Well, she stayed over last night, and then I brought her back here this morning.”
Jim thought about asking more questions, but simply said, “I hope she likes our family. She’s gotten far more of us than most people ever do.”
Peter shrugged. “I think she fits in.”
Kris was coming down the back stairs and he said, “Hey, Pete, Jim. Have you seen Mom and Grandma?”
“In the front,” Peter jerked his thumb.
Kris nodded and went out of the kitchen and up the hall.
“I was about to say I wonder what’s getting him, but that’s dumb of me,” Peter said.
“It’s like I keep forgetting Uncle Nate’s gone, and then I remember it all over again.”
“I had a dream that Nate was teaching me touch football,” Peter said. “You remember, Nate was like the tallest best looking guy in the family. He was the glamorous one. And he was always so patient with me. My dad wouldn’t teach me anything. But Nate always had time.”
“Is that why you always have time for Kris and me?”
“Uh,” Peter looked startled. “Yeah. I guess. You and Kris together sort of make up a Nate. He’s got Nate’s height and color and you’ve got the wavy hair and the looks.”
“I’ve got the gayness too. Nate didn’t have that.”
“That is… so far from anything I was talking about it. He had the touch with the ladies. You’ve got the touch with everyone. I called this morning, and a voice that wasn’t yours picked up.”
“Oh, yeah,” Jim said. “Ryan.”
“Ryan,” Peter nudged him under the table.
“Yeah,” Jim shrugged, suddenly shy. “He’s a nice guy.”
“Is he nice enough to bring him home and let the Strausses and Kellers get a look at him?”
“Actually he’s so nice that’s never ever going to happen. And anyway, it’s not serious. I mean, it’s a serious friendship, but… It’s not like a romance.”
Kris came back into the kitchen and Peter said, “Are you going to hang out with us for a little bit?”
Kris shook his head, “I can’t.” He lifted his phone. “I gave my number to that Detective McCord. He said they’re ready for us to take Dad’s remains.”
“And do what?” Peter looked horrified.
“Mr. Steigler is coming to take him so… we can have a funeral.”
“I hadn’t even thought about it,” Peter said. “I mean… we will have to have a… But… why are you going?”
They heard a jingling of keys and then Natalie Keller came into the kitchen. She was in her purple overcoat, her white hair wrapped by a scarf, and Rebecca, in her red coat, her red hair uncovered, followed.
“We’re on our way to the morgue,” Natalie said, stalwartly.
“But why?” Jim demanded.
“Because I have to see him,” Natalie said. “I could not live with myself if I didn’t see him before we decided what to do. I just can’t leave it in Steigler and Steigler’s hands. He was my son.”
“Then we’re going,” Jim said, standing up, and Peter did too.
“No,” Natalie said. “you’re not. And it’s bad enough Rebecca’s coming.”
“I’m not letting you do this alone.”
“But it will be just us,” Natalie said. “Us and only us. Not even you,” she said to Kris.
Kris looked worried and strange, and even though Jim had not quite forgiven Kris, he reached out and took his cousin’s hand, and though Kris did not look at him, Kris gripped his hand tight.
“Alright,” Kris said, after breathing deeply. “But I’m driving.”
“Alright,” Natalie said. “You’re driving.”


Joyce looked on the painting, mesmerized.
“I love your work,” she said, “I always have. But this…”
“Is far too crazy.”
“No,” Joyce said. “It should be terrifying, but it’s also marvelous. It might be one of my favorites.”
“I used to have dreams of being eaten,” Marabeth said, “dreams of being eaten alive, and now I wonder if this isn’t part of it.”
She stopped painting. What was left of the background was an almost luminous golden red, but most of it was taken up by a whirling darkness that resolved itself into a great wolf, and its teeth were jagged and its mouth longer than any real wolf. It devoured, plainly, a girl, all in red, her red cloak still hanging from her mouth. The girl’s face was round and beige and pale, and it remained, along with hands hanging limply from the wolf’s jaws, and the girl was not fighting, rather she seemed in ecstasy.
“It’s Pamela’s Red Riding Hood,” Joyce said.
“Or rather Hagano’s,” Marabeth said. “and Hagano is the man I dreamed of, the blond man of my dreams looking at me from the snow. I know it was him. And Red Riding Hood… She wants to be devoured. She must be devoured.”
“In the book,” Joyce said, “Hagano said that people added the woodman because they didn’t understand the story.”
“And I didn’t understand it either,” Marabeth said. “But now,” as she continued to add darkness to wolf’s pelt, “I think I do. The Grandmother became the wolf, and in the end, because she was of the blood, Red Riding Hood did too. She was not consumed by a monster. The monster was her nature.”
“Grandmother, what big teeth you have,” Joyce said. “Then… the Grandmother really was the wolf?”
“Yes,” Marabeth said. “And so was Riding Hood. She was sent to become the wolf, sent by her mother, who was possibly the wolf already. It is… an initiation. I am sure of it. It’s really the only thing I am sure of.”
The phone rang, and Marabeth went to get it while Joyce continued staring at the painting, at the slit almond eyes, like shards of glass that belonged to the wolf, at the face of the blissful girl hanging from his mouth. Beyond her, Marabeth talked on the phone. When she was off, Marabeth said, “That was Kris, he said he was on his way to get me. Grandmother went down to the police department to… look at Dad’s remains.”
“What?”
“She said she had to. They were being taken to the funeral home. She wanted to escort them. Mom went too. She fainted.”
“Call Kris and tell him not to come,” Joyce said, “I’m taking you.’
“Thanks for that,” Marabeth said.
“Don’t thank me,” Joyce said, “I don’t really feel like being left alone tonight.”
“Bring the book,” Marabeth said.
“Of course.”


As soon as she came into the house, Marabeth felt the need to put the book in her old room and keep it from everyone else. There was an air in the house of trouble. Of course there was, and she didn’t want to add to it. She was surprised, coming out of her room, to see Jim coming down the hall.
“I thought I heard you come in,” he said.
“Yeah,” Marabeth answered.
“We’re all in the kitchen.”
“How much is all?”
“Peter, Kris, Myron is here too. Grandma. Aunt Becca’s lying down.”
“Jim, what all happened?’
“The police said that they were bringing Uncle Nate to the funeral home, no that the Seiglers were coming for him. And Grandma said she had to go and see him before anyone else did.”
Marabeth looked doubtful and Jim said, “I know.”]
“Your mom and Kris went with her. But Kris didn’t go in to see Uncle Nate. Grandma did, and then your mom did, because she felt she needed to be with Grandma, and maybe she thought she had to because she was married to Nate. That was a terrible idea. Someone should have stopped her. They had to bring her out of the room. They said she just whimpered and passed out. Grandma just stood there.”
“But…” Marabeth began. “But,” she started again, and then she simply said, “But what’s left? What can be left?”
“It turns out a lot can be left,” Jim said. “But it just doesn’t look like a person anymore. Not really. Grandma said she had seen all of her children after they died, and she had to see Uncle Nate.”
“Well, where is she?”
“In her room. Just kind of sitting there.”
“I’m going to go see Mom,” Marabeth said.
She thought she should go check on Joyce too.
“She’ll be fine,” Jim said, “But yeah, I’ll go down there and see.”
Jim went down the back stair and Marabeth down the front to avoid the kitchen. She went though the living room, and down to her mother’s room. Her door was open, and she could hear her family in the kitchen.
Marabeth walked in and was surprised by the largeness of the room. She’d always imagined the back rooms of the house to be small, but now she saw that wasn’t so. Rebecca Strauss was not on the bed, but sitting in an easy chair under the window, her crossed feet spread out in front of her.
Marabeth sat at her mother’s dressing table, pulled out her cigarette roller and her bag of tobacco.
“Mom, you shouldn’t have done that,” was all she said. “He’s been gone so long.”
“I looked for a trace of him,” Rebecca said. “I tried to look into what they showed me, and I looked for a trace of him, and in just a second I saw it, the him in what was left. That’s when I passed out. It was like suddenly what was in front of me transformed and I could see your father in it, and that was too much.”
Rebecca shook her head.
“Now, I can’t remember much of anything. I can see your father’s face, but it’s Nate when he was young and handsome. And I can vaguely remember, like a nightmare more than anything, the morgue, and standing there next to Natalie, and she… She didn’t do anything. She just stood there and looked. All I can think is, curse you, you old bitch for making me do something I never would have done. Not that I had to do it, but when she did, I felt like I had to.”
“No one else did.”
Marabeth handed her mother a cigarette and Rebecca said, “I don’t smoke these. Filthy things.”
But when Marabeth lit it, Rebecca took a drag, and then Marabeth set to rolling her own.
“You shouldn’t either,” her mother told her.
“Shouldn’t what?”
“See your father’s body.’
“All right, mother,” Marabeth said, thinking how that had never been an option.
“I’m going to see the others,” she told her.
“I’ll be back.”
Her mother nodded, and Marabeth went down the hall. Her cousins were drinking and Marabeth said, “I don’t want us all to turn into alcoholics.”
“We were talking about the funeral,” Kris said.
“You know, I hadn’t really thought about it,” Marabeth said. “I guess we should have it as soon as possible.”
“There’s no rush,” Myron said.
“Of course there’s a rush.” Marabeth said. “He’s been dead for half a year.”
“We were going to talk it over with the Steiglers tomorrow,” Kris said.
“I don’t understand what there is to talk about,” Marabeth poured herself a drink. “The police department has done it’s part. The Steiglers do cremations, right?”
“We can’t cremate our dad!” Kris said, suddenly looking very desperate. “We need to have a Catholic funeral.”
“When did you ever care about a Catholic anything?” Marabeth said. “And besides, Catholics get cremated. It’s not 1955.”
“Grandma would want a coffin.”
“Grandma went into a morgue and saw a bloated dead body and made Mom almost pass it out. Enough is enough. Call the Steiglers and arrange for the cremation. I don’t know why it wasn’t done tonight.”
“He was our dad!” Kris pounded his fist on the table.
“He was our dad! Not a fucking piece of meat, Mara, not trash to be burnt up because it doesn’t look nice anymore. He was our dad. He deserves… what we have, the full funeral, not just some jar with ashes, and…”
Marabeth stood there silent, and Myron touched Kris on the back, and looked at Marabeth and then lowered his eyes.
She did not speak immediately. It was a while before she replied.
“I am not trying to burn him up and get rid of him like trash,” Marabeth said. “But I am trying to get him into the ground and move on. He is dead.”
“He’s our—” Kris began again.
“You can keep on saying he’s our father till Jesus comes back, and he’ll still be dead,” Marabeth said. “He’s been dead for a long time. He’s been laying out half buried, exposed to the elements, and I don’t have to pop my head into a morgue to wonder what that looks like. But to go through the… farce of embalming what’s left of him and… whatever the Steiglers do, just so Grandma can see a casket funeral…” Marabeth shook her head. “I’m not doing it. And you can bang your fist on tables and shout all you want.”
“You’re a bitch,” Kris said suddenly.
“Kris!” Peter said while Joyce, not reaching out to touch Marabeth, just looked at her.
“You’ve always been a bitch. You’re cold. That’s why Pamela gave you that book, because she knew you were like her.”
Marabeth took a huge breath, “Well,” she said, “when all my brother is capable of doing is banging tables, insulting his relatives and sneaking out to fuck whoever it is you were fucking, and Grandma is dragging Mom into morgues to stare at bloated corpses, someone has got to be.”
Kris opened his mouth.
“Shut the fuck up,” she said. “Don’t say another goddamned word. You’re too weak to do the one thing I’ve asked of you today, and all you want to do is call me a bitch and apparently talk shit to Jim who, guess what, is the only brother you have. Well, guess what, Kris? We all are going through something. Everything’s not about you. But you sit here and be sad, and you sit here and be angry, Baby Brother, and I will go and arrange things in a suitable way so that Grandma can have her casket or…whatever.”

 

[CharmedFan28]

Wow I did not expect Marabeth and Kris to fight like that. I think they both have reason to be angry with each other but I wonder if maybe they are both really just angry with their Dad. Who knows. Great writing and I look forward to more whenever you post it. I hope you have a nice weekend!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Matt, that is very insightful. There's just so much feeling and stress and anger here, and Marabeth has been reading crazy shit that is probably and not been able to share it, and Kris is afraid of his own terror and depression. Marabeth is pissed off at her whole family. Kris knows he's failing her, is angry about his dad. It just all explodes right here.

 

[ChrisGibson]

THE BOOK OF PAMELA STRAUSS

I was sixteen then. It never occurred to me to tell Friederich that I possessed the power of the Wolf, and I never asked him if he could only turn at the time of the full moon. I didn’t know him to do it any other time, though. But, and I had to remember this fact, my mother had been a wolf. And he had come for my birth. Had he waited for a full moon to change? Had I been born on one?
Friederich was like my husband now, but Hagano was my lover. We ran through the hills and we ran with the wolves. They let us come and go as we pleased, and I begant to understand the wolf mind, which is different from a human mind, but not less, I do not think, and when we parted from them, either in wolf form or with human bodies, Hagano and I shared ourselves.
One night, I came home and Friederich demanded, “Where have you been?”
This was unlike him, and I said, “It’s none of your affair.”
He shook me by the wrist and then said, “Gather all you can, we must go.”
I was about to ask why when I saw a hand sprawled out in the next room and a puddle of blood surrounding it.
“Georg,” he said. “Georg said he had seen me as the Wolf. He said he saw you as the Wolf as well.”
There was the question in Friederich’s eyes which I decided I had no time to answer.
“So you killed him?”
“What else could I do?”
I could not right answer this, but I said, “I am going down the hill to Frau Inga’s.”
“What can she do?”
“I’m about to find out.”


Frau Inga was succinct.
“You must flee.”
“Again?”
“You have never fled, my Pamela.”
“But Father has. Will we have to flee every time he does something?”
“Next time he does something, if there is a next time, you must put him down.
“But you are young and you should not spend your whole life under these mountains.”
“We could go to Wurzburg.”
“The world is not what it was,” Frau Inga said, “and these days I have dreams of blood. Blood and water drowning the land. I see fires in the sky. You must leave this land. This continent. Every day, outside of this village, great powers jostle for war. I have seen it. Soon this land and all lands will be covered in smoke. If you flee, flee to America. Never come back here. I have a little money, and I have directions. Take these envelopes. My daughter, the one who breastfed you, has gone to a place called Ohio. She is wed to a man called Keller. Find them. Find the Kellers. Our blood is strong, wolfling. it is the blood of witches. Bind ours to yours.”


The anger and weariness died in Marabeth’s heart, replaced by a realization that was hot and cold all at once.
“Frau Inga. The witch who bound Friederich. We are descended from her. Everyone in this house.”



WE COULD HAVE BURIED Georg and hid him away in the dirt, but there would have been questions. We could have moved the next town over, or even to Wurzburg, but by then the police went from place to place, and crimes were not as easily hidden. Besides Frau Inga had told me of her terrible vision. And so we left in the early morning, in a wagon with all we had, making our way to Wurzburg, then from Wurzburg to Munich, from Munich to Frankfort and then to Cologne, each time my becoming more and more surprised at the size of the world, for I had never known even Germany to be so huge. At last we reached to port of Hamburg, and from that city we touched the sea. Looking back on that city, with its tall Gothic houses on the port, was the last time I saw Germany, but Germany meant nothing to me. The last time I saw the green trees and hills of Bavaria was the last time I saw home. Everything else was foreign land, and so I turned my back on the old port city, and looked forward to the sea, and to America.

******************************************************************************


Marabeth looked up and saw her brother standing in the doorway.
“Don’t say a fucking word to me, I’m not in the mood for it.”
Her room was filled with smoke, and she crushed out the last cigarette, and then downed a swig from the bourbon bottle she’d taken from the library.
“I don’t feel like your shit, and I’m tired of your moods. Oh, by the way, I’ve handled everything with Steigler and Steigler. At eleven o’ clock in the fucking night. There’s going to be a nice oak coffin and no embalming. There will be…. They said something about rendering, and I said I really didn’t need to know anything else. Now, if you don’t have anything else to say…”
“I’m sorry,” Kris said, “and I also talked to Jim. I‘m—you’re right, Mara. And I do need to read that book, and I will, and I brought you someone.”
“You brought me someone?” Marabeth sat up.
A man entered the room. He was Black and a little shorter than Kris, and Marabeth thought, Why are you bring some Black guy into this bullshit? Don’t they have enough to deal with? And then she thought, God, I look a mess.
“This is my mentor, Dr. Uriah Dunne,” Kris said.
“Oh…” Marabeth climbed off the bed, pushing her hair out of her face and getting past what she looked like and what she must smell like.
“You were going to write to my cousin, Eve,” he said.
“Yes,” Marabeth said. “Yes, Eve Moreland? Yes. Should I?”
“Perhaps,” Uriah said, “but not by yourself. And, anyway, she is not the real power in our family. If you are going to talk to anyone, you must talk to my nephew, Lewis Dunharrow.”


END OF PART ONE

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a great ending to part 1! So cool to see the stories intersecting! I hope Marabeth and Kris can sort out their issues with each other. I can't wait to read what happens next. Excellent writing and I look forward to more in a few days.

 

[ChrisGibson]

The little fight Marabeth and Kris are having... is about to be the least of their problems. See you soon.

 

[ChrisGibson]

P A R T
T W O

ZAUBER



S E V E N

L U S T



I love those who do not know how to live for today

-Friedrich Nietzsche



Marabeth and Kris Strauss sat across from Uriah and he was the first to speak and the only one not smoking a cigarette as they sipped tea before the closed fireplace, Marabeth looking up at the great portrait of Pamela.
“What is the thing you want to know the most?”
Marabeth glanced at Kris, and he said nothing and then she said, “I want to know if we’re werewolves.”
When Uriah said nothing, Kris finally said, “I want to know if the pills I take are because of it. I want to know if I have some kind of depression, or if it’s something more.”
“That can be easily discerned,” Uriah told him.
Kris waited for him to explain.
“Go out there to your cousins, ask every man in the family if he takes the pills you take.”
“Possibly.” Kris said cautiously.
“Well, if not that, then there is another way.”
“Which is?
“Simply don’t take the pills.”
“What?” It was Marabeth who exclaimed.
“If you think your father knew, if many people know, so they’ve got to have other means to subdue you when you change, should there be no medication. In this house, somewhere, is the means to subdue you. If this is true. And it is true.”
“How do you know?” Kris asked.
“I know,” Uriah said.
“But,” Kris said, “whatever there is in this house or wherever that could control me… I wouldn’t know where it was.”
“Someone would.”
“Dad’s dead.”
“He couldn’t be the only one. “
“Great-Grandfather only had one son,” Marabeth said. “My grandfather had two sons, but they’re both dead. The only men, and it seems to only effect the men, are Kris, Jim, Peter, Myron…”
“And any of your other cousins. Any of Friederich’s grandsons as well as his great-grandsons. If this is true,” Uriah said, “then surely it wouldn’t have only been Nathan who knew. That would be too dangerous.”
“Then you think someone else knows.”
“Marabeth, I think several someones know. Your mother must know. Your grandmother. The only reason you don’t know is because the knowledge just came to you, and you don’t dare to ask them.”
“But… Cousin Robert?” Marabeth said. “Myron.”
“No,” Kris said. “Myron doesn’t really know anything., I mean, I love him ,but he doesn’t really know anything.”
“They always said Pamela controlled things, and even though she didn’t like Aunt Maris, she trusted her sons. That’s why she sent them to law school. Granger knew everything that went on in this family. He was the executer of Pamela’s will. He handles all the legal business. He must have been in cahoots with them.”
“Shit!” Kris suddenly exclaimed, almost dropping his cigarette.
“What?” Marabeth began, and then she stopped.
Uriah looked at them both, and Marabeth said, “But… he couldn’t. He’s just. He just runs the law firm. He just handles…”
“All the family business, just like his dad did,” Kris said. “He just… runs every- thing.”
Marabeth stared at her hands.
“Peter knows.”


.

“It’s so cold out here,” Joyce said.
“You didn’t have to come,” Peter told her. His breath was white, and it seemed to Joyce that it might actually freeze on the night.
“I didn’t mean that to be an ass,” he said. “You really could have stayed in.”
“I wanted to hang out with you,” she said. “You don’t… wear a hat or anything.”
His ears were red, and so was his nose as he smiled down on her and they walked down the street, his hands jammed in his pockets.
“This is a beautiful church,” Joyce said. “If it wasn’t almost below zero, I’d want to look at it some more.”
“Oh, I could look at it all night,” Peter’s breath was white. “Saint Ursula’s is beautiful, don’t get me wrong. But I love Saint Agatha’s.”
“It’s a little closer to you,” Joy said. “Why didn’t your family go here?”
“Because Ursula was the German church. Saint Agatha’s was the Black church. It was built around the time my family came for the Black community. Or rather, they built it themselves. They decided it had to be better and more beautiful than any other church in the neighborhood, and it was. If you could see this in daylight, the red brick, it’s really pink brick, and the white cememt arcades. I love this church. I used to be an altar boy here. Sometimes, when I just need to get quiet, I still come here, even talk to Father Johnson. I don’t know if I’m still religious, but sometimes its nice to talk to a priest.”
“So, your whole family went to Saint Ursula, but you went here?”
“Well, that’s not totally true. Aunt Natalie went here after her husband died. She used to bring Nate and Byron. She only goes to Saint Ursula’s on Christmas, and Marabeth and Kris went to both. But we all grew up later. And I think we felt weird so we came here.”
Joyce didn’t say she was confused over this last statement, but Peter said, “I’m a little older than Kris and Marabeth. I… I used to feel like I didn’t fit in, The other kids were kind of assholes to me, and the Black kids and the Mexicans. They sort of took me in, and so I would come to Saint Agatha’s. The Neilsons, the family that lives across the street from the Big House. I was friends with their son Osgood. Osgood would bring me with him to church, and so this place sort of became a home to me. See, right there, that’s the school. I ended up going there in fourth grade. My parents were… I think scared is the right word. I was one of five white kids.”
“How was it?”
“It made me glad,” Peter said. “To tell you the truth, I doubt Black people feel the same way when the situation’s reversed, but I liked it. I got so used to it. I felt super weird when we finally went to Central Catholic.”
A car drove down Demming, and Peter motioned for Joyce to make way as another man, pale as Peter, walked down the sidewalk, hands jammed in his pockets. He muttered a hello, and Peter nodded, and they kept walking, they back toward Dimler Street, he in the direction of the tall buildings of downtown.
“It clears my head, you know,” Peter said, “to be out in the night. Especially on a night like this. And, sometimes, when things would get rough, when it was too much for my mind, it was good to get outside. We think it’s so cold out here, but that guy, who knows? We’re going back to the house. Who knows how long he’s walking?”
“Maybe he’s going home like us.”
“Maybe,” Peter said, “but he looked sort of homeless. It’s just downtown and bridges and old buildings and church porches to sleep under. On a night like this. Sorry, I think about stuff like that some time.”
Joyce hooked her arm in his and then said, “that was forward of me.”
“I don’t mind you being forward,” Peter said. “Maybe if more forward women showed up I wouldn’t be this weird gloomy person I am.”
“I don’t think you’re gloomy, I think you’re right.”
Joyce was jostled as Peter suddenly stopped in the middle of the street, looking up.
“It’s so small and white. Smaller than a dime,” Peter said.
“The moon,” Joyce said, realizing that was needless. It was almost burning white in the dark blue, and Peter said, “Sometimes I look up at it and I could just .. never look away. Never feel the cold.”
Suddenly Peter broke off from her, boy like in his car coat, and howled.
He laughed.
“Makes me feel like a wolf. What are you staring at?” He grinned at Joyce.
Joyce scrambled for words, not a lie, but any words, because she didn’t quite know what to say.
“You’re a rare man, Peter Keller.”
“Not that rare,” he differed.
Then he said, “My kids are still gone tonight? Would you want to come back with me. Tonight? Or would that be too soon?”
“No, peter, you really aren’t like any other man I’ve met. You’re not into games, are you?”
“Games are for kids. I like having you around. I liked you staying with me.”
“I like staying with you too. If Marabeth doesn’t think I’m too much of a tart, then yes, I’ll come back with you.”
Peter shrugged, “Marabeth can think whatever she wants. I like being with you Joy, McNamara.”

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was an excellent start to Part 2! I know Kris wants to know if the werewolves thing is true or not but I don't know if not taking his medication is a good idea. I guess I will have to wait and see. Peter and Joyce are as cute as ever. I like them. Great writing and I look forward to more soon!

 

[ChrisGibson]

I was going to say it's probably never a good idea to cold turkey quit your medication, but Kris has to learn and... well, before this chapter is over we're all going to learn a few new things. I do love Joyce and Peter together. That was a surprise, and they've got some surprises coming up too. Thanks for reading, Matt. Have a good day, or if good is too much, have an adequate day.

 

[ChrisGibson]

CHAPTER SEVEN

LUST

CONTINUED


They stayed up talking a while, Kris mostly keeping silence between Marabeth and Uriah, and of course, Kris had not read the book and knew very little of what Uriah knew. Uriah had only told him that there was much more in the world than people liked to admit, and often left it at that.
“You have to understand, I did not seek Kris out, but when I first met him, when he first described his depressions and his youth I decided I’d better keep an eye on him., I had some inkling as to what he was.”
“Then you know about… werewolves,” Marabeth had said.
“I know about Strausses,” Uriah said. “Your Aunt Pamela knew my Uncle Augustus. He spoke of her, and so I knew that there was a family in Ohio, where I lived, that could shapeshift.”
“That’s a very nice way of putting it,” Kris cut in.
“I had forgotten much of what I learned, and only began to put two and two together after I had known Kris for awhile. But he had not told me and so I did not know if he knew and was keeping it to himself or… what I felt like, that it was not mine to tell. But I felt like he had to come to Chicago to see other things.”
“Like Eve Moreland.”
“Yes, like the witches of my family.”
“And are you a witch?” Marabeth asked.
“No,” Uriah said. “Not really.”
“Then I might not really be a—”
“You are,” Uriah said. “I don’t know how it works in your family. Apparently all of the men must take tablets or they turn. Apparently the gene or trait or gift or—”
“Curse,” Kris said
“Or whatever it is,” Uriah said, “is quiet in the women. Pamela had it, but she was taught it. Friederich changed but only when he wished to. The trait doesn’t seem to have any consistency.”
“But then I haven’t finished reading the book.”
“That’s right,” Uriah said.
“And we also haven’t spoken to Peter.”
After they had talked a little more Kris said he would take Uriah home and Marabeth said she would go upstairs to bed.
“Are you staying here?” Kris asked.
“I think I’d better,” Marabeth said, yawning.
The house was beginning to feel like home again, and she could hear Jim down the hall snoring in his old room. She went through the ritual of showering, washing her hair, brushing her teeth and climbing into bed. She glanced at the journal and then looked away from it. Time for that tomorrow.

In her dreams a man was kissing her, and that wasn’t strange. She was, after all, divorced and terminally unfucked. She even knew she was dreaming, but she wanted to put that away. The more he undressed her, ran his hands over her, the more she knew it wasn’t real, knew that the moment before you knew it wasn’t real was when you woke up pissed off and frustrated. She willed the dream to stay, she undressed the man. He was long and tall and he was muscled. His body was like a furry blond pelt. His eyes blue. He kissed her hungrily and she knew, but did not push it from her mind, that this was Hagnao, her Aunt Pamela’s lover, the man of her dreams and of Pamela’s too, She opened her thighs for him and she felt his kiss on her breasts, on her shoulders, back up again. But now her mind fled from the delusion, and she knew it was only a dream, that she was Marabeth Strauss, divorced, almost forty and in her mother’s house. But…
He was still making love to her. Her eyes opened wide and she saw, beneath the blankets, between her thighs, the figure of a man moving, and the blanket was up as if over his shoulders. She pulled away almost screaming, as the blanket collapsed, and she was alone, but still felt the heat of Hagano’s body on her, still felt him in the covers, still felt his touch, still felt wet between her thighs, sat up in the night terrified to find her gown down, and her nipples wet with his kisses.
She was discombobulated and so it took a moment to hear the buzzing, to know the buzzing was her phone and then to find said phone even though it was on the nightstand beside the bed where she always left it.
She picked it up and answered, which she never did this late and said, “Joyce?”
“I’m sorry,” the man’s voice on the other end of the phone said, “I didn’t expect anyone to pick up. I was leaving a message. I don’t know if you’ll remember me, but this is Detective McCord.”
How would she forget the man who had brought her dead father back to her?
“Yes, Detective. I remember you.”
“There were other effects of your father, still at the station. I was leaving the message so you could get them.”
“Oh… thank you. I… I could get them tomorrow.”
She felt awake and said, “I could get them tonight, actually.”
“I didn’t think you’d be up,” the detective said. “I can bring them to you. I get off of work in forty-five minutes. Unless that’s too late.”
“That would be great,” Marabeth said.


She was a slut. Jenean had no problem admitting this to herself. She wasn’t a slut every night. Being a slut was just an approach to life. Being a slut, Jenean thought, was to not be shy about what you wanted, to simply admit that you wanted a thing and then to go out and get it. Being a slut was, when you felt like less than a wonderful woman, when you were feeling very much like a tired waitress, to realize a man was staring you down and stare right back at him. She knew that dark haired guy had wanted her, and while she was deciding if she liked him or not, if he was good looking or not, she was pretty sure she’d have him. She wasn’t quite sure where, but the more she talked to him, the more he made little jokes and she looked at his rumpled hair, the more she decided that she would definitely have sex with him.
It had happened rough and wild and desperate in the backseat of her car. She squeezed her thighs around him as he fucked her and she loved how a man, no matter how dignified he looked, gave up all his dignity in fucking. He had seemed very dignified. Not a business man, too rumbled, probably a college professor. He had been very together, But now he needed it the way she did. He needed to be in her as much as she needed him inside, and he had been so large and thrust so hard he’d bruised her.
Having sex in the backseat of her car in an I Hop parking lot didn’t bother her. She’d fucked and been fucked in far stranger places. Once, in Chicago, she had let her then boyfriend fuck her on the hood of a car, and she didn’t feel like less of a person. She felt a little more free than girls she knew, not stuck on her reputation.
She brought him home. Now, that was a little stranger. Not that she didn’t have sex in her home, but often she felt no need for a man after she’d finished with him. This one she had wanted to come home. Even though the sex had been rough, there was something else to it that she couldn’t explain. She wanted to be with him again. She wanted him in her shower and she loved the love they had made.
But in the very grey morning, while Jenean lay looking over Kris, tracing the fine hair up and down his slender naked body, a naked body curled like a little child, his mouth open against the pillow, his eyes closed while he smiled gently, she was seized by a strange feeling.
Jenean always followed her feelings. She knew if you thought too much about them you’d be embarrassed, and she didn’t have time to be embarrassed. She climbed out of bed, thinking about putting on her housecoat, and then shrugged that idea off. She went through Kris’s trousers and pulled out his wallet. There was the credit card. There was the driver’s license. An Amazon card. A Wallington college ID. Aha, this would do.
She took the ID and placed the wallet back in Kris’s trousers, and then she slipped the ID into her bureau and placed it under the Bible her father had given her when he had found Jesus, which she had never read and told herself she never planned to.

“Well, you’ve got to tell him,” she told herself as she stood outside of I-Hop, hugging her shoulders and smoking a cigarette. As she watched the cars drive down Southdale, she knew she wasn’t out here because she needed to smoke so badly. She needed to think.
“That’s the whole reason you took it. You’ve got to give it to him.”
Jenean took one last drag, and then tossed her cigarette out into the parking lot.
“Well, fuck it,” she said.
She took out her phone quickly and dialed the number on the card.
The phone rang for longer than she thought it should and she was about to hang up when a dense, sleepy voice said, “Hello?”
“Uh, hello… Ahhh... Is this Kris Strauss?”
“This is.”
Now she felt stupid.
“You wouldn’t know me. Not my voice. I mean. We met the other night. On Christmas. You stayed the night.”
“Oh,” Kris said.
Before she could read what that O meant or make him think she was crazy, she said, “Your ID fell out of your wallet, and I thought you should have it back. It’s your….” She pretended to squint over it, “Willmington College.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Uh… you do want it?”
“Yeah. Yes, Yes I do.”
Some men were so afraid of ex they ran away as soon as the condom came off. She’d wondered if he might be like that, not even care about the ID, hang up and block her number.
“I get off in about an hour. You could come tonight, or you could come tomorrow. Or,” she stated again, “you could come tonight.”
“I’ll come in about an hour and a half.”
“Do you remember where I live?”
“Yes,” Kris said, “I do.

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was an excellent portion with great writing! Jenean seems like she might mean trouble for Kris. It will be interesting to read what happens with those two. Hopefully Marabeth and Kris can learn more about their family from Uriah. I am still really enjoying this story and I look forward to the next portion!

 

[ChrisGibson]

If you could describe Jenean in three sentences, how would you describe her?