ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
Yes, it is sad about Nathan, and sad about how everyone feels, but you know what? You're right. It's always fun to get back to Pamela and her journal.
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The Beasts: A Winter Tale
- Thread starter ChrisGibson
- Start date
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
THE JOURNAL OF PAMELA STRAUSS CONTINUES
I was twelve when I had my first bleeding. Frau Inga told me all about it. She tied me up and said it would last for a time and come each month. It would be irregular at first and go on for years and then, in the end it would also be irregular.
“It is the way of women,” Frau Inga said, “and it is your power. Never forget in your blood and in your pain is your power. It is a power men cannot have. This is why they fear it. Blood and birth are the way of the world.”
“And death?”
“The way of men.”
She saved the cloths with my first blood and said, “Keep these always. There is mighty power in them.”
It was winter when it happened. The trees so high under a silver sky, and snow on the hills so white, and I felt the hairs raise on the back of my neck. Slowly I turned, and in the snow, looking at me, like Friederich but unlike Friederich, was a great, tall man with short silver blond hair and a short beard fringing his face. His eyes went from grey to blue, and I admit for the first time I felt the strange pleasant flood between my thighs which I would later learn was desire. His arms were bare, even in this weather, and brown with a sun that was not a winter’s sun, and we looked upon each other for a long time, and then, he was gone.
Marabeth sat up, willing herself not to push the book away.
“The Man,” she murmured.
Nothing Pamela had written, not about saving her period blood even, had made Marabeth pause, but here, written down for the first time, long before she was born and certainly re written here when she was still a girl was the man who had come into her dreams two nights before, and now Marabeth wondered if the blond woman had not been Pamela herself.
I CANNOT SAY WHAT happened to me, but that night I was disturbed. I had questions, and they could not be answered, or they had not been answered. I had been content to live in the dark and now I was not. My father said, “Why are you like this, Pamela, stormy as the Witch Mountain?”
I put his dinner down, hard on the table.
“Why should I cook for you? Am I a slave?”
“I work for you,” he said. “You cook, you clean, you weave, because you are a woman.”
“I am your daughter, and I am done with all this.”
I walked away from the table, but as I did, he caught my arm. It was a hard grip, for he was a hard man, but I was not afraid of him.
“Did my mother die, or did she refuse to be your servant?”
“What are you talking about?” he growled.
“No one ever saw her. You just came back to this village with me as a baby. How do I even know you are my father?”
“You have only to look at us. I am most definitely your father. Who has been telling you these stories?”
I said nothing because I realized I might have already done damage, but my father erupted, “Frau Inga!”
Getting up from the table, without even throwing on his coat, he went out the house and I followed him into the snow. He went down the hill from our house and banged so hard on the door of Frau Inga’s house I thought he would bash it in.
She answered it calmly, and even though she was small, when she drew herself up and wrapped her cloak about her, she seemed frosty and regal.
“You old bitch! What are you telling my daughter? I’ll kill you.”
“By silent,” Frau Inga interrupted him. “You’ve already enough blood on your hands, Friederich Strauss. Put your hand down,” she commanded,
Fierce as my father was, his hand went down and she continued, “I bind you. I bind you by the signs on this door,”
She had always had elaborate signs on her door, but she was not the only one in that village. Half superstition and half tradition I had regarded them, but even now, she traced them in the air before her with her fingers, elaborate drawings of nothing on nothing.
“Have mercy,” Friederich said.
“Mind yourself,” Frau Inga returned. “Do I have your word that you will not harm your daughter?”
“Of course,” he said.
“Then go,” her voice was imperious, but when she looked at me, panting in my hurry to follow father, she said more gently, “both of you. There is much more to discuss in the morning.”
As we returned up the hill, and going up hill was far harder than going down the hill, my feet slid in the heavy snow, I began to understand what Frau Inga had meant by people like her, people like the aunt I had never known. They were hexen, witches, and maybe Friederich, in his great strength, was some manner of warlock. I did not know about that, but I knew there was something in me, and as we returned to the house, saying nothing of the violence that had just been prevented, I remembered that Frau Inga had said there was much to be discussed tomorrow.
In the morning, Frau Inga was painting a flower in a circle, and I had seen this before. I had seen much of her art, most of it in circles. But today she sat me down, and she explained, “The green is for fertility and strength, and also for youth, for those who are young. Green is the life force. Yellow is too. But it can also be sickness. Here the red, and the green in the flower is life. And the red circle is life as well, fiery life.”
And she taught me. “There are not only shapes, but forms, the form of the horse, the two rampant horses greeting each other. And there is the bear and the wolf, all of these mean many things, and you can place your force in them. For all of these things, when it is said and done mean whatever they mean to you.”
She took me through the woods and even in winter she showed me the herbs that grew out of the snow, what they meant, what they could do.
“This is a quick poison when boiled in full, and when diluted and strained it helps women who have found themselves in trouble. The priests frown upon it, but the priests are men. They know nothing of what it means to be a ruined woman.”
And she would say, “This mushroom will kill. It is different from the kind that goes in food, and this one will kill as well, but when dried and then diluted in water, it causes visions and opens the mind to the meaning of dreams.”
One day I asked her, “Frau Inga, are you an hexe?”
She looked at me sharply.
“Child, you know I cannot abide foolish questions, and a foolish question is one to which you already know the answer.”
“Then is it what I am too?”
She looked at me closely, not the way people do when they are about to lie, but the way one does when they are searching out the truth.
“Your great aunt was. Many of the women of your family have been. But their craft was still of a different order from mine, But you seem to be of a different matter even than they. And I believe your gods and your spirits will come to you soon enough.”
I was not Christian enough to be troubled by what she said. Our world was full of gods and spirits. Ours was the ancient world, and whatever Catholics had originally thought of it, the power of the Church was in recognizing that. All about and outside the churches swirled the world of the ancient gods, and there were many of them. In the old myths, there were nine worlds about the World Tree. The apparent world of men was simply one of them. But what we knew was more than nine there were nine times nine, and still nine times those.
That was why, when on the night the moon was high and full, and Father said he would go out, and I must not wait up for him, I did not obey him. Before Frau Inga I had paid no attention to his comings and goings but now, trained in witchly arts, if not a witch, I understood he left on the full moons. And did he go to worship his gods? For Friederich had said he was a heathen.
That night I stayed with Frau Inga until after midnight. She did not tell me to be careful, but simply pronounced a charm on me and sent me up the hill back home. It was slippery, for the snow was melting and it was approaching my birthday. The sky was full of the moon and bright with stars in a darkness that, past the time of electricity, it is impossible to comprehend. My heart danced with fear because I thought tonight I would learn what I was.
I entered the house. The door was never locked, and crossed the front room. Beside the kitchen there was a small room where the housekeeper slept, for since I had stopped cooking, Father had hired one. I did not go upstairs to my room, but went into his. He was gone, of course, and the window was open and moonlight shone in, and I thought of closing the window, but also thought I’d better not. I simply sat on the bed and waited.
That whole time I did not tire. There was not a part of me that wished to go to sleep. Perhaps it was because I had slept some at Frau Inga’s or perhaps it was because I knew I had to wait for Father, wait for what was going to happen. Still, as the night progressed and the air changed indicating that morning was almost here, I did fall into a dreamlike state. I was not as awake as I might have been, and this was why, perhaps, I was not shocked or afraid when it happened. Or maybe there were other forces at work in this.
By now the moon’s arc had passed from the sky, and I sat in darkness. In the darkness I suddenly saw a form, white and massive and covered in fur and not immediately did all the shapes in my mind mass themselves into the face of what through the window had come that I had never seen so close. Large and full and with terrifying force emerged a massive white wolf. Though it slay me, it was the loveliest thing I had ever seen. It did not look to me.
It had no idea that I was there, and even as I began to comprehend it, it changed before my eyes into the tall, well muscled, naked form of Friederich Strauss.
MORE ON MONDAY
I was twelve when I had my first bleeding. Frau Inga told me all about it. She tied me up and said it would last for a time and come each month. It would be irregular at first and go on for years and then, in the end it would also be irregular.
“It is the way of women,” Frau Inga said, “and it is your power. Never forget in your blood and in your pain is your power. It is a power men cannot have. This is why they fear it. Blood and birth are the way of the world.”
“And death?”
“The way of men.”
She saved the cloths with my first blood and said, “Keep these always. There is mighty power in them.”
It was winter when it happened. The trees so high under a silver sky, and snow on the hills so white, and I felt the hairs raise on the back of my neck. Slowly I turned, and in the snow, looking at me, like Friederich but unlike Friederich, was a great, tall man with short silver blond hair and a short beard fringing his face. His eyes went from grey to blue, and I admit for the first time I felt the strange pleasant flood between my thighs which I would later learn was desire. His arms were bare, even in this weather, and brown with a sun that was not a winter’s sun, and we looked upon each other for a long time, and then, he was gone.
Marabeth sat up, willing herself not to push the book away.
“The Man,” she murmured.
Nothing Pamela had written, not about saving her period blood even, had made Marabeth pause, but here, written down for the first time, long before she was born and certainly re written here when she was still a girl was the man who had come into her dreams two nights before, and now Marabeth wondered if the blond woman had not been Pamela herself.
I CANNOT SAY WHAT happened to me, but that night I was disturbed. I had questions, and they could not be answered, or they had not been answered. I had been content to live in the dark and now I was not. My father said, “Why are you like this, Pamela, stormy as the Witch Mountain?”
I put his dinner down, hard on the table.
“Why should I cook for you? Am I a slave?”
“I work for you,” he said. “You cook, you clean, you weave, because you are a woman.”
“I am your daughter, and I am done with all this.”
I walked away from the table, but as I did, he caught my arm. It was a hard grip, for he was a hard man, but I was not afraid of him.
“Did my mother die, or did she refuse to be your servant?”
“What are you talking about?” he growled.
“No one ever saw her. You just came back to this village with me as a baby. How do I even know you are my father?”
“You have only to look at us. I am most definitely your father. Who has been telling you these stories?”
I said nothing because I realized I might have already done damage, but my father erupted, “Frau Inga!”
Getting up from the table, without even throwing on his coat, he went out the house and I followed him into the snow. He went down the hill from our house and banged so hard on the door of Frau Inga’s house I thought he would bash it in.
She answered it calmly, and even though she was small, when she drew herself up and wrapped her cloak about her, she seemed frosty and regal.
“You old bitch! What are you telling my daughter? I’ll kill you.”
“By silent,” Frau Inga interrupted him. “You’ve already enough blood on your hands, Friederich Strauss. Put your hand down,” she commanded,
Fierce as my father was, his hand went down and she continued, “I bind you. I bind you by the signs on this door,”
She had always had elaborate signs on her door, but she was not the only one in that village. Half superstition and half tradition I had regarded them, but even now, she traced them in the air before her with her fingers, elaborate drawings of nothing on nothing.
“Have mercy,” Friederich said.
“Mind yourself,” Frau Inga returned. “Do I have your word that you will not harm your daughter?”
“Of course,” he said.
“Then go,” her voice was imperious, but when she looked at me, panting in my hurry to follow father, she said more gently, “both of you. There is much more to discuss in the morning.”
As we returned up the hill, and going up hill was far harder than going down the hill, my feet slid in the heavy snow, I began to understand what Frau Inga had meant by people like her, people like the aunt I had never known. They were hexen, witches, and maybe Friederich, in his great strength, was some manner of warlock. I did not know about that, but I knew there was something in me, and as we returned to the house, saying nothing of the violence that had just been prevented, I remembered that Frau Inga had said there was much to be discussed tomorrow.
In the morning, Frau Inga was painting a flower in a circle, and I had seen this before. I had seen much of her art, most of it in circles. But today she sat me down, and she explained, “The green is for fertility and strength, and also for youth, for those who are young. Green is the life force. Yellow is too. But it can also be sickness. Here the red, and the green in the flower is life. And the red circle is life as well, fiery life.”
And she taught me. “There are not only shapes, but forms, the form of the horse, the two rampant horses greeting each other. And there is the bear and the wolf, all of these mean many things, and you can place your force in them. For all of these things, when it is said and done mean whatever they mean to you.”
She took me through the woods and even in winter she showed me the herbs that grew out of the snow, what they meant, what they could do.
“This is a quick poison when boiled in full, and when diluted and strained it helps women who have found themselves in trouble. The priests frown upon it, but the priests are men. They know nothing of what it means to be a ruined woman.”
And she would say, “This mushroom will kill. It is different from the kind that goes in food, and this one will kill as well, but when dried and then diluted in water, it causes visions and opens the mind to the meaning of dreams.”
One day I asked her, “Frau Inga, are you an hexe?”
She looked at me sharply.
“Child, you know I cannot abide foolish questions, and a foolish question is one to which you already know the answer.”
“Then is it what I am too?”
She looked at me closely, not the way people do when they are about to lie, but the way one does when they are searching out the truth.
“Your great aunt was. Many of the women of your family have been. But their craft was still of a different order from mine, But you seem to be of a different matter even than they. And I believe your gods and your spirits will come to you soon enough.”
I was not Christian enough to be troubled by what she said. Our world was full of gods and spirits. Ours was the ancient world, and whatever Catholics had originally thought of it, the power of the Church was in recognizing that. All about and outside the churches swirled the world of the ancient gods, and there were many of them. In the old myths, there were nine worlds about the World Tree. The apparent world of men was simply one of them. But what we knew was more than nine there were nine times nine, and still nine times those.
That was why, when on the night the moon was high and full, and Father said he would go out, and I must not wait up for him, I did not obey him. Before Frau Inga I had paid no attention to his comings and goings but now, trained in witchly arts, if not a witch, I understood he left on the full moons. And did he go to worship his gods? For Friederich had said he was a heathen.
That night I stayed with Frau Inga until after midnight. She did not tell me to be careful, but simply pronounced a charm on me and sent me up the hill back home. It was slippery, for the snow was melting and it was approaching my birthday. The sky was full of the moon and bright with stars in a darkness that, past the time of electricity, it is impossible to comprehend. My heart danced with fear because I thought tonight I would learn what I was.
I entered the house. The door was never locked, and crossed the front room. Beside the kitchen there was a small room where the housekeeper slept, for since I had stopped cooking, Father had hired one. I did not go upstairs to my room, but went into his. He was gone, of course, and the window was open and moonlight shone in, and I thought of closing the window, but also thought I’d better not. I simply sat on the bed and waited.
That whole time I did not tire. There was not a part of me that wished to go to sleep. Perhaps it was because I had slept some at Frau Inga’s or perhaps it was because I knew I had to wait for Father, wait for what was going to happen. Still, as the night progressed and the air changed indicating that morning was almost here, I did fall into a dreamlike state. I was not as awake as I might have been, and this was why, perhaps, I was not shocked or afraid when it happened. Or maybe there were other forces at work in this.
By now the moon’s arc had passed from the sky, and I sat in darkness. In the darkness I suddenly saw a form, white and massive and covered in fur and not immediately did all the shapes in my mind mass themselves into the face of what through the window had come that I had never seen so close. Large and full and with terrifying force emerged a massive white wolf. Though it slay me, it was the loveliest thing I had ever seen. It did not look to me.
It had no idea that I was there, and even as I began to comprehend it, it changed before my eyes into the tall, well muscled, naked form of Friederich Strauss.
MORE ON MONDAY
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
Pamela Strauss's story is endlessly fascinating and I am happy to get back to it. Her Father is also interesting, for different reasons. Great writing and I look forward to more in a few days!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
Pamela and Friederich are certainly very interesting creatures. I do love their part of the story and love how it fascinates you too. Tomorrow it will just be a lot of Blue Hiuse and then we will return to Pamela after a little bream.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
F O U R
YOU
ME
AND
THE GIRAFFE
When one has not had a good father, one must create one.
-Friedrich Nietzsche
Marabeth pushed the book away from her, shook her head and looked about the room which was suddenly too dark, and too cold. She turned the book on its face and then got out of bed, feeling her muscles aching from sitting in one position, and walked across the floor, out of her room, and down the hall to Joyce’s room.
She came in without knocking.
“We need to go on a drive,” Marabeth said.
“Sure?” Joyce said, her brow furrowed.
“I need to get out of this house. I need to get away from what I’m reading.”
“You’ve been mighty silent,” Joyce said as they drove up Dorr Road, “which is, by the way, completely allowed.”
“It’s still Christmas, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Joyce said in a tone of discovery. “Yes, I guess it is. And not even that late.”
“Everything’s shut tonight.”
Joyce nodded.
“I guess it should be,” Marabeth said. “With Christmas and all.”
“We could go to Weary Wood. You know, with all the Christmas lights.”
“Yeah,” Marabeth said. “We should make that happen.”
Every year the residents of the Weary Wood subdivision would set up elaborate light displays in their yards, Santa Claus racing eight reindeer on top of a house, giant Nativity scenes, a whole Nutcracker Suite, the sides of houses turned into lit billboards flashing: JESUS IS THE REASON FOR THE SEASON.
“It’s strange,” Marabeth said as they passed a long house with a display of trotting reindeer, “this year all of these lights just seem like dull little points in the darkness. Everything was so bright today, and now everything seems so drab.”
“I can’t listen to you the way I should if I’m driving. I-Hop’s open. It’s always open.”
“Are you going to tell me what was in that journal?”
Marabeth poured the coffee for Joyce, and looked around the brightly lit restaurant. It wasn’t as warm as it should have been, but it felt better to have a little cool weather, too much light, ordinary people walking in. A homely dark haired family was entering. Across from them sat a large black family, and it seemed like the booth could not have been enough for all of them.
“It’s all about Pamela,” Marabeth said. “Well, it’s her journal. All about her life in Germany. They lived in some village near a town I don’t know because I don’t know shit about Germany and… to make a long story short, it seems like Pamela was a witch.”
Joyce, who was not nearly so welcoming of strange things as Marabeth had been frowned at her, and Marabeth said, “Well, that’s what she says. A witch, or something like a witch. And she was raised by a witch. A woman called Frau Inga.”
“Oh, com’on,” Joyce laughed.
“Look, I didn’t write it. You asked what was in the book, and I’m telling you what I’ve read so far. She was taught by a witch called Frau Inga and I stopped reading when I got to the part where… She goes to her father’s room, my great grandfather Friederich, at night. He’s not there, because he goes away a lot. But this night a wolf comes into the room, and the wolf turns into Friederich.”
“What?”
“And that’s where I stopped.”
“When this woman said that her father was a werewolf?”
“Where my Aunt Pamela said her father was a werewolf.”
Neither one of them spoke immediately, but then Joyce said, “You believe it. Don’t you?”
Marabeth frowned.
“I don’t not believe it,” Marabeth said, calmly. “My family—our family—is strange. Pamela was a strange woman, and from what I’ve heard about Friederich, he was strange too. My father killed himself for some reason. Things happened in our family for some reason. I thought that if I said it here, in an I Hop in fluorescent light, it would seem crazier, but it doesn’t seem crazy or… if it sounds crazy, it doesn’t sound untrue.”
James Strauss the Second, better known as Cousin Jim, took the long walk from the first floor, past the second, all the way to the third. Traveling up from the living room really was like coming to a different place. It was a colder clime, and a more solitary one, free from the hot grief of the family. Here this whole floor was empty and nearly dark except for the moon through the window and the light in the bathroom and one last light in the bedroom across from it. This whole floor, how unfair was that, but then no one had ever wished to claim it, belonged to his cousin, Kristian Struass.
He tapped on the half open door and came in without speaking.
“You’re making yourself awfully familiar up here,” Kris said.
“I wanted to talk,” Jim said. “I wanted to check on you.”
“Well,” Kris, who was sitting upright on his bed with a dirty ashtray and a packet of Marlboros said, “you’ve found me. And I’m still alive.”
“Yeah, that’s great,” Jim said, his voice less sure than usual.
“I just wondered if you felt as awful—if you… I feel so awful.”
“And you wondered if I felt as awful as you?” Kris looked up coldly at his cousin.
“That’s not what I meant. I meant—”
“You wondered if some detective coming to our house and telling us that my father died in a river and then was eaten by wildlife makes me feel as bad as it makes you feel, Jim?”
“I just meant…Well, he was my dad, too, right?”
“He was your uncle,” Kris said, stubbing out his cigarette and swinging his leg around the bed.
“For thirty years you’ve… you’ve tried to take everything that’s mine. But my dad wasn’t yours. He was my dad, and he’s dead.”
“Fine,” Jim said. “You’re right. I’m going to go now. Leave you to yourself.”
“Great,” Kris said, tonelessly.
Jim made himself walk at a regular pace.
Catch your breath he told himself. Breathe in. Breathe out. Don’t let it get to you. Don’t let any of this get to you.
He had been very little, about four, when he had been swept up into a rage. It was here, in this house, and Jim wasn’t sure if his father was still alive or not. He had become so angry the light in his eyes had misted over to red, and when he had come to, Aunt Pamela, more kind that anyone had known her, was wiping his brow and singing in German to him.
“Do you know the story of Cain and Abel,” she had asked him.
He shook his head and the very old woman, with yellow still in her white hair half sang about Adam and Eve and their first born Cain and the younger, Abel, and how they all had made sacrifices to God, and God had preferred Abel’s offering over Cain’s, and this had sent Cain into a rage. God came to Cain and told him to master his rage. He said sin lurked like a monster at his door, but he must master it.
“What happened?”
“Cain did not master it. Not then. He was filled with rage, and so he killed Abel, his own brother. Rage, unmastered, does horrible things to men, more men than women and more the men of this family than any men I have known. The story leaves out one thing, and it is that the rage, not mastered, eventually kills Cain as well. Your rage is a wolf, little James. If you master it, it will make you a king of wolves, but if you do not, oh, my child, the wolf will eat you.”
He went downstairs, and he was embraced by family and put Kris out of his mind.
“You look like hell,” Peter said, wrapping his arm around Jim.
“Well, you know.”
“I know exactly what happened.”
Peter had thick dark hair and was tall and thin with sharp blue eyes like glass bits, handsome in his angular way.
“You went up to try to bond with Kristian, and the two of you just don’t bond.”
“He’s such a fuck.”
“He’s really hurting,” Peter said. “Just like you. You both just lost a dad.”
“Kris made sure that I knew he lost a dad and I lost an uncle. I’m an interloper. I’m a—”
“Enough of that,” Peter said. “Come on into the kitchen and have a drink with us before we head out. I gotta bring the kids to their mom. If you want you can stay at my place.”
“I feel like I should stay with Grandma.”
“Aunt Natalie’s—” Peter started, then he said, “You know what, you’re probably right. As long as you don’t stay at your place.”
“I work hard, pl—”
“Play hard and deserve nice things, yeah, yeah, but that huge apartment with no one else… you shouldn’t stay alone tonight, cousin.”
Past the dining room and the parlor that had become a den, down the hall passing the library and the bedroom and bathrooms, they came to the large kitchen where, under the fluorescent light, two very old people were drinking.
“Jimmy!” the old man called, “have a seat. Where’ve you been?”
“Steiger, leave him alone,” Natalie admonished. “Young people can’t be crowded all the time.”
“I was just being gloomy,” Jim made light of himself and Peter, grinning at his cousin said, “I will get you that drink, little brother.”
“I wonder,” Rebecca Strauss, who was swishing a thick bottomed glass of bourbon in one hand, said, “if you all are more closely related than brothers.”
“Well,” the tall elegant, blue suited Peter said, handing his cousin a Scotch, “Grandma Maris was Uncle Jimmy’s sister, but Grandpa Will was Aunt Natalie’s brother, so… we’re double cousins.”
“What an odd story,” Rebecca reflected. She turned to her mother-in-law, “Didn’t you ever find it strange?”
Jim sat down beside the old man, his grandfather, and Natalie said to Steiger, “We’re the only ones left from those days. You know, Parker and Will married Maris and Claire, and I thought how very odd it was my brothers marrying a pair of sisters. I had other things to do with my life. Other boyfriends,” she laughed. “Imagine when the last Keller married the youngest Strauss. Yes. It was strange. And strange that, when I look back, we weren’t married very long.”
She looked to Steiger. “Jimmy died so young.”
“Did he look like me?” Jim asked.
“Truthfully?” the old woman said. “No. I mean, you’re a lot more handsome than James.”
They burst out laughing.
“But it’s true,” Natalie said. “I loved him, but he was very thin and shy and not at all like his father. I think Friederich terrified him. You take after Steiger. To me Steiger hasn’t changed a day. You all still look just a like.’
Jim grinned at his grandfather.
“Except for the white hair, the stooped back and the palsy,” the old man said, “I haven’t changed a bit.”
“You’re getting better and better, Granddad,” Jim said.
“If I keep getting better, you’ll have to nail my coffin shut,” Steiger returned. “And I can make jokes like that. Because I’m ancient.’
“Well, if you’re ancient, I’m ancient,” Natalie swirled the last of her bourbon and downed it, then held her glass out.
“Peter, I’ll take another one. It’s a good night to get drunk and talk about what was.”
Jim’s long tall cousin, perched on the edge of his chair, reached out and pulled the bottle to the table.
“You could have fallen on your head,” Steiger told him.
Peter shrugged.
“What old people don’t understand about their nephews and nieces and grandkids is we’re getting old too, and don’t want to keep getting up and sitting down.”
“We were the youngest,” Natalie said, as she poured her own glass, and then filled Peter’s and Jim’s and also Rebecca’s.
“Out of them all, me and Jimmy and Steiger. Jimmy and Steiger were brothers. They were the best of friends. So close I almost felt I split them up.”
“You made things richer,” Steiger said. “You made it better.”
“And then you married Caroline,” Natalie said.
“Delia looked just like her,” Steiger said.
Jim looked down at the table, and his grandfather said, “Jim, I know in the end, things were bad for your mother, but she loved you. And in a time you can’t remember, she was a bright, bright shining girl.”
Natalie nodded her head reverently.
“She was—” then Natalie touched Rebecca’s hand, “you both were my own daughters. Especially after Kristin. You were the fire and she was the star.”
Suddenly Jim’s hand hit the table and the bottle of bourbon fell over only for Peter to catch it. Despite the noise and Jim’s sudden embarrassment, no one moved. He looked across the table to his cousin Peter.
“I know,” the elfin faced man said, “We’ve lost so many people we’ve loved, and none of those losses seem to have been peaceful.”
In a house this full of people, no one had noticed the front door opening, and no one noticed Marabeth and Joy until they had come into the kitchen and Natalie said, “Where have you been?” for they brought the cold in with them, and their coats were not off yet.
“We drove around,” Marabeth said. “Joyce took me to I-Hop.”
“And now,” Joyce saluted them, “I will thank you for the wonderful Christmas and be on my way.”
Most people would have said sorry for your loss, but it didn’t seem to really cover it, and so Joyce left that out.
“You’re leaving?” Jim nearly stood up.
“I’m intruding,” Joyce said. “This is a time for family to be there for each other, not have some guest just sitting around.”
“Oh…” Natalie began, looking for the right word, “Bullshit!”
“She’s right,” Rebecca said, “I know for some people that’s true, but for us… we’re a little too claustrophobic of a family. We would be honored if you would stay with us. Besides, Mara doesn’t really have any friends but you.”
“Mother!”
“You don’t,” Rebecca said.
“And you do?”
“That’s not what I said,” Rebecca Strauss said. “The truth is, we all end up being a little friendless in this family, so actually, Mara’s doing great.”
Jim threw up his hand cheerfully, “I don’t have any friends, and I know Peter doesn’t.”
“We’re all a hopelessly introverted group of folks,” Peter said. “That’s probably why me and Myron are divorced. Mara too, for that matter.”
“I’m leaving you all,” Marabeth said flatly.
“Cuz, you wanna drink?”
“No,” she began. Then, “Well, possibly. Maybe.”
“If you’re going up to read your Aunt Pamela’s journal, from what you said is in there, you might want a drink,” Joyce said.
But at this, everyone looked at Joyce and Marabeth, not with laughter but with genuine concern. Not Jim, Joyce realized, but certainly Peter, Steiger, Natalie and Marabeth’s mother.
“What has she said?” Rebecca asked.
“Do you really remember her?” Marabeth asked.
“God, yes,” Rebecca said. “What is in that book?”
“It’s her journal,” Marabeth said, lamely, “She’s still in Germany. Still a little girl.”
For some reason Marabeth left out Friederich being a werewolf. She said, “Pamela thinks she is a witch. I’m going up to read more.”
She prepared to leave, taking the bottle of bourbon Peter proffered, but as she did, her grandmother said, “Witch was just the right word for her. And more.”
“Even when she was old she terrified me,” Rebecca said.
“She didn’t terrify me,” Natalie said, flatly. “And that’s a fact.”
“She did not terrify me,” Steiger said in a different tone. “No matter how other people were frightened of her, she was always kind to me. She told me to call her Aunt Pam, even though I wasn’t one of you—”
“Of course you were,” Natalie objected.
“Because she made me,” Steiger said. “I know she was frightening to some, and I know that Friederich was no an innocent man. He wasn’t,” Steiger said. “But… he was old when I was a boy, and he was always kind to me. That’s all I can say.”
MORE TOMORROW
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
That was a well done portion! I had forgotten about how Jim and Kris's relationship was at this time in the story. I am glad Marabeth has Joyce to talk to about Pamela's book. Great writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
You know, I really do like this whole part of the book, not just Pamela, but the whole family dynamic. Them all around the table drinking and bouncing off of each other. This is one of my favorite stories.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
YOU, ME AND THE GIRAFFE...CONTINUED
In a house this full of people, no one had noticed the front door opening, and no one noticed Marabeth and Joy until they had come into the kitchen and Natalie said, “Where have you been?” for they brought the cold in with them, and their coats were not off yet.
“We drove around,” Marabeth said. “Joyce took me to I-Hop.”
“And now,” Joyce saluted them, “I will thank you for the wonderful Christmas and be on my way.”
Most people would have said sorry for your loss, but it didn’t seem to really cover it, and so Joyce left that out.
“You’re leaving?” Jim nearly stood up.
“I’m intruding,” Joyce said. “This is a time for family to be there for each other, not have some guest just sitting around.”
“Oh…” Natalie began, looking for the right word, “Bullshit!”
“She’s right,” Rebecca said, “I know for some people that’s true, but for us… we’re a little too claustrophobic of a family. We would be honored if you would stay with us. Besides, Mara doesn’t really have any friends but you.”
“Mother!”
“You don’t,” Rebecca said.
“And you do?”
“That’s not what I said,” Rebecca Strauss said. “The truth is, we all end up being a little friendless in this family, so actually, Mara’s doing great.”
Jim threw up his hand cheerfully, “I don’t have any friends, and I know Peter doesn’t.”
“We’re all a hopelessly introverted group of folks,” Peter said. “That’s probably why me and Myron are divorced. Mara too, for that matter.”
“I’m leaving you all,” Marabeth said flatly.
“Cuz, you wanna drink?”
“No,” she began. Then, “Well, possibly. Maybe.”
“If you’re going up to read your Aunt Pamela’s journal, from what you said is in there, you might want a drink,” Joyce said.
But at this, everyone looked at Joyce and Marabeth, not with laughter but with genuine concern. Not Jim, Joyce realized, but certainly Peter, Steiger, Natalie and Marabeth’s mother.
“What has she said?” Rebecca asked.
“Do you really remember her?” Marabeth asked.
“God, yes,” Rebecca said. “What is in that book?”
“It’s her journal,” Marabeth said, lamely, “She’s still in Germany. Still a little girl.”
For some reason Marabeth left out Friederich being a werewolf. She said, “Pamela thinks she is a witch. I’m going up to read more.”
She prepared to leave, taking the bottle of bourbon Peter proffered, but as she did, her grandmother said, “Witch was just the right word for her. And more.”
“Even when she was old she terrified me,” Rebecca said.
“She didn’t terrify me,” Natalie said, flatly. “And that’s a fact.”
“She did not terrify me,” Steiger said in a different tone. “No matter how other people were frightened of her, she was always kind to me. She told me to call her Aunt Pam, even though I wasn’t one of you—”
“Of course you were,” Natalie objected.
“Because she made me,” Steiger said. “I know she was frightening to some, and I know that Friederich was no an innocent man. He wasn’t,” Steiger said. “But… he was old when I was a boy, and he was always kind to me. That’s all I can say.”
“Well,” Jim pulled a chair between him and Peter, “if Mara’s going to read then, Joy, why don’t you sit up and drink with us?”
“She could be tired.” Rebecca said.
“We’re all tired,” Peter said, “and I gotta drive. You’re sitting with us, Missy,”
Joy took her seat, grinning, bemused, and Marabeth realized her cousin Peter was just a little bit drunk
“Peter, I know Joy’s not a cab service, but maybe she could drive you home. I’ll call Haley and tell her we’re keeping the kids, and will bring them in the morning.”
“Haley, Haley, Haley!” Peter repeated his ex wife’s name and laughed, and Marabeth knew he was past sobriety.
While Marabeth took herself up the back stair she could still hear her family talking down below, and it struck her that during the time when she was reading of a young Pamela under the mountains of Wurzburg even the oldest of these people had not been born.
She thought of going up to see her brother. There was only one staircase that went to the third floor. Here she stood before the door to Jim’s room. But in the end she decided she’d rather read, that even though she had been terrified by the strange world of her aunt, she was ready to return to the Book of Pamela Strauss.
***********
HE MUST HAVE HEARD me, heard some breathing in the room. Even as a man he was fierce, snarled as he turned to me, but in a moment his vision resolved.
“Friederich,” I said. I did not call him Father.
I will not explain such a thing, and I cannot make you understand it. I am certainly too old to beg pardon for it, and whom would I beg pardon from? Seeing Friederch transform from a wolf, to a beautiful naked man, seeing him become one thing I had never known and then another thing I had always suspected, and even now I cannot say which was which, a thing had happened to me. His transformation had transformed me. He stood there, naked and muscled, his body covered in a transparent pelt of blond hair. As he looked at me I saw he was truly naked, for his great secret was exposed. His eyes were not hard, but almost afraid, and as we looked at each other, the sap, the thrill that had come upon me when I had seen that other man in the woods, came to me again.
Without speaking, I lifted my gown over my head. My nipples were hard, my body thrilled. I could see his penis rising from the cloud of his hair. We did not speak. I climbed onto the bed, and Friederich climbed onto the bed, then onto me. I opened my thighs for him. It hurt when he entered me, but more than that it satisfied me. I understood then that this was what I had wanted for a long time. I rejoiced more than I ever had before, and that late night or early morning was the first time I slept in Friederich’s bed. This was how he became my lover.
Read on! Read on, Marabeth Strauss. Don’t you dare stop reading. Read!
HOW TO SPEAK OF my relationship to Friederich? It had never been the normal relationship of a girl and her father. Yet, I have seen in many instances that often a girl will wish to make love to her father, and things were different for us only in that I could. Only that morning as we lay together, and the sunlight came in grey through the windows, while he shyly tweaked one nipple and then the other, did I understand that I had always been curious about the hair on his thick arms and growing over his chest, about what it would feel like to run my hands over his sides. My sexuality had barely begun to rise in me, but that morning, I longed to have him inside me. I longed to know again what the powerful Friederich Stauss, so in control, was like in the throes of desire and lust, and I think I had always longed for him to have no other woman but me.
“I will cook for you again,” I told my father as I kissed his lips gently, “and I will be all the things I said I was not before.”
“We have a servant.”
“She cannot stay.”
“She will not see anything.”
“She may.”
“I trust her. I think she will not talk.”
“Father, all women talk. Everyone talks. She must go.”
Friederich looked doubtful. Whatever he was, he was fair to his workers, and I said, “I will see she is well paid. Frau Inga has no one to look after her.”
“Do you think she would want Willa?”
“Perhaps,” I said. “If I were to ask her.”
I arranged things with Frau Inga before telling Willa she would go there, and in the end she did well, for the large room she stayed in at Frau Inga’s house was better than her spot in the corner by the hearth, and she asked no questions about her service being changed. The villages far from the cities were places where very private people lived, and people who lived private lives asked few questions. Life continued on in many ways as it had before except now I saw the change my father made and watched Friederich become the wolf that ran through the hills and, of course, now I slept in his bed. I felt that while I was with him the power was building in me, but what the power was I could not say, and now I saw even more frequently the man in the shadows. A few times I let him watch me, but finally I crossed the valley when it was full spring. I had to see if he was some spirit, but he seemed real and solid enough and now, as I stood before him he said,
“Would you like to touch me, Pamela?”
“How do you know me?”
“I have always known you.”
“Who are you?”
“The first of you.”
“Are we to exchange clever words or are you going to tell me anything I need to know?”
“Such fire! Yes, but I knew you would have the fire. You are the Queen of the Pack. Only… the pack is long gone. But you could bring it back.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He smiled at me, and he was like and unlike Friederich, and not to sound overly mysterious, but he seemed at turns much younger and much older than my father, and now he said, “You can ask of me one more question, but it must be an important one. If it is important, if it is worthy—”
“Worthy of your time?”
“Worthy of your asking,” he said, “then I will answer it.”
“What is your name?”
“Hagano.”
And for some reason the sound of his name put me at rest. It was like something tight had been broken, and now he said, “For that you may ask another question.”
“What are you?”
“I am what I said, the first of your kind, wolf and man. Not wolf man, but wolf and also man.”
“But it is my father who is the wolf. How did he become one? Do you know?”
There were stories, of course, of men being bitten by wolves or bitten by the werewolf. Is this why Father had fled his old home?
But Friederich said, “He became it by being born.”
I looked at him.
“Some are made but most are born. Your father was born what he is and you, being his daughter, were born thus too. The Strausses are werewolves. To be werewolf is to be Strauss.”
Marabeth sat in the sudden coldness of her room and longed to close the door. She could not even consider getting up to look at herself, pull her hand through her hair, look in the mirror.
Was this bitch lying? Was she making this shit up? And yet there was a part of Marabeth that hoped she was not, overcome only by the part that knew she was not, and so she read on.
“THE CHANGE IS IN you,” Hagano said. “The Change is in you even more than it is in your father, for you are more the wolf, wolf of very wolf.”
And then I said, “Show me.”
I do not know how I knew he could show me, but he put his hand to my head and I did not have to close my eyes. I saw my beloved Friederich, and he was stripping off his clothes so I could see the play of muscle in his back down to the rounded firmness of his buttocks and the light blond hairs on them. I saw him transform into the great wolf. The wolf ran through the winter hills and he met with other wolves and they ran through the hills, hunting, tracking, bringing night beasts down. All the time I knew which one was Friederich, savoring the joy of the kill, and the consummation of steaming bloody flesh in the snow.
But in this vision Friederich did not come back in the morning, he remained with the pack, and now I saw it, quite clearly. The pack was in rut, and he mounted a bitch from behind, and when he was satisfied he trotted across the hills and returned, I suppose, home.
Now it was another night, and now I saw my father dressing in furs and taking a lantern, leaving the house in a sledge, and he rode over the hills and came to a cave, and even though he was a man, none of the wolves were disturbed. He entered the cave, and in it was a bitch wolf who had just born her cubs, and she was suckling them, beautiful pups, silver and white and now, he moved his hand through them for they were all piled up, and to my shock and to my horror, there was, in the midst of them, eyes closed, unfed but also unmolested, wrinkly and with downy bits of gold for hair, a human child.
“Come to me, come to me,” Friederich sang, and he took up the child. and a look passed between him and the bitch wolf, and then he left the cave with the baby in his arms, and the lantern in another, climbed into the sledge and rode away. Though I watched what was happening with lead in my heart, with my face almost frozen, when he came to Frau Inga and she began to fuss and coo over the baby, when she said, what is her name, when he said, I have no name yet. Does it matter, when she said to the baby, “I will name you Pamela.” I screamed and screamed, pulling away from Hagano so fast that I felt like I was falling through darkness before I hit the ground, still screaming in horror.
“Stop screaming,” Hagano chided, sounding almost amused.
“My mother—”
“Was a wolf.” Hagano said
Then he said, “You are wolf of wolf. If your mother had been human, still you would be wolf. You are wolf of wolf.”
“You must stop saying that.”
“I will not. Because you are afraid of it because you have lived only as human, and humans fear all other animals, but when you become the wolf, you will understand,”
“Become?”
“Yes,” Hagano said to me. “I am here to teach you, daughter. There is no other reason I am here.”
MORE ON THURSDAY
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
I am glad Marabeth has a friend and its good to hear more of Pamela's journal. This story with the added bits is even better this time around! Great writing and I look forward to more in a few days!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
Yes, this is a true story about friendship, I think. And I doubt Marabeth could survive without someone to lean on through this madness.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
THE END OF YOU ME AND THE GIRAFFE
“I think,” Joyce MacNamara told Peter Keller, “that I’m going to take you home.”
“You’re a naughty lady, Joyce,” Peter said to her and Rebecca said, “Yeah, it’s definitely time to take him home.”
“I’ll go get the kids.”
Peter stood up and caught the chair. He blinked.
“Are you alright?” Jim asked.
“Yes, it’s just that I haven’t stood up in an hour or so.”
“Don’t worry about the kids, they’re asleep,” Rebecca said. “You can come and get them tomorrow.”
“I gotta get to bed,” Peter said. Then he said, “Do you know I have to work tomorrow? No rest for the wicked.”
“Isn’t it a conference call?” Jim asked him.
Peter frowned. “It’s still work.”
“I really do appreciate this,” Peter said to Joyce.
“It is no problem at all,” Joyce said.
Most of the family had gone home now. Outside, on the stoop, in the very cold darkness lit up by snow, Peter declared, “I instantly feel ten percent more sober.”
“Me too,” Joyce said, “and that’s a good thing because I’m driving.”
“I can drive myself home.”
“You’re not that much more sober,” Joyce said. “Just give me directions.”
It turned out that Peter did live fairly close, about ten blocks over, but the zigzagging directions through small streets he gave were so confusing, Joyce said, “There had to be a easier way.”
“I’m sure there is,” Peter said.
Joyce parked and Peter said, “Would you like to come in for a bit?”
“For what? A nightcap? Cause we’ve been drinking all night.”
“I don’t know,” Peter shrugged. “Maybe because I’m not sure I feel like being alone right now, and I don’t know if you do either.”
“That is very –”
“Presumptuous.”
“I was going to say perceptive,” Joyce replied. “This is the strangest Christmas, and I’m not quite ready for it to end.”
Peter’s house was an old Queen Anne with many roves and turrets amidst a couple of other Queen Annes, and across the street a row of townhouses not unlike the one the Strausses lived in.
“I didn’t expect you to live in a house like this,” she said, coming up the steps after the tall man in his still immaculate suit. He didn’t seem that drunk now, either.
Peter smiled at her, and on the long wraparound porch he said, “You met me tonight for the first time and you already decided where I lived?”
“I thought it would be a modern, happening house. Sleek, full of glass walls—”
Peter grunted as he pushed in the door after unlocking it.
“White carpets,” Joyce continued, “a shelf with brandy sniffers and good liquor that a power attorney would drink.”
“Well, before you continue that,” Peter said, flipping on the light, “don’t trip over my son’s Thomas the Tank Engine. Which,” Peter bent down in front of Joyce, “I have told him not to leave out in the hallways.”
It was a very old house, and though built differently, reminded her of the house on Dimler Street.
“I don’t know how you knew I was an attorney—” Peter began.
“I was just saying some shit, and by the way, where the hell were you a year ago when I was filing bankruptcy?”
“Probably filing divorce papers. And I think I would have had just the kind of place you described. But I got married. And then I had kids. And… I wanted to be around my family. So… I’m here.”
“Here is very nice.”
Joyce looked up at the ceilings, and at the children’s art.
“You have to excuse the mess,” Peter said.
“I love the mess,” Joyce said, looking at socks on the floor and a stuffed giraffe peaking at her from the sofa.
“Well, then you’ll love my kitchen.”
“How often do you have your boys? Hell, I don’t even think I know how many you have.”
“The Twins and Ryan,” Peter said, “and all under ten. Yay!” he clapped his hands. “And I have them most of the time. I got them in the divorce. I got basically everything, and when I say everything I mean the responsibility. It was not a good marriage.”
“She sounds really… But it’s not my place to say.”
Peter smiled bitterly and jammed his hands into his pockets.
“I was not a good husband.”
“You seem good enough to me.”
“I’m not married to you,” Peter said. “Com’on, I’ll get you a drink. You, me and the giraffe can sit together and talk about life until you get bored.”
“What do you do for work? Have you seen Hamilton? Isn’t it a shame Hilary didn’t win?”
“What?” Joyce said.
“Wasn’t it a awful about Game of Thrones? Have you seen the new season of Black Mirror?”
“I don’t even know what the fuck you’re getting at?”
“Oh, you know,” Peter said, “all of the dull and stupid questions people ask when they meet you. All the stuff no one really cares about. What do you do? ‘Why do you give a fuck what I do?’ I always want to say.”
“I actually have the temptation to do the same thing, but that’s because I’m an artist who hustles doing low wage jobs.”
“Like Marabeth,” Peter said. Then he shrugged. “That’s probably how you met Mara.”
“No, I met Mara in college when we were becoming the nobodies we are today. You know when your mind just works this one certain way, and you’re always looking for someone who understands you, and then you find that person? When you finally find them, you know a lot of trouble’s gonna happen.”
“No,” Peter said. Then he said, “I know what it’s like to want to meet that person, but no. I haven’t met that person.”
Peter pulled his legs up onto the couch. His jacket was gone and he was just in pants and white shirt, his tie hanging like a thin and half hearted noose. Joyce knew all the men in Marabeth’s family, even Kristian, stayed in suits, some of them shabbier than others, but still she wondered how you could wear one all day.
“It’s funny,” Peter said, “I think people get married because they think their spouses will be their best friends. It’s like the two of you are supposed to be everything to each other.”
“That might be true,” Joyce allowed, “if we were lesbians.”
Peter snorted, laughing out loud.
“I think,” Joyce continued, while Peter recovered from laughing, “that men think their wives are going to be everything, and women never expect that from their husbands. It’s strange cause most of the women I know will do anything to get a man, and most of the men I know do so little.”
Peter had stopped laughing, and Joyce said, “I’m sorry to be so brutal.”
“No,” Peter said. “You’re right. I did too little.”
“You know what?” Joyce said, “I feel like that’s bullshit. I feel like men who do too little never know it. I’m looking around here and you’re raising three kids and going to work in pressed suits every day and, apparently, being a big brother to Jim, and I feel like you’re doing a fuck of a lot. You seem like one of those guys who is always beating himself up. You seem like one of those guys girls were afraid to date because they were on their way to Harvard and head of the Young Republicans.”
“What the fuck?” Peter said.
“What?”
“I was, in fact, head of the Young Republicans until I became a Democrat, but… You know what?”
“I talk to fucking much.”
“Maybe,” Peter allowed, “but I like you. You make wild crazy assumptions which turn out to be true.”
Marabeth made her way up the steps and down the hall to Kris’s room.
“I have to get out of here,” Kris was saying even before she came to the door.
“How did you know it was me?”
Kris looked up at her tiredly, “It really wouldn’t be anyone else. What’s up, Sis?”
“If you have to go—”
“Siddown,” Kris said, “You know I’ve always got time for you.”
Marabeth nodded and sat on the bed while her brother stopped combing his hair and came to sit beside her.
“I’ve been reading that book all night. I had to stop for a while.”
“What have you learned?”
“I can’t talk about it with anyone downstairs. I tried. All I said was… that Pamela thought she was a witch. That she was raised by a witch. But not by her mother. She and Friederich grew up some place in Germany—which we knew—some village and… I’m not telling this very well. She actually slept with him.”
“Slept with who? Slept with whom? Who?” Kris screwed up his face. “Slept with Friederich?”
“Yes.”
“She fucked her own father?”
“Yes, Kris,” Marabeth said, “and that’s not the half of it. Well, it is the half of it, but… She says she saw Friederich turn into a wolf. She says Friederich was a werewolf. Not only that, she says she was too.”
Kris’s expression had changed, and now Marabeth said, “What?”
“There was that letter, the one I gave you from Eve about the herb her grandfather showed Pamela… the medicine.”
“Wulfbane.”
“Yes.”
Kris stood up and moved to his bureau. He gave Marabeth the tablets and she said, “What is this, birth control? You know the girl you’re sleeping with takes these and not… what the fuck is aconitum carmichaelii?”
“Wulfbane.” Kris said.
When his sister blinked at him, he continued.
“Yes. Do you remember when I went crazy as a teenager? When Mom and Dad put me away and then took me to the doctor? This is my medication, Mara.”
Marabeth nodded, and then she said, “Kristian, I’m not sure what you’re saying.”
“I have the same thing Dad had that drove him nuts. That made him go away and never come back. His dad, our granddad had the same thing and maybe Uncle Byron. What if they were the same as Friederich?”
“Are you saying you believe this?” Marabeth gestured out the hall, because it was as close as she could get to pointing at the book.
“Are you saying you don’t?” Kris demanded. “Because if you didn’t, why the fuck would you have come up here to tell me about it? Why wouldn’t you be laughing in your room about it? You know there’s something about us, Marabeth.”
“That we’re werewolves?”
“Or that I am,” Kris said. “It… I know you never expected to hear that from me, but I think that’s why Uri took me to Chicago, so that I could really look at… every option.”
“But Kristian,” Marabeth said, “If this is true, and I think something is true, I really think something is happening, but if this was true, wouldn’t I be a werewolf? Wouldn’t everyone in our family be one? Wouldn’t we all be taking these pills? And why weren’t they? Pamela and Friederich? Because they aren’t like movie werewolves. I mean they turn into full on wolves.”
“The wolves in fairy tales did too. Werewolf is a German word that went into the French. In the French stories the man turned into a wolf, not a wolf man.”
“But once a month. Because of the moon. He couldn’t help it.”
“And these pills stop it?”
“Maybe?”
“But why not take them only on the full moon?”
“The direction are specific,” Kris said. “Maybe they’re all sugar pills and the ones that have an effect I only take on the full moon. Or maybe, like birth control, it’s really a gradual dosage you have to take all the time.”
“I don’t want to believe that. I don’t want this to be… I also don’t want to say this is so crazy it’s not possible. I don’t want to be one of those silly people in books and movies who takes the whole plot to believe. Anything’s possible, I guess. But… Pamela did not take pills or herbs. She changed when she wanted to and didn’t when she didn’t. So…”
“You’ve just got to keep reading,” Kris told her earnestly.
Marabeth nodded.
“Are you still going out?”
“Yeah,” Kris said. “I have to. Maybe you should too.”
“No, I’ve had enough out, and the only thing open is I Hop. Joy took Peter home and I guess she went back to her place cause she isn’t back here, and Jim either went to bed or is still downstairs.”
“Pancakes sound great. Oh—” Kris started.
“Oh, what?”
Kristian Strauss cleared his throat.
“I did a shitty thing.”
Marabeth looked at her brother.
“Jim came up here and I tore into him. He wanted to talk about Dad and I told him how our Dad wasn’t his dad, he was just a cousin and I was tired of him trying to act like he was our brother. And…”
He stopped at the look on his sister’s face, but continued.
“I told him his sadness was nothing compared to mine and he didn’t have a right to try to … I was really awful.”
Marabeth looked sad and horrified and she said, “How could you do that?”
When Kris didn’t say anything, she said, “That’s not like you. It’s something about Jim that always makes you do things like that.”
“Maybe it’s exactly what I said,” Kris said miserably “Maybe I really didn’t want him trying to be our brother.”
“But he is. Dad loved Jim. Dad was there after both of his parents... His mom and dad died years ago. All he has is us.”
“I know that!” Kris said, miserably. “I know that. I felt awful for saying all that.”
“You have to say you’re sorry.”
Kris shook his head.
“I can’t.”
“You have to.”
“You don’t understand. That’s not the relationship we have. I… I can’t say I’m sorry for saying that I said. That doesn’t cover it. And it’s really too late for me and Jim to be friends. I think I’m a very jealous, nasty person.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Jim’s life… has been shitty, and it never gets him down and he built a real life for himself and I had everything. Until now. Had a mom and a dad. And… I’ve always been jealous about keeping what I had, always thought Jim outshone me. I’m mean and I’m hateful and Jim knows that about me. I show it to him all the time. There’s no use saying sorry.”
Marabeth reached out to touch his hand, but Kris shook his head and stood up.
“I’m gonna go, Sis, See you in the morning.”
TOMORROW IS A HOLIDAY AND THERE WILL BE NO POSTING UNTIL SATURDAY NIGHT, SUNDAY AFTERNOON IN AUSTRALIA.
“I think,” Joyce MacNamara told Peter Keller, “that I’m going to take you home.”
“You’re a naughty lady, Joyce,” Peter said to her and Rebecca said, “Yeah, it’s definitely time to take him home.”
“I’ll go get the kids.”
Peter stood up and caught the chair. He blinked.
“Are you alright?” Jim asked.
“Yes, it’s just that I haven’t stood up in an hour or so.”
“Don’t worry about the kids, they’re asleep,” Rebecca said. “You can come and get them tomorrow.”
“I gotta get to bed,” Peter said. Then he said, “Do you know I have to work tomorrow? No rest for the wicked.”
“Isn’t it a conference call?” Jim asked him.
Peter frowned. “It’s still work.”
“I really do appreciate this,” Peter said to Joyce.
“It is no problem at all,” Joyce said.
Most of the family had gone home now. Outside, on the stoop, in the very cold darkness lit up by snow, Peter declared, “I instantly feel ten percent more sober.”
“Me too,” Joyce said, “and that’s a good thing because I’m driving.”
“I can drive myself home.”
“You’re not that much more sober,” Joyce said. “Just give me directions.”
It turned out that Peter did live fairly close, about ten blocks over, but the zigzagging directions through small streets he gave were so confusing, Joyce said, “There had to be a easier way.”
“I’m sure there is,” Peter said.
Joyce parked and Peter said, “Would you like to come in for a bit?”
“For what? A nightcap? Cause we’ve been drinking all night.”
“I don’t know,” Peter shrugged. “Maybe because I’m not sure I feel like being alone right now, and I don’t know if you do either.”
“That is very –”
“Presumptuous.”
“I was going to say perceptive,” Joyce replied. “This is the strangest Christmas, and I’m not quite ready for it to end.”
Peter’s house was an old Queen Anne with many roves and turrets amidst a couple of other Queen Annes, and across the street a row of townhouses not unlike the one the Strausses lived in.
“I didn’t expect you to live in a house like this,” she said, coming up the steps after the tall man in his still immaculate suit. He didn’t seem that drunk now, either.
Peter smiled at her, and on the long wraparound porch he said, “You met me tonight for the first time and you already decided where I lived?”
“I thought it would be a modern, happening house. Sleek, full of glass walls—”
Peter grunted as he pushed in the door after unlocking it.
“White carpets,” Joyce continued, “a shelf with brandy sniffers and good liquor that a power attorney would drink.”
“Well, before you continue that,” Peter said, flipping on the light, “don’t trip over my son’s Thomas the Tank Engine. Which,” Peter bent down in front of Joyce, “I have told him not to leave out in the hallways.”
It was a very old house, and though built differently, reminded her of the house on Dimler Street.
“I don’t know how you knew I was an attorney—” Peter began.
“I was just saying some shit, and by the way, where the hell were you a year ago when I was filing bankruptcy?”
“Probably filing divorce papers. And I think I would have had just the kind of place you described. But I got married. And then I had kids. And… I wanted to be around my family. So… I’m here.”
“Here is very nice.”
Joyce looked up at the ceilings, and at the children’s art.
“You have to excuse the mess,” Peter said.
“I love the mess,” Joyce said, looking at socks on the floor and a stuffed giraffe peaking at her from the sofa.
“Well, then you’ll love my kitchen.”
“How often do you have your boys? Hell, I don’t even think I know how many you have.”
“The Twins and Ryan,” Peter said, “and all under ten. Yay!” he clapped his hands. “And I have them most of the time. I got them in the divorce. I got basically everything, and when I say everything I mean the responsibility. It was not a good marriage.”
“She sounds really… But it’s not my place to say.”
Peter smiled bitterly and jammed his hands into his pockets.
“I was not a good husband.”
“You seem good enough to me.”
“I’m not married to you,” Peter said. “Com’on, I’ll get you a drink. You, me and the giraffe can sit together and talk about life until you get bored.”
“What do you do for work? Have you seen Hamilton? Isn’t it a shame Hilary didn’t win?”
“What?” Joyce said.
“Wasn’t it a awful about Game of Thrones? Have you seen the new season of Black Mirror?”
“I don’t even know what the fuck you’re getting at?”
“Oh, you know,” Peter said, “all of the dull and stupid questions people ask when they meet you. All the stuff no one really cares about. What do you do? ‘Why do you give a fuck what I do?’ I always want to say.”
“I actually have the temptation to do the same thing, but that’s because I’m an artist who hustles doing low wage jobs.”
“Like Marabeth,” Peter said. Then he shrugged. “That’s probably how you met Mara.”
“No, I met Mara in college when we were becoming the nobodies we are today. You know when your mind just works this one certain way, and you’re always looking for someone who understands you, and then you find that person? When you finally find them, you know a lot of trouble’s gonna happen.”
“No,” Peter said. Then he said, “I know what it’s like to want to meet that person, but no. I haven’t met that person.”
Peter pulled his legs up onto the couch. His jacket was gone and he was just in pants and white shirt, his tie hanging like a thin and half hearted noose. Joyce knew all the men in Marabeth’s family, even Kristian, stayed in suits, some of them shabbier than others, but still she wondered how you could wear one all day.
“It’s funny,” Peter said, “I think people get married because they think their spouses will be their best friends. It’s like the two of you are supposed to be everything to each other.”
“That might be true,” Joyce allowed, “if we were lesbians.”
Peter snorted, laughing out loud.
“I think,” Joyce continued, while Peter recovered from laughing, “that men think their wives are going to be everything, and women never expect that from their husbands. It’s strange cause most of the women I know will do anything to get a man, and most of the men I know do so little.”
Peter had stopped laughing, and Joyce said, “I’m sorry to be so brutal.”
“No,” Peter said. “You’re right. I did too little.”
“You know what?” Joyce said, “I feel like that’s bullshit. I feel like men who do too little never know it. I’m looking around here and you’re raising three kids and going to work in pressed suits every day and, apparently, being a big brother to Jim, and I feel like you’re doing a fuck of a lot. You seem like one of those guys who is always beating himself up. You seem like one of those guys girls were afraid to date because they were on their way to Harvard and head of the Young Republicans.”
“What the fuck?” Peter said.
“What?”
“I was, in fact, head of the Young Republicans until I became a Democrat, but… You know what?”
“I talk to fucking much.”
“Maybe,” Peter allowed, “but I like you. You make wild crazy assumptions which turn out to be true.”
Marabeth made her way up the steps and down the hall to Kris’s room.
“I have to get out of here,” Kris was saying even before she came to the door.
“How did you know it was me?”
Kris looked up at her tiredly, “It really wouldn’t be anyone else. What’s up, Sis?”
“If you have to go—”
“Siddown,” Kris said, “You know I’ve always got time for you.”
Marabeth nodded and sat on the bed while her brother stopped combing his hair and came to sit beside her.
“I’ve been reading that book all night. I had to stop for a while.”
“What have you learned?”
“I can’t talk about it with anyone downstairs. I tried. All I said was… that Pamela thought she was a witch. That she was raised by a witch. But not by her mother. She and Friederich grew up some place in Germany—which we knew—some village and… I’m not telling this very well. She actually slept with him.”
“Slept with who? Slept with whom? Who?” Kris screwed up his face. “Slept with Friederich?”
“Yes.”
“She fucked her own father?”
“Yes, Kris,” Marabeth said, “and that’s not the half of it. Well, it is the half of it, but… She says she saw Friederich turn into a wolf. She says Friederich was a werewolf. Not only that, she says she was too.”
Kris’s expression had changed, and now Marabeth said, “What?”
“There was that letter, the one I gave you from Eve about the herb her grandfather showed Pamela… the medicine.”
“Wulfbane.”
“Yes.”
Kris stood up and moved to his bureau. He gave Marabeth the tablets and she said, “What is this, birth control? You know the girl you’re sleeping with takes these and not… what the fuck is aconitum carmichaelii?”
“Wulfbane.” Kris said.
When his sister blinked at him, he continued.
“Yes. Do you remember when I went crazy as a teenager? When Mom and Dad put me away and then took me to the doctor? This is my medication, Mara.”
Marabeth nodded, and then she said, “Kristian, I’m not sure what you’re saying.”
“I have the same thing Dad had that drove him nuts. That made him go away and never come back. His dad, our granddad had the same thing and maybe Uncle Byron. What if they were the same as Friederich?”
“Are you saying you believe this?” Marabeth gestured out the hall, because it was as close as she could get to pointing at the book.
“Are you saying you don’t?” Kris demanded. “Because if you didn’t, why the fuck would you have come up here to tell me about it? Why wouldn’t you be laughing in your room about it? You know there’s something about us, Marabeth.”
“That we’re werewolves?”
“Or that I am,” Kris said. “It… I know you never expected to hear that from me, but I think that’s why Uri took me to Chicago, so that I could really look at… every option.”
“But Kristian,” Marabeth said, “If this is true, and I think something is true, I really think something is happening, but if this was true, wouldn’t I be a werewolf? Wouldn’t everyone in our family be one? Wouldn’t we all be taking these pills? And why weren’t they? Pamela and Friederich? Because they aren’t like movie werewolves. I mean they turn into full on wolves.”
“The wolves in fairy tales did too. Werewolf is a German word that went into the French. In the French stories the man turned into a wolf, not a wolf man.”
“But once a month. Because of the moon. He couldn’t help it.”
“And these pills stop it?”
“Maybe?”
“But why not take them only on the full moon?”
“The direction are specific,” Kris said. “Maybe they’re all sugar pills and the ones that have an effect I only take on the full moon. Or maybe, like birth control, it’s really a gradual dosage you have to take all the time.”
“I don’t want to believe that. I don’t want this to be… I also don’t want to say this is so crazy it’s not possible. I don’t want to be one of those silly people in books and movies who takes the whole plot to believe. Anything’s possible, I guess. But… Pamela did not take pills or herbs. She changed when she wanted to and didn’t when she didn’t. So…”
“You’ve just got to keep reading,” Kris told her earnestly.
Marabeth nodded.
“Are you still going out?”
“Yeah,” Kris said. “I have to. Maybe you should too.”
“No, I’ve had enough out, and the only thing open is I Hop. Joy took Peter home and I guess she went back to her place cause she isn’t back here, and Jim either went to bed or is still downstairs.”
“Pancakes sound great. Oh—” Kris started.
“Oh, what?”
Kristian Strauss cleared his throat.
“I did a shitty thing.”
Marabeth looked at her brother.
“Jim came up here and I tore into him. He wanted to talk about Dad and I told him how our Dad wasn’t his dad, he was just a cousin and I was tired of him trying to act like he was our brother. And…”
He stopped at the look on his sister’s face, but continued.
“I told him his sadness was nothing compared to mine and he didn’t have a right to try to … I was really awful.”
Marabeth looked sad and horrified and she said, “How could you do that?”
When Kris didn’t say anything, she said, “That’s not like you. It’s something about Jim that always makes you do things like that.”
“Maybe it’s exactly what I said,” Kris said miserably “Maybe I really didn’t want him trying to be our brother.”
“But he is. Dad loved Jim. Dad was there after both of his parents... His mom and dad died years ago. All he has is us.”
“I know that!” Kris said, miserably. “I know that. I felt awful for saying all that.”
“You have to say you’re sorry.”
Kris shook his head.
“I can’t.”
“You have to.”
“You don’t understand. That’s not the relationship we have. I… I can’t say I’m sorry for saying that I said. That doesn’t cover it. And it’s really too late for me and Jim to be friends. I think I’m a very jealous, nasty person.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Jim’s life… has been shitty, and it never gets him down and he built a real life for himself and I had everything. Until now. Had a mom and a dad. And… I’ve always been jealous about keeping what I had, always thought Jim outshone me. I’m mean and I’m hateful and Jim knows that about me. I show it to him all the time. There’s no use saying sorry.”
Marabeth reached out to touch his hand, but Kris shook his head and stood up.
“I’m gonna go, Sis, See you in the morning.”
TOMORROW IS A HOLIDAY AND THERE WILL BE NO POSTING UNTIL SATURDAY NIGHT, SUNDAY AFTERNOON IN AUSTRALIA.
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
That was a great portion! The Strauss's are discovering a lot about their history. I am still enjoying getting back into this story. I hope you have a great holiday!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
Yes. Well, primarily Marabeth is learning about the deep history, but Kris and Jim and Peter are dealing with their present and their very recent past. Of course, all of these things are tied up and its a lot of wounds involved. Thank you for the well wishes. I think it's going to be a very interesting holiday.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
F I V E
NEED
When you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.
-Friedrich Nietzsche
Past midnight, Joyce McNamara found herself making out with Peter Keller.
“Do you mind?” Peter stopped for a moment.
“No.” And then Joyce said, “Mind what?”
Peter reached passed her, He’d forgotten he had unbuttoned his shirt, and his tie was on the floor. He took the giraffe and gently put it down there too, turning it around.
When Joyce looked at him. He went red.
“I felt like he was looking at me.”
“Yeah,” Joyce laughed. “I got that. And who wants to be judged by a giraffe?”
“It’s not even that,” Peter said, and then he said, “You’re going to think I’m such a nerd.”
“Peter, I already think you’re a nerd”
“I just feel like Mr. Yips shouldn’t see us making out.”
“He has a name. Well, I mean that does make sense.”
“Has a name, makes a noise. Yip yip yip. Madder made it up. And Mr. Yips is a very innocent three foot giraffe.”
“That is cute as fuck,” Joyce said.,
Peter frowned. “You don’t think it’s sad that a forty year old man believes he has to turn a stuffed animal’s head around when he’s making out for the first time in… a very long time?”
“No, I think it’s actually the least sad thing that’s happened this night.”
“Amen,” Peter said. “Well,” he sat back on the couch, hair disheveled, shirt undone, “I have probably killed the mood we were—”
Joyce kissed him quickly.
“What was that for?”
“Because,” Joyce said, “I’m not a slut, but I feel like you’re one of those guys who isn’t aggressive, doesn’t press his advantage, and might not know if a girl is interested.”
When Peter turned to her with a half smile, she was surprised by how handsome he looked with part of his dark hair hanging in his face, and his blue eyes a little fiercer than they had been.
“I’m interested,” she said, simply.
“I’m out of practice,” he placed his hand over hers. “I don’t want to get you into something you’ll regret.”
“Or you’ll regret?”
“Joyce MacNamara, I would not regret you. Just tell me when you want me to stop, how far you wanna go.”
Joyce felt flushed and foolish. She said, “I guess I’m the New Woman and you’re the New Man and you’re waiting for my affirmation.”
“I could carry you up the stairs like Rhett Butler and you could slap me. That used to be hot.”
“My ass is too fat to carry, but the idea of going upstairs with you feels like something I want to happen.”
Peter turned away from her, his face red.
“Me too,” he said. He turned back to look at Joyce.
“I’m not… I’m not that guy that’s good with stuff like this.”
“Sex.”
“No, I’m great at sex. No!” he smacked himself in the head.
“I mean, yes, I guess. It’s my words. And my feelings, My affections. I… I’d like to go upstairs too. If you’d like to.”
The more unsure and gentle he was, the more she wanted him, and part of her wondered if it was some game he played to lure women, but Joyce knew as soon as she’d thought this that it couldn’t be true. She said, “Yes, Pete.”
“Did you just call me Pete?”
“I was trying something. Didn’t feel right did it? You’re definitely a Peter.”
“I kind of am, and I’ve tried to be a Peter, but—”
“Peter.”
“Yes, Joy?”
“Take me upstairs.”
Marabeth lay spread out on her stomach, the book open before her and her door open. She was a little surprised when her mother entered.
“Are you alright.” she asked Rebecca.
“I’m supposed to be asking you that.”
“Well, I can still ask you.”
“What about you?” Rebecca said.
“I think I feel like Grandma. I think I always knew he was gone, but really knowing it makes me feel better. I just want us to have… what’s left. So we can do right by him. Have a real funeral. It’s Kris you should check on, but he’s out.”
“You think he went out with Jim?”
“Oh, I doubt that very much. Jim’s out?”
“Yeah. He said he was going home, which surprised me. I thought he’d stay in his old room. Not that there’s any reason he should, I mean, he has a beautiful apartment. So do you. But—”
“Mother,” Marabeth said, “you’re starting to ramble. Just a bit.”
“Well, yes,” Rebecca admitted. “It’s what I do when... when I’m exhausted and sad and concerned for my family.”
“I’ll keep my door open,” Marabeth offered.
Rebecca nodded and said, “I was just going to say you have a lovely apartment, but I’m so glad you’re here tonight.”
“I’m glad I’m here too, Mom.”
Rebecca kissed her then moved to the door.
Before leaving she said, “Mara, your father was troubled by many things, and I imagine you will begin to understand them if you read what your aunt wrote. Try not to stay up too much longer, and don’t let Pamela’s mind fill yours. I remember her. I remember what that was like.”
In the grey light of morning, he woke up sprawled naked across her bed, exhausted from passion that had burned all pain away. His usual messy hair was more of a bird’s nest than ever, and the girl, half asleep, looked over his long body covered in brown hair, then looked on his blinking pale blue eyes and thought of a wolf.
“Was it good for you?” she asked him.
“That’s what I should be asking you,” Kris Strauss said, yawning.
“I hurt,” she stated. “I’ll probably hurt for the next day.”
Kris blinked suddenly and turned over, looking concerned, but she laughed and said, “You don’t understand, sometimes a bitch needs it like that.”
She sighed, lying down in the damp sheets. “I needed it like that. How did you know?”
Kris always knew. Last night he left the house and thought about heading to a club before he realized on Christmas every club and bar would be closed. But his sister was right. I-Hop never closed. He sat in the restaurant drinking cup after cup of coffee, chatting down the waitress. And it wasn’t that he had an undeniable magnetism, though intellectual, a little unshaven and shaggy, tall and with a look of playfulness in his eyes, he did. He knew that what spoke to hunger was other hunger, and he knew in a way he could not explain, that she was hungry. He didn’t eat anything, he had eaten enough, and he wasn’t really here for food. When she said she was getting off, he asked what she was doing later on.
“It’s one in the morning. I should be going to sleep.”
“Yes,” Kris said, “you probably should.”
“But I want something to do. You know?”
“Oh, I know.”
She laughed a little, but it wasn’t a real laugh, and she asked, “Do you think you’d want to follow me home?”
“I’m not opposed to it.”
“Oh, I should get to bed.”
“I’ll definitely make sure you get there.”
Now she did laugh, and she said, “Bad things happen when I start talking like this.”
Kris placed his hand over hers. It was a long, strong hand with traces of hair on the back, and his eyes were merry and pale blue and a little bit wicked.
“I…” he began, “shouldn’t take you home.”
“Don’t take me home, then.”
In the parking lot of the I-Hop, the windows of the waitress’s car were steamed over as it rocked from side to side and Kris fucked her in the backseat.
“Oh, God!” she cried, loud, her fingernails raking his ass and then coming up under his shirt, under his jacket while he fucked her on hands and knees, pressing her up against a window.
“You like it?” he growled. “You like it? You like my big,” he fucked her, “fucking,” he thrust into her, “cock, in you?”
“Give it to me. Shove it in my pussy.”
He loved sex like this, and she moaned, her fingers curling in the little hairs at the back of his neck, “come inside of me, okay. Make a mess in me.”
He repositioned her and with each syllable he pushed into her, “I’m going to come inside of your tight, tight, tight pussyyy—oooooooh, G—”
He lost himself in orgasm, his mouth open, the veins of his neck standing out, his head tilted up, eyes almost blind as the sweat ran down his temples.
Many men hated the feeling of defeat that came after sex, the feeling of being rung out, emptied, deflated. Wishing to crush they themselves were crushed, but Kris loved it, this being taken out of himself, this weakness after the strength, his shirt damp under his blazer, his pants down around his knees, heaving, unable to speak, his penis becoming moist and soft after he pulled it from this woman, still dripping come.
“Do you still want to follow me home,” the waitress asked, “or has the feeling passed now that you got what you needed?”
Kris didn’t talk right away, his rough cheek lay against hers, unconsciously, his bare ass was still pointed in the air.
“The thing is,” he began to explain, “I never really get everything I need.”
MORE TOMORROW
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CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
Great to return to this story. Things are progressing well and I am enjoying where its going. Excellent writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
Well, now a great deal happened tonight, and it seems as if Marabeth is the only person who will be sleeping alone.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
CONCLUSION OF CHAPTER FIVE
He was not needy, but he was in need. Kris Strauss hated needy people. They would find anyone and tell them everything. It was one of the reasons he had so few friends. He didn’t need to tell this girl everything, but he needed more than a quick fuck in the back of a car ,and yes, he had needed that fuck. People were so twisted up because they didn’t want to admit what they needed. They thought they were so much more and so much stronger than they were. Kris knew he needed to abase himself, to hard fuck someone, but he needed to follow this girl home, believe in that strange predatory magic. The Native Americans said that the buffalo gave themselves up to be slaughtered and Kris thought, driving home with an erection rising between his legs, pointing straight at the car whose red taillights blinked up Dorr Road and then out into the suburbs, that people who wanted to fuck were like that too.. Back In her apartment they drank a little and talked, and Kris needed that. He needed to hear this girl talk about work. He needed to rub her feet after offering. He didn’t need to simply be consumed or comforted. He needed to offer comfort. He needed to forget his own sorrow in the sorrows of the world, to make that magical connection to a stranger he would never see again. The two of them in the shower, him washing her back, washing her hair, washing her skin so tenderly, getting on his knees to adore her, to bow before her, to bury his face in her pussy only to lay against the tiles groaning while she sucked his cock until her mouth ballooned and she gagged while he twisted and shuddered as his semen spilled out of her mouth and down her throat. He needed them sleeping exhausted in that bed, and then he needed the deep dark middle of the middle of the night sex.
Driving back in an early morning so devoid of dawn it was more night than day, and everyone still used their headlights, Kris thought how there was a time when he would have saved the number of every girl he’d had a one night stand with. But that was to prolong the magic, to be greedy almost. The good sex of one night didn’t make a relationship. He knew this now. He drove over the pebbles and snow of the alley behind Dimler Street, and getting out of his car, unlocked and hefted up the heavy door of the old garage behind the house. Having parked, he came through the little door leading into the backyard and the carriage house, covered in dried vines and snow, the paint falling off of wet wood where Pamela had lived her last days. No one lived here now. He passed the yard and went up the steps of the back porch, and into the kitchen, thankful that his grandmother or mother were not in it yet. Taking off his shoes, he trekked silently up the three flights to his room on his floor, and exhausted, body humming from lovemaking, Kris Strauss went to bed.
“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 Strauss 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. 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 went to close the blinds while Jim said, “I’ll get the curtains.”
They were standing side by, naked, Jim golden and Ryan dark and white, and Ryan closed the blinds.
“I was hoping you would stay,” Jim said as he drew the dark curtains.
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 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 Ryan.
“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 bad 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 baggy basketball shorts 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 from behind and 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, and this one has a tendency to collapse.”
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 to 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 from 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. He 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.”
MORE TOMORROW
He was not needy, but he was in need. Kris Strauss hated needy people. They would find anyone and tell them everything. It was one of the reasons he had so few friends. He didn’t need to tell this girl everything, but he needed more than a quick fuck in the back of a car ,and yes, he had needed that fuck. People were so twisted up because they didn’t want to admit what they needed. They thought they were so much more and so much stronger than they were. Kris knew he needed to abase himself, to hard fuck someone, but he needed to follow this girl home, believe in that strange predatory magic. The Native Americans said that the buffalo gave themselves up to be slaughtered and Kris thought, driving home with an erection rising between his legs, pointing straight at the car whose red taillights blinked up Dorr Road and then out into the suburbs, that people who wanted to fuck were like that too.. Back In her apartment they drank a little and talked, and Kris needed that. He needed to hear this girl talk about work. He needed to rub her feet after offering. He didn’t need to simply be consumed or comforted. He needed to offer comfort. He needed to forget his own sorrow in the sorrows of the world, to make that magical connection to a stranger he would never see again. The two of them in the shower, him washing her back, washing her hair, washing her skin so tenderly, getting on his knees to adore her, to bow before her, to bury his face in her pussy only to lay against the tiles groaning while she sucked his cock until her mouth ballooned and she gagged while he twisted and shuddered as his semen spilled out of her mouth and down her throat. He needed them sleeping exhausted in that bed, and then he needed the deep dark middle of the middle of the night sex.
Driving back in an early morning so devoid of dawn it was more night than day, and everyone still used their headlights, Kris thought how there was a time when he would have saved the number of every girl he’d had a one night stand with. But that was to prolong the magic, to be greedy almost. The good sex of one night didn’t make a relationship. He knew this now. He drove over the pebbles and snow of the alley behind Dimler Street, and getting out of his car, unlocked and hefted up the heavy door of the old garage behind the house. Having parked, he came through the little door leading into the backyard and the carriage house, covered in dried vines and snow, the paint falling off of wet wood where Pamela had lived her last days. No one lived here now. He passed the yard and went up the steps of the back porch, and into the kitchen, thankful that his grandmother or mother were not in it yet. Taking off his shoes, he trekked silently up the three flights to his room on his floor, and exhausted, body humming from lovemaking, Kris Strauss went to bed.
“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 Strauss 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. 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 went to close the blinds while Jim said, “I’ll get the curtains.”
They were standing side by, naked, Jim golden and Ryan dark and white, and Ryan closed the blinds.
“I was hoping you would stay,” Jim said as he drew the dark curtains.
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 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 Ryan.
“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 bad 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 baggy basketball shorts 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 from behind and 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, and this one has a tendency to collapse.”
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 to 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 from 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. He 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.”
MORE TOMORROW
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
That was a great portion! Lots of sex and relationships happening and I am enjoying that. Never a dull moment in the lives of the Strausses and the people who associate with them. I am really glad that you decided to post this new version of this story! Excellent writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
Oh, yes, it seems chapter five lived up to its name: Need. Everyone was getting up to something tonight, and having all sorts of adventures. I'm glad I posted the story too, and glad you're reading. The adventure continues tomorrow. I'm glad you'll be there.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
TONIGHT, PAMELA LEARNS A FEW THINGS WORTH KNOWING AND, ONE HUNDRED YEARS LATER, SO DOES MARABETH
S I X
THE BOOK
When you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you..
-Friedrich Nietzsche
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. He told me tales I had never heard before, that some knew very well, that you must have known in some version.
When the Great Wolf, Fenris, began to run amok, he first went back to the place where he was born. Tyr and the other Aesir had tried to keep him from going back to the Iron Wood, but one day he escaped and fled to his birthplace, and was reunited with his mother Angrboda, and his werewolf half-siblings. It is not known what happened to him there, save that when he left, his maddened devouring rage had begun in earnest, and a wolf-woman of the Jarnvidur had borne two wolf-pups, the very image of their father. In another account, the mother of Hati and Skoll was Angrboda herself, by Fenris her son, but we may never know the truth of this. Skoll's name means "treachery" while Hati's name means "Hater". Hati is also sometimes given two different last names – Hróðvitnisson, Son of Rage and Managarm, the Hound of the Moon-hound.
When Fenris was chained, Hati and Skoll were the only ones who came to defend him. Loki and Angrboda themselves did not interfere, knowing the necessity of the binding, but his young sons tumbled forth in a vain attempt to free their father. Instead, they were captured by the Aesir, and Odin put them to use, bespelling them as he had bespelled the Great Snake. Sunna and Mani had often been known to dawdle or change their course, which meant that the days and nights were not always dependable and on time. Mani was especially bad at this, as he liked to look down on what was happening, and the adventures played out below his feet enchanted and delayed him. There had been complaints about this from many mouths, and so Odin put the two wolves into the sky as a way to make the chariots run on time, as it were. Skoll was bespelled to chase Sunna's chariot as a dog herds sheep, keeping it to its path, and Hati, called Hati Hridvitisson, and Managarm, was similarly charged with herding Mani's dog-cart.
While they do not spend all of their time in the sky, the wolves can run free on the earth below - if either sky-etin is late, they are lifted into the sky to do their job. Skoll is the quieter of the two, and says little; he does not love the involuntary nature of his job, although he gets some fun out of racing Sunna, but he is aware that it is a better deal than the one that befell his father. Hati is more outgoing and more moody; he veers from cheery mischief to wrath, and deeply resents the spell that pulls him so often to the sky. Both are aware that if Ragnarok comes, they will be able to chase and kill Sunna and Mani, and free themselves from Odin's spell, and they look forward to that day.
When he told these stories, he explained nothing.
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 pulled 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 now 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 now 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 wanted to close her bedroom 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 his strong warm body covered in its human pelt of rich blond fur. “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.
MORE ON WEDNESDAY
S I X
THE BOOK
When you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you..
-Friedrich Nietzsche
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. He told me tales I had never heard before, that some knew very well, that you must have known in some version.
When the Great Wolf, Fenris, began to run amok, he first went back to the place where he was born. Tyr and the other Aesir had tried to keep him from going back to the Iron Wood, but one day he escaped and fled to his birthplace, and was reunited with his mother Angrboda, and his werewolf half-siblings. It is not known what happened to him there, save that when he left, his maddened devouring rage had begun in earnest, and a wolf-woman of the Jarnvidur had borne two wolf-pups, the very image of their father. In another account, the mother of Hati and Skoll was Angrboda herself, by Fenris her son, but we may never know the truth of this. Skoll's name means "treachery" while Hati's name means "Hater". Hati is also sometimes given two different last names – Hróðvitnisson, Son of Rage and Managarm, the Hound of the Moon-hound.
When Fenris was chained, Hati and Skoll were the only ones who came to defend him. Loki and Angrboda themselves did not interfere, knowing the necessity of the binding, but his young sons tumbled forth in a vain attempt to free their father. Instead, they were captured by the Aesir, and Odin put them to use, bespelling them as he had bespelled the Great Snake. Sunna and Mani had often been known to dawdle or change their course, which meant that the days and nights were not always dependable and on time. Mani was especially bad at this, as he liked to look down on what was happening, and the adventures played out below his feet enchanted and delayed him. There had been complaints about this from many mouths, and so Odin put the two wolves into the sky as a way to make the chariots run on time, as it were. Skoll was bespelled to chase Sunna's chariot as a dog herds sheep, keeping it to its path, and Hati, called Hati Hridvitisson, and Managarm, was similarly charged with herding Mani's dog-cart.
While they do not spend all of their time in the sky, the wolves can run free on the earth below - if either sky-etin is late, they are lifted into the sky to do their job. Skoll is the quieter of the two, and says little; he does not love the involuntary nature of his job, although he gets some fun out of racing Sunna, but he is aware that it is a better deal than the one that befell his father. Hati is more outgoing and more moody; he veers from cheery mischief to wrath, and deeply resents the spell that pulls him so often to the sky. Both are aware that if Ragnarok comes, they will be able to chase and kill Sunna and Mani, and free themselves from Odin's spell, and they look forward to that day.
When he told these stories, he explained nothing.
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 pulled 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 now 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 now 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 wanted to close her bedroom 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 his strong warm body covered in its human pelt of rich blond fur. “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.
MORE ON WEDNESDAY
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