The Blood: A Denoument

[ChrisGibson]

Glad you enjoyed.

 

[ChrisGibson]

T H R E E

F L Y I N G




But ye, o my people, rise up & awake!

-The Book of the Law




We’re doing it everyday. I’m not proud of it. I keep praying to be pure, to not be like this. It would be different if I was older or had a proper girlfriend, but I feel slutty and dirty. But I can’t stop doing it with Delia, and when I tell her it’s wrong she just laughs.
Here’s the thing, I’m fourteen and I should be better than this. I tell her I’m going to be better than this, and then she touches me in these ways, and we do it again. I did it to her in Aunt Pam’s house and she was putting her hands on me when I was doing it to her and telling me, Nate that feels so good, you feel so good, and then I lost control and started going really fast and just emptied in her.

The other night Mary Anne was getting dressed for the movies so her boyfriend Jackson could pick her up. She’s so pretty and I wish I could meet a girl like her. She’s always laughing and smiling. She says they’re going to see the movie Brother Sun, Sister Moon. It’s supposed to be about Saint Francis. Her mom, Aunt Maris, saw it, and said she didn’t approve and that there’s a point where Francis gets naked. Mary Anne doesn’t care a lick about what her mom says or how Maris always disapproves of stuff. She just laughs and says, “Well, then, I’m definitely going!”
When she comes back, she comes back alone. Jackson has gone home, she explains. She is a little sad, but mostly happy.
“Mary Anne,” my Grandmother Katherine says, “what has come over you?”
Mary Anne smiles like a blond angel.
“I saw Saint Clare, how lovely she was. How she followed Saint Francis. And how free he was. And then there was this part where he cut her hair, after she decided to follow Jesus, and it all came away like gold thread, and she was smiling, and he was smiling, and she was free. And I started crying, and Jackson looked at me like I had lost my mind. But I felt free too. I’m going to become a nun,” she said. “I’m going to follow Jesus.”


Jesus, can’t you make me good? Please Jesus, make me follow you and get my act together, stop doing nasty things. Let me be like Mary Anne.

Aunt Pam is gone south to visit friends (who knew she had friends?) and her little house is so pretty. It’s surrounded by flowers and Steiger painted it before he left again. I pretend I’m just going to check on Delia, but I’ve got a boner. My boners always hurt so bad. It’s like their (sp) reaching out and they don’t get better until I put them in Delia until I’m with her. My heart even starts thumping and my head hurts a little sometimes. It’s like my whole body is messed up until stuff starts to happen.
But when I get in the house I already hear the noises. I don’t know why I keep going upstairs. I go into the living room and I can’t believe it. It’s Granger, my older cousin. He’s almost eighteen, and bigger than me and his pants are down and he’s on the floor doing it to Delia, and for a moment they don’t see me, and then they stop, and Delia starts laughing and Grange looks embarrassed and he gets mad and says, “Get out.”
But Delia says, “No, don’t tell him to get out. Let him stay. Keep going.”
Grange looks at her and she says, “Keep going Grange.”
And then he does. He does it till he finishes and I’m hard and my head is spinning and then she tells me, “You might as well too,” and by now, I kind of have to, and so I get down on the floor and do it to her too, and when it’s done she laughs and goes to the bathroom and me and Grange sit in the living room not looking at each other, feeling really stupid.
He says, while the water’s running, “When she says do something, it’s like you have to. It’s like you’re under her spell.”
I don’t say anything. My underwear is sticking to me cause I’m still dripping and I feel more gross than I ever have before.
“You been doing to to her for a long time too?” Grange asks me. I don’t answer him. I get that the same way I need to not talk, he needs to talk.
Before the water shuts off, Granger says, “You think she’s doing it to all of us? All the guys in the family?”
“I don’t know, Grange,” I say.
“I kinda hate her,” Granger says.

You’d think that would make me stop, but I keep going to her and she keeps coming to me. Sometimes I see Granger coming out of Pamela’s house, and sometimes he sees me. And we just nod to each other. We’re both ashamed, but neither one of us can stop. I just want something normal with a normal girl who isn’t having sex with all of my cousins.
One day it isn’t Grange, but Byron who I find.
They aren’t on the floor. They’re in a bed and later on Byron tells me in a real quiet voice about how she really loves him and how she’s so innocent. That same night Delia visits me and says, “Don’t you tell Byron any different. He’s going to be my husband. I’m going to marry him. He’s going to make me a Strauss.”


MORE ON THURSDAY

 

[CharmedFan28]

Interesting to go back in time and see what was happening then. I hope you are having a great week and I look forward to more tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Well apparently the scandal doesn't stop with Pamela. Delia has brought in a whole new generation of foolishness.

 

[ChrisGibson]

NATHAN'S JOURNAL CONTINUES AND MARABETH CONTINUES TO BE SURPRISED


You’d think that would make me stop, but I keep going to her and she keeps coming to me. Sometimes I see Granger coming out of Pamela’s house, and sometimes he sees me. And we just nod to each other. We’re both ashamed, but neither one of us can stop. I just want something normal with a normal girl who isn’t having sex with all of my cousins.
One day it isn’t Grange, but Byron who I find.
They aren’t on the floor. They’re in a bed and later on Byron tells me in a real quiet voice about how she really loves him and how she’s so innocent. That same night Delia visits me and says, “Don’t you tell Byron any different. He’s going to be my husband. I’m going to marry him. He’s going to make me a Strauss.”

This Sunday, after Mass, we all went to the house on Williams Street and Grandma Keller made us a huge German dinner. Its our farewell to Mary Anne, and there was all of this crying, and then the next morning, Aunt Maris came back with Grange because Uncle Bill couldn’t bear to drop her off at the convent.
Granger came up to me and said, “Nate, when we dropped her off, Ma asked when Mary Anne could call home and the Mother Superior said in a few weeks. When Mom said, what if she needs to speak to her mother, the old bitch just said, “I’m her Mama now.”
I looked surprised and Granger said, “I’m tired of feeling bad about what I do. I hate priests and I hate nuns and I hate God.”

I wonder if Granger really means that. For my sixteenth birthday, Steiger comes back and he says, he’s taking Delia with him. She goes into fits and starts screaming, but he doesn’t seem to care. They’re moving to Washington.

I keep looking to the house. There’s no Delia there. There’s no hold over me. I feel sane again. Uncle Steiger taking her away was the best present I could get.

”She’s coming back for me,” Byron says. “she’s coming back for me again, and I’m going to marry her.”

It seems like Mary Anne went into the convent yesterday. I heard Aunt Claire saying to my little cousin Kate, ‘We’re going to see Mary Anne marry Jesus.”
Her convent is three hours away. We drive like we’re a funeral party or something, one car behind the other almost. Me, Byron, Kristin and Mom pile in with Aunt Maris and Uncle Bill. Their kids are all grown. Soon I will be too. Soon I’ll be going to college. Byron went to college and didn’t come back so hot. He’s with us now. Aunt Pamela rides in the backseat and she says, “If only Delia was here. If Delia and Steiger were here that would be a thing.”
I think it certainly would be a thing, and I’m sure glad they’re not, not that I don’t love Uncle Steiger, but when Uncle Steiger is around, then so is Delia and when Delia is around I don’t feel right. And she was doing stuff with Grange, and Grange is Mary Anne’s brother. He wouldn’t want to see his sister become a nun while he could still feel Delia on him.
The church where the nuns stay is beautiful. It doesn’t look like Saint Ursula’s at all. It’s bright with red brick and white pillars and sort of like Saint Agatha’s where the Blacks go to church, up the street from us. That’s what Mom says, “It’s just like Saint Agatha’s.” At Saint Ursula’s the mass is as heavy as it can get. It’s a lot like it was before the Pope changed everything and people could understand what was going on. I have to admit, I actually like it the old way, with all the Latin and all the mystery. And the church used to be so dark you could hardly see.
But in Mary Anne’s church, everything is bright, and there is a nun with a guitar singing,

“ Make me a channel of your peace,
where there is hatred let me show
your love.”

All the girls come in their wedding dresses, and Mom points out Mary Anne. Most of them have veils on and this one girl has some red kind of Indian dress on. Mary Anne looks so pretty and the priest gives her a candle and says something about she is called to follow the Lamb withersoever he goes. I keep whispering, withsoever, withersoever. Then all the girls are led away, and Aunt Pam says they’re going to have their hair cut off, and then they come back all in black with black crowns of thorns on their heads and they kneel and then they lay on the floor. I wanna cry for some reason. There’s this lump in my throat and I want to love Jesus. I want to not be a bad person and take those awful pills. And then the black veils come off and the white ones go on and everyone is singing.

Back home at Saint Ursula’s, I ask Father Gerlach if I could become a priest. He says that these days most orders like priests to have a college degree so I should think about that. I don’t have a taste for college or anything like that. I just saw the most amazing thing in the world. I want to be a part of it. I want to do something or be something that other people aren’t.

Even as I think that I remember that I am something that other people aren’t. It’s not like Mary Anne, who won’t have babies and who doesn’t have to take the medicine. I am a monster. Kind of. Even when I don’t want to feel it clawing in me, I can still feel it, sort of, in the inside of my throat, like a cough, leaping to get out. The Wolf.

I had a dream. I was running through the woods, and I was the wolf and there was another wolf with me. He was whiter than white and had blue eyes, and when he changed he was a tall man, blond, like my grandfather must have been once upon a time. But he was young and wild with a necklace of teeth about his throat. And I said, “Who are you?”`
He said, “The Wolf.”
Then he said, “Be the Wolf.”
I woke up covered in sweat.

I have decided to not take the medicine anymore.


























Marabeth sits in the study, and she hears the clock ticking. The shadow’s lengthen. The door opens.
“Marabeth?”
“Loreal,” Marabeth says to her pretty new friend with the cinnamon hair.
“Grandfather says dinner is almost ready.”
She can smell it. It smelld like fried pork chops or maybe chicken, a really Southern meal, or at least a Black one? What else is she smelling? Rolls, macaroni, certainly something she’d never get on Dimler Street or know to make for herself. This is a cause for joy, she reminds herself.
“Thank you, Loreal. I’ll be there soon.”
As the door closes, Marabeth says, “Good things tonight. Only good things.”
But when she looks down at the journal again, the hand has changed. It is still her father’s, but it is shakier now.



I feel better now that I’ve stopped. The medicine and everything. They don’t know. They’d be so terrified. I’m going to go out into the woods or something. I need to go to the mountains. Maybe I can ask Grange to help chain me up in that basement the way they used to do with Dad? I don’t remember Dad. Just that he was weak and crazy, but maybe he wouldn’t have been so crazy if they had let him be himself. I feel more myself than ever. Every day of my life I feel like I’m in this fog, and I feel gross and sick. I feel so sad, like I’m under this wet blanket. Now I feel powerful and crazy. If Delia was here I would fuck her silly. I’d fuck her till her eyes came out of her head, till she was dead, and then I’d leave her on the floor and keep fucking her to teach her. The colors are so bright. I can’t stop myself from doing crazy stuff. But it’s better you know, better than how I usually am.
Most of the time I hate who I am. I hate my whole life. I try to feel better about things, but it’s like it’s no use. I try to look on the bright side, but nothing’s really bright, and I think about going to other people, to tell them, but they seem just as messed up as me. The truth is, half the time I want to die. Even now, I want to die.
You know what it’s like? It’s like I’ve got this pain, and the pain is all over. It’s in my head, it’s between my eyes, it’s in my back, it’s behind my eyes. Sometimes I feel like I could cry, and like there is no light. There’s the sun, and the lamps and all of that, but they’re like lights in paintings or on TV. There is no real light, not in me, not in anyone. Sometimes I wish I could die. And I can die, that’s true. I could jump out of the fucking window and go splat. But I don’t do it. I could take the gun Mom used to kill Grandfather, but I don’t use it. Because I’m a coward. Sometimes, I wish that Grandfather had killed me. Sometimes I think about teeth in my neck, ripping out my throat and it almost makes me giggle, to think of getting out of this life, and getting out of it in such a way. It’s not that I’m poor. I’m not poor or oppressed or anything like that, and yet, life is so hard. I feel like somedays I can hardly get out of bed .

THAT IS ALL FOR THIS WEEK, MORE AFTER THE WEEKEND

 

[CharmedFan28]

This step into the past continues to be very interesting! I am looking forward to reading more of it after the weekend! Excellent writing and I look forward to more in a few days!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Yes. Well, I'm glad to you enjoyed this and there will be more soon.

 

[ChrisGibson]

AS CHAPTER THREE CONCLUDES, MARABETH LEARNS MORE ABOUT HER FATHER THAN SHE EVER WANTED TO KNOW



Marabeth closes the book. She’s with him again. She’s with her father. He is a boy in an awful place, someone almost young enough to be her son if she’d gone that route, but here he is, with her again, and she doesn’t want to leave him. Her heart is with him and she wishes he could somehow know that back in the early 1970s. But now she can smell the food, smell the butter and the heat and the bread and the coffee, smell the sweet pecan pie, and she knows they are waiting, and she is powerfully hungry. Laying the book down she tells him, “I’ll be back.”


“Warg?” Kris Strauss said.
“Yes,” Augustus said.
When Kris blinked and looked at Marabeth, it was Seth who said, “Actually, it’s a wonderful idea.”
“Thank you,” Augustus inclined his head to Seth who thought that his uncle wasn’t being entirely sarcastic.
“But how…?” Kris began, “ I mean, I’m not sure it’s an entirely good idea.”
“I don’t think there is such a thing as an entirely good idea,” Merebeth said. “Not now, and not for us. I think there’s just doing what we have to do.”
“What is it anyway?” Kris turned to Augustus, “Exactly?”
“It is when you place yourself inside of another animal, so you can see through its eyes. In time you could even become the other animal. You may be lost in them, or you may ask their permission to take them over, Use them as your vehicle.”
“Like…” Kris frowned, “a witch’s familiar.”
“It is the very same thing as a witch’s familiar,” Augustus said.
They were all sitting around the dinner table, the remains of toothsome pork chops and apples baked in a skillet with butter and sugar and cinnamon until their skins carmelized, spicy stuffing, sweet pork roast for those who didn’t want chops or just wanted more pork, buttered rolls, macaroni glossy and golden with three cheeses, sweet, sweet, sweet potato pudding loaded with spices. Lewis was half asleep in a chair, drinking coffee and offering no advice.
“Is there…. An animal we could try this with?” Jim Strauss began.
“None in this house,” Augustus said, .“but the whole world is full of animals. It would be best if you let Seth help you.”
“When should we try this?”
“Somewhere between the pork roast and pecan pie,” Lewis said.
They turned to him as, beside Chris Ashby, he took a toothpick and picked his teeth. It was Levy who translated, smiling broadly,
“No time like the present.”
Lewis nodded.



They sat on the porch and Marabeth was feeling a little foolish.
“We just have to wait for an animal,” Seth was saying. But soon he looked up and said, “Ah, there they are.”
“What?” Kris began.
“Up there.”
“But those are birds.
Seth looked at him.
“Were you waiting for a wolf?”
Kris realized he had been.
“For this bit:” Seth began, “you might want to try us all holding hands. I know it sounds silly and all, but—”
Jim immediately caught Seth’s hand, and Marabeth caught Jim’s and Kris took hers.
“Now just close your eyes and see if you can follow me.”
Seth’s eyes were on the crows flying into the trees and he followed one in particular. As he followed it, the bird became bigger and bigger. No. He was coming closer and closer to it. Now Kris almost shouted, for the crow was diving directly at him and then, just like that, it was as if he was on the crow’s back. And then, he no longer saw the crow. He saw the trees beneath, and one tree approaching, and he looked across to see another crow and realized that he was in the the first crow, looking from behind its eyes.
The black eye of the crow beside him, winked, and without knowing how he knew, he understood that, whatever Seth had done, Kris had found his own crow, and the crow standing beside him was… Marabeth. Was inhabited by her. They could not speak to each other, but they recognized each other in their minds. Up the tree pattered two brown squirrels and the first, running up the limb to Kris, its long tail out, said, “You’ve done it!”
“Jim?” Kris’s mind came from the crow.
“Yes,” the squirrel nodded and turned to the second squirrel, who was sitting on two legs, preening its paws and ears. “And this is Seth.”
That brown squirrel winked at him.
“But how?”
“We leapt from the birds and into the squirrels We asked if they minded us… borrowing them. They didn’t, but we can’t stay for long because I’ve never asked where a squirrel goes when I’m inhabiting its body, but I have the feeling that the answer might just be… my body.”
Seth laughed. “We could get back and find our human bodies trying to climb trees and store nuts. We should go.”
“But… you did this so fast, So naturally.”
“Jim is a natural,” was all Seth said. “He is practically a witch.”
Kris looked to Marabeth and said, “Are you ready?’
But she was no longer in that crow. A starling sat ahead of him, and it leapt up and Kris thought, “I’m the last to get this.”
“But you got it,” the Starling said. “Seth is right. It’s time for us to go.”

She could barely get into the bath. After she had flown behind Seth, darting into the crow, into the squirrel, into a starling, swirling across the warm air and back into her body, Marabeth wanted to tell everyone in the house about the joy she’d experienced. Her body thrilled with joy and she thought, “This is why I have never felt like anyone else. This is what I am, where I belong.”
She was wide awake now, sitting up in bed, and she did not want to turn back to her father’s journal but she thought, here, right now, the way I am, this could be the best way to read.

Before she could settle down there was a knock on her door, and Marabeth wrapped her housecoat tighter about her and then opened the door, surprised to see Jim, and more surprised to see the great box he held.
“It’s from Augustus,” Jim said, apologetically, his golden hair falling over his eye. “He thinks it’s… It is for me. And for you. He thought I should give it to you.”
Marabeth remembered Augustus saying he had something else for her and as she guided Jim to set the box on the bed and open it, he showed her the letter, spoke again of his doubts as he laid out the pelts, one of a blondish wolf, the other of a wolf black and grey, their eyeless faces looking up at the cousins.
Marabeth wanted to look away, but a part of her wanted to keep looking on them until they pulled her in. She did look away from the pelts, at last, to read the missive that came with them, smelling of Pamela’s old perfume on that crinkly old paper.


Wie am Anfang, so am Ende, an die Königin und ihren goldhaarigen Bruder, den König.

Oma

“I wish Myron was here,” Marabeth murmured.
But Jim quoted: “As in the beginning, so in the end, to the Queen and her golden haired brother, the King.”
Jim added, “We all know the Queen is you, but Augustus seems to think I am the King.”
“I agree,” Marabeth said.
“Jim, I am reading Father’s journal.”
“Another journal?”
“Yes. He left it here, but when I’m done you have to read it too. I’m afraid of what I’ll find. Uh… and there are other things too, the whole family all the way back to the beginning.”
Jim’s mouth was open and he kept nodding, but at last he said:
“Mara, we have to try on the pelts.”
“You’re right,” his cousin agreed.
Her face was strange and fey now, half a smile, half terrorized.
“What about at midnight? What can be better than the witching hour?”
“Until then,” Jim said, “you should find out what Uncle Nate has to say.”
Marabeth nodded.
She went to the bureau and gave Jim the large folder of names and dates.
“And you should acquaint yourself with these.”



All the blood.
All the Blood.
Jesus help me.
Help me Jesus!
So much blood.
Going to hell.
I am a demon.
I’m going to hell. If there is any justice, I have to go to hell. All of those people are gone because of me. I thought I was safe, but it doesn’t matter. When I woke up, so much blood. So much blood. The bodies weren’t even a mile away. No one deserved that. No one. I killed those people. If I’d taken the medicine it never would have happened. Before I thought I’d be a coward for not killing myself, now I know I’d be a coward if I did. I’ve got to live with this. I’ve just got to live with it.




I WANT TO DIE I WANT TO DIE I WANT TO DIE I WANT TO DIE I WANT TO DIE I WANT TO DIE I WANT TO DIE I WANT TO DIE I WANT TO DIE I WANT TO DIE I WANT TO DIE I WANT TO DIE I WANT TO DIE I WANT TO DIE I WAN
Two couples, both in their thirties… six kids, mauled to death. No one can trace it to me, of course, It was done by a wild animal, a confusion cause wild animals like that aren’t in Ohio.

I can’t help thinking my family must know.

I went to Dr. Stengler. I told him I needed as much of the medicine as possible. He asked why and I said I was leaving. He told me that from now on life would be better because the medicine was now pills, no bad taste, no drinking whole shot glasses of gross shit. But does the feeling go away and does what I am go away? I was so happy when I wasn’t taking it or, if not happy, alive. But the price those people paid.
Anyway, I told him I’m going to Florida, going to get some sun and live in a place with color, a place that’s far away from Lassador and everything I’ve known.



I feel like a normal person again. I feel better than normal. It’s so beautiful here. They say it never rains in Southern California. Well, it rains here all the time, and when it does, who cares? Everything is so beautiful here. I’ve never known sunlight like this, and the water is so blue. I wonder, if what I am is real, then what about mermaids? Are they real too? I could almost believe in them when I look at this water. It’s so clear. Part of me wants to never take the pills again, to see if maybe living in a different place I’m a different person. Maybe the curse is gone. But there are so many beautiful people here, I don’t dare endanger their lives. So many beautiful people.



Today I met this girl in a bar. I ask her what’s her name, she says wouldn’t I like to know, I saw, yeah, I would that’s why I asked. She laughs. She has the most gorgeous red hair, and these lips, thick lips, heavy dark eyes. She looks so amazing. Great legs. I’m totally in love. She looks like she wouldn’t be afraid of anything like, maybe, maybe, she could deal with me.
“My name’s Rebecca Cunningham,” she says.
Rebecca Cunningham.
I’m going to have to see her again.





“Enter Mom,” Marabeth murmured as she put the book down.
“And exit me.”
For a moment, at least. It was time to rest, time to rest and return to herself. Reading these journals it was almost as if none of herself was left, and there would have to be something, for in a very few hours she would step out into the dark night, but a skin over her body and see if she was, after all, the Wolf she read about, feared and longed for.



MORE TOMORROW

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a great portion! The parts about possessing and animal were very interesting! Marabeth is learning more about her Dad and I am not sure if that is a good or a bad thing. Excellent writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Nathan has lived the full effects of the Wolf and now Marabeth is about to do the same (maybe?) Yes, it certainly was a wild ride tonight, and there is more of Nathan than any of us was ready for.

 

[ChrisGibson]

WE'RE GOING TO START CHAPTER FOUR THEN TAKE SOME TIME OFF TO GIVE A LITTLE MUCH DESERVED ATTENTION TO BOOK OF THE BROKEN TOMORROW. TONIGHT WE FOLLOW OUR FRIEND, DAN RAWLINSON



F O U R

C H A N G I N G


Change not as much as the style of a letter…

-The Book of the Law

In 1803 at Dunbar Creek on St. Simons Island, Glynn County, on the coast of Georgia there was grounded a slave ship called the Wanderer filled with Igbo and other West African captives from what is now Nigeria were taken to the Georgia coast. In May 1803, the Igbo and other West African captives arrived in Savannah, Georgia, on the slave ship the Wanderer. They were purchased for an average of $100 each by slave merchants John Couper and Thomas Spalding to be resold to plantations on nearby St. Simons Island. The chained Igbo were packed under deck of a coastal vessel, the York, which would take them to St. Simons.
But the flying folk kept their power, although they shed their wings. All the time they were on that ship, They had felt the snarl of the driver's whip around their legs. They all felt the skin being torn to rags, and they all felt the ship and so, when their King called for them to do so, they rebelled, approximately 75 Igbo, and they took control of the ship, drowned their captors, but they were not sailors, and it was in that process the ship was grounded in Dunbar Creek.
That very day, the King of the Igbo declared, "the time is come." He raised his arms out to the others. And he sighed the ancient words that were a dark promise. He said them all around to the others in the field under the whip, "...kum yali... kum tambe...." He raised his hands and sang to Ala and Amadioha, Ikenga God of Strength, Idemmili, Ogbunabali, and especially Legba, who conceals.

They gave a great outcry. The Igbo straightened their bent backs and stood like spears. Old and young who were called slaves joined hands. Freed of their chains, one by one, they marched from the ship and leapt into the water, coming to shore and disappearing into the marshes. Rather than admit that living Black men were free in the hidden land, the white people said the Igbo were ghosts because Africans could not swim.
And so, the Igbo could fly. White men, lazy and murderous as they were, did not understand the marshes and feared them anyway, while the Africans understood the heat and the land very well, so when white men dared the marshes to drag back the Igbo, those white men rarely came back.


Now and again, Daniel Rawlinson flipped through the notebooks where he’d scribbled bits and pieces of his life. He had, now and again, the discipline to keep a journal which never seemed to last, and the sustained parts of his life that he had written down were like revelations to him. There was much he had misremembered or made better than it was.






WE HAVE HAD OUR very first gig. Sort of. Myron’s cousin’s Marabeth’s twenty-first party. He comes in tells us he has commissioned us for his older cousin’s birthday. Actually it turns out that what really happens is a lot more like this: her parents were telling her she needed to have a party because twenty-one is an important birthday and it’s not likes she’d having a graduation or anything like that anytime soon. She doesn’t seem very interested at all. I go over to their house. It’s pretty fucking huge. It’s almost like a mansion kind of townhouse and there’s this girls whose all in black with black hair and black eye shadow, and she’s chewing her gum and she looks kind of bitchy, but she’s nice enough. This is Kris Strauss’s sister. We know Chris cause he goes to Saint Ignatius with us and plays the oboe in the band, He’s really smart and shit, but he got some type of depression the same time Myron did, and now they both take medication for it.
Anyway, Myron goes into this long speech to Marabeth about graduation parties and band and music and she’s kind of nodding her head and smoking a cigarette, which I think is amazing because she is smoking in her parents’ house and does not give a solitary fuck. Like, all her mom said was, “That’s so foul,” to Marabeth, but she didn’t care.
So anyway, Myron just keeps on talking and talking and finally Marabeth says, “What were you saying?” and then Myron sighs and says, “Can we be one of the bands that plays at your graduation party?’
“One of them?” Marabeth raises an eyebrow. “What kind of heiress do I look like. You can play as much as you want?”
We are so excited about this that Marabeth reminds us, “You’re gonna wanna get paid, though. I mean, what’s the point in being in a band that doesn’t get paid? Talk to Mom and Dad about it. Tell ‘em I said I chose you and I’m really excited.”
Marabeth did not appear very excited. She appeared busy with whatever she was drawing, but there was our gig.

The party is full of Kellers, and its also a lot of older kids from the junior college where Marabeth goes. I was surprised she had that many friends. I mean, she doesn’t seem like someone who would care too much about friends. Kris is there with his friends and when he says the same thing, Marabeth says, “I don’t know who half of these people are.”
She doesn’t seem sad about. It’s just a matter of fact thing.
Between sets, Marabeth comes up to us with a tall kind of cool looking guy. I mean, I don’t know that he’s cool but he looks like cool people are supposed to look, you know, shades and gelled hair and self confidence and stuff, and he says, “There’s open mic night as Nicola’s on Wednesday night, and you know Rubio’s on the east side is auditioning for a house band.”
“Can we stay up that late?” Nick says.
“Did you seriously say that?” Marabeth says to him.
When Nick opens his mouth, Marabeth says, “They’re being ironic. They’ll be there.”
“Follow your fucking dreams,” she says.
“What’s your dream?” Myron ask her.
She smirks and looks at a tall mixed guy who’s waving at her and says, “To make out with Jamal Perkins before the night is over.”
She winks, lowers her shades, and then strides away.
“Your cousin is so fucking cool,” Jack declares to Myron.
Kris just makes a face.
But I agree.

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was an excellent start to the chapter and I look forward to more of this in a few days! I am glad the band had its first gig. Marabeth seems a bit down at the moment. Hopefully things improve for her soon.

 

[ChrisGibson]

Well Marabeth is a bit down and teenagery, but she's also a memory in Dan's past and not really part of the story, so we more or less know what happens to her and we will be back with her in the present soon. However, it is interesting to see her and Kris in Dan's past.

 

[ChrisGibson]

WE ARE STILL IN DAN'S JOURNAL, AND DAN'S MIND, AS HE AND MYRON TRAVEL TO ENGLAND.

At Nicola’s the guy asks us, “Does any of you even know how to drive a car?”
We say yes, and don’t sink down to his asshole level, and then start to play This is a kind of pub place, and we do a few Irish songs and some covers. Nicola’s is where middle aged people come to escape their lives is what Myron say, and I’m not sure why we’re even here, but Myron says, “Because we need the practice and it’s good to stand up in front of people. The microphone sucks, and it keeps on making that reverb sound when Myron’s speaking into it. We’ve been pretty safe for three songs, decent, as good as anyone else, and then suddenly Myron announces that we’re going to do “I Know You’re Married, But I Love You Still.” And it’s not that many people who know it, and we’ve only done it a couple of times, but just then Myron begins to twang his banjo and his voice rises to a country octave, and out comes that voice of his that he’s been saving, and Rick is amazing at harmonizing with him, and their voices are desperate and oh Rick’s guitar is clear and country and you can just tell everyone is coming out of their seats as Myron wails

You know I love you and I always will
I know you're married but I love you still
The day I met you my heart spoke to me
It said to love you through eternity

Now knowing that you were another's bride
I vowed I'll always be close by your side
You know I love you and I always will
I know you're married but I love you still

Later that night, when that asshole who asked us if we were old enough to be here asks us if we’re coming back next week, Myron just shrugs and says, “We’ll see if we can.”

Myron looks real serious, and a pen is hanging out of his mouth like a cigar. He says, “Well, boys, it’s summer, and we better get serious. Are we going to spend all out time working in a grocery store as bag boys and cutting lawns, and forget about the band, or are we going to try to make some money as a band?”
Nick points out that realistically they would probably do both, and Jack says that he doubts Myron has ever been a bag boy, but Myron just sort of glares at them, and then we say we’ll knock it out of the park when we get to Rubio’s.
At Rubio’s they don’t seem to care how old we are. We have stopped cutting our hair for the most part, even Myron, and his mom is talking about that. They say we were good, but not quite what they’re looking for.
“Have you tried The Grey Note?”
“The Grey Note?” Myron says
“Up in Rawlston.
Rawlson’s not that far. It’s the next town to the north.
Myron says, “Here’s our schedule. We’re gonna go up tonight and see what kind of music they like.”
“And then we’re gong to to the opposite?” I say because Myron’s really cagey like that.
“No,” Myron looks at me like I’m stupid. “Then we’re going to do it. But better.”

It’s some shitty cover band. We’re better. They’re older. Myron says I’m a way better guitarist. We decide to do two covers and two originals when we go up on Wednesday. Dad says I can have the old car he’s getting rid of if I get a job to pay for the gas. I tell him I’m going to get a job playing at the Grey Note.

He does not look impressed.

O Splendor and Joy! We will be paid to play at the Grey Note Three Nights a week

O reality, when it is explained what the money is and how it looks split four ways.

O fuckery when I figure in working at the store and playing at the Grey Note in Rawlson.

“I always work for my uncle Grange,” Myron says brightly. “I’m a runner in his office downtown.”
“Well how lucky for you,”
Myron smacks me on the head.
“I’m not saying it to show off, I’m saying it cause you can too.”
I look at him and Myron says, “I didn’t think you’d want to be the one to beg for a job, so I just asked if you could work with me too. Granger said he expects us both there at ten. Ten, we get to sleep. And we leave at four. Every day. This’ll be awesome. He says he always needs good workers.”

Later, when I ssk Myron about this he says that what his uncle really said was, “We always have jobs to hand out to cousins so they feel like they’re doing something.”

Everyday we dress like we’re going to school, except we always wear white shirts and roll our sleeves up. No jackets, and we spend all morning running errands from office to office, or driving across town to get stuff. We’re assistants. There are a lot of people in the office and that’s when Myron says, “It’s a lot of family members, and they need jobs. You know.”
Myron’s uncle rich as fuck. Or at least his family is, and he says it’s not right for people to just sit around all day and do nothing, or else everyone would be depressed and snort coke. So instead they get dressed, come here and work to five some of them look really exhausted. Peter, Myron’s cousin, is here for the summer, and he’s always with his dad and I say, “He actually looks like he is working.”
Actually we’re all working. You can always find something to do, but Myron says, “Yeah. He’s sort of going to inherit all of what Uncle Grange does, so he’s learning it.”
“Your uncle looks pretty healthy, I’d say. Doesn’t look like he’s going anywhere anytime soon.”

Between the job and the band we are doing pretty decently, and Rick and Jack say they’re going to stay in Rawlston. Rick is working at a music store, and Jack is working in this store up the street from the Grey Note. They’re going to get a loft Jack says, “You guys can even stay when you want. It’s great up here, and there’s so much music!”
There is so much music. There’s the college, and everyone being hip and shit, and you can really make some money up here, and so we are.
“You know what I’m thinking?” I said to Myron.
“Huh?’
“I’m thinking of just not going to college and staying here doing music.
Myron just looks at me.
“That’s really stupid.”

On Saturday, I go driving by myself. I’m never by myself. I go all the way south to Glencastle, and I am thinking, though I wouldn’t admit it to myself, that maybe this time, by myself, I’ll be able to find that house again. I don’t say anything to anyone, but I think of what Myron might say, You know the mind can play tricks. Maybe you wanted to see that place so bad that its in your head that there was such a palce. Maybe it was just a dream. And the truth is, as I go up and down the street, unable to find that house where I met Kruinh and Tanitha, it definitely starting to feel that way.


*******


On the plane he scans up and down the old notebook. This has happened before, a thing he thought to be terribly important is entirely left out. Why? Because it wasn’t important to him when it happened? No, but perhaps not knowing how to write about the thing, only having a feeling for the thing but unable to place it on paper it hovered around like a ghost, could only be thought about. The story is not completely right, but it’s this story that must stay in the brain, will never see the paper.
“What’s up?” Myron yawns. But before he can get an answer he interrupts himself, and looking out over the long bank of clouds, says, “Isn’t it amazing, the things we can do, people can do? Up in the air, how high I wonder?”
He shakes his head delightedly and chuckles.
“Amazing.”
Dan puts down the notebook and gives, up thinking that his search is more fruitless than the one he did for Tanitha and Kruinh’s house so long ago, fruitless because what he’s looking for what has never been written down.
“You know,” Myron says, “in my family I’m the butt of the jokes. They love me, but I’m the goofball. I made myself that. I wonder why?”
“You’re least goofy person I know,” Dan says.
Myron sticks out his lower lip.
“Maybe that’s why.”


MORE TOMORROW

 

[CharmedFan28]

Dan’s journal and mind prove to be very interesting on both counts. I am glad Myron is with him for this trip. Great writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Dan's kind of amazing, and so is his friendship with Myron. It's all going to lead to some interesting stuff. Soon.

 

[ChrisGibson]

DAN CONTINUES TO LOOK AT HIS PAST AND MARABETH LOOKS AT THE POTENTIAL OF A NEW GIFT


They’ve played at the Grey Note. They’re high on the music and the applause. It makes up for the lack of money, and the truth is, working for Myron’s family pays well. He’s never seen so much money and he’s never had so much fun.
“Can we get you guys a drink?” the girls ask, and Jack and Nick are all for it, and Myron nods shyly and pulls Dan over.
He doesn’t remember much of the conversation, just the dizzying attention paid him by college freshmen, and that Gretchen has left him. Eventually Jack and Nick are gone with the other girls, and Myron and Dan are just sitting here drinking with the red head. It’s late and the bartender says so, and Myron says, “I guess it’s time to get home.”
He’s the responsible one, and he says to the redhead, even though he and Dan are still in high school, “Are you cool to drive, or do you need a ride?/”
“Oh,” she says. “I was just going to walk back to my dorm.”
“Well, we can’t let you do that?” Dan isn’t sure if he says it or Myron, but they are both in agreement.
“We’re going to drive you back,” Dan says.
They have to turn around and go back to Lassador after this, but it hardly matters, and it’s nice to see Rawlston by night, to see the college we might end up going to.
“My grandma went here,” Myron says.
“Myron, come back here,” the redhead says after a while. Cynthia. She was Cynthia.
A little drunk, Myron says, “Alright,” and tries to climb back and tries again before Dan stops the car and Myron says, “Ah, yeah,” and then unbuckles his seatbelt and climbs out of the passenger seat, opening his door to climb out, and leaving Dan alone in the front.
He can hear them making out and fooling around as he drives and he clears his throat as they approach the main gate.
“Uh… where do I go now?”
But she and Myron are well into making out, and finally Cynthia says, “You wanna just drive around?”
“Yeah,” Myron says breathlessly, between kisses, “we can drive around a bit.”
Dan’s face is too red to look back, but he’s the chauffer now and not entirely sure what’s going on in the backseat as they drive away from the college toward the country where the grasses are high.
“Do you wanna fuck me?” Cynthia asks Myron.
Dan stops the car squarely on the side of the road and turns around, and Myron’s pants are half down.
“I’ll do it with both of you,” she says.
“Dan, can you get out the car for a bit?”
Dan’s too surprised to do anything but, and he gets out of the car for the next few minutes, too hot for his feelings, his ears and his flesh burning, his head whirring. He’s seen Myron have sex, but it was with his girlfriend who he loved, not with some slut they met at the Grey Note. Myron’s not like this. He’s in youth group. He’s a straight A student. A straight A. He’s a good guy. They’re good guys. This isn’t them. The windows are steamed up and the car is shaking back in forth while Myron is fucking this girl in the backseat of his car, Dan’s car.
When it’s over, Dan stands half out of his body and Myron staggers our of the car, buttoning his pants His hair is a mess and his face is red. The car door is open into darkness and Cynthia is in there.
“Are you coming, Dan?” she says.
“Myron says you’re a virgin. Come on, let me change that.”
Dan isn’t in a place to refuse. Myron is the person he respects most in the world and Myron touches him on the back and says, tenderly, “She’s waiting for you. Dan. Go in.”
Dan does, and Myron closes the door behind him. The space is hot and the smell is strange.
“Dan,” Cynthia says, sounding strangely tired, almost drugged, “Dan.”
Her skirt is up and her legs are open and there is only darkness behind them and she says, “Take off your pants.”
He does. In his head he keeps hearing a distant voice that says, we’re the good guys. We don’t do stuff like this. This isn’t the way it supposed to be.
He pulls down his underwear, but his shirt is long and so she reaches under it, and when she touches him it’s the first time he’s really felt his penis, the first time he’s felt it be this swollen thing, sensitive to the touch, curving, growing, hard, wet with the trickle of semen, wet with whatever she’s got on her hand while she’s massaging it, stroking it, pulling it, someone else’s hand on him for the first time.
“Come on,” she says, her hands on his ass, pulling him inside of her.
“Oh, God,” she murmurs, or is he murmuring? It feels, despite everything, so good. He’s always wanted this, Her hands are so tender up and down him and it feels so good. He shudders. It feels so good to push and push into her, and he wants to keep doing it, but he’s slow about it, wanting to be gentle and then her hands are up and down his back and she’s saying, “Don’t be gentle. Just do it.”
And so he starts to do it and he can feel her thighs around him, pulling him inside of her and he can hear himself growling between his teeth and she is rejoicing and calling ,”Fuck me! Do it harder.”
They’re both breathing hard together and it’s the most amazing thing and then Dan is surprised and cries out while he comes.



This thing, this odd way in which his first time has occurred is probably the reason he goes looking for Tanitha and Kruinh the next day. They don’t talk about this after they’ve dropped her off and are getting ready to get back in the car. Dan needs something to talk, needs to clear his head.
“You know what I’m thinking?” he says to Myron.
“Huh?’
“I’m thinking of just not going to college and staying here doing music.
But Myron is angry for some reason. He’s going to be angry for a few days and hard to talk to for a while. There is going to be a little wall up between them for a while.
Myron just looks at Dan witheringly.
“That’s really stupid.”







For about the space of an hour, when she’d held the furs in her hands, Marabeth had imagined how brave it would be to put them on and go out into the night with her cousin and no one else. But as the next few hours passed, she began to understand the wisdom of having Seth present, and then her mind went to how Kris should be there, for if they came to a bad end, there should be one Strauss who saw what happened. And then Marabeth decided that what she wished for was Lewis and Loreal. She had never seen either one of them do anything, but she felt their power and she was convinced that if Lewis was present, nothing terrible could happen.
Marabeth had watched werewolf movies and movies in general where people turned into things, and she always wondered what had happened to their clothes. She was fully convinced that she had to be naked for the Change to occur, and as she said over and over again, the Change, she was thrilled and terrified. It was like putting your feet on the edge of very cold water.
No, more like a whirlpool, she reformed her thoughts
What if she could not come back?
The courageous, or stupid, part of her fantasized about going out alone and taking her clothes off to stand naked in the warm night and slip into the skin, but the part of her which was cautious, which had sense, was relieved when she left the house with Jim followed by her brother, Lewis, Loreal and Seth. Chris Ashby had not come, nor had Levy. Augustus they had not asked because it seemed as if he had better things to do
“You should Change in the bushes,” Lewis said.
“What if it takes effect the moment we put them on?” Jim said.
“What if it does?” Lewis said. “But I doubt it will?”
“What if nothing happens at all?”
“You do realize,” it was Loreal who spoke, “that those pelts you are wearing must be at least fifteen hundred years old, but they aren’t worn or moth eaten or anything?”
Jim started, and Marabeth said, “I had never thought of it.”
“They are enchanted,” Loreal said. “Something will happen.”
Marabeth looked at her messy haired brother and said, “You’ve remained silent.”
“So I have.”
“What in the world can we expect? From this?”
“I don’t know,” Kris said. “I’ve never Changed.”
“But you have,” Lewis reminded him. “That once. The madness you thought overtook you, when your parents but you on the pills, you must have Changed. Once.”
“That’s right,” Kris realized. “But I cannot remember. Well, I hope you all have a better time than I did.”
Among the trees Marabeth, stripped of her housecoat and attempted to arrange the wolfskin about her as much as she could to keep her modest.
But why should I even come out of these bushes?
“Jim?”
“Yes?”
“Are you changed? Are you in the skin?”
“Yes. And I feel like a fool. What do we do now?”
“I… How should I know?
“Because you are the Queen.”
“But you are the King.”
“I don’t know,” Jim whispered. “I think, if we are the King and Queen then… We need to stop chattering on like idiots. We have to want it. We have to be it.”
Wanting, being, stretching out your hand to take the thing instead of wishing for the thing. The very way witches must live, the stuff of magic, Marabeth supposed. She reached out to Jim, her King, the Golden Brother, the grandson and great grandson of Pamela, the great grandson of the wolf. Jim, the courteous, the kind the sweet, the fierce and gentle lover with Seth. Her mind flowed into him, flowed into his body, his longings the strength in his flesh when he and Seth’s minds had sailed in the air this evening, when, in celebration, they’d made love, twisting golden limbs together, when right now, as skin had touched skin, human skin, naked skin touched wolfskin and hair touched fur, and human nature met wolf nature, now twisted with the past, the two legged with the four legged, the swift nature…
In one moment like the lines in a coloring book disappearing, Jim’s lines had faded and almost with the warmth of orgasm, he melted into this new form, this absolutely right form, and as he was trotting forward, Marabeth, who had been inhabiting him, realized she was herself again. She was long and sleek, and the night was filled with new sights and sounds, and a white gold wolf with golden eyes was before her. He cocked his head and his tongue lolled out in an insolent and Jim like way, and then, nudging her and slapping her with such a long bottle brush tail, he ran into the green night, and she followed him.
Afterward she would say how different the world was with these new senses, how new the ground was when four feet raced lightly upon it, how natural the things a human did not do, spraying the ground, leaving your droppings seemed, how, in the end, she took down a rabbit after Jim had, and rejoiced in the taste of living meat.
They had run together for some time, but had gone off to explore on their own, Now Marabeth’s ears pricked up at the call of her King, and she trotted to Jim’s direction. It was time to go home, which was not only to the house they were visiting, but to humanity and their human friends.
It was by willing it, only, as if waking up from a dream once you knew it was a dream, that she shed the skin and stood naked and rejoicing, not even wanting to put back on clothes. But they were waiting for her, and Jim had already pulled on shorts and a tee shirt and was calling to her.
She followed her handsome cousin out of the woods, conscious of his loping gait, wondering if he’d always had it. No, but he was a man, but no there was something of the wolf about him still. And what about her?
The Dunharrows stood on the porch all with quiet smiles as if to say, see, now you know magic. But Seth did more, pulling Jim to him and kissing him on the mouth, and the two young men stood together, devouring each other and embracing as if no one else were present until Loreal cleared her throat, and they smiled and separated… a little.
“Kris,” Marabeth said.
She could not tell the look on her brother’s face and, at last, he said, “So you all did it.”
“Yes—” Jim began, his heart rejoicing.
“But what about the rest of us?”
Marabeth wanted to speak, and Jim wanted a right response, but Kris Strauss simply turned around and went back into the house.
Whatever Marabeth felt for her brother, the desire to go after him and give comfort, evaporated when she felt Jim looking at her and turned around.
But Jim was turned around too, and it was not his eyes that had been on her.
Far across the green, in the semi moonlit night, stood a man, and before she could open her mouth, Hagano turned around and disappeared.
Hand to her chest she stared after him into the darkness and they were all silent until, finally, Lewis Dunharrow spoke.
“He was not a fantasy or a private vision. We saw him too.”


MORE TOMORROW


- - - Updated - - -

DAN CONTINUES TO LOOK AT HIS PAST AND MARABETH LOOKS AT THE POTENTIAL OF A NEW GIFT


They’ve played at the Grey Note. They’re high on the music and the applause. It makes up for the lack of money, and the truth is, working for Myron’s family pays well. He’s never seen so much money and he’s never had so much fun.
“Can we get you guys a drink?” the girls ask, and Jack and Nick are all for it, and Myron nods shyly and pulls Dan over.
He doesn’t remember much of the conversation, just the dizzying attention paid him by college freshmen, and that Gretchen has left him. Eventually Jack and Nick are gone with the other girls, and Myron and Dan are just sitting here drinking with the red head. It’s late and the bartender says so, and Myron says, “I guess it’s time to get home.”
He’s the responsible one, and he says to the redhead, even though he and Dan are still in high school, “Are you cool to drive, or do you need a ride?/”
“Oh,” she says. “I was just going to walk back to my dorm.”
“Well, we can’t let you do that?” Dan isn’t sure if he says it or Myron, but they are both in agreement.
“We’re going to drive you back,” Dan says.
They have to turn around and go back to Lassador after this, but it hardly matters, and it’s nice to see Rawlston by night, to see the college we might end up going to.
“My grandma went here,” Myron says.
“Myron, come back here,” the redhead says after a while. Cynthia. She was Cynthia.
A little drunk, Myron says, “Alright,” and tries to climb back and tries again before Dan stops the car and Myron says, “Ah, yeah,” and then unbuckles his seatbelt and climbs out of the passenger seat, opening his door to climb out, and leaving Dan alone in the front.
He can hear them making out and fooling around as he drives and he clears his throat as they approach the main gate.
“Uh… where do I go now?”
But she and Myron are well into making out, and finally Cynthia says, “You wanna just drive around?”
“Yeah,” Myron says breathlessly, between kisses, “we can drive around a bit.”
Dan’s face is too red to look back, but he’s the chauffer now and not entirely sure what’s going on in the backseat as they drive away from the college toward the country where the grasses are high.
“Do you wanna fuck me?” Cynthia asks Myron.
Dan stops the car squarely on the side of the road and turns around, and Myron’s pants are half down.
“I’ll do it with both of you,” she says.
“Dan, can you get out the car for a bit?”
Dan’s too surprised to do anything but, and he gets out of the car for the next few minutes, too hot for his feelings, his ears and his flesh burning, his head whirring. He’s seen Myron have sex, but it was with his girlfriend who he loved, not with some slut they met at the Grey Note. Myron’s not like this. He’s in youth group. He’s a straight A student. A straight A. He’s a good guy. They’re good guys. This isn’t them. The windows are steamed up and the car is shaking back in forth while Myron is fucking this girl in the backseat of his car, Dan’s car.
When it’s over, Dan stands half out of his body and Myron staggers our of the car, buttoning his pants His hair is a mess and his face is red. The car door is open into darkness and Cynthia is in there.
“Are you coming, Dan?” she says.
“Myron says you’re a virgin. Come on, let me change that.”
Dan isn’t in a place to refuse. Myron is the person he respects most in the world and Myron touches him on the back and says, tenderly, “She’s waiting for you. Dan. Go in.”
Dan does, and Myron closes the door behind him. The space is hot and the smell is strange.
“Dan,” Cynthia says, sounding strangely tired, almost drugged, “Dan.”
Her skirt is up and her legs are open and there is only darkness behind them and she says, “Take off your pants.”
He does. In his head he keeps hearing a distant voice that says, we’re the good guys. We don’t do stuff like this. This isn’t the way it supposed to be.
He pulls down his underwear, but his shirt is long and so she reaches under it, and when she touches him it’s the first time he’s really felt his penis, the first time he’s felt it be this swollen thing, sensitive to the touch, curving, growing, hard, wet with the trickle of semen, wet with whatever she’s got on her hand while she’s massaging it, stroking it, pulling it, someone else’s hand on him for the first time.
“Come on,” she says, her hands on his ass, pulling him inside of her.
“Oh, God,” she murmurs, or is he murmuring? It feels, despite everything, so good. He’s always wanted this, Her hands are so tender up and down him and it feels so good. He shudders. It feels so good to push and push into her, and he wants to keep doing it, but he’s slow about it, wanting to be gentle and then her hands are up and down his back and she’s saying, “Don’t be gentle. Just do it.”
And so he starts to do it and he can feel her thighs around him, pulling him inside of her and he can hear himself growling between his teeth and she is rejoicing and calling ,”Fuck me! Do it harder.”
They’re both breathing hard together and it’s the most amazing thing and then Dan is surprised and cries out while he comes.



This thing, this odd way in which his first time has occurred is probably the reason he goes looking for Tanitha and Kruinh the next day. They don’t talk about this after they’ve dropped her off and are getting ready to get back in the car. Dan needs something to talk, needs to clear his head.
“You know what I’m thinking?” he says to Myron.
“Huh?’
“I’m thinking of just not going to college and staying here doing music.
But Myron is angry for some reason. He’s going to be angry for a few days and hard to talk to for a while. There is going to be a little wall up between them for a while.
Myron just looks at Dan witheringly.
“That’s really stupid.”







For about the space of an hour, when she’d held the furs in her hands, Marabeth had imagined how brave it would be to put them on and go out into the night with her cousin and no one else. But as the next few hours passed, she began to understand the wisdom of having Seth present, and then her mind went to how Kris should be there, for if they came to a bad end, there should be one Strauss who saw what happened. And then Marabeth decided that what she wished for was Lewis and Loreal. She had never seen either one of them do anything, but she felt their power and she was convinced that if Lewis was present, nothing terrible could happen.
Marabeth had watched werewolf movies and movies in general where people turned into things, and she always wondered what had happened to their clothes. She was fully convinced that she had to be naked for the Change to occur, and as she said over and over again, the Change, she was thrilled and terrified. It was like putting your feet on the edge of very cold water.
No, more like a whirlpool, she reformed her thoughts
What if she could not come back?
The courageous, or stupid, part of her fantasized about going out alone and taking her clothes off to stand naked in the warm night and slip into the skin, but the part of her which was cautious, which had sense, was relieved when she left the house with Jim followed by her brother, Lewis, Loreal and Seth. Chris Ashby had not come, nor had Levy. Augustus they had not asked because it seemed as if he had better things to do
“You should Change in the bushes,” Lewis said.
“What if it takes effect the moment we put them on?” Jim said.
“What if it does?” Lewis said. “But I doubt it will?”
“What if nothing happens at all?”
“You do realize,” it was Loreal who spoke, “that those pelts you are wearing must be at least fifteen hundred years old, but they aren’t worn or moth eaten or anything?”
Jim started, and Marabeth said, “I had never thought of it.”
“They are enchanted,” Loreal said. “Something will happen.”
Marabeth looked at her messy haired brother and said, “You’ve remained silent.”
“So I have.”
“What in the world can we expect? From this?”
“I don’t know,” Kris said. “I’ve never Changed.”
“But you have,” Lewis reminded him. “That once. The madness you thought overtook you, when your parents but you on the pills, you must have Changed. Once.”
“That’s right,” Kris realized. “But I cannot remember. Well, I hope you all have a better time than I did.”
Among the trees Marabeth, stripped of her housecoat and attempted to arrange the wolfskin about her as much as she could to keep her modest.
But why should I even come out of these bushes?
“Jim?”
“Yes?”
“Are you changed? Are you in the skin?”
“Yes. And I feel like a fool. What do we do now?”
“I… How should I know?
“Because you are the Queen.”
“But you are the King.”
“I don’t know,” Jim whispered. “I think, if we are the King and Queen then… We need to stop chattering on like idiots. We have to want it. We have to be it.”
Wanting, being, stretching out your hand to take the thing instead of wishing for the thing. The very way witches must live, the stuff of magic, Marabeth supposed. She reached out to Jim, her King, the Golden Brother, the grandson and great grandson of Pamela, the great grandson of the wolf. Jim, the courteous, the kind the sweet, the fierce and gentle lover with Seth. Her mind flowed into him, flowed into his body, his longings the strength in his flesh when he and Seth’s minds had sailed in the air this evening, when, in celebration, they’d made love, twisting golden limbs together, when right now, as skin had touched skin, human skin, naked skin touched wolfskin and hair touched fur, and human nature met wolf nature, now twisted with the past, the two legged with the four legged, the swift nature…
In one moment like the lines in a coloring book disappearing, Jim’s lines had faded and almost with the warmth of orgasm, he melted into this new form, this absolutely right form, and as he was trotting forward, Marabeth, who had been inhabiting him, realized she was herself again. She was long and sleek, and the night was filled with new sights and sounds, and a white gold wolf with golden eyes was before her. He cocked his head and his tongue lolled out in an insolent and Jim like way, and then, nudging her and slapping her with such a long bottle brush tail, he ran into the green night, and she followed him.
Afterward she would say how different the world was with these new senses, how new the ground was when four feet raced lightly upon it, how natural the things a human did not do, spraying the ground, leaving your droppings seemed, how, in the end, she took down a rabbit after Jim had, and rejoiced in the taste of living meat.
They had run together for some time, but had gone off to explore on their own, Now Marabeth’s ears pricked up at the call of her King, and she trotted to Jim’s direction. It was time to go home, which was not only to the house they were visiting, but to humanity and their human friends.
It was by willing it, only, as if waking up from a dream once you knew it was a dream, that she shed the skin and stood naked and rejoicing, not even wanting to put back on clothes. But they were waiting for her, and Jim had already pulled on shorts and a tee shirt and was calling to her.
She followed her handsome cousin out of the woods, conscious of his loping gait, wondering if he’d always had it. No, but he was a man, but no there was something of the wolf about him still. And what about her?
The Dunharrows stood on the porch all with quiet smiles as if to say, see, now you know magic. But Seth did more, pulling Jim to him and kissing him on the mouth, and the two young men stood together, devouring each other and embracing as if no one else were present until Loreal cleared her throat, and they smiled and separated… a little.
“Kris,” Marabeth said.
She could not tell the look on her brother’s face and, at last, he said, “So you all did it.”
“Yes—” Jim began, his heart rejoicing.
“But what about the rest of us?”
Marabeth wanted to speak, and Jim wanted a right response, but Kris Strauss simply turned around and went back into the house.
Whatever Marabeth felt for her brother, the desire to go after him and give comfort, evaporated when she felt Jim looking at her and turned around.
But Jim was turned around too, and it was not his eyes that had been on her.
Far across the green, in the semi moonlit night, stood a man, and before she could open her mouth, Hagano turned around and disappeared.
Hand to her chest she stared after him into the darkness and they were all silent until, finally, Lewis Dunharrow spoke.
“He was not a fantasy or a private vision. We saw him too.”


MORE TOMORROW

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a great portion. It is very interesting to read about Dan’s past. Marabeth is certainly experiencing new things. Excellent writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Vampire Dan's past is pretty mundane for now, but I do like that part of the story too, and of course, Marabeth and Jim have now been forever changed.

 

[ChrisGibson]

DETECTIVE MCCORD RETURNS TO MARABETH'S LIFE AND DAN AND MYRON REMEMBER A FATEFUL EVENT THAT WOULD CHANGE DAN FOREVER

“I was wondering when you’d call,” Jason said.
“I can’t believe you’re awake.”
“Well,” Marabeth heard a shrug in Jason’s voice, could almost see him taking a hand through his reddish hair, “You know. Detective hours.”
“I think things have been so weird,” Marabeth told him while she sat in bed. “I don’t know what I would say that would make you not run away.”
“Things have been weird since we’ve met. And there are still things we haven’t figured out. Like, you know…?”
“You still want to go there, to that place? Try to contact, no scratch that, absolutely contact Hagano?”
“I absolutely do.”
“Jason, so much shit has happened since we’ve gotten here. So much has happened tonight.”
“You learned more?”
“A lot more, and still not enough.”
“Do you want my help in this? For real? Because I feel like I’m already in, but then I feel like maybe you don’t quite want me all the way in.”
Marabeth looked out the window, but not because there was really much to see. It was the middle of the night. And yet, even as she said this, her eyes adjusted. She could see sphagnum moss hanging from trees, moths darting, the birds of the night. Her wold eyes were opening.
“I don’t know. I was married before, but back then there wasn’t much to tell, My family wasn’t nearly so… interesting. Or at least I didn’t know how interesting they were.”
“I got a few days off,” Jason said. “What if…. What if I was to come down there? Would that… Be alright? You could show me everything. Everything you wanted.”
This would be the time where a cautious woman said something like, let me think about it.”
But Marabeth Strauss had never been that cautious.
“How soon can you be here?”



A mood overtakes Myron even as the plane touches down in Heathrow. He tries to say it’s nothing, and when Dan says, “Look at this. This is London,” Myron just smiles, looking a little sick and says, “I’ve actually been to London before. With Uncle Grange and Peter, years ago.”
It is later that evening that it flies out of Myron’s mouth.
“This is my fault.”
“What?”
“I wasn’t watching you. That first time I wasn’t watching out for you. With that girl. I was being horny and drunk and feeling bad about myself. And… when this happened to you, I wasn’t watching out for you either. Things would not be the way they were if … If I had been a good friend.”
Dan looks shocked.
“That is bullshit.”
“And I didn’t even know anything had happened. I didn’t even know, but I did the math, and I know when it happened, I know the night. And… I wasn’t taking care of you.”
“You had a wife. You had a kid,” Dan said, “and it was never your job to take care of me.”

Dan Rawlinson is past jealousy. He’s a little confounded because the band never took off. They tried for years, and it seems like he might want to settle into his father’s plumbing business, and put this music to the side. Myron never agrees when Dan suggests that, but then Myron is working with his family still. The only thing he ever says is, “Dan, you could come in on the business.”
That seems like ultimately failure, to take charity from Myron’s family. Myron went to school and graduate school to do what he does, to really do… he isn’t exactly sure what Myron does. But it’s something smart people do and something he was always going to do.
And then Myron’s got to get home to the wife and kid, and Jinny’s great and the kid is adorable, and sometimes it sort of hurts that his best friend is so successful, and it sort of hurts to be hurt by it. That isn’t right. It’s not gracious.
When he has a beautiful girl on his shoulder, or better yet, when they are together, really together and it seems like a life is going to start, like it did with Eileen, and then it ends, well then he feels what a shit at success he is.
It was like this that night, when Two and the Band had finished their set. Rick and Jack were long gone, and now they had Craig and Angelo. Eileen had been a singer in the band, Eileen, who had his engagement ring, Eileen whom he had looked at houses with, Eileen who he had found in bed with Craig.
So Craig was just business, He was fulfilling his part of the contract and getting the fuck out of the club without looking at Dan, and he knew he had to stay till they found another member. This was a business. They weren’t the most important band in the world, but they made money. People expected them to be a full band that rose above its personal bullshit.
:”That was a great set you guys played,” the redhead said to them.
“Oh, thank you,” Dan said.
“Especially you.”
She smiled at him. He needed a smile.
“You look like the saddest man in the world,” the woman said. “Let me get you a drink.”
Dan shrugged and said, “Okay, but I have to get the next one.”
“We’ll see what happens.”
They drank for a while, and Myron was with them, but in the end he squeezed Dan’s shoulder and said, “I’m about to go.”
“Oh, goodnight, Myron.”
The red haired woman’s voice was lush. Dan couldn’t place her accent, tell exactly where in America it was coming from. For a moment he thought it was almost as if she was making a generic accent up.
Before Myron departed, Dan whispered to him at the door, “I think…. She wants me to go home with her.”
Myron smiled warmly at his friend.
“I think you should, Dan. You deserve a little happiness.”
“I’d be happy if I still had my fiancé.”
“Fuck her,” Myron said with more heat than he’d intended.
“If you can’t have happiness the way you want, at least have some attention you deserve.”
He made a little phone gesture with his hand.
“Call me in the morning.”
The woman is glorious. She smells like… Dan isn’t quite sure what she smells like, but honey is there, and he knows he’s going to bed with her. She has the most lustrous, thick red hair and green eyes, and she tells him, “I’m staying at the Midland Hotel. I’m visiting family.”
Dan has only passed the Midland Hotel on Bancroft, tall and elegant, one of the oldest hotels in the city, and here he is in a lobby where the second floor surrounds it as a balcony and there are marble arches under a vaulted ceiling, and he’s trying not to grin like a rube and she’s laughing and kissing him on the cheek. They’re going up in an elevator and he cannot believe his good fortune. Maybe things are getting better after all.
They have another drink and she makes a bath, and they make love in the bath, and while Dan remembers what it’s like to be with a woman who isn’t Eileen, she drains the tub and they move to the shower and from the shower to the bed.
She is running her hands over his body. He is gently sucking her lips, kissing her nipples, taking his tongue up and down her soft skin while she laughs in exultation. When she touches him it’s like the first time he’s really felt his own penis, the first time he’s felt it be this swollen thing, sensitive to the touch, curving, growing, hard, wet with the trickle of semen, wet with whatever she’s got on her hand while she’s massaging him, stroking him, pulling him, someone else’s hand on him for the first time in a long time.
“Come on,” she says, her hands caressing his ass, pulling him inside of her.
“Oh, God,” she murmurs, or is he murmuring? It feels so good. He’s needed this. Her hands are so tender up and down him and it feels so good. He shudders. It feels so good to push and push into her, and he wants to keep doing it, but he’s slow about it, wanting to be gentle, and then her hands are up and down his back and she’s saying, “Don’t be gentle. Just do it.”
And so he starts to do it and he can feel her thighs around him, pulling him deeper inside of her, and he can hear himself growling between his teeth and she is rejoicing and calling ,”Fuck me! Do it harder.”
They’re both breathing hard together and his heart his pounding, his whole body is pounding, and then Dan is surprised and cries out while he comes. Somewhere along the line, sex with Eileen became tame Maybe that’s why she left. He keeps slamming into his new lover, exhausting himself, surprised at his shuddering body and at how long his body rocks on this orgasm, how much he spills, when her fingernails, sharp in his back, draw blood, become as insistent as claws. He answers with a harder thrust as she pulls him down and suddenly the gently nipping teeth prick, clamp down into his throat, and in an agonizing, strangling moment everything changes as, at the last of his coming, his body reeling from orgasm, he is turned around and feels the insistence of the fangs, his body convulsing with death and not pleasure, and a burning filling his arteries as life and strength drain away and he knows….
Tanitha and Kruinh… they were vampires.
This woman is a vampire…
I… am dying.


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