Summer nights are the worst. The combination of the heat, the bare skin, everything comes together and is just worse than everything. It’s June and the full moon is coming and it’s just all bad and she hates it. That night before she left for work her brother lounged on her bed talking, “so, you think you gonna be okay tonight? I mean I can leave band practice early. Or like why don’t you take the night off?”
She turned to glare at him, “is you crazy? You know that calling in cause your period is fixing to start is not a thing, right? I’ll be fine. I got my board and I’ll cut up through the ass end of the Jungle maybe wreck something. It just got raided like three days ago nobody’ll be around.” Her glare softened; his concerned face always made her think of chubby serious cubs. “Don’t make that face, it’ll be good. I’ll make breakfast when you get home.”
Mention of breakfast made him smile. “I’ll stop at the Kin and pick up some fresh sausage, they always open early for me.” Deal made and brother soothed she finished getting ready for her shift at the diner. After her brother left she raided the fridge and powered down the last of the milk and a handful of the last of their ground burger. She brushed her teeth and grabbed a few emergency tampons and headed out.
A few times after the nightly rush of drunks she had to step out back and stand bent at the waist trying to breathe through the pain. When the worst of it passed she was able to go back inside and smile at stinky men, she poured coffee and talked enough flirtatious shit to make a good amount of tips. Good tips notwithstanding she felt like horse shit.
“Awwww pobrecita you want a roxy baby?” The voice was warm and sweet, laden with real concern of the type that comes from that one wild ass old Auntie everyone has. She smiled and shook her head, “naw. I’ll be okay. But like,” she lowered her voice, embarrassed, “my pussy hurts. Like all of it. Is that normal?” She gestured vaguely to her crotch region. The older woman clucked her tongue, “oh yeah my daughter gets it like that. When you get home take off your pants and panties and put a warm cloth on it. Or get fucked for a few hours, it’ll be sore but worth it.”
There was no blood on her shift. She had a few close calls, but each time found the crotch of her panties unsullied. The last time she sat with tears in her eyes for a good ten minutes before she could muster the energy to get her uniform pants back up and her work smile back on. She reapplied her lipstick and allowed herself the softest baby wolf howl, “Ohuwooowooo.”
At the end of her shift she stood dancing foot to foot while the manager counted her out. “Nice, you want me to call you a taxi?” The balding very pink man who was the night shift manager looked at her with a mix of concern and amusement. She grinned at him, “naw I got my board and if anybody tries it, bap bap bap.” She mimed hitting someone with her skateboard and he shook his head. “I will never understand how you ride that thing but you won’t ride in a car.” She changed into her jeans before getting ready to head out, checking her underwear one more time before deciding to chance it.
She shrugged and pocketed her money before turning to leave. “Deuces bitches.” Her manager called from behind her, “be careful don’t go to jail. I need you tomorrow night.” She threw a peace sign over her shoulder and stepped out of the backdoor right onto her trusty old longboard. She rolled slow and gracefully twined her long black and pink braids into a huge bun on the back of her neck, that done next thing her earbuds come out of her pocket and flicking her eyes from the road to her phone she scrolled through playlists until she found the right one. Swan Lake started to play and she smiled and kicked to get going faster.
In spite of the pain in her crotch and uterus, the closeness of the full moon and the sticky summer air against her skin she felt pretty good. The prospect of a big old wolf style breakfast made her smile even bigger as she flew out of downtown and headed into the neighborhood known as The Jungle. Outside of the neighborhood, people called it the sketchy part of town. Sure, there was crime and gangs and back in the day, crack hit and everything was fucked- yet it was still kind of beautiful.
Naturally she’d been right to say that her end of the Jungle would be empty after the raids. The traphouses stood silent and empty, some with lights still on. Most still draped in crime scene tape. For some the quiet might have been eerie but she loved it. Without having to avoid the shuffling baseheads or other high as fuck who knows what she had time to slow down, she jumped the curb and made long lazy waves in the street on her board.
The fat full moon hung above her turning her into a silvered goddess on a long board, her nose tilted up to smell the hint of meat on the air. Clean meat smell wafted on the breeze for the first time since she’d gotten out of bed she felt pretty good, until in her belly she felt her uterus doing something, it clenched and she felt the involuntary squeeze of her vagina and then the expected wet gush.
She closed her eyes and tipped her head back. “Fuck, fuck fuck fuck fuck.” She had resisted an earlier impulse to put on a pad and she can feel the blood seeping through her panties, unable to help herself she steps off of her skateboard and picks it up, smashing it over and over again into the curb. “Fuck you, fuck this fucking period bullshit. Piece of shit ass uterus, I hate you.”
She couldn’t hear the steps, and the preceding meat smell didn’t work to pull her from her momentary rage. The one time she wasn’t the most careful, her period decided to start with a whoosh. A man stood a few feet behind her laughing, and she whirled, glaring. “What the fuck are you laughing at?”
The man smiled at her, “you are so cute. Why you mad boo? Your boyfriend dump you?” She dropped the halves of her skateboard and put her fists on her hips, her period forgotten for the moment. “Who the fuck is you? I don’t know you, why would that ever be any of your business?” He started to say something when he noticed the spreading stain on her crotch, his face twisted, and he stepped back a pace.
“You dirty bitch, why don’t you go clean up. Ugh.”
Anything else he had to say disappeared behind the curtain of red that fell over her eyes. Under even the most dire circumstances, she was a good wolf. She never hunted in the city, never attacked humans, she didn’t howl randomly, she didn’t growl under her breath at work. Most of the time she lived the most perfect city wolf life. She had her brother and their pack and most of the time everything was fine. But right then, right in that instant she let it all go.
Her shoulders relaxed and she smiled at the guy as he talked. She stripped off her shirt and he stopped talking and stood there looking beefy and deliciously sweaty. She tossed her shirt away and looked up at the guy.
“Oh, man. You know, any other day it’d be fine, but no, nope, you had to talk shit today, didn’t you? And you know what? I bet you’re one of those weak motherfuckers that can’t stand a bloody pussy. Like you’ll bother a girl in the middle of the goddamn night to get some, but oh, if it’s bleeding ewww. Well, tonight is not your night my dude. Tonight, you gon’ learn.”
The guy started to try and respond, and it died on his lips. The roar that rolled out of her froze him in place, right before his eyes, her pretty brown skin started to run with fur and her body made strange liquid sounds. And her face, her little round face elongated and contorted into a snout full of ivory fangs, and then it was done. That was not a girl standing in front of him, that was a fucking werewolf.
She stood there, showing her teeth. She rolled her tongue around, scratched at an ear and he would have (had he lived) sworn the bitch smiled at him.
The Jungle echoed with her howling when the man took off running. It was the sound of pure joy, the hunt was on and without stopping to dab the blood from her furry crotch she ran after him. The harder he ran, the sweeter his flesh smelled, the happier she got. When her prey reached the dead ass end of the Jungle, she watched him panic for a minute before she sprang at him out of the shadows.
His scream was cut short as her stout furry body crashed into him and her powerful jaws locked onto his throat. Unlike her brothers, she wasn’t quite large enough to snap a neck, not for lack of trying. She’d taken a cue from the cheetahs and took him down like an ibex. She lay on his chest, feeling his body struggle as the oxygen burned away and his heart struggled to keep going. She held her grip on his jaw and chewed a little when he started to cry.
When his struggling stopped and she could no longer feel the pound of his heart, she let go and stretched, she rearranged herself and dove into his belly snout first. Belly was her favorite cut of meat and he had plenty of that fatty stripey bacon she loved. Cramps forgotten she tore strips of flesh away, munching contentedly, her fluffy brown tail wagged, and she felt so much better.
After a few minutes of bliss, she looked up and her upper lip curled, she rose slightly to stand over her kill, her brother stood there with his arms crossed. “Really? Is you serious? The fuck is wrong with you?” She didn’t change back, she whined a little and pranced in place before she walked over and sat on his foot, looking up with doleful eyes.
“Ohuwooowooo?” She knew that tone worked, he tried to keep glaring, but between her little whiny whimper and the big, upturned eyes he softened. “Fine, fine, stop looking at me like that god damn. Okay, go ahead. Jr is on the way with his truck, so we’ll have the leftovers for breakfast. And don’t even try to eat the whole dude, you’ll get sick. Remember what happened last time?” Her ears flattened, she did remember and still felt some type of way about it. He smiled and squatted, when they were nose to nose, he kissed her muzzle.
“Good girl, that’s a big one. Go on ahead and eat some more.”
She licked his face and ran in a proud little circle around her kill before settling down to finish the belly meat while they waited for Junior to pick them up.
Nobody reported the man missing. The next morning when one of the regulars in the Jungle found the pool of blood somebody went to get a hose and they washed it down so it wouldn’t stink. Folks got bailed out of jail or wandered back in when the heat was off. Things settled back to normal and really, everything was okay. Save of course for the occasional strangely animalistic attacks near the full moon.