Page 8 of Feral Werewolves
“We’ll beshifted,” he said, as if this was a really good argument, as if it meant something.
“Don’t go if you don’t want,” I decided. “I’m going.”
4
clementine
THE NIGHT OFthe full moon, I reported to the gate where I was going to be thrown to the wolves at the appointed time.
The wall was tall and thick, nondescript and gray. The gate was only the size of a door. It was made of metal, with more than one deadbolt and a black doorknob. The ground leading up to the wall was blacktopped like a parking lot, except there weren’t any spaces for cars.
As dusk settled, I stood in a line with eight other women, and I watched as two more women were brought in by armed guards, handcuffed.
That was the thing. You didn’t have a choice about this. If you tried to resist, they put you in what they called “protective housing” but it was really jail. Then they forced you here, anyway. It didn’t make any sense to resist, but some people did it anyway.
The final tithe arrived ten minutes late. There was a tidily trimmed beard on the tithe’s face, and I did a double-take until I realized he must be trans. Because, of course, it didn’t matter if you didn’t identify as a woman anymore. You still had to report to the Council of Tithes if you were assigned female at birth, and you still had to be tested, and if the blood test came back positive, they sent you out across the wall anyway.
“You’re late, Noah. Second time.”
“Oops,” said Noah with a little shrug. “What are you going to do, force me to be gang-raped by wolves?” He laughed and loped over to stand next to me. He looked me over.
I looked away.
“You’re new,” he said.
“I didn’t mean to… stare,” I said. “You get that a lot, I bet.”
“I do and am therefore used to it,” he said.
“Still,” I said. “Sorry.”
We were all wearing tithe outfits, which looked kind of like medical scrubs. They were shapeless outfits, a shirt and pants. We’d been told not to wear underclothes of any kind, just the baggy tithe clothes.
He yawned, scratching his stomach. He had a flat chest and I could see his chest hair peering out at the top of the V-neck of his tithe outfit. He looked, you know, very male. “Not a thing, really.” A pause. “This is your first time, huh?”
“That obvious?” I said.
“Nah, just that I haven’t seen you before, and it’s basically the same people every time,” he said. “It’s my fourth time.”
“Oh,” I said, looking him over, thinking about seventeen thousand questions and not wanting to say any of them aloud because they were rude and none of my business.
“You know,” he said, “they all fuck each other out there, so it’s not likethisbothers them.” He gestured to the chest hair. “Luckily, I’m attracted to men, so… could be worse.”
“It’s none of my business,” I muttered.
“You want some advice about it?” he said.
“You have some?” The truth was that my heart had been beating too fast all day, that my stomach had been unsettled since before I went to sleep last night, and that I hadn’t been able to eat anything all day. I was nervous as all hell.
“I mean, they do all the work,” he said. “And it does not feel bad.”
I nodded, too fast. “Yeah, I mean, I’ve heard that.”
“So, you’ll get through it,” he said. “Don’t worry so much.”
Thanks, great advice. I’ll get right on that. Now that you’ve told me not to worry, it’s amazing how all the worry just melts away!I bowed my head. “Sure, sure. Of course.”
“You want to know if I have a penis, don’t you?” he said, nudging me with his shoulder. “Come on, admit it, you want to know.”
