Cake Under the Mistletoe

Cake Under the Mistletoe

On the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog. Old joke. It wasn’t that funny fifteen years ago. But, on the internet, nobody knows you’re a werewolf, either. New joke. And it still isn’t that funny.

Legend has it that children born on Christmas Day become werewolves. That’s just silliness, of course, given the millions born on that day, and the relative scarcity of lycanthropes in the population. But at the stroke of midnight between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, at the magic hour when animals are supposed to talk? That’s a different tale altogether.

My mother was no superstitious peasant woman that Christmas Eve in 1967. The indigestion from her mother’s eggnog turned out to be labor. I understand she spent much of it cursing my father for being frisky in March and making her miss the midnight service and the Children’ Pageant.

Childhood was easy enough. There was no sign of anything abnormal. Then, puberty hit me like a freight train of hormones and hair. One day, cracking voice. The next, a full-fledged loup-garou in the dining room. Thoroughly modern suburbanites do not take well to a werewolf in the family. My father, ever the shrink, blamed my mother for too-early toilet training. Mother just sniffed and said I had to have gotten it from his side of the family.

We adjusted. The eighties were a time of odd enough music that if I decided to put Warren Zevon on repeat a time or two, nobody noticed. Dad called it my hebephrenia and consulted experts about hysterical hair growth. And I just got used to locking myself in the basement three nights a month.

I made it through school, and college. I couldn’t take night classes or live in the dorm. I had a social life, and a place off-campus with a sturdy basement. College expanded my mind, enhanced my self-perception and got me my first blow job. Most gay kids figure it out early, but my condition made me decide to wait on sex.

Who knew what effects it could have? I had read enough horror stories to have a healthy fear of changing in mid-sex, and waking up to newspaper headlines of mangled college boys. My fears were all out of proportion.

No change, no mangling, but no telephone call the next day either. It was so nice to have something normal happen for a change.

After graduation, I got myself a little house, a nice job as a draftsman and settled into domesticity. My lycanthropy left me with a keen interest in folklore and the occult, and as the nineties drew to a close, I found myself running several mailing lists.

CreatureoftheNight was the most heavily trafficked. We weren’t a role-playing game, but several people, myself included, had online personae. If I didn’t post during the full moon, well, it was taken as a quirk akin to VanHel’s referring to stake sharpening or Erzabet’s virgin fetish. I’d come to grips with my disorder, and knew it was just something I would live with the rest of my life.

I wasn’t uncomfortable. The house had a finished basement, and I’d reinforced the door and added several locks. I had a big dog bed, a water bowl and knew how to keep the beast quietest.

CreatureoftheNight decided to have a real holiday party to celebrate our fifth anniversary. As listdad, I offered to host the party at my place. It was scheduled for the week before the full moon, which should be just fine.

I finished checking my e-mail, doing list mod sort of things, and checked the October evening. It was still early, so I got my shoes on to go out for dinner at the local all-you-can-stomach steak house. The computer announced “A missive, o my lord and master.”

It was from Furball, one of the other “weres” on the list. He wanted to come for the party but needed a place to stay. He knew he was imposing when he asked.

I fired back a note saying that of course he could crash at my place, if he felt safe with an old alpha wolf like me. I liked Furball. He was younger than I was, very smart and funny, and a complete sweetheart on-line. One of the list members had tried to bait him into a flamewar once, and he had steadfastly refused, his sweetly-worded, gentle tone never wavering. I’d banned the idiot as a disruption.

When I waddled home from the buffet, fuller than was comfortable, I was greeted by another message from Furball informing me of his arrival time and asking for a chat session tomorrow. I was out of time, so I filled my waterbowl and headed to the basement.

When my belly is full, the wolf does not need to hunt. I slept the night away on the big soft bed, waking now and then to drink water and go back to sleep. At sunrise, I climbed the stairs, grabbed a bagel on the way to the shower and then made a proper breakfast after I was dressed. My food bill is ridiculous for a bachelor during that week.

I never remember my dreams when I’m changed. This morning, I seemed to recall dreaming of hunting, but not alone. A smaller male wolf hunted with me. I wrote it to wishful thinking and checked my e-mail. Then I puttered. I chatted with Furball. He was as sweet in chat as on the list. I called mom and let her know I was fine again this month.

I had far too much Chinese for dinner, and locked myself in. The dreams were clearer this time, not just hunting, but of playing as well. At one point, I closed my jaws on the smaller wolf’s ruff. He rolled over and showed me belly. When he rolled back over, I mounted him to show dominance, but he didn’t yelp like a beta male, but rather whimpered like a female. I nipped at him as if my intention was mating and not domination.

I woke in my right mind. Another chat with Furball, more weekend puttering, and then a final night in the basement.

I looked like hell Monday--I always do after three nights--and it took two brand-new razors to make me presentable for work. Things were quiet. I worked, planned the party, and chatted often with Furball. I gave him my real name and phone number, he did the same, and before Thanksgiving we were chatting on the phone as often as on the computer.

On Black Friday, another full moon, I was talking to him and decided to come out. “Furball, you need to know a couple things. I am a werewolf.”

“Oh really?” He laughed. “Here I thought I was the only one on a list of wannabes. A nick like ‘BigBadWolf,’ and encouraging them to call you BB doesn’t exactly lead anyone to take you seriously.”

“And I’m gay.”

“I knew that. Sweetie, why do you think I’ve been putting all this effort into you? You think I call just anyone? Chat at all hours with every well-spoken were that crosses my screen? Of course not. Maybe I won’t have to sleep on the spare bed when I’m up, hunh?”

“I’ll see you in about three weeks. I need to get to the basement.”

“Yeah, me too. I hate short winter days See you.”

I still wasn’t sure if he thought it was all a big role-playing session. Didn’t matter. He wanted me as much as I was wanting him.

Over the next three weeks, I caught myself getting positively silly. I was practicing pick up lines, fantasizing about having him and planning all the places I’d show him during the couple of days he was here on either side of the party. That was assuming I even let him out of bed.

My hand was getting more of a workout than I’d imagined. I chuckled at the old story about hairy palms, which was also supposed to be one of the markers on a vampire or werewolf, I could never remember which. I wrapped presents in an erotic fog. I even got Furball a little something beyond the white elephant gift exchange for the party.

The day Furball was to arrive, I found myself sillier than ever. I couldn’t pass a mirror without checking myself. And I changed clothes three times before deciding on a seasonal sweatshirt showing Santa and the reindeer getting hammered on eggnog.

I drove out to the airport, and checked for flight 349 from Memphis. I’d even packed a spare coat, since he’d said it was in the fifties and rainy there. We had snow on the ground, making it proper holiday weather.

The slim, dark, bearded man that stepped out of the tunnel was not quite what I had expected. He was wearing the Cthulhu in a Santa Hat sweatshirt that he had told me he’d be wearing. I walked up to him and steered him out of the general traffic before hugging him.

“Welcome to the Great White North, Furball.”

“Hello yourself, BB.” He winked and wrapped an arm around my waist. “I didn’t check anything, so we can just go.”

“Great.” I could feel the sexual tension building already. He smelled good. Clean, but without heavy aftershave or cologne. Mostly it was just the smell of him. I caught his nose twitching too. “Pup, you thinking what I’m thinking?”

A slow sexy smile crossed his face. “I bet I am. But I think we should go home. Homeland Security really frowns on people sitting in their cars even if they’re making out.”

“Just making sure we’re not going to end up in that scene from Random Hearts.”

“Hate to break it to you, but you’re not exactly Harrison Ford.” He patted me where I was getting thick in the middle from too much time in my drafting chair and too little at the gym.

“You aren’t Kristin Scott Thomas either.” I cuffed him lightly and we laughed rest of the way to the car.

I kept one eye on the road the whole way back to my place. The other was on Furball. He was really pretty, in a Mediterranean sort of way: liquid dark eyes, olive skin, long curly black hair. I couldn’t stop looking at him, wondering what a kiss was going to taste like. Would it be all cinnamon and incense and wild wind as he looked?

Or, as was more likely, would he taste of nothing but airplane pretzels and bottled water?

My nose found him quite interesting too. He didn’t smell quite right. Male, definitely. Gay, of course. But there was something underneath it all, a hint of musk, of woods and feralness. I wondered if I was quite sure I was the only real were on the list.

We talked of nothing much. He told me about his flight. I pointed out the sights, the river, the skyline. We talked about the party. I was planning to shop the next day, and he said he needed to as well.

“Are you supplied otherwise?” he asked softly.

“Yeah, the fridge is-”

“The nightstand,” he corrected me softly, laying a hand on my thigh.

I almost blushed as I turned down my street. It had been a long time. “Oh! Um. Actually, yeah. After you said you already knew, I was kinda hoping.”

“Excellent.” He smiled, and his teeth were very white in the fast-gathering dusk.

I pulled in the garage and shut down. He caught me by my coat and pulled me in for a kiss. I opened for him, tasting the expected pretzels but under it a smokier flavor, one that spoke of bonfires and music and freedom. Ah, he could kiss. He tugged at my bottom lip with his teeth as he pulled away.

“It’s too early for dinner,” he said. “Can we find a way to kill an hour or two?”

I nodded. “Yeah.” My voice was thick and breathy. I was already hard. Another kiss like that one and I’d be shooting in my pants and never making it to bed.

He got out and smiled at me over the roof of the car, a slow, slow smile, one that took in his whole face. I’d seen smiles like that before, but never aimed at me. I wasn’t what the local bar trade considered sexy and I had never really felt right at the local community center. Smiles like that had always been for someone else. Someone who wasn’t a boring old architect and a werewolf.

I opened the door and gestured him in. “Front room,” I gestured over the half-wall, “Bathroom and bedroom down the hallway. You want to get cleaned up from your flight?”

No answer, just another of those smiles that went straight to my gut and made my knees wobble. He took his pilot’s case and headed for the bedroom. All I could do was follow, making a quick stop in the bathroom. I didn’t keep supplies in the nightstand. I didn’t have a nightstand.

“A waterbed.” He sounded amused. “I didn’t know anyone under the age of forty still had those.” He wrapped his arms around my neck. “Got a disco ball to go with it?”

“I think we’ll manage our own fireworks. You a top or bottom?” I disentangled myself while I still could and shucked off the sweatshirt.

“You said you were an alpha wolf, my friend.” His hands were already undoing my other shirt. I managed to get my fingers working to return the favor.

“I said a lot of things.” I kissed him so I could quit talking. His hands were under my shirt, stroking my chest, brushing over my nipples and sending little shocks through me every time he did. When he lowered his mouth to one, I pushed him away. “I can’t handle that. Too much.”

“It’s all right. Maybe this will be better.”

Before I could think, he was on his knees in front of my open jeans, sucking me. His tongue was everywhere, from base to tip, and the suction was incredible. I couldn’t take it. I held out for one long, swirling spiral from top to bottom and back again, but the second time, I came and came hard. When I opened my eyes, he was smiling up at me. He swallowed with an ostentatious gulp and then flicked his tongue out to catch the last drop that had beaded up.

“It’s been too long for you, hasn’t it?”

“Yeah.” I made it to the bed and kicked my shoes off, but got tangled in my shirt. Furball laughed at me, and helped me out of the rest of my clothes while getting out of his own.

“I can tell. You still remember what you’re doing though, right?” He stretched out, rocking gently with the flow of the bed.

“I think so.” I settled beside him and kissed him again, working my way from his mouth, down his neck and over his chest. He wasn’t a gym bunny, that was for sure. He had plenty of lean muscle, but nothing bulked up. No fat on him, either.

I quit teasing and licked him all over. He was hard. The wild musk scent was stronger here, puzzling me while I tried to concentrate on pleasuring him. His cock was perfect, long and thick enough for respectability, not so much I was choking when I tried to swallow him. He tasted of clean skin, stale air, and the musk. I couldn’t get enough, and buried my nose in the black curls at the base of his cock.

“For not getting a lot of practice, you’re really good,” he said softly. “If you don’t swallow, now’s the time to move.” The last was all breathy and followed by a gasp. I swallowed.

I sat up and got dressed. Furball just sprawled across the pine cone printed comforter, that sweet, sexy smile on his face. As I was pulling on my boots, he sat up and licked my neck.

“You are one of the Pack. I’d wondered.” He caught one of my hands. “It’s written right here.” He laid a finger across my fingertips, reminding me I have really weird hands and the index and middle fingers were the same length. “I can smell that you’re still wondering. Look at me.”

“All I see is a really pretty Italian boy in my bed. Not everyone can carry a unibrow, but it’s a good look on you. Keeps you from being too girly looking.” I licked the place where his eyebrows met above his nose, then pulled him around onto my lap for another kiss. “I know all the marks. I’ve done my reading. Growing up lycanthropic isn’t a picnic.”

“I know.” He kissed me back. “How old were you the first night you changed?”

“Fourteen.” His ears under the thick hair were just a tad pointed. My own were round. I played with the point a little.

“Ah, an early bloomer. I was fifteen, almost sixteen.”

“I’m hungry,” I interrupted. I wasn’t quite ready to be that intimate with him. “You like pizza?”

“Love it. Do you get barbeque pizza this far north? Better, you got a CiCis or something like it? It was a long flight and I missed lunch.”

Over dinner, we talked more about the party, and who would be coming. I started jotting down my shopping list on a napkin.

“I make really good hot wings. Can I use your kitchen?”

“Sure.” I had turned the napkin over and started writing the to-do list. “Maybe we should shop tonight.”

“I’d like that.”

We took the long way. I drove through neighborhood that put up a lot of Christmas lights. It turned out we both loved looking at multi-colored lights. The snow on the roofs and trees made a lot of the houses look like Christmas cards.

“I’ll bet you only like color movies too,” I said after he had smudged the window a fourth time watching the lights on an exceptionally pretty house.

“Black and white is all right on the new moon. This close, I only want color.”

“Right. We’ll skip the watching of It’s a Wonderful Life.”

“It’s okay, my family always watched Star Wars for the holidays. You should see my sister with cinnamon rolls on her head.” We both laughed.

“Bet your sister isn’t as pretty as you.” She couldn’t be, not as gorgeous as he was.

“She’s prettier. I’m the homely one of the family. And the only one that-”

I cut him off. “Yeah. How’d your folks handle it?” I remembered many tense family scenes over my little problem.

“Mama threw the butter dish at Papa and announced it was all his fault that I had turned out like my grandfather and uncle. She also cautioned my sisters against being intimate on Easter, because it made Christmas babies. In our family, that means werewolf, no matter what time of day you’re born. The Wolf runs strong in my line. You just got unlucky.”

“I can live with it.”

Throughout the shopping trip, we just visited. He was a junior professor in literature at a college down in Memphis, his specialty area was New England Transcendentalists, his hobby myth and folklore. It seemed appropriate.

Toward the end of the shopping, he quieted down and got shy as we approached the register. The clerk was looking tired, but she managed a smile.

“Some party coming up, hunh?” she asked, as her hands moved the items over the scanner.

“Yeah. Buncha my net-friends are coming in. Just throw that in with my stuff,” I told Furball as he tried to stop her taking the frozen wings, the odd lump of meat and seasonings. “You can take me for dinner or something.”

We got out, and in the car I asked “Why’d you clam up?”

“It’s not safe to be gay in some places. Discretion is never a bad idea.”

“We’re a little more progressive up here. But you’re probably right.” I remembered some of the things I had heard locally about troubles. I could only imagine what it was like for him down in the hyper-religious South.

“And I was thinking of how to ask a favor.” As if I could refuse him anything when he smiled at me like that.

“Just ask.”

“Could I stay until after our birthday?” He ducked his head a little after the request. “I know guests and fish stink after three days, but I would really like to. And I want to spend the wolf-time with you.”

“And what makes you think I’d say no? I like the quiet, but I like your company too.”

We got home and carried the groceries into the house. I set the bag of cookie dough tubes on the counter and caught him around the waist. “You can stay as long as you like. I’d love to have for my birthday.” The double entendre was unintentional, but he pounced on it.

“I’ll lick the frosting off of you, and,” he dropped to his knees and breathed heavily on my crotch until I could feel the heat through my jeans, “blow out my candle.”

“Come on, the raspberries are melting. Time for that after everything’s put away.”

We stashed and shifted and stuffed until all we had were some empty bags. I tied them in a knot and caught sight of the clock as I threw them away.

“Listen, pup, I have to get up for work. Will you be okay by yourself? I could only wrangle a half day. I’ll be home at one.”

“May I use your computer? Just to check my e-mail.”

“Sure. Just don’t play over any saved games.” I gave him a wink to let him know I was kidding and then headed to the bathroom for a shower.

Feisty pup slipped into my shower. He was even prettier wet than dry. The drops clung in the black curls all over his chest and the steam made his curly hair frizz up. I loved the way he tasted wet, and his skin gave off the wolf odor even more strongly. He whimpered under my kisses and thrust up into my hand. The earlier sex had exhausted me, but he was still ready.

I rubbed his cock, bracing him against the wall with one arm, and making sure we both stayed under the warm water. I soaked up the little sounds he made, the whimpers, the yelps, even the tiny, low-in the-throat growl. I liked that one a lot. I wanted to hear more of it.

Furball let me support him and stroke him, content to merely experience. I liked the position, the protectiveness of it, coupled with the dominance. I could control him, bring him off if I chose, hold him at the edge if I wanted, deny him all together if I felt like it. He came with the barest hint of a howl in his gasp. His tongue was hot and felt too long as he licked the water droplets off my face. He had a lot more control over his shifting than I’d ever manage. I suspected it came of being born into a lycanthropic family.

“Can you teach me to do that? That tongue thing?” I asked as the hot water failed and we jumped, reaching for towels.

“It’s part of the change. You will which parts will change and which will remain human.” His eyes grew golden and feral. His face took on contours that were not quite human. He was even more desirable like that. I wasn’t as spent as I had thought. “Control is only possible when the moon is not full.”

His hands were hairier and the nails had grown long and thick. They closed around my cock with surprising gentleness and the fur was not as coarse as I had expected. That amazingly long tongue flashed over sharp white teeth.

“Do you trust me?” he asked.

I nodded, knowing it was a bad idea, but needing to feel that tongue with every fiber in me. He knelt and flicked that tongue all over my torso and cock. I couldn’t resist. “My, what big teeth you have.”

He gave a wicked grin, the fangs even more prominent. Slowly, savoring each word, he said, “All the better to eat you up, my dear.”

He did. The hottest fastest blow job of my life, it put all the rest to shame. A nearly prehensile tongue, proportionately as long as a dog’s, and the sharp ivory teeth added an element of risk that sent it from merely erotic into the stratosphere. I was concentrating on not letting the top of my head blow off when I came.

He stood up, and he was just a handsome man again. “Bed time? Or shall we hang

some extra mistletoe in here?”

“I know someone who’s getting coal and switches in his stocking,” I said, swatting

him lightly.

“Oooh, kinky.” He winked. “Got a leash for me, too?”

“Come on. Bed. And don’t hog the covers.”

I left him sleeping, daydreamed through my half-day, and came home to the smell of baking cookies and something meaty. The tree was up. Holly hung around the mantle, and twinkly lights were in the front picture window and the little door windows. And not one, but five springs of mistletoe were hung at strategic congestion points in the house.

“Hi. I got started on decorating and getting the stuff ready for the party. I thought I’d make myself useful.”

“Looks like you’re succeeding admirably.” I looked at the cookies. I’d bought plain old sugar cookie dough, thinking to sprinkle it with red and green crystals. He’d found some old cookie cutters and a parade of Santas, teddy bears, and poinsettias now marched across my kitchen table. He was frosting them before I’d interrupted. The crockpot held something I couldn’t identify.

“Pork shoulder. It won’t be ready until supper. It’s too cold for a smoker, but I brought a jar of Corky’s Hot Barbecue Sauce. It’ll do.”

“You didn’t have to do all this.” I was amazed at the flurry of activity he’d managed in one morning.

“I got bored. And a bored were is very dangerous indeed.” He threatened me with the spatula, red icing smeared on it. The determined glare on his face spoiled by the smile that burst out.

I swung him around under the mistletoe. “So I see.” I couldn’t get enough of kissing him. “They’ll find me dead, at the hands of a mad pastry chef. Verdict: murder by spatula, with complications of frosting..” I whispered all over his face and neck as I kissed him again and again.

He enjoyed it enough to break away and insist, “Enough, or I’ll never get done.” He waved the spatula again.

“Let me do that, you make your wings. We can reheat them.”

The rest of the afternoon was spent in party preparation: cookies and hot wings, alcoholic punch and non, vacuuming, relish trays and shopping. I’d forgotten plates and cups.

At the Dollar Store, Furball insisted on buying a couple of cheap stockings and stocking hangars. He picked up red glittery fabric paint at Target and wrote our nicknames across the tops. He hung them from the holly-encrusted mantle. They did seem to add a final touch.

Then, while I tried to find a place to store the chips and dip, Furball ducked into the .bedroom to wrap his present for the White Elephant exchange. I set up a play-list of appropriately demented holiday songs. They would fade into quieter instrumentals as the evening wore on. But who could resist Klingons singing “Jingle Bells?” In Klingonese, yet.

I set out an appropriate selection of movies, in case we needed them. By the time Furball announced that dinner was ready, the party was too. Now, we just had to wait for tomorrow. The barbecue was really good. He shredded the meat and served it on big kaiser rolls.

We snuggled on the couch and watched A Company of Wolves. Furball curled into my side like he belonged there. We drooled over the handsome men, and sighed over the dim woman in the first segment. Both of us snarled simultaneously at Granny, and cheered at the handsome young were who knocked her head from her shoulders.

Furball stretched at the end. “Man, I’d forgotten how bad the effects were in this. Not sure I get the ending. Now I’m all horny.”

“Right here, on the couch,” I growled. I’d left a condom and lube in the side table earlier for this. “I want to fuck you.”

“You think you’re alpha enough?” Furball did that sexy half-shift thing of his. He stalked me. “You can’t even control your changes.”

“Maybe I’m not,” I conceded, not in the mood for a power game. “Maybe you’re the alpha.”

“You’ve been a lone wolf too long. Who knows where you stand?” He shifted back to being fully human.

“I know I want to fuck you,” I repeated.

“And I want you to.” He kissed me again and took the condom from me. “But I want to be on top next time.” The other hand produced a spring of mistletoe and dangled it over his head.

I kissed him again. “Sure.” I undid his shirt and slid it off his shoulders, trapping his arms, then started on his belt buckle. He held a corner of the condom package in his teeth while he escaped the shirt, dropped the mistletoe and helped me out of my own clothes.

He tossed a couple of pillows on the floor and knelt on one by the edge of the couch, and I knelt on the other beside him. He caught my cock in his hand and started stroking me. I reached for him, but he batted my hand away. Quicker than I realized what he was doing, he had the package open and the condom on me. I kissed him long and slow as he rubbed lubricant all over the shaft before starting on the head. Ending his work with a huge dollop right at the tip, he turned away and bent over the edge of

the couch.

Now, it was my turn. I came around behind him and curled around him, bending close to conform to the curve of his body. A slow, gentle push, and I was inside him. I stopped a moment, savoring the feel of my new lover, now explored completely. Furball gasped and I kissed his neck, burying my hands in those black curls to hold them out of the way.

“Is it okay?” I whispered.

“Better than okay. More,” was all he said. I slid in deeper and he breathed against the invasion. Finally, all the way in, I paused again. He lay relaxed across my sofa.

“You’re so sexy,” I said. “Beautiful wolf- boy. Hot. Tight. You feel so good, baby.” I tend to babble during sex.

He turned his head and raised up to kiss me and shut me up. His tongue in me, my cock in him, we knelt and rocked in the twinkly colored lights of the tree. I thrust a little, and he let my mouth go, so he could lie back down for better penetration. I grasped his hips and set a leisurely pace.

“Harder,” he said, pressing back against me. I obliged. He gave that sexy whimper I loved to hear when I reached around to stroke his cock. A little yelp let me know I’d hit his prostate, so I did it again, and again, until he was panting with need. Then I set to work without mercy, making sure I bumped his prostate with every thrust, and matching the rhythm with my hand.

“That’s it, pup, come for me. Let go. Come on.” He did, and his shudder tipped me over the edge. The lights twinkled on both sides of my eyelids for a few minutes, while I stayed perfectly still, just absorbing the sensations.

Furball reached around, got my cock by the base and helped me out. We cleaned up and went to bed, snuggling very close.

The party went off perfectly the next evening. Everyone came all decked out for the holidays, whether in silly sweatshirts, holly crowns, santa hats, jingle bells or mistletoe belt buckles. There was plenty of food, good conversation, and only two of the other guests were actual Children of the Night, a vampire and a succubus. The rest were humans out for a good time. Everyone seemed to have one.

I got a new mousepad on the white elephant exchange, and my own contribution—a snowglobe showing a vampiric santa being pulled by eight tiny bats--was a big hit. A couple of guests had more to drink than was good for them, so I offered spare bed and couch as crash space. Succubi cannot hold hard mulled cider, at least our resident succubus couldn’t, and the raspberry champagne punch did in the poor mortal.

Furball helped me put the perishables away. We turned out all the lights except the tree and went to bed. We were too tired to do anything except exchange quick kisses and curl around each other to sleep.

Our guests left, slightly hung over, after breakfast, and we set to work cleaning up the detritus of the party. Furball told me what it was like coming down a line of weres, and having lots of expectations put on him. His uncle had tried to arrange a marriage for him, before they found out he was gay.

Even that didn’t stop his parents. They suggested he marry the girl anyway, carry on the line, and see men on the side. He couldn’t do that, reminding them of the old pack ways, that wolves mate for life. He shrugged. “And that’s why I’m spending my birthday with you, instead of with my parents, sisters, and all the extra relatives. I’ll be twenty-eight. In our pack, we are expected to be producing children by then. I think Grandfather understands. He’s the one who puts a stop to the pestering, every time.”

“My folks are just typical WASP suburbanites. They deal with their son, the big bad

wolf and the big bad queer in the same way: by not dealing. They pretend all is well,

and I pretend I’m normal.”

Furball sat the candy dish down so hard that the last, left-over peppermints jumped

onto the counter. “You are normal.” He pulled me down for a fierce kiss. “They are

abnormal because they cannot love who you are. My family loves their son, the wolf

and the man.”

“But they still want you to lead the pack.”

“I am the only son, and the only wolf of my generation. It would be a shame to die

out.”

I hesitated, almost afraid to ask. “You said wolves mate for life, pup. Why are you

in my bed then? I’m not going to be taking a lifepartner any time soon.”

He just smiled and kissed me again before starting to pick up the peppermints.

We had a couple quiet days. I took sick time, and got a doctor to write me up for mono. I didn’t have the kissing disease, but I couldn’t bear to spend eight hours without kissing my lover. We didn’t do much, just a lot of cuddling, a lot of talking and some movie watching. I kept up with my list-dad activities and Furball posted amusing notes about his stay in the “Dark Scary Forest” as my place was typically called by the list.

A couple days before the full moon, Furball was restless and snappish. I couldn’t do anything right. It was okay, neither could he. We spent the day snarling at each other, avoiding each other, and sulking.

After an hour or so, we’d emerge from wherever we had denned up, only to clash again. Finally tired of his petulance, I pinned him against the wall and kissed him hard, shoving my hand down his pants and my tongue down his throat. He bit me on the lips, down the throat, and my favorite college sweatshirt was a casualty of his claws. I managed to rescue my jeans by undoing them myself.

I turned him around to face the wall, holding him there with my body weight, and grabbed the lube and condom out of my jean pocket before shoving my pants away. He lay his head on his crossed arms, spread his feet and waited.

I clamped my teeth on the back of his neck, as I would his ruff, were we in our proper shapes. He whimpered, and rubbed his lovely dark ass against my thigh. I ran two slick fingers into him, then used them to prepare myself.

I shoved into him, slamming him into the wall, and pounding. He was panting, but there was no sound of pain. He was hot and tight and I couldn’t last, but I took him anyway, asserting my dominance with a circle of love-bites marked at the base of his neck.

He begged for more, harder, and I gave it to him. “Don’t challenge me again, pup,” I snarled in his ear as I came. He whimpered his assent.

I spun him around, kissed him until he gasped for air, and then slid down his body to suck him off. He stayed vertical only by dint of being trapped between me and the wall. He couldn’t muster any reaction, save the harsh panting.

As I looked up at his face, tense from the nearness of change and orgasm, I started chuckling. I had to spit him out before I choked, but it was quickly a full-on laugh. “What’s so fucking funny?” he demanded. “Why’d you stop?”

I couldn’t answer, but pointed over my head. We’d ended our clash right under the mistletoe hanging in the hall. I shook off the silliness and went back to kissing him properly.

He’d almost gone soft, but I didn’t mind. I liked kissing him like this and watching all the little movements he made. He made the funniest face when he came. I licked him clean, draped one arm around him and steered him to the living room.

“We aren’t gonna be worth crap for about four days, pup, and you know it too.”

He pushed me back onto the couch, and stretched atop me. “No, we aren’t. My sisters used to say ‘we can’t all be bitches at once.’ But it’s okay. Every time we get snarly, we’ll have sex instead.” He kissed me.

“Sounds like a plan. You want to watch a movie? I think I’ll just flop here and die. You pick, and then come cuddle.” The sofa made out into a hide-a-bed, so we unfurled it, and stretched out to watch Die Hard. We both needed something with lots of blood and violence in it.

The next morning, we were still in moods. I found myself with a weird urge to piss on everything in my range, mark my territory. I restrained it, fidgeted my way through another movie and suggested we shop. It was my bed, and not big enough for two. I didn’t share my water-dish either. We picked up a water bowl and dog bed at Target, and fended off the very young clerk who was showing her tolerance by cooing over us and our–to use her nauseating term–“furbaby.”

Fed up with her, Furball picked up a collar that matched the bed and fitted it around his neck. “Do you like it, sir?”

Taking my cue, I patted his head. “Lovely, Fido. It matches the bed. Throw it in the cart, like a good puppy.” He did and started looking for a leash to match. The clerk’s eyes got big and she ducked around the endcap of the aisle muttering about needing to do some stocking.

“Good boy.” I patted him again. He snapped at my hand.

“Arf yourself.” Furball put the collar back on the rack and we checked out. “I find women like gays until they actually have to think about the sex part. And kink will throw most all of them.”

We stopped for a late lunch at the local scarf-and-barf KFC buffet. I checked the urge to crack the chicken bones, and instead filled up. Furball stopped after two plates, but I urged him to eat more.

“And get all pudgy like you?” He pointed the plastic spork at my stomach.

“You saying I’m fat?” I could stand to lose a few pounds, but I wasn’t really overweight.

“If I ate like this every full moon, I’d be the size of a blimp. Not saying you are.”

“It helps me sleep through the change,” I said, watching the sun sinking like a watery silver coin behind the gray clouds. “We need to be getting back. Sunset in an hour.”

“Maybe,” Furball said, rubbing his nose against mine as I unlocked his car door, “I don’t want you to sleep this month.”

I pondered that as we went home. He washed his water bowl as I carried the bed to the basement and brought mine back up. We stripped, dropped our clothes in the laundry basket and went downstairs with our water and locked the door.

It wasn’t dark yet, but we stood together by the west window well, kissing as we watched the sun set. I could feel the moon pulling at me already. Furball was hairier than normal, and his ears looked longer than usual.

I kissed him again, but this time, my own snout started getting in the way halfway through. The changes and shifts in my body knocked me to my knees, and the last thing I saw was Furball kneeling and shuddering through his own transformation. I registered that he was a smaller European black wolf, and then, my human mind slept.

Smell of invader. A male in my territory. Smell of mate. My mate. Smell. My mate. Furry male, crawling on his haunches. Submissive. Bite. Mount. Mate. My mate. Whimper. Drink. Curl together. Sleep. Wake. Play fight. Mate again. Drink. Play. Sleep.

We woke the next morning, curled together on the carpet instead of in our beds, the basement reeking of mating smells. I didn’t say much, just unlocked the door, and showered. Furball shaved, and then joined me just as I was stepping out of the water.

We went to Shoney’s. He took fourths and we both kept the waitress hopping filling our water glasses. I was picking around the edge of my last sausage patty, not really liking the cooked deadness of it, when he caught my hand.

“That was incredible. I’ve never been indoors with anyone during the change. My uncle and grandfather join me sometimes out on the farm where we run all night. But that was amazing. Thank you for letting me stay.”

“It’s nothing.” But I had enjoyed the change far more than usual myself. “You’re good looking either way.”

“And you are the biggest, greyest timber wolf I ever saw,” he said. “Big.” He kissed my nose. “Bad.” He kissed my chin. “Wolf.” He kissed me long and sweet. “So beautiful.”

We napped until dinner time, then filled up on rare prime rib at a local casino. I needed meat, and I wanted it to bleed when I bit into it. The servers set me up nicely.

The second night went much the same. We changed together, and spent the night playing and napping. Our full bellies ensured a lack of actual fighting, but Furball snapped a little too hard and made my left foreleg bleed.

I bandaged it the next morning. “So, good thing I’m already a wolf, or I’d be changing for sure now.”

“Superstitious nonsense. There are only three ways to become one, as you well know.” Furball kissed my face where I’d scratched myself. “Christmas eve at the stroke of midnight, drinking from a wolf’s paw print, or being born into a family of them, and then only if you’re born on Christmas Day.”

“Must be a helluva birthday party around your place.”

“Grandfather, Uncle Zoltan and I have an understanding. Grandfather is the pack-leader and will be until he dies. But Mama makes the most wonderful cakes.”

“We’ll have to do something. Usually, I just catch a midnight service at the Methodist Church and have dinner out the next day.”

“My family never took up the Christian faith. We still are the people of the Moon Goddess.” He said this with no trace of irony.

“Fitting.” I kissed him. “We’ll get a cake, and I’ll make dinner for our birthday.” We spent the last night of the change time in the basement. There was no question in either mind who was the alpha in this house.

The next day, I was toweling off and I heard him on the phone. I’m terrible about eavesdropping. Comes of growing up in a house where no one ever talks about anything directly. I learned to listen at doors before I could read, and it had served me well in my teens.

“No, Mama, I’m fine. I know I wasn’t home. I found another wolf.” He paused, listening. “I’m in Wisconsin.” The pause was briefer. “Yeah, it’s really cold, but he’s got a nice warm basement, with locks, and we’re pretty comfortable.” A long pause. “No, Mama, I won’t be home for my birthday. We’re celebrating together up–Mama, I told you he was a were.”

I rattled a bit as I walked in, letting him know I was there. It was just common eavesdropping courtesy.

“Mama, I’ll bring him home for inspection when I’m good and ready. He’s a lone wolf, and never been part of a pack. I don’t need y’all to frighten him off. He’s got breakfast ready, Mama. I’ll talk to you when I get back home.”

“Moms,” I sighed as he hung up, “what can you do?”

“They love us, though, through it all.” I kissed him and didn’t correct him.

It was a couple days until Christmas. We hung out, doing all the silly romantic things: snowball fights and trips to the mall, eggnog and leftover cookies by the fire. Furball’s people had lived in Memphis for ages, so snow was a complete novelty to him. He had seen it a handful of times, but never enough to build a proper snow man.

Or a proper snow fort. Or have a really good snowball fight. Turned out, he had a mean curveball.

My back yard became our favorite battlefield, and we came in soaking wet, half-frozen and laughing our fool heads off like a couple of little boys. We drank far too much hot chocolate, coffee and hot tea trying to warm up after those battles, but that was part of the fun too.

We spent evenings driving through the winter dark, a lemon drop moon waning her way to the new, looking at lights, drinking in the colors. We watched last minute shoppers in their frantic dashing, while we just savored the decorations.

On Christmas Eve, we watched my favorite Christmas movie, “A Wish for Wings that Work.” It was the only Bloom County TV special ever made, and anything that features cross-dressing cockroaches in crisis qualifies as gay holiday fare. Furball was almost too young to remember Bloom County and the Reagan years they lampooned. He knew Opus from the eponymous Sunday strip.

I thought hard about what he said about wolves mating for life, and decided I could not possibly spend my life with someone who had never had an anxiety closet with a Giant Purple Snorklewhacker. I’d just have to educate him. I cracked up at how utterly filthy the notion sounded, and started composing stupid internet lists of masturbation euphemisms in my head.

I lay on the hide-a-bed, while he rummaged through my collection, and held up one. I nodded. It looked like an animation sort of night, and some classic Grinch would be perfect. Boris Karloff gave lovely, deep narration, and we cuddled close just listening.

“Ah, the grand old man of Universal’s Horror days,” I whispered. Furball nuzzled me.

“I always liked Lon Chaney, myself. I saw Holiday Inn on the stack.”

“Didn’t figure you for a musical queen.” I nipped his neck.

“Who isn’t?” He distracted me from the last chorus of “Fahoo Foray” with that obscenely long and far too talented tongue of his.

We never did watch Holiday Inn. Or make it to the bedroom.

I woke up early, the thin mattress no cushion for my back, which was reminding me I was a whole lot closer to forty than to thirty. I carefully slipped my arm out from under Furball’s neck and tiptoed in to raid the closet. Call me an overgrown kid, but I loved the thought of him waking up to a bulging stocking. I suspected it was a cliche he hadn’t had too much experience enjoying.

A set of Goose-ball massagers filled the foot, a jumbo tube of lube went down one side, a set of furry handcuffs, a small vibrator, a small box of obscene chocolates, and to top it off, a pair of red-silk boxers rolled into a rose. I never said I was an altruist.

My own got the tube of lube, a mid-sized vibrator, a black rose of boxers, and some chocolates. I tucked the extra present I’d gotten him beneath the tree and snuggled back in until he woke up.

I fell asleep and he woke up before I did. I woke to him laughing. Before my eyes were quite open, I felt silk on my face. He was stroking my cheek with the rose-boxers.

“On a cold winter day, would you give your throat to the wolf with the red red rose?” he asked—half changed, fangs gleaming white as the morning light—sounding eerily like Meatloaf.

I grinned at him and gasped “Yes!” as dramatically as I could.

He chuckled, made a dive as if to rip my throat out, turned it into a full kiss. “I’ll bet you say that to all the boys.”

I rolled him under me and kissed him. “Nope, just you. Happy birthday, pup. I’ll make breakfast.”

He slipped up behind me in the kitchen, wearing nothing but the boxers and presented me with a package. I set the pancakes on the table and took it from him.

“Happy birthday to you, BB.”

“I have a birthday present for you too. Let’s open them later.”

After breakfast, I found he’d gotten me a giftcard for Barnes and Noble. I’d gotten him the same thing.

“We can shop together tomorrow. What do you want to do the rest of the day?” I asked.

“Aside from making a cake, I thought we might try out the goodies Santa left for us.” He waggled his eyebrow at me and shook the jumbo bottle of lube.

“Insatiable puppy. Have some mercy on an old were.” I mock-fainted onto the couch.

“Drama queen,” he laughed. “How about a round of Civ III while we recover?”

“Only if I can be Alexander.”

He loaded the game, but I noticed he named his Roman leader “Hephastion.” He winked and quoted, “Alexander was never defeated save by Hephastion’s thighs.”

Building our empires and conquering the world killed most of the day. I made and iced the cake in the interstices between my turns. At last, we’d fought each other to a draw. To complete the metaphor, I surrendered out of hunger and made dinner.

He kept throwing longing glances at the furry handcuffs during dessert. I reassured him, “It’s no one we know. I think they just slaughtered a wild acryl to get it.”

“Acryls. Those are related to the naugas they did in for your footstool, right?”

“Something like that. I threw those in as a joke. I didn’t know if you’d go for them.”

“Shall we see?” He stood up and cleared, still wearing those adorable boxers. I got distracted, watching them cling to him.

“If you’re game, I’m willing.”

We unfolded the sofa and I looped the handcuffs around the frame and closed them on his wrists. “Happy birthday, Dan.” It was the first time I’d used his real name since the first phone call. “My beautiful Danny boy.”

“Danior,” he corrected, “I was born with teeth.” And his were lovely, sharp and white in the twilight. “Back at you, Paul.”

I slid the boxers off and licked him all over until he squirmed and begged. I flicked over his nipples until they got hard, then nipped at them until they went soft again. I nibbled the soft skin of his inner thighs, barely grazing his balls with my breath, driving him crazy.

He was whimpering and pulling the cuffs until I was afraid he would break them. So, I gave him what he’d been wanting. Eventually. I spread his legs wide and rimmed him until he was swearing with need. I loved making him lose his sweetness, drop his control.

When I worked my way back up to his cock, it was practically drooling for me. I reciprocated, licking and sucking until he went tense and then limp, spilling in my mouth. He stayed limp and pale as I undid the cuffs, barely able to roll into my arms.

“Best birthday present ever,” he whispered, and was asleep on my chest.

The next morning brought more snow. The gloomy gray sky matched my realization that my lover would be leaving the next day. But we had this one day left. We went out and spent our gift cards. He bought the audio version of Tolkien’s Beowulf translation to listen to on the trip home. I got a book on design elements of Romanesque cathedrals.

The crowds were fierce with bargain hunters. In the press of the mall, I found him crushed up against me. I stole a kiss, grabbed his hand and started worming our way out of the crowd toward an exit. “Gutsy. I could never do that down home. Not if I didn’t want to end up black and blue.”

The snow ended at lunchtime. It was perfect packing snow, and we went outdoors for one last snowball fight. There was no decisive winner, and we were both soaked within an hour. We dried off and warmed up, not talking much, but staying really close.

Neither of us wanted to say anything that would make it all real too soon. We puttered through dinner and I did laundry and then, as I was folding socks, he said it.

“I guess I’d better pack. My flight’s at one.” He collected his shirts and underwear and vanished down the hall.

I finished pairing up my socks and carried my clothes to my room. I carefully did not watch him pack as I hung my stuff in the closet. He came to sit beside me on the couch.

“Thank you, for everything.” He kissed me. “This has been remarkable. You have to come to Memphis some month, and spend the change out on Grandfather’s farm. In the spring, May, when the weather is perfect and the honeysuckle is blooming. We could run all night.”

“I’d like that. Or maybe I’ll turn up in February, and we’ll have a real Lupercalia.”

He laughed. “My folks won’t approve. I’m supposed to be the alpha of the pack.”

I kissed him hard. “Let them disapprove. I love you. And nothing anyone says can stop that. I’m your alpha, and you’d just better make me the omega too.”

“We’ll see. Let’s make a proper farewell, shall we?” He leaned in and wrapped his arms around my neck.

I caught his wrists. “In the morning. Tonight, I just want to sleep with you in my arms. It’s the last time I’ll get a chance for a while.”

He smiled. “I’d like that a lot.”

We had a piece of cake and then went to bed. He lay close and told me tales of growing up with a lycanthrope family that wasn’t about to be joining PFLAG any time soon. My stories were the other way around. My folks weren’t too worried about the gay thing, but the wolf was a huge affront.

We whispered of hopes for the future and childish dreams that would never come true. He had wanted to move away, go west and be a film-maker when he was in his teens. I had dreamed of being the next Frank Lloyd Wright. We fell asleep somewhere in the talking, the smell of each other soothing.

I woke first and spent a few minutes looking at my beautiful boy. It was the end. It had been a lovely interlude, but like everyone else, he was going to walk out of my life and I would be back to my solitary ways within a week.

“Morning, Furball.” I kissed him awake. “Now about that proper farewell.” I had slipped a hand down his boxers and was stroking him. Morning wood turned into something more interested under my fingers.

“Mmmm.” He smiled and kissed me back. “Morning, BB. Nice and slow?”

I rolled the condom over him and slowly lubed him with the same stroke I’d been

using. “However you want it, pup. Any way you want me.”

“I’m on top?”

“You said you wanted to be. And I want it too.” I kissed him, opening, coaxing his tongue into my mouth and sucking it as he moaned. When we parted, I asked “How do you want me?”

“On the floor. Hands and knees. It’s the only really right way for us.”

I tossed a pillow under my knees and took the position he wanted. “Hurry, before that dries.”

He was already adding lubricant from the giant bottle. Then he was behind me. A moment’s discomfort and pressure, and he was inside me, sliding in like he belonged there. He took it slow, enjoying each stroke. At least I hoped he was enjoying it as much as I was. It hadn’t ever been this good. That’s why I was a top. If it had been so delicious before, I’d have been as much a bottom as Furball.

Slowly he rocked, ignoring all my efforts to encourage him to go deeper or thrust harder. I allowed myself to be seduced by the leisurely sensuality of the pace. He was deep enough and felt marvelous. I rocked with him, aroused but not urgent. We could do this a long time. At least I hoped he could, because I surely could.

I lost track of time until my shoulders started quivering with the strain of holding me up. I felt long gentle hands on them as the motion stopped.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine if you’re close. Otherwise, pick it up. I can’t stay this way much longer, even as good as you feel.” He sped up, his thrusts deeper and harder, calculated to create a fast climax.

I was getting closer myself, from the stimulation, when I felt his hand slip around front and stroke me just right.

“Yes!” he gasped, shuddering a bit and then going perfectly still, my cock still in his hand. “So good.”

He let go of me to pull out. I collapsed ungracefully, my shoulders and biceps killing me. He rolled me onto my back, and before I recovered myself, he was down sucking and jerking me through the last few strokes I needed to finish.

We lay together on the carpet, nuzzling and touching. Then we took quick showers and loaded his suitcase into the car.

At the airport, we lingered over our last kiss. I dropped him in the loading zone, then sat and watched through the layers of glass until he was in the passenger lounge. He slipped his headphones on and blew me a kiss.

I caught it, returned it and drove home alone.

I let myself in and got the last piece of our birthday cake. As I ate, I thought of Furball, traveling home. It was going to be very quiet around here. I’d get used to it. I licked the last of the frosting off my fork and stuck my plate in the dishwasher. It was definitely one of my better birthdays. Furball would be back. He might need to stay with his pack for now, but he’d come back soon. I knew it.

The dog bed and water bowl were still in my basement. I smiled and unwound the holly he’d put around the railing. My fading wolf senses could just pick up where he’d sprayed the corner of the bannister, staking out a piece of my territory for his own.

Wolves do mate for life, after all. Even werewolves.