Cycle of the Werewolf
FEBRUARY
Stella Randolph is dreaming of love. She is lying in her small virgin’s bed. There is a cold blue light coming in her bedroom window. It is the light of a St. Valentine’s Day moon. The moon is full. Oh love, love, love. Love would be like -
This year, Stella Randolph has received twenty Valentines cards - one from Chris Hemsworth, one from Ryan Gosling, one from Idris Elba… even one from Harry Styles. They are on her vanity dresser across the room from her. The cold blue light from the moon illuminates them. She sent all the cards to herself - this year, just like she has done every year.
Love would be like a kiss at dawn... or the last kiss at the end of a romance story... love would be like roses when the sun goes down.
The people in Tarker’s Mills laugh at her. Yes, they do. Small boys make jokes behind her back. Sometimes they yell from across the street, “Fatty-fatty-butter-legs!” But she knows about love, and about the moon.
The small store she owns is slowly failing, and she weighs too much. But now, on this night of dreams, with the cold blue light of the moon coming through her window, she believes that love is still a possibility.
Love and the aroma of summer as he comes… Love would feel like a man’s cheek against her cheek, that rough feeling, that rub and scratch. And suddenly, there is a scratching sound at the window.
She sits up in her bed. The cover falls away from her large breasts. The moonlight is being blocked in the window. There is a dark shape there outside her window, a clearly masculine shape.
She thinks, “I am dreaming… and in my dreams I will let him come… in my dreams I will let myself come. They say the word is a dirty word, but it is clean. The word is right. Love would be like coming.”
She gets out of her bed. She is convinced that she is dreaming, because there is a man outside her window. A man that she knows. It is a man she passes on the street almost every day. It is… (love, love is coming, love has come)
But as her fat fingers touch the window to open it, she sees it is not a man at all. It is an animal out there. It is a massive, hairy wolf. His front paws are on the window. His back legs are buried deep in the snow. Her house is in the country, far from the town center. But she thinks: it's Valentine's day and there will be love.
Her eyes must be deceiving her in her dream. It is a man. That man. And he is so wickedly handsome. (Wickedness, yes, love would be like wickedness), and he has come to Stella’s house on this night, a night with a full moon, and he will take her. He will -
She pushes the window up. The cold wind blows in quickly through the open window. The wind freezes her skin. This is no dream. The man is gone. And with a deep sensation of loss, she realizes he was never there. She turns to run and the wolf jumps easily into her room. It shakes itself and a cloud of snow fills the room. But love! Love is like... is like... like a scream.
She remembers Arne Westrum, the man who worked on the railroad, the man who was ripped to pieces a month before. But she remembers too late… The wolf walks towards her. Its eyes are glowing yellow with lust. Stella Randolph steps backwards slowly towards her small virgin’s bed. The back of her fat knees hit the bed and she falls onto it.
The cool blue moonlight shines in the beast’s fur - the moonlight turns its fur silver. On her vanity dresser, the Valentine cards move from the wind coming in through the window.
One of the cards falls from the dresser. It moves back and forth in big arcs as it falls slowly to the floor. The wolf puts its paws on the bed, one on either side of her head. She can smell its breath... Its breath is hot. Hot, but not unpleasant. Its yellow eyes look into her eyes. "Lover," she whispers, and closes her eyes. It falls onto her. Love is like…
…Love is like dying.
FEBRUARY
