And Then the Werewolf

In the park, we drink the wine right from the bottle and stretch out on our backs on the pine needles.

"You got any kids?" she says.

"No."

"I'm never having kids," she says. My fingers are cold, but when I touch her, she smiles again. I slide my hands across her stomach, so smooth and warm. I think about life growing inside, under my hand, and we stay like that.

She sits up and she pulls her sweater off. It pulls her undershirt up with it, showing me the very bottoms of her breasts. I reach out and take the shirt in my hands and I hold it down as she pulls her sweater the rest of the way off.

"Thanks," she says. Underneath she's wearing a strapless shirt that just sits on her small breasts. I am still holding the bottom of the shirt and she looks down at my hands. I haven't let go and I don't want to. All I can think about is how I know she's not wearing a bra underneath. Her skin is smooth and pale and the shirt clings to her. It is so perfect and thin.

"I don't want any kids either," I say. I feel stupid for saying it. She's looking at me like I've got my lines all out of order. I might.

I still haven't let go. I grip the sides of her shirt tighter and I pull slowly downward. The elastic top catches on her nipples. I can see the soft pink skin right above them. I tug and the shirt falls down around her stomach. She has such small nipples. I touch them with the tips of my fingers and thumb.

"Kids ruin everything," she says. We do have the dialogue all wrong. I should be saying something about these breasts.

She turns me around, and takes hold of the front of my blouse. She gets hold of each side and then tears it open, buttons popping everywhere, the breeze suddenly on my own breasts. She pulls my pants down, just to my knees, just enough so her hand can reach between my thighs, and then she shoves me forward.

"I ought to slap that lawyer," she says. "Right in that smug face." I am on all fours, with my face in the pine needles, and she is pushing one finger into me, slowly. She pulls it all the way out. I can feel the finger's nearness. My body knows it's there, but it isn't touching. Then she pushes it in again, a little further than before. Something underground is rumbling. I can hear cars honking on the street nearby. "He said that the judge would like me better if I were a mother. I'd have a better chance."

"You should kill him instead," I say. "You could be a murderess." I love that word. Murderess.

"He's not worth it," she says.

But it would be worth it. Of course it would. I used to read about murderesses, hidden in the back of the library. The big book of murderesses. I read that book again and again. That was the first time I fell in love. Page 67. She killed her whole family in the middle of the day one Sunday afternoon. In her picture, she scowled.

My murderess.

This girl is no murderess, but she scowls. She has another finger at the mouth of my cunt now. Two fingers. She has a wet fingertip against my asshole and then everything is hot. She is breathing on me and I press my face harder against the pine needles.

I think of my own lawyer, of the condescending frown he must have given the judge when I didn't show. Her finger is inside my ass now. She breathes on me again. Oh, please touch me. No. Don't touch me yet. My lawyer frowns at the judge, and the judge frowns at my lawyer. The prosecutor frowns at everybody. The big church windows burst inward and my murderess is standing above the courtroom screaming. Guns are firing everywhere. She has her tongue on me now. It is too soon. It is perfect. She's licking all the way from my clit to my asshole. She licks so slowly and so firmly. Back and forth. She spends her time with each.

The courtroom is on fire, everyone is standing on their chairs. There is music playing and the air smells like pine needles. I have pine needles in my mouth, I am moaning and biting the ground, driving my teeth and tongue into the dirt while she fingers and tongues me.

My mouth is full of dirt. There's a sound in the brush, and I look over, expecting a man out walking his dog in the park, hiding in the bushes and watching the free show. But it isn't a man. It's an animal. It's so big.

She doesn't see, her tongue still working between my legs. The creature goes straight for her, and there is a sound like crisp lettuce being broken. Then I am on my back, trying to get out of the way, blood on the backs of my thighs, her finger still inside me.