Carole Douglas - Dancing with Werewolves

I started at the bottom, as he had, caressing the weight, the length, pushing aside the soft expensive clothes, baring a few vertical inches of his torso, running my hands and mouth over what I exposed

He shivered. I shivered. Alone in the night. Outside ourselves. Beside ourselves. Inside ourselves.

We clung together. Slow dancing. Nothing to say. A bond forged stronger than stainless steel. Secret.

THE Car's long low hood vibrated as the engine idled in the night. Ric had turned it on, turned on the car stereo to some music that pumped iron. When he began to lower me to the car's warm hard steel hood, I clutched at his upper arms, his clenched muscles suspending me above the abyss in my own mind.

All motion stopped. "Can you lie back for me, my Delilah?"

Never could. Never had. Helpless. Pinned on a slab of something hard and inanimate, my feet barely touching the ground, my torso a target for a vicious game of darts. Having to submit. To lose. To lose everything. Everyone. Even Ric, maybe? Even now. The living nightmares crowded at the edges of the star-spangled night sky. Never! Never again!

"Maybe," I said, because it was Ric asking.

Like the road not taken, asking made all the difference.

I felt the strong arm and shoulder muscles that had wrestled the mysterious forces of the underground since boyhood holding me suspended over the car, over the edge as if I could hang like that forever in his arms, on my particular edge. It was my decision. My call.

This evening had touched so many sore spots on my soul. I never remembered anyone dressing or undressing me or even doing my hair. I'd always done it all myself, somehow, from the earliest age, at least in memory. That memory held no shred of someone giving a final pat to my coat buttons or my braids. No one crooning a lullaby, no one calling me a pet name, except when I was almost adult and cheerfully blue-collar waitresses or salesclerks would call me "hon" or "dearie." I was supposed to find this condescending, but I didn't. I enjoyed it. Pathetic, right?

So Ric's playing undo-the-buttons with me and his verbal, murmuring ways during lovemaking undid me. I would do almost anything for him. Maybe even this.

Is that what love was, pushing yourself beyond your most ingrained outer limits? I'd got what I had wanted. A narrow door of flesh to his innermost dark continent. Now he wanted, needed, my complicity. Small price to pay for a possible paradise.

I nodded and was lowered slowly onto the warm hood. It was like lying on the back of a purring hot steel tiger. Rick pressed down on top of me, the narrow warm slit of skin I'd unveiled feeling firm and smooth against my naked body. My hands could still cling to the strong, soft fabric of his jacket sleeves, cling and clench and hold on.

Meanwhile, he was murmuring his pleasure, solely in Spanish now. Every word was preceded by the possessive "my."

Mi belleza…

And I knew that the center of him was reaching for the center of me, dowsing, stiffening, plunging…I braced myself for this truly terrifying act, this terrible centerpiece of my nightmares.

Mi tigre hembra…

And I felt, beyond my fear, a stirring of excitement, a wanting to be found, discovered, to have that divine divining rod taking my measure, the measure of his tigress.

Mi oasis

And his shelter.

Mi agua

And I was his water.

Mi sangre

And his blood.

Mi virgen

And he was the first man to breach me, outside of my nightmares, before, and now in the very imitation of my worst nightmare.

And it was done.

My fists caught his arms and pulled him closer, farther in, nearer. I was so relieved I had to bite my lip. I almost laughed out loud with relief. He was so much smaller than my nightmare metal rapist, but of course you couldn't laugh. You couldn't tell a man that. He was still plenty large enough that I could tell I'd be muy delicado later.

But now I let the surge of pleasure take me and wrapped my legs around his hips and rocked in the thrilling lullaby of his hot Spanish blood and sweet Spanish words.

Mi desposada! he cried as my insides started quaking with satisfaction and we shuddered together, and I could scream this time, long and hard, as the killing pleasure took me.

Mi desposada. I'd have to look that one up…

"Are you all right?" he asked finally in English.

Given that I was laughing and crying and almost swooning, I could understand the question.

But I could only nod.

He was still holding me and still talking softly, more to himself them me, but the words were music to my soul, even in English.

"I love you so much, Del. You can't know what this moment means to me. Here. Now. I've been born again. I could die making love to you. But I never want to die so I can make love to you forever."

I was too blown away to answer, or even to say: make up your mind.

I just clung to him, not believing I'd just cleared such a horrible personal block. Every word Ric said, in English or in Spanish, eased a senseless fear and a vague, terrifying memory. But I couldn't speak of my feelings. What I felt was beyond words.

"I suppose," he said finally, "I'll have to get you back into that dress with every last button done."

"You can skip a few now," I said, kissing him on the throat while I began closing him back into his clothes, "but not very many."

I woke up in my cottage bed, alone, thinking of Ric. Desposada meant "bride." I'd greedily clawed through my Spanish dictionary for the word as soon as we'd kissed a lingering goodbye at the door and I'd gone inside. Quicksilver was sniffing and sulking, but I ignored him for the first time in our association to find that word and hold it to me.

Not that I wanted to get married or to "trap" a man or anything formal. To be wanted that much was the thing, after being unwanted for so long and pretending not to care. He'd had me on "Hello, this is my dowsing rod," but now I felt totally unhad, if that makes sense.

Still, I saw myself clinging to my dictionary and my word, pretty pathetic, pretty teenage.

On cooler reflection, I was still in the dark about Ric.

I'd taken the biggest risk of my life and for it I'd gotten an important step in my personal redemption, but only a slim bit of insight into Ric's complex soul. Finally I'd met someone who was more mysterious than I was. Someone who was also able to bring me deeper into myself than I'd ever allowed.

Was it love, or addiction, or an adrenaline high? Or an undercover operator using me?

Last night on the long ride home Ric had listened to my tale of long-lived werewolf casino bosses and lost dead daughters.

"We need to know who the man with her in the grave was. That's the key," he said.

I couldn't stop recalling our last moments on the car's hood. How he'd spun so that I was on top of him. No sense of binding, just Ric serving as my bed, his eyes and lips heavy and satisfied, content, liking my weight on his chest and hips, my fingers toying with his hair and lips.

I liked everything about him. Wasn’t that a warning signal? I'd never had a decent connection with anyone male before.

"Querida," he'd said. "Don't run away on me now."

I'd run away before. From the orphanage. The convent school. I thought no one knew but me. Ric was The Man. Police. The FBI. He'd be able to check up on those things. Me. My history. He'd be able to manipulate me. My history.

He manipulated my hair as it fell over my shoulders onto his chest. My lips as they went dry and vacant, wondering what to say next.

"We have to find out who the man was," he repeated.