Being Beloved

By The Queen of Blueberry Toast [TheKWOBT@hotmail.com]

~*~ 

Rehearsal to Ourselves
Of a Withdrawn Delight-
Affords a Bliss like Murder-
Omnipotent- Acute-

We will not drop the Dirk-
Because We love the Wound
The Dirk Commemorate- Itself
Remind Us that we died.

E. Dickinson, Poem 379

It snowed or it was dark.  The moon fell through the clouds 
like a pearl as it waned, and he could see the moon from 
where he lay.  A few strands of someone else's fur had 
snagged on its light and left a dancing shadow just out of 
reach of his paw.  Since he could not sleep, he watched it, 
let it lull his dreams away.

For though he was warmer that night than he had been in 
ages; though he was woefully happy, he did not want to 
sleep.  But then again, he did not want anything with the 
racing shadows of their almost shelter- the ruined frame of 
what had once been a greenhouse.  Only icicles grew here 
anymore.  Even the smell of vegetation was gone.  It was 
only that part of him remembered, clung to it, wanted to 
find such things troubling his brain.

As a pup, Toboe had known it hopelessly well; that and the 
gentle nothing-aromas of his mistress's house.  The age of 
her skin and the dust born of it, teapots so long used the 
traces of a hundred herbs in their bellies lingered, 
antiques that couldn't remember they were antiques anymore.  
The soap she used on her hair. 

He'd thought her name was Mikoto, maybe just Miko, but the 
other humans called her Nana, and so he called her Nana 
too.  Not that he spoke.  Not at first.

No one trusted him as much as she did.  Some of her 
children, though they were grown and sensible enough, 
seemed to think such a beast might harm her if she kept it 
in the house.  They would ask her to put him out, and 
perhaps she would, but only until they left.  Then she 
would make him his own plate of bacon to apologize.  If he 
wanted out, she let him open the door on his own and come 
back to her when he chose.  That of the tricks she had 
taught him he never did for anyone else, and he thought he 
understood why.  He never saw another dog do such things, 
even if he remembered he wasn't exactly a dog.

But he could fetch her slippers or her gardening tools if 
she asked; but he could hush on command; but he played 
gently as he could with whatever she told him he could 
have.

Nana didn't call him 'dog'.  He still heard her smoky 
voice- "You're such a good boy, Toboe.  I love you, Toboe.  
I'm a bit chilly- come sit on the couch with me, Toboe."

He always did.  Her worn clothing was so invitingly soft, 
and when it was just the two of them, there was little else 
she was wont to wear, even to bed.  Bed was the only place 
of hers he wasn't welcome, but she gave him his own in her 
room.  Since there was no moon for him to see- only one to 
feel -he would sit there and watch the town shimmer like a 
bowl of yellow fishes.

If Nana woke and fetched herself a glass of water, she 
brought his bowl with her, as if she suspected he might be 
thirsty too.  It wasn't that he ever asked- such things 
were her prerogative and he did not question them.

But one night, she fell.  It was not the first time.  She 
was too stubborn to turn on the lights, and her feet were 
clumsy even in the daylight.  He ran to her as soon as he 
heard the midnight air snagging on her braid, but it was 
too late.  He found her moaning in the middle of the 
kitchen floor, her knee cuddled to her chest.

"What a fool I am!" she rasped.  "Falling over my own two 
feet."

He whimpered for her, laid his ears back.

"No, I don't think it's broken.  Just stupid of me and it 
hurts like hell.  I might have to spend the night on the 
floor with you as my pillow, Toboe."  In spite of herself, 
she laughed.

And he laughed too, like he did in his mind.

Even though this time, of all possible times, he heard it.  
So did Nana, even if not in the same way.  He smelled that 
something had surprised her, heard her blood stutter and 
catch itself.  The sense of flesh just underneath his fur 
had changed, and there was a hum in his blood.

He looked at his paws, and they were still paws.  But not 
to Nana.  He'd always supposed he could change as the 
shades of his mother and father could.  

But he hadn't wanted to, even in his most misguided wishes 
to comfort her.  Not like this.  His heart broke and he 
feared hers would soon enough.

"Nana! No! Wait... I mean... no ah... NANA!" Somewhere in 
his howl, he heard a the same gagging, wet noise children 
sometimes made.

But he howled and he howled and nothing changed save that a 
stillness crept through the house and slept there.  Her 
shivering voice at first seemed only part of it.  "You... 
you're a werewolf, aren't you?"

"No!" and then softly through the tears he wasn't really 
crying, "just a... a... just a wolf.  Nana, I didn't MEAN 
TO..."

"Am I afraid?" It was not something meant to be asked, but 
she asked it anyway as she glided over the floor.  If she 
could have stood, he guessed she would have.  He felt her 
fingers tangle behind his ears.

"I ah... guess not."

"And I always knew you were special, Toboe.  And look what 
you've done to make me feel better."  She kissed him on the 
cheek, or it might have been his muzzle.  What he felt and 
what he wanted her to feel blended together like water 
colors.  "You make such a charming boy, but there's no need 
to stay one for now."

The fizzing faded from the place that wasn't quite his 
skin.  Where his horror had been only sleepiness remained.  
Somehow they had climbed back to Nana's bed, and she gave 
him half her pillow for his weary head.  When he woke 
later, she was kissing him on the throat, where she should 
have been afraid to touch a dog at all.

They went on as if the scant words of the night before had 
only been a dream.  By noon he found himself supposing it 
was, but then again, she had left him alone to visit the 
doctor, check on her leg.  He didn't do very well alone; it 
gave him strange thoughts.  He ate some crickets and went 
sun bathing in the middle of the kitchen floor.  A tiny 
streak of blood there lingered, and though it was dry and 
probably left from dreams only, he licked it up.  Nana 
tasted like salt and silver.  Strange- she often smelled 
that way too.

When she came home, he met her at the door and saw her 
inside.  

"Good afternoon, my boy.  I hope you haven't been too 
lonely."  There was a bandage on her knee now, but even in 
the moment he'd wondered why it kept her from putting her 
hat and coat away, for she left them on the couch and 
called him to her bedroom.

Though it was high summer, there was still something of 
snow twisting through the daylight for no sun graced it.  
Nana, barefoot, sat on the edge of her newly smoothed 
sheets and patted the empty reflection of the window at her 
side.  He took it, made it full.

She said to him, "Show me yourself as a boy.  Like you did 
last night.  I just want a look."

Though he couldn't remember how to do such things, the 
guise and the electricity it left in him returned, and his 
voice became something she could know.  "Ah, OK," He 
needn't have offered that much, her hands were already in 
his hair again, or his ears.  Both.

"You feel so soft, even like this.  But you never really 
had a dog's fur.  You were like velvet."  And she kissed 
him again on the throat.  Then the lines of his fangs 
though surely the pricked her cheek, surely they bit into 
her.

Like her gaze did to him, for it was jewel-like unfamiliar.  
More than anything else he was that moment.

"Wouldn't it be nice if I could make myself a wolf too? 
We'd be even then."

"We could play," he was yipping with delight at the 
thought.

"We can play now, but you'll have to pretend.  Can you? Can 
I be a she-wolf for you? And you a boy who doesn't feel 
like a boy for me."

"Ah... you mean... umm..."

But she said nothing.  He blouse peeled from her and 
stirred the faint tracery of powder from her breasts, for 
she wore nothing around them.  Toboe understood and he 
didn't, but he licked her there because she looked like she 
might ask that of him.  She eased herself to the pillows 
and he followed her, lighting in the sunshine at her side 
at last, fearing himself too heavy for her.  Nana didn't 
taste old- it was only that the impurities of the water she 
had bathed in lingered in her, and a musty sort of honey.  
Not age, but the sticky sweetness of waiting.  He tasted it 
too on her belly and the dainty lace of fat there.  She 
felt as good as she tasted too him.

So when Nana lay naked before him and asked if he would put 
his tongue between her legs, he obliged.  Her flesh there 
was dark and wet like a plum.

"Do you like it?"  She asked.  He guessed she did herself, 
for the hard little nub at the crown of her sex was 
quivering in his mouth.

" I do."

"Do you mean it, or are you just trying to make me happy?"

"I mean you taste good!"

She sighed, felt content.  "Then eat me all up.  I don't 
mind." As she spoke, she slipped from him.  One of her 
pillows she slid under her hips as she rolled over.  Poised 
on her belly now, she opened herself and the dark little 
slit he had only just started to feel out peeped at him.  
She tasted best of all there, and so he lapped and lapped 
her till she grew bitter and wet in his mouth.  She didn't 
cry out, just nibbled his tongue back when she came.  He 
sat back on his haunches and licked his muzzle clean of 
her.

"You can do it again if you want," she had pushed herself 
at him, just lightly, and stirred the vapors of her scent 
enough to coax him back to her.  So he lapped, and at her 
suggestion, tasted her rosebud too.  That made her squirm 
and so he rather, and drank from her.  It would have made 
him happy to have done it all afternoon, learned all there 
was to learn about the sweet and fleshy part of her.

But she said to him, "If you're full, we can try something 
else."

"Really? What else?"

"Well, I can lick you, or you can put yours in me." She 
laughed.  "I'm not so old I wouldn't enjoy that.  You have 
a beautiful prick, whatever form you choose." He hadn't 
heard her use the word before, but it was easy enough to 
figure out.  "Yes, I want that, but make yourself happy."

Toboe considered a moment.  He was hard enough that the 
ache, not to hurt.  Another time he would have licked 
himself soft then come inside to sleep at Nana's chair.  
But now that he knew... she had felt so pillowy and tender 
in his mouth.  

There was no need to tell her he had decided, she knew only 
from the way he held himself what he was about to do, and 
her body, so empty and silken wet, fluttered, enticed.  
Softly he slunk across the covers.  As his chest rubbed 
over her back, she moaned, even though he had not yet 
touched her anywhere that made her moan before.  Her cheeks 
were the color of unbruised roses and he licked her there- 
licked and licked and licked until her tongue found his and 
his fangs.

Was it the wolf she saw? Or the boy?  It felt to wonderful 
to be kissed: he couldn't wonder, and so he didn't.  His 
forepaws brushed her shoulders as he steadied himself, 
crept forward.  With his cock free of its sheath, his 
nerves sparkled alight at the feel of Nana beneath him.  He 
had feared being able to find her slit, sense it, but she 
thrust herself back on him, slurped softly.

"Oh, Nana..." he said, and she echoed, as her hand closed 
around his leg, "Oh Toboe."

All of her sex embraced him at once, but in slow motion to 
his smarting sense of wonder.  She gave way like ripples in 
a dish of cream, her juices sliding around him until his 
tip brushed the naked head of her vagina.  He felt her 
writhe inside- writhe, clasp him all at once.  

But she had said yes, asked him.  His hesitation fluttered 
away and he began to move.  He could not be tender as he 
had before- she drew him in as much as he drew into her, 
panted in the same breath she drew.  His legs brushed her 
legs, his belly her ass, everything of his prick everything 
of her cunt.  

He mounted her, and fucked her as if she was one of his own 
kind.  And she howled with him, snarled even when his knot 
first touched her outer lips.  He had expected it, but she 
seemingly hadn't, for between his thrusts, she tried to 
watch him from between her own buckling legs.

"Put that in me," she said to him.  "Always, I've always 
wanted... it's so big..."

"Yes Nana," he said, nuzzled her braid, and ground on her 
ever harder to coax his orgasm on, into her.  In the last 
moments before he was fighting her body for however slick 
she was, the knot made her smaller, and her wet folds 
sucked on him with the sudden tightness.

But he got it into her in the last.  They were snuggled so 
tight he could hardly move within her for a moment.  And 
then he started to come.  The first jolt was the hardest, 
and she felt it as keenly as he did, for she came too.  
Between his joy and hers, she was pliant again, easy to 
take.

So he took her until he was spent, and his sperm had 
dribbled from her onto the bed.  He was wet a little 
himself.  Her legs were slick with it, and her cunt white 
and glistening.  She lay on her back now where her bed was 
clean yet and let him lick what there was of himself on her 
away.

Then they slept.  Neither said a word to the other.  Though 
one a wolf and the other a woman, they had tired.  That was 
all.  Afterwards, for what other times there were, she did 
not ask him.  He felt it in her when she wanted to be a 
wolf herself.  He took her with her clothes on, and naked 
as himself.  The living room and the back yard they tried, 
but they always came back to the bed.  It was in bed where 
her heart stopped, though he had not been in her that 
day...

And his did too, but only for a moment in the snow where he 
was trying so hard not to sleep.  He had felt her again, 
the sunlight spilling over them both.  What warmth there 
was for him was so different now- welcome, wanted, but not 
Nana.

Through what was left of the snowstorm, he lifted his head 
and looked at his companions.

They were all awake and gazing softly at him, licking their 
lips.  He said to them, "How do wolves make love? I only 
know about humans..."

"That's because you're a pet," Tsume's dismissive snarl did 
not have the happy blade it's easiness so often incurred.

"We're supposed to be faithful to our mates..." Hige 
sounded as if he had felt something more coming to him, but 
he trailed off, and bit Kiba's ear.

And Kiba, though a wolf he was, smiled, "But in paradise, 
no one is jealous."

Despite the cold, they rose left each other only to return 
in different forms- licking as if they were wounded, 
scratching lovingly, now and then for instants mounting one 
another as if each was female. Kiba let them all take him 
in the ass for awhile, but Toboe they were gentle with, 
only rubbing.  And then he could not remember whose body 
belonged to whom, and whose wonder was not his own.

They were not his Nana, and they never said their loved 
him, though they did.  That much was enough.  For awhile, 
he did not remember.

~*~

Owari- 16 January 2004