Monday December 22nd 2014

He slept for a few hours before his alarm sounded. Stilling his body, Cesare listened to the house, trying to pick up on the sounds that would tell him Candy was up. Hearing nothing, he slipped his legs over the side of the sofa. Right under his feet, the wolf stood up in a boneless motion, stretching its stygian bulk before looking around in bored disinterest.

The stitches had prevented Cesare from doing his aggressive yoga over the past months. After the fight last night, he needed to see if he pulled any muscles or stressed his stitches. Balancing on the balls of his feet, he waited until stability became reality instead of a shifting mirage cemented in hope. His breathing dropped into the rhythm of the Ujjayi. Heat built in his chest, spilling into veins, setting sweat beading across skin.

A new energy rose in him, the heat and pleasure of the stretches shouldering his doubts and fears aside. Last night had been one shock after another, Elizabeth, the wolf, Portland, Candy, and then the fights. But here in the realm of reach, arms, legs, and flesh, only liquid muscles writhing under skin were real.

Sweat slicking his body, Cesare folded into his meditation. Time fell away as he sank deeper into his body’s mind. Feeling blindly around his soul for the Kundalini, the searching was burned into the meditation. The looking was wedded to his breathing after hours poured into it over days that turned into weeks, becoming a ritual cultivating serenity.

Spiraling deeper, the world faded, leaving his mind as the one reality. The Kundalini rested where it always was, coiled and silent at the base of his spine. A golden serpent rustling in its sleep, dry, hot scales birthing a shushing vibration up vertebrae.

He could find it, but he couldn’t get it to do anything. He’d prodded, yelled, begged, and spent hours talking to the serpent. Maybe his inner self was chronically lazy? Maybe his innermost desire was to sleep? Floating over to the serpent, he lowered himself onto its hot scales. He was starting to believe the snake would sleep until flesh rotted from this failed incarnation.

Hours later, he opened his eyes, and stared into the yellow wildness of the wolf. Yet another change demanded without warning. A low thread of sadness came to him from the bond at his cutting thought.

No one, not even a monster wolf that could hunt grizzly bears for kicks, wanted to be unwanted. Not that he wasn’t happy to have the wolf ride his shadow. Who didn’t want a killer wolf at their side, there was no way to feel like a loser with it stalking beside him. Black death on four legs, poetry written in every line of its body. The wolf possessed a beauty that wasn’t supernatural, instead it was the height of the natural world, distilled into an avatar of wildness that harkened back to wild days in primeval forests.

No one could feel anything but blessed to have the wolf walking midnight trails with them. As the thoughts formed, the bond flared with pleasure, a deep rumbling growl shaking the air. Cesare just wished he knew why it had followed him.

That Tamlin had sent it was madness. A mountain did not follow the commands of the trees growing on its ass or the men that dared its rocks. The ocean came and went to its own tides, and the wolf was the same. You knew the majesty of the ocean on first sight, felt the deep wisdom of the mountain as it came into view. Insignificance, in that moment, you knew you were nothing but a shadow of the giants that towered over the world. Your reality dwarfed by the permanence of glories that had existed longer than life crawled on the earth. The same reverence was in the wolf, a primal reality, a crimson truth in a world of tawdry, pastel lies.

This wasn’t Primrose, it was the real world, and it wouldn’t accept giant wolves walking the streets. Humans liked their wild things in cages, chained and drugged, locked away and stripped of grace. On a basic level they understood the wild was the one truth all lies were fashioned to hide. Its yellow stare stripped illusions, leaving you bare and exposed as the prey animal you were. Revealed the diseased soul of civilization, pushing you face into wet shit of your own self-delusions. People hated the truth, preferring the sweet words of their own lies.

He knew the animal was trouble. Yet, he couldn’t find it in himself to care. It had come with him for its own reasons, and he’d be stupid not to wonder why. No one else had come, no one else would walk the streets with him.

They had their own lives, and they didn’t want to be part of his. Some of them would have given him money for a hotel or offered to take him on holiday with them. None of them would have followed him out of Primrose, knowing they were heading for dirt, cold, and the humiliation of being street trash. But the wolf had.

It was past noon when a door opened down the hallway. Candy shuffled into the living room scratching her mop of blonde hair. She stopped at the threshold to the hallway, glaring at him for a long minute. “You hungry?”

Sitting on the sofa, Cesare was reading one of Candy’s books. She didn’t have a T.V. or a radio. The entire extent of entertainment options was a small bookcase crammed with trash romance novels. It had to be the strangest choice he’d ever come across, but Cesare guessed even teenage whores dreamed of love. Maybe they even dreamed it harder, longed for the reality, after paying its depraved brother in innocence and flesh.

“Sure,” Cesare said, following the girl into the kitchen.

She had just woken up and hadn’t changed yet. Without her fuck me hooves on, she was even smaller than she’d seemed last night, barely an inch over five feet. Her bottle blonde hair was cut short in a Paige Boy style was just below the ears. Worn boxers hugged her ass with a too big T-shirt sliding off one shoulder, a growing slice of pale breast showing. She was the poster child for underage sex.

The kitchen fit with the house, old and scrubbed within an inch of its life. Tile stained yellow and brown, paint bubbled and peeled from the walls, complimenting the black streaks of mold crawling across the ceiling. The smell of Lysol suffocated the air, killing any hint of life.

“Take a seat, eggs, French Toast, and bacon.” Her eyes darted to the sable wolf at his side, voice drying out like water in the desert. “I’m not feeding the wolf.”

Cesare sat down while the wolf curled behind him, wrapping its body around his chair as if he was its cub. Even laying down, its shoulder came to Cesare’s waist. Amusement curled through the bond at Candy’s words. The wolf found it endlessly amusing that only Cesare knew it understood every word. Cesare didn’t think food would be a problem. The wolf had shown no signs it was hungry or had to go outside.

Candy moved around the room, getting pans ready and taking out the eggs, milk, and bacon from the fridge. Cesare’s eyes traced a path down her back, settling comfortably on her ass. He wasn’t interested in her, but he’d have to be dead not to look. “Since where up, we can talk about the fights.” Her words drew him out of daydreams that oddly had nothing to do with the woman in front of him or her tiny butt.

“I said later, and this is later,” Cesare agreed.

“First things first, you can stay as long as you’re fighting,” Candy said as she flipped the French Toast.

“You mean as long as I keep making you money?” Cesare corrected. He wasn’t stupid; she got money for every fight he won. When the money dried up, so would her good will.

“That goes without saying, but since you feel it needs to be said, let’s be clear. You’re an investment, nothing more. Once that investment stops paying dividends, you’re out.” Taking a stick of butter out of the fridge, she continued, "From what I saw last night, I don't think we need to worry about that."

“I have to get back to school in a few weeks. How long do the fights go on?” Cesare asked.

“They move around every few weeks, they burn through local talent at a brutal pace. We have this coming weekend and the one after.” Candy stopped, cracking a handful of eggs before scrambling the lot and adding it to the pan. “Why school?”

Cesare scrambled for an answer as he stared at the girl's back. It was so obvious he never thought anyone would ask. “I want a diploma. You know how hard it is to get a decent job without paper. I’d like a real life, a good job, car, nice apartment, something that’s not one step from the gutter.”

A low, jagged laugh came from the girl as she stirred the eggs. “You want to pretend you’re one of the sheep?” The question floated in the air; a vicious little thing birthed in the red, fleshy pit of raw truth. “You’ll never fit in with them. Never be one of them, no matter the paper you get or how deep you cut.” Pouring the eggs onto a plate, she started laying bacon into the pan.

“I saw your face last night. You’re a wolf, no different from the shadow following you. I saw the rush you got breaking those men. Fuck, I thought you’d bust a nut. You enjoyed making them scream, breaking their bones and bleeding them out. I bet it was the first time you ever felt like you belonged.” She turned around, eyeing him carefully. “How fucked is that? The only time you feel you belong is when your fucking up other men. But it’s your fucked truth, now you want to look me in the eye and tell me the wolf I watched fuck up five guys’, wants to go slip a leash around its neck. Nope, not buying.”

Cesare faced her sterilized, dead eyes. “You think I want to eat from garbage’s, freeze my balls off in winter, and sweat my tits in summer? I want a roof and a bed to sleep on.”

Turning back to the bacon, her words reached for him. “Then take it. A wolf’s a wild thing, it hunts its prey and eats like a king or starves with failure. It takes territory and claws its way to the head of the pack. Maybe you weren’t a wolf, but a wolf is what you are now.” More bacon hit the pan, sizzling in the hot oil. The smell of cooking flesh filled the room.

Candy set the table, separating the food between them. “You want a bed? You got a fiver, get your own place to stay. Want to eat more than the shit they throw out? Buy it. Why settle for a mold that will never fit, when you can live your way, on your dime? You know how to make the streets work, now you have a way to make money. I don’t see a problem.”

Cesare started eating the eggs, absentmindedly holding out a bacon strip to the wolf. It was so natural that it never occurred to him not to do it. Only when the bacon was taken delicately from him did the action register along with the warm pleasure across the bond.

Could he stay on the streets? Not like before he went to Primrose. He couldn’t go back to hiding in the shadows as horrors stalked the darkness, hunting to feed their desires with his body. It didn’t matter if they wanted blood or a sheath for their cock, only the stink of their diseased thoughts and hunger to for his flesh.

Last night had been a revelation. When he’d left the streets, he’d had no way to support himself. Now he knew he had a skill; he could hurt people. It wasn’t pretty or nice. It was mean and cruel, reeking of the blood of centuries and the sadisim of the strong. They say fucking is the oldest profession, but Cesare knew it had always been slaughter.

If you could fight and win, you’d find money. As long as you weren’t too picky about who you hurt. He could get a small place, a roof over his head, hot water, and something to cook on. Even as the thoughts formed, he looked over at Candy and met her watchful eyes.

“Is that what you do?” Cesare asked.

“I fuck for money, but being a whore isn’t who I am.” Shrugging, she took a bite of bacon. “I’m not a sheep. I don’t want to go back and forth to the same job, run up my debt until I’m working for others more than I’m working for myself. Sure, I sell my body for money, but I’m free.” Her gesture took in the house. “I paid for this, bought the furniture and the food you’re eating. The bed I sleep in is mine. I live my life my way, on my terms. How many wage slaves can say that? Look me in the eye and tell me you want a nine to fiver life?”

He'd grabbed at Primrose with both hands because it was a way off the streets. He hadn't cared what kind of school it was. That was what hell did to you, it stopped you from looking too closely at the contract. He'd been happy for a chance at normal, but did he want normal now? Or was he looking for a life where he called the shots?

Candy left him alone with his thoughts, but her eyes kept coming back to him, weighing him with a butcher’s knowing, seeing the cutlets she’d get out of him. Cesare fed the rest of his bacon to the wolf under her calculating look. She wasn’t trying to help him. No one on the streets had a heart. They had angles. You fucked others over before they fucked you. The shit stained truth was just because you couldn’t see the payoff didn’t mean they wouldn’t do it for fun.

Cesare made for the sink. “I’ll do the dishes.” The offer was quickly accepted as Candy made for the bathroom.

Cesare was back in his spot on the sofa with the romance novel in place when she came back from the shower. Dressed in a uniform of black and brown, she looked like the sheep she’d put down so hard. “You can sleep here and stay when I’m home, but when I leave, I expect you gone. I have a job at a local coffee shop, and I won’t be back for a while. You can wait on the porch or fuck off, but I’m locking up."

Slinging his bag over his shoulder, Cesare cinched it to his body. The wolf already at his side, an eager feel to the bond. “You know where I can talk to an attorney?”

Candy gave him that weighing look again, finally slipping a card out of her wallet. “Been on the wrong side a few times. She’s not cheap, but she’s fair. The address is on the card.”

She locked up as he waited at the bottom of the steps, looking over the weed chocked lawn. She was right; it wasn’t much of a place to live, but it was hers. There was no one that could take that from her. A great man said you couldn’t be given freedom, equality, or justice. That if you’re a man, you take them.

Candy had made a way for herself; sold her ass because it was the only thing she owned. Her flesh, the one commodity life had left her with. She'd taken the deep scars along her soul, forging a home out of catering to corrupt needs and malign hungers. She’d made that choice, because independence was worth it.

“I thought you didn’t like the nine-to-five?” Cesare asked as Candy fought with the locks.

“It’s not the job that makes sheep, it’s the lies you tell yourself. You think you can get paper, house, and a nice girl, that it’ll wipe away your fucked-up soul. It won’t. You’ll still be a sadistic fuck that gets off on crippling men.” She got the lock turned with a satisfied nod. “I work at the coffee shop for the medical. You want to live a life on your terms, the first thing is taking responsibility.”

She moved around him without a word. With a rattling bang the truck fired up, shaking and coughing clouds of black smoke as it swung its wide ass down the street. Cesare had known tough in his life, but Candy was about the hardest woman he’d come across. She was a rat feeding on the dead and dying, selling bits of herself, until she was numb to the cut of the blade as it flensed muscle to feed the jackals nipping at her ass. For all that, including the degradation, pain, and horror, it was the life she wanted.

Cesare sighed as he looked at the address. It was going to be a hell of a walk. The thought of the bus ran through his head before suffocating under facts. There was no way they’d let him on a bus. He could just imagine the driver taking one look at the wolf and hauling ass away while calling the cops.