Chapter 2: Stupid Sexy Werewolf

“Zak Zak. Mister Zachary Wozniak. Is time to go, zabko!”

It was a recording of Zach’s uncle, or more accurately his surrogate father, crazy ‘ol Radzimir.

He woke up abruptly to the alarm, blond hair a tousled mess and his bedding all over the place.
He’d been sleeping on his face, too, something he never did. His skin was flushed and slick with sweat,
and a spot on his back itched like crazy. When he reached back to scratch it, he felt bandages around his
chest and over his shoulder, and damp dressings.

He sat up in bed, looking down at the sheets. There were faint red and brown spots dappled
across them. He was suddenly grateful to have invested in a mattress protector. As he climbed out of
bed, an itchy restlessness spread into his bones, and he had to shake his arms and legs for a while to
dissipate it before peeling the bedding off and carrying it to the laundry room. Of course, the laundry
still hadn’t been done.

Hang on, hadn’t he just been shot? What was he doing at home? The events that recently
transpired and their absurdity went through his mind. As the realization hit him, he sat down and ran his
hands through his hair.

“I’m trapped in a time loop. It’s Groundhog Day with Bill Murray. Five minutes from now I’m
going to pick up Karen again and the whole nightmare is going to repeat itself for eternity until I find out
what I did wrong! That is the only sensible explanation!”

He counted himself lucky, though. He’d taken a shotgun blast right between the shoulders, but
maybe it had only inflicted superficial damage? He probably didn’t lose much blood. It only felt like it
cause he couldn’t see it. Come to think of it, he did remember one bizarre thing after the incident, a
tongue licking his back. He remembered warm breath passing over his body hair. He remembered the
antiseptic sting, then the cool relief.

What a strange memory. How could he be sure it was a tongue, though, and not just an alcohol
swab? He was loopy. He couldn’t trust his senses. They were turning him into a crazy person.
 He walked into the living room and dining area of the condo and saw a card standing on end, as
well as some bottles of a honey and molasses-colored substance. He instantly recognized it as Kwas, the
quintessential Eastern European comfort beverage, forget that stuff people said about wodka. He
instantly felt nostalgic and grateful. He picked up the card, which showed a sad puppy face and the word
“I’m Sorry” on the front.

The inside read, “Had to run to an emergency meeting at work, related to last night. Nurse
friend said to keep you hydrated, so I thought you would appreciate this. I will answer your questions
and do the laundry when I return. Your furry friend, Boris.”

Typical Boris, apologizing for something that wasn’t even his fault. Still, this was big news. Here
was written proof that Boris was going to do the laundry! The fool had even written it down in his own
hand! Oh, he wasn’t going to worm his way out of this one.

‘Furry friend’, though. Was that an admission of something? No, it was just his stoic humor
again. It could be notoriously difficult to figure out if Boris was joking or telling the truth sometimes, he
had no talent for sarcasm. In triumph, he popped the cap off a bottle of kwas and started chugging.

He pulled up The App, thinking for a few moments about getting to work. He liked keeping busy,
liked the thrill of working for himself, but today he considered it and thought that it wasn’t every day
that someone got shot, and that he should take a day off. At least, he would after a couple of paxes.

He thought about rinsing off last night’s sweat but decided against it out of concerns for the
bandages. He’d need Boris’ help to put on fresh dressings and didn’t want to stain any of his shirts if he
could help it. So, he took another bottle of kwas, gulped it down with delirious levels of satisfaction,
forced out a quick piss, and then remembered that his car was all the way down at the seaport. Gowno!
Where had he even parked it?

He’d never had to use The App as a passenger before. He felt it was too expensive. To retrieve
his pride and joy, though, he’d simply have to. He talked shop with the driver and struck up a friendly
conversation as they went to the warehouse where the unpleasantness had gone down. He felt a sense
of terror and anticipation as they approached the building. He was glad that he parked somewhere else,
since he had absolutely no desire to return to the site of that bloodbath, and yet he wanted to see what
had transpired since then.

Someone must have heard the gunfire or the crash, but even if they hadn’t, surely someone
would have discovered the bodies, reported them, and called the police. He wasn’t eager to get
questioned by the cops, but he was curious to see their response. He was surprised on his arrival to see
that there wasn’t much commotion at all. The wreck of KAREN’s Suburban Assault Vehicle was gone,
and other cars had appeared in the parking lot, but there were no police to be seen anywhere.

He took it back, there was one cop, writing a parking ticket for his car.

“Oh, nonononono,” Zach ran over to the officer, who’d finished writing the ticket and was about
to drive the final nail into that bureaucratic coffin.

“Officer, I’m an Uber driver, the car was taken from me and left here.”

“Did you file a police report?”

“No, it was a prank by a friend. I didn’t want to get him in trouble.”

“Then I hope your friend has about 25 dollars, an extra 10 for the loading zone violation, plus 15
for the processing fee,” he unceremoniously slipped the ticket under his wiper.

Zach could already feel the work building up. He’d need paxes, slang for passengers, to pay his
own Uber fare, paxes to pay his ticket… But the total lack of activity across the street bothered him.

“Excuse me, officer?”

“Yes?” He asked cautiously, as if many incidents began with that question.

“Do you know of anything that happened at that warehouse over the last day?”

He thought for a moment, “It’s a mostly automated facility, but I did write a ticket for an expired
registration sticker about a week ago. Anything more than that and I’d have heard something over the
dispatch.”
 So, Zach was right. This really was Groundhog Day with Bill Murray because the shootout hadn’t
happened yet. By coming here first he’d already altered the timeline, and now his actions would
transform what happened next until he either died again or had learned his lesson, whatever that was
supposed to be. That was obviously the best explanation why there was no trace of last night’s violence,
that he’d traveled back in time.

He thought about asking the officer if there’d been any reports of gunfire, a SWAT team,
something like that, but then he remembered that none of that might have even happened and that he
was going insane, something he didn’t want to do in front of this officer.

As soon as Zach slipped into the familiar comfort of his bucket seat, he felt a very unfamiliar
wave of itching across his back. He grimaced, scooting up and down, then side to side in the seat to
dissipate the sensation, but at this rate he’d be tearing off those dressings. As he rubbed, though, he felt
something small and round rolling across the skin of his back, followed by dozens more.

He got out of the car and the little objects continued their voyage down his back, through the
crack of his butt, and then along his left leg. Some sprayed out onto the gravel never to be seen again,
but some landed in his shoe. He pulled it off and took a closer look at what had collected. They were
little silver-gray balls, each the size of a pinhead, some of them tinged red and brown with his blood:
Shotgun pellets.

Not sure what to make of this turn of events, Zach poured the lead shot from his shoe into his
palm, then from his palm into his pocket. The wound itself felt much better after this, but the infernal
itching spells were increasing in frequency and breadth. Determined to make his money back, he
climbed back into the car and pulled up The App.

It was typical that when he was hungry for money, none was up for grabs. He spent much of the
next hour driving dead miles and burning dead time, and none of the usual honey holes were active. He
did have some luck at the Pig Pen, but pickups were always a huge hassle in the tangled bustle of the
airport, and he ended up getting boxed in for 15 minutes with his pax.

Worse, the itching had wormed its way down to his bones and joints. The bandages felt
intolerably tight now and chafed like the devil, and he blamed it on the dressings being dirty for too
long. His shifting in his seat was starting to become a safety hazard, with him nearly jamming the
accelerator in heavy traffic by accident at one point. He was also getting more irritable with other
drivers and even his own pax.
 His second fare, two college drama girls trying get to a rehearsal downtown, complained that
they had to go faster to get there on time. It wasn’t his fault that they were poor planners. After the
indignity of Karen and his own physical discomfort, he just couldn’t take it anymore. He said something
snappish at them he couldn’t even remember, then put his foot down and drove like a bat out of hell.

He’d always wanted to crack open the WRX and really put her through her paces, and to his
surprise the girls in the back really loved it. He cranked up the CityPop soundtrack and reacquainted
himself with a couple handbrake turns, a little bit of drifting. This was definitely against the Terms of
Service, but the shot of adrenaline and the sharpened focus eased the tension in his body, little waves of
pleasant tingling sensation coursing through him and settling in his hands, ears, and feet, slightly
numbing them. He hadn’t driven like this in a while, not since his failed bid as a racing driver way back
when.

After delivering the college girls he worried that they wouldn’t leave a flattering review due to
his attitude, but no, they gave him 5 stars, and a 20% tip! The adrenaline high subsided, though, and the
crash made him feel achy and terrible. As he received his third ping he felt unusually washed out. He
resolved to take care of one more pax, and that was it for the day. He needed to recuperate.

*****

His third pax of the day was a quiet, businesslike woman who approached his car from the front
and had to do a double take as she passed by the driver’s side window.

“Teresa?”

“Can I help you?”

“I’m your Uber, name’s Zach.”

“Oh! Sorry, I see it now. Thank you.”

She climbed in the back and looked back and forth between her phone and the rear-view mirror,
then shrugged and fiddled with a tablet for the duration of the trip. The affair was uneventful, with him
driving tired, but not groggy. She sniffed at the air a few times, and Zach realized that his body odor had
brewed up to a pretty unprofessional level after choosing not to bathe in the morning, then doing all
that wild driving. Even so, the pax didn’t verbally complain. That always got Zach nervous. The quiet
ones tended to be the most brutal ones in reviews.

As she disembarked, she passed by the driver’s window, then gestured for him to roll the
window down. He did, curious about what she had to say.

“You may want to update your profile image. Hardly looks like you. The neck, the hair, the stuff
on your chin. It’d be less confusing for your passengers, that’s all I mean by it.”

What was she even talking about? He’d just updated his profile image a couple weeks ago. Was
it his messy hair today? Probably. Pax were a strange bunch, and it didn’t take much to get them out of
their comfort zone. Still, she left a good tip and rating, not bad for what was by far his most low-effort
fare today.

As he went to go offline and dismiss The App, he saw the clock. He’d only been at this for two
hours? It wasn’t even noon yet! Why did he feel like it was 9pm? Maybe it was the culmination of his
aching muscles and that bandage. He probably had blood poisoning from the filthy dressings on his
wound. Nothing a bottle or two of kwas wouldn’t remedy.

He got back to the condo and, famished, drank down another two bottles. These were the
bigger 1-liter bottles Boris had bought and he relished in the fruity, bready bouquet, a real liquid lunch.
Afterward he had to take a really long piss just to make room. Boris hadn’t returned yet, but why would
he? It had only been a couple hours. Feeling a bit better after his drink, he slipped off his sport coat and
unbuttoned his shirt. As he did so, something caught his eye.

He was hairier, or at least the itching made him acutely aware of all the hair he did have, but
that’s not what surprised him. The stuff had gotten lighter somehow. He was normally a mousy blonde,
but the stuff on his chest and arms had gotten closer to a platinum blonde. He thought of what the last
pax had told him. He started to panic.

“No! I’m only 25, this isn’t supposed to be happening to me yet! I’m turning into Uncle
Radzimir!”
 “Zak Zak! Mister Zachary Wozniak! Is time to go, zabko!” The old phone alarm sounded, right on
cue.

“Begone, Radzimir!” He turned shouted at his phone, then turned to the empty bottles of kwas
on the table.

“My God, I’m not turning into him, I’m already there! Today, white hair. Tomorrow, I’ll be bald,
270 pounds, repairing my old shoes, and shouting at the footballers on the TV!”

He finished undressing, then started fumbling with the bandage straps, a grumbling, frustrated
growl emanating from him as he fussed at them. The moment the dressing came off felt wonderfully
liberating, but also made him aware of a wetness on his back, like evaporating sweat or a seeping
wound. Worried that he was bleeding again, he reached back toward the wound to feel it. He’d
expected scabbing or a bit of plasma and pus, something either slick or rough under his finger. Instead,
he felt something soft and smooth, a thick covering of hair on and around the wound. It felt as thick as
the hair on his head, though he couldn’t see the color.

“Great, more body hair. Middle age, here I come!”

His muscles also felt exhausted and swollen, like he’d just had a big workout and was probably
going to regret overdoing it tomorrow. The feeling of overexertion also affected his physical strength.
His arms felt sluggish, and even light objects like the shampoo bottle felt twice as heavy. Yet despite this
while he was in the shower he felt a certain restlessness, a need to go out. Fate had given an
opportunity to take a day off and he’d blown it, but the weather was great and it wasn’t yet noon.

Boris had fitted a mirror in the shower to help with his frequent manscaping adventures, but
while Zach had no luck looking at his back he did catch his face and started to see what the passenger
had been on about. A dense beard was growing on his chin, his neck was thicker, and his eyes… when
had they been that bright a shade of blue? Maybe it was the lighting in the shower, he never used the
mirror in here so it could have been playing tricks.

There was a lingering numbness in his hands and feet, and as he rubbed down his body it felt
like someone else was doing it. This gave him a dirty, titillating idea, but he had an idea on how to spice
things up a bit further. The diabolical plotting and dark imaginings gave him a hard on, and he became
convinced that real supervillains would have walked around with erections all the time if it weren’t for
those decency standards in the movies.
 He found himself back at the hamper. This was a vile place, made just a little worse by the
sweat-soaked sheets he’d thrown on top of the putrid pile earlier, but there might be a choice item or
two that-- a-HA! There was a bright yellow jockstrap with a stylized picture of a wolf on the front and a
Rogue Fang label. Made sense, since he was a werewolf. This was all, of course, supposing that any of
what he’d seen yesterday was real. Well, his nose didn’t lie. He took it to his bedroom and closed the
door in case Great Aunt Maja showed up, which was unlikely since she was supposed to be in Lublin, a
bit of a distance for a septuagenarian to cover in the time it took for one wank. Still, if there was anyone
who could pull it off it was Aunt Maja, with her Catholic Guilt-powered teleporter.

He hadn’t done this before. In fact, he couldn’t explain why he wanted to. He found the smell of
masculinity comforting, familiar, but Boris’ musk had an aspirational quality to it. To be that strong, that
resilient, an Alpha Male, but one with a tender heart. Zach couldn’t be that, but he could wear Boris’
jockstrap like a mask. Mwa-ha-ha! Now his face was concealed, his intentions unknowable, a true man
of mystery. Well, if no one was looking.

Thus adorned, he took in the Boris bouquet, explored it. He teased at himself first, then began
to stroke, imagining the hands not to be his own, but Boris’, and not his human hands but his werewolf
ones. He couldn’t get the image of the man-wolf out of his mind, adorned with those animal features.
He imagined those clawed, half-human hands running over his body, his snout and long tongue
exploring his nooks and crannies, his hot, urgent panting steaming him up, his thick fur brushing up
against his most sensitive skin.

“Unf… Stupid sexy werewolf.”

This had been a good plan. This had been a very good plan! He’d never been this hard in his life.
Sure, it was weird, but he rarely thought about that, losing himself in the moment. The scent seemed to
intensify as he went on, and it felt like there was a lot of meat in his hand, like this wasn’t just intense
arousal, but that he was growing. A pressure built up around his cock, but also around his jaw. As he
stroked, he found that he could even wrap a second hand around it, the thrill of trying this out circling
him around the edge of an orgasm.

He didn’t have much time. His breath was steaming up the jockstrap, slowly burying the
wonderful, manly aura and replacing it with sour kwas breath, which just wasn’t sexy to him. So close to
release, he closed his mouth, pressed the jock right up against his nostrils, and deeply inhaled, his
breath shuddering.
 It felt as though his jaw popped, his sinuses cleared, and his body climaxed all at the same
moment. The sudden intensification of the smell gave his climax a second wind, but he didn’t lower his
gaze to look. He just kept pumping and thrusting and rolled his eyes upward in ecstasy. A moan
originated in the most basic, subconscious, hormonal part of his mind, bypassing his cognitive functions
entirely and putting to voice the raw animal pleasure. The odd sensation around his mouth dissipated
and settled in his extremities again, making his hands, feet, and now his tailbone tingle. That last one
was new, and not unpleasant. He panted, tongue sticking out a little, then pulled the jock from his face.

“Fucking hell, I’m turning into a Furry.”

Well, maybe he’d go furry for werewolf Boris, even though he’d been a near-death hallucination
and not something real. Damn, maybe Zach was low key a furry all this time, and that moment just
opened his chakras or something. As the moment faded, he finally looked down at his schlong, noticing
its considerable increase in size and volume. He also saw the ribbons of spunk strewn across the
mattress cover and half expected this to be the time when scary, devout Catholic, always with the bad
timing Great Aunt Maja would appear behind him. But no. Like werewolf Boris, she was just a figment of
his overactive imagination. And somewhere in Lublin.

“I don’t care what the Mayor and Commissioner say. You’ll always be the real hero of this city,
Mattress Protector!” Zach said in a radio drama-style voice.

As he slipped his clothes back on, it finally dawned on him that his package truly was bigger and
not just an illusion. It was either that, or his pants had shrunk in a very selective way. Then again, all his
clothes felt a bit tighter now, even without that awful bandage around to bother him anymore. He tried
to grab at some belly fat but couldn’t wrap a hand around any. If anything, he was even leaner than
before. Maybe he wasn’t turning into this timeline’s Uncle Radzimir, but that of another timeline where
Radzimir looked a lot more like Geralt von Rivia and axe-kicked monsters while wearing a tracksuit and
badly repaired shoes.

For some reason the tip of his nose felt cold, like it did when he was congested or sick, only he
felt no congestion at all. Instead, he felt like his sinuses had always been congested, and something he
just did had opened them, exposing a whole new layer of the olfactory world. He felt ready for a nice
walk to the grocery store and back, but it was chilly enough out there that he put on an Adidas hoodie.
He’d been disappointed that none of those Russian tough guys had one of these. Maybe his fashion
sense was out of touch. Or, maybe he was more fashionable than them!

The outside world felt especially fragrant and rich today, with sweet autumn foliage, earthy,
fungal notes, sugary and deep-fried concoctions. Even tart or unpleasant smells like mulch, manure, and
rot had a complex, intriguing dimension to them that he’d never picked up on before. How come no one
ever talked about the richness of this? Even individual passers-by had their own distinct aromas. Cars,
too, carrying scents back and forth from all over the city. If he found an aroma he liked, he’d just flip his
tongue over the tip of his nose, and that extra bit of moistness sharpened the experience ever so
slightly. Some folks on the sidewalk gave him a bit of a funny look, but that’s probably because he kept
walking around with his nose to the air, sniffing and drinking it in.

Whatever had cleared his sinuses had also relieved pressure on his eardrums, and he could hear
things a bit more sharply now too. Electric cars that used to spook him did so no longer, so this seemed
like an improvement to personal safety more than anything. What dullness had afflicted him before,
that getting rid of it had such a wonderful effect? He still wasn’t sure that this was worth getting blasted
with a shotgun, but to be alive like this! That encounter with death just made even one more day of
living much sweeter. It had also made his genitals bigger for some reason, which he remembered as he
sheepishly adjusted his crotch to keep things from getting too bunched up down south.

Earlier, his hands and feet had felt a bit numb, but now there was a bit of dull pain in them. His
shoes especially felt ill-fitting and clumsy, which was dismaying since he was wearing the most
comfortable pair of shoes he owned, and he took great care in his footwear purchases so that was
saying a lot. It was more than just not being big enough. They also seemed to be the wrong shape, and
the discomfort was slowly intensifying. He was seriously considering kicking them off but had one safety
blanket that he hadn’t used yet: His E-Cig.

He stepped off the trail and into an open area of the park, then vaporized what seemed to be
the last of the nicotine in the cartridge. This time, though, instead of making him feel warm and at ease,
the aromas and chemicals of the vapor felt incredibly intense and had an ugly edge. He tasted motes of
heavy metal, alkali, and burnt plastic in the familiar sweet smoke, tainting the entire experience as if
he’d gone jogging on a crisp, clear day, but done it in a chemical refinery. It also metabolized more
quickly than normal on hitting his lungs, causing his heart to race and ache. He forcibly coughed, trying
to displace as much of the stuff as possible, then breathed deeply to dissipate what remained. After a
couple minutes of a truly unpleasant experience, he no longer got any satisfaction from the nicotine
buzz either, feeling worse than when he’d started. His sinuses also tingled and burned for several
minutes thereafter, temporarily dulling his newfound sense of smell.

He didn’t hesitate to take the E-Cig in his hand and throw it in the trash. The minute he did,
though, he thought he might be able to sell it on EBay, but… no, something was defective about it. He
didn’t want to profit from someone else getting hurt. It had to be a defect. What else would explain
something so familiar suddenly tasting so bad? He’d been trying to quit anyway, maybe this was just
God giving him a friendly nudge in the right direction.
 By the time he made it to the store, everyone else was showing up to get groceries. No matter
what he did in his life, Zach always seemed to be synchronized with others’ impulses. This was great for
his job as an Uber driver, but it sucked when he wanted to avoid lines. The store was more crowded
than the sidewalk and, this being a pretty fancy grocery store it had an even bigger pull for the kinds of
people who follow crowds. He just hoped they still had what he was after.

He found the kwas quickly and was fortunate to get the last bottle of the really good stuff, the
all-natural variety. As he triumphantly made his way about the store, though, he walked past the deli
and swooned at the heady aroma of all the meat, a sensation he’d never felt before. His enlightened
sense of smell especially enjoyed the multilayered aromas of the red meats, their little hints of not just
freshness, but what the animals had eaten, how stressed they had been, what their flesh was spiced
with, and how they complemented each other. Each cut had its own little history, and there were
hundreds to choose from. He unexpectedly ran across a kaszanka. It hadn’t been his favorite kind of
kielbasa and was usually too gamey for his taste, but on the way over he’d found himself in the mood
for a bit of claret. Besides, it had been years since he’d eaten a blood sausage. Maybe he had more
grown up tastes now.

He lost interest in shopping once he had what he’d come for, except for that one impulse buy,
but as he went to the cash wrap he really started to notice the strange looks he was getting. A little
embarrassed by the glances and attention, he smiled awkwardly and reached to scratch the back of his
head, an old tell of his. On the way, though, he caught his ear.

That wasn’t his ear. His ear wasn’t pointy, and it wasn’t that high on his head either. Pinching it
hurt, which was a very clever way to convince him that it was real, but his mind had gotten very good at
tricking him recently. Still, best to be sure. Thinking quickly, he pulled up his hood and could feel the
weight of it pressing his ears down and against his head. Despite this he still got some stares. Not quite
sure what they were looking at this time, he focused on getting out of here as quickly as possible.

He went to ring up his items at the self-checkout to minimize human interaction as much as
possible, trying to think up the fastest way to get to a private mirror as he did so. As he rang up the all-
natural kwas, a message came up on the cash wrap saying that an associate was on the way. She picked
up the bottle and gave it a quick glance, then took a longer look at his face.

“Oh-kay… This is a specialty item that is not manufactured to state health standards, meaning
you need to sign a waiver to purchase it. Can I see your photo ID?”

“Yeah, sure. Here.”

 Zach provided her with his driver’s license. The photo on this thing was way older than his Uber
profile, so he couldn’t wait to see how this turned out. She looked to the image, then to his face, then to
the image, then back again, and he could tell that she’d long since recognized the difference and was
just trying to remember what to do in this situation.

“Um, excuse me, sir, I’ll need to contact a supervisor. Can you wait here a moment? Here’s your
ID back.”

He didn’t really internalize what she was saying, reflexively taking back his driver’s license and
sticking it and his wallet in his back pocket while he investigated the security camera feed. He caught his
face in just the right light and saw it.

His nose and jaw had pushed forward into a small canine snout.

It wasn’t very long and was the same color as the rest of his skin, but it deeply unsettled him to
see this uncanny creature that matched his every move, its jaw dropping when his did, its eyes widening
as his did. It was almost human, yet that quality of being almost but not quite is exactly what was
drawing peoples’ attention to him. One of humanity’s keenest perceptive abilities was to pick out things
slightly different than themselves.

“Nevermind, I don’t need this one,” He lied, setting the bottle next to the machine.

This was by far his favorite kwas, but he just couldn’t stay here a moment longer. He finished
ringing up the other items, charged his card, fumbled with a paper shopping bag and carried it out in
one hand, using his other to pull the collar of his hoodie over his snout. The anxiety seemed to at last
awaken him to the fact that the clues he’d been ignoring since he woke up weren’t part of an overactive
imagination. Every single one was consonant with the same story: His roommate was a werewolf, he’d
tried to save his life, but now he was becoming one as well.

He started to run, had the distinct sensation that someone was chasing him. There were far too
many people here, in the parking lot, on the sidewalk, along the street… why were there so many
people? He had to convince himself that this was normal, and even though he saw no pursuers, no one
pointing, and no cops, he couldn’t hold down a feeling of animal terror. He also couldn’t contain the
steadily building agony in his feet, the soreness turning to sharp jolts of pain as he ran.
 He made it behind a public restroom at the park when he could take no more. The muscles
below his knees were twitching, and his feet felt like he’d tried to go jogging in a 3-year-old’s shoes,
being cramped in all dimensions. It hadn’t been mere sensation, either. It took some real effort to free
the heels from his shoes, and as soon as he did so there was a bubbling sound below his ankles. Given
space, the arches of his feet rapidly lengthened to the point where they were a little more than a foot
long, and this didn’t include his toes. Tugging and swearing, he managed to completely extract his feet
from his running shoes. His socks still dutifully clung to his feet, but the act of pulling out his feet had the
effect of bunching them around his toes, which looked bigger and had an odd shape. No, not an odd
shape, a familiar shape. He couldn’t know for certain until he pulled off the socks, but he wasn’t sure he
wanted to find out. The facts couldn’t bother him if he never learned them!

He felt washed out. His muscles still felt torpid, yet kept tensing involuntarily, and his tight-
fitting jeans felt more constrained than when he’d left, being especially uncomfortable around his crotch
and the seat of his pants. He felt a strange tickle between his butt cheeks that was more irritating than
painful, but after setting his feet free the most urgent desire became meat. It’s a good thing he bought
that kaszanka. He pulled it from the shopping bag and started casually slicing the plastic with the sharp
tip of his thumbnail like it was a hobby knife. Wait… Since when had he been able to use his thumbnail
like a hobby knife?

Whatever, the kaszanka was in the open and its wonderful, nostalgic aroma percolated through
him. Normally you cut the stuff into slices and sautéed it with some vegetables, and a handful were
enough before the thickness and richness of the blood sausage got overwhelming. Zach, however,
chomped off half of its length with teeth whose sharpness surprised him. Bits of the sausage tumbled
out the sides of his mouth, but the scent-heightened flavor of it was exquisite. Once he’d finished the
first half, he jammed the rest in his mouth, his eyes lidding in the ecstasy of devouring something so
rich, and with such decadent excess. Saliva poured over and seeped through the cool, dry meat, the
flavor coming alive. It was like wrapping his jaw around and sinking his teeth into the neck of a wild
boar, or at least a boar that had eaten a lot of onions and black pepper.

He found himself picking the fallen scraps from his sweatshirt and eating those, then licking his
fingers clean. He looked down and saw little pools of his saliva seeping through his sweatshirt, then
wiped some of the tendrils of tacky drool from his mouth and chin, flinging them off his fingertips.

“Gross. Ugh, what the hell? That’s horrific…”

He looked down at his hands and paused. He was an idiot, but he wasn’t so dumb that he didn’t
recognize what was happening. The darkened fingernails grown into claws, the thickened flesh at his
fingertips, the overall size and muscularity of them, the thick, discolored pads forming on his palms and
wrists even as he looked at them, the longer, denser platinum blond hair bursting forth from under the
sweatshirt’s wristbands… Well, there was some relief in it. He wasn’t turning into Uncle Radzimir.

He got to his feet and realized that his heels no longer touched the ground. In fact, he couldn’t
even force them to the ground, not without crouching. This wasn’t so bad since he was a toe runner
anyway, but even with that he was surprised at how familiar and natural this new posture felt, the
engorged muscles of his thighs picking up the slack for his calves.

He hid one of his murder mitts in his sweatshirt pocket, but still had the grocery bag to worry
about. After throwing his running shoes into them he picked up the bag, carefully tucking his clawed
fingertips and thumb in so people didn’t see them and freak out, or at least start that mortifying stare.

The thing he feared, running into a dog walker with five or six puppers and creating a scene,
never materialized, and while it wasn’t a long distance the effort taxed him less than normal, leaving
him wanting more as he walked in the door. He checked his phone, which felt small and was difficult to
use with his clumsy monster hands, but he saw that it was just after 1pm. Unless Boris left work early,
which seemed to be against his religion, it’d still be a few hours before he could get some answers. At
this rate, would he even be able to ask the questions?

He couldn’t bear the skinny jeans any longer. He didn’t like running in long pants under normal
circumstances, but the chafing and squeezing had become intolerable. He didn’t rip the jeans off, but he
wasn’t exactly kind to them, curling up his lip and snarling as he wiggled and tugged them off. They’d
been so tight that they pulled off his boxers as well, leaving him dangling in the breeze. Something came
free on his backside as well, the unfamiliar sensation immediately drawing his attention.

A strip of new, sensitive flesh with a thickening coat of hair protruded from his tailbone and was
now about 5 inches long. As he wiggled it, he confirmed that werewolves have tails. What a shocker.
What did surprise him was how odd it felt to have an entirely new appendage, like he had to rewire his
brain just to accommodate it.

As he looked down at his legs, he saw that they were now almost entirely coated with a dense
coat of platinum blond hair that went all the way down past his ankles and along the tops of his feet. He
finally pulled off the socks, revealing huge canine paws complete with blunt claws. His big toes occupied
the same place they had before but had atrophied a little into dewclaws while his other toes greatly
expanded, sitting on top of a thick layer of reddish-brown paw pads. These feet weren’t as sensitive to
the texture of the ground, but also meant that he wouldn’t need shoes at all, which was good since he
wasn’t about to buy those silly dog mittens and they probably didn’t manufacture them in this size
anyway.

It was weird and thrilling to touch and inspect his feet, feeling big canine paws in his hands and
having them send signals back to his brain telling it that yes, they were attached. There weren’t many
muscles along the increased length of his foot, so flexing and splaying his toes was more difficult than
before.

While checking himself out he also got a good look at his junk. How could he not? He was bigger
now flaccid than he had been when he was erect, and his penis had taken on the same color as his paw
pads, a reddish-brown hue that differed from his skin color which was now a bit ruddier than his usual
complexion, but otherwise still very Caucasian. His finely furred scrotum was the size of a softball, and
between that and his dick he was amazed that the whole package didn’t just burst out of his skinny
jeans earlier. He was glad that it hadn’t. Imagine that happening in the middle of the grocery store. He
would’ve gotten a lot more than funny looks.

A wave of twitching and tensing overcame his body, followed by a ravenous hunger. It was as
though his body, having burnt through all the fat, picked through the whole digestive tract, and
scrounged together every bit of junk floating around in his body, was at the end of its nutritional
reserves and needed more. It needed vitamins, electrolytes, water, carbs, and meat. Especially meat.

He drank a bottle of kvas, then a glass of milk, and while he was in the fridge he violated Boris’
sacrosanct meat temple and took its holiest relic, the Tri-Tip steaks. As he tore open the container he
salivated, his choice informed by the fact that he was about to eat it raw. He waved the cuts of meat like
a censer, drinking in the aroma. True to the label, it had been grass fed, killed quickly, done right.
Probably cost a fair bit. He felt the guilt of a thief but the hunger of a runway model, and consequently
that hunger won out. He tore into the meat with his short muzzle and its half-human teeth, inelegantly
shearing off pieces, chewing with an open mouth and swallowing, a little blood and juice running down
the beard on his chin.

There were four cuts of steak in the container and he savagely consumed all of them without so
much as a plate or a piece of cutlery, letting the meat’s juices and his drool spill into the kitchen sink.
Half-human sounds of delight emanated from him as he ate, and he could feel his body gratefully
dismantling the bovine bread. He delighted in a full belly and rubbed his big hands across his gut, letting
out a big belch when he felt a presence looming behind him.

“Grrrr…”
 Zach’s ears pressed against his head and tail disappeared between his legs. He didn’t dare turn
around, frozen in place.

“A-Aunt Maja?”

Zach slowly turned around, holding the plastic steak container, now empty, in his hands. For
once in his life, he wished it had been Aunt Maja standing there. Instead, it was werewolf Boris in a pair
of gym shorts and a fluorescent yellow low-side tank top with ‘Werewolf Boyfriend’ written on the front,
which would’ve been funny if he weren’t already terrified. He had a pair of track shoes in one hand and
a gym bag in the other, letting both fall to the floor and freeing up his meat hooks. A continuous fringe
of fur ran from the tops of his arms to the tips of his ears, and a lot of it was standing on end.

“Who are you?” He boomed. “What are you doing in my home? Get out of here!”

“Boris, I can explain!” Zach felt his hoodie slip down from his head, exposing his ears.

Realization gradually crept onto Boris’ face, his lips relaxing, his hair lowering a little. He
approached Zach, leaning in and sniffing, pacing around him.

“It’s me, Zach, your favorite roommate!” It was true, never mind that he was Boris’ only
roommate.

“That remains to be seen,” Boris narrowed his eyes. “What’s the best team in the UEFA?”

“Legia Warsaw, of course!” Zach said, without skipping a beat.

“Wrong, it is Zenit St. Petersburg!” He paused, “But that is exactly what Zach would say.”

“Finally, someone today who believes me when I say who I am. I was starting to have an identity
crisis. Now I can devote my full attention to turning into a fucking wolf man! How did this happen?”
 “Last night, after the incident, you were bleeding, and it wasn’t stopping. I’m no expert on
trauma, but it worried me, your drifting in and out of consciousness, your labored breathing. I know our
saliva can seal wounds, so I licked the wound on your back. Not very hygienic, I know, but it worked. It
saved your life.”

“And infected me,” Zach crossed his arms.

“I didn’t know it would do that.”

Zach’s jaw hung open, “You didn’t know that werewolf saliva could infect another person with
lycanthropy? I am no werewolf expert, Boris, but that’s the one thing all non-experts know about
lycanthropy! Like, how did you get infected?”

“Through oral sex.”

“Oh,” Zach paused. “Wait, what?”

“I’ll tell you some other time. Before you ask, I couldn’t take you to the hospital like a normal
gunshot victim because of the people who shot you. The FSB and that militia group, KAREN, both
operate extralegally on a routine basis, and both cover their tracks. If you’d gone to a hospital there
would have been a police report, and one or the other would have tracked you down with that report
and murdered you. This wasn’t the best way. It was the least bad way.”

Zach thought about the things Boris said, and couldn’t find a hole in the logic. Of course, Zach
was an idiot, but at least he wasn’t an angry idiot now. It didn’t seem fair that this giant thing had been
forced upon him, but the circumstances behind it had been completely out of his and Boris’ control.

“I’m still trying to figure out how I got dragged into this. That horrible woman, Karen, why was
she here?”

“Simple. She watched my home, one of her colleagues watched my office, the rest were on
standby. The other reports that I’ve left the office, Karen calls an Uber, then the standby team, and they
all start to converge. The strange part is how they pinpointed me.”
 “Yeah, about that. Karen browbeat some poor customer service person into breaking the law
and putting a pin on your phone. Going into the warehouse was my idea, though. I wanted to find out
what was going on, then warn you. Who was that Sevchenko guy?”

“Human scum. He specialized in finding people capable of penetrating security systems and
bullying them into criminal acts on behalf of the Federation. I tried to leave that life behind, but he kept
dragging me back into it. This time, he threatened to release highly sensitive user data and pin the act
on me unless I cooperated and helped him spy on my employers. His kind are no different than KAREN,
except that they serve Russian interests instead of some American oligarchs’ fanatical puritanism. His
death will not be mourned.”

“Would you have helped him if those knights hadn’t showed up?”

“No. I would have died,” Boris said flatly.

“Ironic that the werewolf hunters accidentally saved your life.”

“Tell me about it.”

Zach smiled, feeling a bit better about the whole situation. It can’t have been easy for Boris to
share all that he just had, but he’d done it without prompt, without hesitation. And damn it, if he wasn’t
sexy while doing it. Zach wasn’t sure if his mind was getting rewired from the transformation, the
mental stress, or if it was always this messed up, but werewolf Boris was really starting to turn him on.

He felt a building tightness in his chest, then a wave of soreness emanated from right where his
heart was. The sensation spread until it suffused his entire body, but especially his upper body. It was
like a combination of what he imaged a heart attack to feel like, a diaphragm cramp, and the day after a
grueling upper-body workout all rolled into one. The pain caused him to knock knees, keel forward, and
struggle to breathe. Boris caught him, keeping him from falling over, and the two made their way to the
sofa. Tears welled up in Zach’s eyes from the pain. He looked down to see that he had an erection,
reminded that he still wasn’t wearing pants. Another wave of pain hit him and he reflexively squeezed
his eyes shut, breath trembling.

“What the hell is wrong with me? This isn’t erotic! It’s just suffering! When does it end?”
 “I don’t know. From what I’ve heard, everyone’s first time is different. Watching it happen,
though? Not bad.”

Zach glowered at Boris and his cavalier attitude. He could hear bubbling and churning in his
muscles, could feel the pulses of blood across his eardrums. It was mild in his legs, but unbearably
intense in his face. There was another buildup of pressure around his mouth, nose, and ears, followed
by a popping sensation and a lance of pain that seemed to ricochet inside his head. He opened his eyes
and saw that his muzzle had stretched forward, starting to obscure his vision. Once the fizzy feeling in
his sinuses dissipated, they gave way to even more intense smells. He now had a firm understanding of
his own musk, which was uniquely woody and sweetly autumnal. He found it mingling in the air with
Boris’ spicy musk as well. The mixture of his new wolf scent and Boris’ Alpha Male was incredibly
titillating. If only all of this didn’t hurt so much.

He turned to see that Boris was standing up, taking off his gym shorts, then his jock strap. He
revealed an erection of his own, an appropriately large one, one that was rubicund and carried a warm,
pink color. It also had a slight, round bulge at the sides of its base yet was otherwise human in shape and
uncut. He was surprised to see a silver Prince Albert ring as well. Had he gotten that the same time as
the ear piercing?

“From my own experience in such matters, limited though it may be, I found that giving in to the
sexual urges can make the transformation much less painful, especially the first time.”

Zach finally got around to pulling off his hoodie in some small effort to let his skin breathe and
dampen the pain. Once he did so he noticed the thickness of his shoulders, the growth of his pecs and
ribcage, and the enormous increase in both muscularity and tone, not to mention hairiness. He had
more hair, or really fur than Boris, forming a fine white-blond carpet around much of his body except a
few spots on his abdomen, thighs, and chest, and those areas felt hot to the touch. His erect penis was
even bigger now than it had been a couple hours ago and was taking on the same color and shape as his
roommate’s.

He turned his gaze back to Boris, who’d climbed onto the other end of the sofa and was inching
toward him, rump in the air, presenting himself. He’d been so masculine and hairy that it briefly amused
Zach to see the almost circular bald pattern on his ass. He pulled one of the back cushions off the sofa
and threw it aside, giving him room to spread his legs a bit and display all his masculinity at once. He
licked two clawed fingers and stuck one, then two in his anus, then pulled them back out, wagging his
tail, grinning, and giving Zach a cheeky sideways glance.
 “Hang on. You’re a bottom? You, Mr. butch Russian wild man who wrestles armored cars, a
bottom?”

“Is that a complaint?”

“N-no, just-- Unf, that’s distracting. Damn it, I know this is real. I accept it, but… all of it at once
still scares me. I’ve done this all wrong, I’m too sore.”

Zach looked at the equipment between Boris’ legs and caught himself salivating a bit, an idea
percolating through his mind.

“I am a little thirsty, though.”

It was an absurd thing to say and he knew it. How many liters of kwas had he drank today? He
was hydrated, if nothing else. He’d just been making excuses. He refused to believe werewolves were
real before, and now that he’d accepted that he was one he was in denial again, as if having sex with this
werewolf would somehow get rid of the person he was. If anything, being a werewolf might be an
improvement. Boris seemed happy. In fact, he seemed happier now than when he wore a human form.
If Boris could adjust this well, couldn’t he?

“M-maybe you could tell me the story of how you got infected while I… You know…”

Boris didn’t have to say anything. He stood up, walked up in front of Zach, and pushed his pelvis
forward, his meat in Zach’s face. His heart gave a familiar flutter. So much for quitting smoking.

“Be careful with the teeth. I’m no stranger to taking head, but it is my first time taking head
from a werewolf on their first transformation. Relax your lips. Use your tongue.”

Even as he said it, Zach had a light grip around Boris’ knot with a hand, then encircled as much
as he could with his mouth, keeping the fangs of his lower jaw from raking against Boris’ flesh by using
his tongue. It was a delicate balancing act, one not helped when Boris actually started to narrate the
story of how he got infected.
 “My infection was not long before I had my coming out. I’d gone to the Hair of the Dog on a
work assignment, and at the time I had no idea that…”

Zach pulled back, turned up his face, and gave Boris a scowl, unamused.

“I was joking when I asked you to tell the story. That was a joke, Boris.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

Zach sighed as though he was doing Boris some big favor, a trick he picked up from his pax, then
turned back to Boris’ dong. He realized he’d been approaching the situation a bit too much like a
human. He didn’t have a mouth that was well-designed to give a fellatio, certainly not while he was still
having muscle spasms. What he did have was a long, strong, and dexterous canine tongue.

He took Boris’ knot in his hand again, this time more firmly, but without squeezing it. He began
licking along the shaft, coming in from the side, pulling it up and approaching from below. He didn’t
hesitate to breathe through his mouth while doing so, hoping Boris would also feel the heat, the need.
His firm hold allowed his tongue to feel blood pulsing beneath the skin, veins wiggling, and muscles
tensing. Boris moaned in approval, pulse quickening, mouth panting. That was a good sign.

He made his way forward, focusing his ministration on the head, teasing the Prince Albert,
feeling the smooth ring slide across his tongue. He knew that Boris was edging now, could clearly smell
and taste the precum, could feel the quickened tempo of the twitching and pulsing. He combined all of
the things he’d just tried out in long, silky laps across his length, making his way toward the tip. It was
exquisitely exotic to feel the flesh of a thing that wasn’t supposed to exist exist across a tongue that felt
alien to his own. Boris was right. The pain now felt like it was somewhere else, happening to someone
else, and he wasn’t even the one getting the most out of this.

Zach almost didn’t catch Boris in time, wrapping his mouth around as much as he could take as
his Alpha came. It seemed that Boris’ hypertrophy wasn’t restricted to aesthetics, but affected his deep
tissue as well, the impressive power of the overdeveloped muscles around his prostate rocketing semen
directly into his throat. Luckily, he hadn’t been inhaling at that moment and he reflexively, then
deliberately started to swallow. And swallow. And swallow some more. The stuff tasted like a heady mix
of mushrooms, ozone, and salt, but had the consistency of eggnog. He had to be honest, it wasn’t the
best thing he’d drank today.
 Twice he thought he’d lose his cool and accidentally pierce Boris with his fangs. At his upper
limit, head swirling with ecstasy and worry, he sputtered and backed up, semen pouring from the sides
of his mouth, but Boris was done now, huffing and panting. Zach ever so gingerly opened his mouth
again, lapping at the last little trickle and cleaning him off.

Boris reached down and playfully ruffled a hand-paw through Zach’s hair, then scratched behind
his ears like he was petting a dog. Zach felt his tongue loll from his mouth, cum dribbling down it and his
chin. He withdrew his tongue, then lapped it around his nose, noting how much longer it felt, cleaning
up what he could and swallowing again. The stuff tingled in his mouth, throat, and sinuses, and dulled
the pain. He reached up with his fingers to feel his face, seeing that his hands were even bigger and just
a little more muscular, more bestial. Boris had a big fringe of fur all around his jaw, but it didn’t look like
Zach would have the same. He could feel a beard on his chin, but his jawline remained smooth and
unobstructed, save for a dusting of fine hair that got a little wilder and scruffier as it approached his
ears. His hands wandered to his ears as well, tall and triangular, fringed with fur on the outside but with
exposed skin on the inside. They tingled with blood and were hot to the touch.

“Care for a refill?”

Zach beamed and held up a hand-paw as big as Boris’.

“O-oh! Heh, no thanks, I’m all topped off.”

A predatory, intent grin crept across Boris’ face.

“Topped off, you say? The way I see it, you still owe me for those steaks that you stole.”

Boris didn’t skip a beat, this time sitting on the sofa next to Zach and squeezing closer to him,
holding his face to his, pressing noses together.

“Feeling a little better?”

He was. He was starting to guess how Boris originally got infected, but wondered if it was the
difference in volume of fluid that made his transformation so slow and uncomfortable. After drinking
him in, the pain was starting to ebb as if his fluids had an anesthetic effect. That must’ve been how he’d
slept through the night despite recently being shot in the back.

“Yeah… Better. Kind of tingly.”

“Good, cause we’re not finished.”

Boris pulled back, laying down on the sofa and kicking up his legs, wrapping his arms under them
and again presenting himself. Any lingering thoughts about how strange or frightening this was had
evaporated, and with the physical pain under control any remaining barriers had been lifted. Boris was a
lot of werewolf, but as Zach looked down at himself he realized he was no slouch either. They were two
herculean bodies, bursting with animal vigor and suffused with each other’s scents. He’d never been so
infatuated with someone in his life.

Zach shifted to his knees on the sofa, then took Boris’ legs and rested them on his now wider
shoulders, inching forward and pressing his tip against Boris’ anus. Boris flinched a little, and Zach could
feel him wiggle a bit against his shoulders, knees bent and legs draped over his back. With a slow, steady
push, though, Boris opened up and let Zach in.

What happened next didn’t take a lot of thinking. His hips began thrusting and bucking, slowly at
first, but then more vigorously. Boris’ muscles greedily latched onto Zach’s shaft and were pulling him in
ever so slightly further with each repetition. He took a free hand and started pleasuring himself as Zach
loomed higher and higher over him. Zach liked it when their faces touched, liked the feeling of their hot
breaths mingling and tickling his fur, liked to have his nose just a bit closer to the source of that smell.
He began to slowly straighten Boris’ legs, creeping his shoulders closer to Boris’ ankles and testing the
bigger werewolf’s flexibility a bit. As Zach crept higher and closer to Boris’ face, his feet moved closer to
his head.

Zach knew this posture as the Austrian Oyster, and it became clear to him that Boris hadn’t tried
this one before. He’d have known if Boris were uncomfortable, if he tensed or twitched, if his breathing
became irregular, but instead Boris grinned, pulling his hand to his face and nibbling at one of his
fingers.

As Zach drew the Austrian Oyster closed he could feel the taut tension in Boris’ muscles as they
neared the limit of their dexterity, but since the werewolf’s ankles were next to his ears this was
understandable. He was so doubled over that he could have fellated himself, but instead he took a free
hand and brought it up to Zach’s face, stroking around his cheeks. The soft, careful, sensual touch didn’t
seem possible with those monstrous hands and drove Zach right up against the edge. His muzzle was so
close to Boris’, but just not quite there. He pushed his head forward and whined a little, but there was
just a little something missing. An inch more would do, just an inch!

As if in response, a now familiar pressure built up in his face. He curled up his lip as a fizzy,
tickling sensation spread through his snout, then intensified into sharp pain. His facial bones and
muscles popping, jaws opening wide and eyes lidding. Of all the shifts in his face today the third
transformation was the most intense, and as he tried and failed to hold down a roar of pain he thought
it unfair that he’d just been trying to go in for a kiss and this is what he got.

When it was done, though, he felt… complete. A wave of icy ecstasy washed over his body and
he felt all his hair stand on end. Now he could do it! He leaned in and carefully pressed his nose to Boris’,
then a bit to the side, and extended his tongue. Boris reached around his head, which he could now feel
was fully covered in fur, and met Zach’s tongue with his own, pressing their mouths together. He didn’t
know what to expect while canoodling with a werewolf as a werewolf, but he found himself loving the
electrifying thrill of the soft, muscular flesh moving amidst a hedge of deadly fangs. He was less fond of
the drool.

Evidently Boris didn’t mind either as he came again, and in this compressed position his schlong
was pointed directly at their faces, basting both of their chests, muzzles, neck ruffs, and cheeks in the
stuff. The heat, the aromatic bouquet, Boris’ delighted, breathy panting, and the pain sublimating from
his body and drifting away all brought Zach to a climax far higher than anything he’d known, and he
literally went all in, knot popping into Boris.

As he came, the last of the aching left his body via his groin. All the other exquisite discomfort of
earlier had concealed the fact that he’d also been blue balled, despite having released himself just two
hours ago. Still pressed together face to face, he saw Boris’ fixed, panting grin and rosy skin and planted
a playful canine peck on his cheek before starting to clean him off. Boris responded in kind, his tongue
darting out and lapping up dribs and drabs from Zach’s face and chin.

Zach grew a little softer and Boris’ sphincter became more relaxed, but with the little knot
pressed in pulling out still took some doing. As he tugged himself free, a bit of seed gushed out, a little
trickle still running down his penis. He pulled back from Boris, setting free his legs. They sat up and
settled next to each other, Zach’s hand on Boris’ knee and vice-versa. He met Boris’ pure, clear eyes.
Both were still panting, trying to think of what to say next while catching their breaths.

“That was… incredible. Tell me it’s always that good!” Zach enthusiastically asked.
 “It certainly never gets old. I’ve grown to hate Thursdays.”

“Why Thursdays in particular?”

“Because I don’t want to distract myself with hot werewolf sex on weekdays and I really start to
feel caged up about 4 days in. It’s worse when I have to skip a workout, like yesterday.”

“Why not be self-employed like me? Then you can fuck whenever you want.”

“Hm, don’t tempt me.”

“I’ve got to see this in the mirror!” Zach realized.

He excitedly scurried across the floor, the tough pads and short claws on his feet not finding
much purchase on the hardwood. Did he look as good as he felt, or was Boris just being very, very
polite? Despite some slipping and sliding he made it to the big wall mirror in the bathroom and finally
looked at himself.

He swooned how damn good he looked. Boris was an irresistible hunk, but now Zach was not
too far off, a little slimmer in the legs, but with big, tufty shoulders. If he took some time in the gym like
Boris he might be able to squeeze out a little more tone, but in his current state he was gonna have to
spend a lot of time in the confession booth for inspiring carnal lust, supposing that the very sacrilege of
setting foot in a church while looking like this didn’t instantly immolate him with divine retribution.

Much of his fur was platinum blonde, fine and almost white. It’s fineness did leave some areas
of his body exposed, like his fingers, toes, the insides of his thighs, and under his arms, but its color
blended so well with his slightly warmer, rosier skin tone that there weren’t as many sharp contrasts like
with Boris’ jet black fur. The hair on his scalp, ears, neck, tops of his arms, and the tip of his tail were a
darker mousy blond, his normal and natural hair color before the incident. There was also a fluffy brown
treasure trail leading from his navel down to his genitals, but despite the accenting the effect of his
coloration was creamy smooth. The coloration of his nose and lips were also different from Boris’ and a
bit more human, possibly a result of his particular transformation, and instead of being black they had a
dark reddish-brown color identical to the skin on his palms and paw pads. His eyes were a bright blue,
and equally piercing and discerning as Boris’. While beholding his body he almost lost himself.
 “Does it hurt as much to return to human form?”

“Sadly, yes. It’s not like letting go of a rubber band,” Boris said from the laundry room.

Boris was in the laundry room! It’s just a shame that such a rare and momentous moment had
been overshadowed by the arrival of this brand-new wolf man.

“There’s a friend of mine, a… close friend. Goes by Asher. He’s a physical therapist and a very
experienced Lycan. He can coach you on smoother transformations, the right stretches, the right food,
that sort of thing. I should warn you, though, the first thing he’ll tell you is that you should come up with
a werewolf identity, a… Fursona or something.”

“Oh, I’ve heard of that. I kinda like the idea, sounds like making a unique identity and keeping
your anonymity all at once. Do you have a fursona name?”

“No, I’m just Boris. We don’t all have fursonas. Some of us think they’re silly… But if you’re going
to go that way, maybe think of something short, pronounceable, and personal.”

“Well, then it’s easy. Zabko! Yes, that’s perfect!”

Boris seemed to approve of that, given his lack of a response. He heard the door to the washing
machine slam shut.

“OK… When are you going to call your friend over? Tonight?”

“Ah… About that. The first transformation lasts a while, longer if you can’t figure out how to
change back, but there’s a minimum.”

“How long are we talking?”

“About a week.”
 “Oh…” The pit of Zach’s stomach went out for a second, then he looked back at himself and
flexed. “Well, that’s not so bad! Maybe I could invite some friends over to pass the time…”

*FIN*
Notes on KAREN

KAREN: Knights of Augustus (Recte Et Noster).

KAREN is a private organization and avowed enemy of shapeshifters. Notoriously intolerant,

KAREN also has a suspiciously large number of middle-aged white female members named Karen that
sport bob hairdos, but this could just be a coincidence. Their stranglehold on key voting blocks and
public figures means that their illegal and imprecise hunts for werewolves usually go unpunished.

It doesn’t help that many shapeshifters are also gay, and that KAREN thinks gay people are
gross. Their typically small-minded and abusive approach to conflict resolution often limits the
effectiveness of their mobilization, but they have a special talent for turning small communities against
individuals and overwhelming them with sheer numbers. Most normal people think KAREN’s members
are completely insane, but they get to some of the people all of the time, and all the people some of the
time.

Alternatively pathetic and terrifying, KAREN might not be the most effective sword against the
Fomori, but they are typically the first, tending to draw much more dangerous forces like the police, the
feds, and the national guard into their hunts through their bullheaded insistence of speaking to
whoever’s in charge. They are inept but they are legion, and the resources at their command as well as
the disturbing ease with which they militarize suburban communities against outgroups make them a
serious existential threat to lycanthropes. Or gays. Or Hipsters. Or Millennials. Or scientists. Or
practitioners of Yoga.

Just beware if you are a gay werewolf born in or after 1980 with a degree in the sciences, a
record collection, and a yoga mat.