Callie awoke early the next morning, draped in the aftermath of her mum’s bargain. While it appeared the enchantment had indeed been successful, she immediately suspected that perhaps the circumstance had escalated beyond just the one favour.
Placed squarely in the middle of a cuddle-pile with an arm around each of the curvaceous blondes in her little adopted family, the enormous werewolf had the impression that she was currently being used as a combination body pillow and space heater. Even Genie had apparently gotten involved and Callie was only slightly surprised to see her spooning Jersey, all three women snuggled up against the fuzzy bulk of her torso.
It was a strange sensation to be ‘awake’ inside her wolfier form, though her altered anatomy wasn’t nearly as unsettling as she thought it might be. The long stretch of her new snoot was certainly something she’d need to get used to and the rebalancing of her senses altered her perception of the world around her, but for the most part inhabiting her matured and fluffy form was actually weirdly comfortable. Her platinum coat was intoxicatingly soft, but rather than being too hot for the number of bodies surrounding her she was instead pleasantly warm and relaxed.
Grinning down at Jersey, the slumbering girl having used her ruff as a plush pillow, Callie tried to lean in for a tender kiss; true to her wolfish frame, however, it was closer to the licking that Xena occasionally ambushed her with, the motion (and accidental collateral from the sheer length of her tongue) rudely waking Genie.
“And how’s our good girl doing?” the still half-asleep djinn smiled, placing a languorous pet between the wolf’s large, canid ears.
Working her jaw in slow motions, Callie struggled to form the correct sounds for a reply; while she had far more articulation in her speech than a regular wolf ever would, her altered anatomy still ran more towards lupine than human.
“I’m fvine, thank you,” she eventually answered, grateful that it would be impossible to see her blush even if she was still betrayed by the wiggling of her tail. “Vhery cozsy.”
Now it was Genie’s turn to blush. “I’m sorry,” she muttered abashedly, withdrawing her hand. “I thought you were still the, ah … other you.”
“It’s okay,” she chuckled, her laugh sounding a bit like a cross between low purring and soft, short barks. “I only just now ‘woke up’. And, honestly … it fvelt kinda nice.”
“Oh?” the djinn smirked confidently, regaining her regular prepossessing composure. “So does she fancy a bit more, then?”
“... Mayfbe,” Callie murmured somewhat guiltily, her tail thumping against the mattress. “It couldn’t hurt to check.”
Naturally, one thing led to another, and what started as a gentle exploration of physical affection became outright bullying once Jersey awoke and saw what was afoot. Nuzzling the wolf’s fluffy ruff, the smaller girl engaged in relentless chin and neck scritches, the fond teasing escalating further once Kelly started to stir. Attacked from all sides by cooing praise regarding what a ‘pretty girl’ she was, the platinum beast ultimately had no choice but to restore order to her pack through size-based dominance ⸻ which wasn’t an unwelcome outcome for anyone in the pile, of course.
Growling furiously, the wolfgirl sought retribution for the diminutive commentary and committed petting, but her attempts to silence the other women were largely ineffective; the adoring praise continued unabated, albeit with a long pause during each deep thrust. Deciding that it was a good-enough revenge, Callie enthusiastically burned down the rest of the morning ensuring that each of her sweet tormentors were properly stuffed.
By the time the knot finally softened inside Jersey, Callie’s phone alarm was already going off, signaling to the group that it was time to start the day … after a number of showers, naturally. So it was that by the time the wolfgirl (who had been last in line) made it downstairs for breakfast, she’d compacted back into her human form.
Once everyone had started in on their plates of souffle pancakes and fresh fruit, the planning to lure out the lurking threat resumed.
Assuming that the cult would be too cautious around Callie during the court-enforced work program after her prior assault, the strategy instead focused on leveraging the tall girl’s considerable popularity at school. Genie reasoned that while the most-direct method would simply involve attending local church services until they found the right branch, Callie’s particular … aesthetic combined with her acerbic personality would be about as subtle as the colouring on a poisonous frog. Sending the wolf directly into the den would likely send its members to ground, so instead the idea would be to present the Jersey-scented Callie in as many tempting locations as possible ⸻ and luckily, unsupervised highschool parties fit that criterion exceptionally well. Callie didn’t particularly relish the idea of becoming a ‘party girl,’ especially because she found it so difficult to relate to her ‘peers,’ but without a better approach to tracking-down the cult there was little she could do but go along with it.
Her first chance came that Saturday, ironically at the same function that Megan had warned her against attending.
She’d seen enough in her thirty-something years of life to immediately recognize the purpose of the mixed-ages soiree, and if it wasn’t for the necessity of Jersey’s protection she would’ve immediately left. A typical setup, the affair was very clearly intended to leverage the attractiveness and relative power gap between older college boys and hot highschool girls, creating a social environment perfect for forcing the latter to perform favours for the former. While the age ranges weren’t terribly far apart, Megan’s older brother and some of his friends were above age and so securing alcohol and other fun substances wasn’t a very difficult ask, and they’d go a long way to both enticing and entrapping the relatively inexperienced prey.
Personally, Callie hated every minute of it.
The boys were split into two camps regarding her: those who wanted nothing to do with her on account of her assumed sex, and those who eroticised her for the same reason. For her part the wolfgirl preferred to ignore both groups, but the latter crew required a delicate touch: firm-enough to communicate rejection, but not so harsh that it led to a confrontation. Men had such fragile egos after all, and any boy shorter than her ⸻ which was almost every male at the party ⸻ always acted like they had something to prove.
Still, there was a certain allure to a tall, fit, well-dressed girl, and Callie wasn’t oblivious to the stares coming from the more feminine half of the gathering either. If she had actually been seventeen she might’ve even enjoyed the attention, but she was a little leery of trying to start anything with someone who was mentally half her own age. Besides, while she wasn’t exactly monogamous she did still want to communicate that sort of availability to Jersey, or at least demonstrate her focus on and commitment to the other girl’s protection.
Annoyingly, one of the party-goers with her eyes set on Callie happened to be Assistant Chief Baxter’s daughter.
“Nice clothes, Brambell,” Megan sneered as she gave her the once-over. “Did your mom pick them out for you?”
“Yeah, she did.” Callie nodded, nonplussed. “She’s an international model, so she knows a thing or two about drip.”
Ultimately her outfit wasn’t that far off from something she would’ve chosen herself, and was instead a slightly classier version of the comfortable layered looks she preferred; still, Kelly’s input had expanded her wardrobe significantly and the wolfgirl couldn’t deny that her mum had a much better eye for colours, lines, and accessories. Where her normal clothes would’ve merely concealed, the other woman’s choices instead highlighted her silhouette in a way that suggested Callie knew how effortlessly hot she was and that her innate attractiveness was everyone else’s problem.
While putting out an insane amount of aura wasn’t her express goal, the amazon quite enjoyed the powerful feeling of confidence it lent her ⸻ and Megan might’ve appreciated it as well if she wasn’t so entrenched in her hand-me-down homophobia.
Ignoring the obnoxiously contentious girl, Callie decided to wander around and look for trouble beyond the simple garden-variety exploitation presented by beer pong and king’s cup ⸻ the latter of which doubled as an excellent way to catch the plague. Unsurprisingly the refreshments had limited themselves to the typical compliment of Jägerbombs and disgusting domestic ‘light’ beers, the former being liberally supplied to the girls under the assertion that it tasted ‘just like bubblegum,’ which was more or less true as long as you first assumed it had been scraped off of a car battery.
Unable to sense anything supernatural on her own, all she could do was hang around and hope that Genie texted her once a threat entered her vicinity. After the first half-hour of the party, however, she had started to think that her primary role should be to cock-block any of the boys who felt comfortable getting handsy, which unfortunately meant she had to play some of the games as well; it was an unappetizing task to be sure, but she had a few tricks up her sleeve to minimize her blood alcohol concentration.
Her game of choice was ‘Quarters,’ selected largely because it offered whiskey as a punishment drink instead of an obligation, and if she was going to be forced to down anything it wasn’t going to be fucking Jägermeister; she'd had more than a lifetime’s experience with that vile beverage in college, and she had no desire to relive it.
Naturally Callie was suspiciously good at the game for a seventeen-year-old, but it came from half a decade of practice while living with a Marine and his younger brother, both of whom were dedicated social alcoholics. The harder liquor made the game less-popular to play while the difficulty of the shots made it more fun to watch, and so it wasn’t long before Callie had drawn in a decent crowd as she made it through round after round without getting ‘screwed’. She would’ve happily kept the game going as long as possible and satisfied herself with achieving her overall objective if it wasn’t for Megan’s ridiculous decision to get herself involved.
Sitting on Callie’s left, the frustrating girl immediately presented an annoying and somewhat dangerous problem. If the wolfish amazon played at her normal speed, Megan was almost guaranteed to end-up screwed as she tried and failed to sink dozens of shots. Conversely, if she concentrated on stalling and deliberately missing while waiting for the shorter girl to pass her glass, she would instead be left with the unenviable position of deciding whether to sink a screwed shot and immediately pass the task to Megan, or simply tanking the punishment drink herself. At six-foot-four and fifteen stone it was fairly easy for the wolf to absorb a handful of shots, but no matter what she did to try to encourage Megan to drop out the stubborn girl would only demand to keep playing.
“You trying to impress your girlfriend, Megs?” One of the older boys cackled as the shorter girl struggled to even make the coin bounce, much less enter the glass; given the deference he commanded and the familiarity to his needling, Callie had to assume he was Megan’s brother, Chad, which she thought was an amusingly appropriate name.
“No,” the harried girl snapped as she whiffed another try.
“That’s good,” another of the chuds laughed, “because you’re dogshit at it.”
“Knock it off,” Callie growled, shooting a harsh glare his way. “Change seats with her if you think you’re such a big deal.”
“And break up the lesbos?” he chortled, puffing his chest out as he ‘stood up’ to a girl likely five years his junior. “Nah that’s alright babygirl, you can keep her ⸻ unless you two need a man to show you how it’s done.”
“Dude,” the first boy rejoined angrily, “that’s my sister you’re talking about.”
As the two skids rowed, Callie snuck a glance at Megan. While the other was atypically quiet, it was difficult to tell if the warm colour to her face was from the alcohol or the embarrassment of being dragged in front of a crowd; of course it was also possible that her blush was a symptom of her close proximity to the amazon herself, but she rejected that theory out of the sure belief that the other girl hated her guts.
“Besides,” Megan’s brother continued, “the chick’s a man, alright? Her dick’s gotta be like twice the size of yours.”
Having been called-out by his bro, the other boy felt compelled to defend his honour in the way he understood best: taking it out on someone he perceived as weaker.
“Hey ‘Smeg’,” he jeered, inventing an insulting nickname for the smaller girl, “is that true? Your tranny’s packin’ some heat?”
“Sure am,” Callie answered without missing a beat as she stepped in for the other girl, “and it’s huge, too. Can barely fit the damn thing in my jeans.”
Her quip drew a number of giggles from the gathered crowd, including Chad and his obnoxious friend.
“Now I know that ain’t right,” the annoying boy snorted, ignorant of how quickly the mood of the group was turning against him and his bullying. “My uncle says you freaks are all fun-sized,” he sneered, holding out his thumb and forefinger in approximation of the length.
“You wanna whip it out and measure?” she countered with a mocking smile, locking eyes with him across the table. “Or are you scared of losing to a girl in front of all your boys.”
Glaring at each other, the wolf matched his heated expression with a confident smirk, baiting him; the room clearly wasn’t behind him, but he couldn’t let an insult to his pride go. Thankfully, his buddy wouldn’t give him the chance.
“Give it a rest, Wexler,” Chad commanded, calling off the yapping dog before he bit off more than he could chew. “We’ve all seen you at the gym; you’d better stop before you embarrass yourself.”
“It’s not about the size anyway,” the boy called ‘Wexler’ huffed, slipping in a parting shot as he made a lewd gesture with his hands and crotch, “it’s about how you handle it.”
“Nah, nephew,” Callie interjected, hammering the last nail deep, “you wouldn’t know shit about that. I heard your girl’s so good at faking it that Juilliard gave her a full ride.”
While the college kid himself was a little too dense to ‘get it,’ the thrust of her jab was apparent in the rest of the room’s riotous laughter. Cowed by her sharp tongue and unflappable demeanor, Wexler did the smart thing and shut his mouth before he could make an even bigger fool of himself.
Though it counted as a ‘win’ for the wolfgirl, the exchange brought the game of quarters to an end. In some respects it was the preferable outcome as she wouldn’t need to burden herself with anymore booze, but it did nothing to extricate her from Megan’s puppy-like pursuit and if anything it might’ve made her even more persistent. Sticking close to Callie like they had been glued together, the smaller girl followed her through the house and into the relative silence and seclusion of the kitchen.
Crossing her arms under her bust, the amazon decided to confront her tail. “So, are you ever gonna spit it out? Or do you want to play ‘twenty questions’ first.”
Expecting a fight, Callie buckled in for whatever loquacious diatribe the other girl had planned. Megan had never shied away from telling the wolfgirl exactly what she thought of her in no uncertain terms, and insulting her was practically her favourite pastime; the taller girl figured whatever lashing she had planned must’ve been particularly venomous if she wanted to wait until they were alone to deliver it.
To the wolf’s perplexed surprise, the other girl wasn’t there to fight at all.
“... Thank you,” Megan eventually managed in a quiet voice, shocking Callie with her sincerity. “For what you did back there, I mean.”
“It’s nothing,” the amazon deflected, waving away her words. “Dudes like that are terrified of everything; all you have to do is push him into a corner and he’ll fold like a cheap lawn chair.”
She’d had more than enough experience in dealing with men like him that he wouldn’t leave any impression on her after that night, and come next week she’d likely have forgotten his name and face completely. Some kinder part of her hoped that it would be the same for Megan, and yet an even-more sympathetic side would prefer to believe that she wasn’t already so jaded as that; it took a lot of abuse to create the kind of battle-hardened woman that the wolfish girl had become, and she hated to think that anyone would ever suffer the same.
Perhaps hoping to direct the subject away from her embarrassing indebtment to the taller girl, the somewhat unsteady Megan propped herself up against the large island countertop as she watched Callie rummage around the kitchen.
“What are we drinking now?” the red-faced girl asked, her words just a little too sloshed together. “More beer?”
“I’m older than you,” Megan snipped back, unaware of the irony.
“Sure,” she said dismissively, opening and closing cabinets in a steady line. “Where the hell are the glasses?”
“How should I know?” the other girl returned, her familiar cantankerous tone returning in diminished force.
“It’s your mom’s house,” Callie reminded her. “Are you such a lightweight that you forgot?”
“It’s my mom’s house,” Megan repeated by way of explanation. “I live with my dad.”
“Ah,” she replied with a commiserating grimace. “I’m sorry.”
“He’s not as bad now that he stopped the post-separation drinking.” Despite the forced sincerity in her words, Callie had to imagine that the other girl had been handed them by someone else. “Pastor Gary says he’ll be back to normal once God answers his prayers for a new wife.”
“And what counts as normal?” Callie asked, morbidly curious.
Megan only shrugged in reply; the tiny gesture revealed an awful lot, and it almost made the wolfgirl want to forgive her churlish behaviour. That burgeoning goodwill soon took a severe hit, however, as the shorter girl changed topics yet again.
“So you’re straight, right?” she asked in a way that sounded more like a condescending statement of fact.
“Is this going to be a ‘thing’ every time?” she huffed, shooting the other girl a glare as she filled the two glasses she'd found with some frustratingly-tepid tap water. “I’ve told you I’m a lesbian like, what … ⸻ six times, maybe?”
“But you have a like, y’know,” Megan protested, squirming awkwardly as she hesitated in the face of such a dirty word, “... a penis.”
“Sure do,” Callie agreed with a crooked smile, handing the shorter girl one of the glasses. “Haven’t had any complaints about it recently, so I suppose the other ‘lesbos’ are fairly fond of it.”
“So you mean you’ve like, um … ⸻ like you’ve kissed another girl before?” Dancing around the subject as she clutched the offered cup between anxious hands, her uncharacteristic shyness was kind of adorable.
“You’ve literally walked-in on me kissing another girl,” she replied easily, a hint of a laugh in her amused tenor.
“Not your sister, Brambell,” Megan scoffed, reclaiming her usual obstinance. “I mean like a real girl ⸻ one you’re not related to.”
“Jersey is a ‘real girl’,” Callie snipped back. “And we’re adopted, not blood-related. We’ve only been living together for a little while.”
“Oh,” she mumbled, somehow disappointed with the answer. “Well she still doesn’t count.”
“Fine, whatever,” she said, rolling her eyes. “If you don’t count Jersey, then my answer is still yes. I’ve fooled around with a number of other wom⸻ … other girls.”
Even with the wavering focus granted by the other girl’s slight intoxication, Callie still hadn’t corrected herself quickly-enough not to give off the impression that her intimate relationships had been very-illegal liaisons with older women.
“Here?” Megan wondered, prying into the amazon’s private life.
“At my old school,” Callie replied, staying vague about the imagined details.
“Oh. Is that why you’re adopted? Because your real parents didn’t want a lesbian slut for a kid.”
“More or less,” she agreed, ignoring the barb. “After my father passed, my mother was more invested in finding some other god-fearing asshole to shack up with.”
“That sucks.” Absent the filter provided by her sober state, it seemed Megan was simply voicing all her thoughts aloud, and with them came awkward questions. “How’d your dad die?”
Staring down at the glass in her hand, Callie thought for a minute before she answered. Figuring she’d be safe from the repercussions of her old life, she decided to be truthful; they both had a substantial degree of liquid courage in them, and the likelihood of the other girl either believing, remembering, or repeating the story was incredibly low.
“... I killed him,” she said eventually, her tone absent any malice or remorse.
“Nuh uh,” Megan objected, clapping a surprised hand over her mouth. “No cap?”
Perhaps she should've stopped there, confessing to a macabre joke, but the warmth of the bottom-shelf whiskey she'd tanked had gotten to the wolfgirl, its effects temporarily resurging with every gulp of tap water. Emboldened by the loosening of her filter, she indulged in morbid humour.
“For real,” Callie asserted, her mood darkening as she lost herself in the past, dredged-up as it was from her time as an inebriated teen. “He was on his way out, and I decided to help him along. The investigation ruled it ‘natural causes’ and left it at that.”
It had been a surreal experience watching her father die. If she had truly been concerned about her personal safety then she should’ve simply pretended not to hear his call for help and abandoned him to his fate, but part of her had known that if she didn’t make sure he was dead then the bastard would’ve found some way to survive like the cockroach he was. Straddling his body as he lay in bed, she’d taken her revenge for all the times he’d forced her into that same disgusting position; asphyxiation wasn’t an uncommon symptom of a massive heart attack, and his worsening condition left him too weak to fight off a determined sixteen-year-old boy.
Perhaps if someone asked she would’ve said it was ‘difficult’ or ‘a struggle’, but the truth was that pressing the washcloth against his nose and mouth had been one of the easiest things she’d ever done in her life.
“Murder is a sin,” the shocked girl squeaked, defaulting to chastisement like it was her resting emotional state.
“So’s pederasty,” Callie shrugged, taking a sip of her lukewarm water. “I’m sure J-man would call it even.”
Despite her autonomic objection, Megan didn’t seem entirely put-off by the taller girl’s grisly insinuation. Perhaps Assistant Chief Baxter might’ve already clued her in to the ways in which fathers could brutalize their daughters, and if that was the case then Callie wouldn’t particularly mind being the proxy in any deserved patricide.
Megan looked like she wanted to say more, but their tête-à-tête was interrupted by the arrival of some of the other girls who had come to drag their classmates into another activity.
Though still following after her like a puppy, Megan’s estimation of Callie had clearly been altered, but the wolfgirl could only guess at what that new appraisal might be.
Having reached the stage of the evening where everyone was sufficiently toasted and looking to pair off, the games turned away from strictly being all about alcohol and instead towards convincing the more reticent girls to abandon their inhibitions. While most of the older boys preferred a direct approach, those still in highschool or just out of it were more than willing to participate in the staple icebreakers.
At first Callie assumed that she wouldn’t bother participating in any of it as the party had already long-passed the point where she thought the cult would make a play, and she didn’t want to get involved with any of the attendees; she had less than zero desire to do any favours for the boys, and testing the heteroflexibility of girls half her mental age seemed like it was more trouble than it was worth. She’d just as soon write the whole thing off, but the amazon had proved more popular than she would’ve preferred and so instead she featured in a number salacious dares as ‘punishments’ in the various games. It was obvious to her and the older players that she was being used as the subject of either girl-on-girl fantasies for the boys or the repulsive and novel eroticism inherent in a six-foot-four T-girl, but the actual tasks asked of her were fairly chaste and amounted to little more than letting another girl sit in her lap for a round or the occasional brief kiss; the latter received more vocal encouragement from the crowd, and despite her unskilled partners Callie would’ve been lying if she said she didn’t enjoy being an enlightening experience.
Besides, it would be incredibly amusing in another decade or two at the highschool reunion if she were still fondly spoken-of as a memorable first kiss, and the chance to flex her artistry in front of envious young men and excited girls had the wolf inside her purring with delight.
By the time the ‘punishments’ started escalating, Callie was already committed. Assuming that all she’d have to engage with was a little groping on top of what she was already providing, she was blindsided by the rather juvenile shift to ‘seven minutes in heaven’ ⸻ and she was even less prepared to spend a round in a coat closet with Megan.
Between the amazon’s broad frame and the relatively small dimensions of the room, the two girls were forced right up against each other. For the taller girl it was an exercise in mild dread, and she could only imagine what was going through the mind of her staunchly-conservative partner. It appeared the situation was a punishment in a literal sense, designed and proposed by the more malicious element at the party to ensure Megan’s public embarrassment one way or another.
“We don’t actually have to do anything,” Callie reassured the other girl in her calm tenor. “They’ll open the door when the time is up regardless.”
“Then you shouldn’t stand so close,” Megan whinged, perhaps irritated by the presumedly-intimate circumstance. “I can barely breathe.”
“It’s not my fault it’s so cramped in here,” she sighed, seven minutes stretching out into an eternity in front of her. “The hell does your mother need so many winter jackets for, anyway? It barely gets below fifty-five degrees all year.”
“It’s called ‘fashion,’ Brambell,” she snipped, shifting her weight from side to side as she tried to find a comfortable way to stand. “You should get your mom to teach you about it sometime.”
It was a little ridiculous to suggest that the girl with such a striking underlayer was entirely ignorant of aesthetics, but reality and the things Megan said hardly ever coincided.
“Do you have to be like this all the goddamn time?” Callie asked as she tried to fit herself into a bearable stance; left with little in the way of arm room, she had to settle for resting one of her hands on the shelf behind the other girl like she was indeed trying to corner her.
“You shouldn’t take God’s name in vain,” she replied reproachfully, a rote response delivered almost subconsciously.
“I don’t think he’d care,” the wolf scoffed, pushing back. “J-man’s dad and I aren’t exactly on speaking terms.”
“That’s your fault, not His,” Megan insisted. “You’re not opening yourself to His words, and that’s why you can’t hear His plans for you.”
“And being stuck in a closet with a dyke is part of god’s plan for you?” Callie laughed, finding it impossible not to trade jabs.
“It could be,” she mumbled. “Maybe God is asking me to share His message with you and save your soul.”
“I’ll pass, thanks. I’ve already been baptized once before, and I’m afraid it didn’t take.”
“Because you’ve accepted the devil into your heart,” Megan told her stiffly. “If you rejected him and focused on living a good life, you’d be rewarded by our Saviour.”
“Rewarded with what?” Callie contended, her tone turning harsh as they drifted into territory that naturally rankled her fur.
“A safe home and a loyal spouse,” she answered matter-of-factly. “That’s what Pastor Gary says good men are owed. It’s in the Bible.”
“No it isn’t,” she snapped back, a far better scholar than the other girl assumed. “There’s no ‘owing’ anything.”
Megan refused to give up her hold on her indoctrination. “First Peter, chapter three tells us ⸻”
“‘Wives, be subject to your husbands’.” Callie quoted easily, the words burned into her memory. “I’ve read the book, sweetheart, and I assure you that it’s just a pithy set of shackles to keep you in line.” Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
“It’s God’s plan that I be a good wife,” the other girl said, her voice wavering with a growing hint of hesitation. “I’m going to prove to the old hags at the church that they’re wrong, and that I can be a way better woman and mother than my unfaithful, liberal mom.”
“You’re insane,” she laughed, openly scornful. “Don’t tell me you seriously want to spend the rest of your life being some bible-thumper’s brat factory. What if you get stuck with some abusive asshole? Does your church even allow divorce?”
“Good men are under a lot of pressure in today’s evil society, so they have to be extended grace in the same way that Jesus gives us His forgiveness,” Megan explained, repeating the justifications that had been drilled into her, weaving a meandering excuse that made zero sense. “It’s not their fault, it’s the mainstream media’s corrupt propaganda. The liberal government has been polluting minds with its rampant sexualization and promotion of homosexual behaviour.”
“And what’s wrong with sex or ‘homosexual behaviour’?” Callie demanded, leaning in as her words became more heated. “It’s not a crime to love someone, physically or otherwise ⸻ well, not yet anyway.”
With the way the current administration had been trending, she couldn’t be too sure.
“Y-you’re too close,” the smaller girl stammered abashedly, setting her hands on the wolf’s shoulders.
“There’s not really anywhere else to go,” the taller girl apologised.
She wasn’t unsympathetic to Megan’s discomfort, but there was little she could do about it. The entire point of the game was to force them together, and if it made the other girl sweat then that only meant that the partygoers had achieved their aim. For some other pairing it might’ve been a chance to express some mutual interest, but Chad clearly enjoyed torturing his sister ⸻ and perhaps Callie too, now that she thought about it, as a way to get back at her for showing-up his lackey.
“We can stop now if you want,” Callie offered, groping around for the latch. “It’s not like it matters if we go the whole seven minutes or not.”
Megan looked like she wanted to say something in response but struggled with getting it out, tripping over some misgiving that the amazon couldn’t fathom. “No, we should stay,” she finally managed, pointedly looking anywhere but at the taller girl, wearing a permanent blush from the heat and the alcohol. “Good Christians don’t shy away from trials.”
“And what ‘trial’ is this supposed to be?” she chuckled, amused by the odd way the other girl rationalised everything.
Biting her bottom lip, the shorter girl stared up at her with a curious look in her eyes. “...Temptation,” she breathed, rising up onto her tiptoes.
Perhaps Callie shouldn’t have been so surprised by Megan’s faltering attempt at a kiss, but she had always assumed that the other girl’s obvious self-repression had been something she wanted to see and not what was actually extant, buried as it was beneath the shorter girl’s recriminating commentary and steadfast scriptural compliance. Despite not having been the one to initiate the wolfish girl still held back, hesitating in the face of their relative power imbalance; proceeding further would’ve been yet more proof of the horrible predation she’d been accused of, yet the bestial instinct buried in her chest rumbled its growing desire.
“What’s the matter, Brambell?” Megan huffed in frustration as she stopped to gather her breath. “I thought you were supposed to be good at this.”
“And I thought you were supposed to be a good christian girl,” Callie returned, a familiar itch in her fangs. “You literally just slammed homosexuals like two seconds ago.”
The shorter girl shrugged. “You’re a boy, so it’s okay.”
“You know I’m not,” she growled, irritation and voracity warring on her tongue.
“... Half a boy,” Megan allowed, compromising as she pressed closer, one hand trailing down the swell of Callie’s chest and over her abdomen, eagerly creeping towards her bulge. “A very big half.”
“Does that mean it’s only half a sin?” the wolf laughed, pawing at the other girl’s ass as she drew her in, crushing the two together.
“I’ll pray twice as hard tonight to make up for it,” she purred, stroking the amazon through her jeans.
Conscious of the time limit and their eventual audience, Callie made sure not to let Megan go any further, satisfying herself with a slow grind as she finally demonstrated the refined edge of her technique. Overeager and underpracticed, the shorter girl’s efforts steadily developed beyond the grasping sincerity of her first attempt; proving herself to be a quick study when she was appropriately motivated, Megan happily failed spiritual tribulation in pursuit of carnal enlightenment, drawn along by the wolf’s guiding hand.
Assuming they were waiting to be interrupted by a roomful of teenage voyeurs, Callie was unprepared for the sudden and angry buzzing in her pocket, her phone vibrating with the strength of a hurricane warning. Worked-up and frustrated, she paused her assault to fish out the offending device, grumbling an apology all the while.
Shocked to find an urgent warning dominating her notifications, she hurriedly swiped through her lock screen and was soon assaulted by a number of texts from the messenger app Genie had given her, appearing one after the other.
‘Caution: unknown magic detected nearby.’
‘Caution: unknown magic active at your location.’
‘Caution: unknown magic active at your location.’
‘Danger: unknown magical entities approaching your location.’
“Well, shit,” Callie muttered to herself, tapping the button to send Genie a confirmation that she was aware of the texts.
“Is that your mom?” Megan gasped as she caught her breath.
“Not exactly,” she answered vaguely, wondering how in the hell she was going to deal with a cult in the middle of a highschool house party, much less protect those already present. “How did you get here? Do you have a way home?”
“I was going to spend the night,” the shorter girl explained sheepishly, her shyness returning as the intimacy passed. “My mom lets me have the spare room when dad ⸻ … she lets me stay over sometimes.”
There was an important detail there, but unfortunately the wolfgirl didn’t have the time to interrogate it. Assistant Chief Baxter might be a looming threat, but still a far-less immediate one. Unfortunately, there was little Callie could do to impart the severity of her consternation to other girl; the Veil would likely thwart or punish her attempts to explain what was going on beyond the most vague insinuations, but her warnings would doubtlessly come off as half-hearted excuses to break off their makeout session. Hands tied either way, the wolfish girl gave her best attempt.
“Listen,” she began in a hurried voice, “I think something bad’s on the way here, so I want you to go to the spare room and wait there.”
“Like the cops?” Megan asked, confused. “They won’t come here, ‘cause dad told them to ignore Chad’s parties.”
“I don’t know if it’s the cops or what,” Callie admitted, “I just know that it won’t be pleasant.”
“Well I can’t go to the room right now anyway,” the other girl mumbled, turning even redder as the amazon clutched her a little tighter out of protective reflex. “I think Amberleigh and her boyfriend are hooking up in it.”
“Perfect,” she sighed, vaguely annoyed with the concept of teenage libido in both herself and others. “I don’t suppose I could get you to stay here, then?”
“I’m not hiding in the closet,” Megan huffed, ignorant of the irony.
“Fine,” Callie allowed, fumbling for the door latch. “Stick close to me, then.”
She made to open the door when she felt the other girl’s hand on her own, holding her back. Turning her gaze to her smaller charge, she was surprised to find that Megan’s blush had only worsened, her shyness reaching a peak that Callie would’ve never expected. Concerned, she hesitated.
“So, like ….” Megan began and then immediately trailed off, dancing at the edge of the subject as always; taking a deep breath before she tried again, the nervous waver in her voice refused to fade. “Um, so are we … ⸻ like are we dating now?”
“... What?” the wolfgirl returned, baffled by the bewildering question. “Why would you think that?”
“Y’know,” the other girl murmured abashedly, “because we like, kissed ‘n stuff.” Squirming uncomfortably, she battled against her past impropriety. “And I like … t-touched your … down there.”
Having been raised in an absurdly religious family herself, Megan’s almost comical lack of romantic understanding was painfully familiar to Callie. If the other girl hadn’t been so doggedly quarrelsome she might’ve even been inclined to feel sorry for her; as it was she still felt a certain amount of sympathy, but it was tempered by the other girl’s convenient dismissal of her homophobia and misogyny when it suited her.
Mistaking the cause of the taller girl’s hesitation, Megan spoke up again. “I’m eighteen,” she stated authoritatively, as though it was a fact Callie didn’t already know. “I’m old enough to have a boyfriend.”
“I’m still not a boy,” Callie reminded her with an impatient growl, “and you’re like six months older than I am.” In this body, anyway, she added silently to herself.
“Okay,” she agreed with all the insincere contrition of a child who had been caught with her hand in the cookie jar, “but you’re like a lot more experienced than I am. With girls and stuff, I mean.”
“Can we talk about this later?” the wolfgirl pleaded, her apprehension growing as she felt her phone vibrate several more times. “I’m deathly serious, Megan. I need you to trust me on this.”
No longer willing to wait for the other girl to be on-board, Callie threw open the door back into the hallway.
Unsurprisingly they were met by a chorus of raucous cheers, the crowd drawing the obvious conclusion from the blush on Megan’s face and the way she held tight to the wolfgirl’s sleeve. Ignoring their mirth, she stalked over to the entryway sidelight, sneaking a peek through the textured glass; as expected, the view only revealed a handful of parked cars crowded together by the curb, with no indication that anything was approaching the house at all.
The lack of an obvious threat wasn’t reassuring at all, however; Callie had no idea if the magical danger was even close enough to view, or if it would be visible to her at all. If she instead had to contend with something mundane, she wondered what degree of force it would arrive with and whether she would have a chance to transform; the latter appeared incredibly unlikely given that Megan seemed to be attached at her hip, but she figured in a pinch she could just claim that whatever the other girl ended up remembering of the ensuing incident had been the product of a spiked drink.
Retreating further into the house, she considered her options. Once whatever it was arrived, she had to assume it would be able to identify her or otherwise notice the ‘links’ she’d been entangled with, which meant that if her attackers were concealed in any manner they would likely get the drop on her. Trying to wolf-out after she’d already been made would be a difficult proposition, especially if they had something that could disable her, which told her that she would need to be proactively aggressive if she expected a confrontation. The plan had always been that Callie was simply bait and that she should flee the moment she expected trouble, but leaving everything up to Genie and Kelly irritated her more cautious and self-centered instincts; there was no guarantee that the sorceresses would be able to gain useful information if she left too quickly, after all, so perhaps it was best to stick around to see what was up on her own.
That idea flew out the window as she heard a loud knock on the front door.
Creeping back towards the hallway, Megan in tow, Callie watched as Chad made dramatic shushing motions to the rest of the party before answering. The door opened to reveal a number of uniformed and jacketed officers waiting on the doorstep, and she recognized that their show of force was far too large to be a patrol car responding to a noise complaint. Thankfully Chad was the son of the Assistant Chief of Special Operations, and his typical masculine bluster stalled the officers long enough for Callie to flee to the back door.
Escaping out into the yard, the wolfgirl had intended to skip right over the dividing fence and into the neighbour’s property, as being found engaging in under-age drinking would be enough of a serious problem to her on its own, but her intentions were thwarted by the cops waiting to prevent such an early exit. For a brief moment she considered surrendering and hoping that Kelly could find a way to drag her out of jail, but then she locked eyes with the man who should’ve still been in critical condition at the local hospital, assumedly minus one or both arms if her recollection had been correct. As his eyes widened with recognition, Callie knew she was well and truly fucked.
A quick “sorry” was all she managed to give Megan as she roughly shoved the other girl to the side, moving in the other direction as she tried to create distance before the gunfire opened up on her rapidly shifting form. Her transformation was only half complete as the bullets scraped her arms and sides, and she was likely saved fatal injury by the fact that the other cops weren’t clued-in on the game and only started firing after the first began his attack.
Charging at the strangely-immortal officer, she met him in an awkward tackle as her gait altered mid-stride. Snarling around lengthening fangs, she tore into him with clawed fingers, digging into the padding around his neck. Roaring as she finally caught hold of him around the jaw, she grabbed him by the back of the head, wrenching and twisting; as gore slicked her arms, she dared the lifeless visage to recover from that wound.
Rising from her knees, she flew across the back lawn like a whirlwind, reducing the number of armed witnesses to zero.
Before the officers inside could make it through the press of confused and terrified teens, she easily crested the fence into the neighbour’s yard at such speed that she pitched herself into their outdoor pool, making a comical splash as she floundered in the water, wrapped-up in the tarp that had covered it. Snarling viciously, she tore at it with her claws until she regained her momentum, trailing strips of it as she dashed around the side of the house. Sprinting out into the street, she made a hard turn, hoping to get back to the crowded stretches of the city where it would be easier to hide.
Unsure as to how easily the cops would be able to follow, she went down on all fours to carry herself along at a sustainable lope, cutting between houses and across streets. Keeping an eye to the sky, she was careful to check for any choppers; doubtlessly they’d have an easier time spotting her, and the advantage she gained by not being a car would be easily overturned.
Distracted as she was by what might be behind or above her, she didn’t notice the cross-traffic auto until it slammed into her at fifty-five miles an hour, throwing her body up and into the windshield. Surrounded by the crunch of cracking laminate, the impact shattered her consciousness, dropping her into the unceremonious dark.