Mark didn't just join the party, he was one of the driving forces of the party. Mark felt like he'd just chugged three red bulls, he had so much energy. Once he squeezed through the crowd to the portion of the living room serving as the dance floor, he jumped in and stepped so fast and so lightly that other dancers gave him room just to see what he would do. Whatever song played, if Mark had seen the video of it, he shook his furry little ass exactly as the dancers in the video had. On older songs, Mark was as quick and light on his feet as the best dancers in the Soul Train studio. When a black kid in a dracula costume started doing the trucking walk in place, Mark did it just as well and with more flair.
As impressive as his dancing was, part of the fascination around Mark was his appearance. Unlike the Tollivers who had inspected him at some length, girls and boys watching only gradually noticed how perfect and how complete Mark's 'costume' was. One particularly fascinated girl jumped in and danced with Mark just to get a closer look.
"Mark? Mark St. Martin?" Mark nodded and remembered having seen her. She attended the girls' school that his parents sent Cindy to. She was a slender, vivacious redhead. Mark slowed his dancing to a pace she could match.
"Oh my god! It's like it's real" she gasped in his ear after rubbing a hand up his fur covered arm.
"Of course! It's supposed to seem that way" Mark chuckled.
"But you've got it all over you" she added, glancing down at the exposed portions of Mark's calf, thigh and buttock, covered with the same caramel brown fur as his upper body.
"Hey, I want to win the contest. I had them coat me head to toe, for realism"
The girl laughed and said that he'd certainly achieved that. She might've danced with Mark a bit longer, but he scratched her fingers with his claws trying to take her hand. She let out a yelp and jumped off to the side, toward the kitchen. Mark quickly followed.
"I'm sorry. I didn't meant to hurt you . . "
"Zoe"
"I didn't mean to hurt you, Zoe. I'm not used to these" he said holding up his clawed fingers. On inspecting his own digits, Mark realized what a compromise his new body was. His fingers seemed to have shortened. He had a non-retractable claw on each which extended about an inch off each finger or thumb. The undersides of his fingers were not fur covered and almost of human sensitivity but the palms of his hands were most of the way to paw pad toughness and coarseness. Zoe took his right hand in both hers and turned it over as she inspected it. She shook her head.
"It must have taken you hours to have all this done to you"
"Not long enough if I hurt you"
She smiled at him. Their eyes met. Mark was unsure of his sharp new fangs and let her move toward him. She pressed her lips to his and found herself kissing sharp half inch fangs and only a bit of his lips. She laughed out loud.
"You did such a good job with your costume that I'm kissing all teeth"
Mark chuckled. "Sorry again". With great effort, he was able to close his now thin black lips over his fearsome teeth and pressed his mouth forward toward hers. She kissed his lips softly. After staring at each other a moment, Mark offered to get her a drink. She thanked him and off Mark went. He was very thirsty after all the energetic dancing he'd done. He got a couple sodas from the fridge and was offered some carrots, broccoli or cauliflower. Vegetables had no allure at all to Mark. It was meat or nothing for him in his anthropo-werewolf condition. But when Mark got back to where Zoe had been standing, she was gone. Mark looked around and even circled the room but couldn't find her. He sniffed with his new hypersensitive nose, but came up completely blank. There was no lingering Zoe scent to be detected and the mass of people in the room didn't make it any easier. He asked one girl where Zoe was, but the girl just stared in shock at werewolf Mark. Another girl said she had no idea and Mark felt her rub the fur of his buns as he made his way off through the increasingly dense crowd of partiers. Mark had guzzled both sodas himself, by now and had to use the bathroom. He waited outside the upstairs bathroom next to a kid a year younger who stared at Mark and rudely touched him with one finger, as though Mark was a sales display or something.
At last it was Mark's turn. He shut the door behind him and jumped in front of the bowl. But one glance at the razor sharp tips of his claws reminded him that he needed to think this out carefully. He decided to avoid potentially slicing off his own organ by dropping his burst seamed pants to his knees.
"Aw no" he muttered recognizing another compromise between his human and lupine physical natures. His penis was shorter and thinner than it had been a few hours ago, only average sized now. It was also oddly pink and . . pointy. Mark inspected his new organ, not nearly the regal penis that swung between his legs just a few hours ago, with one careful claw. He sighed in resignation. Take the bad with the good. With that, he pissed. At least he tried to, but found that something wasn't right. Despite his bladder feeling like it would burst, he could barely summon forth a drop. It seemed oddly uncomfortable, somehow.
"Wait a minute" he muttered. He untied his right shoe and pulled off it and his sock. He stepped out of his pant leg and boxers and turned to the side as he kicked his right foot up against the wall above the bowl and tank. Facing to the side, Mark was able to easily relieve himself into the bowl, pissing doggy style with one leg uplifted. He chuckled to himself at this new limitation. That done with, Mark inspected his new body in the mirror. Just a more muscular version of his old one from the neck down with the exception of a thick coating of short, caramel brown fur over every square inch of him except his new diminished, pink and pointy penis. Well, there were the claws and paw pad palms of his hands, too. Mark weighed himself using the scale in the corner and the dial read 135. This pleased him. Seventeen pounds of muscle. Well, claws and fur, too, but less penis, so seventeen pounds.
Mark carefully pulled his tattered clothes back on. He realized looking in the mirror that all his showy dancing had expanded the tears and holes in his pants and shirt. His furry right buttock was there for anybody who was interested in seeing it. His shirt didn't hang at all over his left shoulder. Oh well, no big deal, thought Mark. He was more interested in inspecting his new face. Someone banged on the bathroom door begging to be let in and Mark shouted "Just a minute. I'm almost done". He stepped up to the mirror and noticed for the first time that his ears had become completely lupine. They were fur covered and pointy with a smooth interior, no human swirls or ridges. But his forehead, eyes and cheekbones were unchanged. He turned side to side. His jaw seemed just a bit pointy, as if ever so slightly starting to form his muzzle. His nose had flattened and turned moist at the end and a fine lupine black. His lips had thinned and gone from pink to black and turned slick. He opened his mouth and looked at his teeth. He had two sharp, half inch long fangs in both upper and lower rows and next to each long tooth was another almost as long. Mark looked inside his mouth and was shocked at how long his tongue looked. He stuck it out.
"Oh my god". It was easily 10 inches long, though also thinner than his human tongue had been. Mark pondered how Zoe might have reacted if he'd thrust this new rubbery utensil down her throat in the course of a kiss. He was pondering this when someone outside pounded on the door again.
"Okay, okay"
Mark unzipped his pants and then opened the door and zipped them up just as a guy in a mummy costume rushed in.
Out in the hall, Mark encountered John Crawford and Steve Zelnick. They smirked at the sight of him. "Just the kind of queer thing you'd expect a ballet dancer to do" laughed Zelnick.
Mark growled without realizing it. They were high school freshmen, only a year ahead of Mark, but they were big time jocks and not kind to anyone who didn't see the preeminent glory of that. On top of that, a few weeks before, Crawford had been with his mother as she picked up his younger sister at the ballet school, the ballet school where Mark took classes and was a star. One look at Mark in his tights and the remarks started. Any time Mark saw them now they gave him a hard time. Queer. Ballet. Faggot. Tutu. Ugh. It was so stupidly predictable as to make that aspect of it almost as annoying as any specific taunt they used.
Mark made a quick calculation. He was 5'8" 135 pounds now and felt like he could jump out of a gym. Though they were both a few inches taller and 40 pounds heavier than that, the odds would never be this good for him. Mark glanced to his side and saw that Wayne Tolliver's bedroom door was open and that the room was empty.
"I don't think I want to ever hear a fucking word, again, from either of you two losers about dancing ballet" said Mark striding right into Zelnick.
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah, and if you're not too much of a little coward we can settle this right now" added Mark and pointing toward the empty room.
Zelnick glanced nervously at Crawford who also had a moment of hesitation but soon enough, both were marching into the room with Mark. Both Crawford and Zelnick expected some kind of fight instructions or something. But Mark saw it more like Butch Cassidy did when fighting his giant gang member, Harvey. He closed the door with his left paw and with the fist of his right one clocked Crawford in the side of the head, dazing him. Zelnick let out an angry shout and tried to box Mark but Mark beat him to the punch every time. Zelnick panicked at how fast Mark was able to block every punch he tried to throw and how hard Mark hit him. He tried to wrestle Mark but was amazed to find that the much smaller Mark was stronger than he was. Mark threw him to the ground and then into a wall, careful to not use his claws on him. At last, Zelnick staggered to his feet again. Mark swung with all his might and hit him with a roundhouse right that knocked him unconscious. A staggering Crawford came at Mark from the side and got more of the same.
Mark looked at the two jerks and wondered if that was really enough for them. "Oh man. If I had the chronivac here" Mark laughed. He pictured the two jerks swelling and becoming 300 pound fatties. Then he considered turning them into jackasses. Nah, they didn't appreciate all the terrible symbolism the way Tony did. Women or gay would be the thing that would drive their idiot minds nuts. He sighed, knowing he wouldn't use it that way. He just opened the door and let other people see the two of them lying there on the floor one on top of the other and walked away as guffaws erupted in the hallway.
Mark went downstairs and by the side of the staircase, saw Jeff.
"Rrrelp re rrange rrrrack" Jeff stated as clearly as he could with his mostly bear cub mouth. Mark nodded and led Jeff outside. He ran ahead of Jeff to the park and easily scampered up into the huge oak to the triple branch offshoot where Tony had stored the chronivac and emitter.
He set up the computer on the ground and typed carefully away at the restore function necessary to make Jeff his human self. Mark made a lot of typing errors because he had his inch long claws to contend with but eventually got the typing done. He pointed the emitter at Jeff and immediately dark brown fur disappeared from smooth skin. A bear muzzle became a human face and soon enough Jeff stood there in his naked human body. He scampered off to the bushes to get his clothes and then started toward the chronivac.
"Want me to restore you?" he asked.
"No way. I like this and the night is young. I've got a lot more lupine living to do"