Cathy silently got dressed as I slipped my jeans back up. We both seemed content to let there be a bit of awkward silence between us, not that it helped anything.
“James..” Cathy said, sitting down next to me after we got dressed, “I..I'm not sure what to say right now.” Her expression was a mix of sadness and confusion, or at least that's what I thought it was. But she wasn't upset with me. She reached out and touched my arm with first one finger, then put her hand over top of mine. “That was..”
“Intense?” I suggested.
She smiled. “That's definitely one way to describe it. I was going to go with 'unexpected'.” She slid closer to me, entwining her fingers with mine for a moment before pulling it away quickly and burying her face in her hands.
“Is everything okay, Cathy?”
“No, James..everything is NOT okay,” she said quietly. “You're my best friend's son. I've known you since you were a baby. And yeah..I wasn't the best quasi-aunt to you, or a great person to anyone, really. But..today could have gone WRONG. Majorly wrong. You could have been killed. I could have killed you today. Do you understand that? Do you GET how horrific that would have been for me?”
Her voice was shaking.
“But you didn't,” I said, trying to remind her of a very salient point.
She let out a half-snicker, and looked at me in frustration. “Right, I didn't. Instead, I gave you a blow job. So instead of killing my best friend's son, I gave him head. THEY SHOULD NOMINATE ME FOR A HUMANITARIAN AWARD, SHOULDN'T THEY?” The last words were guilt-laden and bitter.
“Cathy..it's not..”
“It's not what, James?” her voice was calm again, as she continued to vocalize the emotional roller coaster I'd sent her on. “Do you not understand that if you'd made one wrong move, I probably would have attacked you? Hell, even though you didn't, I still might have? You just got lucky! The thing I didn't tell you is that my feral nature ebbs and flows with the moon phases. It's a new moon right now, so you got the calmest werewolf side of me you'll EVER see. Literally every night from now until the moon's full, she'll get stronger and more feral. You were safe TODAY. You were safe ONCE.”
I sat in stunned silence, letting her vent. There was no right response from me here; I wasn't so naive as to think there could be.
“James, I have KILLED before. And the reason why I keep the animal so tightly chained up..why I NEVER should have let it out around you....is that I LIKED IT. I liked it A LOT. After I got my first taste of human blood and flesh..I was hooked. For a good couple of years, the beast was in control, and I left a trail of bodies in my wake.” She stared off at nothing in particular, but her mouth quirked up in a slight smile, and I saw her nipples harden. For a split second, I could see a wild gleam in her eye as she let herself remember things she'd buried. Then she looked back to me, and the smile disappeared. “I should never have agreed to let you stay while I changed.”
“But I wasn't hurt, Cathy,” I said, struggling to make her feel better about it.
“Yeah, I know..and..” she sighed heavily, “Look..I..I just need some space to..process this, okay?”
“Okay,” I replied. “I'll head out, then.” I'll admit that I was feeling guilty about having more than a little shared responsibility in her conflicting feelings. I got up and headed to the front door, with Cathy escorting me quietly. As I started to open it, I felt her hand on my shoulder. I turned around only to be greeted by a hard, deep French kiss that lingered.
We broke the kiss only to have her give me a second, and then a third. She pushed the door closed and pressed her body tightly against mine, pinning me in place and continuing to kiss me more, before finally pulling away again. “James..please..do me a favor..just..” she turned away, suddenly letting out a frustrated, “GODDAMN IT!”. When she turned around, she was chewing her bottom lip hard, trying to conceal a quivering jaw. She was staring at my feet, her eyes cast downward at the floor. “James..please, just go..this isn't something that works out..just..I'm sorry..just..please..please forgive me..and please just go..”
“If that's what you want,” I said, feeling saddened, not just for me, but for her, and again, what I'd done to create the situation.
“I know what I want, but..just..it's better if you go, okay? Please?” There was a begging tone in her voice, which hurt all the more.
“I'm sorry, Cathy..” I said, quietly leaving and heading down the street toward my house.
I knew I could have wished everything to be fine. I could have wished her to be happy. I could have wished her to be submissive. I could have even simply wished myself to have a car, or to be in my bedroom. But wishing had complicated things in ways I couldn't even comprehend until they happened. I needed to think about what I'd done, and how to avoid fucking things up worse in the future. This walk was both a valuable time for me to get my thoughts in order as well as a sort of penance for my mistakes.
An hour later, I arrived home..