"So," Harry Jenkins began, after his brother and new wife disappeared from view, "what do you say we finish our respective tours of Moon Lake together? We can take the long way home and see a few more sights along the way."
"Is that okay with you Ginger?" John asked his new friend.
"Sure. Depending upon what route Harry takes, I might be able to pick out a few things that only a weretigress knows," suggested O'Toole, although every were was currently in public within their normal forms.
With that, everyone got into Harry's car and prepared to leave.
The kids sat together in the back seat with the adults up front as everyone buckled their seat belts.
It wasn't lost on anyone (except maybe John, who was still trying to figure out a few things about life to begin with) that Ginger sat as close to him as possible.
As the car pulled away from the lake, Janice Harper took one last look back, hoping to see at least a glimpse of her new friend, the future wereotter Moses Mittleburg.
Unfortunately, all she saw was the clear water of the town's namesake.
He was kind of cute. Too bad he ain't a were-merman. But maybe after I become a were-mermaid...
MEANWHILE...
"Here we are Mrs. Jenkins," Huck announced, pulling up to a lakeside cabin. "Our little honeymoon hamlet for the weekend. Provided you don't want to take Monday, or maybe even a few other extra days off and..."
"Mister Jenkins, are you trying to seduce me?" the former Betty Timid asked.
"Hell yeah!" confirmed Huck, before kissing his new bride. "Stay right here," he requested, after their lips parted.
With that, Huck rushed out of the truck, grabbed their bags from the back, and ran to deposit them inside the cabin as Betty undid her seat belt and got out.
Huck came back, smiled at her, and then without warning picked Betty up and carried her up to and through the front door of their borrowed lodging.
Kicking the door closed with one foot, Huck kissed his new bride again as he set her down gently.
Yet Betty wasn't willing to let go of her husband.
"Trying to make up for lost time too handsome?" she asked him.
"Definitely," he confirmed. "I was a blind fool not knowing how you truly felt about me all those years. But my eyes are wide open now, and I'm never going to lose sight of you or us ever again," he promised.
The two embraced and started kissing each other once more.
As passion began to consume them, Huck began trying to undress both of them without interrupting the kissing, but Betty stopped him before things went too far.
"Is there something wrong? You're not having second thoughts about us? Or becoming a weredog when we..."
"No. No," Betty swore to him. "I've loved you since at least high school, and am looking forward to our new lives together, fur and all. It's just that, since we didn't know whether or not we'd actually be able to get married today, I haven't taken my first weredog birth control pill yet since I didn't want to waste one if we couldn't tie the knot now."
"That's my Betty. Always the practical one," Huck said with a smile. Before getting married, the couple had discussed having children together. Both wanted a family, but neither was in no hurry to start one before their first wedding anniversary. "Just a second," he added, rushing to the cabin's small kitchenette.
Betty saw him briefly open the refrigerator before coming back with two bottles of water.
Knowing what was on his mind, she reached into her purse and got the prescription bottle as Huck opened the waters.
Betty took one birth control pill in hand before resealing the bottle.
Then, with the open water, Huck proposed a toast.
"To us," he said, as they clunked the water bottles together.
With that, Betty Timid-Jenkins took her first weredog birth control pill.
Once that was done, she moved closer to her new husband, who said, "I've been told those things take an hour to kick in before they're effective."
"Oh?" said Betty, disappointed that after all this time, she couldn't start their honeymoon and marriage off directly.
"Well, I've waited this long for you. Another hour is child's play," she said.
Then, kissing him on the cheek, she grabbed her suitcase and went to the bathroom.
Huck didn't need a were's superior hearing to know Betty locked the door behind her.
With that, he set his water bottle down on the coffee table next to Betty's and proceeded to get the room ready for their honeymoon.
The bed needed to be pulled out of the sofa. The sheets turned down. A few candles lit.
But there was one thought that wouldn't leave Huck's mind.
I wonder what kind of weredog Betty will become once we do this?
ELSEWHERE...
Lisa Jenkins cuddled next to her husband Henry Senior in the master bedroom of their home.
With everyone out for the day, Henry decided it was long past time for some private intimacy, and Lisa soon found herself being ravished to multiple orgasms by her husband.
Now, with both of them happily spent, she just laid there, curled up in the crook of Henry's arm as he said, "It's great to be able to still prove that old adage right."
"What adage is that dear?" she asked, gently caressing his bare chest.
"Just because there's snow on the roof doesn't mean there ain't a fire in the furnace."
"Oh you," Lisa said, raising her head to kiss him.
Then she snuggled closer and asked, "Do you think we did the right thing?"
"You mean not going to Huck and Betty's wedding?" Henry asked. "Provided they even were able to get married today, it's what they wanted. Besides, we know Betty will be a good wife to our son, even if Huck was too dumb to see it for himself until now."
"No dear," said Lisa, turning to look at him again. "I mean the two of us not joining were society when we had the chance to do so."
"Well, when we first moved to Moon Lake, Huck couldn't wait to become a were, which satisfied the town's Mandatory Were Law. To this day I still don't completely understand why he chose weredog, but even he admits to hoping for something better than a Pomeranian."
"I happen to think Huck is cute in his fursona," commented Lisa.
"I don't think cute was what Huck wanted when he joined," replied her husband. "Besides, a mother's opinion is always biased towards her children."
"Dang straight!" agreed Lisa. "But I mean, do you regret not joining? Harry became a werefox to be with Jenny, and now Janice is talking about becoming a were-mermaid when she's eligible to join."
"She's still fixated on that, huh?" asked Henry.
"The idea might have originally been just a fantasy means to escape some of the grief their parents kept heaping on them, but now that she's here and Janice knows it's actually possible..."
"Their parents really did a number on them," agreed Henry.
"Yeah. Anyway, I do think that at some point, John will probably become a weretiger, but whether or not him and Ginger will develop a serious relationship..."
"The boy's got more to figure out than whether or not to become a were, let alone which one if he does," was all Henry would say on that subject. "But to answer your original question, I did think about it off and on until we both turned 60. Considering that seems to be the magic number that prevents a regular human from joining since the older you get, the more difficult the very first transformation is on you, and once you turn 60, forget about it, because you'd allegedly be risking death itself to join. But death is why I turned down joining."
"Huh?" asked Lisa.
"As weres or regular humans, barring anything unforeseen the kids would still outlive us. But considering a were is supposed to live up to four centuries, give or take a decade, I would never have felt right outliving all my old friends who weren't weres. Besides, how would it have looked to their children, losing members of their family while we were still around?"
"I never really thought about it exactly that way before. I always believed that when your time came, that was it. Sure, you want to take care of yourself the best you can and have a good life, but in the end all you would be doing was delaying the inevitable. Besides, I wouldn't want to be a were anything without you by my side," said Lisa, pressing herself harder against him.
"Me neither darling," agreed Henry, before they kissed again. "No matter who or what we are, without you, life wouldn't be worth living."
"Definitely. Grow old with me. The best is yet to be," said Lisa, quoting the poem by Robert Browning.
The couple kissed, then kissed some more, before proving their love for each other was still burning quite strongly physically as well as romantically.