Duncan finished howling, the long cry now tinged with sadness. He sat miserable and humiliated.
"Come with me!" commanded Esmerelda.
He growled and snapped at her. Anger consumed his mind and overwhelmed any traces of human rationality left in his wolf's brain. He leapt at her, hoping to plunge his fangs into her throat.
"Bad dog!" the gypsy thundered. "Sit!"
Duncan felt an invisible hand throw him to the ground, and against his will he sat down.
"You will sit up and not bite!"
He couldn't resist her command.
Esmerelda then knelt down and removed his watch from his foreleg. She then peeled away the scraps of his shoes from his paws, picking away strips of his torn socks.
She then moved on to his t-shirt. It was torn at the sleeves, and the collar was ripped from where his thick wolf's neck emerged. She grabbed hold of the divide in the collar and tore the fabric down the middle. The two halves of the shirt fell to the wolf's heaving sides.
The gypsy looked with bemusement at the comical sight of a wolf wearing jeans and baseball cap.
Now she unbuttoned his jeans and gently slid them down his canine shanks and haunches, slipping them off at his paws and then tossing the designer apparel aside. Her hands moved to his Abercrombie boxers. Duncan whined as he felt her hands grasp the waistband.
"You won't need these anymore wolfy," she laughed. "Remember, you're no longer human."
The boxers came off, and he stood almost naked. She finally reached for his baseball cap. He began whining in an especially pitiful tone, yelping in agony. She scratched behind his ears, momentarily distracting him, and then plucked the cap off. It was like the last piece of Duncan's human self had been removed. He shut his eyes in grief and gave a mighty howl of anguish to the moon, sloughing off his sadness in a surge of power and animality. When he had finished calling to the moon, he opened his eyes and found his human memories and emotions overridden by more basic, primal feelings and wants. The wolf savored the banquet of smells in the forest, and thought he could pick up the far-off smell of roasting meat. He turned to his master, as if asking permission to follow the scent.
"Yes, my pet, you may follow."
The wolf took off, bounding through the forest. Esmerelda picked up the remains of Duncan's clothes and stuffed them into his car's trunk, then followed after the wolf.
The scent eventually led the wolf to a gypsy camp tucked away in the pines. Before he could charge in Esmerelda called for him to stop. She then told him to sit and wait as she walked toward the biggest tent. She opened it and found a dignified elderly man inside. She told him she had tamed a new pet and asked permission to keep it. He agreed, as long as she could keep it outside the tent. The old man could never resist letting Esmerelda have her way, especially after the death of her mother, one of the most powerful witches in their tribe.
She left the tent and walked toward the wolf, beckoning him to follow her. They trotted toward the big tent when a voice from the darkness suddenly arrested her.
"Is that an old boyfriend Esmerelda?"
A tall, swarthy but handsome young man emerged from the darkness.
Esmerelda smiled contemptuously.
"Oh, it's you Pavel."
"Yes, only me. Is that poor mutt another boy who wouldn't agree to spend the rest of his life with you?"
"None of your business."
"I still haven't forgotten what you did to me, after I said I had a girlfriend and wasn't interested. It's not like I could ever forget."
"If you say a word about--"
"No, don't worry, I don't want any trouble from a bitch like you. I just feel sorry for your new victim. Just remember this, you stuck-up slut: just because your mother was great at magic doesn't mean you are--I was lucky that you slipped up, and I hope that poor son of a bitch is too."
He melted back into the night.
Esmerelda shivered and then took her wolf to the tent, where she tied him up and fed him a nice strip of meat from the communal roast.
And so the creature that was once Duncan settled into the life of a pet. Everyday Esmerelda would emerge from the tent and give him leftover meat for breakfast. Then she would walk him, or often just let him run through the forest, knowing she could call him back as long as he wasn't very far off. Afterwards she often let him follow her around the camp as she did her errands. In the evenings he went out for a final walk, and then Esmerelda would give him some fresh meat and he would curl up by the fire for the night.
Sometimes a reminder of his old human life would drift into the wolf's head, but it was usually cast aside by more pressing concerns, like whether he should mark this tree or that tree with his urine, and whether the smell off in the distance was a deer or not. Dogs and wolves live only in the present, and the past and future no longer concerned the wolf.
Weeks had gone by since Duncan's disappearance, and the police finally found his car and clothes out in the woods. Word reached the camp that the cops were nosing around in the forest, so Esmerelda reminded her father that it was about time for the tribe to move to a new camp-site, since they rarely stayed long in one place.
The camp-site was full of activity, as preparations were made for the move. Tents were taken down, wagons were loaded, and animals were herded. While Esmerelda was called away to help her elderly father gather up some firewood, the wolf was momentarily left by himself. Suddenly he sensed a human hand undo his collar and remove it from his neck. The human he recognized as Pavel put the collar aside and then untied the rope that held it attached to the tent spike.
"You're free boy," smiled Pavel. "Go!"
But the wolf stood still, obedient as always.
Pavel smiled, having anticipated this, and took a chunk of meat from his pocket. He held it before the wolf's nose, and then walked into the forest. The wolf followed him. A mile out, Pavel fed him the meat, then threw another chunk out into the brushes. The wolf dashed out after it, and Pavel walked back, chuckling in vengeance.
Once inside the forest, the wolf felt bewitched by the cornucopia of smells before his powerful nose, and spent the afternoon sniffing around. He chased a rabbit and caught it, cheerfully dismembering the corpse and feasting on the paltry flesh. Night fell, and the wolf could pick up a new scent, one it hadn't smelled in the gypsy camp. The beast wandered into a clearing. The wolf felt weird. It looked up to the night sky and saw a plump full moon, bathing him in its rich yellow light.
The wolf felt his body start to transform...