The Soldier and the Wolf

By Charlotte Mistry

Copyright 2012 Charlotte Mistry

Discover other titles by Charlotte Mistry at her

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The rain was pouring down by the bucket-load. Even with his umbrella, John Wood

was soaked to the skin. He ducked from awning to awning as he made his way down the
street, avoiding puddles and trying to skirt the worst of the deluge.

It really wasn’t helping. He didn’t know why he kept it up, except that stopping felt

like admitting that the storm had won- and either way, pausing under the awnings gave
him a second or two of peace without getting splashed in the face. He had to pick today,
of all days, to run out of groceries. He almost hadn’t come out at all, but in a contest
between rain and going hungry, the hunger won.

It was under one of these outcroppings that he stopped to catch his breath and wait for

the light to change so he could cross the street. His leg was going stiff from the effort,
and he rubbed at it with the heel of his hand. Even through his jeans he could feel the
mass of scars.

He wasn’t far from home, but in the freezing rain it felt like miles. There was nothing

more attractive at the moment than the thought of a warm dry room and a hot cup of
coffee.

John peered out into the cold grey curtain of the rain. The don’t walk light on the

other side of the street still shone watery orange and traffic zipped by, tossing up waves
onto the sidewalk like passing ships. He shuffled back farther into the little shelter.

His foot hit something soft. He heard an animal yelp and turned around, startled.
He’d walked into a dog. A huge dog, actually- almost a wolf or some kind of

crossbreed, with dark eyes and shaggy fur. It was curled up in the dry spot and it looked
up at him balefully. The animal might have been intimidating, except that it looked
miserable. It was as soaked as he was, with its fur matted to its skinny bones and smeared
with mud.

John stared at it and it stared back. “What’s your story, then?”
The dog, predictably, didn’t answer back. It just huddled farther back into the tiny dry

patch offered by the doorway and set its head between its paws. It didn’t have a collar,
John saw. It was just another stray.

It reminded him of the dogs he’d seen in Kandahar, with their skinny dusty bodies

and tendency to going feral; their owners dead or simply gone, never to be seen again.

He was starting to feel sorry for the thing. Inwardly he chastised himself. His

apartment wasn’t big enough for a large dog, even for the night, and either way his lease
forbid it. Not to mention that the dog was wet and dirty. He’d have to clean it up, and was
it even housebroken?

Even as all his objections ran through his mind, he was already crouching down

beside the animal. He was already just about as wet as he could get- what was a little
more water? John held out his free hand. The dog sniffed at it cautiously, lips pulled back
from a spotted pink tongue.

It licked his fingers and John smiled. “You’re not so bad, are you?”
The dog just looked up at him with big brown eyes. Never mind a collar, there was no

sign that the dog had ever been owned by anybody. The insides of its ears were grimy but
free of tattoos. That was vaguely worrying- didn’t they do the tattoos when they did
vaccinations? But the dog seemed healthy enough under the dirt, and it had survived this
long.

John crouched down closer, feeling the pull in his bad leg and wincing. It was always

worse in the cold and damp. He scratched the dog behind the ear and it huffed in
enjoyment. “That’s a good boy.” He wasn’t leaving here without the dog, he realized.
He’d feel like an asshole if he left it out in the rain, cold and hungry. “How do you feel
about a nice meal and a warm place to sleep, hmm?”

The dog’s ears perked up. Its tail started wagging, and John almost thought it

understood him; maybe it was just his tone of voice. A stray dog wouldn’t get much
attention or kindness from your average person.

John pushed himself back to his feet, grocery bags looped around his arm, and

winced. His leg was getting worse. The dog stood with him. All the way home it pranced
around his feet like a puppy.

***

By the time John got home he was limping. He’d overexerted himself. When he

unlocked his apartment door he had to spend a minute groping for the light switch in the
dark. When it came to cheap, shitty places, windows were at a premium. “Home sweet
home,” he muttered, and the dog wandered in a few cautious feet, sniffing at his
baseboards.

He shoved the bags of groceries into his barren fridge and herded the dog into the

bathroom. The dog was still filthy, and he wasn’t going to clean muddy paw prints off of
his couch or scrub wet-dog smell out of the ragged carpets. When he shut them both into
the bathroom the dog started looking wildly from him to the door and back again. It
seemed to sense it was trapped.

“You’re getting a bath whether you like it or not, dog. You stink.”
When the hot water started running the dog scrabbled at the door, whimpering, and

when the tub filled John had to wrestle a hundred pounds of howling, struggling animal
into a bubble bath. He was already soaked from the rain. The extra water didn’t register.

Once the dog was in, it seemed resigned to its fate. It just looked at John with despair

in its eyes while John scrubbed the mud from his fur and the burrs from his coat.

“Don’t complain, you big baby,” said John, “you look like you got in a fight with the

swamp thing and lost.”

The dog made a mournful noise.
John shook his head and kept on working a knot out of the fur on the dog’s hip.

“Keep complaining and I’ll name you something embarrassing. Like precious. Or fluffy.
How do you like that, huh?”

The dog seemed to regard this with the appropriate amount of horror, or at least it

stayed quiet. All around the dog the water was turning grimy and dark, but the dog was
getting cleaner. Under the layer of dirt its fur was pale mottled blond and brown- more
wolf-like than he’d thought, even if the dog was far, far too sociable to be wild.

When he was done he rubbed the dog down with a towel to keep it from shaking

water all over his things- he wasn’t particularly successful- and rinsed out the tub while
the dog sniffed at the corners of his little home. It was barren. He’d call it Spartan, but
that implied a degree of stark utility. Mostly his apartment was just empty. Ever since
coming back, he just hadn’t found the will to decorate… Or do much of anything else. He
didn’t think about it. It was easier, that way.

He watched the dog investigating corners and sniffing at the furniture, and he decided

to name it Rex. It was a good name- serviceable but anonymous. He didn’t intend to
actually keep the thing. Where would he keep it, anyhow? His apartment was cramped
and dark, and if the landlord found out about it he’d lose his security deposit.

John didn’t have any dog food but he did have a couple of raw chicken breasts. He

cooked them up for him and the dog. They were dry and not particularly good- John
wasn’t the worst cook, but it was so hard to find the energy these days- and Rex ate like
he hadn’t had a good meal in weeks. From the state of his ribs, he might not have.

“You can’t stay, you know,” John said suddenly, “you can’t. Tomorrow morning

you’re out on your own.”

The dog didn’t seem to be listening. It curled up happily on one side of his battered

old couch and John turned on the TV. There was nothing on, and he ended up staring
blankly at the picture as it changed from college basketball game to sitcom to news.

The dog edged closer and closer, and eventually John realized that his hand was

resting on the dog’s head. He was scratching it behind the ears absentmindedly, and it
was soothing; almost a blank, zen sort of motion that drained his mind of fears and
worries.

Still, when he went to bed, he shut the dog in the living room.
His sleep was as it usually was: large blank spaces punctuated with dreams he didn’t

like to think about, dreams of red and black, smoke and fire, bone and pain and the
screech of shearing metal. It was always fitful, never restful. He woke with a start and
could smell the sour sweat on himself. He didn’t know what had woken him, and even
opening his eyes was the hardest of ordeals.

But his feet were warm. They weren’t usually warm, and John looked down in

confusion to see Rex curled up at the end of his bed. The dog looked up at him sleepily.
They stared at each other. Finally, John let his head fall back to the pillow.

“Okay, fine.” He didn’t know how the dog had gotten in, but some small, shameful

part of him was absurdly grateful to anything that interrupted his dreaming. “You can
stay the week.”

***

John didn’t own a leash or a collar, so he made one out of a belt and a strap and took

Rex out for a morning walk. The rain had stopped sometime last night. The puddles left
behind were burning off into a muggy mist that left a haze in the air. It’d been a while
since he was out this early in the morning.

He wasn’t sure if he liked it. The sun was blindingly bright, and the only other people

out were definite morning people. They kept smiling at him as they passed and he didn’t
quite know what to do with it. Irrational as it was, it made him suspicious that they were
planning something behind his back, that he was the butt of a joke.

They walked down the street, John’s back military-straight until Rex saw something

or smelled something interesting and pulled him into a jog. John kept up for a few blocks.
It even felt good, neglected muscles stretching as they got used to being used again. He
felt his body fall back into that old routine, the hard treatment that had been normal for so
many months when he’d had to run under all that gear in the desert heat.

His leg twinged, and that was the only warning he had before it nearly buckled under

him. Rex’s leash tore free of his hand and he stumbled to a stop. He held his leg bent

under him, and every time he tested it, it wouldn’t quite hold his weight. His lungs were
burning, and he rested leaning up against somebody’s fence.

Rex came back to sniff at him anxiously.
“I’m fine,” John waved the dog away, and Rex circled him like he was trying to

figure out what was wrong. John stretched the leg out and felt the muscle seize in a hard
knot. He dug his fingers into it and hissed through his teeth. Underneath the ridges of scar
tissue was abused, rebellious muscle, and he wasn’t working that one out. Not here, at
least.

He took a stiff-legged step, knee locked, and it hurt but it worked. He was going to

have to limp all the way home. It seemed so much farther away than it had on the way
out.

Rex pushed himself in under John’s hand as he walked, and John looked down in

surprise. His hand closed around warm clean fur, and when he took a step it was easier- it
worked a lot better when he had something to lean on.

He was suddenly, stupidly grateful that he didn’t have to make the walk back home

alone, looking like a stumbling drunk. He made his shuffling way down the street leaning
on Rex. Now he looked like a man with a guide dog, he supposed. A cripple.

Yes, he thought bitterly, that was what he was. Why try to pretend otherwise, when a

two-block jog left him helpless?

Rex seemed to pick up on his self-loathing and licked the exposed strip of skin where

his t-shirt had ridden up. If the dog could tell what was on his mind, it had to be really
obvious.

“Don’t mind me,” said John, “I’m just a stupid human with stupid human problems.”
But he didn’t turf Rex out that night, or the next. He went out and bought a set of dog

bowls when he got tired of watching the dog nearly break his plates, and he picked up a
new leash and collar while he was there. Before he knew it he was fully stocked- all he
was missing was a little metal tag to string on the collar. He kept hesitating at that,
because that made it permanent.

And Rex…
He had to admit, he’d felt less alone since Rex had shown up. The dog didn’t care if

John’s leg gave out in public or if a car backfiring made him flatten himself into the
nearest doorway; on the days he could barely see the point in getting out of bed, he still
had to for the dog’s sake. A dog didn’t complain if you clung to it in the middle of the
night after dreaming of your mouth full of blood and sand and broken teeth, gunfire
chattering loud and the air choked in greasy black smoke.

The dreams came less often, with that furry body at his side.
It was three weeks before John realized that, one, he was keeping the dog, and two, he

probably wasn’t ever getting that security deposit back anyway. He went out of his own
accord for what had to be the first time in months, and the sun no longer seemed like a
blinding thing trying to force him back inside. Instead it was bright and pleasant. He
paced himself on his walk down to the shops, and it didn’t even strain him.

He carried a bag of dog food home in high spirits. It didn’t matter that it was heavy,

or that he had to stop and rest every so often. It felt good to do. When he reached his
apartment he twisted the doorknob and knocked the door open with his hip. “Hey, Rex,
I’m home-“

There was someone in his kitchen.

John froze. Enemy, assassin, man with a gun sang through his mind, drowning out

rationality, and the bag of kibble fell from his hands to land on the floor with a heavy
thump. Military instincts kicked in and he reached for the gun he didn’t have, and then
the knife at his side that he also didn’t have, hadn’t had since Kandahar. There was a man
in his kitchen wearing Rex’s collar and one of John’s shirts and nothing else. Rex was
nowhere to be seen. The dog should be barking, or- or something-

The man was staring at John like a deer in the headlights.
“Who the fuck are you?” John bellowed, “what doing in my house, and what the fuck

did you do to my dog?”

And then there was a- a strangeness around the man, a shifting and twisting of space,

and the man turned into Rex.

Rex pranced out of the kitchen with his tongue lolling, dragging the shirt behind him

like nothing was wrong at all, like nothing had even happened. The wolf-dog’s eyes were
big and happy, and his nails clacked on the kitchen’s cheap laminate tiling.

John considered for a moment that he might just be losing his goddamned mind.
“No,” John said, “no, I saw that. I’m a broken asshole but I’m not that crazy.” He

crouched down in front of Rex, scowling into those innocent brown eyes. “What the hell,
dog. Don’t you try to play innocent with me. You’re not a dog at all.”

Rex looked at him reproachfully and licked his face. John pushed him away, because

that was just… Weird.

“Stop it. I saw you, and I’m not letting that go. Either you stop pretending or I toss

you out into the street to fend for yourself.” Or maybe he was crazy. Here he was, giving
an ultimatum to his dog to turn into a man or get out. He started to feel like an idiot. How
did he think that was going to turn out? Wasn’t this how you got committed? I had to get
rid of my dog because it wouldn’t admit it could shape-shift?

Rex seemed to hesitate, and then stepped back. A shiver went through his furry body,

a ripple, and there was a sound like bone grinding against itself. A moment later there
was a naked man in a dog collar crouching in front of John, looking at him warily.

“Um,” said Rex, “hi.”
What the fuck. What the fuck? So he wasn’t crazy, it was just that his dog was a man.

Even if he’d seen it the first time all he could do was stare, his mouth half open and his
brain running around in circles. His dog was a man. Or was this man a dog? It didn’t
matter either way.

“How long has… No, no don’t tell me.” John shook his head. He felt betrayed, and

latched onto the only thing he could. A dog was one thing, but a person- “I let you sleep
on my bed!”

Rex- or whoever he was- winced. “You let me.”
“I thought you were a dog!”
“I am! Well- sort of. It’s just not, uh, all that I am?” The man moved so that he was

kneeling on the floor, hands on his thighs, and he leaned around John to look at the bag
on the floor. It had split when it landed, and a small mountain of kibble had leaked out
onto the floor like little irregular marbles. The man brightened. “Oh, I love the chicken
flavor.”

John had a headache, suddenly; either it was brought on by this new insanity, or the

sheer idiocy of what he was hearing. He shut his eyes slowly, took a deep breath and
stood. His leg ached more than ever. “I need a drink.”

He dragged himself into the kitchen and rummaged through bottles before coming up

with the oldest scotch he had- a present from his father, three years back. He poured
himself a generous helping. It was smooth on his tongue but he couldn’t enjoy it. He was
all too aware of the strange, strange place his life had become.

It didn’t take his mind off of Rex. He didn’t know if anything could. This was one of

those moments nothing could prepare you for.

He chanced a glance back over his shoulder, just in case he really had been

hallucinating, but Rex was still standing there. He’d put John’s shirt back on, so at least
he wasn’t wandering around naked, but the long shirttails hardly covered anything at all.
John looked back at his glass.

He felt startlingly calm about all this, so much so that he was almost sure that the

absurdity of the situation just hadn’t hit him yet and sooner or later he’d be a screaming
mess.

“…So, what are you, then? A werewolf?”
“What? No, it’s not the full moon.” The man fiddled with the ends of his shirt. “I’m

not sure if they really exist, in that sense. But- yeah. Close enough, I guess. I can turn into
a dog. It’s my superpower.” He shrugged. “Yay.”

“So, then, why…?”
“Why did I keep on being a dog?” He looked out the window. “Because it’s easier.

Nobody wants to help the homeless guy on a street corner, but they’ll feed a friendly
stray mutt. And you don’t have to think so hard when your mind’s like that. When you’re
a dog you don’t think god, I miss TV, you’re just happy to find something that smells
interesting. And then you took me in, and I kept thinking you’d get sick of me and kick
me out, but you didn’t, and the longer it went on the less I could tell you…” He trailed
off. “…I can leave, if you want. If you don’t want me around.”

John took a long swallow of his scotch, and stared down into the slowly shifting ice

cubes. “Do you have anywhere to go?”

“I don’t know. I guess I could find something. I…” He shrugged, “I got along before.

There’s always something.”

John kept looking at his drink. He knew what his life would be like if Rex

disappeared; he’d fall back into that swirling whirlpool of depression, slowly at first and
then faster and faster, until one day he’d find himself eating his gun.

He’d been in a bad place, before. Only going out when he had to, and there were

fewer and fewer times when he had to. Rex had been the best thing to happen to him in a
long time. If he wasn’t exactly a normal dog, then… So what? John wasn’t the most
normal human. He felt crazy laughter bubbling up in him. He was considering it. He was
actually considering it.

He looked to Rex, standing there looking so hopeless. He knew that look. He’d seen it

enough times in the mirror, and just like he hadn’t been able to leave a dog in the rain, he
couldn’t kick Rex out with nothing to his name but a leather dog collar and his own fur
coat. His hand was shaking on his glass, the ice cubes jiggling inside. That laughter
welled up again and broke free in a loud, odd sound, hardly laughter at all. The weirdness
was definitely hitting him, now.

He looked back at the glass, hand to his mouth until he got the laughter under control.

“You can stay.”

Rex’s head lifted. He blinked in surprise. “What?”

“You heard me.” John turned back to his drink, staring at it and wondering if he’d

made the right choice. He nearly dropped the whole thing when a pair of arms wrapped
around him from behind, hugging him tight.

“Thank you!” The man was as enthusiastic as a puppy.
And there… There was another problem with his dog turning into a man; it had been

easy enough to sublimate that part of himself when he’d been at war and when he’d been
alone, but the warmth of a nearly-naked man’s body pressed against his back made his
breath catch in his throat. He reconsidered letting Rex stay, but it was too late now. He
wasn’t going back on his word.

That was another thing. John wriggled out of Rex’s embrace. “What’s your name? I

can’t keep calling you Rex.”

“I like Rex. It’s fine.”
“But it’s not your name.”
“It’s as good as any,” said Rex, “I’ve been called worse.”
“But it’s a…”
“Dog name?” Rex shrugged. “In case you haven’t noticed? Kind of appropriate. Also,

it means king. I can deal with that.”

“You, uh, know Latin?” The collar around Rex’s neck was incredibly distracting.

John kept feeling his eyes drawn to it, and the contrast it made between leather and metal
and flesh. He swallowed hard. The thought of leading Rex around on a leash had just
gotten a lot thornier.

“Not really.”
John polished off the rest of his drink in a gulp, feeling the warm fuzz of alcohol

making this all a little easier to deal with.

He heard the sound of the shirt hitting the floor again. When he turned around Rex

was back in the shape of a dog, all ungainly paws and lolling tongue. He went over to lap
at his water dish and crunch on a kibble or two. John fought the urge to refill his tumbler.
“You’re eating kibble. You’re actually eating oh god what am I saying, you’ve been
eating it for weeks.” He felt that headache coming back.

Rex barked at him happily, and John shut his eyes. This was weirder. Did dog-bodies

and dog-minds have their own preferences? In this shape, would Rex chase squirrels and
bark at mailmen without caring?

“I swear to god,” said John, “you are the weirdest pet I’ve ever had.”

***

That night, John let Rex curl up on his bed to sleep like he always did. He didn’t

know what it said about him that it was an easy thing to do. Rex took up a good portion
of it in a snoring mass of dog, and John stared at the moonlight seeping in through the
window. He wondered when his life had taken this left turn into absurdity- or if it had
always been there in some form or another, and he’d simply never seen it.

When he slipped into an uneasy slumber, he dreamed of the desert.
He dreamed of ozone and the smell of spilled fuel. He dreamed that his thigh was

white-hot with pain, hot and wet and all around him was screaming; he didn’t know
where the strike had come from, except that the street had tuned into a bloody haze and
he couldn’t get up.

The droning buzz of an aircraft was loud overhead, but distant- a helicopter, maybe,

or a drone. His mouth was full of blood. All he could smell was smoke and iron. He was
dizzy, he was dying, and he pushed his head up off the road. A child’s shoe lay on the
pavement, alone. A few feet away was the bulk of a burning car that had flipped on the
turn. If there was anyone inside he couldn’t tell. He could hear the crackle and shriek of
warping metal in the flames.

He didn’t know how he’d gotten there or why, only that this hell was for him forever

and always; this hell would live in him until he died and ever after, or he was already
dead, and doomed to fire and blood for eternity.

He tried to drag himself into cover and couldn’t. His body didn’t work, and

everything was fading, fading, fading-

John woke up shaking, his throat aching with sounds he hadn’t made. He was

drenched in sweat and he could still smell blood, strong and iron-hot. He panicked. His
nightmare was real; but he’d split his lip in his sleep, somehow, and the little amount he’d
bled had smeared itself across his nose and chin. He scrubbed it away with the back of his
hand and tried to stop gasping for air.

Rex was nosing at him. John turned over and clung to that warm body and soft fur

and just held on until he stopped shaking and seeing fire whenever he closed his eyes. It
didn’t matter what Rex was, only that he was familiar. In the dark, it wasn’t even
something to think about.

When he’d calmed down a little- when the images weren’t so strong- he realized there

was a hand stroking his hair.

Sometime during his incoherent flashback, Rex had become a man again. Now he

was pressed up against the other man’s body in the sheets, the only barrier between them
John’s boxer shorts. He could feel Rex’s body heat through the blankets. Rex’s hand kept
carding through John’s hair, and against all odds John wanted to lean into it, shut his eyes
and let it go on; it was soothing. It wasn’t something he’d felt for a long time.

Rex’s warm body was comforting as well, but in an entirely different way. Hot skin

pressed up against his. His head was cradled in strong hands. It made him feel safe and
loved, and he could feel his body start to respond to that touch, that comforting warmth.

“You dream a lot,” Rex murmured, “what do you dream about?”
John thought of fire and blood, smoke and pain, and shuddered. “You don’t want to

know.”

Rex’s other hand traveled down John’s side, over his ribs and his hip, and John

suppressed an entirely different kind of shiver. It came to rest on the knotted scar on
John’s thigh. It felt peculiar there, prickling and too sensitive and dull at the same time.
Those scars were like a piece of himself that wasn’t quite his, anymore; not alien, but
something that had diverged along the way. Stranger’s flesh. “Is it about how you got
this?”

“Sometimes.” John’s voice sounded small to his own ears, swallowed up in the

darkness.

Rex’s fingers pressed down hard into the scar tissue. It didn’t hurt, not really. It was

more like a massage. He could feel muscle shifting under the ridges of scars, and a dull
kind of ache. The bone never had been quite the same, afterwards. John felt suddenly,
absurdly ashamed, and his hand went down to push Rex’s away.

“Don’t touch that. It’s ugly.”

“I don’t think so.” Rex’s hand stayed on John’s hip all the same. “Scars show where

you’ve been and what you’ve done. I’ve got some of my own.” His mouth was close to
John’s skin, so close he could feel the heat of his breath. “Why would you try to hide
them?”

John made a sound, a swallowed little groan that Rex seemed to hear despite his

attempt to suppress it, and his body pressed closer.

“Did that hurt?”
“N… No.”
Rex sounded satisfied. “Good.” He leaned in and kissed the soft space under John’s

ear and behind his jaw. John felt his cock twitch. His groan was louder, this time. Rex’s
hand was hot on his hip, and the other was still tangled in his hair. He could feel the light
tug of it whenever he moved.

John wanted to pull away. He wanted to push Rex out of the bed and pretend none of

this had ever happened; but it was so, so hard. He’d never exactly been comfortable in his
own skin, and the day he’d realized he was attracted to men he’d shoved it as deep down
in his mind as it could go and pretended it wasn’t there.

He wanted to keep doing it. He wanted to keep his comfortable denial, because it was

the only way he knew how to live. But Rex’s body was warm and strong, and he couldn’t
bring himself to fight it. He felt more at peace than he had in months. Maybe years.

Rex’s hot mouth moved across the back of his neck, nipping lightly until his tongue

was tracing a wet stripe under John’s jaw. John moaned, mouth open, and Rex pushed
himself up to curl over John’s body and kiss him. His lips were chapped and cracked, his
stubble was rough and the angle was bad, making him twist his neck. It was perfect.

“I don’t,” said John, “I mean, I-”
“Don’t worry about it.” Rex put a light hand over John’s mouth and John went quiet;

he could see the faint shine of Rex’s smile in the darkness, and the glow of light off his
eyes like an animal’s. “You need this.”

He couldn’t protest. Rex’s hand disappeared and then his mouth was back, kissing

John, his tongue moving over John’s teeth and twining with John’s tongue. He bit lightly
at the other man’s lips, light nips and pulls, and John lost himself in it. He turned over on
his back and Rex leaned over him, held up on one bracing elbow. John’s hands found
their way to Rex’s narrow hips.

Rex’s mouth pulled away from John’s, and he set about kissing and licking his way

down John’s throat. John tilted his head back with a groan to give him better access.
Rex’s teeth ran over his skin leaving tiny reddening scratches. His canines were longer
than they should be, wide but not quite sharp.

“This isn’t going to- to turn me into something, is it?”
“This? No.” The vibration of Rex’s voice was low against John’s throat. “Old wives’

tale. Maybe if you drank my blood. I don’t know, can’t say I’ve ever tried.”

John hardly heard the last half of what Rex said. Being this close to another person

after so long was almost overwhelming. He felt his heart beating faster.

The tip of his hardening cock brushed Rex’s belly. It smeared pre-come over his skin

through the restraining layer of his boxers, and John whimpered. The sound seemed to set
something off in Rex, who growled low in his throat and left a wide-mouthed bite on
John’s throat, just hard enough that he knew there would be red marks there in the
morning.

The bit of pain turned to pleasure with the touches of Rex’s hands, and John

wondered dizzily if this was some kind of marking. He wondered if Rex could smell him,
smell his lust, and the thought was so powerful it made him moan and jerk his hips
against nothing.

Rex mouthed his way down John’s body and paused at the waistband of his boxers.

John saw those glowing animal eyes flick up to look at him, a flash of teeth, and then Rex
was dragging the waistband down with his incisors. The dampening fabric dragged slick
and hot over the tip of John’s cock and he gasped when it sprang free.

“Just relax,” said Rex, “I’ll take care of you.” He mouthed his way up John’s shaft,

and John whimpered low in his throat. Rex’s mouth was soft and hot on his shaft, and
when he ran his rough tongue up the underside of John’s cock he couldn’t help but buck
and moan. When Rex opened his mouth and took him in, John had to bite down on the
heel of his hand to muffle his cry- the walls were thin, after all.

“God,” said John, helpless, and he tried to hold still and keep from jerking his hips up

into that hot, sweet mouth. Rex’s head bobbed between his thighs, lips wrapped so wet
and perfect around his cock, and he could hear the low little noises Rex made in his throat
and feel them as vibrations. Electric pleasure shot up his spine and lit his nerves white-
hot.

Rex’s tongue swirled over the head of his cock when he drew back. When he

swallowed John down to the root, when Rex’s nose was buried in John’s pubes and he
could feel Rex’s throat working around him like some divine torture, he completely lost
track of himself. His fingers were fisted tight in the bed sheets, his head thrown back and
his hair sticking to his forehead with a sheen of sweat. He was moaning and babbling-
what he was babbling he wasn’t even sure, only that he couldn’t stop.

As Rex’s mouth enveloped him, Rex’s hands were still moving on his body. They

caressed his thighs, his hips, his balls, the base of his shaft left slick with saliva; Rex’s
mouth popped free of John’s cock and he licked his way up to John’s navel. He dipped
his tongue inside and John groaned helplessly.

In the dim light he could see Rex’s cock hanging between his thighs, thick and hard,

and he realized that he hadn’t so much as touched it. The desire hit him like a wave; after
so long denying himself, the new freedom was overwhelming. He wanted to do
everything he could think of and it was too much all at once. He didn’t know where to
start.

He shifted, meaning to do what he didn’t know, but in a flash Rex was crouching over

him, holding him down. Pinning him to the bed. John felt his heartbeat speed up. He
could see that pale, luminous smile in the darkness. “I said relax,” said Rex, “so don’t
worry your pretty little head, okay? I’ll take care of you.”

“But,” said John, and then wasn’t quite sure how to continue. He wanted to put his

hands on Rex but they hovered helplessly at his sides, uncertain. This still felt new and
awkward, like he was fifteen again and just as clueless.

“Oh.” He could have sworn that he saw Rex’s grin get wider. “You want to help, do

you? Well, that’s a different story.” John didn’t know what he had planned, but all of a
sudden Rex had turned around so he was kneeling over John backwards. He hung his
head down by John’s leg to look back at him, but John was transfixed by the sight of
Rex’s cock hanging above him, inches from his lips. It looked so much bigger up close.
Nervousness fluttered in his chest, but anticipation, too.

Then Rex’s mouth was back on John’s cock, and his breath hitched in his throat. He

extended a cautious tongue and licked down the side of Rex’s cock. It tasted of salt and
clean skin. Rex groaned, and, encouraged, John tried wrapping his lips over his teeth and
taking the other man into his mouth.

It was more difficult than it looked. Rex’s cock felt huge in his mouth, thick and

blunt, and the distraction of Rex’s warm wet mouth on his own shaft didn’t help. He tried
to swallow Rex down as the other man had done but only got halfway before he was
choking and spluttering and he drew back, panting.

“Take it easy,” said Rex, and there was laughter in his voice. Underneath it was an

undercurrent of roughness, of rawness. He patted John’s hip. “Learn to crawl before you
walk.”

John took that as a challenge. No cock was going to get the better of him. He set his

shoulders, opened his mouth and tried again. He took it slow, the salt-bitter taste of pre-
come hot on his tongue, and tried again. He still couldn’t get very far, but it didn’t matter.
He wrapped one hand around the base of Rex’s cock and used it to tough the parts his
mouth couldn’t reach. Rex’s groan vibrated up through John’s body and it made him
groan in turn.

He almost swore that he could feel Rex’s heartbeat through his cock, pulsing on his

tongue. Pleasure sang in his nerves like he’d been hooked up to a live wire. He felt more
alive than he had in months. The feel of Rex’s hot mouth on him, Rex’s hot hands on his
thighs mad him squirm and writhe, ready to come, desperate.

Rex’s mouth left John’s eager cock, and John whined in disappointment. “None of

that, now,” said Rex, “It’s not over that quickly. I want to make you feel good.” He
pulled away from John slowly, giving him a chance to prepare, and when he was out he
turned around and sat on his haunches, facing John.

John’s skin felt too hot, too tight, too sensitive. He was so hard his cock felt like it

was made of stone, but the longer Rex went without touching him the more that edge of
desperation to come eased away, until it was bearable and he wasn’t reduced to writhing
and begging in the sheets like a whore.

Rex’s hands skimmed down John’s inner thighs, skirting his cock. John groaned as

one of them slid back over his balls and to the skin behind, the thin sensitive strip of flesh
between his balls and his ass. His other hand was resting lightly on the mass of scar tissue
on his leg and he didn’t even care.

“Have you ever been fucked by a man?” asked Rex, “or would you rather fuck me?”
The question was so unexpected that John could only stare at him, near-paralyzed

with the lust that threatened to overwhelm him at the thought of Rex under him, John’s
cock pumping in and out of his ass, or- a reclusive little part of himself whispered to him,
Rex’s cock buried deep in his. He groaned, strangled through his teeth, and didn’t know
how to answer.

“Hmm.” He could hear the amusement in Rex’s voice again, and the man reached

over to the bedside table drawer to pull out a little squeeze-tube of lube. John stared at it.
Where had that come from? He hadn’t bought it.

Rex squeezed out a few clear drops over his fingertips. When they touched John’s

skin they were cool but not cold, and he shivered all the same.

He groaned as Rex’s fingers slid over his asshole, and even if he’d never done this

before- with another person, at least, he knew he wanted it. John lifted his hips and felt

Rex’s fingertip just circle the edge of his asshole. His other hand went to helping hold
John’s hips up in a more convenient position. He was stronger than he looked.

The first of Rex’s fingers pushed in, and John groaned. He shut his eyes, panting

open-mouthed. Even something as small as a finger felt big inside his unprepared ass,
even slicked as it was, and Rex fucked it into him with short little movements that left
him hungering for more. When one finger was easy, he added a second. John could feel
himself stretching around the intrusion, stretching for Rex, and the thought made him
moan.

But his leg was complaining under the strain of raising his hips. He could feel it

shaking, not quite steady, and there was an ache deep inside that he tried to ignore. When
that just made it worse he bit his lip against the pain, not wanting to interrupt this.

Rex paused, two fingers buried deep inside John. He twisted them and John’s hips

jerked at the bolt of pleasure, but that just made the shaking worse. His leg collapsed
under him and it was only Rex’s other hand that kept him from falling back onto the bed.
Rex lowered him down and looked at him, frowning. “What are you doing? Don’t hurt
yourself.”

“I just-” John felt a rush of shame at his own weakness, tried to push up again and

couldn’t. His cheeks flushed with embarrassment; at least Rex couldn’t see him properly,
in the dark.

Rex held him still. “You don’t have to prove anything, you know. Especially not to

me.” He withdrew his fingers and John whined low in his throat, despite himself. “Here.
Get up on your hands and knees.”

It was an easier position, but he still hesitated before doing it, because- what? He was

afraid of being weak? Of giving in to his body’s faults? When he was up, Rex ran his
hand down the length of John’s spine and over his ass. His voice was full of lust.

“You’re gorgeous, you know.”
Gorgeous? Him? With his broken-down body? Rex didn’t give him a chance to

answer back, instead pushing those slick fingers back inside him and turning his words
into moans and half-coherent pleas as pleasure sparked along his nerves and took his
ability to think. His cock ached to be touched, but he couldn’t move- taking his weight
off his arms would put too much on his leg, and he’d fall. He was held still as surely as
with any restraints.

When Rex’s fingers withdrew from his wanting, grasping ass again, John moaned,

disappointed. But then Rex’s hands were hot on his hips, and he felt the hot slick shape of
Rex’s cock nudging at his entrance. He remembered how big it had felt in his mouth and
froze up, but Rex petted his back like he was a nervous animal and whispered comforting
nonsense in his ear until he relaxed.

He pushed in slowly, and John’s groan was ragged as he felt his ass stretching to

accommodate the thick length of Rex’s cock, his asshole stretching wide and aching. Rex
went slow, rocking in short little bursts until he was all the way inside. John was panting.
He couldn’t seem to catch his breath. He felt so full, stretched to his limit, and every little
movement either of them made jangled up his nerves and made his desperate cock twitch.

He started rocking back onto Rex’s cock, and that was what made him start moving.

Rex started slow but speeded up, fucking his ass but never going too fast, too rough- in
other words, holding back from the brink that kept John from coming. He seemed
determined to fuck John until he broke down and begged, and god help him John was

close. He wanted so badly for his cock to be touched, wanted to do it himself but
couldn’t.

Rex leaned over him, curled over John’s back but supported on his strong arms to

keep the weight off, and murmured against his skin. “So gorgeous,” he said, half-
intelligible, “so perfect.” His mouth was hot on the back of John’s neck, teeth sharp as he
kept pumping into John’s ass with his thick cock. John’s ass clutched at it, desperate for
the sensation, for the pleasure that would finish him off, but he couldn’t find it. He could
feel Rex’s body pressed against his and groaned, loud and desperate.

“Please,” John moaned, “god, I’ve got to come, I’m so close, please-”
He felt Rex’s pace stutter, like the words were a physical touch. When he got his pace

back it was faster, a little more ragged, a little more desperate. John felt a wide hot hand
curl around his cock and he shouted, the sensation raw and overwhelming. Rex kept
fucking him as he set up a brutal pace in jerking John off. His fingers pumped the shaft,
and his thumb rubbed hot and delicious over the head of John’s cock.

He bucked into that grip, into that delicious heat. It was overwhelming, the cock in

his ass and the heat at his back and the relentless hand on his cock, and John came with a
shout, spurting ropes of milky white come all over Rex’s hand and his own belly, thick
and hot. He saw white, his body shook, ready to give out under the strain, but he couldn’t
care.

Rex kept fucking him, more and more erratic as he kept milking the last drops of

come from John’s cock, and John could tell when he came by the low groan and the way
he half-collapsed onto John’s back and the way he shook. John felt come in his ass, hot
and real, and felt wonderfully, wonderfully filthy.

Just when John’s leg began to quiver from the added strain Rex pushed himself off

the other man, withdrawing from his body but still staying close. He flopped down on his
side and pulled John after him, all tangled up together, hot and sweaty and tired and so,
so good.

He could still feel every inch of Rex’s skin electric against his, like it belonged, but it

was comforting instead of urgent. Right in a way that nothing had felt in a long time.
Rex’s arm snaked over John’s chest, and he could feel Rex’s chin resting lightly against
the top of his shoulder. The slowing rhythm of his breathing matched his, and the beat of
his heart was a comforting metronome.

His life may have been a strange, strange thing, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

It had brought him this. It had taken him apart and put him back together, and maybe
he’d been broken but he wasn’t useless, not yet. He was putting himself back together
one crack at a time. He could feel Rex’s mouth plant one more kiss on the back of his
neck, gentle and almost chaste.

There was a strange, light feeling in his chest, and he realized it was hope. Of course

things were going to get better, of course they were; he was happy. He had a reason to get
out of bed in the morning and sometimes that was all it took.

John halfway wanted to get out of bed and clean up, but staying here, warm and safe,

was too attractive. He felt sleep start to creep up on him, making his eyelids heavy, and
let it come. He was safe, he was held, he was loved, he was not alone; there would be no
more dreams tonight.

###

About the author:

Charlotte Mistry is a romance and erotica author who can’t get enough (take that as

you will). When writing, she’s never without a keyboard to hand, a cup of tea by her side,
and dirty thoughts in her head.

Blog:

http://charlottemistry.blogspot.com/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/#!/CharlotteMistry

Discover other titles by Charlotte Mistry at her

Amazon page

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Other titles by Charlotte Mistry that you may enjoy:

Hard Time (Criminals do it Illegally #1)

Tony’s pretty sure his life can’t get worse: he’s in prison. His partner skipped out on him.
Worst of all, the guards think he still knows where the stolen money is. When they can’t
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than a little crazy to boot. When Szarka takes more than a passing interest in Tony, can
he turn it to his advantage? Warning: this 7600 word erotic short story contains violence,
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Cult Sacrifice

When Lucien is lured into a man's home with the promise of food, he thinks he'll be
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more. Warning: this 6600 word erotic short story contains corruption, mind control,
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Dark Descendants

Edwin Blackwood has just come into his inheritance: a lonely manor by the sea, grey and
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they be left in a sticky hot mess? Warning: This 3000 word erotic short story contains
female domination, crossdressing, sissification, fisting, sex toys and bdsm. Can you
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Keep you in Lace

Nick's sure that his girlfriend is completely vanilla, but it's his secret, fervent desire to be
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he be left longing for more? This 4400 word erotic short story contains explicit sex,
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Keep you in Lace II: Drown you in Diamonds

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she hasn’t taken him anywhere! When she decides it’s time for a dinner date, Nick has no
choice but to come along exactly how Mary wants him- in a dress and heels, while she
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dessert? Warning: this 4400 word erotic short story contains femdom, crossdressing,
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Keep you in Lace III: Smother you in Pearls

Nick's indulging in his sissy side when Mary comes home and finds him masturbating.
As we all know, dirty boys have to be punished! When that punishment involves
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Seducing a Merman

When Mingxia finds a merman washed up on the riverbank after a storm, all she can do is
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with a wet and wild time! Will she sleep with the fishes or throw her catch back? This
4800 word erotic short story contains explicit sex, mythical creatures and a whole lot of
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