Cigarette fumes and the bleach stink of fresh cum; ceiling lamp light so orange and dim it almost made it harder to actually see around the room; pleated fake wood-paneled walls that guaranteed access for any late night fights being entirely audible from the next door neighbors--there was no questioning the cheapness of the motel he'd just awoken in, but the question that did scrape at Harper's mind was why there was another man's arm around his waist.

Scratch that. He clenched his abdomen, feeling a sharp slice across his sphincter--he knew the why, and a warm tremble flittered from the tips of his toes to his cock, which seemed to yawn itself awake in response. Harper tugged at his bunkmate's arm gently, but insistently, not lifting his head from the pillow lest the breathing on the back of his neck turn to a growl. The question in his mind permutated into various prickly abstracts that reached out but never quite grasped purpose in understanding--each thorny protuberance latched onto a lube-slicked cross-section of memory that altogether formed a short film in his third eye, one equal parts horrifying and illuminating.

He was waking up from the first--no, stop. Harper was no virgin, and lying to himself now, of all times, would do no favors. He was waking up from his second gay encounter, the emotional consequences of which would have to be dealt with afterwards, because while he was about to face the truth about his own homosexuality head-on, last night was indeed a first for him in another way. The movie replaying in his head lacked prose and cinematic language, like a camera that had been left rolling and pushed around haphazardly on its dolly with no operator to guide it. He tasted the sharp musky spittle on his lower lip; felt the ache in his spine, terminating at his tailbone sizzling with electric tension; smelled it in his upper sinuses, the most profane animal stench that swirled amidst a blend of stale coffee, coppery blood, and male peneration.

Harper was a werewolf.

Unknown where or when he'd received the bite, known were the effects, as he'd had the clothes ripped from his body as delicately as a rabbit being flayed by a hawk--the patena of bloodied sheen wiped away, and Harper saw it in an overexposed flash of shame: standing on the neck of another man, gripping the yielding flesh with canine claws, and an encouraging tug on the nape of his furred neck in the jaws of his lover.

He'd sliced open another human being, burst him like ripe fruit, and been fucked like a dog in the rain by a demon of yore.

Harper was shaking like he'd been submerged in ice. He steeled himself, swallowed back a congealed lump of dreadful omen that tasted human, and pulled his frame away from the warm body spooning him to the edge of the bed.

No laser traps were tripped, no buried mines detonated--fingers gripping the waxy frayed corner of cheap bedsheets, Harper thanked gravity for bringing his tiptoes to the familiar sandpaper carpet he was beginning to remember burning his knees--and with that, he was free and cold, standing naked beside the bed, face to face with a smashed clockface. Someone didn't like wake-up alarms, apparently.

It was embarrassing to feel what it was like to no longer have a tight asshole--it was ten times worse not to have even the slightest shred of remorse for having killed someone. Harper reached down with shaky hands, afraid to look at his own fingers in case they sprouted claws, and pulled what used to be his jeans up to his knees.

The belt buckle--the fucking thing wobbled to one side and jingled its coppery chime. Harper froze, eyes drifting to his right.

He got a good look at his partner: sharp eyebrows, belying cruel humors even in his sleep; pretentiously wavy auburn hair that wouldn't be out of place on a European model or a Seattle beatnik. If Harper could profit from it, he wouldn't be above submitting the man's photo for consideration as an entry to the Gallery of Smug Assholes.

Still, those eyes were closed, undisturbed, and Harper sighed in relief, pulling up his jeans the rest of the way. The fabric slid over his bare thighs as smooth and silently as velvet on glass.

"Your skin sounds so fucking tasty."

Those eyes were open now, those stubble-washed lips pulled back in a self-satisfied smile. Harper hated this man the minute he spoke.

It took everything he had not to fold himself back into bed and beg for more.

"I'm--just getting--" Harper stammered, speaking so quietly he couldn't hear himself.

"Breakfast, right." Smug smile, smug nod, the other man arched his back beneath the covers just enough to pretend to stretch--revealing a trail of body hair that Harper could imagine between his teeth. Twenty four hours ago, he'd have felt nothing at the sight of it but the urge to crack a joke about hedge trimmers.

"You were going to ask me my name."

Harper was staring. He hated that he was staring. He shook his head, palming meekly at his latent teenage hormones' resurrection. "It was right on the tip of my tongue, really..."

"Not the only thing you wanted on your tongue last night, if I recall." Everything he said, every inch of his smile, he was pure cliché--nothing but designs on another chance to bust a nut evident in his voice. "Call me Clay."

Indiana turnpikes, brown leather jackets, cigarette butts in the side pockets of an old car--Harper wasn't sure if these surging feelings of intuition were his own personal bias or some legitimate newfound supernatural ability forming these sensory memories. In the smell of his morning breath, in the ashen croak of his husky voice, Harper was practically reading a roadmap of who Clay was before they'd met, and the only thing he'd said was a cheap sex joke and his name.

Harper's head buzzed, and he couldn't find the time or inclination to speak in complete sentences. "Werewolf?"

"Afraid so, kid." Clay pushed himself partially upright, torso hovering above the bed, shadows of promise stretching below towards his hidden belly and beyond. "And you had so much to look forward to. I'd say you're taking the news well, but you'll find that's pretty much how thing's are gonna be from now on--your new superpower is being impossible to surprise."

Harper HATED this man. Fury boiled over in the bit of his stomach. His erection ached for attention. His voice sounded so stupid when he spoke again: "Breakfast?"

"Oh, that's a good boy." Clay rolled his shoulders like a cat until they popped. "You feel it, I know, that sense of impotent rage, bangin' against the bars. You can't tell if you wanna fight me or fuck me." He grinned, those needle-sharp canines practically sparkling in the shitty low light of the motel room. "Either way, you know I'm on top."

Harper needed to get away from Clay, to scream for help, to wave down a cop--but he also needed to beg and lick at Clay's ankles, to bring his face up to the man's groin and ask for a favor...to feed him fucking breakfast.

"You made me kill someone," Harper said as simply and detached as if he were reading the phone book.

Clay was leaning back against the headboard now. "Yup."

"You got me drunk, convinced me to fuck you, then...turned me into one of th--one of you?" It was a genuine question in Harper's voice, as he hadn't considered there could be werewolves as a quantifiable demographic before now. "Why?"

"Always the same 'why me,' never a 'thanks' or a 'good job, bro,'" Clay yawned. "I needed to bust a nut, it's that simple. Here comes this--by this, I mean you--this sweaty, sorry looking excuse for a closet-case who surely couldn't have missed his own virginity being taken--what was it, band camp? Church camp?" Clay's smile was more of a sneer, no warmth or comfort offered. "Anyway, I'm off a twelver, sun-up to sun-down between rest stops, and here you come sulking into view just as I'm getting a good feel of myself--chicken wings, I mean, really? Who goes to a wing place to get laid?"

Harper was indignant. "I wasn't--"

"Shh, shh, don't." Clay waved away Harper's indignation like vapor. "I was sure I would be eating out the upskirt of some late-blooming bayou bimbo, but there you were, twink on a plate, looking back at me between those lemon pepper flats with those big, pretty eyes..." Clay's face centered on Harper's. "You do have pretty eyes, mm? The exact kind of eyes I'd love to see looking back at me while fur grew around them."

Harper drew himself up tall, thinking he'd puff his chest out and reject the compliment. Instead, he swooned, tears squeezed back behind his eyes. "You bit me, man, you turned me into--why'd you do that?"

"Again, 'why why why why,' what a fucking..." Clay exhaled, looking like a beleaguered teacher instructing his student. "Werewolves can't fuck humans without becoming bound to them. Weird witchy shit. So, when we wanna squirt out a quickie or ten when the full moon gets the kiwis all tight and full, we gotta find someone to turn." Clay crossed his arms. His smug smile was beginning to decay into something more sinister. "Better you bound to me than the other way around. Isn't that right, pup?"

Harper didn't even realize he was doing it, nodding along, that explanation making perfect sense. "Yeah, right, of course, you'd wanna--"

"Oh my fucking God, I never get tired of that," Clay guffawed, a smoker's hack punctuating the sound. "I just say whatever the fuck and you don't question it for one second? Just immediately you're cool with it, man that's hot." He bit his lip, an amber gleam tickling at the edges of his irises. "What do you say we forget breakfast? You play with these eggs some more, instead?"

In his heart, Harper felt pangs of admonishment, his conscience trying to reach him elsewhere since his brain wasn't at home. Clay was a literal monster, and a killer, and together they'd eaten someone last night. In his legs, Harper felt soft as cotton, compelled towards the bed with the obedience of a well-trained pet. He could speak up, though, right, he could still protest or argue or--

Time skipped over all that, and Harper's knuckles were digging into the sheets, his stiff neediness grinding into the mattress pad beneath him as he looked up to Clay for approval. There was none to be found, only an amused smirk of appetite and country road contempt.

"I was kidding, you fucking fag." Clay tapped a fingertip harshly against Harper's forehead. "Go get us some food. We have a long weekend ahead of us, you're gonna need the energy to hunt the real game tonight. God knows you aren't scoring on personality alone."

Harper was hurt. Not like someone who'd just been insulted by a stranger--hurt like Clay's opinion of him really mattered in a way only family's did. Dejected, he slid backwards off the bed, crossing his knees to try to conceal the boner still waving for attention like a desperate fucking loser. Nobody had made him feel this way since puberty--a newly made lycanthrope, the sensation of recalling what it was like to grow a tail and fangs activating the same cheeky humors in his nervous system that he felt trying to hide an erection in class. Seemed like his body was discovering sex all over again.

Clay took notice, the bastard. "After," he said, nodding towards Harper's stiff shame as he took up the remote from the nightstand. "Food first, then I'll tap that ass again, you horny fool." He gave a small 'ooh' of delight as he commenced ignoring Harper: it was mid-afternoon movie hour, and Final Destination 2 was on.

Harper eyed the tattered shreds of his former shirt. The jeans he could pass off as a fashion statement--the shirt would get him arrested. He plucked Clay's discarded long-sleeved top off the ground, pulling it down over his head.

It sent a chill up his spine, hearing Clay scoff behind him--not even doing it on purpose, Harper had inhaled deeply as he pulled the shirt on. It was comforting, soothing the sexual need wafting off his flesh, and the smell made him shudder with longing.

But that scoff. Clay's laughter. That made Harper sick and angry he genuinely couldn't fathom not directing at himself, flashes of last night's murder popping into his thoughts.

He gripped the doorknob far too tightly as he opened the door, those bloody images in his mind's eye, stepping out of the motel room's tepid air-conditioning into the afternoon's muted autumnal swelter. Harper wondered to himself which fast food places still had an all-day breakfast menu.