Ragged-Trousered Lycanthropist

"The Ragged-Trousered Lycanthropist"

I think you'd say we were security conscious. We haven't had a guest at
the farm in the whole seven years we've been married. (And we got
married at night, in a country whose name I was never told, with only
her family there, and all of them armed - to the teeth.) The wall
around the farm is about twelve feet high, surrounds the whole farm
except the access gate.

That's where I am right now, taking a last glance at my watch before I
undo the strap and drop it into the metal container on the outside of
the gate. I have to do this, because I'm about to pass through the
metal detector.

Before I do that, I take a look up into the dark sky spread out like a
blueprint for beautiful or diabolical machines. Here, in the middle of
Wales, there's no man-made light to interfere and there are stars to
admire. The moon is skinny, so I know that things won't be pleasant
when I get in to see her.

I pass through the metal detector, which in turn allows the gate to
open. No way into my home, except past this metal detector. I can hear
the dull chanting of sheep, who roam about on the grounds. I haven't
the heart to pen them in, and she likes them loose. I go to market
three times a year to buy sheep. I never go to market to sell the ones
I've fattened up.

The smell of the rosemary moves upwards to me as I move past the
bushes, the herb Valerie is most fond of. That and mint.

All this belongs to her. Her family have money. Plenty of it. Old bad
money and new worse. In the Depression, they played the Long Game and
bought while others were selling. Their fortune built on ruin and
suicide of others, the notes ought to smell like cheap soup. Of course
it doesn't. Money doesn't much care how you got it. That was the old
fortune. I don't ask about the new. She's retired now, she says. She
certainly doesn't leave the grounds of the farm. Hasn't done since we
moved here. This is where she's safe.

I only like her at one point of her cycle, when she lightens up and
smiles again. That smile that slipped inbetween my ribs and made me
want to be owned by her. Don't see it much anymore. Most of the time,
she acts like she could bite my head off - which of course, she
could.

Werewolf women eh, can't live with em, can't kill em unless you can get
a weapon made out of silver.

I've been plotting for a long time. Thinking of ways.

Don't think too badly of me, I have tried. I really have. But the only
time she can treat me with anything other than contempt is when she
knows she'll be a wolf that night and can go out to hunt. And romance
is rather out of the question on those nights - just try having someone
nibble your neck when you know they might wolf out at any minute and
have you as a starter.

Also, next morning. Let me just say, werewolves don't floss. Raw mutton
and poor oral hygiene. Not a great combination.

Can't leave her, she can come get me. There's nowhere I could go. And
besides, I'd like this farm fine if I could get rid of her. I like
sitting out in the fields, looking at clouds and knowing, deep in my
marrow that I am on a globe that rotates and flies, without any
engine.

It has to be murder. It's the only way.

She's got it all figured out. No metal comes into this farm, nothing on
the premises made of silver. No way anything can come over the wall, or
through the gate. When I go into town (a forty mile drive), van parked
outside the walls of the farm, I tell her lies. What I'm actually doing
is research.

For a start, I have a silversmith. I may only get one chance to kill
her. Even when it isn't full moon and she isn't a wolf, she could still
snap my neck with less effort than breaking a Kit-Kat in two. I've seen
her do it to someone else, before we came to live on the farm. So, I
can get guaranteed quality silver. I will only get one shot at this, it
has to work.

I have also done some research. Metal detectors. I thought for a while
it was X-rays, only picking up solids and if I could somehow get molten
silver, I could get that through in a plastic container and mould it
into a weapon later.

No. Metal detectors generate an electromagnetic field and measures how
it bounces back. If it bounces off a good conductor (silver being one
of the best) it will know.

"Hi Valerie, " I say, brushing her hair back and kissing her lightly.
She sneers at me and gestures towards a plate of lettuce and tomatoes.
This is my dinner. When she's not in her phase, she doesn't eat meat.
So I don't get to eat meat either.

And I love meat.

I have to bring the food in from the town, no tins, no cans. It all has
to go through the metal detector. I start to eat the lettuce, with no
enthusiasm of any kind. I wish I had a steak (and a silver
steak-knife). No knives at all in this house.

After a few minutes, I excuse myself. I have an upset stomach. Valerie
tells me that this is just typical of me and she doesn't know why she
ever married me, when she could have had one of her own kind, someone
to run alongside and hunt and whelp. (She can't have kids with me,
another thing that has soured the marriage.)

It was unpleasant, but worth it, I think, when I climb into bed beside
her and she jabs me with a sharp elbow and takes most of the quilt. I
really wasn't totally sure if the metal detector would let me in, if it
hadn't, I'd have had to lie and think very fast.

But I got in alright. And I produced the goods. One extra-safe condom,
wrapped in another and knotted tight, and that itself wrapped in
another. Rubber is a really good insulator.

I've never enjoyed waiting for someone to fall asleep quite as much.
Even though I'm sure, I keep waiting, looking at that face, turning a
tiny silver earring between my fingers, looking at the tiny pin that I
am going to puncture her skin with.

There's a feeling that isn't like anything else at all. Eating segments
of mandarin and feeling the sharpness and the juice spill down your
chin, slipping the first black bra strap down over polished white
shoulders, puffing out breath that balls as cold frost, remembering
what you've seen that actor in before you were watching this movie and
realising that you knew him from somewhere, but where, where ? None
anything like the actual experience rushing through me, but it's all I
can summon to describe it.

I'm not sure how long I'll wait, but a little bit longer I think.