FOURTEEN

I knew that taking a trip into the city so close to the full moon wasn’t exactly the most conservative course of action, but when I checked the lunar calendar, I could see that I still had a good twenty-four hours before I was out of my safety zone. Even so, I kept checking my watch, which had a little calendar window that displayed the phases of the moon. January nineteenth was gibbous, not full, but still, that moonshadow was growing awfully thin.

I don’t know about other therians, but Magda, Hunter, and I all kept track of the lunar calendar with the devotion of Orthodox Jews and deer hunters. And we really hated the deer hunters, who had started clomping through the woods during the best hunting days in autumn, when the deer were in rut and giddy with lust.

Since there was a good week when the moon was full enough to keep us wolfish, and the days immediately before and after weren’t the best time to schedule a major event like a wedding or a business trip, having lycanthropy meant knowing when you were safe, when you were out of commission, and when you were borderline.

I was borderline, but I knew that I needed to talk to a female friend. So even though I’d been hoping to conceal my current state of romantic chaos from Lilliana, I decided that my need for help overrode my desire for dignity.

In books and movies, women always seem to be unburdening themselves to their friends without the slightest compunction. Me, I have compunction. The way I see it, there’s an unspoken agreement in most friendships, a sort of quid pro quo of emotional support. In the time we’d been friends, Lilliana and I had never made any serious demands on each other. Of course, we were work friends, which meant there remained a certain formality between us, although we knew we could depend on each other in a crisis. And that was important. I may not have known everything about Lilliana’s life outside the Animal Medical Institute, but seeing how a person reacts when the surgery’s not over and the dog starts waking up from sedation is a pretty good indication of character.

And, to be honest, I hadn’t kept up with most of my high school and college pals, and I couldn’t face the thought of trying to fast forward through the past five or ten years before explaining my current predicament. At least Lilliana knew where I was living and whom I was dating, even if she didn’t know that once or twice a month, I could have been mistaken for one of my own patients.

I was already on my way to the train station when I called Lilliana on my cell phone, figuring that if she wasn’t available, I’d ask to use her apartment, and if that wasn’t possible, I’d get off at the Pleasantvale station and suffer through my mother’s abrasive brand of kindness. But Lilliana answered on the first ring, and before I’d said more than “Lilliana, hi, listen, I know this is short notice,” she’d told me that she’d been looking for an excuse to take the day off. Sometimes I wondered if she was psychic.

At a quarter to eleven, I was standing in front of her Upper West Side apartment. Lilliana opened the door, effortlessly elegant in a maroon tunic and black yoga pants, her black hair pulled back in a French twist and her café au lait complexion flawless without makeup.

I kissed her cheek, inhaling a scent that would be un-detectable to a human nose. My sense of smell was the only thing that changed before I did—hormones, I guess. This close to the full moon, my elegant friend smelled cloyingly sweet, like some overripe flower, and I had to turn my head aside to muffle my sneeze. “Sorry, Lilli. God. I feel like a refugee, showing up on your doorstep like this.”

“You don’t look like a refugee.”

“Liar.” In an attempt to make myself feel less pathetic, I’d put on mascara and blush and was wearing what I thought of as my city clothes, a pair of vaguely nautical navy trousers and a cream-colored sweater. My leg still felt a little sore, but I wasn’t limping. Whatever else was changing about Red, he hadn’t lost his healing touch.

I sank down onto her couch, which looked like it belonged in some upscale East Asian yurt, along with a samovar and some yak milk. The blue-tiled kitchen, however, owed more to Morocco, and none of this should have matched the wooden African chairs and animal carvings, but somehow it all came together, the epitome of boho indigenous chic.

“Now I feel like an upscale refugee,” I said. “And I didn’t even have a chance to explain why I wanted to see you.”

“If you’re worried that I had a day of museums and shopping planned, relax.” Lilliana brought out a plate of fresh zucchini bread, still steaming from the oven. “You didn’t sound like this was going to be an impulsive day of fun. Now, what can I get you to drink? Some juice? Coffee? Tea?” She looked at me more closely. “A double vodka?”

“Don’t tempt me.”

Lilliana took this in as if she had been suspecting as much. And maybe she had. She had a kind of sixth sense in dealing with both people and animals, which was why Malachy had plucked her out of the Institute’s social work residency and added her to his team. Or maybe it had all been Lilliana’s idea; she was pretty masterful at the art of subtle influence. “What’s going on, Abra? You look like you’re about to jump out of your skin.”

I gave a strangled laugh.

Lilliana looked at me carefully. “Are you pregnant?”

I shook my head, and told her everything. At first, I tried to leave out the part about being a therian, because it felt both preposterous and a little embarrassing. But Lilliana kept asking me astute little questions, and pretty soon I realized that none of what I was saying really made sense when I left out the fact that I turn into a wolf once a month. Up until that moment, I hadn’t realized how isolated my condition had made me. I’d thought I could just confide in Lilliana without going into the gory details, but now I saw that omitting the fact of my lycanthropy was like glossing over the fact that you’d cheated, or were really gay, or had been e-mailing an ex-boyfriend. Maybe men could be friends without divulging critical details, but it didn’t work for women. “You don’t seem as shocked as I would have expected,” I told her when I was done.

“Abra, please. We both worked for Mad Mal, remember? I mean, he didn’t exactly make a secret of his experiments.” Back when I still thought of werewolves as the stuff of old horror movies, Malachy had been convinced there really was a lycanthropy virus. He’d conjectured that the virus caused regular cells to become more like fetal stem cells, able to take on any shape and function.

“Besides,” Lilliana went on, “it was pretty clear last year that some seriously weird shit was going on with you and your husband.”

I laughed in surprise at the unexpected profanity, then realized Lilliana had done it deliberately, the way a jazz musician might add a dissonant note for effect. “So, the thing is, Lilli, I don’t know if I belong with Red or not. And I don’t know if staying with him means that I’m never going to be able to have a baby.” I didn’t go into the whole business about my being in heat, because it felt like a little bit too much information. Despite the lasting impression made by a certain television series, most of the Manhattan women I knew kept the particulars of their sex lives between themselves and their psychotherapists.

Lilliana walked into the kitchen and returned with a bottle of chilled Pinot Grigio and two stemless Italian wineglasses. “Whoa, slow down there. Seems to me that what you’re really saying is, do this man and I work as a couple? Are we strong enough as a team? All this business about being alpha—you know, it’s not entirely a bad thing. If you’re going to do something as big and scary as having a baby, maybe you both have to feel confident enough to say, this is my little pack, and I’m leading it.” She poured out the wine and handed me a glass.

I took a sip, beginning to feel better. “I think I liked it better when I was human, and being fit to be a parent had nothing to do with whether or not you could become one.”

“Yeah, and you know how well that can work out. Come on,” Lilliana said abruptly, putting down her wineglass and standing up. “You know what you need now? A little retail therapy.”

Despite my protestations that I hated shopping, Lilliana nagged me into putting on my pea coat and draped herself in a gray woolen poncho that would have made me look like a bag lady, but made her look like the queen of some exotic, far-off land. Then we headed over to my favorite eyeglass shop on Columbus Avenue. At Optical Allusion, the frames are arranged cunningly in the window on pillows and pedestals, as if they were jewelry. Inside, there were antique tables with artfully tarnished mirrors, and salespeople dressed in the kind of austere chic that suggested that we were in the presence of Art.

The moment I walked in the door, I felt conscious of my old, scratched spare pair of specs, drab hair, and unfashionable clothes.

“I think these looked great,” said Lilliana, who looked completely at ease dressed in yoga slacks and silver sneakers, a fringed scarf looped loosely around her neck.

“Which ones?” Maybe if I let Lilliana choose my entire wardrobe, I would be transformed into someone elegant, funky, impeccable.

“These.” Lilliana plucked a pair of rectangular red and black frames from a display. “Let me see them on you. Oh, Abs, those are amazing. They hit your cheekbones just right.”

“Those are my favorites,” said the salesman, a reed-thin man with an elfin look of amusement.

“I should have worn my lenses. I can’t see myself.” It was never a comfortable feeling, taking my glasses off in public. Everyone else could see me, but all I could see was a blur of browns and golds.

“You can always come back,” the salesman said.

“No, I need glasses now. I can’t walk around looking like this.” I indicated the outdated frames with their scratched lenses. Of course, the truth was, I could. Red didn’t notice if my hair was shapeless or my glasses were from the previous decade. He didn’t care if I wore makeup or shaved my legs—to him, I was equally sexy in burlap or silk, furry or smooth-skinned. It was what I loved about him. And yet, if I were truly honest, there were times when I wanted him to care. I wasn’t exactly the most fashion-conscious individual in the world, but like most women, I tried to express something of my inner self in the choices I made. But as far as the language of clothes and makeup went, Red was illiterate.

And then I remembered that I had more serious concerns about Red. Like whether or not he was killing the animals he used to save.

Lilliana selected a different pair of frames. “Those are nice, too … with the clear glass on top. You look like a sexy bohemian.”

I went over to the mirror and peered into it myopically, trying to see if I had, in fact, been transformed. Unfortunately, all I could make out was a vague face-shaped blur.

“Yes, I like those, too,” said the salesman, who would probably have liked a monocle if Lilliana had suggested it.

I replaced my old glasses and perused the display. “What about these, Lilli?” I pointed to a cat’s eye in tortoiseshell.

“Librarian.”

I squinted at my reflection. “Sexy librarian? Pull pins out of hair and unbutton shirt and you’re gorgeous librarian?” The mirror was silent on the subject, and when I glanced at my friend, her brow was furrowed in concentration.

“Let’s try one more look. Can my friend look at that—no, the black with the little ivory-looking inlay for contrast.” This last pair was locked inside a glass case, which to my mind suggested that it was out of my price range. The salesman handed it to me as if it were a canary diamond.

“That’s the best one yet,” he said as I slipped the frames on.

“And coincidentally, the most expensive.”

“No, he’s right.” Lilliana lifted my hair off my face. “Now, this is sexy librarian, Abra.”

I decided to take her word for it. “I’ll take them,” I told the salesman. “How long will it take to get them made up to my prescription?”

“Do you want us to read the numbers off your current glasses?” The salesman took my old frames as if they were a dead squirrel and took them into the back. “Two weeks,” he said when he returned.

“That long?”

The salesman’s smile turned condescending. “I’m terribly sorry, you could always use one of those quickie optician’s shops, but we pride ourselves on the excellence of our work. We also have a large backload of work at the moment.”

I was about to capitulate and ask that the glasses be sent to me, but Lilliana put her hand lightly on the salesman’s arm. “I know you do excellent work, Jeremy,” she said, apparently pulling his name out of the air, “but do you think there’s any way you could help us get the glasses more quickly? My friend here lives out of town.” As she spoke, she tilted her head slightly, and I was reminded of a world-class violinist subtly altering the pitch of the music by the slightest alteration in posture.

Jeremy looked momentarily confused, then said that he would have to check with his manager. When he returned, he announced that my glasses would be done by the end of the day.

We walked out of the store and into the cold, bright day outside, and I turned to my friend in amazement. “How do you do that? Is it a spell? Can I learn it?”

Lilliana laughed, hooking her arm through mine. A cute young guy on a racing bike swiveled his head at the sound. “Now, how about some new clothes? I know a great little boutique on the next block.”

“I think that last purchase just cleaned me out. Besides, it’s probably better for me not to try on clothes next to you,” I admitted, glancing down at Lilliana’s willowy frame. The cute cyclist, I noticed with amusement, was following behind us now.

“Girl, you have the most amazing Renoir body. Creamy skin, perfect little upturned breasts, tiny waist …”

“Oh, Lilliana,” I said, mockingly. “I never knew you felt this way.” On the street just behind us, the cyclist grinned and then weaved his front wheel, trying not to overtake us.

“Well, it’s true,” said Lilliana, unaware that a construction worker had paused to lick his lips at her departing figure.

“Lilli, I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but the truth is, I’m pretty much invisible when I’m standing next to you.” As if to prove my point, a businessman stopped talking into his cell phone long enough to give Lilliana an appreciative look.

We paused at the traffic light, and a souped-up Camaro zoomed past, honking its horn. “Baby,” called the driver, “you looking fine!”

Lilliana tilted her head to one side. “What do you mean, invisible?”

“Oh, for crying out loud, Lilli, take a look around!” I gestured at the cyclist, the construction worker, and the businessman. “You’re like some kind of crazy man magnet! We can’t walk two steps without some guy bugging out.”

Lilliana stared at me as though I were going crazy. “Abra, those guys were checking you out, not me.”

“Oh, please. As a general rule, I do not cause men to fall off their bicycles.” I pointed to the cyclist, who had been too busy watching us to notice the taxi driver opening his door to spit on the sidewalk. The cyclist was on the street, rubbing his bruised shin, and the driver was yelling at him.

“Maybe you just don’t notice,” Lilliana said.

I put my hands on my hips. “Lilli, please, don’t insult my intelligence. It’s perfectly obvious which of us is attracting all the male attention.”

At that moment, I felt a sharp pinch on my left buttock. I whirled around, and saw a young man in an anorak grinning at me as he darted out of the way. “Get me a piece of that,” he said, as if ordering something from a drive-through.

“I’ll give you a piece of something,” I snarled back.

“You were saying?” The light turned green, Lilliana took my arm again, and we crossed the street.

“Hey,” said the cyclist, holding up one arm. “Hang on.”

We paused, and he came up next to us, a smooth-skinned young man a shade or two darker than Lilliana. “You all right?” she asked.

“Just scratched my knee,” he said. “Thing is, I think I know you,” he said, staring at me intently. “I can’t remember from where, but I know we’ve met.”

I rolled my eyes. “Lilliana, did you put these guys up to this? Is this the new ego boost—instead of hiring your own paparazzi, you hire your own stalkers?”

“No, really, I’m not fooling around,” said the young man, and then he looked embarrassed. “It’s just, did you and I … I feel this weird connection, like I’m drawn to you. I’m a great believer in listening to the heart,” he explained.

“I’m a great believer in examining the head,” I said, moving away from the cyclist.

Lilliana glanced over her shoulder. “So, this isn’t your typical reaction from the male of the species?”

“It must be a full moon,” I said, jokingly.

“Actually, it is,” said Lilliana, pointing up, past the tall buildings at the translucent, swollen moon hanging in the pale winter sky.

“Almost,” I corrected her. “It looks full, but it’s got another couple days to go.”

“Have you started carrying around a farmer’s almanac? Come on, country girl,” said Lilliana. “Here’s the boutique I was telling you about.” There were three outfits in the window, all of them variations on white shirts and slender black skirts. There were also a few shoes, sexy and clunky in the style of the 1940s. The name of the shop was The Sexy Librarian.

“You’re kidding me. There’s an entire store devoted to the sexy librarian look?”

Lilliana grinned as she opened the door. “You see why I can never leave the city.”

It was my dream store. There were very few things in the shop, but all of them were perfect. White shirts that were nipped and tucked in just the right places, with one-of-a-kind antique buttons. There were little navy dresses that radiated an understated funkiness that was almost, but not quite, frumpy. And there were racks of 1920s silky tap pants, and stockings with seams up the back, and camisoles in pinks and peaches and russets and plums, the color of the sunset as it deepened into night.

“Oh, my God,” I said. “I want it all.”

“I knew you’d love it,” Lilliana said happily, throwing things into my arms. “Try this. And this. Oh, and this, you have to have that on underneath.”

I ducked into the dressing room, and wriggled into the camisole. I was still buttoning up the shirt when I emerged, but I thought I had the skirt on straight. “Well, Lilli,” I said. “What do you think?”

“I think it’s sort of like that Hitchcock scene where all the birds start roosting together,” said Lilliana, and for a moment, I didn’t understand what she was saying, because I was so surprised. The shop was filled with men. There were men crammed on either side of Lilliana, as if waiting for a dressing room, and other men visible behind them, checking out the sexy panties. I had seen the occasional hapless fiancé dragged into a store like this, but never a whole group of them. Huh, I thought, must be the new metrosexual fashion-consciousness I keep reading about.

And then I spotted the cyclist, and I realized something extremely peculiar was going on.

“I like it a lot,” said the construction worker, who had crammed himself into a corner between the businessman, the cyclist, and a bunch of Japanese tourists.

“Go try something else on,” said the cyclist. His voice sounded strained.

“Excuse me,” said the saleswoman, a lovely young Asian woman who wore the sexy librarian look very well, “but you’re going to have to tell your friends to leave. We just don’t have room for this many people.”

“They’re not my friends,” I protested. “I don’t know who these people are. Is this some kind of mass protest thing, like when that guy was organizing huge crowds to take off their clothes in public?”

A slow smile spread over the businessman’s pudgy face. “You want us to take off our clothes?”

“All right,” said the construction worker.

“Oh, man,” said the cyclist, who had snuck behind me to retrieve my slacks from the changing room. “I can smell her on these.” He took a deep whiff of my pants and I shouted, “Hey,” and grabbed one of the legs.

“Stop that. You’re being weird. All of you.”

“I need to be upside you,” said a Japanese tourist, consulting his phrase book. “Inside,” he corrected himself. “Yes?”

“I need to lick you from your toes to your ears,” said the cyclist.

“You touch her and I’ll kill you,” said the construction worker. “That’s the future mother of my children you’re talking to.”

“Like hell she is,” roared the businessman.

Lilliana ducked under his right arm, which was holding off the hardhat, and took my elbow. “I don’t suppose you’re wearing some exotic new perfume?”

“I’m afraid I am,” I admitted. “L’air d’estrus.” Because, it had belatedly occurred to me, there was no other explanation for my sudden transformation from plain Jane to femme fatale. “Lilliana, we have to get out of here.”

“Well, don’t change back into your clothes—you’re liable to start a riot.”

Luckily, most of the men were preoccupied with jostling and insulting each other. The businessman and the construction worker were screaming abuse, while the Japanese tourists were getting very red in the face as they shouted clipped phrases at the cyclist and the anorak man.

The funny thing was, many of the guys were actually quite attractive. The young cyclist had the clean, strong jaw of a scholar-athlete; two of the Japanese tourists were flat-out handsome; and even the anorak man possessed a kind of thuggish appeal. As the tension escalated and the pushing turned to shoving, I found myself watching with reluctant fascination. There was something primitive, almost primal about this scene. Suddenly, the layers of civilization were being peeled back, and what remained was the essential, true nature of each individual. The businessman was now a large male, no longer in his prime, whose outward belligerence masked a reluctance to engage in direct battle. The construction worker, by contrast, was a splendidly muscled specimen, warily circling the young Japanese male, who was bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet and crooning to himself in a softly menacing tone.

It seemed to me, trapped as I was among these bellicose males, that there was no choice except to await the outcome. One male would emerge victorious, his skin damp with exertion, redolent of the powerful male hormones flooding through his body. He would be wounded, no doubt, and yet still possessed by all the savage instincts that had allowed him to conquer the other males. He would come to me then, his body thrumming with adrenaline and lust, his mind half-maddened by the intoxicating scent of me. But there would be no use of force. I would still have the power to turn him away, to leave him unsatisfied and burning with desire.

Now the construction worker and the Japanese tourist had removed their shirts, and their bare chests were already gleaming with sweat as the young saleswoman darted ineffectually about, telling them that she had called the police. I wondered vaguely which one it would be, and how long I would make him wait before permitting him to pleasure me at last.

“Abra? Abra, snap out of it!” Lilliana shook me, and I stared at her uncomprehendingly for a moment. “We need to get out of here before the police arrive. Especially since you may wind up affecting the cops the way you do the civilians.”

I turned back to the men. “But we can’t leave,” I said, my heart racing with excitement as the cyclist launched himself at the Japanese tourist, who had just taken down the construction worker with a roundhouse kick.

Lilliana took a deep breath and said, “If you don’t get out of here now, Abs, you’re going to end up becoming the guest of honor at a gang bang.”

“Mmm,” I said absentmindedly, as the cyclist kicked his opponent in the balls. How much of Lilliana’s distress, I had to ask, was due to her being the wallflower for once? Not so nice to be the female none of the males even notice.

“Oh, hell,” said Lilliana. “I guess there’s no other choice.” Taking my head in her hands, Lilliana forced me to face her. “Look right into my eyes for a second, Abra.”

For a moment, I thought she was going to kiss me. I think some of the men must have had the same idea, because I could feel them watching us with prurient interest.

“Abra,” said Lilliana, “focus.” And as if she had seized my nervous system as well as my temples, I obeyed, narrowing my focus to her dark gaze. “We must leave,” she said, and I knew that she was right. If I didn’t get out in the next few minutes, I’d be acting out my own personal National Geographic episode.

“Hey,” said one of the men, trying to grab Lilliana’s arm as she hustled me out the door. I lifted my lip and snarled at him, and he released her, allowing us to make it to the front door.

Just as we made it out into the street, the police cruisers arrived, lights flashing and sirens wailing.

“Shit,” said Lilliana. I’d never heard her curse before. “How the hell are we going to get you home? If I put you on a train, you’re liable to start a riot.”

“Listen, Lilli,” I began. “I think there’s something I neglected to tell you about myself.” Like the fact that I’m in pheromone overdrive.

But she was already talking on her cell phone. “Martin? Thank God. I need help. My friend’s a lycanthrope and she’s gone into acute estrus. Uh huh. She needs wheels and a driver, either a male with a score of less than ten percent heteroerotic on the bisexuality index, or female with less than ten percent homoerotic. Yes. Fantastic. Can it be in half an hour or less at my place? Goddess bless, Martin, I owe you.” As she hung up the phone, Lilliana caught my astonished expression and shrugged. “You know how you’re always telling me I must be psychic? Well, you’re not completely wrong. I’ll try to explain when we’re out of danger.”

It seemed I wasn’t the only one who had omitted a few details.