Chapter 2: The Curse

This chapter contains non-consensual touching of a sexual nature.

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He grew up in a pink stucco house that shared a side yard with a brown Craftsman.  That brown house held a fascination for him when he was young.  The built-ins in the living room, the cabinet in the closet in Bianca’s room, the bay windows in the dining room; there were hidden nooks and crannies everywhere.  It was a great place to play hide-and-seek, and he spent hours tip-toeing across the creaking boards, searching for Bianca, hoping she would sneeze.

That childhood friendship had ended when they turned twelve.  It was a natural transition towards maturity.  Even though she was the same age as him, Bianca had always seemed younger.  At twelve she still played with dolls and believed in fairies, while he was sneaking out of his house at night to smoke cigarettes on the roof.  

He paid her no mind until the summer he was 16, when he discovered the thing that would change his life forever.  The temperatures were so high that summer, that he was forced outside onto the screened porch with little else to do but practice his fiddle.  His mother was at work, his friends at summer camp, and the neighborhood was a barren landscape of brown grass and full sun.  So with nothing else to do, and no idea that he was tempting fate, he sat on his porch playing the one song he knew, again and again.

At first he thought that he was imagining it.  Every time he sat on the porch with his fiddle, Bianca would appear.  First she watched him from a window, and he thought perhaps she was watching the cloudless sky or staring at the deserted street.  Then she moved to her own porch, rocking herself silently on the swing.  He couldn’t really blame her, if her house was anywhere near as hot as his was.  Plus, she had just as much a right to be outside as he did, he supposed, and she wasn’t really bothering him.  

Then she was sitting on his porch steps, and he could no longer pretend that she wasn’t listening to him play.  She kept her back to him, fanning herself with a folded piece of paper.  It wasn’t too long after that, that she moved to the porch itself.  She sat on the ground, like the child she was, her head resting on the bench next to him.  

After he played four or five songs, he noticed that she was breathing deeply, her eyes closed.  “Bee,” he said quietly.  When she didn't move, he said her name loudly.  “Bianca,” he poked her cheek with his index finger.  Her skin was softer than he expected, and he ran his finger down the side of her face.  Realizing himself, he jerked his hand away.  For a moment his heart raced as he imagined her reaction to him touching her.  He stood, then walked purposefully into the house, shutting the door hard behind him.

The next day, the same thing happened.  Then the next.  Each time he let himself touch her longer, each day his hands slid farther across her, until the day she suddenly woke in the middle of him petting her.  The revulsion and horror on her face hit him harder than her open-handed slap.  Before he could say a word, she had fled back to the safety of her house, leaving him alone with his self-hatred.

The entire week he had stayed inside, refusing to touch his fiddle.  Almost a week to the day, he noticed changes; his hair lightened, his canines seemed to grow longer, his ears shifted, and everywhere was covered with a down of fur.  He didn't need to ask to know what had happened.  He could see it clearly in his mind as if he had witnessed it, those soft lips forming a solitary word, “wolf.”

He left Citadel the next day, taking only his fiddle and the clothes on his back.  As much as he could, he tried not to think about her.  He never doubted that it was Bianca who had cursed him, but he often wondered if his mother knew what he had done, and if she hated him.