design. Through practice, I could mutate into a creature that scared myself in the mirror or a woman who actually turned me on.
All transformations were limited to the amount of matter my body actually contained so that I could not, for instance, become an elephant or at least not one of normal size. I could condense the matter slightly. If I morphed to a wolf, for instance, it would be a larger than normal one that was my exact weight, a hundred and fifty pounds. Once in a while, if I was especially restless, I would chance going out at night in the form of a large dog. When I did, it was a pleasure to sneak through back yards and see what people were doing, but there were dangers attached.
“My power, huh?” I said, smiling. She must have known I was falling in love with her.
She leaned over and kissed me, making me intensely aware that we were on a bed, though nothing more happened. The door was open and her parents were downstairs, but any second could walk upstairs. We would not make love until the following summer and sporadically during our senior year, but we certainly intensified all that after starting college. She attended Bucknell to major in political science and I was at Bloomsburg in electronics engineering. We were only forty minutes apart.
I was the happiest I had ever been in my life. The loner outcast was now settled in with a friendly and serious roommate and had an actual girlfriend who seemed to love him as much as he loved her. Rachel was, in my opinion, quite a catch. She’d toned down her punk look and now came off as avant-garde with her black skirts and sexy tops. She wore her hair short and tousled and lots of eye makeup, and reminded me of someone who ran with the art scene in New York. I tried to live up to her look by wearing black myself. She flattered me by saying I was “wicked.” We visited each other almost every weekend.
“I love you,” she whispered one night after a particularly athletic and sweaty session. It was the first time in my life that someone had told me that. “I love you too,” I said back, thinking at the time that someday we’d be cozily married and produce little geeky-arty kids.
The next to last time I saw Rachel was February 20, 1988 while visiting her for the weekend. It was cold and crisp and we’d been to a French movie she’d wanted to see. I thought the film boring and incomprehensible like all French movies, but since she was willing to read any book I liked so we could discuss it, it seemed a fair exchange. It was maybe seven-thirty in the evening, pretty dark out and we cut through an alley to get to a restaurant we liked that served giant, buttered cinnamon buns. Behind us came the sound of several feet crunching in the snow.
We turned around. Four figures followed us, young males, not good. They did not give off college boy vibes. “Shit,” said Rachel.
We ran and were turning out of the alley when I heard the click of a switchblade. Two of them were brandishing knives and one had his hand in his pocket with a gun or finger pointed at us.
“You have some shit we want,” the apparent leader said.
Rachel pressed against me, her terror palpable. I could feel the change about to happen, that there would be no stopping it. All I could do was decide what direction it would go. Monster? Murderous wolf? Whatever it was, they could still shoot at it.
design. Through practice, I could mutate into a creature that scared myself in the mirror or a woman who actually turned me on.
All transformations were limited to the amount of matter my body actually contained so that I could not, for instance, become an elephant or at least not one of normal size. I could condense the matter slightly. If I morphed to a wolf, for instance, it would be a larger than normal one that was my exact weight, a hundred and fifty pounds. Once in a while, if I was especially restless, I would chance going out at night in the form of a large dog. When I did, it was a pleasure to sneak through back yards and see what people were doing, but there were dangers attached.
“My power, huh?” I said, smiling. She must have known I was falling in love with her.
She leaned over and kissed me, making me intensely aware that we were on a bed, though nothing more happened. The door was open and her parents were downstairs, but any second could walk upstairs. We would not make love until the following summer and sporadically during our senior year, but we certainly intensified all that after starting college. She attended Bucknell to major in political science and I was at Bloomsburg in electronics engineering. We were only forty minutes apart.
I was the happiest I had ever been in my life. The loner outcast was now settled in with a friendly and serious roommate and had an actual girlfriend who seemed to love him as much as he loved her. Rachel was, in my opinion, quite a catch. She’d toned down her punk look and now came off as avant-garde with her black skirts and sexy tops. She wore her hair short and tousled and lots of eye makeup, and reminded me of someone who ran with the art scene in New York. I tried to live up to her look by wearing black myself. She flattered me by saying I was “wicked.” We visited each other almost every weekend.
“I love you,” she whispered one night after a particularly athletic and sweaty session. It was the first time in my life that someone had told me that. “I love you too,” I said back, thinking at the time that someday we’d be cozily married and produce little geeky-arty kids.
The next to last time I saw Rachel was February 20, 1988 while visiting her for the weekend. It was cold and crisp and we’d been to a French movie she’d wanted to see. I thought the film boring and incomprehensible like all French movies, but since she was willing to read any book I liked so we could discuss it, it seemed a fair exchange. It was maybe seven-thirty in the evening, pretty dark out and we cut through an alley to get to a restaurant we liked that served giant, buttered cinnamon buns. Behind us came the sound of several feet crunching in the snow.
We turned around. Four figures followed us, young males, not good. They did not give off college boy vibes. “Shit,” said Rachel.
We ran and were turning out of the alley when I heard the click of a switchblade. Two of them were brandishing knives and one had his hand in his pocket with a gun or finger pointed at us.
“You have some shit we want,” the apparent leader said.
Rachel pressed against me, her terror palpable. I could feel the change about to happen, that there would be no stopping it. All I could do was decide what direction it would go. Monster? Murderous wolf? Whatever it was, they could still shoot at it.
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