The Howl of the Northern Wolf

ME:Long overdue. You've been friends for so long --

GINA:That was the problem. We were friends, but nothing else. --

LAIMA:Did it hurt a lot? --

GINA:It hurt a bit, but it's cool :)) I tell you, it was fantastic --

LAIMA:Congrats!!! Welcome to the club!!! --

GINA:Damn, guys, I am always the last. I hate it! You are lucky, Laima. Just the way guys look at you. Irma is bullshiting us about her teddy-bear, but she is soooo happy. She is in love, it's obvious. I'm sure, Irma, whoever that bear guy is, he cares about you. And me? How about me? Who cares about me? Am I that ugly? Am I a crocodile or something? I'm so glad at least this virginity thing is over and I am done with it. I feel like crying --

LAIMA:Nonsense Gina! You are beautiful in your own way... --

ME:Nooo, Gina, c'mon, you are great! You are super cool. It's great that you've done it. You'll tell me all about it when I get back, promise? --

GINA:Yeah, yeah, I promise I will... Dream on!... Like you're gonna tell us about the forest and the teddy bear. That's not fair! I tell you everything and you tell me nothing --

ME:All right. So what do you want to know that badly? I can tell a bit. But just don't ask me for the name. --

GINA: Do you love him? --

ME:I think I do. Well, it's complicated. No, I am sure I do, but it's just different --

GINA:Does he love you? --

ME:Yes. I am sure about that --

LAIMA:Is he handsome? Like tall and blond and blue eyes? --

ME:Yeah, he is handsome, but not the sweet kind of handsome. He is a kind of "rough guy" handsome. Like a viking with a big ax. A bit like grizzly, really --

GINA:I like this kind. I somehow imagine that your boyfriend is like the Beast from Beauty and the Beast --

LAIMA:lol, the Irma and the Beast. Tell us more, Irm, don't be stingy. We won't steal him from you, we promise! --

ME:What do you want to know? --

LAIMA:Tell us something spicy! How is the grizzly's dick? --

ME:It's okay --

LAIMA:No! That's not an answer. Tell something real! --

ME: It's... well, it's a... I don't know what to say... --

GINA:How big is it? I think the Beast should have a huge dick, but nice --

LAIMA:What's a nice dick? --

GINA:Well, like a nice shape. Like the head has to be proportionate to the body. And I like when it bends back a little bit --

LAIMA:Yeah, that's nice. So does the grizzly's dick bend back? --

ME:Actually... it does. A little bit. --

LAIMA:So is it big or not? --

ME:It's the biggest I've touched --

LAIMA:So you've touched it. OK, finally we are getting somewhere. Have you sucked it? --

ME:Why do you have to know? --

LAIMA:Why can't you tell? What's the big deal? --

ME:Well, I am not telling you that. It's a big deal. --

LAIMA:She's frequenting that teddy bear in the shire, making love to him on fire. Don't be a nun or something, Irm. Have you sucked that grizzly, or not? --

ME:Maybe :) --

GINA:Did you like it? --

ME: Maybe I did :))) --

GINA:But if it's so big, how does it fit into you? --

ME:Well... it does fit.. somehow. It is mouthful, though. --

LAIMA:This is sooo stupid. Why can't you just tell us who your boyfriend is? --

ME:I've told you! It is a grizzly bear. --

LAIMA:Here we go again... --

ME:Gina, just take it easy about Edwin and stuff. You are really fine, believe me. We'll talk about it when I'm back, ok? Sorry, girlies, I have to log off now --

LAIMA:It's still early! Where are you going? --

GINA:She's is going to sleep with the teddy bear --

ME:maybe :))) --

GINA:If you tell me about who your teddy bear is, I'll tell you everything about Edwin. Deal? --

ME:No deal. Sorry, Gina, but I really can't. Oh well, I'm going grizzly hunting. Wish me luck --

LAIMA:Yeah... last week it was a cute teddy bear, two weeks ago it was a panda, now it's a grizzly... I don't think she's got anything at all. She's just bullshitting us, like always. Anyway, good luck Irm --

GINA:No, she has a real lover, that's obvious. ❤❤❤ Irm. Good luck with your Teddy! Cuddle him for me too, all right? Just one tender hug. And a tender kiss --

ME:I promise, I will, Gina. --

LAIMA:Promise something for me too --

ME:What? --

LAIMA:Promise that you will do it --

ME:All right, I promise. What is it? --

LAIMA:Irma, please... Can you suck his dick for me? 😀... just one tender mouthful... 😀😀😀 --

GINA:LOL!!! Stop it! --

ME: You bitch! OK Laima, you tell stuff like that and then you complain that I am not telling you anything. So it was all just bullshit, all right? BS about everything. Happy now? --

LAIMA: Don't get mad. It's a little joke, that's it. --

ME:There is a bit of truth in every joke --

LAIMA:So what? Gina, how about you? Would you mind? --

GINA:Mind what? --

LAIMA:Would you mind a bit of "rough guy handsome"? --

GINA:Like do what? --

LAIMA:Like suck his cock, stupid --

GINA:Me? Why? --

LAIMA:Because! --

GINA:I don't know... --

LAIMA:He's a rough guy. He's a tough guy. He's like the Beast from Beauty and the Beast. He's a fucking hot grizzly! And Irma is in love with him and she hides him from the rest of the world. So, Gina, make up your mind. It is either "yes" or "no" Would you suck his cock? --

GINA:No... Maybe yes... I don't know --

LAIMA:Make up your mind. It's either a "yes" or a "no" --

GINA:If it is nice... --

LAIMA:The Beauty is supposed to be nice and pretty. The beast is supposed to be scary, not nice --

GINA:OK it's a "yes", but you would go first --

ME:I can't believe you guys. Well, Laima, she is bitchy, you can expect anything from her. But you, Gina? --

GINA:It's just hypothetical... --

LAIMA:Yes. It's just a hypofetical mouthful. You would get your mouth full and then you would suck it, very hypohetica... hypofeti... what's the fucking word? --

GINA:Hypothetically --

ME:So, what have we learned so far? My best friends would steal my boyfriend in no time at all. --

LAIMA:Yup! We can hold a democratic vote. It would be two votes against one, so the majority wins. Get that grizzly guy over here! --

ME:Laima, you will burn in hell on a slowly rotating spit. I will supervise it myself. You, Gina, you might still redeem yourself, you were just seduced by the devil --

GINA:Oh... lol... stop it! --

LAIMA:😂😂😂 --

ME:Ok, really, guys, I have to go. You two bitches, take care. Bye bye bye--

LAIMA:Bye, Irm --

GINA:Bye bye bye --

I switch off the phone. It's quiet. Only a grasshopper chirps in the tree. The moon is reflecting in the pool, quietly smiling both above and below me. I throw away the last sunflower shell and close the window.

V. The Sound of Squeaking Hinges

I turn off the light and tiptoe down the stairs. I walk in silence to my parents' bedroom door, then push the door handle very gently. I open it very, very, slowly. This is an antique door salvaged from some old estate in France. Its hinges have a tendency to squeak. They do tonight, despite all my care. "Damn it!" It's an annoying sound that can easily wake up people two rooms away.

In my parents' bedroom, the curtains are drawn. It's dark. I can't see a thing. I almost stumble close to the bed and then I sneak under the covers. Oliver rolls over on his other side. I know he's awake.

"I'll give you a massage," I say quietly in the darkness.

My hand goes to his right shoulder and then rubs it, pats it, presses it - gently here, hard here, gently here, hard here. That's the massage. A professional masseuse showed me how to do it.

I started to feel that something was off between Oliver and my mother three years ago.

Men still like my mother very much. Although she is forty-two, she has a lot of natural charm. She has the ability to please. I guess the temptation to pull off one more trick has been in her head for some time. She was very lucky the first time around. Why not try it again?

So, what's the trick? It's simple: the first part is to successfully divorce your current husband with the property divided in your favor. The second part is to marry a richer and more successful man.

That's my mother. Her main problem is that she always wants more. She constantly wants to negotiate a better deal. She likes to take, and if she has to give back, she always negotiates. You can never relax with my mother, because she will take advantage of every weakness to get something more. That is frustrating. It is not easy to live with somebody like that.

Oliver, on the other hand, gives us everything, without keeping score. I knew very well what my dad was craving those last three years. Just please: don't be a simpleton. Don't assume that his only desire was to drag me - his adopted daughter - into bed.

I am even a little upset about that. However, the answer is definitely no. It wasn't me that he wanted.

What he wanted more than anything was to have a place where he could feel at home; a place where he would have no business competitors and adversaries; somewhere where he wouldn't be constantly challenged - not to fight, not to go to bed and get a new bill of requests there, and not to be constantly nagged.

My mother is like a taxi. Whenever there is a passenger inside, the counter is on.

Two years ago, my dad injured his shoulder playing tennis. The injury did not heal for a very long time and got worse and worse. It would get so sore at night that he couldn't sleep. My mother had no desire to nurse him, so she encouraged me to do that instead. I would have to put a hot compress on his shoulder in the evenings and give his shoulder a massage. The therapist showed me how. We took shifts of pressing and stroking, pressing and stroking for ten minutes. Along with the cortisone injection into his shoulder joint, it helped.

That was the year when my mum started having a lot of strange business trips to other towns. She had to go to Riga, then to Stockholm, then to Poznan, then to... Almost every week she was going somewhere.

My dad's shoulder began to heal. After a while it was much better. Neither pain killers nor compresses were necessary anymore.

Nevertheless, whenever my mother would go on a business trip, I would still - tip tip tip - come to my parent's bedroom to massage his shoulder and back.

Here, in our vacation chalet, the damn door squeaks every time.

I like touching his shoulders, patting his back. Oliver, when he relaxes completely, purrs like a cat. The sound is a bit more coarse, though - a bit more masculine. For the lack of a better comparison, I'd rather say that he squeaks like a rusty hinge.

VI. Not a Good Idea.

One of those nights, when my mother was away and my father was squeaking like a hinge, an accident happened. It was a huge comet that crashed into our world and destroyed all of humanity. No, actually, it wasn't that. A giant space-robot race landed in Nebraska and destroyed all of humanity. No. A mean Kraken woke up at the bottom of the Pacific, swam to the surface and destroyed humanity.

No, it wasn't that either.

One of those nights when I was massaging my dad's back and pressing his shoulders, my hand accidentally tripped over a strange object down below. I just touched it and that was it. That was the accident.

That kind of unintended touch should have meant nothing. Neither me nor Oliver showed any signs that something unusual or inappropriate had happened. Yet, all throughout the next day, the memory would return to my mind, again and again and again.

I'd had a few boyfriends at school; I wasn't a virgin. I'd had a number of encounters before with that strange and alien object that changed its shape. Somehow, my first sex experiences had felt very inconsequential. I'd liked the boys that I'd dated, but I'd never been in love. Sex had been a new thing to try out, like going to a 3-D movie for the first time. We'd kissed; we'd undressed; we'd cuddled in bed. It had felt afterwards like that whole 'sex' thing had been overhyped. I'd expected it to be somehow more substantial - more meaningful. It had been something amusing for an hour or so, and then, once I'd been out of the cinema, it didn't feel real anymore. It had just been an entertaining experience.

The thing with Oliver was fundamentally different. That little unintended touch at night was painstakingly real. It was so real that it made my stomach churn.

My mum was on a trip to London when it happened, and she wasn't due back until Sunday - two days later.

The next night, I came again to my parents' bedroom to massage Oliver's shoulders and back. For some reason I was very nervous. I was rubbing and patting his shoulder, and I felt that something was different. Something was off.

I felt a new, ticklish feeling gradually building up in my legs and in my belly, as if there were a hundred butterflies fluttering inside me and trying to find their way out. I put my other arm between my thighs and squeezed it, just trying to get a grip on myself. That helped me to regain a bit of composure. The feeling was pleasant, and the shivering inside me gradually receded, but then it came back with a vengeance. I started feeling lightheaded - a bit dizzy.

And there, I tell you frankly - it was without any premeditation and initial plan! - I accidentally touched it again. It must have been a Freudian thing, because accidents like that are not accidents. They are just tricks of the subconscious.

Oliver said nothing. He was lying there, quiet and calm. You might have thought he was asleep.

My mind blacked out. I am not sure how long it was out. It might have been just a few seconds, or it might have been a few minutes. Then something clicked in my mind and I began to recover from my trance. The realization took a few moments to reach my mind. There I was - gently squeezing something in my palm.

"What a surreal dream! " I thought to myself. " My hand is inside Oliver's boxers and I am holding my dad's penis in my hand. "

Oliver did absolutely nothing. He neither pushed me away nor asked for more. He just laid on his back, calm and squeaking.

I gently clutched it again and I felt it growing in my hand. Then it struck me like a wave: "What the hell am I doing? Why? Why? Why? Why did I do that?"

It felt so strange. It felt like the awkward situation was far grander than me. I was just a little pup who was caught in a strong river stream. There was no way I could get out or resist it. I felt small and I felt like a subject of an indisputable authority. That authority - I don't know what it is. Masculine authority over women? A father's authority over his daughter? A male phallus' authority over female hormones?

Whatever it was, it had taken me completely by surprise. It was as if something had been written in my genetic code, and me - a naïve girl! - had no clue about it. And just there, that night, I accidently discovered that simple and undeniable fact of nature.

I started gently stroking it. I felt the bulging veins on the shaft and coarse pubic hair below. An acute sense of belonging, in many ways similar to national pride, swept over me. It felt like it wasn't just about him and me. It could as well be my mother, my sisters if I had any, my cousins, or aunts. Every female in the long line of my ancestors had it in her genes to bow to the leader of the family. Every wife of my tribe for hundreds of thousands of years had the obligation to respect her dominant man and bear children from him. Every daughter had to obey her father's will and marry the man he designated. The powerful men, be it the local lords or the invading conquerors, would have the first pick of the most beautiful women. Their power was their right. Every Cinderella, every Little Mermaid and every Snow White has an inborn desire to belong to a powerful man: to the prince, to the future King, to the man who rules and conquers.

I live in the 21st century, but my genes were designed half a million years ago, and they haven't changed much. And so, there I was. My time had come. I was a young female who was old enough to serve and please a powerful man. I had been called to pass a test. He would either accept me or reject me.

I felt nervous and anxious, just like every woman who has to undergo some kind of coming-of-age ritual. In 19th century New York's society it was a debutantes' ball. In the 21st century many would say that a similar ritual is high school graduation.

I had an intense feeling that I was passing a very old - ice age, or even older - ritual of a young woman being accepted into the world of adults. It wasn't the ball and it wasn't the exams. My acceptance ritual was different. I had to show my obedience and willingness to serve the leader of my tribe - to the warlord, to the duke, to king Solomon, who had 700 wives and 300 concubines. Was I worthy to be one of them? Would he accept me or would he reject me? My acceptance ritual was happening right then and there.

So I tried my best. I played with him. I petted him. I stroked him up and down, up and down.

I heard Oliver's voice squeaking like hinges, and I was pleased and proud that I was doing well - that my king accepted and appreciated my offering. His scepter was big in my hand, vibrant, full of power and authority, and it seemed to be talking to me in a mystical, ancient language. I wanted to worship that symbol of male authority. I wanted to feel humble and small before it, as if I were entering a majestic temple. I wanted to fall down on my knees, bend my head down and kiss it like it were the feet of an ancient, wrathful god - as if my very life depended upon whether I would please him or not.

Then - suddenly, without any warning - the penis squirted in my palm. I felt something hot smearing all over my hand.

I was overwhelmed with the peculiar understanding that that was actually the moment that I became a woman.

Before that, I'd had sex with two guys, but at that moment, in perspective, that did not count. Not at all! It had been just a roleplay, like playing with dolls. Getting a boyfriend and losing my virginity to him - that was just a thing that girls at a certain age should do. They have to do it, because otherwise they would be ridiculed by peers and feel inadequate. So, I had done it too. It hadn't felt like it was anything exceptional, or, as a matter of fact, pleasant. Sex with guys in high school had just been a game. It did not matter, because they hadn't had the necessary authority to make me a woman.

This night felt completely different. Here I was - my hand still holding it, wet and sticky. I had been admitted to the temple, I had been allowed to worship the God of the Male Power, and I had been accepted as a novitiate.

That meant that everything had changed. From that moment on, the powerful man became my King. If I had been a wolf, he would have been the alpha of my pack. No, he would have been more than that. He would have been my everything - my alpha and omega.

I became his bitch.

"I would like to have sex with you, Oliver, " I whispered very quietly, embarrassed to hear my own words. "I would do anything for you. I would do anything that you like".