The Wolf-Girl Finds Her Teeth
Introduction
Hello everyone,I hope you're all well - and I hope you have an open mind. Today's post is something I had to write. And I know I say that a lot.The Standford rape case has been in my mind since it was publicised. The victim's statement was one of the most powerful things I've read this year, and I wanted to take the time to write something for the woman involved.There is so much to be said about rape and rape culture that I didn't know how to organise the clouds of thought in my mind. So I do what I always do, I wrote.Because she's a star. Simple as.(This is fiction writing, as opposed to blog-writing.)
The Wolf-Girl Finds Her Teeth
The girl thought it was easier to become a wolf.In her mind’s eye, she could almost see the fur burst from the follicles on her arms. It was matted, grey and coarse. Maybe the fur would act as a buffer against that cold that seemed to enter her bloodstream the moment he had entered her. The cold was enough to make her veins freeze.But that would never happen to a wolf.No, she decided, life would be much warmer as a wolf. Outside was cold after all. She had learned that all too well when her long, bare legs had touched the tarmac on the backstreet outside the apartment.Wolves do well in packs, but I sure didn’t, the girl thinks to herself. The party had too many people. Far too many warm, sticky bodies pushed together. The girl was not a wolf-girl at the party, but just a slip of a human girl.She had not yet discovered her teeth when the man-boy approached her.He was a lot of things rolled into one, this man-boy. He was the cloud of cigarette smoke and the stench of stale beer. But he was also a bear with mammoth claws that came in the form of a swift hand and the creeping effects of an assured drink.His claws and sweet-snake smile led her into the cave of Supposed ‘Dreams’.But the cave wasn’t as warm as the girl thought! No, it was not cosy. She felt silly for being smaller than the touch of a bear that viewed himself under a magnifying glass - larger and grander and greater than all of the stars in the universe combined and combusted again to form the galaxy.Their dance was ugly. It was dragging because the wolf girl was not yet born and she had no claws that were sharp enough to make a difference as he took everything she was or may have been with his thrusts.She was forced to be reborn because she endured an attack of a bear in the costume of a man-boy. A costume that she knows FULL WELL (because girls always have to know things full well!!!!!) that, not every man wears.But the bear and the wolf-girl dance didn’t last long by the bear’s standards. The wolf girl now knows that any length is too long and any touch is worth a bucket of caustic acid to burn away.But she was reborn without choice.Opening her eyes in that cave, eyes like fire, the girl grew fur and teeth long enough to do damage to the great and grand. She took a moment. She flexed with the newfound strength that the word ‘survivor’ gave her after she was forced to swallow it like her dinnertime vitamins.Wolf-girl found her legs and the ability to stand. At first, she was shaky as a newborn fawn.But one does not need impeccable balance to tear to throat out of a man-boy who has shed every costume in his arsenal to reveal the truth.The man-mouse is swallowed in one go.The wolf-girl does not think it tastes very good. Bad dancer, cruel actor, and a bad tasting meal. The man-boy was showing his colours in the dark cave.The wolf-girl smoothened her fur with an affectionate touch.She walked away to the edge of the cave. The sky was littered with the same stars as it had been before she was reborn.It occurred to her how she had unleashed the constellations within her by choosing to live with the knowledge this night. If she were to tear open a frozen vein she would be able to see the Andromeda skies winking at her and calling her home. Each dotted star was a confirmation of her truth;She had not been born to be a reluctant symbol to a cause, but a comet in a dark sky with its own purpose. With her light, she taught other wolves to howl to the moon until it shook with an undeniable truth.Yes, the wolf-girl walked away from the cave of Supposed 'Dreams' and met a pack of wolves just like her.She found she was no longer cold.
Write soon,Jennifer x
