raised by wolves

The pause, the words, the look are imperceptible to everyone in the place but me, it seems, and the hollering only gets louder as the dance continues.

Finally stripped bare, Sophie stands and twirls herself around a metal pole jutting out of the stage. She moves like a feather, or like water, fluid, weightless. Sublime. And then, she’s grinning down the bar at me and she’s asking for a volunteer. The previously unseen emcee, a short man in an untucked button-up shirt and tie, hands her a mic and she says over the techno-garbage excuse for music: “I need a volunteer from the audience,” and her black-painted lips turn themselves up at the corners, pointed like a flick-knife.

“I need a volunteer from the audience who would like an experience that they will remember for the rest of their lives.”

She says it breathily, heavily, enticingly. She says it the way that makes you excited, and the way that lets you know she’s the one that will be calling the shots. The roar of the attendees reaches a feverish pitch. Sophie winks at me and walks once more to the end of the stage and on to the bar. Every man at the bar is clamoring for her attention, some of them even going so far as to stand up and wave their arms. She passes them all, one by one, looking them up and down, running her fingers through their hair as she passes, discarding them like spent napkins. A perverse game of duck-duck-goose. Then she comes to me, and it seems like I’m the goose. An image of a fried duck in a big black pot flashes through my mind. Her black-painted lips part to show a hint of pointed pearl, and a flash of pink tongue running over them like a slug sliding down a razor.

She picks the man sitting next to me.

She pulls him up, just a regular guy. Dark hair, collared shirt, khaki slacks. He’s had a few and his face is bright red. He can’t believe his luck. I know what’s happening now. I know this song and dance, and when I look over at Santiago, it’s clear he’s got a pretty good idea, too.

Sophie speaks again into the microphone:

“Tell me your name,” she asks the man. He answers: “David.”

“David, how do you feel, being here, seeing me at Rodrick’s for the last time ever?”

He stammers: “I uh uh uh I feel honored uh I guess?” like he’s asking permission.

Sophie smiles and puts her hand on his chest and guides him like a tugboat towards the metallic pole. “Very good, David. I’m glad you feel honored,” she says breathily, moving him slowly and gently, like one moving an antique chandelier. Once his back is to the pole, she slinks around him, never breaking contact, never taking her hand off of him. She pulls his hands behind his back, and he doesn’t protest even a little, just turns a darker shade of red.

“Now David, I’m going to ask you a personal question. And I want you to be honest with me. We’re all friends here, right? This won’t ever leave this room. Will you be honest?”

She puts the microphone up to his face, reaching around from behind him, pressing ever so slightly against his back, soft pink nipples on soft cotton fabric. I’m sure he can feel her. Darker and darker red.

He stammers that yes, he’ll be honest.

“David, do you like it rough?” she asks like a mousetrap flying shut. He falls to his knees then and cries out.

There’s blood pouring out of his neck, but the crowd never saw Sophie take the bite out of him. They’re too busy laughing to see Sophie spit out a piece of neck flesh. They haven’t seen the blood dripping down her chin and onto her naked chest.

The sound of grown men screaming in abject terror is one that is wholly unique. It never sounds the same twice, but it is always unmistakable and it will always bring a smile to my face.

Like lightning, quick, I leap to my feet. The sight of blood, the hiss of severed arteries, it dries my throat intolerably. The thirst. Hunger so abject, so hollowing, so complete, it nearly overwhelms me. It’s all I can do to rip out the neck of the man standing closest to me. The cascade of red flows through a dying gargle, a gasp of terror drowning quickly. The spray hits my face and I lick my lips and sink my teeth into the soft wet esophageal hole and drink. And drink. And drink.

I move onto the next one in short order. A distant corner of my cognizance registers the image of Sophie tossing aside her victim, the man David. Her lily-white skin has turned entirely ruby red. Only her black-painted lips, still smiling sinisterly, give any impression that she was ever any other color. She is beautiful in only the way a woman partaking in wholesale slaughter can ever be. And then she’s gone into the crowd, sending men flying in all directions, their windpipes dangling down their chests from torn necks. I follow suit, wading in like a buzz saw through a butcher shop.

Time passes as in a dream. Days go by as the showers of red turn into a pool at our feet. No one makes it out, though not for lack of trying. One courageous patron attempts to defend himself with a chair, only to have it placed firmly into his middle, impaling him on three of the four legs. I lift him up and open my mouth as blood pours out of him. I drink until my stomach hurts and all the screaming has stopped.

Sound and time and my senses shift back to working normally as the sound of a familiar belly laugh breaks into the silence like a burglar. It’s Santiago, covered in blood, the girls he had on his arms before now strewn about the floor, mangled, drained. He’s laughing.

“My god, Sergei,” he exclaims, motioning to the carnage around us. “I didn’t know you had such wonderful friends.”

He smiles a wide wolf-smile at Sophie, who is still naked and covered in blood. She smiles back, then turns to me and leaps clean across the room and into my arms. She kisses me, and I taste the blood of many on her lips.

“Sergei! I cannot believe it!” she says. “Where have you been all these years? It has been too long! And now, you show up here on this night of all nights! It is truly an auspicious sign.”

I want to ask what she’s talking about, but I’m distracted by the naked skin in my arms and the blood on my lips. Instead I say, “Sophie, this is my friend Santiago. Santiago—Sophie.”

They smile and nod approvingly of one another and Sophie daintily extends her blood-stained hand. They shake and Santiago says, “How do you do?” and, like a real asshole, bends and kisses her hand.

“Yes,” she says, looking down her arm at him. “You’re one of Sergei’s friends all right.”