Title: Give Me No Truth
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Rating: R
Story Type: Short short story
Warnings: sexuality, transformation
Warnings: sexuality, transformation
Word count: 1,606
Summary: Mikhail tells who he really is, what he really is, and that truth is frightening.Secrets are bound to come out if you stay with someone long enough. A relationship is supposed to be about truths and learning those truths about the one that you're growing to love. I've never liked liars, and while I was glad that he trusted me, that he cared enough for me and my well-being to not only tell me, but show me the truth, I wished that he'd kept his big mouth shut. Hell, part of me wished that he'd never walked back into my store, back to the counter, back to me.
I remember asking Mikhail how old he was, once. His eyes had a depth to them that told me that he had seen things, done things, known things that had made him old. He was Russian, born in Siberia, transplanted to Moscow, thrown into Chechnya. Of course, he had seen things. I just wondered how much that he'd seen. He told me that he was positively ancient, much to old for a young girl such as me. That wasn't really an answer, but I learned later that it was the truth.
Once, I asked him how his hair was so silky all the time, even when I saw that he didn't deep condition. He wasn't a metrosexual. He didn't spend hours in front of the mirror. He ran a comb through hair as fine as the small trail down the center of his chest, and then he was gone. He told me that his hair had been trained to look lustrous as a Siberian huskies fur coat. Again, not exactly an answer, but much later, it was the truth.
Truths are... They are horrible, wretched things that can punch you in the stomach. "I stay nowhere very long," Mikhail told me, his words curling with his accent, an accent very slight most of the time, but when he was serious, could be so heavy that I couldn't understand what he was saying. "This is longest I have been anywhere."
A curious truth, because he'd only been in town about four or five months. How could one possibly move around that much and not go insane? Even military brats had more roots than Mikhail.
"I will have to leave again, I am thinking." His head was bowed. The room was dark, but his bare skin seemed to glow. I could close my eyes and still see him, his bright, glistening form burned into my retinas. His hair was shaggy and hanging around his face. "I have tell you truth," he said, avoiding my eyes, looking to the floor, "and any more truth will be unbelievable."
He made no sense. The entire situation made no sense. We were so close to our last session of lovemaking that I could still feel him, impossibly large, inside of me. I could still feel that furry line up the middle of his chest brushing against me as he pressed our bodies together. The scent of sex was still in the room, and he was talking about leaving. What the hell was wrong with him?
"Then lie to me," I said with a shrug. I wasn't exactly feeling this particular conversation. Were I further removed from the sex, I might have been thinking clearly enough to say something else. Looking at him, now, I was already starting to rethink that.
"I can not lie to you." His eyes finally turned up to me, and I gasped. The whites of his eyes were now yellow. His eyes were more than almond shaped. They were drawn so tight across his face that I thought it had to have hurt him. "You must know truth, and then with truth, I will leave you."
"I don't--" He might have well been speaking Russian while I was given Cyrillic subtitles. I had no idea what he was saying. Was his truth so bad that it would make me hate him?
"It will make you fear me," he said, as though he could read my mind. Tears were falling from his yellow eyes, and I had to admit that I was al ittle bit afraid. His eyes... How could his eyes do that? That wasn't... Well, it wasn't human.
"Mikhail, please."
He backed away from me, and his body seemed to glow even more. I wanted to go to him, to wrap my naked body around his and pretend that the last few minutes hadn't happened. But, there was a part of me that really was afraid, that kept saying, He's not human. Damn the truth. It did nothing but hurt, obviously. I should get used to hearing lies, because those are always so much sweeter.
Mikhail opened the shades wide enough to let the bright three-quarter moon shine in. He seemed not to care that someone might be able to see inside. That someone would see him naked, standing in the middle of the room.
But, then, he wasn't standing. He was crouching and his back bowed. He threw his head up and looked at me with those bright, shining yellow eyes and I wanted to bolt from the room. The part of me that still held on to childhood, to all of those things that my adult mind said were impossible, knew what was about to happen, and my adult mind didn't want to see it. I was frozen to the bed, though, and had no choice.
His face started first, and it looked painful. I always said that no human being could withstand the pain of that transformation and yet, it was happening before my eyes. His nose and mouth elongated, turning into a snout. I could hear the cracking of his facial bones as they broke, then reknit into new places.
It was worse when the rest of his body started to change. The breaking of bones was loud and made my stomach churn. I kept waiting for him to cry out, to scream against all the pain, but he said nothing. He just looked at me with those big wolf eyes, waiting, probably, for me to scream. For me to beg him to stop. I would have, if I could have found my voice. I would have put my hands to my ears and begged him to lie to me.
The fur came last. I expected it to explode out of his skin, to be as painful as the rest of it, but the fur just flowed out of him. It was like watching hair grow in fast forward. It grew longer and longer, blacker and blacker, until his body was covered in the same shaggy hair that was on his head.
I sat there, staring at a wolf where my boyfriend used to crouch, and I didn't know what to do. My body, however, was no longer as frozen as my mind. I wanted to stay on the bed, to cower beneath the covers, but my body wanted to go to him. My hand wanted to touch him.
His breath was hot against my bare legs as he panted. I looked down into his eyes as I plunged both hands into his fur. It felt exactly like the hair that I had often run my fingers through. What was this insanity? What was this truth that he showed me before he ran away, moved somewhere else, and left me to think that I was crazy. How could this be?
Without even thinking about it, I buried my face into his fur. It smelled like him, like the man that had just alternately fucked me and made love to me. It smelled like the man that let me cower into his shoulder when we watched horror movies. It smelled like the man that ate whatever I cooked for him, even when I totally screwed the recipe. It smelled like Mikhail. This wolf the size of which I'd never seen before, larger than anything on Animal Planet, was Mikhail Petrenko.
I felt him changing back as I held onto him, and I kept my eyes closed. I felt the hair receding until there was only skin against my skin. I felt his face return to normal, the snout retracting in until it was just Mikhail's face resting against the inside of my arm. I dared to open my eyes, dared to look at him, and his eyes were now a man's, a man tired and weak and unable to do anything but lie there.
His chest heaved, and his mouth moved. He was trying to speak, and I didn't want him to say anything. I didn't want to hear anything else because it was too close to witnessing a hallucination of massive proportions. "Cursed," he said, and I had to strain to hear him, his accent was so thick. He pronounced the word in two syllables, so that it sounded an old, ancient kind of speech. "Curs-ed," he said, "for the last four hundred years, and curs-ed until eternity. This is truth. This is why I leave. This is why..."
I put my hand over his mouth. "Stop," I said. "I don't want to hear anymore."
He was weak, but strong enough to move my hand. "They come for me, they come for you. This is truth."
"Yeah, well, I've had just about enough of your truth, so just start lying to me." I should have left him on the floor and gone back to bed. I should have taken a shower and washed the insanity off of me. Instead, though, I stayed there cradling his head and said, "Just lie to me for the rest of the night."
I remember asking Mikhail how old he was, once. His eyes had a depth to them that told me that he had seen things, done things, known things that had made him old. He was Russian, born in Siberia, transplanted to Moscow, thrown into Chechnya. Of course, he had seen things. I just wondered how much that he'd seen. He told me that he was positively ancient, much to old for a young girl such as me. That wasn't really an answer, but I learned later that it was the truth.
Once, I asked him how his hair was so silky all the time, even when I saw that he didn't deep condition. He wasn't a metrosexual. He didn't spend hours in front of the mirror. He ran a comb through hair as fine as the small trail down the center of his chest, and then he was gone. He told me that his hair had been trained to look lustrous as a Siberian huskies fur coat. Again, not exactly an answer, but much later, it was the truth.
Truths are... They are horrible, wretched things that can punch you in the stomach. "I stay nowhere very long," Mikhail told me, his words curling with his accent, an accent very slight most of the time, but when he was serious, could be so heavy that I couldn't understand what he was saying. "This is longest I have been anywhere."
A curious truth, because he'd only been in town about four or five months. How could one possibly move around that much and not go insane? Even military brats had more roots than Mikhail.
"I will have to leave again, I am thinking." His head was bowed. The room was dark, but his bare skin seemed to glow. I could close my eyes and still see him, his bright, glistening form burned into my retinas. His hair was shaggy and hanging around his face. "I have tell you truth," he said, avoiding my eyes, looking to the floor, "and any more truth will be unbelievable."
He made no sense. The entire situation made no sense. We were so close to our last session of lovemaking that I could still feel him, impossibly large, inside of me. I could still feel that furry line up the middle of his chest brushing against me as he pressed our bodies together. The scent of sex was still in the room, and he was talking about leaving. What the hell was wrong with him?
"Then lie to me," I said with a shrug. I wasn't exactly feeling this particular conversation. Were I further removed from the sex, I might have been thinking clearly enough to say something else. Looking at him, now, I was already starting to rethink that.
"I can not lie to you." His eyes finally turned up to me, and I gasped. The whites of his eyes were now yellow. His eyes were more than almond shaped. They were drawn so tight across his face that I thought it had to have hurt him. "You must know truth, and then with truth, I will leave you."
"I don't--" He might have well been speaking Russian while I was given Cyrillic subtitles. I had no idea what he was saying. Was his truth so bad that it would make me hate him?
"It will make you fear me," he said, as though he could read my mind. Tears were falling from his yellow eyes, and I had to admit that I was al ittle bit afraid. His eyes... How could his eyes do that? That wasn't... Well, it wasn't human.
"Mikhail, please."
He backed away from me, and his body seemed to glow even more. I wanted to go to him, to wrap my naked body around his and pretend that the last few minutes hadn't happened. But, there was a part of me that really was afraid, that kept saying, He's not human. Damn the truth. It did nothing but hurt, obviously. I should get used to hearing lies, because those are always so much sweeter.
Mikhail opened the shades wide enough to let the bright three-quarter moon shine in. He seemed not to care that someone might be able to see inside. That someone would see him naked, standing in the middle of the room.
But, then, he wasn't standing. He was crouching and his back bowed. He threw his head up and looked at me with those bright, shining yellow eyes and I wanted to bolt from the room. The part of me that still held on to childhood, to all of those things that my adult mind said were impossible, knew what was about to happen, and my adult mind didn't want to see it. I was frozen to the bed, though, and had no choice.
His face started first, and it looked painful. I always said that no human being could withstand the pain of that transformation and yet, it was happening before my eyes. His nose and mouth elongated, turning into a snout. I could hear the cracking of his facial bones as they broke, then reknit into new places.
It was worse when the rest of his body started to change. The breaking of bones was loud and made my stomach churn. I kept waiting for him to cry out, to scream against all the pain, but he said nothing. He just looked at me with those big wolf eyes, waiting, probably, for me to scream. For me to beg him to stop. I would have, if I could have found my voice. I would have put my hands to my ears and begged him to lie to me.
The fur came last. I expected it to explode out of his skin, to be as painful as the rest of it, but the fur just flowed out of him. It was like watching hair grow in fast forward. It grew longer and longer, blacker and blacker, until his body was covered in the same shaggy hair that was on his head.
I sat there, staring at a wolf where my boyfriend used to crouch, and I didn't know what to do. My body, however, was no longer as frozen as my mind. I wanted to stay on the bed, to cower beneath the covers, but my body wanted to go to him. My hand wanted to touch him.
His breath was hot against my bare legs as he panted. I looked down into his eyes as I plunged both hands into his fur. It felt exactly like the hair that I had often run my fingers through. What was this insanity? What was this truth that he showed me before he ran away, moved somewhere else, and left me to think that I was crazy. How could this be?
Without even thinking about it, I buried my face into his fur. It smelled like him, like the man that had just alternately fucked me and made love to me. It smelled like the man that let me cower into his shoulder when we watched horror movies. It smelled like the man that ate whatever I cooked for him, even when I totally screwed the recipe. It smelled like Mikhail. This wolf the size of which I'd never seen before, larger than anything on Animal Planet, was Mikhail Petrenko.
I felt him changing back as I held onto him, and I kept my eyes closed. I felt the hair receding until there was only skin against my skin. I felt his face return to normal, the snout retracting in until it was just Mikhail's face resting against the inside of my arm. I dared to open my eyes, dared to look at him, and his eyes were now a man's, a man tired and weak and unable to do anything but lie there.
His chest heaved, and his mouth moved. He was trying to speak, and I didn't want him to say anything. I didn't want to hear anything else because it was too close to witnessing a hallucination of massive proportions. "Cursed," he said, and I had to strain to hear him, his accent was so thick. He pronounced the word in two syllables, so that it sounded an old, ancient kind of speech. "Curs-ed," he said, "for the last four hundred years, and curs-ed until eternity. This is truth. This is why I leave. This is why..."
I put my hand over his mouth. "Stop," I said. "I don't want to hear anymore."
He was weak, but strong enough to move my hand. "They come for me, they come for you. This is truth."
"Yeah, well, I've had just about enough of your truth, so just start lying to me." I should have left him on the floor and gone back to bed. I should have taken a shower and washed the insanity off of me. Instead, though, I stayed there cradling his head and said, "Just lie to me for the rest of the night."
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