The full moon shined down upon me in the humble back alley I currently occupied. It is beautiful in its austere, cold manner, but a full moon on a warm Friday night only serves to bring me dread. Looking up at the night sky, I see other celestial bodies dancing in the heavens alongside Luna: namely, the first and second planets of our solar system. I lean back against the crumbling brick wall of the warehouse that is my place of employment, desperately attempting to delay what I know is inevitable on an eve such as this. For even a man who is pure at heart—“giggle I love those shoes!” I hear a short distance from me—and says his prayers by night—the fate of these young ladies will soon be upon my hands—may turn into a Wolf as Venus rises—“Hey baby, you’re looking good!” a handsome young gallant says to his belle, and the autumn moon shines bright—I try to avert my gaze, but the object of all this attention soon walks by the mouth of my alley. She is petite, but voluptuous, with feathered blond hair, a winning smile, and curves in all the right places. Unleash the beast, mack! “Forgive me…” I whisper, as much to myself as to these young lovers, as the transformation abruptly begins.

I hear myself snarling, as the ego and superego are shunted to the back of my mind, and the id takes over. I feel the frontal bone of my skull stretching forward, sending sparks of the deepest agony through my entire face. Fur bristles and sprouts through every inch of my skin. Sharp teeth and a long tongue erupt from my mouth. A red velvet suit rips itself out of my chest, my back, my legs, wrapping itself around me. Yet, I feel no pain. I am powerless to stop the pocket square and the pocket watch spontaneously generating in my flesh-jacket. No…it’s his jacket. I am powerless to control my legs becoming his legs, boppin’ and jitterbuggin’ in every direction of the compass rose. The ears of the rabid canine stand at full erection, the taps of his wing-tips hit the pavement, and a cigarette holder finds itself between the fingers of my licentious paws. The beast within me has become unleashed, and to the moon he howls: “AHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOGAAAAAAAAAAH!”

Feast your eyes, hepcats, it’s the Big Bad Wolf! Rev myself up, crank that leg back, and the stallion crosses the starting line! He takes off in a sprint, impossibly fast, so fast that not only does he catch up to the blond and her beau, he skids about 10 feet in front of them. “Oh my god!” she shrieks, and I don’t blame her. Who could resist this hunk of lupine lust? I desperately want to tell her that I have no desire to hurt her, but there is nothing I can do: she cannot hear my voice. He has taken over. “Hey, little lady,” I says with a smile, lazily turning my pocket watch. “Why don’t you ditch the zero and get with a hero?” “Back off, freak!” her man shouts defiantly, shoving the Beast away. “Well, aren’t you a big boy?” Trapped helplessly inside my own mind, watching as he controls my body, I can only wince at what I know will happen. It looks like me and Cary Grant here are gonna dance. So what if he’s a strapping, well-groomed youth, with piercing blue eyes and raven hair? The Wolf doesn’t put his fists up, or send his dominant foot back. I, of course, begin this battle with a gentleman’s formality: honk honk, there goes the boutonnière, and the spritz to the face with water. “…The hell?” the young man says, and his beloved shrugs her dainty little shoulders. No love for the classics, I guess…but I hate critics! The Wolf, without changing his facial expression, suddenly lunges forward and delivers a punch square to the center of the man’s face, caving in the frontal bone of his skull and leaving a paw-shaped indent four inches deep. “Oh, ya musta been a beautiful baybeeee!”

“Oh…you…you…” the terrified young woman stammers, backing up from him, from me. She instantly begins sprinting, and I find myself following her. I find myself ahead of her, somehow: just as planned! Wham, there goes the bridal carry, I don’t give a damn what the Hays Commission says about following Newtonian physics! “Going home so soon?” I advance, licking my lips a bit (hey, I’m…starving). “Y’know, I’ve caught ya, but I didn’t catch your name…” he growls with monstrous sexuality. Her eyes are full of terror desire, fool! “Pucker up, buttercup!” says I, eager to make beautiful music with her. She reflexively thumbs him in the eye, sets her feet down, and delivers a kick to the groin. She and the other girls run, faster than they ever knew they could run. boioioioioioioiong, and I’m stiffened by this injury. I wait a few seconds to quit singing soprano, wait for wubwubwub, audibly representing my pain, to go away, and one thing is racing through my mind: “IIIIIIIII…LIKE IT!”

And the hour of advances has passed. The object of his lust has gone away. We look up at the moon: it retains its frigid beauty. It is under this light that my pelt recedes, and my suit disappears. I find myself yet again standing under the pale polar star, with tattered rags on my body and blood on my hands. This is erotic lycanthropy. This is the cross I must bear…that, and the repeated testicle injuries.

Saturday and Sunday night, I have respite from my work. I spend it as I do every moment of free time I have:desperately searching for succor from my curse. A pile of books on lycanthropy graces one corner of my desk, one of the few accoutrements my threadbare room has, beyond a chest of drawers and a bed. It is not a place of glamour, my current lodgings, but it is near my place of employment, and the landlord demands a meager rent and asks no questions about the…installations I’ve made.

Damn it all, none of the symptoms described in these books are like my ailment! “The full moon or a demon’s gift?” I made no deal with the denizens of the abyss! I can gaze upon the light of the moon in tranquility! Can I be the only man who has heard the siren call of the beast when gazing upon soft, warm, feminine flesh? And only in this situation, so pleasurable to other men…it has occurred ever since I was but twelve and discovering the beauty of womanhood for the first time. No chance to finish my education, no hope to truly know the thrill of a woman’s touch, with a gentle intelligence to savor it. How lucky other men are!

I turn to my computer, entering another futile search for a cure. Risky business, that. “Erotic lycanthropy” as a search term conjures up tens of thousands of images, and there was the off-chance that one of them might, someday, be arousing to me. Nothing. The warm breeze of an Indian summer blows through my drapes. Suddenly, I hear a noise I have come to dread: the double-time tapping of stiletto heels. I can tell from the rhythm of her steps that she must be at least fairly presentable, or rather presentable to the eyes of other men. Never my own. A warm Saturday evening: why wouldn’t she be out and about? I feel the blood coursing through my veins faster. She begins talking to…somebody. A lovely mezzo-soprano voice she has. The carotid artery and jugular vein bulge out of my neck, OOH, BABY, that’s what I like! and I begin my mad dash to the window—I am suddenly caught by the industrial chain embedded in my concrete wall and wrapped around my waist. I dig the balls of my feet into my unvarnished wood floor, trying to gain ground. It is a futile fight. A snarl is caught in my throat, slightly choking upon it…and the unseen nymph passes by. I collapse upon my floor, exhausted. Steps go by all throughout the night. I have no interest.

Time and again, I have spoken to doctors and medical researchers. None have a cure. I must control this savage, this brute, within me. What other chance do I have? Let me paint the town red, Lord Falderal! The frails want me, they need me! I grit my teeth, and force him to quiet himself for the time being. Long enough to get to sleep.

My labors the next day were the same as always: loading things into pallets. I paid most of my attention to the forklift I was driving, only hearing snippets of my co-workers’ conversation. “What are you doing tonight, Biff?” “Well, you know, the college is doing that Greek Week, or whatever. I was thinking I’d pay the sorority girls a visit.” They laugh with amiable lechery, and I narrowly avoid losing control of my forklift. How did this bane of my existence slip my mind?! Oh, I’m going to show these biddies an evening they will absolutely never forget. “SHUT UP!” “…You alright, Slim?” I feel myself sweating. “Yeah…my apologies.”

The workday ends, and as I punch out, I can only pray that I can make it home. It’s just a few blocks away. Damnation: I have to turn off my forklift. I suddenly hear the voices of young ladies coming around the corner. “It was a real pain in the ass to get the preparations done, but here we are!” Stay away! “We have a whole group of incoming freshman girls pledging us.” Come to me, honey, you know what daddy likes. Don’t come any closer! “Do you all think this dress looks okay? I dunno, I feel like…it doesn’t leave much to the imagination”. All the goods are poppin’ out? I hear the Wolf, cackling with the deepest perversions of amour. I pray these women don’t round the corner, walking to the outskirts of the university. If they cross that threshold…

These three lovely angels walk into my field of vision. One is fair, one is swarthy, and one hails from the mysterious East. All vary in height and figure, but they are all shapely, and all are utterly embraceable. Damn their pulchritude! I feel the beast tearing at his bindings. I see what I am going to be doing in short order. I hear the Roaring Twenties-era automobile horn, the battle cry of unrestrained libido. I look down at my arms: no! The white tuxedo, with cufflinks, is sprouting from my flesh. The bow tie, the chrysanthemum in my buttonhole…the beast hasn’t been this strong in years. The forklift! How, HOW, is it transforming as it is? The grill, the chassis, everything extends forward—Well, I couldn’t show up driving this thing! Man’s gotta know when to make an entrance, dig? My hands slowly become his hands, turning the keys of the transmogrified forklift, and the Wild Hunt begins…it begins with a whistle of two tones.

Naturally, I take the Studebaker Sexarossa for a spin; it’s been a while since I’ve gotten behind the wheel. But hey, I’m an old hand at it. And that’s pretty good when you’ve got these paws! Wakka wakka! Just a little evening drive, yes sir. He floors the pedal, driving over sidewalks, scattering pedestrians, and brings the screeching machine THROUGH the walls of the mixer where all of the Greek organizations were currently congregating. “Hey good lookin’…I’m HOME!” I say with all the charm I can muster (it’s a lot). The women all scream and start running away from my ride, which is natural for them: if I were them, I’d want to back up and get a panoramic look at me, too. I disembark from my ride, doing a Charleston step along its chassis before jumping down. I light up the cigarette in my holder, and give a long scan to the beauties before me. You look at young maidens as if they were cuts of meat. Have you no shame? Literal and figurative cur! “SHADDUP!” I tell the melvin inside my head, before realizing that I’ve made a bit of a fool of myself. No worries, I’ll get this party started right. I make my way to the side of a pretty little redhead; look at her, wide-eyed and sweating. She just can’t get enough of me. Over her head, I see a raven-haired beauty emerging from another room. I suavely push the redhead through a credenza, and I find my body stiffening and floating in the air. My eyes pop out and stand fully erect, before retracting back into their sockets. I take to my feet again and find myself skidding in front of the black-haired woman. I take her hand and cover it in kisses, then I give it a nice long lick, just to make my affections a little clearer. You are absolutely repugnant. She tries to back away, and I pull her back towards me, spinning her delectably around.

In his solipsism, he fails to see the people running in terror from the slobbering mad beast that has entered their midst. A man grabs a nearby fire poker and swings it with all the force of his thews. Impossibly, the poker crumbles to dust upon the Wolf’s head. Wolf continues to court the woman. The man is so terrified of this that he immediately leaves the house.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see a gaggle of frails that truly have It. “Ladies, ladies, rest assured: I will be bringing ALL of you back to the kasbah.” The women recoil in fear. “But the only question I have is: which of you chicks will be ‘taming the beast’ first? Or do all of you just want to do things on the shag?”

I hear sirens behind me. Cripes, the bulls! I have no doubt they’ve come to apprehend me for the life I snuffed out this past Friday. “Excuse me for a second, Officer, I’ve gotta make a phone call.” He runs to the nearest telephone, slams the keypad with his paw and screams “HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALP!!!!!!!” An awkward moment passes, before the wolf willingly surrenders himself to the police. Perhaps even the id is capable of recognizing when it is time to lay down his arms. Or perhaps I have finally asserted control over the monster. “I don’t know what the hell you are,” the policeman says, “but you’re going to spend a very long time behind bars.” “Hey, just as long as I get three squares.” Can’t be any worse than my apartment! As I am removed from the objects of my desire, I feel my fur receding, the tuxedo dissolving, and the fetters of society reaffirming themselves. “…The hell?” I hear the driver of the car question. “This is my burden, sir. I am more than willing to spend my life in jail, so I cannot kill another man, so I cannot terrorize another woman.”

I am in a holding cell until my trial can begin. Perhaps it is for the best that I am in an all-male environment, where I can do no harm to anybody, man or woman. I languidly pace my jail cell, craning my head and scanning my eyes as far as they possibly can, when my eyes are suddenly drawn to the vintage Bettie Page calendar on the detective’s wall. I gritted my teeth, helplessly dreading the monster I would shortly become. I felt my jaw lengthening and narrowing, my teeth and hair growing, my plaid suit ripping through my flesh, becoming my flesh. My mind already sang that infernal siren’s call and I gave myself over to the brutal urge. Take a look at them gams! The pocket watch twirled itself into my licentious paw, and he overtook me once again. I had become…the wolf.