A dazzling parade 20 feet high marched along the boulevard into the far distance.
LED street lights cut through the winter’s dark, a cold harsh glare against the deep sky.
The Man walked beneath them, a battered field jacket and scarf tightly wrapped about his face.
The wind’s biting edge revivified him and quickened his blood.
The first snowflakes after the day’s sudden rain shower caught his eye. For a brief space, he stood transfixed, watching them swirl in the currents washing between the buildings.
He was alone, although it was a Saturday night and this was a heavily-traveled thoroughfare for one of the country’s largest urban universities.
Though he hardly fit in among the traditional student body.
The Man had reached that point in life when he could host both acne and deepening lines upon his face.
He stopped at the glass front of a Starbucks and muttered to himself, “This used to be a used bookstore.”
A long-forgotten smell of dust and acrid old paper haunted his nose.
“Gone now.”
He went in anyways.
Starbucks hadn’t changed; the same smells of coffee, cinnamon, nutmeg, and sugar.
“Still, it isn’t Kiva Han.”
They still employed college girls, though.
“I’ll take a grande Americano.” He paused in thought. “Do you go to the university?”
The young woman behind the counter was a short, petite thing decked out in piercings and tattoos. Part of her hair was dyed neon blue; the other part was jet black to offset her fluorescent pale skin. She had the look of
a couple of scene girls he had dated in his youth.
She gave him a suspicious glance, but then her features softened.
She decided he was cute enough to talk to.
“Yeah, I’m majoring in pre-med. Why?”
He unfolded a color printout, an 8’ x 10” of a man his age. “I’m looking for an old friend of mine. his name is Mike, we lost touch years ago, and, well, recently I’ve reconnected with some mutuals and found out he hasn’t been doing well. After his father passed, he had a mental breakdown. We’re both alumni and he seems to like to be near campus. Maybe you’ve seen him around?”
She looked at the picture and knitted her eyebrows.
“Maaaaybe. He seems vaguely familiar, but all old dudes kind of look alike. Is he a professor or a TA?”
The man cringed inward.
“No; last anyone heard, he was a street vendor, had his own food cart.”
“I can’t remember. They banned street vendors over a year ago.”
“Okay,” he said, kicking himself in the ass for what probably came off as a lame come on. “Here’s my card, maybe show this,” he indicated the printout, “to some of your coworkers. Someone might recognize him. He has people who are worried about him.”
His thoughts upon gathering up his Americano and stepping out into the cold evening were at best she would show her shift-mates and hold onto the card for a few days.
Better than nothing.
For a minute, he stood on the sidewalk looking at his boots.
The sinking feeling in his gut was that pounding the pavement around campus and the surrounding student ghetto would yield better results.
He walked to the heart of the twelve city blocks of his alma mater.
Hard, modern brutalist buildings and ornate gothic structures arose on either side of him. He cut down Forbes Avenue until he reached Posvar Hall, an ugly squat poured concrete and limestone beast.
He looked at the entrance, then to the Cathedral of Learning in all its Gothic revival glory and sniffed the air to bring back memories.
He inhaled deeper, feeling that youthful vigor come back to him, deeper to pull in more memories fueled by the cold lake effect air, the fart smell of sewer gas and exhaust from Forbes and Fifth Avenues.
Then he set off into that tangle of glaring lights and omnipresent shadow.
***
Three hours later, the Man sat in a bar three blocks from campus: Gene’s Place. The décor was typical college dive bar: neon signs for Budweiser and Yuengling, wood paneling lining the walls, Steelers and Pitt Panthers memorabilia on the walls.
Smoking had been banned in bars years ago, but the Man could smell that musty old burnt tar odor underneath the yeast and bitter tang of pilsner.
Some was probably from his own chain smoking.
Here on this same seat, close to 20 years ago.
The bar was practically empty, a few guys hanging out like homies for life, a couple of co-eds trying to live it up, the usual show.
The Man thought of Mike hanging out here at this bar so long ago. Mike never quite seemed able to leave. The Man sat at the bar taking his time, one beer after another, letting that cold hard feeling steal over him. His ears were keen to each sound, boys letting out guffaws of laughter boisterous, the girls yelping in forced excitement. His eyes pierced the dim lighting, taking in the features of every soft soyboy and comely zoomerette.
But his nose was the greatest offender. It could pick up the hormonal drives: fear, frustration, desperation, lust, loneliness, uncertainty: it was all there, drifting on the air fainter than the nearly decade old ghost smell of cigarettes.
Unlike everyone else, the Man avoided pulling out his phone and whiling away the time like most millennials—and now zoomers—do.
He sat and contemplated, taking it all in.
A young Tara Reid lookalike, ample in that pleasantly curvy way, blonde, high-waisted mom jeans cut just right to emphasize her butt and hips, cast the occasional sly glances his way.
In between yakking it up with her girls—a quick flick of the eye, a disjointed smile not in time with her friends’ outbursts of laughter—she was drinking beer, working up courage.
He brushed it off to settle into more thinking.
“Mike, Mike, Mike,” the Man muttered under his breath, “how the fuck did we get here from there? Where did the years go?” And to answer his question, the Man looked at his beer and chugged the last third down, holding up a finger for another.
When the Tara double snuck another look at the Man, he shot her a wry smile and raised his eyebrows.
Tara broke from her friends and approached the bar next to him, her eyes the same icy blue as her namesake.
“Hey Donny, I’ll take another grapefruit White Claw.”
While she waited, she turned to the Man and said, “Hi! I like your coat,” in a chipper voice as if it were just happenstance.
The fruity booze smell tickled his nose.
“Thanks, I like your halter top,” he said, making a not-too-subtle glance down its deep, plunging neckline framing the orbs of her breasts.
She paused, pursing her lips. “You seem too old to be in this place.”
The Man cocked an eyebrow. “I know you have to be 21 to get in, but I don’t think there is an age cap.”
“You’re funny. I’m Diana, by the way,” Tara’s doppleganger said. The Man said a name in response.
She shifted her hips closer to him. “I’m studying sociology.”
He squared his broad shoulders in response. “I got my undergrad in business accounting.”
The man lowered a foot to the floor and turned to face her as she pulled a stool close to him and sat down.
“How is that?”
“Mind numbing.”
“I bet.”
She smiled. Her white teeth dimmed, her sparkling eyes a little.
Her eyes batted at him. She turned her gaze upwards in that “fuck me, daddy” look. A coy upturn of the corners of her mouth punctuated the expression.
“You want to get out of here?” the Man asked.
She bit her lower lip softly. “That’s a bit fast and it’s still early.”
“It’s a slow night, the weather has everyone inside, and I doubt you came over here to jaw to some old dude.”
“Say I want to; where you want to go?” She giggled.
“How about a walk through the park,” he paused in a smart ass smirk, “then to your place?”
“What’s wrong with yours?”
“I live an hour’s drive away and have an obnoxious roommate.”
She drew her shoulders back in a slight huff. “I don’t see a ring. Your girlfriend or boyfriend?”
“Do you really care? If you’re embarrassed to be seen getting it on with an ‘old’ guy, I could get us a hotel. There shouldn’t be a lot of people this time of the week, no neighbors to complain.”
“That confident, hmmm. Sounds hot and sleazy, but I have an apartment all to myself,” she leaned towards him, giving the Man another good long view at her tits, “with plenty of condoms to go around.” She winked and licked her lips.
“I guess you don’t care.”
“No. Let me say ‘bye’ to my girlfriends.”
“Sure they don’t want to come along and join in?”
She gave him a playful shove. “Don’t be a creepy old man.”
“Never hurts to ask.”
“A minute, then we can go.”
He took his time putting on his coat as she came bouncing back to his side.
***
Outside, the winter storm front whipped up a bitter wind to chill to the bone. Under the streetlamps, Diana/Tara’s eyes glittered.
They talked as they walked.
The Man had no problems anymore in engaging in pre-fuck meaningless banter.
She produced a vape pen from inside her coat and took a deep hit.
The Man watched the lights cast rainbows through her misty exhalations.
“THC resin. Want a hit?”
“Sure.”
She was gearing up to be horny. The Man took a long draw. The pen was warm from her her mouth, her tits, a warmth he wanted on his tongue licking up the salty sweat from her skin, digging his teeth into her firm nubile flesh.
His pants became uncomfortably tight.
Her scent, a mixture of adrenalin, endorphines, estrogen, and progesterone, filled his nose.
“Let’s stroll through Schenley Park,” he said, taking her delicate little hand in his paw.
She squeezed his hand back tight. “Sure. I live on the other side of the Boulevard of the Allies.”
In the dark wilderness of shadows, he slipped his hand down to her ass and gave it a firm squeeze. She let out a yelp and a giggle that he answered with a throaty growl.
He seized her neck and kissed her, jamming his tongue down her throat.
The Man cast a quick look around and said, “Playground is right over the hill.”
“I know where it is.” She took his hand leading him. “So fucking naughty.”
Into the slide complex hidden in the connecting walkways she pulled the Man on top of her in a frenetic embrace. She vapor-locked her mouth to his. Cold numb hands sought warmth. Hers reaching into his pants past his belt buckle, nimble delicate icy fingers caressing his cock, his balls. In a play back in and forth, they worked each other until she unfastened his belt. He knelt over her, jerking off her jeans leaving Diana naked from the waist down except for her socks and docs.
“Fuck!” she yelped. “It’s cold, daddy, you better fuck me warm.”
The Man shed his pants, then his coat, shirt, underwear, and last his socks and boots until he was naked under the starlight.
In the half-light that penetrated into the playground, Diana could make out the man’s rough thewed build, an economy of muscle spare of fat.
Wide-eyed she yelped, “Oh my God! This is sooo fucking wild.”
Face first, he sucked hard at her hot mound, soaking her panties until he tore them away with his teeth.
He plunged in raw. Her sugar walls gripped tight as the Man forced his way deep inside, pinning Diana’s ankles behind her ears.
She pulled him tighter into her embrace; he released his hold on her legs and she wrapped them tight around his pelvis.
Better than anything he had his whole adult life, even once he hit his stride.
Better than the loose floppy flaps of reformed coalburners.
Better than the hard put on act of girls facing the big “three-oh.”
Better than the forced moans of desperate tramps hitting 35.
Better than the sweaty grapplings of pathetic fat loser bitches.
Better than giving unstable burn out sluts their love drug.
Finally, a piece of free wild willing nubile cunt raw.
Only fear ever held him back. Fear that pounded him raw in the ass.
He didn’t slow, stop, or withdraw; savage nature and violent fecundity seized control.
He grew harder and larger inside her until he blew a juicy monster load inside Diana.
He withdrew from her, panting high on post-nut clarity.
Sitting, naked, covered in sweat, knees pulled up to his chest in contemplation.
A massive muscle pump surged through him.
Diana shimmied back into her mom jeans and smiled. “Uwu! That was the best quickie ever.” She wrapped her hand around his slick still erect cock and gently squeezed. “Let’s get back to my place and you can do me all night.”
Diana kissed his muscular arms and shoulders.
The Man gathered up his clothes and boots, piling them into Diana’s arms. “No, I feel—I need to do something.”
She followed, nonplussed. “What? Now?”
“Take my clothes back to your apartment and leave the front door unlocked.”
He unfolded himself, joints popping in the cold.
“Are you crazy? Like really crazy?”
He loomed over her. A flame glowed in his shadowed eyes. He took her chin in his hand, forcing her to look up into his face. Growling he said, “Listen, little girl: take my clothes to your apartment. Leave the door unlocked, wait up, or go to sleep. I don’t care. I will see you later.”
The wind whipped about, tossing the cloud cover into tatter, moonlight reflected off the patches of snow.
His bare feet crunched on the snow as he walked to the tree line.
She watched, stunned into silence.
In one moment, he was standing there, naked as nature. He cast a glance back at Diana.
In the next, he disappeared.
Where he had stood was a large tawny gray timber wolf. His amber eyes regarded her before he bounded off into the trees.
She did as she was told and walked back to her apartment over the Boulevard of the Allies Bridge out of the park.
In the distance, she could hear a deep baying howl.
***
Through the trees, down the hill, towards Panther Hollow Lake, shrouded from the surrounding city lights the Wolf went. He listened to the lonely roar of the wind channeled down the hollow. Sounds carried in the cold air, a stray laugh from over on Bates Street, tires squealing and horns honking on Forbes Avenue. And far above, soaring through the air, the wild cry of the night, on Panther Hollow Bridge.
Always some little bit of fun to have, he thought and waited.
***
“Aaaandrew, I’m cold!” the chubby pinkette whined to her friends.
Andrew, a gangly, tall young man, chuckled. “Haley, you’re always whining!”
“This is a fucking dumb idea, Andrew. I don’t care if you say J’kwan has awesome parties; Bouquet Gardens always sucks and now I’m freezing.”
A slim, dark-haired girl in the group, whose name Haley never bothered to learn or remember, piped up. “Holy shit, maybe wear some jeans that don’t have the legs half-ripped off?”
A fat guy trying to ingratiate himself with the slim chick huffed and puffed in agreement. “It’s not that cold, just dress better for the weather.”
Chubby little Haley wrapped her arms around herself and made quick little waddling steps away from the group, taking out her phone to bitch on Snapchat.
Haley was engrossed in her phone and trying to ignore her friends catching up to her.
Her knees bumped into something firm, heavy, and warm.
She pulled her eyes from the screen in her hand to the creature she had run into.
A dog?
A very large dog?
A very, very large wolf-like dog sitting on its haunches breathed hot breath in blasts of steam.
The heat wafted over Haley’s breasts.
Her friends’ footsteps had stopped amid whispers of “omigod” and “what in the hell?”
The night went as quiet as death.
Haley switched to her phone’s front camera to capture the wolf dog thing.
Her wavering voice broke the quietude, “Guuuys?”
Haley backed up narrating, “I just fucking ran into this dog on the Panther Hollow Bridge…”
In the light of her phone, the beast’s eyes shown a striking shade of deep unnatural yellow.
The Wolf alighted from its haunches.
Andrew yelled, “Stop filming and back the fuck up now, Haley. Don’t make any sudden moves.” “That’s no dog,” slim chick shouted.
Fat boy and slim chick had their own phones out and were getting clips for TikTok thinking in the back of their minds, What music should I put to this?
The Wolf loosed a growl summoned from the primeval forests of the North snarling, its lips skinning back to reveal wicked teeth longer than any domestic house pet’s.
Haley’s nerve broke, the phone dropped to the sidewalk, her rapture in the cyber world evaporated. Penned in by railing on either side, she turned a 180 and beat feet.
Her big juicy round ass bouncing away in the night.
The Wolf pounced, fangs bared, seizing the seat of her fashionably-ripped jeans.
Trying for the flesh beneath, the Wolf tore the bottom out of Haley’s pants.
What threads that had held them together gave, sending Haley off in a sprint, pantless.
As the Wolf tore the jeans to shreds in a fury, Andrew ran up, throwing out a big soccer kick.
His foot connected with a concrete barrier.
The Wolf turned on Andrew, snapping his jaws at the boy’s legs, pile-driving into his knees, knocking him over.
The impact of the ground knocked the wind out of Andrew.
Andrew readied himself to lash out against the Wolf when its paws slammed into his chest as it pounced.
The shock sent him into a spasm. Andrew could process just one thing: Why am I looking at a set of hairy balls?
Before the Wolf lifted his leg and unleashed a generous stream of hot piss.
“What the fuc—!” Andrew bleated as the urine hit his face.
Chubbo and bimbo were still filming as Haley reached them, sobbing and farting.
The Wolf dashed for them still snapping his jaws and snarling in a mad frenzy.
Away they ran, making record time to Phips Conservatory shouting for help.
The beast saw Haley’s naked ass escaping into the distance. Bright, white, and jiggling.
In a dead sprint, he caught her.
The Wolf’s teeth caught her big ass at a leap, eliciting a hard sharp scream.
After the beast had enfleshed his teeth in nubile, succulent flesh, he ran off howling into the darkness, into the night.
Glittering LEDs and abandoned streets specked with a few young people received the guttered baying.
Received, paused a moment to wonder, and passed on their way.
Proteus Juvenalis, of the Lost Generation, is a cynic and misanthrope orbiting Neptune and contemplating his former home. His stream of consciousness broadcasts can be found on Telegram.
