Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 71314 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71314 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
Developing a taste for rough sex is far from the worst thing that could happen to me. It’s actually to my advantage, and in my interests. I’ve discovered that getting laid means I have a lot more mental energy for focus. I used to have this perpetual tension that would keep sidetracking me. I never knew why it was there, but it’s gone now.
I actually enjoy working on my materials even more. It feels like I’m defying a true force of nature now, a man who dares think that exploiting my sexuality and punishing me is going to stop me. He’s going to learn different. He can watch me uncover all the secrets of the wolves, and then he can watch me show the world that it is far more magic and far darker than any of us like to imagine.
I leave the office at three in the morning, when I’m too tired to stay a moment longer, and I go home to sleep. I’ve thought a lot about sleeping in the basement with my work, but I know people would find that odd. I’ve been sensitized to worry about people thinking I’m odd. Events as a teenager taught me that you can do almost anything when you have enough money, except get too weird. People tolerate murder, lying, trafficking, whatever you care to name—but they don’t tolerate strange.
So I go home to the house I’m supposed to have and I sleep in the bed I’m supposed to sleep in. In the morning, I have cereal. I don’t like cereal, but I know that if I ever get asked what I had for breakfast, which happens more often than it should, I can say cereal. And then people will think I’m down to earth and stable.
Anyway. I have the cereal and I go to the building that has my name on it.
It’s on fire.
I can’t see smoke, but I know it is on fire because there are firemen everywhere. Hoses are snaking into the building. There’s water splashed around from hydrants, and from the truck.
Everyone is assembled outside, milling around. Some are vaping. Some people have sandwiches. How can they have sandwiches at a time like this? I feel in my gut that this is bad, for me, specifically.
“What happened?” I ask Roger, the office manager. He’s tall and balding and he looks bored and faintly annoyed. I think Roger would be bored and faintly annoyed no matter what.
“There was a fire in the basement,” he says.
My blood goes cold. No. Not the basement. Some part of me already knew it. Some part of me always knows when something bad is happening. But I didn’t want to hear it.
I run inside, dodging hoses through the lobby. I get to the basement door, where a firefighter catches me before I throw myself down the stairs, stopping me from breaking my neck, because the stairs are gone.
“All my research was down there,” I say, trying not to cry, and not knowing if I am succeeding or not.
“There was a lot of paper down there. It went up like, well, paper,” he says, clearly not given to metaphor. “Rest of the building was protected because the base is concrete and the fire door did its job, but everything down here was destroyed. I’m sorry.”
He’s an older man, squarely in silver fox territory. He has a thick salt and pepper mustache, more salt than pepper, and a kind face lined from a youth spent in the sun not giving a damn that the sun would make him wrinkled in his older age. He’s a real man, a nice man. I can tell immediately.
I swallow my fury and my rage and I thank him for his work.
“I’m sorry you had to deal with this,” I say.
“Dealing with fires is what we do, ma’am,” he says, seeming faintly amused by my politeness.
“Still. I’m sure you had better things to do.”
“No. If it wasn’t this fire, it would be another one. We sit around waiting for something to catch on fire.”
“Oh. In that case, I’m glad someone set my life’s work on fire. Sorry. That sounds bitter. I just think everyone should get to do what they want to do. You know? I think people who want to fight fires should be able to fight fires, and I think people who want to research were… various phenomena should be able to do that too.”
The fireman puts his hand on my shoulder. “There’s a real loss after a fire. You know there’s counseling available at various agencies…”
“Thank you,” I say, not adding the fact that I would rather set fire to my own research all over again than risk talking to some kind of mental health professional about the fact that I am sure wolves who are also people exist. I discovered for myself a long time ago that it’s best to keep my inner thoughts on the inside.