The Dehumanization of Ethan Brown

Ethan went down to the kitchen. A teenage girl gave him a plate of meat that looked to be butcher’s waste. “What is this?”

“A few of our members work at a slaughter house. We get meat unfit for human consumption. Eat. You look like you were in a fight,” the girl said.

“Fuck, I should have dressed,” Ethan said as he licked tearlearly healed scratches on his arm.

“Juan looked worse than you,” the girl said.

Ethan joined the other men in the sitting room. “So is it agreed that we’ll have the wedding here?”

“You and Juan must have had some power struggle last night.” Ryan filled his plate with more butcher’s scraps. “I can’t tell which one of you is the victor.”

“Juan, you’re an ass,” Ethan said between bites of food.

“I know. I can’t wait until tonight,” Juan said licking his lips. “I never thought it could be so good.”

“I’m going home today even if I have to take a bus home,” Ethan said.

“I showed you what you are,” Juan said. “Don’t you like it?”

“I could have torn you to fucking pieces.”

“You didn’t.”

“Because I didn’t use my fucking claws or fangs, I wouldn’t scratch or bite in wolf form.”

“Because you have control.”

“Because I didn’t want to kill my betrothed\'s father, I don’t want to be alpha. Get out of my fucking face.” Ethan went upstairs, dressed, packed his things and walked to the bus station.

Ethan called Leslie from the bus station. “I need a ride to the tire store.”

“You got it, too. You should have heard Wallace. My truck was spared,” Leslie said.

“Don’t you laugh. Did they find out who did it?”

“A disgruntled city employee. Rumor has it they’re going to try to give him community service. So where are you?”

“The bus depot.”

“I’ll be there in a half hour.” Leslie looked Ethan over wearing only a tee shirt and jeans while Leslie had on a lined jacket. “What happened to you?”

“I got into a fight with Juan. He looks worse than me.” Ethan checked himself out in the mr her he only had faint lines of a scratch on his face and few even lighter lines on his left arm.

“Does that make you pack leader?”

“I told him that I refused to take the job. He was daring me to kill him. I wouldn’t strike him in wolf form. It was like he was testing me.”

“I’m familiar with tests.” Leslie laughed. “Are you accommodating to the cold house or you getting more control?”

“It’s my house and I can keep the heat as high as I want.” Ethan followed Leslie to the truck. “I hate what Juan is doing to me. I feel less human as each day goes by.”

“Would you like to join me for lunch?” Leslie asked. “We can go to that Italian restaurant you love.”

“I’ve eaten so much garbage that I doubt I’d appreciate good food,” Ethan complained as he climbed into the truck.

“A good bowl of pasta will help. You can have dessert. It’s on me,” Leslie said.

“After you have eaten food out of fucking garbage cans and the fucking scraps that butchers won’t sell, a good meal is a hamburger,” Ethan said.

“Once you sit down and relax, you’ll feel a lot better.”

“How is Mike?”

“Fine.” Leslie pulled out into the highway.

“Now, I’m the one smelling a lie.”

“He left me. He went back to his wife.”

Ethan smiled at her. “I\'m sorry. Fuck, Leslie, I wish there was something I could do.”

“I still have my job and my apartment,” Leslie said half-teasing.

Ethan could remember the taste Juan’s blood in his mouth. \"You know you thought that Mike was it.\"

“Do you want to get the car or eat first?” Leslie asked.

“It doesn’t fucking matter.” Ethan hardly felt human anymore.

“I’m rather hungry. Your car can wait.”

Ethan smiled. “Hunger is a good sign.”

Ethan drove the Volvo to a car dealership after spending nearly two hundred dollars for the tires. I looked over the Saturns in the lot. Ethan looked at the SC2 coupe. “I like to order one,” Ethan said to the salesman.

“I have a silver one available with standard equipment included,” the salesman said.

Ethan tested drove it and purchased it for the ticket price. The man seemed a little surprised that when he received a check for the whole amount. He coul con convince Ethan to get extra insurance or an extended warranty. Ethan called his insurance company to transfer the insurance from the Volvo to the 2002 Saturn. The salesman didn’t even give Ethan the price of the tires for the trade.

Ethan parked the new car in the driveway. The new two-car garage was filled with Doris’s car and Jake’s truck. Ethan removed his clothes at the door and found Ria napping in the nursery. “Honey, I took the bus home.”

“You got into another fucking fight with my father.”

“He won’t be happy until he turns me into a heartless monster.” Ethan kissed her forehead.

“You’re stronger than he.” Ria stroked his cheek.

“Sometimes, I wonder. He wanted me to strike out at him. I didn’t lose control. I only changed to keep him from touching me. I thought he would back off but he didn’t. I wouldn’t hit, bite or scratch him in wolf form. I wouldn’t give him that satisfaction.” Ethan looked at himself in the mirror. The scratches from the day before were gone.

“He’s playing you.”

“What the fuck does he want from me?”

“He wants you to be strong but not too strong. He wants you to protect his pack but know your place in it.”

“I don’t want to be fucking alpha. Can’t he leave me the fuck alone?”

“I’ll talk to him.” Ria stroked Ethan’s hair.

“I saw Leslie.”

“How is she?”

“Fine.” Ethan lied. Ethan picked up a book of fiction. He needed some light reading. Ria curled up next to him. He put his hand on her belly. Ria licked his chest. He would show her the new family car later. Ethan start to nipple on her neck and shoulder.

Ria wrapped her arms around him and pressed herself against him. \"Make love to me.\"

Ethan licked her belly before he started pearl diving. He pressed his face deep into her fold as Ria screamed. Ethan didn\'t care that he was screwing Ria in the living room in front of her brothers and sister. Ria scratched his scalp deeply as he bite her clit and pulled himself as deep as possible into her without tearing her. Ria would scream if he bit off her folds, but they would grow back in a day. As Ria kicked and pulled his hair, Ethan bit into her tearing her flesh with his mouth.

Ria kicked and pulled away from his mouth as Ethan took a breath. \"I need you inside me.\"

Ethan fucked her without a care that her pussy was bleeding profusely. He collapsed on top of her and started to claw her back with his nails. \"That was incredible.\"

\"Leslie could never make you feel like this.\"

\"I never had sex with her. I didn\'t realize what my father was depriving me of. Ria, I waited for you.\" That wasn\'t exactly true because he was fucking her father, but Ria was the first female that he fucked.

Ria bit his shoulder drawing blood before she fell asleep against him. As he watched her sleep in the dimly lit room, he knew that his connections to humanity were fading. No wonder his sisters wanted nothing to do with the expensive house and humanity. Ethan wondered if he should sign the money from the sale of the house over to a charity. What would a pack of werewolves do with a half a million dollars? The money couldn\'t make them human.

Ethan went to work Monday morning to be greeted with more paperwork. When he came back in the after lunch, he was told to change into plainclothes and to wear his earrings if he wanted. He put on silver earrings enjoying the burning in his fingertips and of his earlobes; maybe he was more of a masochist than he wanted to admit admiring the silver hoops in his ears. Ryan stared at the earrings and asked if they were real silver. Ethan nodded, trying to convince Ryan to touch them as he showed Ryan the blisters on his fingers from putting the earrings on. “You’re crazy, man.”

“I pierced my ears twice with sterling silver. I didn’t want them to close,” Ethan said.

“Is wearing silver a statement to the other members of the pack?” Ryan asked.

“Not necessarily.” Ethan returned to eating an early dinner or snack. “It isn’t like I want them to think I’m into self-abuse.”

“No uniform?”

“Drug bust. It’s pointless. They’ll pay their bail and be back to selling drugs to minors before morning.”

“Why do it?”

“It pays the bills. I’m waiting for a transfer.” That was the simple answer; Ethan didn\'t care about the money. The simple fact was that he liked police work no matter how senseless it seemed. A bust was exciting: the waiting for things to happen, the overhearing the dealers, the knowing that all their hard work was going to make a small difference. Ethan could smell out the drugs and the distributors were in jail that night. Another cop booked them as Ethan ate with the guys at a burger joint with the half of the department.

“Brown, is it true that you knocked up an adolescent?” an older cop asked as he stuffed a double meat hamburger in his mouth.

“She’s seventeen and old enough to consent,” Brown said hoping that the asshole’s arteries would clog right then and there. His digestive system was difft tht that a normal man’s. He could break down animal cholesterol. The healthy amount of foreign cholesterol that a human should consume was none. Human beings had the digestive fluids of herbivores and they didn’t have the teeth for raw meat. Did they know they were killing themselves with every bite of animal flesh?

“And how old was she when you started dating?” the other officer asked.

“I started writing her at twelve but that was over the Internet. I didn’t start dating her until she was past sixteen,” Brown said. “I’m not answering another question about my girl.”

“And you were twenty-seven,” another officer snickered. “What is wrong with you?”

“She’s a mature seventeen.” Brown dug into his salad; the other detectives didn’t need to know the garbage that he ate in his house. He usually brought produce at the grocery. The other pack members were fond of bringing home dead animal flesh instead of contributing to the bills.

The female officer said, “I can’t imagine what a seventeen year old girl could have in common with a grown man.”

“She’s having my baby,” he blurted out. Brown promised himself that he wouldn’t say more on the matter and then he did.

The female officer said, “And you couldn’t knock up a woman your age?”

“I’m glad that you find my life a laughing matter,” he said knowing that they wouldn’t shut up about his perceived lack of judgment.

“Brown, you live with an woman old enough to be your mother for several years and now you knock up a girl half your age,e ole oldest detective said as he started his second double burger.

“I rather talk about the drug bust,” Brown complained thinking about all that cholesterol and animal fat ruining the fat man’s arteries.

Ria took Ethan to an unused bedroom after they had eaten their full. Ethan yawned falling into a digestive stupor. “Baby, you never want sex with me.”

“We fuck several times a week. I thought you wanted it less often since you were so large with child,” Ethan said.

“It’s my father,” Ria said. “He has you shaking in your boots.”

“It isn’t that he wants power over me. It’s fucking sexual.”

“Ethinthing with my father is sexual. He’s fucking the bitches to get half-wolf pups.”

“He’s not that bad.”

“Yes, he is. I overheard him talking to Ryan once. People will pay big bucks for a wolf-husky mix.”

Ethan started coughing. The very idea was making him sick to his stomach. It was bad enough to he was learning to tolerate eating rotten food. He didn’t want to think about having sex outside his species.

“He turns you on.”

“Until you said that. Fuck, when I had my teeth in his shoulder and my nails into his back.”

“Fucking Lassie doesn’t do it for you.”

“I rather you were human at the time. I suppose after you have the baby we’ll have to experiment now that I can change back at will.”

“How did you manage that?” Ria stroked his beard.

“Your father frightened me into it.” Ethan kissed her belly.

“He isn’t all bad.”

“He’s fucking nuts.” Ethan smiled despite himself; he couldn’t believe how great it felt fighting with Juan.

“And you love him.”

“I suppose I do.” Ethan put his hand through his hair. “Ria, shit, I’m sorry.”

“I love him, too.”

Ethan rubbed his eyes. “Fuck.”

\"Fuck me. Make me bleed,\" Ria demanded.

Ethan threw Ria on an area rug and fucked her hard and dry in the butt as he held her on all fours. Ria moaned as Ethan pulled away. \"Good,\" he asked.

\"Incredible. I should make you angry more often.\" Ria kissed his neck and licked around his ear.

\"I used to care about people. Now, I think ill of my fellow officers and see all the arrests we make as useless.\"

\"You should have grown up in the pack.\"

\"So I could always have felt this isolated.\"

\"Would you like us to become part of the Ottawa pack?\" The Ottawa pack was too big for the warring full-bred pack to bother. They had several houses and close to a five hundred members if one counted the neighboring packs in the towns and villages surrounding the city.

\"It isn\'t numbers,\" Ethan said.

\"You\'re part of my family.\"

Ethan was a polite college student, involved with humanitarian causes. He was now a vulgar man that wore ragged clothes, cursed, spit and cared nothing about his fellow man. He didn\'t need to look into the mirror to know this hairy, foul-mouthed man looked nothing like the man that moved into this house less than two years before.