hoes To Die For

In my dreams he comes to me with eyes as big as teacups. There is red fire in their depths as he thrusts into me and my nose quivers with the keenness of an animal at the rank, sweat smell of the fur on his chest. The howl of his climax is reflected in the moans of the pack outside thedoor.It is only his humanity that keeps them from bursting in and taking their share.
     By day he is smooth skinned, sweet and supple, sharp suited, a new man to die for. The dreams are puffs of smoke, soon lost, yet in the mirror I puzzle over claw marks on my nipples.
     By day I dream of the red shoes in Baumgartners' window, tapping at my keyboard while my mind strays to dancing, prancing,mincing on those five inch spikes, wickedly scarlet, my legs long as torture, the calf muscles defined. I buy what I can afford, red underwear, red lipstick.
     Night falls. Miss Mouse and Mr Wolf dine together on red wine and bloody steaks. He has brought her the gift he knows she craves. He has seen her admiring them in the shop window, has watched his own reflection in the glass over her shoulder, has wondered at his face, wild with hair, while his fingers register only the smooth skin of his shaven chin.
     In bed he bites into her breasts while she, wrapped round him, admires the red shoes poised on his shoulders, before she drives the spiked heels into his pelt. This time it is her howl that drives the horde outside to frenzy.
     This morning there are paw marks in the snow outside the window and teeth marks on my breast. Blood has been drawn and lies in dried rusty spots on the sheet. Tonight he has promised to take me dancing and the day waltzes slowly past to the appointed time.
     Off comes the secretary's skirt and on goes black leather and the red shoes. At the Palais, the band is just warming up when Mr Wolf takes me in his arms. I can feel the muscles of his thighs pressed against mine, but at the first quick step, the red shoes begin to dance with a life of their own and locked together, we must dance round and round, faster and faster, out of the hall and down the snowy street.
     At first I am senseless with excitement at the pressure of his body on mine, flinging myself into the physical rhythm of the dance dictated by the shoes, blood drumming in my veins, but we go higher and higher into the dark, cold forest and I begin to tire. It is so cold, my feet hurt and my legs are whipped by branches and brambles. The red shoes catch on sticks and stones, making me stumble, twisting my ankles, yet ever dancing on and on and he is slipping, sliding from me. I feel his shape shifting till he is on all fours, loping beside me, lupine head raised to the moon.
     I am almost done, I cannot breathe and my heart tries to leap into my throat even before the woodsman appears in our path and fires a silver bullet deep into the brain of my beloved.
     And now, when horror makes me want away, the red shoes begin to dance me in a circle round the body of my lover, whose hairless skin gleams in the moonlight. His eyes are big as teacups but the red fire has gone. Round and round I go, regretting only my vanity at Baumgartners' window. The red shoes are now black with mud.
     I want only for it to end and welcome the baying of the pack that now draws close, putting to flight the hovering woodsman who fain would have helped me, thinking me a prisoner of the werewolf.
     I am beyond help, my last tottering strength draining into the dancing shoes. The first of the pack bounds into the snowy clearing, and stops, his eyes big as teacups, his companions close behind. They lick their chops, showing me their bone crunching teeth. They will avenge their master's death and I will have release.