For dinner with the wolf I wear the green dress, the one that sparkles. Our waiter’s fingers wobble as he scribbles—2 rib-eye steaks, rare. The wolf orders for me, confident I share his love of bleeding meat, and smiles without thought to his incisors.
Your dress is gorgeous, says the wolf, I love that colour on you. His tongue swirls around “love”, reluctant to let it go.
Our orders come trembling as I wave the compliment away, careful to make sure the sweep of my gaze does not light on his eyes. It’s suicide to look a wild animal square in the eyes, they consider it a challenge or something.
After dinner we dance. The wolf knows a disco place, and we walk there and people on the road scatter, not looking at the wolf like they heard the suicide thing, too.
I shimmy in the middle, and the wolf jerks around me in wide arcs. He isn't that great on his hind legs to begin with, and 70s disco makes things worse.
Maybe it’s the Earth, Wind and Fire, or the rosé still warm in my stomach, or the disco ball reflecting a thousand shrieking evacuations. It could be any of those things that makes me dizzy. The kind of dizzy where you have to stop and fix your eyes on something to steady you.
The wolf's eyes are scary. I sense him drop on all fours and start to circle closer.