Lusineh Avakian
by mrhungry
Conclusion
Dear Reader, I submit this story for publication, not that I expect a single person to believe it’s true in any aspect, but because I must write it down to sort out the events that it relates, if only for my own sanity. It is for my own therapy that I write, not for your enjoyment. Comment on it as you see fit – it is of no concern to me. –Darios. 10/12/84“NO! Oh please, no,” Lucy cried out in agony. “Sorry! I’m so sorry, Darios!”
The shadows cast from the huge ash tree behind us partially blocked the moonlight, but I could see well enough to notice Lucy’s flesh was darkening. Another loud crack from the pillory next to me echoed across the Commons followed by another wail of grief.
Suddenly Lucy began to groan, and it was obvious she was struggling feverishly to push and pull at the ancient wooden structure that held her.
“I’m… going to… break… this while I… while I’m still aware.” The gravelly voice was unfamiliar to me. CRACK! The main vertical beam splintered at the bottom. “I… will try to… Eeeeiii!, Oh God, I’ll try to…” CRACK! “run as far… as far away as I can.”
The shape of the naked body beside me was changing quickly. The darkened torso seemed to be expanding, while the ankles and wrists narrowed. The narrowing allowed Lucy to step out of the ankle stocks that held her, and she used this freedom to plant her feet and push against the splintered vertical beam. It took only seconds after that for the beam to snap, sending splinters of wood sailing through the air like tiny darts.
Scared out of my mind, I leaned back, away from the woman as she turned the other way. That action may have saved my life, as the solid trunk of the beam swung past the spot I had just occupied! There was a loud crash right behind me and chunks of wood struck my back and littered the ground around me. When I looked back, Lucy was gone, the battered remains of the stocks that held her head and wrists scattered near the base of the tree.
My head whipped around, searching for her, and then I spotted a shape disappearing between the general store and Annette’s house.
“Holy Shit!” a voice said from beside me, nearly stopping my heart. It was Henri.
“Fuck, man!” I shouted, as I grabbed the cop by the collar and pulled at him. “You son-of-a-bitch!”
“Easy, son!” he said, his hands working the lock securing the ankle stocks.
“What? You’re not going to feed me to your wolf?” I continued to grasp his collar in my fist.
“Darios! We’re letting you go!” Veronica said in a hushed voice as she knelt down next to me. “We’re over-riding the committee, and letting you go.”
“What? Why?”
“You settled her with your voice, Darios,” Irena said from behind me. I turned to see her hugging against the tree as if it might provide some protection. “No one has ever had that effect on an Avakian before.”
“I can’t be responsible for allowing her to kill you,” Veronica said as she replaced her knife in its scabbard. “I’m not sure she would ever forgive me, or if I could even forgive myself.”
Once my ankles were free, Henri helped me to my feet. “We’ve got to get to the jail, we might be safe there.”
“What about your house? It’s closer,” I suggested.
“Martine won’t open the door.”
“Are you…”
“She won’t!” Irena spat. “There’s no time to argue! Let’s go!”
“But, Lucy said she’d run as far away as she could!” I whispered.
“Listen, boy,” Irena said as she grabbed the sleeve of my shirt. “Lucy can a-smell us right now. She can a-hear the blood a-pumpin’ through our veins. Four of us, out here in the open?! The sound of it is deafening to her. That she’s not a-ripping us apart right now is a miracle.”
I could feel the old woman shaking with fear, and looking at the others, I could see them peering into the darkness in search of death.
Slowly at first, but then at a full run, we bolted towards the jailhouse. A growl from behind us caused Veronica to look back and then stumble. Henri grabbed her under her arm as he ran past and just dragged her the remaining thirty feet to the back door of the jailhouse.
Once inside, Irena slammed the door shut and then cried out as something powerful hit the door from the outside, sending the old woman back against the opposite wall. She immediately launched herself against the door again, leaning into it to keep it shut. Henri ran to help her.
“Go see if the office door is unlocked, Darios!” Henri shouted, his breathing labored from the run across the Commons.
I sprinted to the end of the short hallway but found that the door was locked.
“Shit, we’re trapped!”
The wolf prowled outside the little building. We could hear its growls near the door and then along the side of the jailhouse, filtering in through the little windows at the back of each cell.
“These cells are all locked, Henri!” Veronica shouted in panic.
“I know! I know! I locked them so the kid wouldn’t be able to hide in one. And now we’re fucked.” The door rocked on its hinges as the wolf pounced on it from the other side.
I came up and leaned against the door with both hands, digging my heels in for support. “We can wait her out, can’t we? She’ll change back when the sun comes up, right?”
“She’ll become more desperate soon, boy,” Irena said, as she pulled at the bars of the cell door closest to us, willing it to open. “She’s still not completely changed and there may still be some part of her that’s resisting the urge. But soon she’ll not know the human part of her at all. The smell of fresh meat will be too overpowering and there’ll be no stopping her.”
“Irena,” Henri called back over his shoulder, “the end cell up there by the office… that door doesn’t always lock correctly. Go see…”
Irena was already moving down the dark hallway. I looked back and saw the door swing open just as Lucy hit the door I was leaning against. The force was incredible and for a second I thought she was coming through. If it had been just me there we’d all have been dead, but Henri was quite strong and we held our ground.
“You and Roni stay in the cell and hold the door open!” Henri shouted back into the darkness to Irena. “We’ll hold out here as long as we can, but if she gets through we’ll be coming back there.”
BAM!! The door bounced back at us. I was knocked back momentarily but regained my footing and leaned into the door again. BAM!! I looked at the old hinges and wondered how much more they could take.
BAM!! The old door cracked down the middle sending splinters inwards.
“GO!!” Henri grabbed me by the shirt collar and nearly tossed me the distance to the end cell. I stumbled to my feet and fell into the cell, followed quickly by Henri. He pulled the cell door closed.
“Crap! The locking mechanism’s jammed inside the door. It won’t even stay closed by itself!” He was digging at the edge of the door with his fingers trying to spring the latch free.
A loud crashing sound at the other end of the hallway drew everyone’s attention as a very large brown wolf stepped through the fractured remains of the door. In that instant, as it was still illuminated by the full moon outside, I saw its red eyes glowing, observing us cowering there in the darkness. It crept slowly towards us, the sound of its breathing the only sound in the jail, because certainly none of us were breathing. A menacing growl filled the little building as it approached our cell.
In the dim light I saw the wolf as it stood outside the cell looking in at us. Even transformed into a werewolf, Lucy was beautiful! My god, what a magnificent beast she was! Her thick brown hair looked so luxurious, her body firm and strong. Every muscle reeked of strength, the three little spots on her rump looking like jewelry upon her flesh where her hair thinned slightly.
“Get out, Lusineh!” I shouted, pointing at the door. “It’s me, Darios, you have to stay outside!”
The wolf looked into the cell, its head tilting as if to see who had spoken. Did she understand me? Did she recognize my voice? She was close so now, and Henri had to release his grip on the bars and take a step back. I saw the unlocked door inch open a crack and wondered if Lucy saw it, too.
“Go now! Out!” Again, I pointed towards the door.
A low growl reverberated within the small space before the Beast turned and walked slowly towards the door. Once she was outside we all began to breathe again.
“That won’t work next time,” Henri said.
“How far away is my car?”
“It’s right behind us, about twenty yards away,” Henri said as he worked on the door latch again, “But unless you know how to hotwire, it’s no good to us.”
“I have the key,” I said, holding it up so he could see it.
Henri smiled, “Nicely done, son. But how can we get to it? We need a diversion.”
There was silence in the jail, but the sound of Lucy prowling outside filtered in to us. We stood there, thinking.
“I’ll distract my sister while you all a-get away,” Irena said from the darkness at the back of the cell.
“Grandma! How would you do that?”
“You leave that to me, girl, I can manage her.”
“You can not!” Veronica protested.
“Silence!” Irena came forward to the front of the cell and looked at Henri. “We’re all dead, you know that don’t you, Henri?”
Henri stopped his work on the door and looked up at Irena. “Yeah, we’re dead. I was just a-hopin’ I could…”
“We won’t outlast her, she’ll soon be too strong. I’ll go to her, I’ll give her what she needs.”
Veronica leaned into her grandmother and cried out, “No, grandma! You can’t! You know what that’ll do to her. How will she live with that?”
“In the top drawer of my dresser is the doctor’s letter that will explain that I’ve only a few months left to live, if that. He found something a-goin’ on in my heart when I went in to get my wrist fixed up. I wouldn’t survive an operation, and will start to have problems wit’ it pretty soon. I don’t want to live like that.”
“Why didn’t you tell us this before?!” Veronica was in tears now, and Henri moved in to put his arm around her.
“It was too hard to say it out loud…”
The growling outside the jail grew louder and we could hear Lucy prowling. Now there were sounds of the wolf trying to enter the jail through the front door.
Henri saw that Irena’s solution may be the only hope for survival and whispered, “I think this may be our chance. With her in front, the building will shield us from her line of sight.”
We moved quietly towards the back door. Henri stopped and held Irena, “You sure about this, Irena?”
The old woman that I had called a hag when I first laid eyes on her looked at us, tears in her eyes and said, “Yes.”
She stepped towards the door, straightening up with a sense of new-found strength. “It will be my privilege to feed Lusineh Avakian on this night. I will be with my sister, always. Tell her that. Tell her how much I love her and that I will always be with her. Tell her when the moon is full; I’ll be there with her to comfort her.”
Veronica buried her head in Irena’s chest and sobbed. The old woman kissed the top of her head and pushed her into Henri’s arms. “You git on now, I’ll be a-waitin’ for you all on the other side.” By that I knew she wasn’t talking about any place on this earth.
We were all out the door at once, Irena heading towards the front, while Henri, Roni, and I headed around the back towards the swamp.
The sound of a low growl filtered thought the air, followed by a muffled cry. Irena was dead.
We made it to my car seconds later and were pulling out of the hidden road seconds after that. As we passed the far end of the jail heading towards the road out of Melonya, we looked over to see the wolf, its head down towards the dark shape on the ground. Irena’s arms were up, holding its head, and then fell away limply to the sides as the wolf lifted its head to look up at us as we sped past.
I tore up that little dirt rode as I sped towards the main road, not wanting to think of what I had just seen. It was a horrible image I might never get out of my mind, but have always found comfort in knowing that Irena sacrificed herself for someone she loved, and to someone she loved.
I dropped Henri and Veronica off at a hotel about twenty miles away and headed towards the main highway. I didn’t want to leave Lucy, but knew staying was not an option either. It tore me up inside, and the drive back to Wisconsin was a solitary and painful one.
It’s been two months now since I last saw Lucy, but she is never far from my thoughts. At times she’s all that I can think of; her beautiful face, the light olive tone of her skin, her dark brown hair, sometimes concealing her deep brown eyes behind the curls. I think of how she looked when her hair fell across her face like that; so erotic, so mysterious. Mysterious would not begin to describe Lucy.
How I loved her. Love her, I should say, for I will never stop loving her. Yet, my heart aches at the knowledge that I can never have her, nor even be near her, ever again. Sometimes, though, when my heart is heavy, as it is now, I begin to think that the death that would come from being close to her, from holding her in my arms again, would be welcome.
Of all the women in the world, I had to fall in love with a werewolf.
The End
Epilogue, 04/03/2012
Dear Reader,
The proceding account was written two months after my return to Wisconsin. I began to write with the intention of mailing it to an adult magazine for publication, but as the details of my experience flowed onto the paper, the efforts morphed into something unexpectedly complex. The emotions I had previously suppressed began to overwhelm me, causing a sense of loss and depression I cannot adequately describe for you.
Struggling to complete the text, I became a recluse in my dorm room, not attending classes or socializing with friends. I could no longer bear the thought of life without my Lucy. My thoughts were drawn to her, to Melonya, to the experiences that had so changed my life. The notion of carrying on as if it had never happened was ludicrous.
As if a tether were wrapped around my heart, tugging me south, a desperate need to return to Lucy found me en route a week after writing ‘The End’. I took nothing except my new license, the money in my wallet, and the clothes I wore. I don’t remember the drive, if and where I ate, whether I stopped to rest or drove through the night. Nothing about the drive comes to mind until I rounded the bend in the rutted dirt road and entered the little town hidden deep within the Louisiana swamp.
My car rolled to a stop in the exact location I had stopped upon my first entrance. Not a soul was to be seen this time, however. My heart sank as I wondered what had become of the citizens of this closely-knit community. I looked out over the Commons to the huge swamp ash and noticed a newly constructed pillory standing where the old ones had been broken off. The entire area had been re-graded and adorned with brightly colored flowers. A marble headstone rose from the center of the flower garden, the name inscribed thereon known to me already.
I remembered Irena’s final words and felt that same lump clogging my throat.
“Tell her how much I love her and that I will always be with her. Tell her that when the moon is full, I’ll be there with her to comfort her.”
The pillory was where Lucy suffered the most each month, and for her dearest friend to be close by might lend some small comfort to her in her time of need.
As before, I proceeded slowly along the road, skirting the Commons and drifting quietly to a stop in front of Marie’s general store. The door was open. The door was always open. There was no need for security in this town; never had been, never would be.
A noise to my left attracted my attention as two kids ran from behind Jack’s leather goods shop. It was the Reinard twins, Joey and Heather. Little Joey looked my way and stumbled to the ground, causing Heather to stop and laugh at him. She stopped laughing when she followed his gaze, and then the two of them ran off towards their house, yelling something I couldn’t make out.
At the noise, several people peered out of their houses and shops, and I realized I was not alone in the town after all. The twins backed out of their house as their father, Jack, came through the door and looked my way. He said something to Joey, and the boy mounted his bike and tore off down the road heading towards the mansion. Jack waved, a smile on his face that was visible from across the Commons. He began to walk my way and I headed out onto the grass to intercept him.
“Darios!” he called out as we neared one another. “God! It’s great to see you!”
We shook hands and he clapped me on the shoulder. “I’ve sent Joey to get the others, they’re at the mansion, painting.”
“And Lucy? Is she okay? Where is she?”
Jack’s smile widened, “She’s out there, they’ll bring her back.” The man had yet to release my hand; his joy at seeing me seemed so genuine, but suddenly his expression turned serious and he released my hand.
“Um, Darios, I um… I’m sorry about what we tried to…” It was obvious his initial response to seeing me superseded any guilt he may have been feeling over his part in leaving me to die in the Commons a few months earlier. But now it was something he had to deal with.
After making it back to my parent’s house in Trevor, and finding out that Jeremy had, in fact, made it home safely, there was plenty of time to dwell on the actions of the town folk of Melonya. At first I was angry, obviously, because they had tried to kill me. My thoughts returned to the questions that plagued me at the time: what would you do if you lived with Lucy? To what lengths would you go to ensure her survival, as well as your own? Kidnapping and murder?
I was in no position to answer that question, as what I thought, and the decisions they had to make, were not even on the same plane of existence. When I thought about it, leaving me to my fate that night would’ve been the right thing to do for Lucy’s sake. They knew the effect depriving her of the much-needed meal would have on her. Yet, they knew the devastating effect that allowing her to consume me would have on her, too. It could not have been an easy decision to make.
The resolution to the debate in my mind had been settled when my car stopped at the edge of town and I took in the sight of Irena’s grave. I forgave them.
Not responding to Jack’s awkward apology, I turned and walked to the bed of flowers, barely able to lift my head sufficiently to read the words on the gravestone. My heart was heavy; as I was sure Lucy’s was when she looked at it. The events of that night flooded my mind, and I sank to my knees to remember the sacrifice the old woman had made. I especially remembered her resolve and the honor she felt at going to Lucy, both to distract her and to satisfy her hunger.
How long I knelt there, consumed by my memories, I don’t know. I only remember feeling a warmth beside me and looking over to see Lucy, kneeling beside me, silently waiting for me to return to the present.
We fell into each other’s arms and hugged. It was then that I noticed that we were not alone and a very large crowd of people had quietly come up to surround us. Wiping the tears from my eyes, I rose to shake hands and embrace the friends that had come to greet me.
I stayed a few days with Lucy and Veronica at the newly painted mansion. Lucy’s nadir day had just passed, but I learned from Henri that there was no excitement in Lucy since I had left Melonya. They’d all been worried that the combination of losing Irena, and me, and Lucy’s age were a maelstrom that could not be navigated. Her initial rage at what had occurred that night was inconsolable, but Veronica’s strength as her guardian prevailed, and life had slowly returned to some vestige of normality. Still, it was obvious that Lucy had taken it hard.
Now, with her Darios returned, and in her bed, a spark of life returned to the changeling that delighted everyone in town. That I promised to return as often as my school schedule would allow, brought a permanent smile to her face as well.
And so it went for the remainder of the school year and into the summer. My senior year of college was to be spent at the University of Minnesota, Duluth campus, though. Being at the far northeastern tip of the state, the drive to Louisiana became too time consuming and on a lark, Lucy and Veronica agreed to come north, to Minnesota, to live with me.
It was certainly a wild time, as Lucy could still not bear to wear clothes and my close friends, both male and female, had to get used to “that naked woman” I lived with. We rented a large house not far from campus that seemed to become the place to hang out.
My friends were cool with Lucy’s nudity. Well, the guys would be of course, but the women, although taken aback at first, and maybe a little jealous that their boyfriends were obviously ogling her, were soon won over by Lucy’s charm. Besides, Lucy’s devotion to me, and mine to her, was obvious.
My friends were also surprised to learn of my sudden interest in BDSM. It was impossible to hide the whip and cane marks on Lucy’s flesh as the first month passed. Besides, Lucy decided she enjoyed referring to me as ‘Master’, and had begun to use the word exclusively. After our fetish was ‘revealed’, I bought a new collar and cuff set for Lucy, which she wore with pride. This relationship opened a new world to us as we began to explore the variety of ways we could amuse ourselves, while keeping Lucy settled during those critical times.
Veronica left us to our own fantasies as she found love with one of the guys in my Biology class that came over with the study group from time to time. It turned out that he was originally from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and had selected the U of M because of its excellent Forestry program.
Something I hadn’t considered when asking Lucy to move north turned out to be such a blessing to us all. The reason for the change in campus locations was, for those of you who are unfamiliar with the topography of northern Minnesota, its close proximity to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness; over a million square miles of wilderness mostly protected within the Superior National Forest. Much of the work done in my Forestry studies was conducted in the BWCA, the southern tip of which lay just north of Duluth.
During Thanksgiving break, we drove north for two hours to the small town of Ely, Minnesota. Ely is the Mecca of camping and adventure outfitters for the BWCA, and it was there that I found a small, hand-written, advertisement on a bulletin board for cabin leases at a location called Brown’s Lake. It was another half an hour’s drive to the cabin, but what we found there was worth the drive.
The cabins were very secluded; in fact, the owners didn’t even live on the property and, seeing there were only three cabins, I asked how much it would cost to rent all three. The price was affordable and I secured a lease for the entire site. With the full moon approaching, I was relieved we would finally have a place for Lucy to run.
Additional research into the area provided a great sense of relief, as we discovered that hunting wolves in the National Forest had been banned since 1970, and in 1974, the Endangered Species Act was enacted, providing additional protection to the wolf population outside of the Forest.
The months that followed were happy ones for us. Lucy and Veronica spent at least one week a month at the cabins, sometimes more if they wished. I joined them when I could.
The Forest provided abundant food for my favorite werewolf as it was home to herds of elk, moose, and white-tailed deer. After the first month’s hunt, Lucy’s health was restored and her body tone was even more impressive than when I had first laid eyes on her.
During December of that year, while dining at a small café in Ely, we overheard some trek guides talking about sightings of a large brown wolf running with a timber wolf pack. We smiled as quite a little argument started up over this topic, as one of the guides asserted that the gray timber wolves would surely not allow a solitary outsider into their pack. Others argued that wolves were much more social than that, and the brown wolf would be allowed to join them.
Little did they know that the brown wolf sat two booths away from them!
I’ve often thought about that discussion and compared it to my own acceptance into the community of Melonya, years ago.
Quite by accident, I can assure you, I discovered that I could interact with Lucy in her wolfen form. It was late one night and she still hadn’t returned from her hunt, so I walked out to the porch of the cabin to listen for sounds of the pack she ran with. It was just after the New Year, and a recent snowstorm had dropped four feet of snow across the region. The snow and the cold certainly did not affect my wolf, but I was concerned nonetheless.
As I looked out towards the north, a sound behind me froze me in place. It was a low growl, eerily joined by several other growls. Turning my head very slowly, I saw Lucy standing there between the cabin door and myself. Her teeth were bared, blood dripping from them and down her chin, small pieces of meat – most likely deer – still hanging from her hair.
The pack of timber wolves, sensing a human, began to creep forward slowly; their heads and bodies low as if they were ready to spring on me. Lucy turned on them and growled, menacingly, positioning herself between them and me. The pack cowered; moving off a distance before turning to look back, and then sprinting off into the woods.
Lucy lay down at my feet and began to lick the fur of her front paws. I ran inside to get her blanket and prepared to cover her, for it was only a matter of time until she reverted to her lovely, naked, and tremendously cold, self.
Lucy returned directly to the cabin each month after that, and I waited outside for her, gaining confidence with each month that she wouldn’t harm me.
A month later, my landlord in Duluth died, and we were forced to find a new house to rent. While packing up my things, Lucy came across the story I had written, and forgotten about, regarding my time in Melonya. After she stopped crying, she stood up and told me I should write a book about it, just as I had said I would. I told her that was crazy, that I was no writer. But, she kept after me, and in 1989 I published my book, “Blood Lust”.
We watched in amazement as the book rose in popularity, hitting the NY Times Best Seller list on its third week of sales, and topping it the next week. What followed would take too much of your valuable time to relate, but my writing career soon replaced my Forestry career.
The income from that book, and the next four I wrote as a series, all best-sellers, provided income I could have never imagined. We decided to return to Melonya, and have lived there ever since.
But with us came change. Fucking electricity, for one thing. I contracted with a company to tear out the old single wire that supplied power to a handful of businesses and residences and to bury updated electrical cables along the road into town. Every household that wanted power was connected to the new supply line. The concept of air conditioning was also introduced to the residents, and then the mansion was wired.
We lived at the mansion, and I had a fifteen foot tall chain-link fence constructed around the acreage, hidden in the swamp so it was not seen from either the mansion or the town. It was easy to stock this area with an abundance of wildlife to provide Lucy with an enjoyable hunt every month.
With the introduction of the Internet, Lucy and I spent hours web-surfing for our entertainment. About a year ago we came across this website, and my darling wife - oops, I failed to mention that! – finally convinced me to post our story for your amusement.
While thinking about what pen name I would use, Lucy laughed and reminded me of the first night we spent together upon my return to Melonya, years ago. Her excitement as we entered her bedroom was so evident that I nervously scanned the room for a flogger in case she got too carried away. My fears were heightened when she actually said, “I am so hungry for you!”
Our love making that night ended as the sun rose the next morning, but the comment stuck with us during the months and years that followed. Quite often, when Lucy would snuggle up in anticipation of lovemaking she would repeat those words, and I would say, “Okay Miss Hungry, let’s feed you.” I took to repeating the phrase as well, and became ‘Mr. Hungry’ to her.
We hope you enjoyed our story!
Darios and Lusineh Avakian Donelli
Copyright © 2012 by mrhungry. All rights reserved. I welcome your comments. Email me at mrhungry56@gmail.com