William and the Wolf

The Dog's Name

William woke as the first rays of light filtered into the room, staring up at a ceiling he didn’t recognize.  He was accustomed to waking up in new places so it didn`t register at first as strange.  Until he looked over and saw the enormous black wolf sharing the bed with him.

Startled, he bit back a yelp and leapt out of the bed.  But the wolf was sound asleep and clearly not set on eating him right now, so his pounding heart started to settle as he let out a relieved breath.

How the hell did he get through the door and since when has he been there?

William crossed his arms and looked over at the door, which was still closed.  Or closed again, which was more likely.  Then he lifted his brow and smiled.  Well, who cares, now’s my chance!

Not even bothering to put on his boots, William grabbed his camera and took off across the room.  He oh so quietly opened the door a crack, slid out, and then closed it again.  Hopefully, the dog was a deep sleeper.

Immediately, William took a snapshot of the hallway.  Then went to the next door and opened it.  It looked like a small library and office, complete with chair and desk.  Not that interested, William took a snapshot of it anyway and closed the door without entering it.

He took a snapshot of the Roman bath, then made use of the toilet.  Curious, he checked out the cupboards and was happy to spot modern amenities like an electric razor, soap, shampoo, and a toothbrush and toothpaste.

Weird… only one toothbrush.  So, who do those women’s things belong to?

William rose as he realized he didn’t even have his own toothbrush.  I really haven’t thought this whole thing through.  What was with me last night?

He remembered that weird reaction he had to the man Anthony and shook his head.  He couldn’t be remembering right.  There was no way he’d gotten hot and bothered by another man.  William wasn’t gay, he wasn’t even bi.  As far as he knew.

William blinked at his last thought.  As far as I know?  What the hell was he thinking?

Grabbing the toothpaste a little too aggressively, he squeezed some onto his finger and did his best to clean his teeth with his finger.  He’d go get his stuff from the motel later.

Wait.  Am I really going to stay in this place?

Well…

Why not?  Sure, the man was weird, and the dog was nuts, but he was still living the next day.  And this was a nice place.  And did he really have anything better to do right now?

The answer was no.  Nada.  He didn’t have much of a life.  But he liked it well enough all the same.

He walked out of the bathroom and, seeing that the coast was still clear, walked around the corner to the next room.

This one was another bedroom, but as he’d expected, it was from an entirely different era.  He wasn’t too familiar with the Orient, but it definitely looked like some sort of ancient Chinese bedroom, with the iconic angular designs, bamboo structures and deep red colour.  This room, too, seemed to be missing a light switch.  Guess he likes authenticity.

Besides hygiene, since he’d had modern toiletries…

So… eccentric but not crazy eccentric?

The next room, unlike the others before, had its door on the opposite side of the hall.  He moved to open the door but froze when he heard the pounding of feet and claws over the wooden floor of the hallway.  Sh*t.  He’s awake.

He thought for a second: is it better to be caught in the hallway, or in a room?—but even that thought had taken too long because the big black ball of fur came around the corner in a flash, taking away his options.  When the wolf didn’t even pause when it saw him and started charging full tilt toward him, William backed away despite himself, raising his hands in surrender, a new custom of his with this dog.

“Hey, I was just look—” He was cut off as the dog tackled him to the ground.

With a loud oomphf, he immediately put his arms up to ward off the expected attack, but he wasn’t quite fast enough.  A big, slobbery tongue licked him right up the side of his face and he let out a gasp.

“Uggghhh, get off!” Shocked laughter burst from him as he pushed the stupid dog away from him.  “Don’t do that!”

The dog immediately got off him and sat a distance away from him as he pushed himself up to a sit, grinning over at the dog.  “What the hell was that?  And you call yourself a guard dog?”

He had to admit, the dog looked very ashamed of himself.

 “Pfft.  That’s right.  Imagine if your master saw you licking your prisoners like that.  He’d find another dog just like that,” William snapped his fingers, then rose with a laugh.  “Not that I’m complaining.”

He walked over and ruffled the dog’s ears, which he was surprised the dog allowed.  “Good boy.”

The dog snorted and started trotting down the hallway, doing its usual glance back to see if he was following.  Hmm, that friendliness didn’t last long.  But now William knew better.  Whether he admitted it or not, the dog liked him.

When he realized how good that made him feel, William shook his head at himself.  He definitely needed to call a friend, a real person soon.  He might be spending a little too much time alone if he was overjoyed that a dog liked him.

After confirming that his camera had survived the abuse, William obliged the animal and followed him all the way to the kitchen.  There, the dog left him in front of the fridge before it trotted away again, heading off down the hallway the way they had come.

William watched as the animal disappeared and then immediately started taking photos of the kitchen.  He figured the dog must be going to find his master so he might have a little time to peruse this area, too.

He opened the fridge door and was met with plenty of fresh vegetables, fruit, eggs, milk and cheese, as well as bottled water.  That all looked pretty good, but he realized what he could really use was a coffee.

It didn’t take William long to find the cups, percolator and the coffee beans—it seems Anthony ground his own beans—and it was as he was filling the coffee grinder with beans that Anthony walked in, unsurprisingly all in black.

“Good morning, Anthony,” William said cheerily, hoping to get off on the right foot this morning, as he finally figured out how to close the grinder properly and pressed its Start button.

The familiar sound of grinding beans was oh so good to his ears and he started humming, reminded of his teenage days when he worked in a café in his hometown.  He’d been called the Hummingbill, because he always hummed while he made coffee for anyone.  William smiled down at the grinder as fond memories returned.

“You’ve made yourself right at home, I see…” the deep voice in his ear caused him to freeze.  Warmth spread from his hot ear over his face and William flushed.  Shoot, not this again.

Sliding away from Anthony to pretend he was very interested in the view out the window over the sink, William shrugged and said only slightly unsteadily, “Y-You did invite me to stay and, besides leaving Mr. Wolf to keep watch, I assumed—”

“Mr. Wolf?” Anthony interrupted, incredulously.

“Your dog.  I don’t know his name.  So, I just call him Mr. Wolf.  Because he looks like a wolf.  They call him the Dire Wolf on that site about you.  Did you know you had a site all about you and this house?  What’s his name, anyway?” William might have been babbling a bit and forced himself to stop.

Anthony was silent and William looked over to see the man had his hand over his mouth.  He probably didn’t know about the site, William guessed.

“Mr. Wolf…” he heard the man mumble and William’s eyebrow lifted.  That seemed like an odd thing to be caught up on.  The dog clearly looked like a big black wolf.  Was he not concerned about the website?  That seemed more pressing.

“You know, with a website literally asking people for your photo, it’s going to be hard to suppress their interest,” William pointed out, in case Anthony had missed that.  “You’re like a local Abominable Snowman.”

Anthony did not look impressed.  He shook his head and grimaced, before taking out a cutting board and starting to cut apples into slices.  “Why are people so nosy?  Why can’t they just leave me alone?”

William felt really guilty as being one of the people that wouldn’t leave Anthony alone.  Sometimes he forgot that some people didn’t like being around others.

“Uh… that’s a hard one to answer.”  He took the ground beans out of the grinder, poured them into a filter, nestled the filter into the percolator and hit the Start button.  When a large sweatered arm came across in front of him to turn off the percolator, William practically leapt back in surprise.  Unable to stop himself, his eyes swung to lock onto Anthony’s.

“I like my coffee Bold,” Anthony said as he stared over his shoulder into William’s eyes, before breaking their eye contact to look at the percolator and press the Bold button before pressing the Start button again.

“Right.  Sorry,” William said hoarsely, before clearing his throat.  s**t, why does he have to be so good-looking?  That must be what this was.  Anthony was just too good-looking for William to think straight.  He was getting celebrity awe or something like that.  And Anthony’s eyes were too intense, like he was trying to see into William’s soul every time he looked at him.  That would make anyone feel a little strange.

“Where is Mr. Wolf?” William turned away and held up his camera, trying to occupy himself with something besides thinking about how good-looking the man too close to him was.  He walked around the table island to sit himself on one of the black leather barstools, quietly breathing a sigh of relief at the distance he’d put between him and the pinnacle of strangeness cutting cheese to go with the apples.

He started skimming through the photos he’d taken of the various rooms and then, on impulse, lifted his camera to take a picture of Anthony.  He smiled widely, feeling more like himself as he gazed down at the frown he’d captured on Anthony’s face and said to the unspoken accusation, “Hey, I’m going to need your photo for the article, just so they don’t keep thinking you’re a ‘shadow’ or ‘wraith’ like they’ve been spreading around town.  And what could be more boring than a man cooking breakfast in his kitchen?”

In the silence that followed his statement, William realized again that Anthony hadn’t answered his question.  “Oh yeah, what was your dog’s name again?”

Anthony stared down at the cheese he was cutting, and William’s mouth twisted in exasperation.  Why did the easiest of questions seem to take this man a long time to answer?

“It’s… Mate.”

“Mate?  That’s a … different name.  Is it like, First Mate?  Like on a ship?”

“Something like that.” Anthony said obscurely.

“Well, you may want to show your Mate off a bit more often.  People only see him as a monster dog right now.  It would be good to get him out and about, in the public eye.”

Anthony was smiling down at his breakfast.  “But I much prefer it just the two of us, me and my mate…  I don’t need anyone else besides him.”  Then his smile ebbed.  “If he’s willing to stay with me.”

William thought the conversation had become a little strange.  “Why wouldn’t Mate want to stay with you?  He seems like a happy dog.”  He had no idea why he was reassuring this man about his dog, but it seemed oddly important to Anthony.  I guess if you live alone with only a dog as company, you get really close…

But maybe it was time Anthony got out to meet someone who wasn’t completely covered in fur.

“Why do you never leave the house?”

“I do leave the house.”

William blinked.  Well, that shouldn’t be too surprising.  It was only just a rumour that he didn’t, after all.

“Why doesn’t anyone know who you are then?”

“I keep to myself.  I don’t particularly want to talk to anyone.  I don’t feel a need to.”

“Don’t you get lonely?”

Anthony turned away to get a cup for himself and poured himself and William a cup of coffee.  “Do you take milk or sugar in your coffee?”

“Why are you evading my question?  Cream, if you have it?”

“Fine, yes, I’ve felt lonely.  But when my Mate arrived, I realized that he was more than enough.”

William accepted his coffee while he mulled over that answer.  “But don’t you want to get married?  Have children?  That whole jazz.”

Anthony turned away and took his own turn staring out the window.  “I… haven’t really thought about that for a long time.”

William stared at Anthony’s back and realized that the more questions he asked, the more curious he got.

“Have you always wanted to live alone?”

“I’m not alone.”

William blew out his breath.  That was an evasion of the question if there ever was one.  Still, for a loner interviewee, he’d learned a lot.  He decided to stop pushing and focus on easier topics.

“So, what do you do for a living?”