Winnie Cuddle

	David Attenborough's voice carried through the room, narrating a nature documentary, illuminating the particles of dust that hung in the air of your, otherwise unlit, living room. Outside of your window fell the first snowflakes of the year, glinting in the light of the full moon. The soft couch cushions beneath you warmed your back. The aroma of the floof of sunset orange hair touched your nostrils as you fingers massaged the spine of the woman to whom that floof of hair belonged. Her face was buried in your chest, her body resting on top of yours. You weren’t sure if she was awake or not. A lion’s roar on the television made her ear twitch. She lifted her face and turned her head, resting her cheek on your chest. You hugged her a bit tighter and felt all of her warmth, silently blessing the fact that her internal body temperature was higher than yours. Those four degrees made a big, cozy difference.
	“Were you asleep?” you whispered. She inhaled, and you felt her legs and back stretch out, trembling slightly in pleasure as they did.
	“...No.” she said in the hoarse, groggy voice that she has when she wakes up. You chuckled.
	“Have any good dreams?” you asked. She gave you a playful glare before turning to the window and rising up to look out.
	“It’s a nice night.” she said.
	“You see the Moon?”
	“See it? I can practically feel it…” she said. “The werewolves up in Canada are gonna be out in droves, partying, hunting…” she gave you a sly smile. “...fucking.” You chuckled as she, sighing, lowered herself back down, placing her head on you shoulder. “I don’t want to move from this spot ever again.” she said, breathing softly on your neck. You put your arms back around her.
	“Well, we have a solid twelve hours of staying still. Then we’ll have to face movement again.” you said. She groaned softly and nuzzled her face into your neck, very deliberately allowing her fur to just barely graze your skin, tickling you.
	“Maybe not quite that long…” she said before softly kissing your jawline.
	“Why’s that?”
	“There’s a blue moon in two days. I’ve gotta visit my pack. If I don’t leave early tomorrow morning, I won’t make it.”
	“It takes two days?” you asked.
	“Yeah, walking.” she said.
	“You’re walking? To where?”
	“Nova Scotia.”
	“You’re gonna walk to Nova Scotia?”
	“Yeah.” she said. “And there’s a ferry too. Just don’t worry about it, I’m a werewolf. We walk a lot.” You slipped your hand up the back of her torn, undersized tank top and scratched her wing bone. Scratching her there always made her melt. All her muscles softened and she nestled her body into yours, sighing with pleasure as she did.
	“I won’t worry.” you said as her chest gently expanded with her breath. “Is it like a big party? You’re gonna live it up with them for the blue moon?”
	“Yeah, it’s a big celebration...but I don’t think it’s all that much fun.” she said.
	“Why’s that?” you asked.
	“Because...it’s just, like...I don’t know…” she said, stirring in your arms. “...It’s like...I’m a lot smaller than they are, and I just don’t mesh with them...I mean, if you think that I’m, uh...intense…”
	“I do.” you said.
	“Well, you should see them.” she said. “I mean, those are my people. They’re my brothers and sisters, my parents and grandparents...but I just don’t feel like one of them, you know?” You rubbed her back.
	“Uh huh.” you said. You know when and when not to interject.
	"Sometimes they tease me and call me runt or city-wolf. And I laugh, and they laugh...but I know they really mean it…” She sighed. “It’s because I’ve never lived out in the wild with them since I was, like, six. Papa Werewolf sent me to live in civilization because he was worried about me. I don’t know if it was a good decision...Although if he hadn’t done it, I never would have met Sibella and Elsa and Tanis and Phanty. Or you.”
	“Yeah.” you said, feeling her hair and letting her vent.
	“Maybe I would have been a completely different person if I never left. I’d be like them, even more so than I already am. Hyper primal and dominant, predatory...arrogant…” She let out a groan. “I’m sorry for talking at you like this.” she said, running her finger in circled on your rib cage.
	“It’s alright.” you said.
	“It’s just, like, they make fun of me...they all disapprove of every single little part of my life that isn’t a utilitarian necessity, just because that’s the philosophy that they have, and I don’t blame them! They live out there in the wilderness. But, they all agreed that sending me to the city was best, and now they disapprove of the clothes I wear, and my friends, too. You know, Papa Werewolf is the only one in my pack who approves of the other girls at Grimwood. Everybody else thinks I shouldn’t be friends with them. I’m old enough to choose my own friends! And not even Papa Werewolf approves of you!” She bit her tongue. She probably didn’t mean to tell you that.
	“...Really?” you asked.
	“...Yes.” she said. “I’m sorry. But he, and everybody else thinks that I should mate with a werewolf, and bare some huge brood that I’ll have to spend the rest of my life raising. And they all want me to be doing that right now. If they had it their way, I’d be pregnant within the next three days. They bring it up, every single time I visit. And then, to add insult, nobody would even mate with me anyways.” She took a breath to compose herself. “Because they don’t want kids that’ll end up like me…” Her back rose and fell with a shaky breath, but she didn’t allow herself to shed a tear. “They think I’m soft...By the standards and expectations of my pack, my family, and my parents, I’m a complete failure. What I am, isn’t what a werewolf is supposed to be. But it isn’t my fault. They sent me out to live with humans and vampires and witches and other...civil...people. That isn’t a place were a werewolf should grow up. Besides the girls at Grimwoods, I never fit in anywhere. People on the streets either thought that I was a dangerous beast or a cute pet. They either thought that I should be on a leash, or that I looked cute in ‘people clothes’. People would tell me I needed to fuck off back to the woods, or patronize me for being brave, living out in society. Nobody ever saw me as...as a person, just like them. And that’s all I ever wanted…” You bit your lip. She’s never been this open with you before. You didn’t think she cared about this stuff. It was probably naive of you to think that though. “So when I was 13 or 14 or whatever, and I went to visit my pack for the first time, I was so excited. I’d finally fit in with someone. But I didn’t...they rejected me. I was smaller and weaker than the other werewolf kids, and all the adults were immediately disappointed in me. But it’s all their fault...if they never…” she took another shaky breath. “...If they had never sent me away, I never would have been such an outlier. I would have had a whole community to fit in with. Now, I’m just...I-I…” her voice started to crack. “...I-I’m just…” she sniffed and shook her head, her ears flopping back and forth. “Sorry!” she said, chuckling and wiping her eye. “I didn’t mean to get so...y’know.”
	“It’s alright, Winnie.” you said, hugging her close. She snuggled up on you, planting her cheek on your chest and letting out a sigh of pleasure and release of tension. “I didn’t know you felt like that.”
	“...Yeah…” she said, looking up at you. “But I have you. And the girls, and Miss Grimwood. And Patches. That’s all I really need.” She smiled, showing her fangs. You smiled back at her.
	“I’m glad you’ve got me.” you said.
	“Me too.” she said, crawling forward. You palmed the soft floof of hair on the back of her head as she took hold of you shoulders and kissed you with her soft, moist, 102.5 degree Fahrenheit lips. You hugged her and felt the soft fur of her back, along with the alluring contour of it. Her legs stirred, finding a comfortable position. You felt her knees and her soft, firm thighs, held within a pair of running shorts that you used when you were a freshman in highschool. Her deceptively slender arms and elegant hands wrapped around you. She could probably break your ribs with a bear hug. But she was gentle. She nuzzled her face into your neck again, this time, not teasing you with her breath, now simply savoring the contact between the two of you. Some of her hair fell into your face, but you didn’t mind. It smelled like strawberries and rustic wood. You felt every movement of her ribs and face and hips and arms as she took a deep breath and exhaled. “I love you, Anon.” she said.
	“I love you too.” you whispered. You reached to the floor for the remote and shut the television off, leaving the flames of your wood stove to provide a sparse, ambient orange glow, the only light left in the room. The only sound you could hear was the soft crackling of the flames, and Winnie’s soft breathing. You felt her back slowly rise up and down with every breath, your eyelids growing heavy. You two were like puzzle pieces, fitting in perfectly with eachother. You remember hearing a soft snore from Winnie before falling asleep yourself.














Epilogue:


	You were gently started to wakefulness. You looked around as your eyes acclimated to the darkness, your arms still wrapped around the sleeping body of Winnie, the fire still burning. It was a few hours after the two of you had fallen asleep.
	It was some strange sort of sound that woke you, but you couldn’t place what it was. You would have gotten up and checked, but you wouldn’t dare ruin this peaceful sleep that the two of you were in the clutches of. You pushed the thought to the back of your head and looked down at Winnie as she slept. She was cute. You hugged her and shut your eyes.
	You heard a weird groan. You opened your eyes and looked back down at Winnie. She took shallow, sleepy breaths, and made another low groaning sound before—
	“Ruff!” It was just a tiny little peep, way higher than her usual vocal register. Her whole body jolted with the vocalization. She was barking in her sleep. “Ruff ruff!” Her body twitched with each tiny little bark. You bit your lip, trying to stifle giggling. You didn’t want to wake her up. You shut your eyes again. “Ruff ruff!” She did it again. You bit your lip harder. You were keeping some hysterical laughter at bay. As much as she would hate to hear this, it was like she was a puppy. It was adorable. “Ruff!”
	You were never going to fall asleep if she kept it up.