The line moved up. How easy it had been to fall into the bad ways. One of the men she took up with had been a bootlegger. There was a big call for lady bootleggers. The laws at the time had restrictions on male police officers searching women. The money had been lucrative and the job fun. Then she met another bootlegging gal, who’d liked Pru’s spunk. That dame had been a wolf in sheep’s clothing. She’d pulled Prudence deeper in, said Pru was too good to waste on being human.
A set of sharp canine teeth had torn into Pru’s soft flesh and ripped her world apart. Gave her a new world to belong to. Pru had embraced it all with open arms, open paws. She never looked back, until tonight. She never regretted anything until she met Lucas.
The line moved again. Lucas buried his hurt inside until he was a quivering mess of jelly. That part, Pru scoffed at. His life still had structure. He build a future with his dolls. He took his pain, his loneliness, and created something beautiful. She took her pain and destroyed her life. He found hope in the dark. She found more darkness. He gave back, brought joy to others. She only knew how to take. She wished she could be more like him.
Prudence stepped up with the line. What the hell was she doing? What did she want with the boy? Hell if she knew. The strong feelings of attraction confused the hell out of her. This wasn’t the “hey-I-like-you-let’s-fuck” kind of attraction. He wasn’t her type of romantic partner at all. Yet he sucked her in with magnetic force. She couldn’t pull away. Being with him felt so right, as natural as breathing. Her gut, her instincts, screamed this was the right path. She never questioned her gut as a human nor as a lycan, and she didn’t question it now. She just followed her inclinations like the tide followed the moon.
Not even the ammonia reek from his diapers could deter her. Blunt human olfactory senses could not smell his pee, but her sensitive lupine nose was full of the scent. It wasn’t just pee; animals communicated through urine. His basic age, sexual maturity, gender, overall health…the tang of his fear, the metallic tinge of his medications. All that information and more was right there in his diaper for her to sniff out.
Sweet scents of chocolate and sugar filled the air. Prudence stepped up to the counter and ordered. “Two dark chocolates.” She paid for the overpriced treat with her stolen money. The steaming liquid inside the styrofoam cups was pumpkin orange. Already, the chocolate bats and marshmallow ghosts started to melt.
She stepped away from the counter and moved to the shadows between two booths. She sat the cups down on a closed garbage can lid. Various scents drifted from under the lid, including dirty diapers, but she ignored them. With a furtive glance around to make sure no one was watching, she pulled a small bottle of Maker’s Mark bourbon from her back pocket. She’d shoplifted it from a state store earlier that morning.
The bourbon had a smooth vanilla caramel taste. Not as sweet as Bailey’s Irish creme or Kahlua, but it packed more of a punch. This would loosen up that diapered bundle of anxious nerves. The bitterness of the dark chocolate would help hide the bourbon’s bite.
Her hand froze just before she poured. An amber drop sparkled on the lip of the glass bottle. Should she do this? Would this be taking advantage of him? She hadn’t felt the prick of her conscience in decades. She brushed it off with a snort.
She was just helping him relax. It’s not like she planned to get him drunk, rob him or rape him. She just wanted him to drop his guard so she could get to know him. Alcohol was a social lubricant and he was one rusted wheel.
Generous dollops poured into the hot chocolate; just the right amount not to overpower the drink but still enough to knock Lucas back on his diapered keester. She poured the rest of the small bottle into her own drink.
On the way back, Prudence spied Rosie and her friends chatting up some college aged guys. The boys were a few years older, around twenty one. Looked like Lucas wasn’t the only one who was going to do a little Halloween drinking. Annoyance flashed through her. The least Rosie could do was check in on her panic attack prone cousin.