Six degrees Celsius.
80% chance of rain.
That’s just what the weather app told her - the news was different.
She sat on the couch, eyes on the tv, listening to the weather warning - stay inside, they said. High winds coming from the south, torrential rain.
The weather man flashed a smile at her, white teeth, gentle assuring light blue eyes.
Her stomach began to knot though, rumbling and tumbling over on itself, as if folding.
She lashed out at the remote and the room plunged into darkness.
Her husband had left for work, taking their seven year old son to school - a fact that he sulked against, saying the rain meant they had to play under cover - and he and his friends were about to finish their battle between dinosaur overlords that they began last week. She did not sway though, school was school - and she had to go rain, hail or shine at his age.
Now they were both gone, leaving her to their quiet home, where nothing but the rain cascading down could be heard.
Pulling the nearby cream lounge blanket over her chilled body - the blanket he and her would snuggle under as they tried to squeeze in a episode over Netflix - she moved her free hand over the touchpad on her MacBook and it’s glow lit her face. She didn’t want to proofread and edit, not today of all days, trapped as she was in this storming snow globe, feeling the ice cut right through her blanket and long-sleeved pyjama top to kiss the tips of her nipples, but she had to get something done. Something or anything.
She got through three pages of this manuscript before her mind began to stutter through her memories. A country girl, she was. Born and bred in Grafton, New South Wales, moving to the city of Sydney at the age of nineteen to room with her best friend while attending college, all the while working at a record store in the city CBD.
She met the man she’d call husband while not even fully understanding what it was she wanted in life, and that whirlwind of time led her to life in Geelong, Victoria - where she suddenly had everything - a beautiful boy, a loving m home, a stable job she enjoyed (mostly) and a sweet man.
Despite this, something had begun to gnaw at the fringes of her mind. It began, she had noticed, when the rain fell a week ago.
Day after day, 9am to 3pm, when she’d pick up her son, she felt something there. Something different. Like a mirror that had begun to splinter, threatening to spread.
She’d put her head down and work, but the silence was heavier than usual. Few times she sat around the house, pausing from her work, feeling agitated and restless.
A few times over sharing cooking duties, she had snapped at her husband - no, not snapped. Snarled. She snarled at her husband. Later, in bed, she recalled her husband hurt and startled.
‘What’s wrong?’ He had asked. ‘I’ve never heard you like that before.’
She could only shake her head, the moment a distant memory, as if her mind was already on the case of blocking it.
But she recalled what he had said next.
‘Even your eyes looked different.’ Her husband continued. ‘Like...like amber.’
She closed the MacBook and left it to rest beside her.
What was she thinking? The Victorian Winter had finally gotten to her. It found a thread dangling out of her arm and pulled till she unravelled, exposing her ivory skin, her bare flesh, for the winter to lower and feast upon.
She was happy here, she knew. But wait, what has that got to do with anything? Where did the concept of happiness come from?
She shivered from under the blanket, not sure if it was the cold that chilled her now or the thought.
From her right came a scuttling sound. Her Frenchie no doubt, wanting her to let him in and turn on the heater so they could snuggle.
She frowned, curled her hair around her ears where they wouldn’t get to her eyes, and rose from the seat.
‘Mason, get out of the rain, boy - you have a house for a reas....’
Her jaw fell open and she could feel her eyes narrow, focused in.
Amber eyes focused back at her from the grey outside.
Carefully, she moved across to the blinds, and began weaving the beaded cord through her cold fingers.
An inch at a time the blinds moved upwards, revealing red tufts of fur, matted back in the rain.
Her eyes met amber and never left, even as the light of the morning filtered through the backdoor.
The fox was standing on the back step, it’s ears flattened, twitching against the heavy rain that fell upon its head. It’s eyes watched her cautiously, wondering.
She, herself, audibly gasped once it came into full view - and found herself unlocking the backdoor and pulling it open.
‘Heyyyy...’ She began - but the fox ran around the corner, obscured by the side of the house.
In its exit, it left paw prints in the mud - a sign of its existence.
Without thinking, she stepped outside. Rain lashed at her skin from all around, each drop crashing down against her pyjamas and drenching it into a thing of weight.
Suddenly she could feel the cotton of her top and bottom cling to her body, framing her hips, her breasts, her ass.
She rounded the corner to the left, stepping through the gate that separated garden from the outside area.
Nothing but the plants she had placed was there.
‘But...where...?’
Her eyes scanned the corners of her yard. A hole perhaps? Hidden ‘neath the shrub?
That couldn’t be, another thought came to her, we’ve sandbagged the bottom so Mason doesn’t continue to poke his head under to the neighbors side and say hello.
All of a sudden her mind was back on the weight of her pyjamas. She could feel everything in that moment, the rain bucketing down upon her, the wind tracing across her nipples, the water trickling down her back cold as ice. She grunted, no, snarled, and tore at the pyjamas she bought from Peter Alexander, the pyjamas that she loved for the feel of them against her skin. The fabric made a satisfying tearing sound and the soaking piece came free, her body relieved of the weight. Now the rain relentlessly stung at her skin - her arms, her stomach, her breasts.
She felt herself snort and growl as her hands now focused on her pants, her bare feet drifting in the mud, encasing her feet in the sinking earth, as she stepped out of her pants one foot at a time. She tossed them into the wall with a huff, pants and torn top, and stood there heaving in the rain, in the storm, the weekly storm.
It came to her then - a huff, a growl, a snort, a snarl, a Welp, a cry. It rose from her stomach, up through her lungs. She began to scream in bursts of guttural groans. She didn’t sound like herself, didn’t feel like herself, something was wrong, something else was with her, no, in her. She could never go back, could never be the same again.
Burning against the onslaught of rain drops.
Water ran from her forehead down across her eyes. She blinked through them, and found herself unable to stop screaming even though it stung her.
She felt hands claw at every inch of her, leaving red streaks across her chest. They marked her breasts, claw hooking across her nipple, dragging the pain outward.
Her legs, as if unable to take the assault of rain any longer, trembled and collapsed beneath her and she fell to the ground, mud splashing across her knees and face.
This wasn’t her, but who was she? This wasn’t her, the wife, the worker, the mother. The busy bee, say yes, nod politely. Swallow down the hurt, let it lump in your throat no matter what.
She curled up in the mud, her knees rising back into her chest. The rain now reached to her rear, coming to the sting her anus and reach out to lash across her exposed slit.
Her lungs sucked in crisp winter air, the likes of which she had never experienced before. The fresh air swirled down her throat, and she sucked in more, eager for more.
When her hands found her slit and began to glide across the length of her lips, she did not question it. She stayed in the fetal position, her arm stretching back across to stroke what was exposed. Using the rain water that was beading on her skin, she rubbed her clit, letting her chest rise and fall to take in more of the sweet air.
Time weaved around her, leaving her trapped in a dome where the rain always fell.
She wriggled on the spot, her ass twisting into bed, lathering her back and legs.
Icy muddy puddles pooled around her, lapping at the sides of her stomach.
She lay there feeling her grunting come back, burning up her throat, tearing out between her teeth, leaving a string of saliva to fly across her neck. She felt her face push into the bed, her hands assaulting her slit, working herself into a frenzy. She didn’t know...didn’t understand. She wanted to scream.
She found herself grunting, groaning, spitting. Saliva, mild and thick, ran down across the centre of her chest, coming to hang across the shape of her breast.
At once she growled through clenched teeth, her thighs clamping down on her hand between her legs. The world around her spun as she blinked away the rain.
She sucked down more of that air, rolling onto her back, letting herself fall into the muddy puddles around her.
