Bleux Stockings Vol. 2: Elodie Westover

We are delighted to reprint Elodie Westover's piece from our February show.

Cycles

It was not, as teenage fantasy media had proclaimed, tied to the full moon. Not specifically. Not exactly. The moon, silver-yellow, bright in the night sky, was a happy, theatrical, and somewhat feminist coincidence. The moon was just a backdrop. No, the cycle had deeper roots, roots that wrapped around the very core of her being.

The cycle lasted, after all, for seven nights. Five, sometimes, if she was unlucky. Stressed. Not three, like the moon.

Never trust anything that bleeds for seven days and doesn't die, they'd joked. Ha ha. She was anything but dead on those nights.

The first twinge of cramps, shifting muscles, the shedding of skin, the shimmer of pain quicksilver through her gut, warming her thighs, aching behind her eyes, spreading, spreading... and blood. The blood had terrified her at first- dark and bright and hot and smelling like copper, like earth and ancient forgotten things. No one had told her. Alone and scared, locked in a public bathroom stall for refuge, she'd panicked, stuffed toilet paper in her stained underwear and made her shaky, embarrassed way home, too afraid to tell anyone, to ask for help.

The fur had come soon enough. Smooth flesh lost under a glossy sleek fan-fucking-tastic coat. Sharp talons and hellish ivory teeth. She felt her bones twist, break, reshape. She was becoming something else, something stronger, greater. The moon (not so full, now) sang overhead and her body drummed a reply, rebuilt itself, feral and fierce, bleeding and ferocious, the shy quiet slip of a girl-child, grasping at womanhood, replaced in blood and pain and growth with a glorious nightmare.

She was free, seven nights (maybe five) a month. She was bold and bright and entirely unafraid of everyone and everything. She walked the streets alone at night; she told no one where she was going, or when she would get there. She did not cower when boys howled after her--she howled back, snapped her teeth, flashed her nails. Sometimes she snatched them from their stoops. Sometimes they did not make it home. Sometimes all that was left at their end was torn fabric and the scent of fear, a drop of blood. Foul, coward's blood.

Seven nights a month there was a shift in her hips and her body was a predator and she bled and she made old men and clumsy young boys afraid, terribly, terribly afraid. She was a predator and for once- oh, for once, they were prey. No one had told her it would be so beautiful. The moon rose behind her and she howled a warning, howled for joy, and from across the city she heard her sisters answer.