A Cashier and a Movie Star...Can They Really Fall in Love?

Chapter 29 Secrets
“Tell me something,” said Tom after we had finished making love. He buried his face into my hair, and inhaled, enjoying the floral smell. “We have no secrets from each other right?”

I racked my brains for something to tell him that he didn’t know about me. “Well, not that I’d have any secrets from you but… Since you never asked about it, here it goes. I was a virgin before I met you, I want to be a writer and teacher someday, you make my world a hell of a lot better just by being in it, and someday I want to have four children. I think that’s all I have left in me…”

Tom chuckled softly, and kissed my forehead. “He he, I was your first. That’s nice to know. And I think you’ll be a great writer/teacher someday. I know you’ll be great no matter what path you take. And you know that you are the light of my life, Joanne. If I had never met you, I would have probably been killed by Melissa! I have never felt this way about any other girl before, not even Melissa. It feels as if my heart is about to burst, overcome with my love for you. I couldn’t think I could love you any more than I do right now, but every second that goes by, my love for you grows and grows. I don’t ever want us to part again. You have no idea how it killed me inside to force you to go back home with Mary and Dan. The things I had planned for us… all ruined because of Melissa. And once you were gone, I became a half dead, half alive zombie, or as Harry Potter world would put it, inferi.”

“Ah,” I said. “Dead bodies that come alive… Interesting choice of word.”

“No one could shake me out of it,” continued Tom. “I barely ate, I hardly slept, I was miserable without you. And after a while, my brother Chris finally snapped me out of it. He said, ‘I know where your heart belongs, and where you belong. Do you know?’ And then it hit me: why not move to Jersey, and live close by you?”

“So, I bought this mansion, sent all my things overseas here, and hoped I would run into you. Then, I got that dreaded call from Dan…”

He glared at me as if I had killed someone. “He thought I was still in England, and told me that you were joining a convent, and you were going to commit to it, and give your vows… I almost DIED when he told me. I thought you had given up completely on our love, and was now doing the most senseless and craziest thing you could ever do-”

“I could have just walked off a cliff,” I said, shooting him a death glare as I pulled the sheets around my naked body. “Wouldn’t that have been way worse?”

“Anything with you doing anything drastic is crazy. Being a nun? I have to say that I was quite upset over that. It wasn’t like I died or anything like that. We were apart-”

“You- you have no idea how much it KILLED me inside that you were not here with me!” I said, pushing away from the loving embrace I had craved while he was away. I turned on my side, not wanting to look at him. “I had no choice but to join a convent. My heart beat for you, and no other, but since we had parted, I thought you’d never come back to me. A part of me died, and I thought since no other man held my heart, I’d commit to God’s will. It was the only thing I could do to regain some sort of peace with myself…”

“But when I went to your room at the convent, and confessed how sorry I was, begging for your forgiveness, you said, ‘Why don't you understand? I am a nun now. I cannot be with a man ever again. The only man I will ever be with is God. Go find yourself a girl who doesn't have any priorities. Go be happy with some other girl…’ That was as if you had took out a machete, cut out my heart, and ate it right in front of me. Why did you say that?”

“What was I supposed to say?” I said bitterly. “I didn’t tell myself to go back to Jersey in England. I didn’t know when or even if we were ever going to see each other again. Imagine how I felt. You see, I unlike you, cannot just hop aboard a plane to England and see you whenever my heart desires. Haven’t you forgotten that I am a lowly cashier who makes a whopping $8.50 and hour? And you make, like what, $2,000 an hour? Those numbers don’t add up, and neither did we…”

“But we DO add up,” said Tom as he put a hand on my bare shoulder, trying to make me look at him. “We are perfect for each other. Look, I never wanted you to leave. That was never my intention. My intention was to protect you from Melissa, and look at what I did! I fucked it all up! Leaving you was probably the worst thing I could have done. I should have known Melissa would have been relentless… I’m such a fool…”

I sighed, and rolled over on my side to look at him. He had his head in his hands, frustrated and upset, but not crying. Tom was too much of a man to cry. But I could tell he was fighting it with every fiber of his being. I slowly moved closer to him, and wrapped my arms around him, pulling his warm body against mine. His soft hair brushed against my chest, and I ran my fingers through it. I kissed him gently on the top of his head, and lay on his side, facing me.

“There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you,” said Tom slowly. “But I don’t know how to quite say it. I think it might be best if I just show you…”

He got out of bed, still completely naked, and I focused on his face to keep from looking at his lower torso. He stood at the foot of the bed, and then crouched. The skin on his back rippled until tufts of white fur burst all over his body until it was completely covered. His beautiful, handsome face morphed, his nose had gotten a bit bigger, and was now black. His eyes, once a beautiful blue had gone gray, and his ears were now perched on top of his head. I looked with wide eyes at what was now in front of me, a wolf.

Tom looked at me with uncertainty in his eyes, like he didn’t want me to see him like this, but he had to show me anyway. He slowly made his way over to me, and nosed my hand, begging for me to say something… and to pet him.

I had no words to say. I just looked at the beautiful, white wolf that was in front of me, and tried to see how this could possibly be Tom. “T-t-tom?”

The wolf’s eyes flashed blue for a split second, and the faded to gray. It shook its head yes, and I slowly, carefully put my hand out to touch the wolf. The wolf’s eyes closed, and I gently ran my hand over the soft fur. The fur reminded me of Tom’s hair, soft and pale, and I knew at once that this wolf was Tom… my Tom.

“C-can you hear me?” I whispered as I stroked the wolf’s back. The wolf’s eyes opened, and gazed at me as if it was… listening. “Can you tell me how this happened to you?”

The wolf shook his mane, and continued to look at me. “Oh, you can’t speak when you are in your wolf form. Is that right?”

The wolf nodded, and I sucked in air quickly, and let it go after holding it for several seconds. “Well, that explains it then…”

The wolf cocked its head in wonderment. “That explains why you are so horny nowadays…”

The wolf bared its teeth, but not in a threatening, menacing way. The wolf was smiling at me.

I leaned back against the headboard of the bed, sitting up, and patted for the wolf to sit with me on the bed. “Tom, please come here…”

The wolf jumped onto the bed, amazingly agile, and sat next to me, not taking his eyes off of me for a second. “Are you able to change back?”
The wolf nodded, and soon, the fur, the black long nose, and the bushy tail disappeared into soft human skin. Tom looked into my eyes, and I tried to keep my fear under control. I didn’t want him to know that in a way, I was now scared of him.

“It was not something that you would call right out of a horror story,” said Tom quietly. “I wasn’t bitten by a werewolf, so technically I am not a werewolf. This is going to sound insane…”

He ran his hands through his hair, trying to think of the right words to say. “You know how Harry Potter is this HUGE phenomenon right? Rowling has out seven books, eight movies are being made, dolls, candy, videogames, trading cards, clothes, accessories and so on. Well, they decided to make one more edition to that…”

“What could they possible add to this craze?!” I said. “I mean, they are even building a THEME PARK for Christ sake! What more can they do?”

“Scientists were hired to see if they could possibly merge human DNA with animal DNA, therefore creating-”

“ANIMAGUSES!” I cried. “So, you are the first real live human animagus! Or really, muggle animagus…”

“Yes, I signed up for being an animagus. But because I was the first, they monitored me before they could administer to anyone else, and it was a good thing too…”

“When there is a full moon, although I am not a werewolf, I have no control over my morphing nor what I do when I become the wolf. If I morph into a wolf at will, I can control myself easily enough. The scientists must have mutated the wolf gene they put in me. And now, this is the price I must pay for wanting to be an animagus. This is permanent, and will never change. I am just thankful that no one else will ever have to be like me, and go through what I go through every full moon…”

I rested my head against his shoulder, and he held me in his arms. “Are you afraid of me?”

“How can I be afraid of you when I feel so protected in your arms?” I said as he kissed the top of my head. “I couldn’t be safer anywhere else… I love you.”

“You don’t know…” whispered Tom. “What I am capable of doing… I could seriously hurt you, maybe even kill you…”

His hands gently rested nails on the bedside table next to him, and I watched in horror as his hand easily broke it, reducing it to splinters. I kept my composure as his hand traveled to my face, gently caressing it. It scared me that Tom could be so gentle with me, when meanwhile he could be so destructive to the bed table.

I put my hand on his, holding it tightly. “I know you, and I know you would never hurt me or even try to. Like you said, nothing will tear us apart again, not even you being a furry wolf man.”

Tom laughed, and I knew that I had reassured him enough that I wasn’t going to leave him just because of his “furry problem.”