Leia K. Bradley | fiction | Moon Pie

  
                                                                                                            [cw: explicit sex]
  
Moon Pie


On the drive out to bring my baby home, I can just make out the full moon between the tip-tops of the evergreens—the pine, spruce, the sugar maple, and red oak. The Blue Ridge Mountains cresting into the cloudy kiss of dusk, the second oldest mountain range in the world, viridian and indigo-thick with myth. The autumn equinox had lilted into a lover’s quarrel of an October, all warm and threatening at once. It had been storming up a howl for days. As if something with long nails and bare throat were making love in the clouds, rumbling into moans and roars as their prophecies poured from the heavy night above. 

This morning, though, it had purred into mist and scattered clouds. Nothing but a damp after-rain cloying the air, fogging up our windows as Bex had woken me up in her usual ravenous way. All teeth and slipping into me from behind and devouring me eight ways to Sunday. When I woke up on her chest again a few hours later, her skin was almost luminous in the greyblue light of the morning. I kissed the crescent birthmark over her jugular and crept to the kitchen to feed the wood-burning stove. I had made apple-cinnamon pancakes—her favorite—and heard her pad into the kitchen, pretending not to notice her creep up on me as she pounced, covering me in kisses, laying me down on the counter for another ravaging. Laughter, then moans. That single dark curl falling in her eye, damn greaser hair making me go plum crazy for her touch, always humming with need in the hours before the apex. I think of her sideways grin, all mischief and giddy madness, sweet as molasses and twice as sticky—I never could stay away. I wanted to make her come and make her pie, and my mama said once you start wanting to make a man pie you might as well pick out a wedding dress. But she wasn’t a man, she was better, and she was something else, too. 

Marriage, well. We had talked about it, but between my job at the university, her taking over the carpenter shop, and, well, her time of the month and all, it just hadn’t happened.

I focus on the road. More important things now than institutions and gold bands, I remind myself. The ring around the moon is mostly obstructed by the wind whirling the stormclouds along their bellowing way, but I still see the full pale blare of its might, and I know that somewhere out there, my love is running free. Rings and moons and witch tales . . .  I hope Selene, or Artemis, whatever Mama Moon calls herself, is watching over my love until I get there.


***


This morning we sat at the kitchen table she carved herself from old pine, moon phases waxing and waning across the surface. I thumbed over them as Bex plowed through a skyscraper stack of pancakes and enough meat to feed an entire trucker convention. After e-mailing my students that I’d be holding office hours from home today if they had any questions on the Eastern Folklore homework, I pulled one of Bex’s flannels around me and watched her calloused, perfect hands grip the axe ou tin the yard, her bare back rippling with the swing and slice of chopping more wood for the fire. I let her have her space as I sit down to grade the last of last week’s papers on Will-O-The-Wisps, trying not to worry about all that lurked in those woods, all that would be prowling there tonight. The only thing that brought me any comfort was that she was the biggest. 

I grew up hearing stories about demon-things that lurk in the woods, steal your wives, devour you slow and entire. I didn’t believe in those, but there’s monsters in the bible, too, leviathans and krakens, whatever. Even angels are pure terror with all their dozen eyes. So I knew there were things out there, maybe unnamed or just misunderstood, and growing up around here meant truth was just as quick to change form as cold butter in a hot skillet. I never was chased down by any monsters in the dark, but I did have a mean drunk of a father, so I figure that’s close enough to count. 

I check my gas tank: more than half full, so, good. It’s darker than sin out here now. I turn off the main road and turn June Carter’s croon down a few notches, looking for the path that leads into the deeps and hollows of the wood. I flick on my brights and hit four-wheel drive, a map spread out on the seat next to me, though I know the night will show me where to go. 

The other partners are there too; I can see their lights dipping between the fir boughs, searching for the exhausted bodies of their own loves, to call their names, to bring them back.

I see Blake, Damien’s husband, nod silently to me as we search for our partners in the dark, flashlights in hand. Bex just helped him fix his pickup before the equinox bonfire. Something about a carburetor’s guzzle. I offer him some hot cider from the thermos in my backpack. 

“Spiked?” he whispers, stopping for a moment by a fallen log, covered in moss. A few beetles skitter away from the shine of my light as I give him an eyebrow that says obviously. 

I notice him carting a small cooler along with him, and he answers my look. 

“Last time he ate through half a buck. Just in case that happens this time, I could take the rest of the meat home. Make a stew.” 

“I have a great Guinness pie recipe you could work out.”

“Oh, bless you.”

“Smart idea. Though Bex usually doesn’t leave any leftovers.”

“I think Dame feels guilty halfway through, once he realizes what he’s eating.” His eyes go soft behind his wire-rimmed glasses.

“Sweet baby. He’s a good one.”

“We’re both blessed,” he says. “To find the sweetest of god’s deviant beasts.” 

I giggle. “I know. It would be a shame if I ended up being the biggest deviant bitch in town.”

He chuckles. “This morning I told Dame to go fetch me some coffee and I ended up getting punished by orgasm for an hour. No one, I tell ya, can resist a dog joke on a full moon.”

He takes another swig of my cider and I follow suit, hoping I find her fast before it storms again. I pull her Carhartt tighter around me. 

“Let me know when y’all are home safe, 'kay?”

“You too. And see you tomorrow for the pack potluck. I’m making that pumpkin cheesecake you like.”

“Shit, bitch, I will have to kill you to get that recipe won’t I?”

“Yep. My grandmama’s ghost will come back and kill me before you get a chance.”

“Ain’t nobody need ghost grandmas. Alright. Stay warm, sugar.” He pulls a flask from his pocket, raises it to me and the moon, drinks deep, and sets off eastward. I keep going north, feeling the pull of her. The humming pull that connects us guides me over fallen maples and lightning-wracked pines, between wild dogwoods and shagbark and there, just there, an owl turning its eyes around its body to meet mine. I hear its low call and follow it, feel the pull of that line guiding me to her, the whole unsleeping forest keeping one eye on the moon and other on my breath, curling hot in the cool damp air. 

The owl takes off. I feel the line flower and burn bright, and then I see her. The full moon bathes a small clearing in its silver train, like a veil softly floating across the surface of water. An enormous sleeping wolf, breathing softly beneath a sugar maple on a bed of damp leaves and soft green moss. My breath catches in my throat. It always does, when I see her like this—ocean-black fur rippling across the enormity of her massive strength. I press my lips to her forehead, and she looks at me with those yellow eyes, blinking slowly, then nuzzles my neck, breathing in my scent, bringing her back into herself. 


***


I remember the first time we met, how she was so scared to tell me what she was. But I’ve known a lot of angry men in my time. A werewolf is nothing compared to them. And besides, I loved every odd thing that made her burn so true. I always knew there was something strange with her, something I couldn’t place—how she was never cold, how she could eat a whole turkey by herself, how her eyes could change from brown to gold and back again. I’d be trimming the sides of her hair again since she liked it cut short, but it grew so fast I’d have to trim it every week. She said it was genetics and pretended not to notice my raised eyebrow of disbelief. 

But one day I found her sneaking out with a backpack—I chased after her as she got in the truck. She was crying, wouldn’t look at me. I was banging on the window—“Bex, I don’t know what’s wrong, but whatever it is I promise I’ll do whatever I can to fix it,” I said. “I’ll do anything for you, you know that. Whatever it is, we’ll get through it. Bex!”

She sped away and I knew the moon was full but it couldn’t be that, no—well, sure, myths aren’t always just stories, I knew that, but—it didn’t matter. Something was wrong, and I had to find her. I had to know she was okay, so I got in my truck and sped out after her. I saw her pull off the main road, saw her take off faster than I could keep track of the shape of her through the trees. 

Soon the moon was blaring clean and loud and I was deep in the thick green of the mountains, alone. 
I had been stumbling around in the dark for hours before I finally just leaned up against a tree and hoped morning light would help me find a way home, find my way back to Bex. 

I thought I was dreaming, at first, still asleep. The biggest bear I’d ever seen—wolf, rather, was sniffing my hair, the wet nose on my cheek making me realize I was awake. But it wasn’t Bex. It was Sara.

Not that I knew it then, but it was her. Sara was Bex’s ex. She could’ve killed me. She might have, if Bex hadn’t come bounding in between us, snapping at her and growling with such a harrowing ferocity my jaw was hanging open. Sara snapped back at her once and then took off, but I knew Bex’s searing protective streak, those golden eyes, the musk-wet smell—

“Bex?” I asked the enormity of her. “Bex.”

And the golden eyes looked at me, and her head hung low. Her eyes drooped in fear and I understood. I understood it all. 

Sara took off. Bex had started to walk away and I began to follow, but she gave me a look that said stay, and I obeyed.

And I heard it. The horrible crunch of bone and muscle re-stitching a human body back together, horrible un-death sounds that made my stomach lurch, but when she stumbled out, she was human again. She collapsed into me, vomiting up fur and bones and more of the night’s viscera, and that’s when I met Damien for the first time, shirtless. Jon was with him, too, handing some sweatpants to Bex.

He looked worried, but Damien said, “We were wondering when she was going to tell you.”

“I didn’t,” Bex said. Then Damien looked worried too. They helped me get her back in her truck, and I drove her home. 

“You don’t have to say anything, she said. “I’ll move out tomorrow, once I’m better.”

“You’re not moving out,” I said. “I’m going to help you shower and then while you sleep I am going to make you a huge breakfast.”

“You should be terrified.”

“I should be a lot of things. Straight, according to my mama.”

“Are you making jokes after you just saw me turn into a giant wolf?”

“No, I am making jokes after I saw you turn from a giant wolf into the sexiest butch ever. Even while vomiting animal parts all over me.”

“I’m so sorry about that.”

“I’m sorry that you felt like you couldn’t tell me.”

She sighed. “Are you actually mad at me?”

“You think I couldn’t handle it?”

“I don’t think anyone can be in love with a freak, no.”

I slammed on the brakes. 

“Hey!”

“Don’t you dare ever call the love of my life a freak.”

Her eyes went wet. “You mean—you want to still be with me?”

“Honey, I am going to bake you so many pies, you will be vomiting up pumpkin spice for days. I told you I wanted to be with you forever. I meant it.”

She buried her face into my neck and I leaned in to all the overheat of her, pulling on to the main road to take us home as she told me was gonna marry me tomorrow, and fell asleep.

When we got home, I helped her out of the car. She slept the whole day. She was blazing hot, but she said it was just her body continuing to remake itself, healing faster. 

“Did I tell you I would marry you today?” she had asked me.

“Yes. But don’t worry. I can be patient.”

“You are the opposite of patient.” She pulled me back into bed with her.

“Well, yes, true.” What I really wanted to ask was Does it hurt?  But instead I went for a more unhinged “So, I’m in love with a shapeshifting wolf lesbian?”

She burst out laughing and buried her head in my neck. “God, I love you. Yes, pretty much.”

“I’m gonna need a little more here.  There were pieces of you . . . ”

“Yes, my human form completely breaks apart and the wolf takes  over. Breaking bones to regrow them. And then again to transform back. Every month. As if having a period as a dyke isn’t bad enough.”

She must have seen my horrified face. All that pain . . .

“Hey, no tears. Don’t pity me. It isn’t all bad. My skin, hair, for example, can never really be damaged, so I’m”—she winked at me, put my hand on her dick— “irresistible.”  

I grabbed up on her and then made her look at me. “Keep going.” 

“Okay, we have a pack. Damien is my guy. We’re all brothers, sisters, you know. And our partners come and help find us after we change, to speed along the healing process back to our two-feet form. It helps if someone we love… calls our name.”

“This whole time. Those camping trips with the boys. You liar—I could have been taking care of you!”

“You have to know how much I love you, Faye. I would kill for you. I would have, out there… Look, I just didn’t know how to tell you. I know how much you’ve been through, how much violence, and I didn’t want you to be scared of me. Losing you… I’d be destroyed, Faye.”

I bit into her shoulder, hard, and watched the teeth marks fold back into themselves, like my canines were never inches inside her. 

“Hey! What was that for?” she asked. She pinned herself on top of me, thrusting her thigh in between my legs. 

“For not telling me sooner, you ass.”

“Tell me how to fix it, angel.” 

“Say more.”

 “I mean, I love the taste and smell of you, obviously.”

“That ain’t news.”

“No, I literally can’t get enough of you. Even in the shop, working all day with my hands, cools me down a little, but when I even get a whiff of your scent, it’s like… it’s like I want to mate.”

“What, like fucking?”

“Well, would you say our sex is just ‘fucking’?” 

“Well, no—”

“Do you need a reminder?”

I felt the heat of her radiate towards me, as if she was pulling me in. I had felt this pulsing urge before, but it was stronger now, the desire curling hot through me.

She slipped inside me slow and earnest, and then we were ravenous, my nails raking down her back, my back arching, her huge arms flipping me over and wrapping her hands around my neck and ramming into me hard from behind, every inch of her filling me up, marking me, making me hers. “Tell me,” she growled, thrusting in deep and holding me there. “Tell me you’re mine.” She flipped me around, her cock still inside me. She was showing me how strong she really was; she must have been holding back before. I smiled and play-fought back and she pinned me down again, thrusting deeper until I was a mess of wet moans. She held herself inside me, made me look into her eyes, said “You’re mine. Tell me you belong to me.”

“Yes, I’m yours, completely. I belong to you.” The bed was soaked with our sweat all the rest of us, but I knew she wasn’t done. She gripped the headboard so hard she broke it, and pulled me away from the bed, a lamp crashing to the floor, as she held me up against the wall, held me there and pressed into me harder, deeper, carried me into the kitchen and bent me over the table, the moons waxing into my cheek as I came again, again, again.

Now we were naked, catching our breath on the kitchen floor. She was eating a family size pack of beef jerky with her head in my lap. 

“Mating,” I said. “Got it.” My cheeks were flushed, body exhausted. Wow.

“Are you all mine? You really mean it?”

“Are you gonna be a good boy?” I scratched behind her ear.

“Fuck you. But also, yes, I want to spend the rest of my life loving you. Loving you better every day.”


***


There’s a clear view of the moon between the branches tonight. So when I find her there, bathing in the silver light, like the night itself is trailing milky light across the lush, verdant yearn of earth, her charcoal fur gleams the most spectacular silver. I whisper her name into her ears, petting her fur ever so softly, until she nuzzles me and licks the whole of my face. I giggle. 

“Bex,” I say. “Hi, sugarbean. It’s safe, my love. You’re safe. You can come back to me now, Bex. You won’t hurt me. It’s okay. I love you.” 

I whisper her name into her fur until I feel like the line between us flower something other, some arcane unspoken thing, and Bex, in time, comes staggering out of the brush wearing her human skin again. She falls into me, weak, and I help her put on sweatpants and a jacket, carry her back to the truck, where she shakes her head when I open the back door for her, where I made a temporary bed for her to rest. 

“Please.”

She shakes her head. 

“So stubborn.” I sigh and open the passenger side door. “Let’s get you home, handsome.”

I help her in, and turn the truck on, help her drink some water before she lays her head on my lap. I thank her again for helping me fix up this old truck; bench seats make for perfect long drives. By the time I can pull a blanket over her, she’s already asleep. Dolly’s on the radio, singing about love and satin butterflies, and I think about the brilliant glow-green of a luna moth as I shift into gear and start the long drive home. Everything winging by moonlight, everything flying home safe.

“I love you,” she says at home, attempting to smile, after she hurls rabbit parts into the toilet a few times. I can’t help but smile. “I love you right back, my handsome wolf.” 

I help her shower off the dirt and all the gore sticking to her sweat, and we clamber into bed, arms around each other, the smell of rain-kissed wilderness still in her hair. We sleep for awhile, then I wake up to the burn of her temperature, her body still healing itself, and kiss her shoulder softly, wiggling away to reheat the steak I made the night before so it’d be ready for a steak and eggs breakfast, get her strength back up in a flash. I bring it to her in bed.

She stirs, kissing my arm. “Get over here, you little moon pie.”

“It’s raining cats and dogs out there again,” I say. “Well, mainly dogs.”

I see a smile creep across her lips. “You are terrible.”

“The absolute worst.”

I give her a good head scratch and get up to make coffee. When I come back, there’s a small wooden box, hand-carved, on my pillow. 

She’s got a look on her face like she’s about to pounce on me.
“No.”

“Already? I haven’t even asked yet!”

“No, no! I mean, yes! Yes, yes!” 

She bounds across the bed to me and tackles me to the floor, coffee flying, as she pulls me on top of her fast before I hit my head. “You’re saying yes?”

“Yes, you idiot, I’m saying yes!”

I kiss her, coffee dripping off the walls, and she says, “I can’t wait to marry you,” she says, kissing my happy tears off my cheeks. 

I can’t stop crying, can’t stop saying I love her. “Just think of all the pies!”


***


Under a waxing crescent moon between two of the oldest pines in the forest, the monster and the maiden say the magic words in the magic woods that mean forever. Mama doesn't come, but that’s okay. If she had a problem with me dating a woman, I mean, marrying a werewolf would definitely send her to an early grave. 

I wear white and a gold ring with a crescent diamond, smell the gardenias in my bouquet, swimming in tuberose and jasmine, all night blooming flowers, and Bex and all the pack wear forest green. It’s stupid beautiful. Jon and Damien give out moon pies as party favors. I hate how much it makes me laugh.

“You look like Selene herself in that white,” Jon says, already slurring a bit.

“Goddess of the moon indeed,” Damien says. He takes a bottle of bourbon from Jon and takes a swig.
“How’s it feel to be married to—gasp—the monster in the woods?” Jon asks me, feigning fear.

Damien laughs. “Hear the sex is great. From the monster-fuckers, anyway.” He winks.

“Y’all! I am a lady in Christ!” I say, laying my accent on thicker than frying oil. “I would never even think of having sexual relations before marriage. Human or beast.” I clasp my hands in faux penitence.

Everyone laughs and I adjust my veil, feel the weight of the gold band on my ring finger, the warm, humming line from my heart to my wolf pulling ever stronger.

“Well, I feel pretty damn good,” Bex says. “The monster ran away with the beautiful princess trapped in the church tower. I mean, shit, doesn't get much better than that.”

We forgo glasses, drink the champagne straight from the bottles. The whole pack and all their lovers gather in a circle, tilt their heads back, and howl. The lovers join in, the whole of the forest alive with ancient fables and secret myths come true. Bex looks at me with all the love of a thousand tales and legends curling into feral, night-blooming love, as I throw my bouquet behind me to the wilderness and throw my head back to the crescent moon, and howl. 









**2024 Pushcart nominee