Cycles
Post Transformation - Morning of the Waning Gibbous
Aphrodite woke up, suddenly, with a deep inhale of air. Her lungs and senses were filled with the scent of wet dirt, broken leaves and the faintest bit of musk. The smell that lingers on a fur coat. She was naked, and the aches in every bone in her body, alerted her that she post transformation. The full moon was over. She knew the pain wouldn’t pass, the reshaping of her entire body was not an easy thing for it to go through. Even though she sat up slowly, she got vertigo. And then nausea. She turned her head, dropping back on to one elbow and vomited on to the forest floor. She closed her eyes, as the contents of her stomach emptied and she was left dry heaving bile. Aphrodite pushed away from the ground, and the mess. Refusing to look at the unsanitary display of whatever the leopard had consumed.
She was covered in dirt and sweat. Her hair stuck to her forehead and her back in wet strands. Standing on shaking legs, she could hear joints cracking as if they still hadn’t quite settled into place.
It wasn’t quite late enough in the morning for the first light of the day to guide her journey back to her car. It was still just the moon, and while it no longer held a thrall over her, she still felt like it was mocking her in some way. Shining large and bright. It’s face grinning down at her.
There was a line of cars on the edge of the forest. They belonged to other members of her pack, most of which were likely still running wild, or getting their bearings back. As an alpha she was usually the first to return to human form. Aphrodite opened the trunk. She put on an oversized t-shirt and a pair of cotton shorts that she had tucked within. She didn’t bother with shoes. Her current location was a rumored wereanimal roaming ground, so she didn’t need to worry about a wayward stranger witnessing a dirt-covered and naked blond woman emerging from the trees. She slid in the to driver’s seat, with audible protest from her body. She ignored it, and pulled her phone and keys out of the glovebox. It wasn’t the greatest idea to leave her car unlocked, perhaps, but she couldn’t exactly carry her keys on her. The blueish light from the device light up her face, and advertised that it was 4:34AM. There was a text from her husband. He had said that he loved her, and that he hoped she was safe.
>I love you, too.
She text him back, knowing that he was probably asleep.
First, she drove to a motel. It was close to the woods, and she didn’t need anything fancy. They also didn’t ask their clientele why they were covered in dirt and other indistinguishable grime. Aphrodite took a cold shower, using products that she traveled with. Her favorite shampoo that smelled like gardenias, and minty bar of soap that helped with the ache she felt all over. She scrubbed, and shampooed and scrubbed and shampooed until the water ran clear and her skin was tinged red with her efforts. She used all the towels to dry herself off. She left her still damp hair down, changed into new, clean clothes, and threw the old ones away.
She drove home.
The clock on her dash read 6:20 when she pulled into the garage. Aphrodite was exhausted. She wanted to sleep for the next twenty hours, but her day was just beginning. She was the clock turn over to 6:21, she inhaled deeply and when she exhaled her signature cheerful smile appeared on her features.
Getting her husband and daughter together in the morning always presented unique challenges. Rose had most certainly lost something important that she needed for school, and helping Holland choose an outfit for the day could take any variable length of time. Rose didn’t eat breakfast with them anymore, choosing to leave with her friends early and get coffee before school. That morning she had only been missing a textbook that had been left in Holland’s car. Sending her on her way had gone off without a hitch, and now Aphrodite found herself back in her bedroom. She was till, however, not asleep. She had changed, again, already wearing an orange, white and black harlequin patterned circle skirt and orange blouse. She had styled her hair perfectly while Holland had showered, and now they were working on his outfit.
“I think you should take the day off,” he had commented, rejecting another shirt. He handed it off to her and she hung it back up.
“I’m fine, love,” she chimed pleasantly, choosing another article for him to try.
“I just think-”
“I really don’t want to miss this presentation,” she interrupted, and he didn’t press the issue further. He shook his head at the shirt she held and she put it back. She was starving. Eventually Holland was dressed for the day and he made them breakfast. After cleaning up they left for work.
Morning of the Last Quarter - Three Weeks Until the Full Moon
Zebra Cakes.
When Aphrodite woke up the first thing on her mind was Zebra Cakes. She knew there wouldn’t be any in the house, because Holland didn’t like it when she ate junky snack foods. It was a Saturday. No school, no work, but still Dite found herself getting up early because she was Zebra Cakes. She was still exhausted.
“Where are you going?” Holland inquired, voice groggy with sleep from the bed when she got out of it.
“I’m going to run to the convenience store,” she explained, pulling on a pair of jeans.
She heard one of his hands audibly slap the comforter. She could see his movements in the dim light that filtered through the curtains. “What for?”
“I want snacks.” She put on one of Holland’s faded band shirts and tied her hair in a ponytail.
“Snacks,” he repeated.
“Yeah. Snacks,” she snapped at him this time. Not liking his tone or the way he was questioning her.
There was a sharp inhale from his space in the bed. As he woke up more, he began to realize just exactly what was happening. “You want Zebra Cakes.” He sat up on his elbows, and observed his wife standing in the half-light from across the room.
“Yeah,” she said, her voice suddenly thick, like she was about to cry. Overcome with some great and inexplicable emotion. Holland was out of bed at the sound of that voice. Crossing the room to hover, concerned and sympathetic, over her.
The telltale signs of PMS. Only two days after the full moon.
Holland got dressed as well, and took Aphrodite to the store, where she bought Zebra Cakes, and other treats to satisfy her premenstrual cravings.He didn’t make any comments about how he didn’t like when she ate mostly salt and vinegar chips and cosmic brownies. He took her home and let her veg on the couch with her sugared horde and watch Pride and Prejudice twice on Netflix.
He made Aphrodite her favorite dinner without asking if she wanted it. Shepherd's Pie with seasoned lamb, stewed vegetable and topped with mashed potatoes and melted cheese. She cried while she ate it (on the couch which he would not normally let her do) because it reminded her of home.
With a kiss to the forehead and a heating pad for her cramps, Holland put her to bed with her tablet with her favorite scientific journals pre-loaded. He promised to join her in a few hours.
New Moon - Two Weeks Until The Full Moon
Aphrodite stared down at the blood-stained water that mingled in the toilet. She’d woken up a mess. Her panties and her thighs stained red, and tacky. Luckily she hadn’t bled through her pajama shorts, but that wouldn’t stop her from stripping the bed anyway, to save Holland the trouble.
Already, she could feel cramps twisting low in her belly, as if just knowing she was menstruating was enough to set them off. How cruel, she thought to herself, meant to suffer through this when she couldn’t even carry children.
Aphrodite had never felt like the universe had been particularly fair to her.
First Quarter - One Week Until the Full Moon
Aphrodite and Sanders were fighting again.
He had invited her over to help Akiko with something, and somehow that had turned into them bickering in the kitchen. She couldn’t remember what started it. She felt like the days between the end of her period and the full moon were an emotional haze where she often spoke before she thought.
Sanders was chewing her out about something, reminding her again and again of the history that he wouldn’t let go. She snapped at him, she couldn’t hear what she said, but his face when neutral in such a way that revealed that she had hit a nerve.
“Wow.” He rolled his eyes. “Holland must be rubbing off on you.”
Aphrodite narrowed her eyes at him, and it took entirely too much willpower not to bare her teeth. She didn’t know what she meant, but she knew it was an insult upon her husband. “Excuse me?”
“You never used to be so negative.” He sighed and shook his head as if this supposedly new development of her character was disappointing to him. “Holland is really bringing out a whole new side of you.”
There was a tightness in her shoulders that advertised how her anger had reached a boiling point. She shouldn’t have come to the ranch. Another day wasted with regret for driving all the way out there at his suggestion. She inhaled slowly as her mind raced, searching the fog for the proper response. “This is just me. You don’t get the benefit of pretending otherwise, anymore. You’re being an asshole.”
“So, now I'm in trouble for not having read your mind before? How was I supposed to know since you were ‘pretending’?”
Fuck. Fuck. No, that wasn’t it. She had fucked up. Or he has twisted her words, she wasn’t sure which right now. “No. Forget it. I misspoke. I’m not going to argue with you.”
Sanders threw up his hands, and his expression darkened. “No. I want to know why you said you weren’t yourself with me.”
Aphrodite lifted her own hands as if she would run them through her hair, but remembered at the last moment that it would ruin the style. She growled, frustrated, as fingers curled into fists near her head and she dropped her hands again. “Because I don’t feel like I’m myself with anyone! Don’t try to blame Holland because you piss me off sometimes.”
He scoffed at her, turning his face away and rounding a small circle in the kitchen. With his hands on his hips he looked like a disgruntled cowboy right of the movies. “So, what? I never knew you.”
“No, that’s not what I meant! I just. This is why I don’t want to talk about this. I said something I didn’t mean because I was mad.”
“It’s fine. I understand.”
Aphrodite left knowing that he didn’t understand. A conversation salvaged but not resolved, because she had lied to him.
Sanders didn’t know her. That is exactly what she had meant.
Waxing Gibbous - Two Days before the Moon
“Are you feeling alright?”
She heard him, but she didn’t answer him. Or she thought she had answered him. Aphrodite and Holland sat at the table together having breakfast.
“Aphrodite?”
“Hm?”
“Are you feeling alright.”
Finally pulled out of her reverie, violet eyes shifted to look at him. Untouched waffles were on a plate in front of her, and she figured her tea was cold by now. “Yeah,” she lied, picking up her fork. “I’m fine. Just zoned out, I guess.” She forced a smile, cutting into the cakes.
Her senses were all on fire. Her skin felt too small to contain her. There was a painful itch down her spine. The change was oncoming, and it was in these moments she felt most that she and the leopard were two separate entities. It was trying to claw its way out of her right now.
By the time they returned home from work Aphrodite was all but feral. Her hair was in disarray, her shirt untucked from her skirt. She he kicked off her shoes and was curled up on the passenger seat of Holland’s Jeep. Her knees were tucked near her chin, and she gnawed at her nails, running her pastel pink manicure. They drove in silence, because Holland knew there wasn’t anything he could say or do for her. He knew this was just an unavoidable part of everything.
The car barely came to a stop in the garage and Aphrodite was already opening the door and all but falling out of it. Rose wasn’t home yet, having gone to a movie with her theatre friends. Giving Aphrodite a few hours to collect herself. A trail of clothing marked her departure to their bedroom. She found the garments irritating on sensitive skin that felt like it wanted to burst.
Holland picked them up silently, and without complaint. This he could do for her. It was nearly all he could right now. She so often took care of and accommodated him, he could manage to do this.
Clothing was discarded in the hamper, and he gazed over to where his wife was a miserable tangle of blankets and limbs in the bed. He moved towards her, gently placing a hand on one of her calves that was sticking out of the sheets. There was a rumbling growl from the pile. Holland only sighed, and sat down on the edge of the bed.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
He stood and moved around the bed, pulling the blankets back so he could hear her better.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated, gazing up at him with glassy eyes. “I’m sorry that I’m like this.”
Holland pet her hair, pushing we strands away from her forehead.
“I’m sorry you love a monster.”
I fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) I want no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true) and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you.
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