chapter 3

When a strange Dutch doctor came to work at the hospital, she knew that they were laughing at her still when the matron recommended her as his assistant. They said that Dr Helsing was brilliant yet no one wanted to work with him. He specialised in studying rare diseases and unexplained deaths but his practices were shrouded in mystery and it wasn't long before the unsettling rumours and whisperings of the occult began. She too had been afraid of him with his imposing stature and sombre manner but she found herself fascinated by his work, the unravelling of the mysteries of the human body.  As Dr Helsing grew to respect her she saw a different version of herself emerge in his eyes: strong, curious, resilient.

Jonathan sighed. She knew he was growing impatient with her but she could not stop the tears that tumbled down her cheeks.

"Mina, it is unmanly for you to work. It makes it look as if I am incapable of supporting my family."

He stood up and moved to her side. Of course it hurt him to see her so upset but he felt confident that in time she would see it was all for the best.

"You are twenty-one now. Don't you think your thoughts should be turning to other things?" he said.

As his hand rested on the curve of her stomach she tried to imagine her belly big with child, her womb quickening with new life.

When they retired to bed Jonathan watched as his wife eased herself out of her skirts. Freed from the confines of her restrictive clothes, she appeared bigger than ever. Her soft, feminine curves had thickened, the rolls of fat at around her waist and back turning her once hourglass figure into something more sloppy and indistinct. As she moved towards him her hips and belly seemed to shift and sway with each step.

Here too Mina had always had a stronger appetite than him, it was something they had learned to compromise on over time, but he had never before found himself so wholly unstirred by her advances.

"I don't want to fight like this when we've been apart for so long. Haven't you missed me, Jonny?" She said softly. "Tell me you still want me."

He almost grimaced at the weight of her as she straddled him and the heat of her sex as she grinded needily against his thigh. She guided his hands to her fleshy sides and his fingers traced the stretch marks on her skin. Brazen red evidence of her overindulgence and how fast she had plumped up in his absence.

He took her firmly by the wrists. "It's been such a long journey..."

He regretted the look of hurt and outrage that flashed across his face as she withdrew from him and pulled her robe tightly around her plump, naked body.

"Mina, please, I didn't mean -" he began but it was useless, she was already gone.

In the kitchen Mina spooned cocoa into a mug.  She took out a small bottle of cream to enrich the cocoa and added a little to a pot of milk on the stove. Impulsively she brought the cool, glass bottle to her lips. The moment the thick, creamy liquid coated her tongue and slid down her throat she shivered with pleasure. It was not just the luciousness of the cold cream tantalising her taste buds that thrilled her, nor the unbridled gluttony of the act. It was the feeling of reckless defiance as she closed her eyes and tilted her head back to drink the rest of the bottle. She allowed her robe to fall open and her hand sought out her belly. It felt full, tight and huge to her touch.

Her eyes flew open just in time to catch the pot of hot milk boiling over. As she hastily removed the pot from the flame she blushed at how carried away with desires she had become.

She took her cup of hot chocolate to the living room, the moon's pale light splashed across the room like spilled milk. She pulled back the curtain and stood awestruck and enchanted by the scene before her. The moon was a perfect, unbroken circle, its light glistering and gleaming against the snow like a million tiny stars, turning the humdrum street where she lived into an endless constellation of possibilities.

Moony, magical night. Night of transience and metamorphosis. She had never seen snow fall so thickly in the five years she had lived in London or the streets so still and hushed before. It was as if the whole world had been scoured clean leaving behind no past, no memory. No life.

She shook her head. In but a few hours the streets would be alive once more. Tens of thousands of people jostling against one another, slipping and sliding in the ice and snow until all that was left was a sooty, muddy mire. Life - dirty, thankless and ordinary - would continue just as it always had.

The night had soothed her anger but now that she was no longer blinded by outrage she began to worry. Everything had seemed so sudden but then didn't everything seem sudden to those who do not pay attention. She wondered what else she hadn't noticed, what else remained unsaid between them. She realised she had never asked him if he was satisfied or happy, she had simply assumed that he felt as she did. She had thought that her independence and self-reliance was a strength but perhaps she had been unconsciously pushing Jonathan away. Perhaps she was wrong to think that her life would just carry on just as it was before.

She was about to return to bed when she noticed a dark, hunched figure slouching through the snow, making its slow, deliberate way towards her.

"It's only a dog," she whispered but still she could not control an instinctual shudder of fear.

When the brute raised its massive, bristley head she realised that the beast could not possibly be any ordinary dog. The wolf was huge - a thing both terrible and majestic to behold. Its eyes were cunning and intelligent as a devil but its jaws belied a ferocious, primitive hunger. It met her gaze with a directness that horrified her as its thick, red tongue licked the sharp white canines that protruded from its lips.

It threw back its head and howled, it's wolfsong, both chilling and melancholy, cutting through the stillness of the night. Then the beast turned and vanished into the darkness.