"I can’t believe I fell for this shit again."
by Christy L. Hopper


It was those wolf eyes boring a hole in me, the glistening glint of incisors flashing, contrasted against that dark smattering of fur and the involuntary twitch of his whiskers as he honed onto my scent that stalled me where I stood. And there was something about the forest, finding each other there in the ground swept fog that curled around fern fronds and our ankles that made everything seem fated.

I’d never seen desire expressed so purely, wordlessly, and without remorse. I was drawn to him even though I knew that one graze of fur against skin would unravel my hood of red velvet and leave me exposed, a raw, naked nerve among the wild forest flowers.

But he kept his distance, even while he eyed my cake and wine. We exchanged pleasantries, and then he left me there in a daze of hickory and pine sap while he edged away to devour the woman I would have become someday, resting peacefully in a bed jacket and night cap.

And somehow I became the hunter, the wolf, as I followed the faint trail he left between the briars and the underbrush. I went looking for destruction, and I found it, threw myself belly deep into the cave of him.

And of course, someone emerged to save me, thinking me innocent. But I didn’t want salvation, because I’d come to find that we are all wolves, wrapping these hides around ourselves like serrated wombs to swelter in forever.







Copyright © 2024 by Red River Review. First Rights Reserved. All other rights revert to the authors.
No work may be reproduced or republished without the express written consent of the author.